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popculturebuffet · 2 years

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Hang Around For Scooby Doo: SD Ghoul School Review (Comission for Emma Fici)

Happy Halloween all you happy people! Our halloween stuff rolls on as I introduce a new not at all consitent series on this blog, Hang Around For Scooby Doo! This probably won't be a monthly thing like my muppets reviews, but it will be fun.

See over a year and a half ago my good friend @jess-the-vampire and I started having movie nights every Tuesday and Wedsday on her nights off. It was during this we found a mutual love of Scooby Doo, both having grown up with it despite being a generation apart. So when she told me about a Scooby Doo film where Scooby goes into space in a trek inspired heavily by BioShock and alien, how could I say no? The film was Moon Monster Madness, and I shall cover it some day. Finding out i'd missed films like this made me curious: I'd grown up with the DTV scooby movies, even watching them into high school on sick days or summer days as CN played them a lot, but after Chill Out, Scooby Doo, they stopped playing them as much, and I stopped seeing them as a result.

So in over a year and a half we watched and re-watched ALLL OF THEM. No hyperbole. We watched the greats, we found hidden gems and we also suffered through Return To Zombie Island and Fred's weird singing voice in the somehow boring vampire musical. And once we were done… we kept going and have been watching some Scooby doo ever so often since. We watch other stuff sure, it's how I got sucked down the Miraculous Ladybug Hole, but it's built on a foundation of Scooby Doo

And of course watching entirely too much Scooby Doo has given me a MASIVE repository of review material yet untapped. From weird individual episodes like Shaggy becoming king of the goths, Fred's ass terrifying everyone, One of NSYNC framing the Gang for crimes, Shaggy nearly being drowned for being a witch or a rejected skeletor minion haunting a 70's dude at Wimbledon. IT's a weird wonderful buffet and since my good friend Emma commissioned this from me, we got a great place to start digging in Shaggy style so Hang Around after the Read More for Scooby Doo: Ghoul School!

The history for this one is interesting, as this flim happens to be part of another small project I've intended to start for a while: an on and off look at the Superstar 10, 10 films packaged for Hanna Barbera's funtastic world of hannaa barbera saturday morning block. Even if you haven't heard of them, you may of seen some as all three red shirt shaggy films as well as Flintstones Meet the Jetsons are part of it, and cartoon network tended to air them a lot growing up as they filled up time nicely. Why the others weren't used, especially since one of Yogi Bear's other films, his wonderful christmas special, was aired every year…

But the non-scooby ones are only avaliable via Warner Archives, so i'm curoius to see what hiden gems and things that are better off locked in the archives lie in wait, so once again while this review is paid for, it's something that was inevitble.

The Superstar Ten Trilogy of Scooby Films is highly notable for being the first Scooby Doo films, the ones that likely gave the crew of Zombie Island to try one for the DTV market as unsuprisingly these three had vhs' (and I had one for the reluctant werewolf. Wish I still did. It was sweet. ). These films paved the way for us to have almost 50 MORE after them.

This trilogy is also intresting for when it was made: coming out in the mid 80's, this was around the same time as 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, The New Scooby Doo shows and others that largely broke from formula with Fred and Velma largely put on a bus , leaving the gang just Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne.. Scrappy

And their bitching van. Despite the show before it being the bane of many fans at the times existence, the Daphne and Shaggy era shows are well regarded and I hope to binge 13 ghosts at some point as it sounds utterly awesome. Weirdly though despite Scrappy's wide backlash he wasn't the team member to get dumped for these movies, with the trio instead being reduced to just Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy. Now…

Scrappy.. really isn't that annoying here. He still has his traits of running at danger and being Scooby's Hype Dog, but he's also fairly intelligent, helpful and functions as a replacement Fred without being nearly as bland as pre-Zombie Island Fred Jones. I mean he can't say treasure that special way

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But he still does well. It's why i'm really baffled at how Scrappy's been reduced to either not existing anymore (Curse of the 13th ghost) or a hilarious joke not to be talked about (Mystery Incorpeated): yes he's widely hated but you can do stuff with him as seen with the 2001 Movie and Scooby Apocalypse. And you can do stuff with him as is. I will always be in favor of fixing a character if possible instead of just tossing them aside because it's supposedly what people want, something I doubt will change for poor Scrappy as Warner Bros Discovery has shown it doesn't care what anyone wants, needs or feels.

