Day Nine…NINE???
The Nutcracker Scoob
So one of the iterations of Scooby Doo during the 80s decided that they would do a holiday episode. It was “The New Scooby Doo Mysteries.” The one where Scooby, Shaggy, Scrappy Doo (yeah, he was there) and Daphne were running the ‘Scooby Doo Detective Agency’ and solving…cases. The typical real estate scammers and some with actual ghouls and ghosts. And the opening theme song sounds like they forgot the disco era was over and the monsters do sort of the Thriller dance.
(I pointed out to a friend that until the Mystery Inc. era, none of the mysteries where Fred and Velma were included in the gang featured any supernatural beings. In fact one of the funniest moments of the crossover episode ‘Scooby-Natural,’ where Sam and Dean Winchester enter into the world of Scooby Doo, is where Fred looses his stuff; lamenting that for years they’ve been foiling real estate scams when they could have been hunting actual demons and ghosts and ghouls.)
In this episode, we get to see Fred, who hasn’t been seen in a long while. He brought in Scooby, Shaggy, Scrappy Doo and Daphne to help put on a Christmas pageant for Mrs. Fezziwig and her orphans. The villain of the piece (named Mr. Nickleby) forecloses on the property because he can and because he wants to find a family heirloom, which was an emerald that’s supposed to be inside of a golden star.
So the gang searches for the golden star when they figure out the real reason for Mr. Nickleby to want the property. Of course they run into a ghost who is about scaring the gang out of the space and stealing the golden star.
A lot of stuff happens-so much that this was/is a two-part episode. In addition to there being the obvious “A Christmas Carol” references (as well as general Charles Dickens ones), they do manage to put on the pageant with the Nutcracker Ballet, where Fred is the Nutcracker Prince and Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy are the Sugarplum Fairies. Yeah…that goes about as well as you’d imagine…
There’s a little cut waif named Tina and Mr. Nickleby has a villain cat named Snowball.
It wouldn’t be an episode of Scooby Doo without a chase scene, which consisted of the gang by way of skis and sleigh and the ghost by way of sleigh to the instrumental version of “Deck The Halls.”
And yes, there is moment of TMOC (True Meaning of Christmas), otherwise this would a be total downer episode.
This holiday episode is better than a lot of the episodes in this particular version of Scooby Doo. Those who prefer less Scrappy Doo will be pleased, since because Fred has been added back in and because of the overall plotlines, he gets his moments but he doesn’t overshadow the episode.
It must also be said that I can’t watch especially these versions of Scooby Doo without thinking about Casey Kasem, who did Shaggy Rogers’ voice and did other adult voices including the villains throughout the years. I muse about how this work paid for his kids to get a great education and great careers, so this wackery wasn’t in vain.
“The New Scooby Doo Mysteries” airs on Max and I believe tubi. This episode is from an era where pretty much every program unless it was non Christian or some fantasy/sci-fi land where they would not celebrated Christmas, did a holiday episode. The quality varied and usually it was centered around the TMOC, but some are worth seeking out. ‘The Nutcracker Scoob’ is a good one in a pinch.