What's New, Scooby-Doo? (2002)

I normally only review comically absurd or low budget things, but this time I've made an exception, because What's New, Scooby-Doo? is the worst thing in the entire fucking universe. I've probably said that about a lot of things before in my life, but dear Lucifer on ice, this one really is it.

Let's talk for a minute about Scooby-Doo. The first time the world saw him in his current form was in the 1969 series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, a show so awesome it doesn't even matter that the exclamation point in the title may have been misplaced. Hell, one could make an argument that this was all part of the silliness of the show, but regardless of if it was an honest mistake or an inside joke, it's excused because again, the show is awesome. What makes this show so special? Well, that's pretty simple. Let's take a look at the other Hanna Barbera shows that were on television around the same time as the release of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!:  Looney Tunes, Wacky Races (and the spinoffs, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and Dastardly and Mutley in Their Flying Machines), Top Cat, Johnny Quest, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, and The Flinstones. Other than Johnny Quest, those are all comedy shows without much depth or atmosphere to them. None of those shows really ever have any serious issues on them, or any dark tones or implications. What made Scooby-Doo so special when he first showed up on the scene was that his show was dark, it had mysteries, and most of all, it had fear. It was of course, still a comedy show - it even had the laughtracks so prevalent in cartoons at the time - but there was danger, and sometimes the images we saw were frightening and unsettling. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was dark, but not in that overstated, "I'm the god damn Batman!" way everything seems to be these days. It was a show that didn't try to be dark, because it didn't have to; it was thick with atmosphere and unsettling imagery. It was evident from the swelling of the music and the frightening monsters that this show took itself seriously, but then from the jokes and cartoon physics that it also had plenty of levity to it as well.

Of course, following the outrageous success of that program, Hanna Barbera released tons of copy-cats: Jabberjaw, Josie and the Pussycats, Goober and the Ghostchasers, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Clue Club, Speed Buggy, and the Funky Phantom. Those shows vary in terrible-ness, but they teach us something, so turn on your learnin' receptors and prepare to engage learn mode: kids aren't fucking stupid. That's right! Despite what the producers of every shitty cartoon out there seem to think, shows for kids can be dark and feature the fun of having being scared to death just like shows for adults, and they can do it without being heavy-handed or forgetting they are a silly cartoon. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! paved the way for generations of western animation, a children's comedy show which featured mysteries rife with red herrings and villains who were downright scary. It was all about creating a comedy show that everyone can enjoy, but putting it in a dark and sinister atmosphere where the audience can be thrilled (and chilled) by scary and frightening shit.

So, what happened? Well, somewhere through the 7 incarnations of Scooby-Doo that were in-between the release of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and What's New Scooby-Doo?, the darkness was lost. It's hard to say exactly where the show stopped being atmospheric or compelling on a primal level, but it's easy to say one thing: this latest series is way the fuck passed that point. This show always takes place during the daytime, the sun is always shining... it's just too god damn bright. Hell, even the Zombie Island movie got this part better than What's New Scooby-Doo?, at least that movie created a scary and dark setting for Scooby and the gang to solve the mystery in, with macabre imagery recurring heavily.

The most basic element of what made Scooby-Doo scary was the atmosphere, but the thing that really helped push it over the top was the villains. Scooby-Doo has always been a comedy series, but when the bad guys showed up, shit got real for a minute. Do you remember how you felt the first time you saw this?

 if this is the first time you have seen this fuck you

Your whole world was turned upside down. "Woah! That wasn't like other cartoons at all, that just scared me! That was exciting!" These monsters had a whole fucking feel to them, they had some character and dammit, they looked evil. You had the Space Kook, that evil clown that hypnotized you, the Creeper, the Witch and her Zombie, the Black Knight, pirate ghosts, the Witch Doctor, Miner 49er, those terrible chained phantoms, a crazed robot, and an evil Yeti monster with evil-looking horns. In the new series, you have two episodes about a snow creature, and the first one sort of looks evil but the second one is just basically that stupid Jack Frost movie monster. There's a ton of episodes about boring normal ghosts with no cool gimmicks like the Miner or the pirate ghosts. Worst of all, there's episodes with no monsters at all, including one about the Mystery Machine getting possessed, one about a mysterious disease spreading in animals at the safari, and one about Shaggy growing into a giant (I shit you not).