The Red Shirt Trilogy is also notable for being one of the biggest examples of real monsters in the franchise. As I found out via Billiam's videos these weren't the first time this happened, but it became one of the most memorable, both due to these films getting replayed more often than the scrappy era shows, and because of the neat designs, memorable characters, and all three breaking from the mystery of the week format. Sure there is an unmasking in Boo Brothers, but instead of trying to figure out whose haunting them the Red Shirt trilogy focuses on different genres each time: Reluctant Werewolf is a very mild Horror Comedy that turns into Wacky Races, and our feature presentation today being a slice of life school based story that turns into an adventure film in the last act. It shows just how flexible Scooby Doo is and why it's lasted so long: You can do a LOT with these characters, whether there's a mystery or not and new writers never stop coming or having new ideas to bring to the table. While it was a surprise, it wasn't hugely shocking to find out the writer of this one, Glenn Leopold, went on to write the first three dtv scooby doo movies, all very different. It does surprise me he wrote the godawful and boring Scooby-Doo! in Arabian Nights, but I forgive him.

So with that we can actually get to the movie itself which as I said is a shockingly chill for most of it's runtime slice of life comedy: Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy are heading to Grimwood's School for Girls to become the new gym teachers. Some of you less familiar with Scooby Doo may laugh, but keep in mind both Scooby and Shaggy are storied Laugh-A-Lympics trained athletes, their team the Scoobie Doobies having won a mind boggling 14 out of 24 games in this storied contest, and Shaggy would later participate in the World Invitational Games. Their more than qualified. Scrappy is there because I assume Scooby just adopted him at some point becaues having scrappy for a child did this to a his mother

So she had to pass the curse on to someone. Naturally things can't ever be easy for our heroes and they find out that while Miss Grimwood herself seems human, we'll get to that, the rest of the students are all the daughters of classic horror monsters: Sibella, the fantastic daughter of dracula with a habit of saying fantastic, using her hair like a cape (something Jess caught and I didn't) and turnign into a bat, Elsa Frankentien, daughter of Frankenstien and somehow bride of Frankenstein, maybe they had hate sex and they alternate weeks I dunno, Phanty, a delightfully hyper phantom with a love of exorcist head and a dad whose apparently the phantom of the opera's ghost? I have a lot of questions I dont' think Erik is ever going to answer. but I mean.. it tracks. He does die in most adaptations, so… there's that, Winnie the son of some sort of wolfman, and Tanis, an adorable Mummy child whose conception is best left a mystery.

Shaggy naturally tries to run the fuck away but he's under contract, with Scooby and Scrappy as witnesses. What's nice though is while Shaggy is, being shaggy, is a bit freaked at first he quickly warms up to the girls. It's a gradual shift and while the character development probably could be done a tad more overtly, it still works for the time with Shaggy going from being afraid of these precious children to genuinely supporting them and being the coach they need. The bulk of the first act is just shaggy training up these girls and doing fun exercises with them. The girls even happily get their coach a pizza without being asked when he can't find anything he likes to eat at grimwood (understandably since in classic adamss family fashion everything's rotten). And while it has cobwebs and stuff they genuinely like it and try it. It's small stuff.. but it works.

