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Be Cool, Scooby-Doo Series

Scooby-Doo was always meant to have an element of comedy, but this Scooby-Doo series has more humor than most, particularly poking fun at the general tropes of the Scooby-Doo series itself. Some of the main characters in the series were also changed slightly for this series, sometimes for comedy purposes. For example, Scooby and Shaggy are only bribed with Scooby Snacks during one particular episode in the first season of the show (which pokes fun at the whole trope of bribing them with snacks), Velma is repeatedly declared to have a fear of water which was not mentioned in other series (she also has a fear of clowns, which is a carry-over from What's New, Scooby-Doo?), and Fred supposedly has a fear of "widths" (which started in the first episode as a joke because he is not afraid of heights, only widths).

Of all of the characters, Daphne changed the most for this series. She is still somewhat "danger-prone" (she is physically clumsy and accident-prone), but unlike previous series, where her main interests are often fashion and popular culture, Daphne appears to be going through a finding herself phase, adopting new and strange hobbies in each episode of this series, just to try them. It becomes a running gag throughout the series that Daphne is sure to be doing something strange just because she wants to try a bizarre new hobby or experiment with her personal identity. Among the hobbies she tries are puppetry, falconry, stand-up comedy, and aviation. Sometimes, she also revisits things that she either misses from childhood or never got to try as a child, like slumber parties, winning scouting badges, and throwing herself a suprise birthday party. In the Christmas episode of the series, Daphne explains that her birthday is on Christmas, so she never had a real birthday party as a child. Personally, I really liked the changes in Daphne's character. As in other series, Daphne is from a wealthy family, and her family's wealth is sometimes used for jokes or as a plot point, enabling the kids to go to fancy parties or a castle that Daphne's family owns or do other things that would be difficult to explain otherwise. In past series, Daphne's obsession with clothes and makeup was seen as a natural part of being rich (or possibly the reasoning went the other way around). However, I found Daphne's finding herself phase and trying new and unusual hobbies in this series much more likeable and relatable than an interest in fashion. A small detail that helps to illustrate the change is that Daphne is no longer wearing heeled shoes in this series, trading them for a pair of pink tennis shoes that look like they would be much more practial and comfortable for mystery-solving and chase scenes. Another quality that Daphne has in this series is that she knows her friends very well and is good at encouraging them when they're discourage with the way that the mystery they're solving is going and at helping her friends to resolve personal conflicts and arguments, often pointing out to them what's really important about a situation and how they really feel.

Another thing that is notable about this series is that many of the episodes are reworkings of ones from earlier series. Sometimes, they are variations on themes that are common throughout the Scooby-Doo franchise, but they are also often direct reworkings of earlier villains and situations. For example, Elias Kingston, who was a ghost haunting an old, abandoned mansion in the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! series, was rewritten as the ghost of the founder of a university Velma is considering attending in the first episode of this series.

A few of the episodes in this series also have jokes about deeper social issues. For instance, the first episode, where Velma is trying to get accepted to a prestigious college, Kingston University, pokes fun at the standards that real prestigious colleges and universities use when selecting students. The characters are frequently told that only students who are "Kingston material" will be accepted, but even though Velma asks what "Kingston material" means, the question is always dodged and even the statue of Elias Kingston in front of the school has a plaque that says that if you have to ask what "Kingston material" means, you're not "Kingston material." From the way that episodes in the series portray it, being "Kingston material" seems to be some combination of academic aptitude, personal wealth, family status, and the whims of the university president (who likes to set special challenges to test incoming students that he makes up himself), any of which could be a substitute for the other qualities.

In another episode, Velma has to run for mayor of a town in order to catch a ghost who is targeting candidates. Her campaign pokes fun at the way that elections are run and what people look for in a political candidate.

Besides being about personal jealousy, the episode that takes place in Japan also illustrates the fickleness of fashion and popularity. Daphne gets to set a popular fashion not by being good particularly at fashion but by wearing her jacket backwards and messing up the way she ties a kimono. ("I guess wrong is the new right.") Then, before the episode is over, she changes the fashion again by doing something different because, ultimately, fads are a strange mix of novelty and people copying other people.

In "Silver Scream", the owner of a movie studio talks about putting more stuff into his movies that young people want. The gang suggests health, hope, a secure future, education, environmental solutions, and love, but the studio owner is thinking of quadcopters. Most of the movies that the studio produces are remakes or sequels to old stuff, and newer things that they make are cheesy, embarrassing failures with dumbed-down humor.

"Silver Scream" is also interesting for its references to old silent movies. The silent movie actor who is supposedly haunting the studio, Archie Barnes, is patterned after real-life silent movie actor Buster Keaton. Arche's jokes and stunts were based on Buster Keaton's. This YouTube video, Buster Keaton - The Art of the Gag shows examples of Buster Keaton's stunts and explains more about how he did them.

Overall, I thought that this series was very funny, but it is not one of the longer-running Scooby-Doo series, partly because many fans didn't care for the animation style of the series, which somewhat resembles the animation style of Family Guy, which is a very different type of show. Many of the fans complained about the animation style, which is ironic because, in one of the episodes of the series, the characters see themselves as their original character designs in a fun house mirror, and they say that it's frightening.

Table of Episodes

This table has descriptions of the episodes in the series. The table is set up so that you can choose which episodes display, limiting the episodes displayed to those with a certain kind of creature in them.

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