'Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost' Would Have Been Infinitely Better If It Had Been a Crossover With Gordon Ramsay

After crossing over with Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Supernatural earlier this year, Scooby-Doo and the gang’s next team-up is with real-life celebrity chefs Bobby Flay, Giada De Laurentiis, and Marcus Samuelsson (with supermodel wife Maya Haile).  Now, Scooby-Doo! has always been about weird, unlikely crossovers.  But this most recent one baffles me.  I mean, what’s the point?  Is there are market or a niche for this?  Did anyone ask for this?

Is this the product of a corporate edict due to nepotism?  Like, are these celebrity chefs tight with a powerful Warner Bros. executive?

“Hey, Phil.  I want to be in a Scooby-Doo! cartoon.  I think it will help improve my image.  Well, can you make it happen?”

“Sure, Bobby.  I’ll make it happen.”

“Great!  Can some of my buddies also tag along?”

“No problem.”

“You’re the best, Phil!”

Or is this Warner Bros. executive a die-hard fan of these chefs, and used his power to make his Scooby-Doo! fan fiction fantasy with them a reality?

“Don, get this script into production, will you?”

(Don scans through the script.)

“Er, we already have a new bonkers crossover set for Scooby-Doo!, sir.  We’re going to integrate the Scooby Gang into The Goonies.  It’ll be just like our Tom and Jerry/Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory project a few years back.”

“Don, make this movie first or you’re fired!”

“Yes, sir.  Right away, sir.”

“Good!  Oh, by the way.  Just a reminder: Don’t ever let the Scooby Gang crossover with Tom and Jerry in the future.  Having our two properties that have been doing crossovers in the past years cross over with each other would make sense.  We don’t want to make sense.”

“Yes, sir.  Never, sir.”

Joking aside, I don’t really have any problems with the aforementioned celebrity chefs, but I honestly don’t know who they are.  I’m sure they are relatively popular, but they’re no Gordon Ramsay.

Man, the Scooby Gang teaming up with Gordon Ramsay is potentially more appealing by an infinite margin.  To have Ramsay spew G-rated versions of his profanity-filled outbursts would be a lot fun.  (Or maybe Gordon was the plan in the first place, but when the filmmakers couldn’t get him, they turn to Bobby Flay and co. instead.)

Anyway, the movie is titled Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost, and it centers on the Scooby Gang visiting the new cooking-themed resort owned by Fred’s uncle – who, in this universe, is Bobby Flay.  The spot is an ancestral property by Fred and Bobby’s family, and is rumored to be haunted by a Red Ghost.  At first, Bobby dismisses this as a mere local myth.  But when the Red Ghost shows up during a live televised promotional in the resort’s state-of-the-art kitchen, it’s once again up to Mystery Inc. to save the day.

I’ve followed closely all Scooby-Doo! direct-to-video movies in the past years, and I always fit my expectations with what they are.  Thus, I tend to enjoy these movies.  Nevertheless, Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost is my least favorite so far.   This is not necessarily because I wasn’t impressed with its choice of partners for this particular crossover, but simply because, in my opinion, it’s the worst of the lot.  None of the running gags are strong, the plot is predictable, the sense of craziness is borderline obnoxious, and... what’s the deal with that kooky Skip Taylor character?

In the end, I didn’t really hate Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost.  Surely, it will more or less fill up fans’ cravings for a new Scooby-Doo! adventure, but a huge part of it is insipid.