It helps the girls themselves are incredibly endearing. Their not huge on personality in the dialogue itself, mostly being limited to their traits of "Vampire", "Kinda awkward", "goofy and does the head spin", "energetic werewolf" and "baby girl baby", but the various quirks they have animation wise and their genuine kindness and enthuastim towards their coaches make them hard not to root for. It's no wonder the five became instant fan faviorites and it's more suprising it took TWENTY YEARS to have any sort of followup, especially since after likewise breaking out the Hex Girls have shown up in every series sense. Also if your curious yes we will be getting to it this halloween, Emma's using her patreon review for it. Their just well designed, fun characters and add to the fun chill atmosphere. It's also a nice lesson about tolerance without hitting you over the head with it: Shaggy sees someone different, reacts badly, but grows to see them as what they are: people who are different but at the end of the day still just people. Simple yet heartwarming.

Playing our girls we have Susan Blu, whose a long time voice actor and voice director, best known for this flim and Transformers The Movie as Arcee, as Sibella, Patty Maloney who played Twiki on Buck Rogers a few times and Darla in the 80's version of the little rascals I just found out existed, as Lil Tanis, the late, great Russi Taylor as Phanty, Susan Blu, mother of Mae Witman it turns out and vetran va as Elsa, and the late longtime HB voice actress Marilyn Schreffler as Winnie. Impressively all but two of them came back for the OK KO reunion years later, with only Schreffler and Maloney being replaced as the former had sadly passed ona nd the later had retired, with it being JUST in time to catch Russi Taylor before her tragic passing not long after.

As for what Shaggy's coaching them for in grand 80's fashion he's training them for the big game with the snotty rivals just next door, the Callaway Cadets who seem to be actively in denial about the girls being monsters. Thankfully while they avoid the trap of most standard 80's

Characters: Unlike say Huey Dewey and Louie or the bros of my little pony tales, the boys, while cocky and confident, are mostly just clever and ready to win and are heavily regimented. At most their petty jerks and cheaters, but there's no overt sexism needing to be taught a lesson here. It's also nice that their one plus sized member Tug is NOT singled out for his weight or the subject of constant fat jokes. Which doesn't seem like a high bar clear but for the time it is. At most he falls on a guy maybe once. Their a little charming but obviously leagues behind the girls in terms of actually being memorable. Their col is also delightfully stuck up, the Callaway himself. Their also well child acted, with future robin Scott Mellinvlle being one of them.

I will admit there's not a huge amount of build up to said game, it's the main goal for 2/3 of the movie but htere's no traning montages or real drive to win other than Tanis wanting one for her big ass mummy case. But it really doesn't matter: It's more about having fun with these characters with the game simply a setup for said fun and some hyjinks. The big game isn't the reason we're here, i'ts to see shaggy and scooby get into antics, some ghoul children be adorable and quirky, and legendary action Glynis Johns to ham it up to all hell as Mrs. Grimwood. Mrs. G is delightful, being wonderful supportive of her girls, a decent enough boss, and fun to be around. She's also in my eyes a witch since, given the later OK KO crossover, that's an actual species in this unvierse and we don't have one on the good guys side so why not. She also has an octopus butler i'm hence dubbing Geoffry. He rocks even if I somehow forget about him EVERY TIME I watch this film. The film is good Adams Family/Munsters style fun complete with thinking creepy things are fun, eating gross food, and shrieking for exercise making the two buzzards who work there quit.

The actual game is engaging though as you want the girls to win, they use their powers, the boys use the power of cheating, it's good times. Seriously the cadets just.. blatantly cheat in front of them. Dick Dastardly at least had the decency to try and do it while no one but the audience was looking. Come on man. OUr heroines naturally win of course, with Tanis getting the trophy that they just pass back and forth because why not.

