In one episode of the Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? cartoon series, the Mystery Machine gang had a special crossover half-hour with the virtually forgotten competing Hanna-Barbera ghost-chasing cartoon The Funky Phantom. Here an entire feature is dedicated to pairing the vintage-1960s Scooby characters with the ensemble from an entirely different cartoon dogs-and-monsters franchise, Courage the Cowardly Dog, a hit on the Cartoon Network from 1999-2002.
Results are a wild marriage of the time-honored Hanna Barbera tropes (which, admittedly, have gotten a little cleverer over the last 50 years) with Courage animator John Dilworth's more outlandish humor and jagged drawing style. Scooby suffering a strange trance/seizure sends the crime-solving teenagers of Mystery Inc. to Nowhere, Kansas, home to Courage the Cowardly Dog and his elderly owners Eustace and Muriel. Courage also hears the odd frequency, and straightaway the whole ensemble is terrorized by giant mutant cicada insects. A descent beneath the Earth is extremely trippy, and Courage fans get to learn the ostensible reason for all the creatures and aliens who have bedeviled Nowhere during the show's run. There are also a few bouncy musical numbers.
Animation viewers at all levels of age and sophistication can do a compare-contrast thanks to Warner including no fewer than three vintage Scooby-Doo Hanna Barbera episodes (one from the original Scooby-Doo, Where are You? and two from the Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour). One can analyze yesteryear's pre-CGI Xerox animation and hand-painted backgrounds, the presence of a painful canned laugh track (!?) and, of course, DJ Casey Kasem as the original voice of Shaggy, matched up with Matthew Lilliard's estimable job in the role these days. And enjoy the Scooby spinoff relatives Scooby-Dee and Scooby-Dum (or not, as the case may be). Well recommended for J shelves where Scooby in all his various incarnations has been perennial. Aud: P.