I know at some point in this wall of text you're expecting me to disparage the theme song for the new series by pop-rock band Simple Plan. This music simply isn't my taste, but that doesn't mean it's bad (I imagine it's Simple Plan's best song); it ain't like any of the other Scooby-Doo theme songs have really been my cup of tea either. One thing that does bring to mind though is the visible degradation of the celebrity cameos. In the old series, you had guests like Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller, the Globetrotters, and fucking Batman and Robin. You know what you get in the new series?  ryan sheckler. 

So what does this all amount to? What is the crux of the argument here? What makes this new incarnation of Scooby-Doo the worst thing in the whole fucking universe? It completely lacks the atmosphere of the original show; a show that was all about atmosphere.

#1's from the Bargain Bin: Stealth Squad (1993)

I've always been fascinated by comics and sequential art, but until recently, never took the time to get into it. It's been one of those things I've looked at for a long time as something I might enjoy, yet I just never got around to really fleshing out the interest. Now, at the ripe old age of 18, I've finally managed to buy a handful of comics, all discounted. Predictably, my love for the absurd, the obscure, and the surreal has carried over. While I was shopping for comics I bought about 15 #1 issues for strange and unheard of heroes, most of them published by comic book companies which are also strange and unheard of. For the benefit of mankind and to get my jollies, I've decided to review them, and the first comic in the stack is Stealth Squad.

Stealth Squad tells the story of "A TIME OF GREAT DARKNESS IN AMERICA" where everyone is dying from a horrible blood disease. Apparently, one man found a cure for the disease called "ENERGIZED BLOOD." Everyone was cured, and a few people got super powers. The government assembled them together to form a super secret "ELITE STRIKEFORCE" known as the Stealth Squad. At least, that's what the first page says. Look, I'm gonna be honest with you, I haven't read very many comic books, but I have read enough books to know that the exposition to this comic is clumsy and haphazard. We're told as an audience that "energized blood" saved the human race from a horrible disease... and that's it. We're told nothing else about the "energized blood" in the whole comic, despite the fact that according to the 1st page it has everything to do with why there are super heroes (and why the human race didn't go extinct). It doesn't tell you what it is, how it's made, or anything like that. Now that I think about it, it doesn't even give a name to the god damn disease that got cured. Also... there... are.. so... many... ellipses. The first page contains five two-to-three sentence paragraphs, each one containing ellipses, the last one containing four.

The comic begins at a warehouse in Colorado Springs, which an omniscient narrator tells us in the first panel is a secret government armory that houses experimental "SUPERWEAPONS." There are US Army men patrolling the perimeter of the building, all dressed in desert camouflage to blend in with the harsh environment of Colorado Springs.

Suddenly the warehouse is attacked by a group of metal-armored high-tech Master Chiefs, who call themselves "STRIKEFORCE CHAMPION."


I know that sounds completely stupid, and to a lot of people I know things like this represent what helped create the notorious Dark Age; I know that to many people this kind of heavy-handed and overstated "this book is super extreme!!!" thing is the absolute epitome of bad writing in comic books. I promise though, "Stealth Squad," as innocent as it seems a name in theory, it turns out to be much, much more stupid than Strikeforce Champion in practice; I'll touch on that a bit more at the end of the comic.

Strikeforce Champion breaks into the warehouse, and using some kind of small metal balls that they throw at people when they forget they have guns, takes out all guards.






 Naturally Stealth Squad received word of this operation (probably from the writer of the comic) and arrives to intercept it, flying to the scene in the Blackbird from X-Men.

One of the lackeys of Stikeforce Champion remarks to his commanding officer that their unit is "an unbeatable fighting force" for no apparent reason, and somebody off panel says, "Ooh, I love a confident man!!" This incredibly clever retort is of course the note our heroes have entered on, and on the next  page we get to turn the comic on its side for a landscape spread of the titular squad.