We also get a really adorable scene as it's PARENTS DAY!… which for Shaggy and Scooby means

Though it turns out like their kids the various parents.. are all nice. Tanis' dad in paticular gets the immortal line "I don't want to hurt you I want to HUG YOU!" Awww, what a sweetheart. THey also all thretan to straight up murder shaggy and scooby if their daughters get hurt

This leads us into the last act.. and the weakest part of the film. See either because the script ran short, the execs wanted it or the writer just done goofed, the last part feels kind of jammed in there. The first chonk of the film is fun slice of life while the last third is an adventure film with horror elements in which the dread witch Revolta and her much cooler and more intmidating assitant the Grim Creeper kidnap the girls and plan to brainwash them to give Revolta an army to become top monster since the girls dads went soft raising families. I mean dracula emptied a whole boat before settling down. Can't argue that.

The problem is besides Revolta feeling really jammed in, only showing up for one scene to show us she exists in the first section of the film, she's also REALLY boring. Ruta Lee gives a great voice performace but Revolta's design is meh and her personality is entirely absent. She has no motive other than

Which granted isn't much of a step down from most scooby doo villians crooked real estate schemes, but it just makes her boring. And if she did more I might respect her but she spends the film sending out minons, her spider bats and the again far more awesome grim creeper and grousing at the Creeper ocasionally. She could be replaced by her sidekick entirely and the film would not change. She also somehow.. surivives the finale? Which like.. is someone going to send the cops after her? Are there monster cops? Would anyone else want to see that spinoff? Valid questions.

The Creeper is great though, voiced by Andre Stojka who played the owl in winnie the poo after this. Great guy. The creeper has a neat , creepy design, a great voice and depsite bein ga tad goofy is a through threat, being the one who actually you know does shit, using his vines to grab people, going out to help the spider-bats with the kidnapping and generally doing all the work. He even tries feading Scooby , Shaggy and Scrappy to a well dweller who also looks neat, and is cleverly defeated by scrappy getting it to play with a bouncing ball. I genuinely wish he was the main villian. Granted I also love any and all cyclopses like this boy here

But still the Grim Creeper rocks. The last third of the film dosen't: Once the kidnappings happen, which are genuinely creepy and unsettling , paticuarlly Sibella as while she tries to escape she's captured mid-air by the bats and Winnie and Tanis who are dragged into an abandoned shack by their big sister figures, so it's not al lbad.. but then the last 25 minutes is just almost entirely our heroes dicking around a castle. There's some good bits such as Shaggy meeting the bad shaggy, because he's the good shaggy, whose just a …

With Evil Shag being genuinely creepy.. but instead of serving any plot ponit he just.. runs back into the mirror after chasing Scooby and then Scrappy for a bit while the girls chant "I obey only revolta " to an annoying degree. It'd be creepier to have them actually attack their surrogate uncles instead of just, you know chanting and doing nothing. It's not TERRIBLE, the good set pieces help outweigh the bad parts, but it's nothing really special or necessary after 2/3 of a really fun chill slice of life comedy.

The climax likewise is just kinda there: Our heroes just happen to accidently break Sibella free, she frees the rest, and the cadets, who previously refused to help for no good reason…

Had a change of heart and decided to come help and take everyone away on their helicopter they have because the one kids an inventor and they actually set it up so good for them. Our heroes escape and have a really fun dance party to the Scrappy Rap, aka Scrappy being shockingly fun as an mc. It's cheesy sure but it's sstill got a decent beat, is fine for a goofy 80's film, and is far from the most embarassing rap i've seen

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The ending.. dosen't quite work for me as Shaggy and Scooby run off from next semesters kids: A creature from the black lagoon who looks delightfully orange, an alien, and Godzooky 2: The Quickening. Seriously I want to know more about these kids they look adorable. GIVE ME A SEQUEL YOU COWARDS

DON'T GIVE ME ONE FOR GOD'S SAKE YOU COWARDS.

So that was Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School and while far from the deepst or scariest scooby work, it's one of the funnest, the most creative and it has an octopus butler. None of us can say that and more should frankly. If you can find it, as it is on DVD at least, check it out. It's a fun ride and easily the best of the Red Shirt Trilogy, which i'll get back to.. eventually. For now have a good day, follow me here for more and on patreon, feel free to hit me up for comissions and thanks for reading.

