Scooby-Doo!: The Mystery Begins Blu-ray Review: One of the Best Versions of the Franchise Since Its Heyday

The made-for-television film, Scooby-Doo!: The Mystery Begins aired originally on the Cartoon Network on September 13, 2009. The film debuted to huge ratings that led to a sequel, Scooby-Doo!: Curse of the Lake Monster (2010). Despite their success, the two films don’t have nearly the cultural memory of the two theatrical releases of Scooby-Doo: The Movie (2002) and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004). The original direct-to-television film has been released on Blu-ray by Warner Premiere.

The 2009 timeframe was one of the ebbs in the property. Shaggy & Scooby Get a Clue had finished a two season non-traditional story run on CW in March 2008. There were two direct-to-video animated releases, Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King (2008) and Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword (2009). Both considered fairly uninspiring releases. This live-action film was a risk. The franchise needed a reset, and telling a live-action origin story had the potential for huge failure.

The film starts in Coolsville, OH before the Mystery Inc. team has ever come together. We meet Norville “Shaggy” Rogers (Nick Palatas) as a goofy geek who gets bullied on the bus. There’s a origin story of how he accidentally meets Scoobert “Scooby-Doo” (voiced by Frank Welker) who escapes a pet adoption. Velma (Hayley Kiyoko) is bringing a science project to school on the bus when the group meets. Daphne (Kate Melton) is a drama-club, rich girl and Fred Jones (Robbie Amell) is the star football player. They are thrown together in a detention (ala The Breakfast Club) and discover their common love of mysteries. Ghosts break up a pep rally happening during their detention, leading the principal to blame them for the attack. They bond to solve the mystery and clear their names.

The movie wobbles a little when it tries to shoehorn in all of the tropes of a show that debuted in 1969 and has played consistently since. The origin of Scooby-Snacks and the Mystery Van make for humorous scenes but play against years of backstory. I prefer that Fred is the driver and the one obsessed with the van. This film makes it Daphne’s father’s van, and Shaggy is the only one with a driver’s license. Scooby-Snacks are a treat that Shaggy makes at home in this story. The interpersonal relationships of the group are even more strained than you would expect from the previous series. There’s a more definite romantic connection between Daphne and Fred and an unrequited attraction of Velma to Fred. It seems like a forced plot point to disprove the common conception that Velma is a lesbian. They didn’t do much to change minds in that area by casting Hayley Kiyoko in the role, for people that know of her career outside of the film.

The plot involves going under the school to a previously destroyed Coolsville Academy. The story is faithful to the average Scooby-Doo mystery, but the effects are not on the level of CGI that the viewer would expect of a live-action film in 2009. It’s difficult to have an enjoyable live cast that all have great chemistry and then have a low-budget CGI dog included in the scenes. In general, it’s just distracting. There were plenty of opportunities to have a musical interlude chase that they avoided. It’s interesting that they lean into so many tropes and avoided that obvious one. The final scene has the Mystery Inc. team saying they will investigate weird happenings at the Coolsville Museum (a nice reference to the very first episode “What a Night For a Knight”).

It’s hard to imagine a review for this movie that wouldn’t start with “surprising”, “charming” or “faithful.” Given the state of the franchise at the time, this was just the breath of fresh air that it needed. If it had a less charming cast that didn’t have the same chemistry, it might have never gained any traction. If it tried to tell a story that felt either too complex or more romantic teen comedy based, it might not have the entertainment value that it retains.

By 2010, the series would be rebooted with Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, which would turn out to be one of the best versions of the franchise since the heyday in the ’70s. It’s generally been forgotten among fans. I’m happy to see it come forward again with the Blu-ray release. The disc contains a Pop-Up track that functions to add some interesting trivia, but far short of a commentary track that would be more interesting. There’s a behind-the-scenes featurette and a gag reel that you would expect from a release like this. I hope the sequel has a similar push again. The series is trying to figure out what lane it exists in during the 2020’s, the family-friendly comedic mystery should have a place in our popular culture. This movie might be 17 years old, but it plays out as timeless, which has always been the strength of this series.