Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (Blu-ray Review)
DIRECTED BY: Victor Cook
STARRING: Felissa Rose, Jeffrey Reddick, Lily Claire Harvey
RATED: UR/Region: O/1:78/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 6
AVAILABLE FROM Warner Archive
Zoinks! Turns out you can only unmask so many old men in rubber masks before somebody decides to give the gang an actual mystery worth solving. Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated takes the familiar formula of four meddling kids and one perpetually hungry Great Dane and gives it a much bigger, more serialized story. And surprisingly, it works really damn well.
This isn’t just another collection of random haunted houses, creepy amusement parks, and villains who would probably be better off investing in therapy instead of elaborate costumes. Mystery Incorporated builds an ongoing mystery around Crystal Cove, a town practically overflowing with supernatural weirdness, suspicious locals, and enough secrets to make you wonder if anyone there has ever had a normal Tuesday.
The familiar gang is all here, but the show gives everyone a little more personality and room to grow. Fred’s obsession with traps is still wonderfully ridiculous, Shaggy and Scooby remain professionally committed to eating everything in sight, and Velma gets a more complicated personality than simply being the person who says, “I think I’ve figured it out.” The series also isn’t afraid to get surprisingly weird, dark, and occasionally downright bizarre.
One of the biggest strengths is that it actually rewards you for watching the episodes in order. There’s a larger story unfolding, recurring characters, ongoing mysteries, and enough twists to keep things moving. It’s almost like somebody finally realized that Scooby-Doo could be more than a weekly exercise in exposing guys who really need to rethink their career choices.
And now the complete series is together on Blu-ray, which is a pretty appealing way to revisit the entire adventure. No hunting down individual seasons or wondering which streaming service currently has the rights. Just grab the discs, fire up the Mystery Machine, and settle in for 52 episodes of mystery-solving, monster-chasing, and Scooby Snacks.
Final verdict: Mystery Incorporated is one of the more entertaining modern takes on the Scooby-Doo franchise, mixing old-school nostalgia with a surprisingly ambitious ongoing storyline. It’s funny, creepy, occasionally ridiculous, and a reminder that even after all these years, there’s still plenty of life left in a talking dog and his collection of deeply unqualified crime-solving friends. Ruh-roh, indeed!
