Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

(2016)

Forget everything I’ve said about Lego “direct-to-video” movies… at least in regards to Lego Scooby-Doo. Maybe it’s a bias toward Scooby and the gang. Maybe it’s the tried and true formula that lends itself well to corny jokes. Whatever the reason, Lego Scooby-Doo: Haunted Hollywood stands head and shoulders above all of the direct-to-video Lego movies.

And I should reiterate. The ones with a theatrical release, The Lego Movie (2014), The Lego Batman Movie (2017), The Lego Ninjago Movie (also 2017), and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019); these were all great. No complaints whatsoever.

The direct-to-video Lego stuff such as Lego Star Wars: The Padawan Menace (2011), Lego: The Adventures of Clutch Powers (2010), Lego Batman: The Movie- DC Superheroes Unite (2013), Lego DC Comics Superheroes: Justice League vs. Bizarro League (2015)… there’s a lot. This is a minuscule sampling of what’s out there. I confess I’ve not seen all of it so I can’t say it’s all bad. But I’ve seen a hefty portion and it’s been just awful.

But not Lego Scooby-Doo. Lego Scooby-Doo is just like any other episode of Scooby-Doo but it’s rendered in Lego.

Yeah, there might be a cringy joke now and then but I guarantee not a single character looked at the camera and said anything like  “Get it? FIN-ish you? I’m going to FIN-ish you! Cuz I’m a shark? And I have fins! Get it!?!”

Even if they didn’t explain it, it still wouldn’t be funny. But I digress. I’m complaining about other videos instead of talking about this good one.

I enjoy the Lego video games based on the various IPs. Oddly enough there’s no Lego Scooby-Doo game but there are two Scooby-Doo games on the Nintendo Wii that are just like the Lego games. It’s almost as if they (gnomes) wanted to make a Lego Scooby game but Lego hadn’t got permission yet but the game producer did get permission so we get a Scooby game but no Lego Scooby game. Now I’m talking about video games instead of the movie.

Strangely, “Scooby-Doo! First Frights” on the Nintendo Wii has several clips from “Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster” which is a bizarrely cast live-action installment I had never heard of until playing this game. I’ll wait until I actually see it before criticizing though.

Actually, research uncovered a myriad of live-action Scooby-Doo I’ve never heard of and now have to see. There’s:

And there’s:

I think the problem is any rinky-dink two-bit production “company” can produce a Scooby-Doo movie and usually does and IMDb counts it as legitimate. These two have interesting accolades though and here I am writing about something other than Lego Scooby Doo.

Fact is, I don’t know what else to say about Lego Scooby-Doo: Haunted Hollywood other than it’s more Scooby and there’s nothing wrong with that. It features the voices of the legendary Frank Welker, as well as Mathew Lillard, Grey Griffin, and Kate Micucci. There’s a sequel in the form of Lego Scooby-Doo: Blowout Beach Bash. There’s also some Lego shorts out there. I’ve not seen these but if they’re Scooby, how bad could they be? Even if they are Lego. Jeez, I might need to start a Lego blog… or a Scooby-Doo blog.