Scooby Doo doesn’t do enough
by Chris Hewitt
Knight Ridder Newspapers Press

   It’s true what they say about pot: It does lead to harder drugs. Just ask the gang in Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.
   The first Scooby reached out to two doobie-metrically opposed audiences—kids under 6 and reefer-loving adults—with its barely subliminal barrage of jokes about the obviously baked Shaggy. Scooby 2 goes easy on that stuff, but they still can’t resist having Shaggy huff spray-can fumes and guzzle a variety of mind-altering liquids (“That was almost exactly like my freshman year of college,” wheezes Shaggy—wink, wink).
   Scooby 2 is set in the sort of places the old cartoon visited—a haunted house, a haunted mine—but I wouldn’t be surprised if Scooby 3 takes place in a haunted crystal meth lab, where Daphne’s been dancing and hosing down mineral water for 48 hours straight.
   The drug references will probably fly over the heads of Scooby’s young fans. Like a slightly better version of the first Scooby movie, this one faithfully reproduces stuff from the cartoons without additions.
   If you’re a fan of the cartoon, you’ll chuckle with recognition when the villain mutters, “I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids.” Is a chuckle enough?
   A few other questions: Even if nobody else will tell her, shouldn’t Sarah Michelle Gellar’s hubby/co-star Freddie Prinze Jr. give her a heads-up when her wig is obviously on wrong? What is the excellent Tim Blake Nelson (The Good Girl) doing here? And when will the Scooby filmmakers give Linda Cardellini, Velma, more to do.