The sinister Mr.Champion watches the events unfold from his control chamber full of monitors and high tech computer equipment. He tells the Squad Leader of Strikeforce Champion that "SANCTION RED" is authorized, and to terminate the Stealth Squad with "extreme prejudice". In the next panel, a soldier who is clearly not the same guy that was the squad leader a page ago repeats the order to his squad, and the Strikeforce, presumably just now realized they had guns again, all open fire into nowhere with all the extreme prejudice of that scene of Predator. In the action-packed fight scene that follows we are introduced to the members of the team.

Fire Flare, who can fly and shoot fire at her enemies, and... uh... she's angry?

Solar Blade, who creates weird fire blade things on her hands and cuts people with them.

Swoop, who has... super speed or something, I'm not really sure. The comic never really makes it completely clear. It does show us he also likes to throw metal balls though.

Kid Mammoth, who appears to be a child horribly mutated into a Hulk-sized powerhouse who kills and destroys without discretion or understanding, a surprisingly dark turn for the comic.

War Bird, who uh... uses mechanical wings to fly. I thought this was supposed to be people who received super powers from energized blood, and yet this person doesn't seem to have any superpowers at all.

 Finally, the leader of the team, Stealth One. Stealth One is a martial arts expert who also appears to have no super powers whatsoever, but does have an awesome costume. I admit, I actually picked this comic up out of the bargain bin because of how cool he looks.

(You may have noticed I didn't talk about their character traits or personalities, and that's because none of them have any.)





So, the team ignores the gunfire and clobbers the bad guys, escapes from the warehouse, all the while bickering like children and being extremely unlikeable. They exit to find that emergency personnel and camera teams from the local news station are outside. The team attempts to get by them without being bothered, but Stealth One is accosted by a police officer who says he knew the "blood stuff," would come to no good, presumably referring to that energized blood that gave (some of) the team super powers. Either this guy was largely unaffected by the dark age in America where a virulent blood disease ran rampant, or the writer just already forgot about that. Stealth One blows him off and heads on his way, with the rest of the team, back to the Blackbird (to return it before Professor X notices it's gone, presumably). Back at Headquarters, Stealth One (who we learn is actually named Stephen Choi, despite the fact that he does not appear to be of Asian descent) is called upon WITH A VENGEANCE by someone off panel.

as in "I ain't slept in days ya'll I'm fittin to be tied"

This super serious yelling turns out to be from General Hampton, who is infuriated that the team was captured by camera crews (as if the public now knows everything about the team when all they saw was costumed dudes leaving a warehouse). This confrontation turns out to be completely non-consequential, as Stephen Choi basically tells the General "whatever, we're public now," and the General says, "yeah, guess so bro," and on the next page, boom, press conference, and the General is explaining what the Stealth Squad is to everyone publicly, even though they probably could have easily not done that if it was so important to the General that they stay a secret. Honestly, the news cameras only filmed a bunch of costumed fucks coming out of a building and leaving, and it probably would have been relatively simple for the government to weasel out of a public admission that they had a team of super heroes, if that was really what they wanted to do.

So, Strikeforce Champion has been placed under arrest and is being transported to prison after receiving their sentences. Apparently the police figured it would be best to transport all the convicts that made up a combat team at once, together. War Bird is monitoring the situation, but suddenly a disc flies into the scene and releases gas, which causes all the officers to cough and choke violently while having no effect at all on the members of Strikeforce Champion, despite the fact that they aren't wearing any breathing apparatuses. In fact, we learn that the gas unlocks their handcuffs, which I'm sure made a lot of sense in somebody's head. War Bird carries the officers coughing to safety, and then turns to see that Strikeforce Champion has received an upgrade from the armor they had a couple days ago, and gets her ass handed to her. She's almost beaten but then BOOM FULL PAGE SPREAD OF THE STEALTH SQUAD.

Jesus, I can't even tell who's supposed to be talking in this mess. Are they all saying "STEALTH SQUAD?" Because it looks like a god damn cloud is saying it. Who is saying the other things? Would it have really been that hard to draw the speech bubbles so I can tell who is talking? And why is Kid Mammoth a demon?

