Scooby, Shaggy meet real aliens

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Jul 6, 2001

That ever-reluctant, retro-hippie duo is back, and this time they really do meet aliens, although not where we expect. The folks at Warner Brothers Home Entertainment have brought out a new adventure for the Mystery, Inc., gang in the 73-minute film “Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders”.

Although Velma, Freddie and Daphne do uncover a malevolent human element behind the mystery, as usual, this episode of the decades-long series focuses most of its attention on the story line of Shaggy and Scooby.

The gang gets stranded in the desert West when a mysterious flying object, which looks very much like an alien spacecraft, surprises them and sends them careening through the desert night and into a cactus. Their carburetor shot, they hike to a nearby town in search of a mechanic, some food, and a good night’s rest, which becomes longer when the brusque mechanic tells them he’ll get to their problem eventually.

During their wait, they find a mystery when a gabby old kook insists he’s been kidnapped and probed by aliens. Other town residents claim they’ve spotted these aliens as well, and a group of visiting scientists is housed nearby investigating interstellar sounds. There’s also an apparent government-controlled area nearby. Meanwhile, Shaggy and Scooby get kidnapped and probed by alien-like creatures and dumped in the desert, where they run into the loves of their lives, Crystal and Amber. Crystal is a nature photographer who dresses like a hippie and says “Groovy” and “Cool”; Amber is her pet Irish setter. Shaggy and Scooby are in love. They clean up and “dress up”. They lose interest in food, and Shaggy breaks out into a song about Crystal and his dreams of a “groovy” wedding and family.

What to expect otherwise? The violence is typical Scooby-Doo violence. Jennifer Love Hewitt performs the Scooby-Doo theme song and Scott Innes, as Shaggy, sings the love song “Groovy” about halfway through the film.

This movie is an enjoyable twist on the Shaggy and Scooby mishaps of my childhood. Although the loves of their lives do slip from the picture by the end of the movie, it is not because of anything that makes anyone seem like a bad guy – it’s just a bad situation for all concerned. Shaggy and Scooby, therefore, maintain their sloppy bachelorhoods, but the viewer gets a taste of the possibility of love. Heck, what would happen to the gang if Shaggy and Scooby were like this forever? The dynamics would be thrown off and the whole space-time continuum might be disrupted. Whatever. Happily-ever-after for this gang needs to be the status quo, but a fan can dream, can’t she?

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