Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated

[UrbanStruggle]

Not to be confused with Scooby-Doo Mystery, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Mayhem, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Adventures, or Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins. Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (also known as Mystery Incorporated or Scooby-Doo! Mystery Inc.) is the eleventh incarnation of Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo animated series, and the first incarnation not to be first-run on Saturday mornings. The series is produced by Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network and premiered the United States on Cartoon Network on April 5, 2010, with the next twelve episodes continuing, and the first episode re-airing, on July 12, 2010. The series concluded on April 5, 2013 with two seasons and fifty-two episodes, with a total of twenty-six episodes per season. Mystery Incorporated returns to the early days of Scooby and the gang, when they are still solving mysteries in their home town, though it makes many references to previous incarnations of the franchise, not least among them many cases and creatures from the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. Episode by episode, the series takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to the classic Scooby-Doo formula (similar to A Pup Named Scooby-Doo and Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue!), with increasingly outlandish technology, skills and scenarios making up each villain's story, and a different spin on the famous "meddling kids" quote at the end of every episode. Contrasting sharply with this, however, are two elements that have never been used in a Scooby-Doo series before: a serial format with an ongoing story arc featuring many dark plot elements that are treated with near-total seriousness, and ongoing relationship drama between the characters. Several episodes serve as parodies of famous horror films from classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street to modern works such as Saw, and other Hanna-Barbera characters occasionally guest-star including Captain Caveman, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, The Funky Phantom, Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, and more. As was the case with the previous three installments in the franchise, Mystery Incorporated redesigns the main characters, this time into a retro look that returns them to their original 1969 outfits, with some small changes (such as Velma now wearing bows in her hair). The series is also the animated debut of Matthew Lillard as the voice of Shaggy, after he portrayed the character in two live-action films, Scooby-Doo (2002) and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004). Casey Kasem, the original voice of Shaggy, now voices Shaggy's father. In season 1Fred Jones, Jr., Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, and Scooby-Doo are a team of teen mystery solvers who live in the small town of Crystal Cove, the self-proclaimed "Most Hauntedest Place on Earth". The town's long history of strange disappearances and ghost and monster sightings form the basis for its thriving tourist industry. As such, the adults of the town (chief among them being Fred's father Mayor Fred Jones Sr. and Sheriff Bronson Stone) are not happy that the kids are debunking all the supernatural goings-on that bring in so much revenue as the overwrought schemes of charlatans and criminals. In addition to the traditional cases they always solve, the team finds itself being nudged into the uncovering of a dark secret that is hidden in the past of Crystal Cove, covered up by parties unknown. Following cryptic hints from a faceless mystery-man known only as "Mr. E." (a play on "mystery"), the gang unearths the legend of a cursed Conquistador treasure, the secret history of Crystal Cove's founding Darrow Family, and the mysterious, unsolved disappearance of four mystery-solving youths and their pet bird—the original Mystery Incorporated. Standing in the way of their solving this mystery, however, are the romantic entanglements pulling the kids apart: Shaggy finds himself unable to put his new romance with Velma ahead of his longtime friendship with Scooby, while Daphne pines for a trap-obsessed Fred, who obliviously struggles to realize he shares her feelings, too. In season 2 the return of the original Mystery Incorporated to Crystal Cove begins a race between the two groups to be the first to locate the pieces of the legendary Planispheric Disk, which will point the way to the cursed treasure the conquistadors buried beneath the town centuries ago. But greater mysteries begin to emerge as the existence of many mystery-solving groups in the past of Crystal Cove comes to light and unearthly forces repeatedly intone the word "Nibiru." The plot thickens further when a strange female being tells Scooby-Doo about the Annunaki arriving on Earth and that among the treasure buried beneath Crystal Cove, there is an evil Annunaki imprisoned in a crystal sarcophagus which must be destroyed in order to save the world.

 

Tell me what you think of this T.V. show and how it stacks compared to the other ten incarnation of Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo animated series.