Scooby-Doo! Mecha Mutt Menace (2013) – Review

Scooby-Doo and the gang are no strangers to mechanical monsters; in fact, most of the villains they’ve encountered over the years have used robotics to create such terrors as abominable snowmen and rampaging dinosaurs, but with Scooby-Doo! Mecha Mutt Menace, the threat is a straight-up rogue robot… or is it actually rogue? Could someone be behind this motorized monstrosity’s mayhem?

This particular mystery finds Fred Jones (Frank Welker) entering one of his amazing traps at the Annual Science Expo in Houston, a contest the Scooby gang is sure he will win, as Velma (Mindy Cohn) comments, “You’re a shoo-in, who else has an elaborate project demonstrating how to use the laws of physics to capture a human being… or a human being posing a supernatural monster?” Unfortunately, a test of the device accidentally snags a cute passerby, landing her in the trap’s gum resin-coated net. This passerby turns out to be Melanie Staples (Lacey Chabert), daughter of NASA Scientist Ned Staples (Alan Rachins), who later will be demonstrating his latest project: a giant robot dog called "Mecha Mutt" designed to navigate the terrain of Mars. As the title of this short implies, this robot goes rogue, even going so far as to break Velma’s glasses and destroy Fred’s ascot, but the real threat to our group could come from the green-eyed monster of jealousy.

Note: Fred and Daphne’s declaration of love in Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright either was brushed under the rug or blithely ignored.

The mystery behind “Mecha Mutt” is pretty much background to Daphne’s jealousy and the resentment of this “threat” to her relationship with Fred, but while her simmering hatred of this intruder seems a tad much, sniping comments whenever she can, Fred’s bumbling attraction to this new girl isn’t much better. This following exchange basically sums up the drama of this adventure.

Melanie: “I don’t understand how this can be happening.”
Daphne: “Maybe someone has found a way to override Doctor Staples’ systems and is operating Mecha Mutt by remote control.”
Velma: “I agree.”
Daphne: “See, I’m just as smart as Melanie.”
Fred: “Trust me, Daphne, I’m not attracted to Melanie’s brain.”

 

Wow Fred, just like, wow.

Romantic entanglements aside, there is still a mystery to solve, and being this is one of their short films, the mystery aspect is rather thin, as is the suspect pool. First, we have Irv (Paul Reubens) who is angry that Dr. Staples has him working so hard that he doesn’t even have time to date and he also believes this is a plot of the Doctor to keep Melanie and him apart. Next, we have Dr. Devon Albright (Julie Bowen) who states that Dr. Staples stole her idea and took over the project simply because he was a famous astronaut and could bring in more funding. Doctor Albright clearly has the strongest and sanest motive, as well as the techno-know-how to pull it off, but Irv’s sticky fingers from eating junk food raises him up the list a tad because of a sticky residue that is found at various sites of the Mecha Mutt’s attack.

 

Dial this mystery up to eleven!

So which one of these suspects is behind the rampaging robot? Or could it actually be the notorious “Space Specter,” an old legend about a ship that lost control while piloting through some space mist, where apparently a spirit attached itself to the ship and now anytime something goes wrong at NASA, they blame the supposed spectre. No, of course, it’s not an actual spectre from space; the culprit is none other than Melanie Staples, who resented the fact that for her whole life, her father’s work came first. “You’ve ignored and neglected me, never once seeing how brilliant I am. So I decided to show him how brilliant, and if I had to destroy his career, not to mention the entire space program to get his attention, so be it.” I have to admire this show for giving us a “villain” with a motivation other than the standard monetary or revenge motifs, and though the sticky residue we see found at the various crime scenes was clearly the same gum residue that Melanie would have picked up from landing in Fred’s trap at the start of the show, it still works as a solid mystery.

“And I would have gotten away with it too, if not for you meddling space cadets.”

Scooby-Doo! Mecha Mutt Menace was the fourth in a series of direct-to-video and was released by Warner Bros. Animation on the DVD 13 Spooky Tales: Ruh-Roh Robot, and its short twenty-two-minute run-time provided fans with a fun adventure to hold them over between feature-length movie releases.

Dinosaurus (1960) – Review

Movies featuring man pitted against prehistoric beasts have been popular since 1925’s The Lost World, where Arthur Conan Doyle’s tale featured a mysterious plateau rife with dinosaurs, and with the success of modern films like Jurassic World, where genetic engineering replaced lost continents, the dinosaur genre has proven itself to always have a spot in the hearts of moviegoers. In 1960 Jack H. Harris, the man behind the classic sci-fi/horror film The Blob, gave the world Dinosaurus! a cinematic masterpiece detailing the age-old story of man’s noble goal to encounter giant monsters and then run screaming from them.

 The first problem a filmmaker has is figuring out how does one go about encountering a dinosaur 65 million years after they have gone extinct? Well, finding hidden prehistoric worlds isn’t easy as you'd think, despite what films like 1957’s The Land Unknown would have you believe, but there is always the option of waking a hibernating dinosaur by way of atomic testing as was done in the Harryhausen classic The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms – though that can lead to nasty radioactive side-effects – and then, of course, we have the “Build Your Own Monster” of the Jurassic Park series, but that has its own problems, mainly production costs and the insanely high park insurance premiums you’d have to layout, which leads us to Dinosaurus! where the construction of a new island harbour brings two ancient enemies to life.

 

We’re talking pennies on the dollar and no radioactive fallout.

The plot of Dinosaurus! is fairly simple, a group of American engineers have been using explosives to increase the draft of a Caribbean harbour when one of the explosions opens a rift to a frozen undersea river, and out of this fissure comes the frozen bodies of a Brontosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Head engineer and the film’s stalwart hero, Bart Thompson (Ward Ramsey) stations a stereotypically drunk Irishman (James Logan) to watch over this prehistoric find only to have things quickly become complicated when a lightning strike bringing the two beasts back to life. Now, one would think two prehistoric titans would provide enough thrills for any movie, but you’d be wrong, we also have shady deputy mayor Mike Hacker (Fred Engelberg) who upon discovering the frozen corpse of a caveman (Gregg Martell), who had apparently also washed ashore due to the explosions, decides to keep this finding for himself so as to make some big bucks on the sly.

