Buy 'Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island' on your way home

October 31, 9:39 AMTV on DVD ExaminerJohn Stahl

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Scooby and the gang

I cannot recommend "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island" highly enough in this Halloween installment of "Animation Friday."  This 1998 direct-to-DVD Scooby-Doo movie is the first, and I am now convinced the best, in this modern series.

Zombie Island is a great Halloween treat for you to bring home to your kids tonight and will not even rot their teeth or their brains. I am confident that they will love it and that you enjoy it at least the first two times that they make you sit down and watch it with them. I promise you too that there is not even a mention of the highly annoying Scrappy-Doo.

I had not seen this movie since Cartoon Network aired it several years ago and had forgotten that the each of the earlier entries in this series started with a version of the very catchy theme of the original "Scooby-Doo Where Are You" series that many of us still love today. In the case of Zombie Island, the rock group Third Eye Blind performed the song over a montage of villains in rubber costumes terrorizing Scooby and the gang.

On a similar note, Zombie Island and some of the movies that followed included other musical montages that were added in the middle of the original series. Not everyone liked these, but I did. I even enjoyed Monkee Davy Jones' musical performance during his animated appearance on "The New Scooby-Doo Movies."

I never felt compelled to turn on more lights or set my burglar alarm but did find some segments of Zombie Island genuinely creepy. There was also the great standard humor of Scooby's and Shaggy's eating binges and other elements from the  original series.

I was particularly interested to see the emancipation of the formerly "danger-prone" Daphene. She had a successful high-profile career, was the employer of team leader Fred, and even drove the gang's "Mystery Machine" and flipped a zombie who grabbed her from behind and traditionally would have bound and gagged her in a cave or cellar.

Other good modern touches included a wardrobe update for former ascot-loving Fred and a nice fable about someone who is different not necessarily being evil. I promise too that those of you who watch the end credits and listen to the bubblegum music that accompany them will be rewarded with a nice clip at the end. As a side note, studios are including these clips in all type of movies more so that people will listen to the music during the end credits and hopefully be more inclined to buy the soundtrack for the film.

Additionally, the special features were good and are geared clearly to young children. These include short written biographies of the main characters and a very simple quiz that includes cute praise for right answers. Yes, I did answer every question correctly and would have been very embarrassed if I had missed one.

As always, questions or comments are welcome as entries to this posting or as e-mail to tvdvdguy@gmail.com.