SCOOBY DOO: MOON MONSTER MADNESS (2015)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

So, a week or two after seeing MOON MONSTER MADNESS (though MEDIOCRITY might be a better name), I can hardly remember what it was about. And this raises an interesting question. In November I gave one of my most negative Scooby-reviews to TRICK OR TREAT, SCOOBY DOO. But I have to admit that I can at least remember large parts of it, which is more than I can do for MADNESS-- so doesn't that make this 2015 DTV the more empty confection of the two? MADNESS suffers from a very bland plot, which I suspect may have resulted from Hanna-Barbera putting their five supernatural sleuths in the position of showing off the wonders of America's astronaut program. 

A lottery-contest gives all five Scoobies the chance to train on a real space station, though it's never clear if this is some sort of publicity stunt or what. There are seven other occupants of the station, and this unfortunately results in severe script overcrowding. Most mysteries benefit from a large pool of potential suspects-- but most mysteries don't have an ensemble of five continuing characters, each of whom is designed to have some sort of amusing schticks in most episodes. Maybe letting the regulars take a back seat would have been okay had the seven support-characters had any interesting arcs. But when a monstrous alien (a hoax, of course) appears on the station, there are no substantive clues that lead logically to one crew-person over another as the hoaxer.

Fred, Shaggy and Scooby have little of distinction to do, but the script finds time to arrange a meaningless game of one-upmanship between Daphne or Velma. It seems a test shows that Daphne is a better potential astroanut than Velma, and this bums Velma out, because she thinks it's unjust that Daphne, gifted in the looks department, should be better than Velma in any other way. Later the test is invalidated, so it's all a non-issue anyway.

MADNESS has nice animation, but that's about it.