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Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated First Episode: Beware the Beast from Below



This is the second series in the franchise to have a narrative arc through which it is necessary to watch each episode to understand the plot. The first time this happened was in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo (1985), where each episode had a narrative and not an episodic story. Some of the material for the series-long story arc was based on development work done on an unproduced animated series adaptation of The Goonies (1985).




scooby doo mystery incorporated first episode



Scooby Doo Where Are You! made its CBS network debut Saturday 13 September 1969 with its first episode, "What a Night for a Knight". The first season ran 17 episodes. The show was a major ratings success for CBS, and they renewed it for a second season in 1970.


The eight 1970 episodes of Scooby Doo Where Are You! differed slightly from the first season episodes in their uses of more slapstick humor, Archie Show-like "chase songs" during climactic sequences, Heather North performing the voice of Daphne in place of Christopherson, and a re-recorded version of the theme song sung by Austin Roberts. This season also marked an attempt at providing a real mystery with multiple suspects and red herring clues. Both seasons contained a laugh track, which was the standard practice for U.S. cartoon series during the 1960s and 1970s.


1985 saw the debut of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, which featured Daphne, Shaggy, Scooby, Scrappy, and new characters Flim-Flam and Vincent Van Ghoul (based upon and voiced by Vincent Price) traveling the globe to capture "thirteen of the most terrifying ghosts and ghouls on the face of the earth." The final first-run episode of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo aired in March 1986, and no new Scooby series aired on the network for the next two years. Reruns of previous Scooby episodes, however, continued to air, both as part of the Scooby-Doo Mystery Funhouse package and under the New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show banner.


In 2002, following the successes of the Cartoon Network reruns and four late-1990s direct-to-video Scooby-Doo releases, the original version of the gang was updated for the 21st century for What's New Scooby-Doo?, which aired on Kids' WB from 2002 until 2005, with second-run episodes also appearing on Cartoon Network. Unlike previous Scooby series, the show was produced at Warner Bros. Animation, which had absorbed Hanna-Barbera in 2001. The show returned to the familiar format of the original series for the first time since 1978, with modern technology and culture added to the mix to give the series a more contemporary feel, along with new, digitally-recorded sound effects and music. With Don Messick having died in 1997, Frank Welker took over as Scooby's voice actor, while continuing to provide the voice of Fred as well, and Casey Kasem returned as Shaggy. Grey DeLisle provided the voice of Daphne (she first took the role on Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase, replacing Mary Kay Bergman, who committed suicide shortly before the release of Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders) and Mindy Cohn, formerly of the sitcom The Facts of Life, voiced Velma.


Later cartoons such as The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan (1972); Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Speed Buggy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids and Inch High, Private Eye (all 1973); Clue Club and Jabberjaw (both 1976); Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels (1977); Buford and the Galloping Ghost (1978), and the Pebbles, Dino and Bamm-Bamm segments of The Flintstone Comedy Show (1980) would all involve groups of teenagers solving mysteries or fighting crime in the same vein as Scooby-Doo, usually with the help of a wacky animal, ghost, etc. For example, Speed Buggy featured three teens and a talking dune buggy in the role of "Scooby-Doo", while Jabberjaw used four teens and a talking shark in a futuristic underwater environment. Some of these shows even used the same voice actors and score cues. Even outside studios got in on the act: when Joe Ruby and Ken Spears left H-B in 1977 and started Ruby-Spears Productions, their first cartoon was Fangface, yet another mystery-solving Scooby clone.


The plot of each episode followed a formula that would serve as a template for many of the later incarnations of the series. At the beginning of the episode, the Mystery, Inc. gang bump into some type of evil ghost or monster, which they learn has been terrorizing the local populace. The teens offer to help solve the mystery behind the creature, but while looking for clues and suspects, the gang (and in particular Shaggy and Scooby) run into the monster, who always gives chase. However, after analyzing the clues they have found, the gang determines that this monster is simply a mere mortal in disguise. They capture the monster, often with the use of a Rube Goldberg-type contraption built by Fred, and bring him to the police. Upon learning the villain's true identity, either the only person they had met or someone they hadn't seen before, the fiendish plot is fully explained, and the apprehended criminal would utter the famous catch phrase, or a variation thereof: "And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for you meddling kids!"