Science Note: The Tyrannosaurus Rex lived during the Cretaceous period and the Brontosaurus during the Jurassic period, so not sure how exactly those two would have been frozen together, but then again we also have a caveman frozen in the same area, who is about 65 million years distant from either of those creatures, so one must assume the writers of this film based their science on episodes of The Flintstones.

And what kind of dinosaur film would we have if it didn’t also include a plucky kid? For Dinosaurus! we have Julio (Alan Roberts), an orphan island boy who is routinely abused by Hacker. I’m not sure what the exact nature of the relationship between Julio and Hacker is, other than possibly adopted slave labour, but it’s never made clear and seems only to exist so as to illustrate just how much of an asshat Hacker is. That Julio would eventually run into and befriend the caveman should surprise no one but that the two immediately domesticates the Brontosaurus did catch me off guard.

 

The prehistoric Uber.

For a movie barely over eighty minutes there is a lot going on, we have the aforementioned dastardly plan to exploit the caveman – which leads to Hacker and a couple of lackeys chasing the boy and the caveman around the island – there's Bart’s pal Chuck (Paul Lukather) getting the villagers up to a fortress to protect them from the rampaging T-Rex, and then there is Bart’s girlfriend Betty Piper (Kristina Hanson) who catches the eye of the caveman – who, to be fair, hasn’t been laid in over 100,000 years – and he kidnaps poor Betty and drags her into an abandoned mine.

 

“Well, I’ve had worse dates.”

As Dinosaurus! is a family film we don’t have to worry about sexual assault happening between these two – the caveman quickly moves on from groping Betty to forcing her to cook him dinner – but before things can get even more awkward Hacker and the T-Rex show up. This messy conflict results in the cavemen dying – holding the mine’s crumbling ceiling up while Betty and Julio escape – but Hacker gets his own just reward, that of being crushed under a pile of rocks while the T-Rex just wanders off to find some easier lunch.

 

Unfortunately, his lunch is stolen by some quicksand.

The dinosaur action for this film is done by way of stop-motion animation, the primary method used for all such films until Jurassic Park and computer-generated images changed the monster making landscape forever, and it’s this style of dinosaur filmmaking that I will always have a soft spot for as there seems to be more personality in these Claymation creations then there is in their later computer made brethren. The dinosaurs in this film were also created by model maker extraordinaire Marcel Delgado, who was the man that constructed the Kong model that Willis O’Brien animated in the original 1933 King Kong – that does add a bit of pedigree to this film – and the model of the Brontosaurus itself made a second appearance in a cameo for Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone episode “The Odyssey of Flight 33” where a poor passenger plane finds itself lost in time.

 

“What a twist.”

Director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. wasn’t given a huge budget for this feature so as a dinosaur film there isn’t a whole lot of dinosaur action, and Marcel Delgado wasn't given enough time with the models which resulted in less than smooth animation, and because of this much of the film’s running time is spent with the rather dull humans. Lucky for us one of the humans that the film does focus on is the confused and befuddled caveman and we are talking comedic gold here as we get to watch him explore a modern amenities flush toilet – which he finds terrifying – a ham radio, and the confusion of his reflection in a full-length mirror, which all adds pure unadulterated fun to what would otherwise have been a rather dull affair. Gregg Martell’s fantastic performance as the Neanderthal cannot be underrated, as are the make-up effects provided by make-up artist Don L. Cash, and aside from the few cool dinosaur moments, and I do mean few, this is what makes the film so entertaining.

 

“Have any of you guys read this script?”

Overall Dinosaurus! is an amusing adventure flick that if one were to look past its flaws, such as the poor optical work and a cast of mostly two-dimensional characters, you can have a really good time viewing this somewhat forgotten adventure film, and how could anyone not love a film that ends with a fight between a mechanical digger and a Tyrannosaurus Rex?

 

Losing to King Kong is one thing, this is embarrassing.

Final Note: That the Brontosaurus, the caveman, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex all die by the end of the film kind of bummed me out, but I guess Jack Harris was going for one of those “tragic and poetic endings” so I can let that slide. So, if you haven’t seen Dinosaurus! and are a fan of the genre this is a film you should think about tracking down, and the recent Bluray really shows off the cinemascope photography and the print looks fantastic.

Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright (2013) – Review

Gaston Leroux’s classic tale The Phantom of the Opera is one of the most adapted literary horror stories to date – only beaten out by Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula – so it’s a bit surprising that it took Scooby-Doo and the gang this long to give us their take on this classic tale. What is even stranger is that Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright isn’t a musical, we were already subjected to Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire – with some of the worst Disney knock-off songs to date – but when it comes to adapting The Phantom of the Opera, which they set during a talent competition, they don’t go full-on Andrew Lloyd Webber for some reason. Talk about a wasted opportunity.

The movie opens with Scooby and the gang arriving in the Windy City because Fred (Frank Welker) and Daphne (Grey Griffin) are finalists for a talent show, called Talent Star, meanwhile, Velma (Mindy Cohn) is interested in checking out the local showing of the famous “Soap Diamond” while Scooby and Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) or more focused on the city’s famed deep-dish pizza. Unfortunately, the opera house which the show will be held in is being terrorized by a masked phantom, surprisingly this is information that Shaggy takes in stride, “Of course it’s haunted, like when do we ever go to a place that is not haunted?” Though the opera house is over one hundred years old this particular phantom made his first appearance back in the 70s when the place had been converted into a disco.

 

I guess organ music and disco just don’t mix.

With Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright we not only get a nice homage to Gaston Leroux’s literary masterpiece, with the Phantom demanding that his Christine win the talent show, but we are inundated with possible suspects as to who the real phantom could be. First, we have Brick Pimiento (Wayne Brady), the host of Talent Star, who points out that the Phantom’s attacks are doing wonders for the show’s ratings. Next is Mel Richmond (Jeff Bennett) the theatre owner, who has been losing money on the opera house ever since he inherited it from his dad, and he jokes about burning it down for the insurance money. We meet you violin virtuoso Emma Gale (Isabella Acres) whose family needs the contest prize money so the bank doesn’t foreclose on their farm. We also have singer Lotte Lavoie (Vivica A. Fox) who constantly threatens violence on her fellow contestants, one of which is stage magician The Great Pauldini (John O'Hurley) whose stagecraft could easily create The Phantom’s antics, and finally we have Chrissy Damon (Ariel Winter) aka Christine, a spoiled girl with overbearing stage parents.

 

An angel of music she is not.

As much as this is a Scooby-Doo spin on The Phantom of the Opera there are major differences from the source material – Gaston Leroux didn’t even have a dog in his story – in this version, Christine is an abrasive diva, not the sweet ingénue of the book and is more like the character of Carlotta, but here we also have Lotte Lavoie’s who kind of takes on aspects of Carlotta as well, and it is her voice that is sabotaged by the Phantom. In Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright there is no true Christine analog as this particular Phantom has no muse, at most we have Fred and Daphne’s love story filling in for Christine’s and Raoul’s tryst from Gaston Leroux’s book.

Now, it is the love story between Fred and Daphne that is easily my favourite part of this movie, first we have Daphne quietly mooning over the seemingly oblivious Fred while everyone else in the Scooby gang are completely aware of the pair's feelings for each other, but we get a wonderful payoff with Daphne writing a love ballad to music that Fred wrote, leading to the two finally declaring their love. Unfortunately, the film later undercuts this during the end credits with Fred and Daphne both wondering if that declaration was just part of the act or if the other really meant it. Aside from this return to the “status quo” I found this movie handled the Fred/Daphne relationship better than any film before or since.

 

“Summer lover, don't go away.”

Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright also has one of my favourite meta-exchanges between characters, with Daphne pondering the strangeness of the Scooby gang constantly running into ghosts and monsters, leading to this wonderful interchange.
Daphne: “Fred, why do ghosts and monsters and stuff turn up wherever we go? Is it something about us?”
Fred: “No, this happens to everyone. It would be too much of a coincidence if this only happened to us, so logically, everyone must run into ghosts and monsters all the time.”
Daphne: “Really?”
Fred: “Sure! It's simple math. They must be everywhere.”

 

You can’t argue with that kind of logic.

So who is the Phantom of this particular Opera? The villain reveal aspect of this movie makes this entry stand out from the rest, in the past, we’ve had villains wearing multiple masks, and in Chill-Out, Scooby-Doo! we had a monster and a villain that was not actually connected but in Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright we get four villains, all with their own motives. First, the gang chase the Phantom into the sewers below the opera house, where they discover the lair of Steve Trilby (Paul Rugg), who was the notorious Phantom terrorizing the opera house back when it became a discotheque, but he's not actually behind the current attacks on Talent Star, he was only prowling around looking for food to steal, he had remained a reclusive Phantom all these years because thought he was hideous freak, unfortunately, this was only due to the fact that his only mirror was a funhouse mirror. Then Mel Richmond is unmasked and admits to trying to burn down his "money-losing theatre" for the insurance money, which makes his early joking faux pas extremely stupid. Next Lance Damon, in Phantom garb, is caught trying to break Emma’s violin because he wanted his daughter Chrissie to win the talent contest. Then another Phantom is revealed to be assistant director Dewey Ottoman (Peter MacNicol) who was using the Phantom threat to draw the police away from the museum that displaying the famous Soap Diamond so that he could steal it. And finally, we have Velma revealing footage of Pimiento putting on the Phantom costume which he admits that he used the Phantom to boost the show's falling ratings.

They all would have gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling kids.

Stray Observations:

• In this movie, Fred’s character is treated with a greater amount of respect and though he may still be a little trap obsessed – we find out that he sleeps with a net – when up against the villain he is a true man of action. He even uses his ascot to grapple with the Phantom.
• Steve Trilby believed he was disfigured due to his only mirror being a funhouse mirror, but this means he somehow went through his ENTIRE life growing up without ever looking at his reflection. Even for a Scooby-Doo movie that is a bit of a stretch.
• Chrissie ends up being one of the final three finalists but shouldn’t she have been disqualified immediately when her dad was exposed as being one of the Phantoms?
• Fred and Daphne’s love ballad win them more votes than Emma, which means Emma’s family would lose the farm, and they then start telling bad jokes so as a way to throw the contest, but how would that even work? Can people call in and un-vote?

 

Regardless, these two will always have my vote.

Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright was twenty-first entry in the direct-to-video series of Scooby-Doo animated films and is easily one of my favourites – if they had gone full-on musical with this movie it could possibly have eclipsed Zombie Island – as the multiple villains aspect of this movie was pure genius, and we even have moment at the end where a police officer asks the audience, “Is anyone else the Phantom? Show of hands” which is just brilliant. Then we have Grey Griffin’s stammering performance of Daphne’s delightful awkwardness with Fred, which is simply hilarious making this the cherry on top of an already amazing desert. Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright wonderfully showcased the relationship between Daphne and Fred while still giving the rest of the Scooby gang fun moments - Velma in top form unravelling suspect after suspect, making this a Scooby-Doo movie that will delight fans and novices alike, so if you haven’t seen this one yet do yourself a favour and hunt it down.

 

"The Phantom of the opera is here. Inside my mind."

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) – Review

The Mark Twain quote “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated” can be considered the backbone of this final chapter of the Skywalker Saga as director J.J. Abrams tries to course correct the damaged incurred with Star Wars: The Last Jedi by bringing back Emperor Palpatine, the big baddie from the original series, despite the last time we saw him he had been tossed down a shaft moments before the Death Star exploded. How is his return possible? To quote Monty Python and The Holy Grail, “It's just a scratch. I've had worse.”