So, the Squad gets into a fight which is actually pretty suspenseful and intriguing, and for a moment, as a reader, I feel myself caring what happens, and start rooting for the Stealth Squad. Against all my expectations, they get their asses kicked and all of them are captured except the unconscious Stealth One. Why? YOU COULDN'T AT LEAST CHECK? YOU COULDN'T AT LEAST CHECK IF THEIR LEADER WAS DEAD? ARE YOU IN THAT MUCH A OF A GOD DAMN HURRY THAT YOU CAN'T CHECK IF THEIR LEADER IS DEAD?

The comic closes with "Stealth One to the rescue??? Nuff said!!" and beneath that, it names a Bible verse. II Corinthians, 12: 9-10. I took the liberty of looking that up to see how it relates to all this.

"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Oh, it doesn't. Should have seen that coming.

So that's issue #1 of Stealth Squad, the biggest misnomer in the history of history. There's absolutely no reason for this team to be called Stealth Squad. They aren't stealthy, and the way they bicker like little kids, they are barely a fucking squad. On their very first mission they bust into a warehouse and then blow their way out, attracting the attention of everyone in the country, and the man who evidently organized the whole deal, General Hampton, comes out in a press conference right after and spills the beans on the whole damn thing. At the end of the comic they battle Strikeforce Champion a second time in the middle of the god damn street, while news crews capture everything. I get it, that's fine, they get to act like that, they are super heroes. I don't expect super heroes to be particularly stealthy normally, but doesn't being called Stealth Squad kind of imply your modus operandi involves some degree of stealth?

Stealth Squad is a very ambitious comic with a lot of neat ideas and concepts buried under piles of hackneyed writing and fairly bad art; there's just so much poor craftsmanship here, it reeks to high heaven. The worst part is, I really tried to like this book, just because of how cool Stealth One looks, but I just could not bring myself to do it... and... I... counted... forty-six... ellipses... in... this... twenty-five... page... comic. Rest assured, there are some treasures to be found in the bargain bin - and I will review some of those in the future - but you can pass this one up.

Hercules and the Amazon Women (1994)

As far back as I can remember, I have been interested in Greek mythology; while everyone around me always seemed to be checking out teen dramas or vampires or whatever from the school libraries we were forced to use, I always checked out nonfiction books on Greek mythology, or translations of fantastic tales like the Illiad or Jason's Golden Fleece. These stories have always filled me with awe, and there is a part of me, admittedly, that still has trouble admitting that these stories are fictional. Indeed, you could say these ancient myths have had a big impact on me. One of my favorite recurring themes in Greek Mythology is that of redemption, and in few other myths is redemption featured more heavily than in that of Hercules.

Hercules was the illegitimate child of Zeus, ruler of the Greek pantheon of gods. He was hated and cursed by Zeus's wife Hera, doomed in all his wanderings to be mired by darkness and pain. But Hercules was a man of strong constitution, and a man who valued a challenge. After being cursed by Hera and murdering his family, he was condemned a ruthless killer, but he redeemed himself through completing trials given to him by his father, Zeus. Like most of these Greek stories, the hero we follow is one with many tragic flaws, but a man of good intentions. A man of perseverance, and the will to make a change for the better; a man who believes in the concept of redemption, and is strong enough to pursue it.

I've been aware of the live action Hercules: The Legendary Journeys television series for quite some time, and when I spotted the Season 1 DVD box set on the ground in my friend's apartment, I knew I was destined to watch it. I checked the back of the box for a synopsis, and it said that the first few discs included contained five movies as part of the Hercules ACTION PACK. I looked it up on the internet, and apparently the ACTION PACK was a promotional term for a group of five made-for-television movies which actually preceded the TV series. To think, five movies about my favorite Greek hero, called the ACTION PACK. Anyone who has read my Yor, the Hunter from the Future review knows I love a good action flick with some beef cake (and boy does this movie have beef cake). So, as a fan of the concept and of the protagonist, it seemed like an obvious choice to dive right in.

I was so naive.

