STACK #191 Sep 2020

FILM FEATURE

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Fifty years after Scooby-Doo first premiered, director Tony Cervone figured it was high time to tell the story of how everyone’s beloved talking dog first met his future best friend, Shaggy, in the all-new animated feature Scoob! Words Gill Pringle

“S cooby-Doo premiered in 1969 and has been on the air ever since. I believe there are 19 different TV series based on him to date,” says Tony Cervone, who spent several years working on Scoob! before realising that Scooby and Shaggy have always been the most important players in the Mystery stories and how come we don’t really know how they met? “We kept thinking of different storylines and every time it was the relationship between Scooby and Shaggy that interested us the most,” he says. “Then we started asking questions – how did they first meet and how did they meet the gang? What was their first mystery? “It didn’t start out as an origin story but then it became the only thing that made sense – putting their friendship at the emotional core. This is a big, giant, goofy adventure movie,

but sometimes that has been forgotten in different adaptations,” he says. If Scooby-Doo fans are familiar with the young adult versions of the fab five, then Scoob! takes audiences back to their childhood, where a

painfully shy Shaggy first adopts our favourite four- legged friend at Venice Beach. Fast forward and the five – voiced

by Zac Efron (Fred), Amanda Seyfried (Daphne), Will Forte (Shaggy), Gina Rodriguez (Velma) and Frank Welker (the voice of Scooby-Doo since 2002) – become firm friends, tasked with their first mystery, involving future long-time

nemesis Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs) and his canine cohort Muttley (Billy West). Delighted by his all-star cast, Cervone says, “Everyone pushed their roles a little bit. It’s important the characters remain who they are but it’s interesting to let the actors do their work. Gina’s Velma is not the same as everyone else’s Velma and Zac Efron’s Fred is not the same as Frank Welker’s Fred, but it's still Fred. A lot of people have played Hamlet over the years.

but with friendship at its heart.” If Spider-Man is synonymous

with NewYork City, then Cervone wanted to place California at the centre of the Scooby-Doo universe with scenes from Beverly Hills and Hollywood. “Growing up in

“Zac was always my first Fred. He has great voice skills. Fred is not the brightest character in the world but he is earnest and believes everything he says, so you want an

Chicago. I learned all about California from Scooby-Doo,

18 SEPTEMBER 2020

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