 The film opens with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) searching the galaxy for something called a Wayfinder, an ancient Sith device that would reveal the location of the planet Exogol, which is home to Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) who rumours say somehow survived his death at the Battle of Endor. Now, don’t expect much explanation as to how this is possible other than some quick hand waving about clones and the Dark Side of the Force, you're expected to roll with it. Meanwhile, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) hope to get Intel from a supposed mole deep insider The First Order, who this turns out to be is as obvious as it is moronic, and while all this is going on our Jedi hero Rey (Daisy Ridley) continues her Jedi training with General Leia (Carrie Fisher) in the hopes of someday earning the right to wield Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. Once our heroes learn of the Emperor’s supposed return they decide that must get a Wayfinder of their own – available soon at your local Disney Store – but the quest for the location of Exogol is not without its challenges.

 

“Do any of us even know what a Wayfinder looks like?

In lieu of plot, Abrams has decided to go with a scavenger hunt motif and this is easily the biggest stumbling block facing Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker as the bulk of its 142 minute running time deals with our heroes running around looking for items that will lead them to the final boss fight, as we follow them through several misadventures that have little to no bearing on the plot. Everything here is action-packed and exciting but sadly there is little time for emotional substance or relevance, “Look, we found ancient writings on a Sith artifact maybe it will lead us to our next MacGuffin,” and this goes on for quite some time, worse is the fact that the script constantly throws idiotic obstacles in their path that seem to exist for the sole purpose of filling in time before the big showdown. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that J.J. Abrams and company had figured out the ending to this mess – and I will admit it is a fairly satisfying ending – but then realized they still had the proceeding ninety minutes to fill with something…anything…everything!

 

“Are you going to be the hot new action figure?”

When wrapping up a nine picture saga the last thing you need to do is start introducing new characters – or tossing in old fan favourites like Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) – yet good ole J.J. can’t seem to help himself, thus we meet up with the helmeted and enigmatic Zori (Keri Russell), a criminal pal of Poe’s past, and Jannah (Naomi Ackie), who leads a tribal effort to take on the First Order and ends up teaming up with Finn because Rey is constantly running off on her own so that she can be angst-ridden and mysterious, so he needs a new action buddy.

 

Trust me, this is even dumber than it looks.

Once all the silliness of everyone running around is over, as if they were in a Star Wars version of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, the movie does settle down with some solid confrontational moments, and the relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren is the heart of this movie and both Ridley and Driver pull off fantastic performances here, but it would have been even greater if J.J. Abrams wasn’t so insistent at keeping things moving at such a breakneck speeds thus giving us time to care. Before any emotional moment can build we are whisked off to another frenetic action scene with a bunch of characters we could care less about – does anyone else think both Poe and Finn have become utter wankers – and though the visuals are as stunning expected the original Star Wars films have stood the test of time because it followed a small group of characters that we the audience grew to love, yet this new trilogy seems hung up on whiz-bang effects while sacrificing time and effort needed to breathe life into our heroes. In The Force Awakens Abrams seemed a little calmer, helped I’m sure by the fact that he was mostly copying the structure of A New Hope, but with The Rise of Skywalker it seems as if he is trying to cram in every idea he ever had without checking to see if it served the story.

Stray Observations:

• Light Speed skipping sure looks cool, how it even remotely makes sense I’ll leave for others to explain.
• The way the filmmakers integrated unused footage of the late Carrie Fisher worked really well.
• It seems even the Star Wars universe has a Burning Man Festival.
• Our heroes fall into quicksand, now if only one of the party’s members had Force powers to levitate them to safety.
• The Knights of Ren pop up every now and then as if hoping that someone will think they’re cool enough to get their own Disney+ television series.
• Anyone else get a Goonies vibe with the Sith Dagger map?
• The tactical deployment of Palpatine’s massive fleet made the decisions at Pearl Harbour seem sensible.
• A mounted ground assault on the surface of a Star Destroyer is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a Star Wars movie
•  

 

Even Michael Bay is laughing at this.

With The Rise of Skywalker J.J. Abrams attempts to pull the franchise out of the nosedive that Rian Johnson had put them in – going so far as to dismiss elements entirely and making joking references to events in The Last Jedi – and even though “startling” revelations often get lost in the overall action it still manages to land with a mostly satisfying conclusion, but one does wonder how things would have turned out if Abrams had directed all three of the films or at least been given a fourth installment to further build his story instead having to cram this ending into one big chaotic mess. Regardless, The Rise of Skywalker is at least an entertaining enough action flick, if a bit of a mess with character development sacrificed for hammered in plot contrivances, but it’s far from the worst entry in the franchise. If that seems like damming with faint praise…well, let the Force be with you.

Scooby-Doo! and the Spooky Scarecrow (2013) – Review

When it comes to animated Halloween specials the all-round king would be It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown but when it comes to horror for the holidays one must still give props to Scooby-Doo and the gang and in 2013 an all-new episode titled Scooby-Doo! and the Spooky Scarecrow was released on a two-disc DVD 13 Spooky Tales: Run for Your Rife as part of a collection thirteen various episodes from the Scooby-Doo show, giving fans a very fun and light Halloween romp.  It's not Haddonfield but almost as dangerous.

 This twenty-two minute short centers on the Scooby gang visiting Cobb Corner for their annual Halloween Festival. Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) seem surprisingly excited to visit this small town’s festivities despite the scary Halloween theme - you’d think these two would avoid any celebration of this particular holiday - but understanding quickly dawns on us viewers when Shaggy lists off the menu, “They make corn on the cob, corn muffins, cornbread, kettle corn, and corn dogs. It’s a regular corn-u-copia.” Unfortunately, the festival is in danger of being cancelled due to the monstrous figure of Cornfield Clem, a town legend who is now terrorizing anyone who dares set foot within the corn maze.

