By the time the next Scooby-Doo series announced by Warner Bros Discovery hits the air, the canine detective will have turned 55.
That's right. Viewers will have to wait until 2024 for Scooby-Doo & The Mystery Pups, a series aimed for pre-schoolers to air as part of Cartoon Network's Cartoonito block----assuming it's still around by 2024----and streaming on HBO Max.
Conceptually, this would be the first series aimed at younger audiences since the 1988-91 A Pup Named Scooby-Doo aired on ABC. The fact that Scooby (Frank Welker) and Shaggy (Matthew Lillard, fresh from Good Girls) are working as camp counselors recalls an episode of the 2002-5 What's New, Scooby-Doo on WB. Reportedly, the rest of the crew, including Kate Micucci and Grey Griffin, are already on board.
CN is committed to building Cartoonito around established brands, as witnessed with the development of Bugs Bunny Builders and a Batman series built around the Batmobile. Mystery Pups is a CGI series, which is why they're announcing this 2 years before it hits the air. The only problem facing Cartoonito that ye scribe can see is a certain established series that eats up copious amounts of program space by getting spammed into the ground when it is about as funny as a rainstorm. I refer, of course, to Teen Titans Go!. If the Cartoonito block doesn't generate Titans-level ratings or revenues from merchandise, I'd not be surprised if WBD CEO David Zaslav decides to kill the block before Mystery Pups gets a premiere date.
Just sayin'.
5 comments:
Somebody’s been watching too much Paw Patrol.
Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry are getting pre-school shows on Cartoonito, so it was only a matter of time before Warner Bros got to Scooby Doo.
These shows aren't for me (though I admit I'm a little intrigued to see Bugs Bunny Builders) but at the same time, I don't mind that they exist. I think of shows like this and the Mickey Mouse preschool shows as starter packs: little kids watch them and then when they get older, they'll move on to the other-skewing shows starring these characters with fond memories of the shows they saw as tots. This keeps the fandom for these shows going and keeps the characters in the public consciousness. We need to create baby geeks otherwise franchises just die off.
Honestly, the only thing that really bothers me about this show is that it's only Scooby and Shaggy as the counselors and not all of Mysteries, Inc. But then, I notice that the 3 pups bear a noticeable resemblance to Velma, Fred and Daphne. Hmmm...
The fact that Shag & Scooby are counselors is the call-back to the What's New era I was talking about. I think Warners realizes that there is still some push back over ignoring Fred, Daphne, & Velma in previous series.
In sharp contrast to Steven's point, I don't think Paw Patrol was even a factor in putting this show together, not when WBD already had reference points they could use.
Post a Comment