In this episode, Scooby runs away from home because a misunderstanding causes him to think the gang doesn’t love him anymore. Get your tissues ready, folks!
We start out at the clubhouse on a dark and stormy night.
The kids have opted to take a day off and just chill in the treehouse and do their own things
Suddenly, Scooby enters and shakes off a bunch of mud. This prompts Daphne to chew him out for getting her clothes dirty’
When it becomes clear that Daphne doesn’t want to talk to him, Scooby asks Freddy to play. But Fred just gets angry because Scooby ripped up his newspaper while trying to get his attention
So Scooby moves on to Velma. But she tells him that her experiment requires intense concentration. So she can’t talk to him or stop to play with him
Finally, he moves on to Shaggy. And starts licking the bowl from whatever he was cooking
However, this just makes Shaggy angry because that bowl was the last of his rainy day pizza dough mix. Shaggy gets so mad that he actually says,
“Can’t you see we’re all busy? Just scram already!”
Shaggy’s surprisingly cruel statement causes Scooby to believe that none of the kids wants him around anymore and he leaves the treehouse.
As this happens, we see a creepy woman spying on Scooby while laughing manically and declaring “I WANT HIS HEAD!!”
Fun Fact: The woman’s presence is made all the more frightening by the fact that she’s voiced by Ursula The Sea Witch!
Cut to next morning
Shaggy comes into the treehouse to ask his friends if they’ve seen Scooby Doo. Daphne tells him not to worry. But Shaggy points out that they were all hard on him yesterday (even though it’s totally not true in Velma’s case) and he might be avoiding them.
Velma says she feels bad for not making time for him and wants to find him so they can apologize. So the kids decide to head out to his doghouse
Once there, they find a note on his door that says Scooby ran away because no one needs him or loves him anymore
*sniffle*
Shaggy immediately runs home to tell his father and sister that Scooby ran away.
His sister, Sugie takes the news about as well as Shaggy did
Shaggy asks his father (who is a police officer) to file a Missing Person/Puppy report and an APB right away. But Officer Rogers tells Shaggy that, legally, he can’t file a report until Scooby is gone for 24 hours. But he does promise to call the station and tell his co-workers to keep an eye out (and he has Daphne watch Sugie while he runs to the phone)
Daphne does her best to calm the baby down. And it actually works for a little while
But then Fred goes and ruins it by remarking that the city is so huge that it could take months to find Scooby even with police assistance. You can guess how this turns out.
Velma calms them down by assuring them that her computer can help find Scooby. But, just their luck, her computer randomly explodes for no reason.
Fred says they can just use Scooby’s super sniffer to find clues. But bringing up Scooby just gets the Rogers waterworks going again
Shaggy gets depressed and flashes back to their first case together
Their first case involved a sandbox monster
Turns out Red was the culprit of the first case they solved as a team. And that’s why Freddy insists on blaming Red for every crime. Poor Freddy peaked at infancy and never moved on
Daphne calms Sugie down by telling her she can help by waiting at the house in case Scooby comes back. Then the kids head out
Cut to the cold, lonely Coolsville streets
Scooby gets a supply of bones from the kindly local butcher. And as he’s leaving, he runs into Red Herring. Scooby tells him he’s sad because he doesn’t have friends anymore. And Red offers to be his friend and then yells “PSYCH” and runs away because he’s a jerk.
After this, the scary woman in the bloody coat finds Scooby. And he runs like hell because he doesn’t want her to steal his voice or slice off his head
Cut to the tree house.
Velma has drawn up a map of all Scooby’s favorite places.
Fred suggests splitting up. But then he spaces out and assigns Scooby to Shaggy’s team. Guess what happens next…
Daphne takes charge and tells Fred that they will not be splitting up today and that she shall be wearing the leader hat for the rest of this case. While Daphne is taking charge and thoroughly emasculating him, Fred starts to ponder where Scooby is. He imagines that poor Scooby is lost, scared, and alone is some old west ghost town
And that mole monsters have dragged him underground
And then a kindly old lady saved him
But the kindly old lady turned out to be Dracula in disguise
And that Dracula fed Scooby to a two-headed werewolf and now Scooby is dead
At this point, Daphne FINALLY orders him to shut up. But she comes in too late to calm Shaggy’s nerves
Luckily, while Fred was coming up with the sickest scenario ever, Velma was looking for clues. And she discovers that Scooby left a trail for them to follow
This development actually cheers Shaggy up. But then Freddy goes and ruins it by pondering whether or not they should change their name if Scooby is never found (because it would be silly to call the team “The Scooby Doo Detective Agency” if the namesake is missing and presumed to have been murdered by Dracula and the Wolfman).