 

Has entering a cornfield ever been a good idea in a horror movie?

Mayor Husk (Gary Anthony Williams) is quick to assure the townsfolk that, “There is a reasonable explanation” and that the festival will continue despite many people wanting it cancelled before someone gets hurt. Sheriff Kern (Wendie Malick) urges caution and orders the corn maze to be closed and off-limits, posting a monosyllabic handyman named Abner (Steve Blum) to ensure no meddling kids wander in.  Now, raise your hand if you think this is going to stop Mystery Incorporated from investigating.   Scooby-Doo! and the Spooky Scarecrow is not one of the animated features, it having the standard running time of an average episode of the series, so there isn’t much time to set-up plot and or suspects, we have the Mayor and Sherriff acting a little suspicious at times but they both have more to lose if this particular mystery isn’t solved. Next, we have Mr. Bumpy (Jeff Bennett) the proprietor of a novelty shop that specializes in Cornfield Clem merchandise and costumes as he could be using the appearance of the scarecrow to drum up business, but the cancellation of the festival could harm tourist trade so that kind of puts him out of the running.

 

I have a hunch he’s not guilty.

When the gang learns that a year ago there was a bank robbery that resulted in the crook having to abandon his car, it being found near the cornfield, and the loot too big to be carried away by hand it all becomes quite obvious as to what is going on. Velma (Mindy Cohn) quickly deduces that the police roadblocks forced the crook to bury his ill-gotten gains in the nearby field, with plans to return and dig it up later but not knowing that the field was recently planted with corn.  When he eventually returns to spot he buried the loot he found a full-grown cornfield.  So, what can a man do in such a situation?  Well, he purchased a Cornfield Clem costume from Mr. Bumpy and used it and the legend of the scarecrow to buy himself some searching time.

And who is this criminal mastermind? None other than Abner, that country bumpkin who Velma noticed had very soft hands – one could almost say safecracker hands – for a supposed country farmhand. No big surprise there. Scooby-Doo! and the Spooky Scarecrow may not have the most original mystery but works perfectly well for this shorter format, and the Scooby gang are all allowed some time to shine.

 

Even Fred isn’t forced to embarrass himself in this adventure.

Stray Observations:

• When the gang arrives in town we can hear Velma creepily saying “We’re here” as a nice nod to the horror film Poltergeist.
• According to legend Cornfield Clem was a scarecrow brought to life by a 16th-century witch who was run out of town.  The Scarecrow was then cursed to haunt the town every year at Halloween time. As in Scooby-Doo! and the Witch’s Ghost we learn of real witchcraft, but of course, this legend may have been a load of hogwash.
• Shaggy is seen wearing a Blue Falcon costume, a reference to the direct-to-video film Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon.
• Sheriff Kern obviously likes drama with a dash of musical theatre, “That field isn’t just full of corn, and it’s growing a crop of evil as high as an elephant’s eye.”
• An idiot criminal burying his loot in a field and later not being able to find the spot could be a reference to the film Fargo.

 

I could see Steve Buscemi playing this part in a live-action adaptation.

Scooby-Doo! and the Spooky Scarecrow is a solid little Halloween special that really harkens back to the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! as it gives us good mystery, a nice amount of clues, and even though the suspect pool is a little shallow the plot is still well-executed. Add to all this is the great animation on display and the stellar voice work by all concerned, you have Scooby-Doo entry well worth a visit…at least once a year.

Earthquake (1974) – Review

Back in 1970 Universal Pictures released their star-studded disaster film Airport, a film based on Arthur Hailey’s popular novel that arguably kicked off the 70s disaster boom by pulling in $100 million dollars, then in 1972 good ole 20th Century Fox released their disaster epic The Poseidon Adventure which amped the carnage up and earned Fox a whopping $40 million dollars at the box office, so in response to this Universal rushed their next disaster film into production, Earthquake.  To illustrate how much better at spectacle their film was to Universal Studios developed an audio system called Sensurround which would give audiences the feeling that they were actually experiencing a genuine tectonic disaster.  Earthquake was released just ahead of 20th Century Fox’s follow up disaster flick The Towering Inferno so by 1974 the disaster movie battle had officially gone into full swing.

With the release of Earthquake, Universal Pictures had cemented the disaster formula that they’d created with their film Airport, where moviegoers would be introduced to a variety of characters who eventually find themselves suffering at the hands of whatever particular disaster is on the menu. So going forward the studios would pick a particular disaster and then fill the cast with actors ranging from big-name movie stars to ones mostly known for small-screen work - which would all go towards making these films feel a little like big-budgeted soap operas – and then we'd watch these characters fumble around until it was time to roll the end credits. A key reason for this, of course, is in the padding of the run time, as the special effects required to pull off buildings collapsing and dams bursting are quite expensive while scenes of characters arguing about infidelity are relatively cheap.  There is no bigger example of this dichotomy than in the film Earthquake whereof the two hour plus run time there is about ten minutes of actual earth quaking.

 

This kind of shot ain't cheap to produce.

Our main cast of players includes building engineer Stewart Graff (Charlton Heston) who strongly believes that buildings in Los Angeles should be constructed above code if they are to survive potential earthquakes, then we have his shrewish wife Remy (Ava Gardner) who fakes a suicide to get her husband’s attention because she believes he is having an affair which he is having with aspiring actress Denise Marshall (Geneviève Bujold) who has a young boy of her own whose sole purpose is to be endangered by the upcoming earthquake. Next, we have Graff’s father-in-law Sam Royce (Lorne Greene), who is also Graff’s boss. and he will be pressured by Remy to offer Graff a promotion so as to hopefully stop the affair with Denise. Then we have motorbike stunt rider Miles Quade (Richard Roundtree) who wants to be the next Evel Knievel, sadly the earthquake puts the kibosh on his latest stunt by ruining his equipment.   Next, we have Rosa Amici (Victoria Principal) who is the sister of Miles’ business partner Sal Amici (Gabriel Dell), and her whole deal is that she is very attractive and is being stalked by a psycho National Guardsman named Jody Joad (Marjoe Gortner). Finally, we have George Kennedy who has become a disaster staple with his appearances in the Airport films, but in this movie, he plays veteran police officer Lou Slade, a disillusioned city cop who gets suspended for wrecking a celebrities hedge while chasing a hit and run driver.

