Scaling the Scooby-verse | Beyond Pictures

scooby-doo is 50 that's nearly wooden and Bulldogs old three if you push it videos are hard too right okay I mean I don't have anything deeper to say if you like Scoob you know why hanna-barbera characters have always managed to strike a chord even if that chord is absolute spiteful hatred or the Herculoids do you know I don't maybe there's something to be said about to the fact that only scooby has stuck around the others turn up now and then to help sell Premium Bonds or whatever but only Scooby is still on our screens entertaining kids of all ages it's because it's not just Scoob the character that works it Scoob the concept Flintstones yeah we love it but yeah we get it average family in dinosaur times the vacuum opens up and goes or Eve a I am a vacuum and it sucks applause Winston cigarettes Kant puts them in a different scenario without it essentially being a whole different show snagglepuss the lion-hearted see by changing media stage left even although you can still catch him in Washington giving words of inspiration to doggy dad quick-draw was a cowboy horse Jabberjaw I don't like you Yogi Bear I think he's the true Mickey Mouse of hanna-barbera but even I have to admit it's probably just me can't not love this dumb idiots bear I'm sorry no scooby-doo has always since the beginning shown the most versatility as a concept because he had ghosts [Music] from day one it was the juxtaposition of creepy weird mystery solving with a talking dog strapped to its leg that has allowed Scoobies to stick around on our screens in a much more serious capacity you don't just remember Scooby you remember everything else - and that stuff has the ability to be scaled in intensity without losing the need or appeal of this Cowardly mutt i'ma reminisce look back on the bits I remember and how they scaled to the concept all shall be judged on the scooby scale scooby-doo where are you sets the groundwork for the show's appeal taking popular works from the time and blending them in a very hanna-barbera way most of their properties took a popular format or celebrity and bound it to the astral cartoon plane in the shape of an animal but Scooby put a lot more into the pot the Archies old universal horror movies the entire visual culture of the 60s these genre heavy elements would make a decent little time waster on their own and have but add a talking dog and suddenly it's both super accessible and hilarious dogs man nature's idiots now I'm just kidding I love dogs too they're just they're just really funny okay artistic direction goes a long way too and I don't think enough people give hanna-barbera credit for being able to pull together a style limited animation doesn't matter when your world is this happening you dig lead characters are charming to look at drawn by a man aping the consummate fashion of his time as much as just finding them current clothes to wear and the backgrounds are a thing of beauty gothic yes more abstractly textured yes but with all the color and funkified shapes of 60s Hollywood sets so they contrast against the characters and fitting comfortably with their world when guest stars started popping up in the show years later it kind of worked because Scooby already looked like it was taking place on a Warner Brothers Hollywood backlot why denied the stars and entrance here too this combination of elements really sad there's certainly comfort in the fact that you kind of knew the shape of what you were getting but every episode was a different monster design different location and half the appeal is and give me 20 minutes honey I want to see who did it there are your 35 get out of my house [Music] living mortals that whosoever opens this chest of demons will release 13 of the most terrifying ghosts the face of the earth you don't get 13 ghosts of scooby-doo actually takes the guest-star idea to the next level making Vincent Price sorry Vincent van Gogh the central gimmick and while I don't think it was the greatest show it's got a sense of its own and just can't shake it maybe in part because it's the first to play hard into the more supernatural side of things by this point Scoob and shag had started to turn up in more typical cartoonish stuff and that's really saying something with real ghosts but it didn't break the formula not just yet putting Scoob further out of his depth with real ghosts just draws more of his personality to the forefront and taking away the skeptical members of the gang ends up making shag and Scoob look more ironically justified whenever they reunite and swap notes 13 ghosts is the most unique take on that dynamic and I kind of love how absurdist it is every episode is like a lucid dream I've seen Scooby's birth and watched his parents worriedly pacing the hospital floor I've seen flim flam there's a story waiting to be told bringing Vincent Price to kids is always a wickedly good time I'm a fan of celebrities whose entire personality is based around horror because when you're a kid or at least when I was a kid I thought oh they actually vampires are they spooky it's like believing in Santa Claus or something you know naturally I didn't really articulate it that way at the time I'm sure what I actually said was googoo gaga I am a literal child it's been even nicer seeing him remain part of Scooby Law all these years later and while the movie based on this sort of drags its feet it's at least felt more ambiguously well-connected than whatever they tried to do with well you know [Music] gule schools not that good okay I mean these fella films do represent my point that's even more throw away adventures than 13 ghosts where the ghouls are not only real but friendly and super cartoony still accommodate Scooby's existence as much as the original formula you can throw shag and Scoob into any of these situations and they fit right in you don't even really need any detailed explanation of why or how they got to there and one too many Scooby Snacks and Yahoo chases maybe I don't know I wouldn't do it but yeah there's like a 15-minute pta scene you guys are talented I get it it's just I don't untrue stick man it's don't trust wholesome there's got to be a better young kid orientated a pup named scooby-doo is a series people remember as being good but barely anyone' unpacks why so I want to put it out there it's because it had a hell of a spin on the style it wasn't just oh let's age the kids down and make him hip to the youth that Old Yeller has long been shotgunned they recognized that the original scooby-doo was set in