…I’m starting to wonder if Fred is torturing this poor kid on purpose.
Fred tries to make it up to Shaggy by bringing in the culprit. However, in doing so, he commits a minor sex crime by breaking into Red Herring's bathroom Norman Bates style and screaming at him while he's showering.
So at least now the kids know where to start
Cut to the butcher shop.
The butcher tells them that he gave Scooby enough bones to last him a year. And then saw him head west. After this, Shaggy and Velma stumble on a clue (one of Scooby’s favorite chewie toys)
The chewie toy leads them to another pile of Scooby’s junk (he really needs a new luggage bag…)
Cut to a spooky alley.
Poor Scooby is lost. And to make matters worse, he gets assaulted by alley dogs. He thinks he’s saved when they run off after witnessing his mad karate skillz.
But, in actuality, the alley dogs were scared off by the freaky woman in the bloody coat
She once again demands Scooby’s head. And he bails in such a hurry that he forgets his suitcase. And once he gets away from her, he sits on a corner and cries because he misses his friends.
Grab your tissues, folks. It only gets worse from here.
Cut to the kids
The trail has lead them to the alley that Scooby just ran out of (and the kids can’t believe he wandered into such a bad neighborhood). When they find Scooby’s suitcase, they see a mysterious red handprint on it. And Fred’s first reaction is to assume it’s blood.
No really. He actually says this. I’m kinda surprised the 1980s kid show censors let that one fly
Anyhoo, mentioning blood understandably causes Shaggy to go into hysterics and start bawling again. And it also causes Daphne to tell Fred that he’s an insensitive piece of crap (those aren’t her exact words, but that’s basically the jist of it)
After this, the junkyard dogs come back and close in on the kids.
Daphne, being the little snarky badass that she is, calmly files her nails and assures her friends that she’s got this situation covered.
This version of Daphne is the best. No one can dispute this
She calls her butler over and orders him to scare off the dogs (and he inadvertently scares Freddy in the process)
Once the dogs are gone, the kids decide that they can cover more ground on Velma’s skateboard. So she summons it out of nowhere and off they go.
In the meantime, Scooby is attempting to get food by making sad eyes at restaurant owners. It doesn’t work. And he starts to cry because he is now sad, lonely, lost, AND HUNGRY.
I told you it only gets worse.
But he doesn’t cry for long because the Crazy Lady finds him and he has to lose her again. He eventually gets away; but he loses his dog tag in the process.
Cut back to the gang
Somehow, Fred manages to spot the dog tag while they’re cruising along the sidewalk at top speed. And the others commend him for finally making himself useful on this case instead of being a jerkwad and making Shaggy and his baby sister cry.
Daphne mentions that it’s gonna be hard to track Scooby without Velma’s computer. But then, Velma finally remembers that she’s smart enough to do math without a calculator. So she uses a pencil and paper and some bizarre looking math to figure what which direction they should go
Note to pet owners: If you ever lose your pet, this is the formula you can use to track it down!
Cut to a scary, foggy pier
Scooby is using the fog to hide from the scary lady while the kids are doing the search light conga to get through the fog.
Suddenly, they spot a scary….thing
And, in a rare show of chivalry, Fred tries to shield Velma’s tender young eyes from the horror that is upon them
And Shaggy laments that he doesn’t want to die without apologizing to Scooby. And at this point, the box monster finally revels himself
Shaggy tries to apologize, but Scooby says he cannot forgive him for being a meanie
However, Scooby is a lot more forgiving towards the girls. And he immediately decides to let it go and rejoin the team after Daphne admits that she was worried sick and Velma tells him that she missed him
And Velma gets kisses for being the only one who wasn’t a total jerkface back at the treehouse
The happy reunion is cut short when Crazy Lady returns and demands Scooby’s head. And now that the gang is back together, we get a musical chase montage!
