The New Scooby-Doo Movies: Wednesday Is Missing Review

 

Scooby-Doo as a franchise has been going on since the nineteen sixties with the franchise rarely crossing over with properties. Well just in the franchises second incarnation there was a series that did just that every single and as it's been a good few years since I last looked at an episode from Scooby-Doo I thought that it was about to time to tackle another episode and so then join me as I review the episode that see's Scooby and the gang meet up with some creepy , spooky and all together ookey bunch of characters with the episode in question being called simply just "Wednesday Is Missing" enjoy.

The plot of the episode is Scooby and the gang are hired by The Addams Family to be house keepers while Gomez and Morticia go on a second honeymoon and have to find Wednesday who mysteriously goes missing. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad with this episodes plot being very entertaining and very engaging in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this episode is Don Messick as Scooby-Doo , Casey Casem as Shaggy Rogers and Frank Welker as Fred Jones. Also starring in this episode is Nicole Jaffe as Velma Dinkley , Heather North as Daphne Blake , John Astin as Gomez Addams , Carolyn Jones as Morticia Addams , Jodie Foster as Pugsley Addams , Cindy Henderson as Wednesday Addams , voice acting legend Janet Waldo as Granny Frump / Grandmama , Jackie Coogan as Uncle Fester , Ted Cassidy as Lurch and Felix Silla as Cousin Itt.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. Which isn't all that surprising as all of this episodes cast members have been playing their respective characters for some years with the same thing not necessary being true for the kids actors who while not bad can't hold a candle to their adult cast mates and instead just come across as being rather flat and boring. 

Doing the animation for this episode is of course the legends and the greats that are currently over at Hanna-Barbera Productions. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad altho there were some really very noticeable animation errors like Gomez's eyebrows disappearing and reappearing again among many others which really does bring down the overall quality of the animation in this very episode.

While this episode does feature The Addams Family it also serves more of a continuation of the live action The Addams Family series then it does being it's own unique take on the family. This is most evident in the fact that several of that shows stars reprise there roles for this episode with the most noticeable absences being Lisa Loring and Ken Weatherwax who were replaced for being two old to play Wednesday and Pugsley respectively which is a casting choice that I don't agree with as they were key actors from the original show and as they would have been voicing the characters it really doesn't matter if their older or not as they still might have sounded younger then what they actually were in real life.

In a rather odd move this is the only episode that hasn't been included on any official DVD release of this show thank to the Charles Addams estate blocking all uses of the episode on home media. The episode did see a very few and rare releases on VHS back in the nineties but that's really it and because of that this show can never have a full series release and while I don't know why his estate are blocking the use of this episode on home media I find it odd that they wouldn't want to see Charles Addams most famous creations on an official release of what surely most be the worlds longest on going franchise as that is a great way to get kids today interested in the The Addams Family in a more family friendly way that also really respects the family as a whole.

The mystery aspect of this episode was perhaps this episodes weakest aspect as it's painfully obvious who the main villains of this episode are as there only other characters that we meet outside of the main characters. Which makes me wonder why they just didn't include more main characters just to make it more of an actual mystery not really helping things is the fact that this episode doesn't really give us any clues as to who this episodes main villain even is which means that we the audience can't even work out for ourselfs who the main villain ll of which make me wonder why they bothered to include a mystery as just the mystery of where Wednesday is is more then enough to sustain this episode and they don't really need another more weaker mystery on top of all of that.

Now then this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly forty one minuets and nineteen seconds. Which if my memory serves me correctly is pretty much the bogstanderd running time for this show however with that being said this episode really doesn't have alot their interms of either plot or story to cover that large amount of running time with this episode really only having enough plot to cover a standard twenty two minuet episode of Scooby-Doo Where Are You which means that we get alot of scenes that don't add anything to the plot of this episode with alot of those scenes just being Scooby and the gang exploring The Addams Family mansion and that's it but I will admit that this episode does have some decent pacing to it tho. 

So now then since this is a comedy that means that I have to actually talk about the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. With this episode having alot of genuinely really funny moments in it with alot of this episodes best jokes coming from Velma who was given alot of the episodes funnier lines and it was just pure fun seeing the Scooby gang interacting with The Addams Family which allowed us to get some really good jokes just out of that idea alone in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall this was a really solid crossover episode and it's one that should be made available on home media just so younger kids could see The Addams Family teaming up with Scooby-Doo as it's that good of a crossover in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official The Addams Family fandom wiki page , the official Scooby-Doo fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personally preferred website that I personally preferred to use to get the images that I personally used in this very review being the wonderful Google Images since all of the images that are currently up and and featured / presented to us on freaking Google Images are all fairly freaking high in freaking quality and as well as being very fairly freaking high in definition.