#scooby doo #shaggy roggers #hanna barbera #ghoul school #phantasma #sibella #elsa frankenteen #tanis #winnie #casey kasem #frank welker #superstar ten #halloween #Youtube

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finalgirlfae · 3 years

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Teenage Idol - Chapter One

For my sake, when Rosemary shifts she shifts to a reality where racism, misogyny, homophobia and all that bad stuff doesn’t exist. Doris is born in 1939 and Connie is born in 1940 for book purposes.

hey nonny ding dong, alang alang alang boom ba-doh, ba-doo ba-doodle-ay

“ROSIE!”

Rosemary woke up nearly frightened, low music played in the distance and the room smelled of tobacco and flowers. She looked down at the fancy sofa she had woken up on, now realizing it was not the queen size bed she had laid down on a nap for.

“Where.. where am I?” Rosemary asked, looking around frantically and a bit panicked.

“Geez.. how hard did you hit your head?” The woman laughed. Rosemary looked at her with wide eyes, this was Doris fucking Day.

“Doris?”

Doris titled her head and laughed. “Rosie? You okay?”

This has to be a dream.

“There you two are! We go on in 5!” Another voice called out. A woman with short brown hair, fair skin and red lips rounded the corner. She wore an off the shoulder black dress that hugged her waist tightly and poofed a bit at the bottom.

(like this)

“Well I was just wakin up Rosie.” Doris said, standing up and smoothing out her identical dress. They both had white gloves on, Rosie looked down to see she was wearing the same thing.

“What year is it?”

Connie raised a brow, “Rosie stop goofing off. It’s 1958, you know that.”

Oh shit.

“Next up we have a few special ladies.” A voice from front stage spoke, Doris grabbed Rosie’s hand and pulled her up a bit harshly. She was then dragged to a curtain where she stood in the middle of the girls, confused as ever.

“Please welcome to the stage Rosie Valentine, Doris Day and Connie Francis with their new hit single, Be My Baby!”

The large audience clapped as the curtain was pulled revealing the three girls, they walked out to center stage. Rosie in the middle and Doris and Connie behind her like they were to sing backup.

What do I do?

Music began to play, the song sounded very familiar to Rosie but she couldn’t quite place a finger on it, in her conscious mind at least. Body moving before mind, Rosie gently took hold of the mic and began to sing.

The night we met I knew I needed you so And if I had the chance I'd never let you go So won't you say you love me I'll make you so proud of me We'll make 'em turn their heads every place we go

So won’t you please-

Doris and Connie began to sing back up, the three ladies moved in sync with each other to a little sway dance that went with the song.

(Be my, be my baby) Be my little baby (My one and only baby) Say you'll be my darlin' (Be my, be my baby) Be my baby now Wha-oh-oh-oh

I'll make you happy, baby, just wait and see For every kiss you give me, I'll give you three Oh, since the day I saw you I have been waiting for you You know I will adore you 'til eternity Rosie noticed how the faces in the crowd looked at her with adoration instead of hatred, and this was weird. Even the white men in the crowd seemed to enjoy themselves, some even having a bit of love in their eyes. So won't you, please (Be my, be my baby) Be my little baby (My one and only baby) Say you'll be my darlin' (Be my, be my baby) Be my baby now Wha-oh-oh-oh-oh So come on and please (Be my, be my baby) Be my little baby (My one and only baby) Say you'll be my darlin' (Be my, be my baby) Be my baby now Wha-oh-oh-oh (Be my, be my baby) Be my little baby (My one and only baby) Oh (Be my, be my baby) Oh Wha-oh-oh-oh-oh

When the song was over the crowd went wild which was even more confusing. Black and white alike, sitting in this theatre looking happy and clapping for the group. And even more strange, a black lead singer with two white women as backup?? This can’t be 1958.