And Velma and Scooby use a disguise to scare her away
Sadly, she doesn’t stay gone for long. And after the kids do a shout out to The Little Mermaid (I’m assuming it was an intentional reference because of the villain’s VA), they flee in terror.
When Crazy Lady drops a paintbrush on the deck, Velma finally figures out what’s up with her.
And she does it just in time. Because when Crazy Lady closes in on Daphne, Fred, and Shaggy; Scooby actually gets aggressive with her to make her back off!
But before he can get a spot on ‘When Animals Attack’, Velma pulls him away and tells the gang what is really going on
Turns out the crazy lady is actually a famous artist named Paula P Casso. The red blotches on her coat are paint, not blood. And she wanted Scooby’s head because she thinks it’s a perfect shape and she wants him to be a model for her.
She could have saved herself a lot of grief if she had just said that from the get go. But artists are all crazy eccentrics, so I guess that wasn’t possible.
Anyhoo, after she apologizes for scaring the life out of him, Scooby agrees to be her model
Cut to a few days later at the treehouse
The kids are throwing Scooby a party to make sure he knows that they don’t hate him and don’t want him to run away and live on the streets again.
And Freddy sits in the background and sulks because he had his heart set on changing the team name to “The Freddy Jones Detective Agency”.
Still not as big a douche as the Mystery Incorporated incarnation
They unveil the painting and it looks like…this
And then Shaggy announces that no ugly painting can ever compare to having his best friend back. And then the episode ends with one of the cutest screen caps ever.
Final thoughts: This episode really tries to tug at your heartstrings. Even though the crying is hammy and over the top, it is pretty sad to see Shaggy and Scooby suffer because of a minor argument.
And I liked how Scooby couldn’t immediately forgive Shaggy but then was willing to take Velma’s apology without a second thought. Because it helps erase the pain of......you know what.
1) The opening monster scene...
There was a scene in the beginning where Fred tries to convince Scooby to be the bait for his latest stupid trap. He tries offering Scooby Snax as a bribe, but Scooby still says no. So Shaggy tells Velma, “you KNOW how to make him do it….” And she reluctantly turns to Scooby and says “Please save us, Dog Wonder!”. And that gets him to do it. Scooby Snax don’t work; but flattery from Velma does. These two are still pals!!! SUCK IT, MYSTERY INCORPORATED!!!!
2) Lots of love for old school Hanna-Barbera:
This movie takes place in a beautiful parallel universe where enough people still give a crap about obscure Hanna-Barbera cartoons for SDCC to not only acknowledge their existence, but to give them tons of banner space in the dealers’ room and a big ass balloon outside the convention center (the setting felt more like "Hanna Barbera Con" than "Comic Con"). Seriously, I wish the REAL SDCC was as cool as the one in the movie.
*sigh*
As much as I love Hanna-Barbera. Even I can't believe that Magilla Gorilla could ever have been popular enough to warrant his own booth at a con. That wouldn't even fly at an ACTUAL "Hanna-Barbera Con"; let along a general comic book and/or geek convention
3) One of the people in charge of this movie is apparently a REALLY big fan of Frankenstein Jr and The Impossibles.
That character is all over this movie. And it’s a real treat to me and the 6 other people who are nerdy enough about Hanna-Barbera trivia to recognize the character on sight.
4) I can’t help wondering if the plot was inspired by (or stolen from) Mark Hamill’s Comic Book: The Movie.
Because Comic Book: The Movie also centers around a fanboy being outraged when he learns that his favorite silver age hero is getting a "gritty" Hollywood reboot.
BTW, if you haven't seen Comic Book: The Movie, GO WATCH IT NOW BECAUSE IT’S AMAZING!!!).
Can you tell I really really REALLY love this movie?
5) This movie does a hilarious twist on the "glasses gag". And I wont spoil it here because I want y'all to see it for yourselves.