The New Scooby-Doo Movies Review

Scooby fans I really didn't think i'd be making this review today (because I planned to make it this weekend) but here we are the scooby franchise has spawned alot of TV shows and when I say alot I really mean it heck there even working on a new show altho i'm not sure what there calling it but here is my review of the franchises second incarnation The New Scooby-Doo Movies.

Honestly when it comes to the plot it's the exact same as Where Are You so if you've seen any episode of Scooby-Doo then you pretty much no the plot to this series. There's a case to be made for "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but with this series you can see a pattern coming out heck you can even argue that you start to see a pattern in Where Are You but it's something that does work so I can't be two harsh on them for sticking to what works.

Starring as The Mystery Inc crew are the late Don Messick as Scooby-Doo , the late Casey Kasem as Shaggy Rogers , Nicole Jaffe as Velma Dinkley , the late Heather North as Daphne Blake and the legend that is Frank Welker as Fred Jones. Yeah it really is sad that more then half of the main cast for this particular series is sadly no longer with us but that said some of the line delivery's in this show aren't that good there's a lot of awkward pauses between sentences.

This was the last time that Velma was played by Nicole as she chose to retire from acting and she later started up for own hollywood agency but she did return to play Velma in the films Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire and Scooby-Doo! and the Monster of Mexico for me she is the best Velma but I do respect her choice to stop playing the character.

This show was animated by Hanna-Barbera so you'd think that being animated by such a prestigious studio as well as being directed by the famous pair would mean that there would be no animation errors but sadly that's a huge mega ultra no because there's a lot of animation errors in this series characters disappear and reappear , Velma's glasses get colored white for some reason and batman's signal gets an unwanted color change. 

My personal favorite error tho occurs in the very first episode "Ghastly Ghost Town" the gang and the Three Stooges notice that Velma is missing but who should walk right by WITH them as they go looking for her but Velma herself that one scene had me yelling "she's right there you don't need to look for her" how a huge error like that made it past everyone I don't know but it doesn't end there as a few scenes later we then cut to Velma going missing.

   

One thing that this show I guess is famous for is it's guest stars this whole series was built around the fact that there would be a new guest star in every episode and I have to say that while some of them do feel natural it is conceivable that the gang would into Batman & Robin but how in the heck would you run into the Harlem Globetrotters not once but twice and how in the heck would you run into The Addams Family.

Now what really did shock me was the fact that alot of these celebrities were voiced by themselves those include Don Adams , Sonny & Cher , Tim Conway and the late Jonathan Winters and if your a Star Wars fan Luke Skywalker appears in an episode but of course alot of the guest characters died some time prior so they did get alot of impersonators and I have to say they did a good job since alot of them do sound like there real life counterparts altho for some reason they recast Batman & Robin which makes no sense to me since the Batman and Robin in this show reference a character made for the 60's show so why not just bring in Adam West and Burt Ward.

I have to admit tho when I was a kid the Robot Gunslinger from the first episode used to scare the heck out of me and yet when I see him now all I can think of is The Man In Black from HBO'S Westworld and I have no idea why that is maybe it's because like The Man In Black he's dressed in a black coat and hat maybe.

This franchise is most well known for it's mysteries and I have to say that the mysteries in this series are very mixed for me some are pretty easy to solve but then you get a few that are really freaking hard to solve and I don't mean hard for a little kid to solve I mean hard for an adult to solve there's no middle ground with this show when it comes to the mysteries it's one way or the other.

This show ran from September 9th 1972 to October 27th 1973 and the reason why this has the word movies attached to it is because unlike the previous series each episode of this series is forty five minuets in length  and that's both a good and bad it's good because it means we get more chances to work out who did it but it's bad because it drags out the pacing at times and I honestly think any Scooby show should be no more then twenty two minuets total.

One of the things that this show has going for it is it's theme song it's catchy as hell heck on more then one accusation I found my self singing along to it that's how good it is and for a show that can get pretty creepy it's a very upbeat song and the visuals make the show more epic then it really is.

Sadly tho there will not a complete series release of this series any time soon because of the fact that there conflicts with some of the guest stars it's sad really because this show is really good and it does deserve a complete series release but we shouldn't really hold our breaths but we can hope that it will happen one day.

Overall this isn't the worst series in the franchise but it's also not the franchise at it's best this was made at a time when Scooby-Doo was really popular and it shows because of the fact it feels like the team aren't putting in there best efforts so with all that in mind this series gets a 6 out of 10 from me.