Botched Spot

Hitting shelves last week was the straight to DVD movie, “Scooby-Doo! and WWE: Curse of the Speed Demon,” the second movie pairing between WWE and Scooby-Doo. As I eagerly waited for Amazon to deliver my copy to me, I decided to re-watch the first movie team up of Scooby and WWE, “Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery,” to relive the magic of WWE City.

I watched the movie when it first came out in 2014 because I just can’t pass up watching a cartoon about WWE Superstars. Sure, Scooby’s fun and all (almost makes up for the voids of charisma that are Fred and Daphne), but the idea of seeing officially licensed animation of Triple H fighting off a Ghost Bear is too much to pass up. If they have to use Scooby-Doo as a hook to get non-WWE fans to give this movie a look, so be it.

Overall “Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery” hasn’t aged well in the two years since it came out. I mean the quality of the movie looks fine and all, but some of the main stars from WWE are Santino, Brodus Clay, and AJ Lee! Sin Cara is also prominently featured, which indicates the big plans they originally had for the character. Sure he’s still in the WWE now, but I imagine kids watching this movie today are wondering why he’s tag teaming with Cena in the main event of “Wrestlemania Mystery” while he’s getting skipped over on Raw today.

Daphne finds her inner mark. via GIPHY

Also the movie begins with Scooby and Shaggy beating the latest WWE Video Game by dancing along with accurate motion controls. Accurate motion controls! Ah, the lofty technology we naively dreamed of in 2014! The movie’s plot kicks off after their victory, when Vince comes on screen to tell them they won an all expenses paid trip to WWE City to see Wrestlemania! Scooby and Shaggy have to beg, plead, and guilt trip the rest of the team into going with them, which is surprising to see in a movie that’s literally a giant ad for Wrestlemania.

Once their trip begins, the Scooby Gang quickly makes friends with John Cena and his two trainers/Ghost Bear suspects, get shot at by a crazy hillbilly/Ghost Bear suspect, and are blamed for the Ghost Bear’s path of destruction by an evil Executive/Ghost Bear suspect who is written to be very similar to Stephanie McMahon. One thing this mystery movie doesn’t lack is Ghost Bear suspects.

One of the most interesting parts of the movie is the concept of WWE City, where the businesses have a disappointing lack of pun based names. Sure, there’s some alliteration, like “Tombstone Tacos,” but they couldn’t have Kane’s Big Red Lobster or Gobbeldy Gooker Turkey Burgers? After the Scoobies get VIP house show tickets and tour WWE’s training camp, the Ghost Bear attacks, resulting the Scoobies hunting for the monster and eventually the WWE Championship, leading to all kinds of near-death adventures.

Cena literally carries the movie. via GIPHY

Everything is wrapped up at the end in a wrestling match between Kane and the tag team of Scooby and Shaggy, where the two are fighting for their freedom after a stolen belt heist. I won’t say who wins, but I will say that they win by pinning someone who’s not even in the match to begin with.

I also won’t spoil who is unmasked as the Ghost Bear, but I will point out that they appeared in at least one scene alongside the bear, and in order to pull of their whole plot against Wrestlemania, they had to learn about EMP devices, underwater tunnels, robotics, hypnosis techniques, how to hack into a video game, and send fake emails out to everyone who owned the game. If they only used their knowledge for good!

The use of wrestlers is fun, if not a little reserved. It seems like everyone has to be a straight man for Shaggy and Scooby, so normally colorful people like Vince turn into just a background character that puts their hand on their chin and nods while Velma does all of the mystery solving. Other than that you mostly hear one off catchphrases from the superstars and see them punching the Ghost Bear when things get hairy. One fun moment does have Sin Cara telling the Scooby Gang through the language of “masked luchador” (a bunch of flipping around), about the legend of the Ghost Bear while Cena translates.

While Scooby’s always a big ol’ ball of fun, and Shaggy is bearable, the rest of the team doesn’t have to many memorable moments. Fred mostly takes pictures, Daphne loves Cena, and Velma struggles to figure out the “science” of WWE. When watching Big Show hit Cena with a table in one match, she gets confused because her WWE rulebook doesn’t say anything about using tables. Of course this is weird because there are rules about tables, but they’re not written down in a book, but Big Show was using a picnic table in his match anyway, so I don’t even know anymore.

Me looking at my twitter feed RN. via GIPHY

“Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery” is a fun movie, but probably best left for kids and Scooby-Doo fans, unless you’re really hard up for some animated wrestlers. That may sound obvious, but “The Flintstones and WWE: Stone Age Smackdown” is actually pretty funny for anyone. While I enjoyed my time overall, the superstars came across as pretty dull for the most part, when they should have been larger than life. Maybe it’s in Scooby’s contract that he has to be the zaniest one on screen?