The Quagmire Quake Caper is the second half of the second episode of The New Scooby and Scrappy Doo Show, and is written by Gene Ayres.
This episode sees Daphne, Scooby, Scrappy and Shaggy investigating mysterious earthquakes in Sulphur Springs.
The Quagmire Quake Caper – Episode Review
The episode begins with gang on their way to Sulfur Springs State Park. Daphne is driving the Mystery Machine, and Scooby is quite excited for their vacation. Unfortunately, they are there seeing Mr. Grumper, a seismologist who is investigating earthquakes that may or may not be caused by a monster.
Right away they run into the monster, which looks like a gooier version of the Tar Monster crossed with the green globs from the Haunted Candy Factory episode.
We then cut to Mr. Grumper at a native museum who asks the native chief and his assistant Quanto to leave the town. Mr. Grumper also tells the gang to leave, but Daphne decides to investigate and finds a traditional medicine staff which she plans on bringing to the sheriff.
Walking through an evacuated village, Scrappy finds a bunch of jackhammers and other tools.
At the Sheriff office, another earthquake strikes and Scooby accidentally finds a golden eagle staff piece that matches the golden eagle on the medicine staff Daphne is carrying. The sheriff walks in and tells the gang he found the golden eagle staff piece in the alley and explains the gold eagle comes from the ancient tribal spirit chamber.
Daphne hands over the staff to the sheriff who explains he’ll return it to the chief.
Back at Sulphur Springs, Scrappy lasso’s the monster, who then chases the gang into a cave. The gang go deeper into the cave and find the ancient tribal chamber which is loaded with jackhammers. Scooby triggers the machinery and causes another earthquake.
Scrappy also finds a pot of gold, and the gang disguise themselves as a bison (they hide under a bison skin) to conceal their presence.
The sheriff shows up and we find out that Quanto was behind the earthquake. Quanto we briefly find worked at the museum and intended to steal the gold. As a reward, the tribal chief hands Scooby the traditional gold eagle topped medicine staff.
My Score
I give this episode a 6 out of 10. I quite enjoyed this episode, however, I found the look of the monster rather uninspired and boring. He was not creepy looking at all, and perhaps they did this to make it more kid friendly. The one had some great art, but I didn’t find it as cool or colourful as what we saw in Soobygeist. Furthermore, the cave scenes looked intentionally blurry to give off a sense of darkness, and I did not love this effect.
The short running time of this episode also wasn’t enough to flesh it out for the story this one deserved. Like the monster, which never has a name other than monster, shows up in the very first minute. Quanto the villain does not even have enough screen time to set up any sort of motive or for us to even remember who he was. Like I completely forgot he was a character and had to rewind to see that he did appear earlier in the episode.
Still, this is a much better episode than the silly Scrappy series that preceeded this series, and for that I am one happy Scooby fan.
