Scooby-Doo is a franchise that will never die it will last longer then anyone on Earth and now there's a new series. I'm just going to come right out and say it that set up to this show show is exactly the same as The New Scooby-Doo Movies i'm not even joking it's the exact same set up , and this is a first for me because this is the first time i'm doing a first impressions for new Scooby-Doo series and it will lead to my first review of a new Scooby-Doo series and so here are my first impressions of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?.
When I said the set up of the two shows was the exact same I wasn't kidding just based of this first episode it looks like each episode will start of with the gang somewhere else and then will end up running into insert famous person or character here and then they'll do the mystery. There's a case for if it's not broke don't fix it but this formula has been done to death and when another show in the same franchise does this set up then you need to do something different but they don't at least in this episode.
Of course we have all of the Scooby regulars back so that mean we have Frank Welker as Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo , Grey Griffin as Daphne Blake , Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Rogers and Kate Micucci as Velma Dinkley. There acting was exactly what i'd come to expect from them at this point and that's not a bad thing at least in my opinion because you know that these actors can deliver a great performance.
The selling point for this series is that each episode will feature as famous guest star (I wonder what over Scooby-Doo series did that) and the guest star in this episode is basketball legend Chris Paul. His acting in this was pretty bad which I was honestly expecting since he's not an actor so of course it's not going to be as good as the regular cast members and I will admit that this version of him was indeed entertaining.
The animation is being done by Yeson Entertainment with the show being produced by Warner Bros Animation and the animation is where I found my first major issue because while it was good in terms of movements when it comes to some of faces it looks bad with perhaps the best example being Daphne. I will; admit that it was good that they went back to using the classic designs which was honestly something that really caught me of guard.
Not only did they use the same designs for the main characters but they also used the same running poses as well. I know that alot of people won't really pick up on that and that's fair enough but I thought that it was a nice touch and it's something that they didn't have to do so i'm glad that the makers of this version of the franchise went the extra mile. That said tho I would have preferred it if they came up with some original designs just so it would help the show stand out a bit more.
I have no idea who Chris Paul is infact when I heard he was in it I actually thought that he was related to Jake and Logan Paul. In my defence tho i'm not American so i'm not going to know who he is and i'm sure that alot of other none Americans thought the exact same thing as me and i'm sure that some Americans did as well. That said tho I have to wonder why did they start of with him and not someone more universally more well known.
They also use a new version of the classic Scooby-Doo theme song which while i'm glad that they did use that classic song because it's what alot of people think of when they think of Scooby-Doo. I personally would have preferred it if they had come up with something new because all it did was remind of the classic series which is something I didn't want to be doing I wanted to be thinking about this new one but I couldn't do that when they started playing the Where Are You theme.
SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For some reason they have I think Gofer's but i'm not exact sure and they add nothing to the overall plot of the episode. If anything all it did was remind me of Caddyshack and i've not even seen that movie but I did see A Futile and Stupid Gesture which does include the making of that movie. Adding to that because of those gofer's being in the episode all they do is make Scooby look dumb which is a very bad thing considering he's the franchise main star.
We have to talk about the mystery aspect and this is the weakest aspect of the whole episode in my opinion because the franchise built it self on giving you enough clues to work out who did it for yourself. This one however doesn't do that in fact they give you no clues at all so not only does it come out of know where when they reveal that the culprit was this caddy seen in the above picture but they also explain key points which happened of screen things which would have helped make the mystery good.
In terms of what I thought of the actual comedy in the episode it actually wasn't that bad there was a few moments that got a smile out of me. That's not to say that all of the jokes are good there are alot of jokes that just don't work like for example any scene where they make Scooby look dumb which while jokes like that can be funny here they just don't work. I did however liked that they went back to having Shaggy , Scooby and in this case Chris Paul put on an effort to distract the villain which I honestly thought was pretty funny.
NO MORE SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Overall this series looks to be good and it does give of a better first impression then Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs! and unlike most shows on Boomerang this show is being released weekly and that means you can expect a review within a few weeks and there is not going to rating from me.