 

“I’m too old for this shit.”

Some of these characters will cross paths during the course of the film, with disgruntled Slade teaming up with Graff and saving Rosa from Jodi, then Miles and Sal will rescue Denise and her son from a flooding spillway and delivering them Dr. Vance (Lloyd Nolan) at the aid station, which had been set up in the lower parking garage of the Wilson Plaza shopping center – don’t ask me why you would set up a triage center in the lower levels of a high rise after the city has already been devastated by an earthquake once and aftershocks are more than likely to occur – which will of course eventually suffer a cave in and result in Slade and Graff having to dig their way in to rescue Denise and Remy, who is also there because her father suffered a heart attack during the initial quake.

 

This film contains spectacular matte work.

Earthquake is also peppered with a random collection supporting characters, such as young geologist Walter Russell (Kip Niven) whose theory calculates that a major earthquake is imminent – as this is a standard disaster movie he will, of course, be ignored – and up at Mulholland Dam, we repeatedly cut to one of the dam’s security men (Scott Hylands) constantly arguing with his boss over the integrity of the dam and whether or not it is going to break, which it does because you can’t have a movie about a massive earthquake without also throwing in some sort of flood as well.

 

I’m bet including a flood is top disaster movie rule.

Directed by Mark Robson Earthquake has everything fans of the genre could ask for; we get widespread death and destruction, heroes to root for and villains to jeer at, all supported by some of the best stuntmen in the business – the most ever assembled for one project at that time – and the work by legendary matte artists Albert Whitlock as well as some of the best miniature work ever put to film all went towards making this particular disaster film a case of the sum being better than its individual parts. Not to mention the fact that the film also has an amazing score by the great John Williams. Now, modern audiences may find the soap opera elements of Earthquake to be rather cheesy, or even boring at times, but as the film is only a modest two hours in length it’s an element that is easily forgiven and when the action hits and the city shakes it’s really an impressive showstopper.

 

Humanity will endeavour to survive.

I saw Earthquake during its original release and eight-year-old me was blown away by what unfolded on screen – especially helped by the Sensurround element which had the theatre vibrating to beat the band – and though modern films like San Andreas may have more fantastic displays of wholesale destruction, with CGI allowing filmmakers to depict anything their little heart's desire, there is something to be said for the practical effects used in these films and is most likely the key reason that disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno and Earthquake have stood the test of time.

Earthquake’s Disaster Pedigree:

• Charlton Heston starred in Airport 1975.
• George Kennedy appears in all the Airport films.
• Lloyd Nolan was in the original Airport.
• Kip Niven was in The Hindenburg as well as Airport 1975.
Note: Disaster stock footage from Earthquake has popped up in several movie and television productions over the years, such as Damnation Alley where some of Earthquake's flood sequences was used to depict the earth shifting on its axis, but most notably in Galactica 1980 where footage from Earthquake was used in a simulation of a Cylon attack on Los Angeles, which, funnily enough, also starred Lorne Greene.

You can't trust those pesky Cylons.

Big Top Scooby-Doo! (2012) – Review

Finding the Scooby gang mixed up with circus shenanigans was almost to be expected at this point; I doubt Mystery Incorporated could drive within a mile of a big top without being drawn into some sort of monstrous mystery, and with Big Top Scooby-Doo!, we not only get clowns and trapeze artists for our heroes to mess with, but one of horror’s most popular monsters: the werewolf.

On another vacation (in what seems like a never-ending series of vacations), the Scooby gang are off to the Atlantic City, “The World’s Playground,” but before they can enjoy any of the city’s numerous attractions, their vacation is sidetracked by Fred's obsession with the circus, and one must find it a little strange that over time, the character of Fred Jones (Frank Welker) has moved from the stalwart leader of the group to the bumbling comic relief with a collection of bizarre obsessions. He is still a key figure when it comes to the capture of the villains, but now his ability to trap is treated as an “obsession,” and with Big Top Scooby-Doo!, we find out that he also has a strange fixation on circuses, “You know, I took that circus arts class last summer, I think I could have mastered the trapeze if I hadn’t broken all those bones.” Later, it is revealed that the broken bones he was referring to were not his own, but all those around him.

 

I wonder if his “Circus Camp” was during Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma’s 13 Ghosts adventures.

The gang soon learn that The Brancusi Circus has been having a little werewolf trouble, which is not helped by owner Marius Brancusi (Greg Ellis) trying to ward off the werewolf with a string of garlic cloves — apparently, he wasn't up on his monster lore — and it turns out that the werewolf has been shadowing the circus for a few months now, and in each town they’ve visited, the creature has stolen jewelry. Velma (Mindy Cohn) is quick to point out that this incident is similar to a case during the 18th century in the town of Ingolstadt, where a werewolf named Hans collected a combination of jewels which enabled him to change into a werewolf at any time, not to mention the ability to turn many of his neighbours into werewolves as well. Could a descendant of this notorious werewolf be trying to recreate the lycanthropic army of his ancestor? Or could this be the original Hans, an immortal creature picking up his plans centuries later?

 

Sadly, neither of these possible scenarios is the case.

