“Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog” – DVD Review!

Scooby-Doo and Mystery Incorporated find themselves teaming up with Courage The Cowardly Dog to solve Nowhere, Kansas’ biggest mystery yet in Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog, available on DVD and Digital come September 14, 2021.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog DVD that I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own.

Warning! Major Spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.

I think it’s safe to say that anybody who grew up in the late ’90s/early ’00s has been manifesting this kind of historic crossover for a solid two decades. After all, Scooby-Doo and Courage the Cowardly Dog are both iconic cartoon franchises with similar theming in regards to monsters, mysteries, and all things creepy. It almost makes you wonder why it took so long for these two worlds to finally collide. But, the wait is officially over and all of our childhood dreams have finally come true with the release of this new animated movie. 

Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog begins at the end of a typical Scooby-Doo unmasking of a newly apprehended villain. However, Scooby begins to hear a strange frequency that begins to make his body twitch and jump around in an uncontrollable fashion. He spontaneously dashes off, leaving behind the rest of the gang, and gives chase to the direction of the frequency that only he can hear. This leads the rest of Mystery Incorporated to forego their unmasking and chase down where Scooby’s headed, which ultimately ends up being the iconic farmhouse where Courage, Muriel, and Eustace live. 

As it turns out, Courage is also hearing the strange frequency and is trying to relay the information to Eustace. But seeing as how Eustace is very much Eustace, he doesn’t care. Scooby and Courage meet one another outside the farmhouse and the rest of the gang finally catch up. But the reunion is cut short when giant acid-spitting cicadas crawl out of the ground and begin to attack the group. After fending off the attack, everybody heads inside and introductions between the characters are made while Muriel innocently bakes cookies. 

One thing that I really loved about this movie from the jump was that they stayed true to Courage the Cowardly Dog’s general vibe regarding art design and character personalities. For example, Muriel and Eustace remain relatively oblivious to the chaos, panic, and abnormal supernatural occurrences that are happening around them, just like in the original cartoon. Additionally, I was so happy to see that the movie didn’t skimp out on keeping up with the original art and set design. The house that Courage lives in looks identical to the way it looked in the original run, with bright off-putting colors mixed with real-life prints for wallpaper and rugs.

A while later, everybody gets invited to dinner at the Mayor’s mansion and everyone is enthused about some free food. Immediately, we’re thrown into a brilliant mix of both Scooby-Doo’s and Courage the Cowardly Dog’s original cartoon formulas. On one hand, getting trapped in a big spooky mansion with an incredibly suspicious butler and chef comes straight from the familiar Scooby-Doo playbook. Simultaneously, unexplainable and terrifying supernatural events happen (such as chairs coming alive and attempting to eat people) only to get waved away as mild inconveniences, much like what happened in nearly every episode of Courage. Also, the Mayor’s mansion is practically a shrine to Courage the Cowardly Dog’s legacy as a fan-favorite cartoon, with portraits of extremely memorable villains from the original cartoon decorating the walls. 

Watching this movie was actually like playing a game of I Spy. In fact, I’m not ashamed to say that this was my favorite part of the whole film. A good chunk of the story takes place inside the Mayor’s mansion and I spent so much time calling out portraits of villains I remembered from the original Courage the Cowardly Dog cartoon – Freaky Fred, Ramses’ Ghost, The Queen of the Black Puddle, and the Weremoles make appearances as just some of the many portraits. But even better, there’s an artifact library inside the mansion which houses many iconic objects from the show, including the Possessed Mattress, Fusilli’s hat, the Space Chicken’s blaster gun, Kitty’s mask, and statues of Katz and Le Quack. 

The movie jumps back into the familiar and totally expected formula long established by the Scooby-Doo franchise. The gang (and Muriel) get kidnapped by the cicadas and dragged down to be held captive in a secret series of underground tunnels. As it turns out, the cicadas have been causing so much mayhem because they’ve been trying to gain control over an extremely powerful and rare magical meteorite that crashed in Nowhere, Kansas some time ago. Now, anybody who’s familiar with Scooby-Doo should have seen this little revelation coming from a mile away. After all, the majority of Scooby villains are usually motivated by greed and their desperate attempt to take control over property or riches (like gold, oil, or cash). So this wasn’t surprising. 

After a big musical-themed chase scene (another popular trope from Scooby-Doo) and Courage utilizing the meteorite’s shapeshifting powers to grow giant and fight a giant cicada creature, we finally get to unmask the real villains of the whole movie. As it turns out, the real villains behind the whole charade end up being Katz and Le Quack, much to my surprise. I actually wasn’t anticipating these guys as being the real bad guys. In fact, I had a whole dumb idea brewing inside my head that Eustace was secretly doing something to make Courage run away, finally giving him some peace. But, I was way off. 

Now, for those of you who don’t know too much about Courage the Cowardly Dog, Katz and Le Quack are some of the most memorable villains from the series. The original show had a mixed bag of villains in each episode, with some episodes bringing forth villains that actually meant to do harm to Courage and his family, while other villains are just misunderstood oddities that have strange, yet sympathetic backstories. Katz and Le Quack, however, were not sympathetic villains. They were recurring antagonists that had it out for Courage and his family. In fact, I’d argue that Katz was one of the most terrifying villains from the show because he devised some of the most sinister and violent plans to get revenge on Courage in the episodes that he starred in. 

I was extremely impressed by Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog. I think it might be my favorite movie from the more modern straight-to-DVD Scooby releases. Although I was excited upon hearing the rumors and then seeing the trailer for this movie, I was worried because I understand that things are different from the days when I was a kid. Courage the Cowardly Dog was notoriously scary back when it was airing and I don’t think Cartoon Network would air a show like that in 2021. At the same time, Scooby-Doo’s more recent revisit of classic childhood favorites like Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island was a major letdown in regards to how it disrespected and rewrote the source material. 

However, this movie was fantastic. It felt special. It almost felt like a love letter to the fans who watched the original shows growing up, a love letter to the source material, and a love letter to the late Thea White, who voiced Muriel and recently passed away. I loved seeing these two worlds collide and how much thought went into making sure that there were little Easter Eggs scattered throughout the film for long-time fans.

Personally, my only real complaint about this movie was the Eustace ‘Straight Outta Nowhere’ rap sequence that took place in the middle. It felt out of place and out of character, especially with the overall tone of the narrative. But considering the fact that I am older, I’m not too mad at it. The whole rap music video scene will probably be hilarious to kids that decide to watch this film when it is released. 

Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage The Cowardly Dog – Special Features:

• 3 bonus episodes from the Scooby-Doo franchise:
  • Scooby-Doo, Where Are You: 1×05- “Decoy For A Dognapper”
  • The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour: 1×03 – “The Gruesome Game of Gator Ghoul”
  • The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour: 2×21 – “The Chiller Diller Movie Thriller”

The standard DVD release of Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage The Cowardly Dog features a single disc containing the 72-minute long film, including three bonus episodes from the Scooby-Doo franchise. The DVD will be marketed for $14.99 (SRP), $19.99 (SRP Canada). This film will also be available on Digital. 

Both the DVD release of Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage The Cowardly Dog and the Digital version will be available for purchase on September 14, 2021!

Are you picking up a copy of Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog when it gets released?

Let us know in the comments below!

Author: Rodney

Rodney has a bachelor’s degree in English Literature. Aspiring to one day write television shows and novels, he’s an avid slash-shipper and enthusiast for all things gay. Rodney’s especially a lover of magic, mystery, and superheroes—holding Harry Potter, the X-Men, and Scooby-Doo close as his own personal favorites. But when he’s not fantasizing about how cool it would be to have magic, he’s busy writing fanfiction and re-watching old TV shows.

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