The first of the films is Hercules and the Amazon Women. This movie is the "action packed" account of Hercules being captured by brutal Amazonian women and over what feels like several hours, coming to terms with his feminine side and how sometimes boys cry too. I'm not going to guide you through this movie scene-by-scene making wisecracks like a written Mystery Science Theater, which is what I did with my review of Yor, the Hunter from the Future. The reason it worked for that movie adequately was that its script had events and happenings; in Hercules and the Amazon Women, there are no events, and there are no happenings. I swear on Steven Seagal's career as a policeman that if I gave you an in depth play-by-play of this movie, your brain would beat the shit out of the inside of your skull trying to escape. As a matter of fact, when I finished this movie, if it wasn't for the fact that I could feel I had sustained significant brain damage, it would have been hard to discern if I had even seen a movie at all. I'll sum up the plot of this movie in one, long paragraph, because I really just want to get the mess out of the way. There's obviously going to be some spoilers (as if anybody cares).

Okay, so Hercules's best friend is getting married. His mom washes his feet, and the seeds of the contrived feminist . Hercules and his mother visit his friend, they eat some soup, his friend's fiancee is a poor cook. A man signals for Hercules out the window, they go to meet him at the door, and he says his village needs their help. He follows them back to their village, and is told that a beast comes from across the river and attacks their village regularly. Hercules and his friend go to investigate, are attacked by Amazon women, the friend dies, Hercules cries and is captured, and is brought shirtless and glistening through the Amazon village. The leader of the Amazon women has a long discussion with Hercules that last like 45 minutes about how he is from an ignorant sexist culture, and instead of being a clever commentary on our own terribly sexist culture, it forgoes all that kind of subtle satire to make a movie entirely based on how the most broad and childish sexist stereotypes are wrong (I'll expand on that a bit later, believe me). Anyway, we find out the Amazons are the beasts, and the attack is that they come to the male village across the river and have sex for the purpose of procreation. The men counteract this by being nice and sitting the Amazon's down to tea, serenading them with songs, and generally just being pussies. For a second things go bad again when Hera takes control of the Amazon queen, but then everything is okay when Hercules travels back in time and fixes everything by spreading the message of feminism.

So in case anybody forgot, this movie was the first in a promotional package of movies called the ACTION PACK, and if my synopsis didn't outline it well enough for you, this movie has no action. In fact, it seems the biggest problem with this movie is that it's probably the most boring piece of shit I've ever forced myself to sit through. The entire focus of this movie lies not with the amazing adventures of a warrior, or the rich mythological base upon which it was constructed, but with elementary feminist messages so transparent and obvious I wonder why this movie wasn't called "Hercules and the Women Who Could Wear Pants." I have nothing against feminism, but if you're going to make it the focus of a Hercules film, you had better make it a complex and unique enough message to justify the fact that he's not bashing skulls through the whole movie.

We learn through many poorly setup and completely ridiculous flashbacks that Hercules has been raised since he was a boy to believe that feelings are bad, and that only women have them - this is a part of the original Hercules narrative I must have missed. In fact, in the old Hercules stories, his emotions (especially his anger) usually factored pretty heavily in how he handled things. It's as if somebody warped a character who has existed for millennia just to help convey a boneheaded "water-is-wet, girls-can-play-kickball-too," message. I have no idea who the target audience of this film is supposed to be. It's advertised as a crazy mythological bloodbath, but what takes place is hours of awkward dialogue, beating the most obvious message of equal rights for women into the viewer.

You know what? I know who this movie is for. It's for fucking idiots. This movie is for fucking idiots. Only a fucking idiot would watch this movie and feel it is justified in its existence. Only a fucking idiot would not be offended by how stupid this script thinks you are. Every little thing in this movie is spelled out for you in the most wordy and awkward means available, breaking the golden rule of film: show, don't tell. Schoolhouse Rock had more subtlety than this. Sitting through this movie is like watching a public service announcement.

Of course, there's a romance subplot in there, in which Hercules falls madly in love with the queen of the Amazons, she falls in love with him, and the audience is left wondering if there was a deleted scene somewhere. For a movie that likes to spell everything out for its audience, it doesn't spend a lot of time explaining why these two people would enjoy spending time together, or why Hercules goes from being a single Conan the Barbarian type he was at the beginning to being a hopeless romantic by the end of the movie.

Look, if you ever find yourself alone in a room with a a television, a DVD player, and a copy of this movie, snap the disc in half and cut your jugular.

...

Yes, I'm going to watch and review the other four movies in the series.