Scooby Doo, the classic cartoon franchise, has been under fire for quite a bit now ever since its period of "nostalgia goggles" ran out, and people started picking it apart more critically than they did back in the 70s. The complaints people have are the typical stuff: "The characters are all stereotypes," or "the plot is cliche'd, uninspired and formulaic," or even "it was designed from the ground up to pander to the basest, most asinine trends of the late 60s with no creative rhyme or reason to set itself apart from the glut of imitators."

These criticisms are rather harsh, but are they true?

In a word: Yes. They are. All of them. Completely. Without fail.

The original Scooby series only ran for 34 episodes, but since network executives refused to let it die, it saw no less than seven reboots between then and '91, which ranged from crappy, to super crappy, to Scrappy. It also got two feature films, and more straight-to-DVD movies than I'd bother to count.

2002 then saw the release of the franchise's first "fresh" reboot in the form of What's New, Scooby Doo. This, apart from the spot-on casting of Grey DeLisle as Daphne, Mindy Cohn as Velma, and Frank Welker as Fred, was no better than any of the other throwaway reboots, and serves only as an example of what happens when a show with an idiotic premise takes itself far too seriously.

The show found itself in a Sisyphean cycle of endless faceplants as it tried to make mind-controlled wildlife sound scientifically plausible, made legal arguments for why almost killing people on broken rollercoasters was "technically legal," and conjured up the idea of a walking-talking computer virus birthed from a laser who is inexplicably obsessed with baseball...

I don't even...

But, as the title states, this blog post is meant to be a defense of Scooby Doo, or more specifically, the Scooby reboot #10 known only as Mystery Incorporated.

Perhaps the best way to explain it is to put it in terms we are all already familiar with.

Yes, like Generation 4 before it, Mystery Incorporated is a complete revision of everything that came before it. Except while Lauren Faust was comfortable with steering FiM its own way after taking the piss out of previous gens in the pilot episode, Mystery Inc. prefers to beat the old shows to death... and then keep beating... and keep beating... and never stop beating.

It takes apart everything that it possibly can, and then it breaks them into tiny, bite-sized pieces and stomps on them for good measure. It's a dark, gritty reboot in the best possible way. It deconstructs the absurdities we've all grown to just accept from the franchise, in ways that work on both a dramatic and satirical level. It knows when it can take itself seriously, and when it needs to laugh at itself. It maintains a steady continuity and an excellent conspiracy story with three-dimensional, constantly growing characters.

Hell, even the sci-fi elements, though no lighter than in What's New, are made to be far more believable and greatly enhance the storyline, rather than slapping circuitboards and wires on things the writers couldn't bother explaining rationally.

AND the animation is fucking incredible. Mystery Inc. completely ditches the updated 60s style used in previous reboots, and crafts its own gloomy, eclectic tone to replace it.

AAAAAAAND, what's the one thing they did keep from the older show? DeLisle, Welker and Cohn. The only three actors who seemed to have any place in their roles. They even recasted Shaggy with the guy who played him in the live action movie.

They fixed every mistake from the originals, and then some. But for some reason, this show still flew completely under the radar during its run. Cartoon Network cursed it with the worst possible timeslots and aired reruns out of order, the only award show to take note of its existence was the Kids' Choice Awards (blech), the only place where any sort of teensy-tiny fandom exists is on TVTropes, and even Netflix only got hold of it very recently.

So I implore you, dear readers, show this underappreciated gem some love. Even if you don't hate the older Scooby Doo like I do, it's still worth watching for the fresh and original perspective it provides on established tropes.

Who knows? You might even enjoy it. Your presence on this website indicates you're already a fan of one reconstructed franchise reboot, are you not?