Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers (1987) – Review

With Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, we get our first full-length Scooby-Doo movie (if we discount Scooby-Doo Goes Hollywood as it was barely 49 minutes in length), but not only was this their first “real” movie, it continued with the inclusion of real ghosts as part of the mystery, which we’d seen in the 1980s’ version of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo. Sadly, once again, Fred, Velma and Daphne are missing and the movie is poorer for it; love him or hate him, Scrappy-Doo cannot properly replace the original members of Mystery Incorporated.

This particular mystery starts out like many a Scooby-Doo adventure with one of the gang learning that they’ve inherited an estate — the gang has a lot of dying relatives — and in this case, it’s Shaggy’s Uncle Colonel Beauregard who has not only left him his whole estate, but a hidden treasure of family jewels as well. This sends Scooby-Doo, Scrappy (Don Messick) and Shaggy (Casey Kasem) on a fright-filled adventure down south, where they will encounter an escaped circus ape, and a variety of threats such as a big and nasty wolf, the ghost of Shaggy’s uncle, a floating skeleton and even a headless horseman.

Maybe he wants to see their driver’s permit?

As mysteries go, the one that makes up Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers is of the lesser variety, with it being more a scavenger hunt than an actual mystery. At best, we are trying to figure out who is behind the passel of ghosts chasing our heroes around. We do have a few suspects, but the obvious one is the hunchbacked manservant Farquard (Arte Johnson), who makes no bones about his belief that the family jewels belong to him, and he works as both a red herring as well as a secondary villain — he does take some of the jewels during the scavenger hunt — but we are also not given much in the way of other suspects to look at. We have Sheriff Rufus Buzby (Sorrell Booke) as the cliché southern lawman, then there is Billy Bob Scroggins (William Callaway) who has a hillbilly hard-on for the Beauregard family, and finally, we have Sadie Mae Scroggins (Victoria Carroll ) who looks like an escapee from Li’l Abner, and for some unfathomable reason has the hots for Shaggy. Now, aside from Farquad, none of these individuals are given credible reasons for pretending to be ghosts and the final reveal is kind of a cheat.

Who could this nasty-looking skeleton be?

Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy are somewhat aided in their endeavours by a trio of ghosts known as the Boo Brothers: Meako (Jerry Houser), Freako (Ronnie Schell) and Shreako (Rob Paulsen), who are brought into the fray when Scrappy gets the brilliant idea to call for ghost exterminators to aid them in their battle against this spectral army. That they aren’t fazed by the fact that these “Ghost Busters” are ghosts themselves is a little odd. Sadly, this trio of ghostly numbskulls spend more time going “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk” and bashing each other around the plantation than they do tackling the threat of the day. The Boo Brothers may share the title of this movie, but they’re simply comic relief — we are using the word “comic” in the broadest sense of the term — and they add nothing to the story at hand. If these guys were to be some answer to the Ghostbusters, I really wish Scrappy had just hung up the phone.

Dan Aykroyd’s lawyers will be in touch.

Stray Observations:

• Shaggy is wearing the red shirt he was last seen wearing in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
• The Headless Horseman is very on-model with the one that appeared in Disney’s Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.
• The Boo Brothers seem to be a hybrid of The Three Stooges and the Ghostly Trio from Casper the Friendly Ghost.
• Shaggy never questions why the ghost of his uncle would be trying to steal the jewels when the man’s will clearly states that he left them for him. Did he think his uncle changed his mind post-death?
• The witch is voiced by June Foray who is most notable for voicing Witch Hazel in Looney Tunes.
• The Confederate ghost chases our heroes around while riding a penny-farthing bicycle, which has to be the least-threatening mode of transportation known to man.
• The character of Sadie-Mae Scroggins looks like she would be more at home in a Ralph Bakshi cartoon.

“Coffee, Tea or Me?”

Much of the humour to be found in Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers was certainly targeted at younger viewers — as this was a Saturday morning cartoon, this is not surprising — but I was still impressed with not only the character designs of the ghosts and beasties but of the riddles that our heroes had to solve to locate the hidden jewels, as these were puzzles that audiences of all ages could have fun trying to figure out (at least, before the obnoxious Scrappy-Doo blurts out the answers). Overall, if you can get passed the annoying humour of both Scrappy and the Boo Brothers, there is a lot of enjoyment to be had in this animated film.

Note: It’s sad when the fake ghosts are scarier than the real ones.

You can find all my reviews of the various Scooby-Doo shows and movies collected here: The Wonderful World of Scooby-Doo.