Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog

This Scooby-Doo! installment offers nothing new except a crossover with Courage the Cowardly Dog. Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog is a standard Scooby-Doo! tale involving monsters, munchies, mysteries, and meddling. Perhaps what's most interesting is that the writers of this movie (and recent Scooby-Doo! movies, for that matter) seem even more jaded than audiences who are overly familiar with the many Scooby-Doo! signature features that have been in place since the 1970s. Much humor is mined and attempted out of the classic "And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for these meddling kids!" line from the villains shortly after their true identities have been revealed after their monster masks are ripped off. There's an awareness that seems intended for the parents watching this with their kids, and while it's nice to be included in a joke, even that awareness grows stale.

It's a crossover movie, and the story takes full advantage of the worlds and characters of Scooby and Courage. That's fine, even if the result is something filed under that old chestnut "It is what it is." By this point, it's starting to feel like perhaps Scooby-Doo and the gang have run their course, and it's time to trade in the Mystery Machine for a customized golf cart so Fred, Daphne, Shaggy, and Velma can retire someplace with other Me Generation Boomers. The lack of diversity, half a century after these characters first appeared on television, is rather glaring by this point, and it's not exactly something that a new character like Scrappy-Doo can rescue. Perhaps, finally, this franchise has run its course.