the 60s so you roll the decade back and suddenly you've got this whole new stylistic angle right there in the 50s no mistaking its influence as much as its source material in that song what it does really though is accommodates the whole gang in a space that's extremely peppy fun and light-hearted scaled down from everything that already worked without being at all reductive that's a take worth bringing back someday cuz like the Original Series in the cold light of retro hindsight it's kind of timeless zombie island will always have my heart still far and away the best Scooby Doo feature if pup is a great example of scaling down this is the best example of scaling up it's got all the beats of a regular episode but it's the angles they've chosen to sharpen that set it apart it's not unusual for the gang to visit a creepy swamp setting in a specific part of America but how often would they dig into the history of Louisiana of settlers and spice plantations a place that is almost the hub of spooky mystery in real life how often would the characters talk about all the cliches they'd encounter in their journey and actually finds themselves on a character arc from jaded cynics the believers and the ghosts of course slide way up in intensity my favorite detail is and how they clue you into the danger this time around from the start certainly don't remember the monsters being quite this violent there's a lot of great commentary made about the series overall maybe the greatest point being made by the identity of the villains themselves spoilers the cat creature thing is amazing because it satisfies so many exciting formatic opportunities first is the unexpected thrill I did not predict cat creatures all that something would scooby-doo in the title would have something that looks like that second the intrinsic thrill that this has actually been hinted at throughout the story and is going to build to a crazy but ultimately sensible conclusion well sensible as it gets anyway third the extrinsic thrill of course Scoobies first major film villains are hyper realistic cats of course I was always going to have the most to say about Zi because it's probably where I first noticed the scalability of the franchise and it's lasting power I was very young when I first saw it but I remember even that's that's point to liking Scooby as a sort of given of course I like this thing it's a cartoon and it's on when I watch it and I'll probably be onto something else in the future then this came along and hooked me right back in we watched the Scooby Gang become rejuvenated in the same way the franchise and audience were leading to a bunch of follow up movies that actually were pretty good too witch's ghost is equally solid at what it does even adding stuff that kind of validated the series relationship with musical numbers over the years could open the door to scale to a musical series and you know that's all I'm saying it forgets the ghoul school you guys on small girl obsessed Twitter wants something like gem but with goth metal to words scooby-doo the movie does what it needed to suffers from being part of a post scary movie generation of films when it really needed to be more post screen but it again shows that even stuffed into a universe based on five minutes of fame the characters and concepts now has developed enough deep law to justify an entire movie designed to kill scrappy-doo and it worked wow I haven't seen look away Daphne we all promised each other that we would never speak of him not ever you still kind of wish it use that intro but you know scooby-doo to is where it's really at though for me anyway I think one thing cyberchase tapped into that the others didn't is that all the old monsters are pretty iconic in their own right it was a thrill when those guys came back in that movie because it just never happened before now you're telling me they're going to do it would not only more spooky ghost from the show but with Hollywood money well on a spy kids budgets at least and they're not badly chosen either the black night ghosts with Scooby's first-ever villain so it's a greater March to make him such a big part of the movie and in this hilarious sick ass real suit they made of Christ or Muppet if you always liked the monsters and we're a big scooby-doo nerds this had at least one ghost you cared about hanging around idea as part of the plot or just a cameo in the for real Museum of costumes they actually built for the movie that's right folks I was a ten thousand-volt ghost fan did not expect to be validated like this oh my god it still got too many of the post scary movie vibes someone passed the bleach thanks but it really makes up for it on a lot of moments that I can't get out of my mind I submit to the jury this as being the peak of Fred Jones character arc yeah yes after trying to appeal to an audience that would be obliterated come the end of the decade too just goes for all the things you like and love about the franchise on the big screen it even has jokes designed only for me mystery Incorporated isn't a series I love but it's a series that's hard for me to dislike Scooby's never looked this good probably never will again it's not simply the scooby-doo formula but updated it's essentially going back to the oil wells of the original show and minding each element as deep as it possibly can fish paint richer colors and backgrounds richer 60s Apparel richest ionization of the original designs and a nicely seasons take on the characters personalities my generation solving mysteries and building traps I've got a friend who is fascinated by the male relationships on the show like literally all the guys are completely and utterly stuck in Arrested Development and it's almost like they know it and they're terrified and they're prevented from confronting it because they live with a talking dog the women are just broken wondering how they got annexed to all of this quote my friend Fred is a string of skin deep paper-thin coping mechanisms I will never be this right it's not so much as scaling up on the level of zombie island as it is scaling deep into the original shows quirks in the shape of a cereal more reflective of the binge-watching generation of television that was just about to really kick off at the time this broke out and the fact you can even do that with the original Scooby premise is pretty boss because believe you me the Riverdale version of The Flintstones it just isn't happening I found you in the gay Forrest barn you better tell your wife for our killer at my next D&D roleplay session