The monster backstory to this particular mystery is your basic red herring, as it has very little to do with the actual mystery on hand, and when the suspects are trotted out, it’s quite clear who is the mastermind behind these robberies. And what suspects do we have on hand today? First, there is Marius Brancusi himself, whose circus starts getting some good press when the werewolves attack during one of the shows, thus increasing his box office receipts. Then there is Whitney Doubleday (Craig Ferguson), the animal trainer who is losing his job because in Marius’s bid to modernize his circus, he is shutting down the animal acts. After that, we have the insanely jealous trapeze artist Oliverio (Carlos Ferro), and though his acrobatic skills could pull off the werewolf robberies, his covetous nature seems to only extend to his gorgeous partner, so him being a jewel thief seems a little unlikely. We also are introduced to the circus’s reluctant clown Schmatko (Jeff Dunham) who considers himself to be a classically trained actor, and he finds clowning to beneath him. Finally, we have Wulfric von Rydingsvard (Peter Stormare), the lead singer of a thrash-metal band who not only claims to be a werewolf, but whose band has also performed in every city that the circus has appeared in as well.

 

Could this be a grown-up Eddie Munster?

So, who is the one behind these robberies? When Velma finds a book about the Ingolstadt werewolves in his Marius’s office, it seems likely that he must be the guilty party, though he claims to have been framed and it even turns out that he actually was being framed. Surprising no one, the man behind the werewolf attacks turns out to be Whitney Doubleday, who disguised his trained baboons as the transformed victims of werewolf bites, but to make the mystery a little less lame, we also get a later reveal that the circus strongman Archambault (Maurice LaMarche) was in on it as well, and that he was the one to place the incriminating book in Marius’s office. A nice touch here is that when Doubleday was exposed, he quickly tranqed the “werewolf” so that he could throw his partner under the bus and later escape with the box office receipts.

 Not very Hitchcockian twist, but still a good addition to your standard Scooby-Doo mystery.

Stray Observations:

• We have a mystery centering on a werewolf, but the film never bothers to reference, even jokingly, that Shaggy was one in The Reluctant Werewolf. A missed opportunity to be sure.
• At one point, Shaggy comments, “Sweden's just a made-up place, like fairyland or Australia. I bet you think kangaroos are real, too.” This ignores the fact that Shaggy and the gang visited Australia in Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire.
• The legend of the Ingolstadt werewolf stated that Hans needed a specific combination of jewels, and why Archambault and Doubleday would restrict their pilfering to just the five specific jewels is never explained.
• The werewolves as depicted are clearly way too large to be baboons in werewolf costumes.
• The Scooby gang go undercover as circus performers to suss out the werewolf mystery, and it’s lucky for us that the group all seem to have some circus ability… well, everyone except poor Velma.
• Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) becomes a star as the new animal trainer, with Scooby-Doo being his amazingly well-trained circus dog, but Shaggy takes all the credit and acts like a jerk to poor Scooby. I found this very out of character and the whole subplot to be rather terrible.
• Velma is offered several circus occupations; knife thrower, sword swallower, fire eater, and finally settles on Human Comet; but the strange thing here is, during this discussion, she is wearing the Human Comet costume.
• As in many of these later direct-to-video movies, Daphne (Grey Griffin) gets to be a bit of a badass here, and in this movie it's revealed that she’s a motorcycle daredevil. Unfortunately, the film also can’t help but undercut this by having her perform as a clown as well.

 

To be fair, she does make a rather cute clown.

Overall, Big Top Scooby-Doo! was a decent entry in the direct-to-video series, even though the mystery itself was rather on the thin side, it did at least have solid motivations for the characters and fun executions as well. The guest voice cast was also great, including the likes of Peter Stormare, Craig Ferguson, and Jeff Dunham, but what worked the best here, was the comedy as it had me openly smiling many times. The banter between the Scooby gang members was in top form; I even kind of enjoyed Fred’s bizarre circus obsession, and one of my favourite moments was a nice exchange between Velma and Daphne concerning their vacation trip to Atlantic City. When Shaggy and Scooby point out that most of their vacations result in monster encounters, we get this nice exchange:

Velma: “Calm down guys, Atlantic City is the fun capital of the world, nothing bad ever happens here.”
Daphne: “Well, gangland shootouts.”
Velma: “Yeah, okay, obviously gangland shootouts.”

It’s that kind of comedy that can really catch a viewer off guard and is what makes for some of the best moments in Scooby-Doo; fun action shenanigans for the kiddies and little mature humour thrown in for older viewers. Big Top Scooby-Doo! may not be in the league of Zombie Island and Camp Scare, but it still stands as one of the better installments in the animated movie series.

Note: The canon accidentally launching Velma’s Human Comet costume, leaving her decidedly naked, reinforced my love for Velma Dinkley.

Jonny Quest (1964-1965) – Review

When one thinks of cartoons from the 60s titles like The Flintstones, Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo quickly come to mind but the show that had me riveted to my television set was the amazing Jonny Quest, an action series with a kid hero. Created by the legendary duo of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera Jonny Quest was a science fiction/adventure series that pitted a young protagonist and his family against various threats - of both natural and unnatural in nature - but what made this particular show stand out was the level of realism in the animation and incredible dangers that faced our heroes each and every week. In the annals of television animation there has been no show quite like it.

Before Jonny Quest Hanna-Barbera Productions was mostly known for such shows as The Flintstones and The Jetsons, with their goofy stylized character designs and wacky comedy hijinks, but with Jonny Quest William Hanna and Joseph Barbera tapped comic book artist Douglas S. Wildey to give them a show grounded with a naturalistic look to the characters – no giant feet or oversized heads – and Wildey’s heavy ink style was a direct reference to such popular adventure comic strips as Steve Canyon and The Phantom which gave the show a bold and distinctive look, making Jonny Quest one of the best looking animated shows ever to be broadcast.

Inspired by radio serials – and originally going to be an adaptation of the radio show Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy before decided an original character would offer them more freedom – Jonny Quest deals with the amazing adventures of eleven-year-old Jonny Quest (Tim Matheson) whose dad, the world-renowned scientist Benton Quest (John Stephenson), takes him on various missions that span the globe. Along with bodyguard and tutor Roger T. "Race" Bannon (Mike Road) and adoptive brother Hadji (Danny Bravo) the “Quest Family” faced countless dangers, from monsters to international spies and terrorists, in their never-ending quest to make the world a better place, which leads us to the big question, “Did Benton Quest understand the meaning of child endangerment?”

