Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf (1988)

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General		Extras
Category	Animation	Main Menu Audio Featurette-Get The Picture Music Video-Scooby And Shaggy Love To Eat Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	91:35
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Ray Patterson
Studio Distributor	Hanna-Barbera Warner Home Video	Starring	Jim Ryan Hamilton Camp Jim Cummings Joan Gerber Ed Gilbert Casey Kasem Don Messick Brian Mitchell Pat Musick Alan Oppenheimer Rob Paulsen Mimi Seaton B.J. Ward
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

    Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf is another in the Scooby-Doo movies series, having been made in 1988. Unfortunately, as was the case with the recently reviewed Scooby-Doo Goes Hollywood, this one focuses on the antics of Shaggy and Scooby-Doo only. There is a complete lack of any input from the rest of the Mystery Inc gang (Fred, Daphne, and Velma) and to make matters worse, one of the most reviled cartoon characters of all time makes an appearance in this episode. Yes you guessed right - the ever-annoying Scrappy-Doo, nephew of Scooby is here in all his annoying glory.

    In this 90 minute movie-length episode it's Count Dracula who is the villain. He and his fellow monster friends (you know the sort - Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy, and the usual suspects), are planning on staging the annual Transylvania Grand Prix motor race. Unfortunately one of the entrants from last year will not be returning to race this year. It seems that the Werewolf has decided to retire to sunny Florida and give up his racing days. In a bit of a bind, Count Dracula determines that since legend has it that a new werewolf is going to appear every few hundred years or so, and this year happens to be the right year, the old werewolf can forget it and Count Dracula will recruit a new one. If you haven't already guessed it by now, this is where the ever-hungry and cowardly Shaggy comes into the picture. When the count's henchmen arrive in the States, just in time for the next full moon, Shaggy is preparing to go to the drive-in with his girlfriend. But with the full moon approaching Shaggy is starting to live up to his name and sprout lots of hair and a few fangs for good measure. It looks like he is becoming the next werewolf without even realising it.

    From here Shaggy learns that the only way he can return to some resemblance of normality is to enter Count Dracula's grand prix in Transylvania and win the thing. If he doesn't he will stay a werewolf forever. Everything from this point on turns into pretty much one long chase sequence that wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Wacky Races.

    It's not the greatest of Scooby-Doo episodes. Again the lack of input from the other Mystery Inc members and the lack of any conniving adult hoaxers getting upstaged by those meddling kids leads to a rather lame story.

Video

    The video transfer on offer here is probably the worst of the Scooby-Doo series that I have yet had a look at, even worse than the original series. It is best described as poor tending to barely average. Considering the source material is only around 16 years old, this is quite a disappointing effort and looks simply like a direct copy from the old VHS master. While not overly grimy or dirty, it is incredibly soft and blurry, almost to the point of losing clarity in certain scenes. Grain isn't so much of an issue, since the whole thing is just too soft overall to notice any.

    It is presented in the original made-for-TV aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Colours are quite pallid and pale, with little vibrancy. There is a little evidence of colour bleeding on occasion.

    Compression artefacts are completely absent, and while film artefacts are evident they do not become the most annoying feature - that is left to the blurriness of the image.

    There are plenty of subtitles available. The English variety are accurate enough and well placed on the screen.

    This is a single sided and single layered disc only so there is no layer change with which to contend.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio soundtrack on offer here is a fairly stock-standard television style mono effort, but is still well recorded.

    There are seven soundtracks in total. The English Dolby Digital 1.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s is joined by similarly specified tracks in French, Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish, and Polish. The English soundtrack is hardly going to set the world alight, with little dynamic range and no low end to speak of.

    The dialogue is average, with it mostly coming across clear and easily understood. Of course with animation audio sync is not really something to get overly concerned with.

    There is no surround or subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio

Featurette - Get The Picture

    A fairly pointless 1:46 example of someone (all you see is their hand clutching a pencil) drawing Scooby-Doo.

Music Video

    A 2:23 music video for the rather corny song Scooby-Doo and Shaggy Love To Eat. Features lots of snippets from shows over the years of the boys eating their way through various amounts of food.

Theatrical Trailer

    A 0:59 trailer that summarises the story nicely, but also mentions the extras contained on the DVD edition. The Region 1 DVD edition that is.

    The Region 4 disc misses out on;

• The Race Is On - Interactive Game
• Bonus trailers

    The Region 1 disc misses out on;

• Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack
• German Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack
• Swedish Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack
• Polish Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack

    The extra bonus material on the Region 1 disc is not enough to sway me in favour of that disc. Pick this up wherever you can get it the cheapest.

    Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf is a relatively poor made-for-television special featuring the famous talking great dane, his pal Shaggy and most annoyingly of all the loathsome Scrappy-Doo. With no appearance by the rest of the Mystery Inc gang this is one Scooby episode severely lacking in any real mystery or fun.

    The video transfer is poor, being fuzzy, blurry, and really quite annoying to watch.

    The mono audio does the job with little fanfare.

    The extras are pretty light.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall