Two childhood loves are coming together, as the WWE, a.k.a. the WWF for anyone born before 2002, announced that they will be co-producing a new Scooby-Doo film. The film is to be another entry in the successful Scooby-Doo direct-to-video series produced by Warner Bros, qhich first started with 1998's Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. A cast of WWE wrestlers/superstars are to be featured, including John Cena, Triple H, Kane, and a slew of the new faces of the promotion's current TV-PG era. Vince McMahon himself is also to be expected to lending his voice.
There are a couple of reasons why I wanted to discuss this. The first reason is that it is personally great to write up something on this site about professional wrestling that isn't a tragic and unfortunate death. Though I still follow the "sport" per se, I haven't been watching the WWE's product lately due to their many missed opportunities and bad writing.
Scooby-Doo, on the other hand, has actually been prospering and improving with age. Though many will mock the live-action feature film adaptations or re-do their bad stand-up routines about the hidden messages of the original series, the franchise has overcome many obstacles and waning years to finally achieve critical success, to easily go hand in hand with its brand recognition. Some of the DTV films can honestly be creepy and scary, or at least have a proper budget and slick animation, and the recent television series, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated is genuinely funny and deep even for a kid's show.
As for WWE co-producing credit, this is a shocking development for some, an abject horror for others, but seems a logical business decision. The WWE's film division, dubbed WWE Studios, has been in the toilet, a widely mocked joke around Hollywood. Except for their first release, a great documentary about Wrestlemania XIX, none of them have been any good, hampered intensively by badly inserted WWE wrestlers, wasted talented actors, and crews that know nothing about structure or quality. Some could make a case for the laughably cheesy horror See No Evil or the laughably cheesy action b-movie The Marine but not for any of the other long-time residents of the five dollar bin. Working with a known product and franchise that is guaranteed to sell units, push your talented stars to a wider market, and have repeated showings on Cartoon Network is an ideal move.
Of course, anyone who is a fan of Scooby-Doo is aware that this isn't the first time the lovable dog and his mystery gang have teamed up with real-life celebrities. Throughout the many television shows entries of the franchise, the animated crew have personally met with people ranging from Sandy Duncan and the Addams Family to A Simple Plan. The WWE wrestlers featured in the upcoming film will be the most noteworthy sports-related celebrities since the great dane's many unexpected meet-ups with the Harlem Globetrotters.
Oh, and the last reason: they fight with a "mysterious ghostly bear", which is both awesome and a great in-joke for wrestling fans.
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