Riverdale man you guys don't even know [Music] Franken creepy is deeply underrated there was a period of time where the straight-to-dvd scooby movies were starting to wear thin becoming feature-length episodes rather than things that wanted to be movies but it came back around again when they started doing crossovers cutting loose and trying to be an event worthy of the extended runtime and you know what it works you know everyone remembers that scene nobody talks about their sleeping arrangements come on lights out you two okey doke bread sweet dreams scoop give French the bed you bastards but Frank and creepy is the one that feels like a proper for real scooby event the one that only the franchise can give us we've brought down more than our share of villains with nothing more than pluck jerry-rigged traps and a box of Scooby Snacks and for no better reason than a love of justice in my van and a knack for meddling the story of Frankenstein though really by way of Young Frankenstein told through Velma creepy is an out-and-out satire as well as a deconstruction of the gang into their relationship with mystery solving this was probably the moment when the franchise finally took a sledgehammer to the fourth wall and just let it all tumble down but not in a way that resolved their trauma realizing all of their flaws just kind of made it worse it's also the best editing in a Scooby movie ever I don't know who cut this together whoever you are I want to hug you I can't do it just this I can't say anything set the scale to funny that's it we're done this is the best oh and speaking of be cool scooby-doo has a bad rap I would like to be the first to actually defend the style it's deceptively Seth MacFarlane at a first glance yes but on closer inspection it's a lot more interested in creating clear individual silhouettes and features then everyone feeling like slightly deformed clones of each other it's also got a lot going for it in the animation department I was caught off guard by just the way stuff moved in quite a few episodes now oh and the monster designs underrated Lee good they're often backgrounded by funny or decent premises for the episodes - there's one that is a straight-up fusion of psycho and The Shining and I feel like that's something that should have happened at least 7 times before the thing I think it proves is that the scoop scenario lends itself well to just out-and-out comedy there's always been funny elements but the absurdity of the franchise doesn't feel like a portrayal of what was already going on at all there's a pathetic defeated look to these guys that really suits nobody looks like they know what they're doing and that's kind of absolutely 100% the case the only one who actually scales in the opposite direction of all this however is Scooby who appears to be an on since God like being with the most savage put-downs and comebacks ever uttered by a dog I think I may have actually figured something out no wonder I count the time Scoobies rescued me he hasn't blood pressure might be my favorite Scoob it really is the nightmare maybe Daphne's right dog can talk it's a shame this got a poor reputation on the initial reaction but there's enough of it not to matter and to be honest it's still coloring the franchise even now but there is a Scooby piece of merchandise that makes all of this look like kitty litter it's one that scales the franchise to the highest highs and continues to bring us a vision of Scooby that propels the concept of fear the thrill of a mystery to a new postmodern future blah blah blah Scoob and shag Scoob and shag was just the joke right it was just a comic that started as a little her secretly existential crisis inside thing and then oh no and it was still a joke when it suddenly gained a plot and got serious and had characters who normally wouldn't do or say this stuff doing and saying this stuff never seen that's before right no that's not why Scoob and shag is genius that's not why I'm putting it on this list Scoob and shag though you might not have noticed is actually a commentary on how scooby-doo is the most reliable most versatile most secretly undervalued property in all of Western animation how everything we relate to the show can scale to epic proportions a monumental war erupts these mascots you loved they were real life they're coming they're still coming some of the most [ __ ] in the tech names all named after animation TV and editing terms I might add everything you thought was fake is actually real the crooks are all unmasked and trying to get us and only by remembering our past can we rise up and reclaim what is ours it all comes down to the big three - two of the biggest animation Giants on the planet and of course their humble subsidiary the one who's keeping his own corner of a fighter float destined to prove them all wrong the underdog [Music] it's really good give it a read someone paid to put my face in the credits and I'm going to kill them well okay I guess I had more to say than I thought but that's kind of why Scooby keeps coming back you sort of take it for granted stupid dumb dog booga-booga but you go back you get into the jokes you find yourself still invested in whatever happens next they're going where now they're meeting who how scooby-doo speaks for himself and somehow we don't find that weird but more respect needs to be given to why that's the case Scooby needs the concept and the concept needs Scooby and I think Johnny Bravo summed up what keeps us coming back to their weird little world quite nicely thanks for watching everyone I wrote this video in two days does it show yes thank you to all my patrons who it's thanks to them really I've been able to keep this up as frequently as I have recently it's also funding a bunch of projects in the future so please keep your eyes peeled for those they will be out at some point rather soon I have been a dog this has been do do you have a Scoobies I do not [Music]

Channel: B- Mask

Views: 216,393

Keywords: Scooby Doo, Fred, Velma, Shaggy, Daphne, Scrappy, Flim Flam, Vincent Van Ghoul, Mystery machine, mystery incorporated, 13 ghosts, zombie island, witches ghost, cyberchase, movies, Hanna Babera, Yogi, Top Cat, snagglepuss, flintstones, cartoon network, scoob and shag, shag and scoob, anniversary, 50th, frankencreepy, be cool, a pup named, matthew lillard, sarah michelle gellar, Linda Cardellini, freddie prinze jr, halloween, video essay, retrospective, scoobyverse

Id: 8gu-_BOY_J8

Length: 19min 24sec (1164 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 30 2019