Scoobsie

Scoobsie is the second half of the seventh episode of The New Scooby and Scrappy Doo Show and originally aired on October 8, 1983. Written by Cynthia Friedlob and John Semper, Scoobsie takes place on the set of a popular soap opera set.

Scoobsie – Episode Review

The episode begins with the gang at the KZZZ-TV studio at studio 13 where a recording is in progress for Genuine Hospital. During the filming of a scene, a phantom swings down from the rafters of the set and kidnaps Genuine Hospital’s leading star, Victoria Sensible.

Fortunately Daphne, Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy are on the scene as Daphne is writing an article about the Phantom. It doesn’t take very long at all for Scooby to run into the Phantom where he does a very good job of miming the character to the rest of the gang.

Daphne and Scrappy split up to go look for the Phantom while Shaggy and Scooby are enamored with some rubber food props.

Following a bouncing rubber turkey, the gang run into an angry security guard. Meanwhile Daphne and Scrappy interview Mr. Danny Divine, the so-called-star of Genuine Hospital. Scrappy takes a picture of Mr. Divine which I’m sure will be important later on. And oh yeah, the flash from the bulb momentarily blinds Mr. Divine and we hear him walk into a wall or a piece of furniture off screen.

Scooby and Shaggy disguise themselves as a blonde nurse and patient in a cast respectively in order to escape the tv set’s security guard as they have run off with the rubber turkey. A casting director digs the look of Scooby’s blonde hair and casts Scooby in the next scene. Before he’s about to go on, Scrappy takes Scooby’s picture and the flash causes some sudden blindness in Scooby.

We get a great scene with Scooby being mistaken for saying that Shaggy has Swallowed a Beaver, however the scene is soon cut short by the Phantom drenching the tv studio with a hose. (not very safe I imagine with all the electrical cords most likely laying around)

The Phantom then blasts the television studio with a fan that blows things away, even mixing in some soap flakes for extra dramatic effect for a snow storm.

Scrappy swings down from the rafters to clobber the Phantom, but his tiny weight is no match for the fan. Instead he floods the studio after holding on to the water meter lever to prevent himself from being blown away.

The Phantom makes his escape, but then reappears and attempts to kidnap Scooby, unfortunately, he slips on some water and crashes into the laundry room where he had been holding Victoria Sensible hostage.

Daphne unmasks the Phantom and reveals that it is Danny Divine. Danny realized he was about to be taken out of the show so he haunted the television set to ruin everything. Daphne knew it was Danny as both the Phantom and Danny Divine wore the same skull ring.

The episode ends with Scoobie being declared a star, until a burst hose blasts Scooby’s disguise away, revealing that he is a dog (and not an actress)

My Score

I give this episode a 6 out 10. I dug it, and the cross-dressing Scooby as a Nurse play on the film Tootsie was cute. Plus we get a take on the soap General Hospital and actress Victoria Principal with Genuine Hospital and Victoria Sensible.

In addition, the phantom looked cool, although he never looked dangerous, he just seemed to be having a good time haunting the movie set.

My only complaint, and this goes for a lot of the run of this series is the blurry scenes we get on occasion. For 75% of the episode the scenes are crisp, but if you look at some of the screen shots above, some are washed out and blurry. I don’t know what’s going on there, maybe they used two animation studios or something.