OK I ADMIT IT! I’m doing this cause I’m so annoyed by the over abundance of Christmas stuff so early I’m making a buffer of more things with a slight spooky theme to try and protect myself. We got Christmas Ads right after Halloween, not to mention how the supermarkets had more space for Christmas stuff than Halloween stuff… in the week before Halloween. But this isn’t a rant about that, so let’s go into Scooby Doo.

I’m sure I don’t need to explain what Scooby Doo is, the franchise is what? 50 years old by now and a part of basically everyone in that time period’s childhood in some way. There have been multiple different series be they old classics or new reinventions as well as multiple movies such as the great 4 starting with Zombie Island till Cyber Chase and then basically yearly ones of mixed quality (some are really damn good and insane others are… well that’s not what Chupacabra looks like).

So on Halloween me and my friend were running low on horror movies to watch (since we tend to avoid ones we will have trouble sleeping afterwards) and decided to throw some classic Scooby Doo in the mix. But not just classic, when I say classic I mean CLASSIC the very first series Scooby Doo Where Are You. So, enough stalling let’s get to the episode.

The 14th episode of season 1 has probably the best-looking monster/ghost in the entire series (and one of the best in the whole franchise… I’d have to look through ALL the series to say which is THE best and … well 50 years not doing that). We first see a strange alien-like craft flying through the air but it’s clearly seen better days. Then as it vanishes walking towards the camera is what appears to be the pilot, a ghost alien in a space suit that has a laughing skull head which flashes with a memorable laugh. Oh it’s such a good design. Basically, it’s a ghost ship, but a ghost space ship and its pilot considering some lazy designs the show sometimes has (looking at you ape man) this is a stroke of genius.

The episode has the gang having driven down an old country road get caught up in the mystery as a farmer they checked up on, threatens them thinking they were reporters.

The main action of the episode takes place in an abandoned air base that is done to give quite a spooky feel (once again the original series was quite inventive at times) so it’s quite a memorable setting while haunted by a ghost. Also surprise the farmer and the authorities were actually quite proactive and did stuff BEFORE the gang catches the ghost. Only down side is that the ghost turns out to be someone we never met so while we can piece together some elements of how it was doing what it was, we never really got a good why. But then they only did meet the farmer and no one else and plenty of episodes that are just the one person they met turning out to be the monster.

So am I stretching what is normally sci fi section of my rotations on an episode of Scooby Doo just because it has a supposed alien in it? probably but it’s a fun episode with very memorable designs, that laugh will haunt you.

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