Zoinks! Shaggy and Scooby Doo return to the small screen once again in this brand new adventure. This one seems firmly aimed at the kids as mine ate it up, but I thought that it featured too many juvenile moments.
Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker), his pal Shaggy (Casey Kasem), Fred (Welker again), Velma (Mindy Cohn), and Daphne (Grey Delisle) are at the Coolsville halloween carnival. Shag and Scooby try to stop a second-rate, carnival magician named the Amazing Krudsky (Wayne Knight) from turning everyone into horrible Halloween monsters, after he steals the magic from Princess Fairy Willow (Hayden Panettiere).
Scooby-Doo and Shaggy board the Grim Reaper Railroad, which is bound for the fantastic world of Halloween land to retrieve the powerful Goblin scepter from the Goblin King (Tim Curry), before Krudsky can.
Along the way Shag and Scoob encounter several creatures such as the infamous Headless Horseman, magic shop owner Mr. Gibbles (Wallace Shawn), the helpful Jack O’Lantern (Jay Leno) and the Grand Witch’s (Lauren Bacall) frisky broomstick that take them on the ride of their life.
Maybe it’s just me but I’ve always thought the original Scooby Doo television adventures may have been made for kids but they also had a certain agelessness to them. Kids of all ages could groove to the adventures of Shag and Scooby. I’m not sure that this new adventure is going to have that same quality as the jokes and plot seems aimed directly at the little kids.
My kids are still young enough to enjoy it, but I found myself looking at my watch a few times. It’s always good to hear Casey Kasem as Shaggy, but some of the voice cast go too far over-the-top. The biggest offender is Jay Leno as Jack O’Lantern in the cheese department.
Lauren Bacall does add her signature sultry tones, but her role is just short enough to be considerd a cameo. James Belushi and Larry Joe Campbell also turn up as two bumbling goblins. The Mystery Inc. gang also get pushed to the background when Shag and Scoob go on their quest to Halloweenland. The animation also seemed subpar when compared to some of the other movies as well.
Scooby Doo and the Goblin King is presented in fullscreen. Special features include the 9 minute “Scooby Doo: You Belive in Magic?” where a magician teaches the kids how to do some magic tricks. There are also trailers for other Warner Brothers kids DVDs.
If you’ve got rugrats in your house when Scooby Doo and the Goblin King will keep them babysat on a cold Halloween night. If you’re looking for that timeless, fun quality then you might not find it in this latest movie. The vocal cast is mostly game, but the storyline and animation is too juvenile.
Scooby Doo and the Goblin King is now available at Amazon . It is available at AmazonUK for an Oct. 20th release. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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