The Night the Mystery Machine Died

I spent most of the day at work. It was cloudy, windy, a little humid, and unusually cool for this time of year, barely in the lower 70s. We were on-and-off steady until rush hour, after which things picked up considerably. My relief was a little late; not a good thing, since I needed to pick up cereal on the way out. I just bought more Acme generic Multi-Grain O's.

When I got home, I made salmon for dinner with the Chinese beans with cracked pepper from the other night while watching the newest Scooby Doo movie, Franken Creepy. After a routine podcast on Daphne's modeling and their mystery-solving adventures, the Mystery Incorporated gang walk out to the Mystery Machine...only to see it blown into a thousand bits, horrifying car-loving Fred. Velma has received a call from a family lawyer that she's inherited the Von Dinklestein family holdings, including the family curse. Seems her uncle tried to make a monster from various animal parts, but failed and went mad. The townspeople haven't forgotten...and neither have the town mayor or the castle's servants, who don't seem too welcoming. When Velma starts acting like a mad scientist and Shaggy and Scooby aren't hungry, even Fred stops mourning the Mystery Machine long enough to realize something's really strange here...and it's personal.

The generally comic Scooby Doo movies cross into dark Mystery Incorporated territory for this rather odd entry. If you were paying attention to Daphne's podcast in the opening sequences, you'll know who the villains are from the very beginning, and why they're attacking the kids. It's just a matter of seeing how the kids figure it out...and how they react to villains who are after them, not just land or money. Some of it is pretty funny, including Shaggy and Scooby actually being brave; there's a few rather touching moments as well. A little too creepy for younger Scooby fans, but grade school-aged kids onwards, especially those who have seen other incarnations of this show, may have fun with this one.

(Incidentally, I skipped the spring Scooby movie entry, which was an animated crossover with WWE wrestlers. No amount of Scooby Doo will make me interested in wrestling.)