A man walked on to the stage, Rosie instantly recognized him. He was Dick Clark, the host of the Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show otherwise known as The Dick Clark Show.

“Say, Rosie.” Dick said, coming over with a mic in one hand and wrapping his arm around the girl’s shoulder. “Was that song for any special someone in the crowd? Maybe a certain guy or gal?”

Rosie’s body again, moved without her mind. She smiled and shook her head no, “I’m not dropping any names, Dick.”

Dick laughed and let go of her, snapping his fingers. “Aw dang it, I was really hoping to see who had stolen the heart of our teenage idol. Anyways folks give it up one more time for Rosie Valentine, Doris Day, and Connie Francis for their new single; Be My Baby. You heard it first here folks.”

The girls all took a bow before walking backstage, Rosie was slowly starting to understand where she was but not why she was there. The last thing she remembered was listening to a crew cuts song on her laptop before falling asleep. The year was 2021, so how did she go back 63 years. Maybe this was just a realistic dream?

“You sounded great Rosie.” Doris complimented, removing the long black gloves she had on.

Connie’s smile turned into a sly smirk when she saw who was walking towards them. “Don’t look now girls, but David is coming our way.”

David,, as in David Nelson?

“Ladies,” David greeted, walking over to the three girls who smiled back at him. He hugged both Connie and Doris before turning to Rosie.

“Gee Rosie, I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is David, David Nelson.”

Rosie laughed a bit to hid how much she was freaking out on the inside. She binged his parent’s show on YouTube everyday. But this isn’t real right?

“I know, I watch the show. Rosemary Valentine.” She spoke, shaking his hand.

He smiled at her, “Well the real reason I came over here was well one, to meet you and two, my brother is too afraid to.”

His brother,, as in Ricky mother fucking Nelson,, is afraid to meet me?

Connie giggled, “You think he knows that song is about him Rosie?”

Rosie and Doris scoffed, both sending Connie glares. She faked coy with a hand over her mouth and giggled even more.

David raised an eyebrow, “So it is about Rick? Say, he should be coming back here right now, about time you’ve met.”

And just on que he rounded the corner to the backstage, sighing when he saw his brother.”

“Geez David, at least let a fella know before you go wandering off. You’re my ride back after all.”

“I’m sorry Rick, I was just talkin to Rosie.”

Ricky’s eyes travelled to Rosie who looked a bit dumbfounded, or at least felt. He broke into a soft smile at the dark skin girl who he had been geeked over since she made her debut last year.

“Rosemary Valentine, we meet at last, How do you do?”

Rosie could feel Connie and Doris’ eyes looking at the two of them and practically hear the giggles.

“Why, I’m alright. You?” She spoke, not knowing where her transatlantic accent suddenly came from. She stuck her hand out for a shake and Ricky took it gently.

“With you here? Never better.” He said softly, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it gently.

oh my fucking god ricky nelson just kissed my hand

David laughed a bit at Rosie’s now flustered expression. “Say, would you ladies like to go get something to eat? I know a lovely place by Times Square. The girls looked at each other an nodded.

“We’ll change and meet you right here. Excuse us.” Doris said, giving her charming smile and leading her two friends to their dressing room for the night. When Doris closed the door Connie freaked.

“You have to dance with Rick!” She exclaimed, shuffling over to the rack of dresses as she tried to find the perfect one for Rosie.

“Wha- why?”

Doris shook her head, “Everyone knows when a guy and girl dance it’s the first step to going steady. I know where David is taking us, it’s a nice little diner with a jukebox and tiled floor perfect for dancing.”

Rosie took a deep breath, just last night she had been reading a fanfic and now she seemed to be living in one. Or, until she woke up that is.

“Fine, get me dolled up ladies.”

The girls squealed and pushed her down into the chair, giving their friend the perfect date night look.

Is this really a dream?

unedited

#ricky nelson #doris day #connie francis #vinatge #1950s #music #50s music #50s au #50s vintage #shifting

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