In 'Scooby-Doo! Shaggy’s Showdown', Shaggy Discovers His Wild West Roots

I never seem to grow out of my fondness for Scooby-Doo that I just have to watch any new direct-to-video movie despite understanding from the get-go that it isn’t going to be great.

This latest one, Scooby-Doo! Shaggy’s Showdown, sees the Mystery Inc. quintet getting invited by Shaggy’s distant cousin to visit her Crazy Q Dude Ranch.  There, they learn that the place is apparently haunted by the ghost of Shaggy’s ancestor, Dapper Jack, a ruthless outlaw during the Wild West.  This sets up the Scooby Gang for another mystery-solving adventure.

If you’ve watched tons of Scooby-Doo cartoons, things really get repetitive.  Though this movie tries to avoid some of the common plot points and elements that Scooby-Doo has been known for, and puts effort to be a bit more surprising and fresh, it still comes out as formulaic.  The typical gags are there, and it follows the expected narrative structure.  And it has some corny, stupid aspects that are put there for the obvious purpose of making the narrative simpler as well as enhancing the amusement of the kids (as the main target audience of this kind of movies are kids after all).

Nonetheless, as usual, for what it is, it’s still pretty entertaining.  The animation is smooth and sufficiently appealing.  The voice acting is endearing.  And I found some of the bad jokes and puns laugh-worthy for being bad (there’s this joke about bulls that I still laughed audibly at, despite being predictable).  It’s also fun to see Shaggy discovering that he’s got great cowboy instincts.

Shaggy’s Showdown is a solid Scoody-Doo movie.  Despite its noticeable problems, it’s generally pleasing – especially to fans and kids.

Still, I kind of missed seeing them animated as Legos, and I wish the next Scooby movie is such.