Scooby the Barbarian is the first half of the first episode of The New Scooby and Scrappy Doo Show and it originally aired on September 10th, 1983. With a Story by Mark Shiney and a Teleplay by Peter Anderegg, this episode sees the return of Daphne and hopefully a return to the classic formula of Scooby-Doo that is so near and dear to my heart.
Anyway, right off the bat I’m loving this new intro that the episode has. It’s a nice break after seen Scrappy thrown from a train that we got for the past 3 series.
Scooby the Barbarian – Episode Review
The episode begins with a group of tourists in Norway talking about Vikings with professor Busby. Professor Busby walks away, and we see an angry Viking confront the group of tourists.
Meanwhile, Daphne is driving the Mystery Machine with the rest of the gang to the Viking ruins. Shaggy and Daphne are both wearing their seatbelts, while Scooby and Shaggy are excited to hear they will be digging up some bones.
At the Viking ruins, we discover Professor Busby has vanished, and rumour has it, he was kidnapped by a vicious Viking.
No clues are found at the ruins, but they run into a lab assistant who crankily tells them to scram as they are trespassing.
Heading to town they find the Viking who destroys a bunch of pumpkins as he doesn’t consider them good food. Scrappy tries to take on the Viking, but Scrappy and Daphne end up getting kidnapped instead. And at this point we find out there is an entire Viking clan ruled by Olaf the Viking.
The lab assistant shows up to squawk at Daphne and Shaggy’s prison cell, then runs off. Meanwhile, Shaggy and Scooby disguise themselves as Vikings to sneak into the Viking village so they can rescue.
Daphne and Scrappy escape on their own while Shaggy and Scooby participate in Viking learning activities. Daphne finds Professor Busby as well as dozen of barrels of diesel fuel and a huge map of the Atlantic ocean. Professor Busby gets himself lost one more time, while the whole gang reunite just in time to try and take control of a Viking ship.
Here they meet Olaf the Viking who is terribly afraid of heights. We find out the Viking Olaf is Professor Busby, aka Busby the Pirate, and the Viking ship is attached to a pirate ship. The lab assistant turns out to be an undercover agent who is trying to find the missing submarine.
My Score
I give this episode a 6.5 out of 10. It’s okay but still rather a bit too silly at times. Regardless, it is a huge improvement over the past couple of seasons, and having Daphne back made for a better dynamic between our characters. The shorter running time I feel hurt this episode as while they cram a lot of story into this 10 minutes, it also kind of ends rather abruptly and there isn’t much time for atmosphere or spooky tension to build.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to future episodes of this series if they all turn out to be as good as this one.
Anyway, join me next time when I review No Sharking Zone. And until then, Stay Spooky!