References like the Taylor Lautner Twilight refernce might have seemed funny for it's time, but after a while it feels definatly dated now. Hell, a potshot of Twilight seems pretty dumb considering the show that wants to take itself seriously. The refrences and cameos don't make as much sense either, characters like Dynomutt in the "Heart Of Evil" and the other incarnations in "The Mystery State Club Finals" felt like a nice touch, but seemed pointless to the rest of the story. But the bigget mistake of all was spending the first five minutes of one episode making fun of Scrappy Doo and Film Flam by having them show in the museum. This little jab at this franchises biggest mistake seemed pointless and not nessesscary to the show's tone.


Nowadays shows try to go the more complicated route in order to sound more adult. The story as well as the premise is what many fans of MI see as the crowning jewel of the franchise and many fans see this as excellent and praise it as the "Best Scooby Doo Ever." The reality is that while the show tries to use the phrases "this is bigger than you or me", or "things will never be the same" to enthuse people. The premise and story seems very shallow and absurdly stupid, so much that in the long run it becomes too complicated and hard to follow. Honestly, if you told me the whole story from Mystery Incorporated from the very first episode to the final episode. I really couldn't tell you.


Let's be honest, the ending, is the first major problem of the show. So after this Evil Entity destroys Crystal Cove somehow and the curse is lifted. But what's the twist everybody's happy. No, I'm not kidding, that's the ending here. All the characters in the town have become nice. And on top of that, everything that was in the first episode has been repeated in order to show how well their world has been turned around. This is about the most laziest writing ever made. Just like I said about the problems about the previous problems about this crapsack world and you're just going to override it with that the curse was causing them to act like this?! For a show that's trying to take itself seriously, this is some really lazy storytelling.


Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (also known as Mystery Incorporated or Scooby-Doo! Mystery, Inc.) is the eleventh incarnation of Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo animated series, and the first incarnation not to be first-run on Saturday mornings. The series is produced by Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network and premiered in the United States on Cartoon Network on April 5, 2010, with the next twelve episodes continuing, and the first episode re-airing, on July 12, 2010. The series concluded on April 5, 2013 with two seasons and fifty-two episodes, with a total of twenty-six episodes per season. By episode count, this is the longest running Scooby-Doo series to date. Mystery Incorporated returns to the early days of Scooby and the gang, when they are still solving mysteries in their home town, though it makes many references to previous incarnations of the franchise, not least among them many cases and creatures from the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. Episode by episode, the series takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to the classic Scooby-Doo formula (similar to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!), with increasingly outlandish technology, skills and scenarios making up each villain's story, and a different spin on the famous "meddling kids" quote at the end of every episode. Contrasting sharply with this, however, are two elements that have never been used in a Scooby-Doo series before: a serial format with an ongoing story arc featuring many dark plot elements that are treated with near-total seriousness, and ongoing relationship drama between the characters. The series pays extensive homage to the horror genre, drawing on many works from film, television and literature in both parodic and serious ways, from horror movie classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street, modern films such as Saw, television series Twin Peaks, and the works of H. P. Lovecraft, alongside the classic monster horror movies shown in previous series. In particular, in the second season, the central story arc evolves to heavily feature the use of Babylonian mythology, exploring the Anunnaki, the Babylonian and modern pseudo-scientific concepts of Nibiru, and the writings of Zecharia Sitchin. Other Hanna-Barbera characters occasionally guest-star, including Captain Caveman, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, The Funky Phantom, Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, and more. As was the case with the previous three installments in the franchise, Mystery Incorporated redesigns the main characters, this time into a retro look that returns them to their original 1969 outfits, with some small changes (such as Velma now wearing bows in her hair). The series is also the animated debut of Matthew Lillard as the voice of Shaggy, after he portrayed the character in two live-action films, Scooby-Doo (2002) and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004). Casey Kasem, the original voice of Shaggy, voiced Shaggy's father in five episodes; this would be his last voice-acting role. Linda Cardellini, who played Velma in the live-action movies, voiced Hot Dog Water, a recurring character in the series. 2ff7e9595c


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