Quick DVD Review – ‘Scooby-Doo Meets Batman’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

I’ve just realised that it’s the 50th anniversary of Scooby-Doo this year! Yes! That’s right! 50 years ago, Scooby-Doo the talking brown dog who solves mysteries with Shaggy, Fred, Daphne and Velma of Mystery Inc. was created. I used to watch Scooby-Doo as a kid on TV and I’ve also seen his movies.

How fitting it is then that I’ve happened to have watched the compilation ‘Scooby-Doo Meets Batman’ on DVD! I purchased this and ‘Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold’ on DVD from my trip in Glasgow back in August 2019. It has taken me a while to get around to watch these two DVDs.

I purchased ‘Scooby-Doo Meets Batman’ and ‘Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold’ on DVD mainly out of curiosity. Scooby-Doo and Batman are an odd combination. I guess the crime-fighting link works here, but Scooby’s this cartoon character whilst Batman’s a comic book character.

This isn’t the first time I’ve reviewed odd combinations with cartoon characters. I’ve reviewed ‘Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory’ as well as ‘Tom and Jerry & the Wizard of Oz’ and ‘Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz’. One more odd combination of cartoon characters can’t harm me, right?

This is a peculiar combination though. Like I said, the ‘Scooby-Doo Meets Batman’ DVD is a compilation. It contains two cartoon films as opposed to one. They’re short cartoon films, but they make up for the feature-length compilation of about 78 minutes according to back of the DVD cover.

The two cartoon films with Scooby and Batman are as follows. They’re ‘The Caped Crusader Caper’ and ‘The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair’. They were both mini-movies shown in ‘The New Scooby-Doo Movies’ series shown from 1972 to 1973. There was a special guest star each week in every episode.

Scooby and Mystery Inc. teamed up with Batman and Robin twice in the series. They even met Laurel & Hardy would you believe, but that’s for another occasion. I enjoyed watching the cartoon films in this compilation with Scooby, Batman, Robin and Mystery Inc. They’ve been pretty entertaining. 🙂

They are zany and cartoony throughout, but what do you expect? The two movies are keeping in the spirit of Scooby-Doo more than with Batman. But then again, Batman suits the Scooby-Doo atmosphere here as it is more the Adam West incarnation of Batman our Mystery Inc. heroes meet.

Yeah! Every time I saw Batman and Robin with Scooby and Mystery Inc., I couldn’t help think of Adam West and Burt Ward in the roles of the Dynamic Duo. In fact, I’m surprised Adam West and Burt Ward weren’t cast to voice Batman and Robin as they must’ve been still around at that time.

Batman and Robin are voiced by Olan Soulé and Casey Kasem respectively in the two films. Casey Kasem is also the voice of Shaggy. There’s Don Messick as the voice of Scooby-Doo; Frank Welker as the voice of Fred; Heather North as the voice of Daphne and Nicola Jaff as the voice of Velma as well.

In both films, Scooby, Batman, Robin and Mystery Inc. face up against the villains: the Joker and the Penguin. I wonder why they didn’t have the Joker in one film and the Penguin in another; or perhaps have the Riddler and/or Catwoman make an appearance. Why were Riddler and Catwoman absent?

The Joker is voiced by Larry Storch and the Penguin is voiced by Ted Knight in the two films. I wonder if the ‘Scooby Doo’ live-action cast of Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Linda Cardellini and Matthew Lillard would work with the George Clooney and Chris O’Donnell ‘Batman & Robin’ at all. 😀

It was fun to see Batman and Robin driving in their Batmobile and Batcopter whilst the Scooby-Doo gang drove in their Mystery Machine. I’m not sure if I prefer one film over the other. I enjoyed ‘The Caped Crusader Caper’ very much. It had a pretty dotty scientist who tended to mix up words a lot. 🙂

There were also giant balloons of Batman and Robin as well as Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear and Santa Claus in that film. I enjoyed ‘The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair’ too. It had another villain in a mask and it had Batman and Robin working more with the Mystery Inc team. They even took them to the Batcave. 😀

‘Scooby-Doo Meets Batman’ has been pretty enjoyable. It was more Scooby-Doo cartoons than it is Batman cartoons. It had a calming, relaxing effect on me which I suppose is good. If you’re curious about this team-up of the Scooby-Doo team and Batman and Robin, I recommend checking this out.

Happy 50th anniversary Scooby-Doo, wherever you are! 😀

Hope to review ‘Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold’ sometime soon. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim. 🙂