 

“How I Spent My Summer Vacation” essays should not include armed yeti.

In the show’s twenty-six episode run Dr. Quest and company tackled international thieves, saboteurs, and monsters running amok – even bloody dinosaurs – all without thinking twice about the danger their two kids would be facing. In the first episode aired “The Mystery of the Lizard Men” the government contacts Benton Quest after numerous ships have been lost while passing through the Sargasso Sea, with some quick deducing – aided by Quest’s new computer – they come to the conclusion that some foreign power is using a high powered laser to destroy the ships. So what does the brilliant Benton Quest decided to do? Why he piles everyone into a boat to cruise around the Sargasso Sea looking for the culprit. Race Bannon had been assigned by the government as a bodyguard/tutor for young Jonny – this after Dr. Quest’s wife died under mysterious circumstances and the government became concerned that if Jonny was ever kidnapped Quest’s work would be compromised – but Race fails to point out that even the best bodyguard isn’t much use against a laser that explodes boats. Sure, Race not only tutors Jonny in such subjects as English and math he also gives Judo lessons, but on these outings, Jonny’s odds of surviving should be minimal at best.

 

Enemy frogmen and almost certain death, now that’s a teaching moment.

One of the more surprising elements of Jonny Quest is the death toll, sure Jonny and company escape all of their missions rather unscathed but not so much the villains, and what makes this unusual is that violence on children’s programming at the time was heavily monitored by Broadcast Standards and Practices – this being the same group that would later prevent Batman and Robin from throwing a punch on Superfriends – yet the level of violence on Jonny Quest was simply staggering. Not only do we see Race Bannon choking out henchmen or gunning down numerous assailants we also get young Jonny and Hadji getting in on the action when it comes to dishing out lethal justice.

 

Two hardened killers.

Could the show’s short run have been due to parent outrage? That wouldn’t have surprised me as I could see silly parent’s groups getting all hot and bothered with how intense and scary Jonny Quest got. This was, of course, why as a kid my love of the show was unbridled.  The action found in each and every episode of Jonny Quest was like nothing I’d seen before, basically James Bond for children and the wish-fulfillment element of Jonny Quest was clearly the key for the show’s popularity as dreaming of going on such adventures was pure catnip for ten-year-old boys.

 

Race Bannon, coolest babysitter ever.

And just what kind of antagonists could be found tangling with the Quest family? More often than not Benton Quest would be sent to investigate “strange goings-on” at some far off local, which would soon be revealed to be the workings of terrorists, international spies or the machinations of the show’s Blofeld type villain Dr. Zin (Vic Perrin) – a villain who falls into the “yellow peril” trope alongside the likes of Iron Man’s The Mandarin and Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon – but once in a while the show would throw viewers for a loop by including actual monsters and supernatural threats. Even in episodes like “The Mystery of the Monastery” where a band of terrorists were using Yeti disguises in an attempt to overthrow the local spiritual/government leader, at the end, it’s revealed that there was an actual abominable snowman lurking about and that it had killed all the terrorists.
Easily one of the scariest encounters would be “The Invisible Monster” a creature straight out of 50s science fiction movies, an energy eating monster that devoured everything in its path, and then we have an ancient mummy wreaking vengeance against tomb raiders in “The Curse of Anubis” an episode that could easily give one nightmares.

 

I’d like to see the Scooby gang face off against this mummy.

As amazing and appealing as this adventure show Jonny Quest was it was also clearly a product of its time, as the Quest family tended to travel to far-off exotic places and then punch the locals in the face. As mentioned the show did have the “yellow peril” threat yet it got even dodgier than that when it came to racism, in the episode “Pursuit of the Po-Ho” Race Bannon warns the natives that he will be returning, calling them "ignorant savages" and "heathen monkeys.” This is something I doubt registered at all to children viewing this show back in the 60s but watching it now those moments are a little cringe-inducing. That aside this show does hold up remarkably well – even if some of the “science” is a bit dodgy – and it’s the blend of science fiction and fantasy that makes this series so endearing.

 

General Fong from "The Quetong Missile Mystery" is your typical Quest villain.

Stray Observations:

• Doctor Benton Quest was a typical movie scientist, he was well versed in practically every field from geology to archeology to particle physics and had the ability to design and build numerous mechanical wonders.
• Hadji was a street orphan from India whose slight-of-hand tricks got them out of several jams, but some of his “magic” was clearly real, such as his ability to levitate friends and enemies alike.
• Jonny's pet bulldog Bandit could be considered the model for every cartoon dog to come out since the airing of Jonny Quest.
• The episode “Double Danger” introduced us to the femme fatal Jade (Cathy Lewis) a mysterious woman with an obvious history with Race Bannon. That she only appeared in two episodes was a shame as she was vastly interesting more interesting than the likes of Dr. Zin, especially to a young boy.
• In the episode “Turu the Terrible” a Pteranodon is able to withstand multiple hits from Race Bannon’s bazooka. Finding a living dinosaur is one thing but its apparent invulnerability is another.
• We get some nice kaiju action in the episode “Terror Island” when a mad scientist's sloppy handling of growth bacteria resulted in giant animals running amok.

 

“Up from the deep, forty fathoms high, breathing fire, it’s Godzilla, Godzilla!”

The adventures of Jonny Quest was short-lived – though a couple of revivals were attempted in the 80s and 90s – and was quickly overshadowed by Hanna-Barbera’s Scooby-Doo, Where Are You, but for me it will always remain one of the best animated shows of all time and without it we probably wouldn’t have had such successful shows like Batman: The Animated Series not to mention the excellent send-up of the genre The Venture Bros. So if you can forgive the shows dated and unflattering portrayal of foreign nationals you will most likely get a real kick out of Jonny Quest.

 

I’m still waiting for science to get around to providing me with a jetpack.