“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.”
A sub-frequency sound sends Scooby-Doo into a crazed and booty shaking fit. So much so, Scooby runs away from the mystery solving gang and straight into the quaint, bizarre rural town of Nowhere, Kansas where he bumps into another canine, Courage, whose experiencing the same soundx and sensations. When a plague of monstrous cicadas dig from out of the earth, Scooby and his friends, plus Courage and his lovable human Muriel and grouchy old farmer Eustace, must understand the copious amounts of the longstanding strange and unusual happenings in Nowhere to solve the mystery of the giant cicada attack that goes deeper into Nowhere’s roots…literally. The two dogs have to peel off their scaredy cat shells and face fear head on while chowing down some of Nowhere’s delightful delicacies!
Finally! The two most famous, fright-filled dogs make their cinematic crossover debut in “Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog” that brings the terror tenfold to toon town! Under the supervision of the serial animation director, Cecilia Aranovic, who helmed two previous Scooby-Doo installments, “Scooby-Doo! And the Curse of the 13th Ghost” and “Scooby-Doo: Return to Zombie Island,” and tackled the action-packaged animation of “DC Super Hero Girls,” finds herself tackling a short-lived, Cartoon Network created cult fan favorite, “Courage the Cowardly Dog.” Returning to the Scooby-Doo universe is the televised “Mystery Incorporated’s” writer and editor Michael Ryan penning a script with Courage the Cowardly Dog and creative mastermind of John Dilworth in mind to maximize all the grandstanding personalities faithfully. Both lovable and yellow-bellied pooches are produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, who do more crossovers of their cartoons characters than NBA’s Tim Hardaway, and are joined by Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network studios.
“Straight Outta Nowhere” reteams the “Mystery Incorporated” voice cast of Frank Welker as Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo, Grey Griffin as Daphne Blake, and “Scream’s” Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Rogers. The revamped “Ducktales’” Kate Micucci replaces Mindy Cohn as the voice of Velma Dinkley with an apt Velma impression that easily transitions without discording the mystery solvers. Courage voice actor Marty Grabstein reprises his quirky exclaiming hound whose full of heart and also returning Thea White stepping into the boots of Muriel, one-half of Courage’s owners. Sadly, like original voice actor for Eustace, the late Lionel Wilson, who passed away shortly after the original show’s discontinuance, Thea White also passed away but the sting of her death was more poignant as White past July at the age of 81 and this crossover is presented in White’s memory. Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck funnyman Jeff Bergman voices the grouchy and sarcastic Eustace without missing a beat and with about as much cynicism as his predecessors even when unloading a boatload of scares with his giant and unsightly boogey-boogey mask! A Eustace classic! To preface my character opinion, this movie is obvious about the Scooby and Courage spellbinding the little viewers about location gumption in themselves to face their fears when it matters, but Scooby and Courage’s friends and family provide pivotal, building black support that should render each mystery solver and podunk rural-ite as a mini-lead within the story. That’s not the case inside this crossover that lacks specifics with certain characters, such as the straightforward Fred, Daphne, and Velma who instantly fall way behind without much dialogue or screen time in favor of the more caricatured Muriel, Eustace, and Shaggy. Eustace even gets his own rap music video. Some minor characters from Courage’s past return to scheme and terrorize with the voice work rounded out by Jeff Bennett (“Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood”), Chuck Montgomery, and Paul Schoeffler.
Who would have thought it? Scooby-Doo has been a staple of Saturday morning cartoons, television specials, spinoff movies, holiday events, and has been reimagined animatedly and in live-action since 1969. And Courage the Cowardly Dog? Well, Courage ran on Cartoon Network from 1999 to 2002 with little specials here and there in between, but virtually radio silent when compared to his over 50 year-old co-star. Yet, did you know, the 2021 film isn’t the first time these two hounds crossed paths? That’s right, Scooby and Courage (along with Shaggy, Mureil, and Eustace) were first seen in a brief Cartoon Network promo together that you current see on Youtube – search “Scooby and Courage Cartoon Olio.” To be honest, I had assumed Scooby-Doo, who has spanned over multiple generations, is practically known worldwide in every household, and has been an invaluable money-making machine for Warner Bros., would tip the crossover screen time into the animated Great Dane’s favor, but in a pleasant surprise, a good chunk and crucial portions of the story revolves around Courage and his immediacy characters who are brought to the forefront with Scooby and the gang clearly taking a backseat to the smaller, lesser known pup. Even the animation sides more with Courage, preserving within a smoother veneer the intrinsically warped details familiar to the show, as seen with Eustace’s Courage-scaring mask or Courage’s fluid scared reactions, and we can be honest with ourselves that although Scooby works in Courage’s surrealistic macabre world, the Dane and his gang have been rendered countless times in many different animation styles throughout the last five decades. Enigmatically familiar to one of the mysteries Scooby and his gang dive right into, the tale fashions a composite of two different protagonist dynamics to expose who or whom are behind the giant cicada attack and the hypnosis causing ruckus; however, like the original episodes of the early 2000s, Muriel and Eustace are present just for the ride as Muriel stumps a self-frustrated Velma with elementary riddles and Eustace mouths off like an old kook without as much as a care in the world around them or what’s happened in their own backyard of Nowhere.
Witty, zany, and all of the above with a nostalgia high, “Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog” will delight fans of both series with the hope for more team-ups in the future. Warner Bros. Animation will release the film on DVD come Tuesday, September 14th with a G rating approved for all audiences and with a runtime of 78 minutes. The disc’s animation picture quality is about as animated and as lively in it’s vibrancy as the characters with no real cause for format concern as aside from a cleaner, more robust color palette, the colors translate nearly indistinguishably from it’s 1080, HD counterpart as the colors do saturate nicely, leaving little room for a potential washed or dull veneer. The English (and dog gibberish) language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound mix boosts an energetic and immersive output with nonstop creature effects, explosions, laser zaps, etc. All the creepy ambience and score that make “Courage the Cowardly Dog” spookily alluring is right here on this DVD, filling out the channels with dichotic range and space with the depth. Screams take centerstage as the keystones to ever scary flick to maximize the intended feeling of fear and, in this case, laughter. One of the more disappointing aspects of the release is the special features and while three episodes, seemingly randomized picks – Scooby-Doo! Where Are You!’s – “Decoy for a Dognapper” and The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour’s – “The Gruesome Game of the Gator Ghoul” and “Chiller Diller Movie Thriller,” is a blast from the past and a bit of nostalgia watching reruns as a kid, I really wished there were interviews with the voice cast, especially Marty Grabstein, Thea White, and Courage creator John Dilworth to laud the show and let the fans their appreciate for the little guy…meaning Courage. “Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog” wins on many levels: Courage the Cowardly Dog is back, Matthew Lillard is Shaggy once again, and the most petrified pooches in all of animation land bring two generations of people together for the whole family to enjoy their staple idiosyncratic gags and colorful personalities.
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