Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery

Scooby-Doo and Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery

Scooby-Doo and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery teams up two cartoony favorites. Reportedly, the makers aimed for “crazy-wacky”, and I feel like they made it.

Scooby-Doo and KISS: The Detroit Rock

The KISS World amusement park, which proclaims them “hottest band in the land”, is haunted by the Crimson Witch. She’s attacking riders of the attractions and trying to shut down the park. She’s come from another dimension to take the Detroit Rock and summon the Destroyer. She also dresses like a refugee from a heavy-metal remake of Conan, with a robotic, vaguely samurai-like mask, fangs, and a metal bikini. (The Destroyer, when he finally appears, resembles MODOK flying through a Kirby-verse.)

Scooby-Doo and KISS: The Crimson Witch

The Scooby gang are all (except Fred, but including the dog) wearing KISS makeup because they’re excited to go to that night’s concert, but if they don’t help solve the mystery, there won’t be a performance. (Fred’s favorite group is instead “The Ascot Five”.) Daphne has a crush on “Starchild”, which annoys Fred a lot. I’m not sure I ever envisioned these kids being such huge fans of a glam band, but it fits right in with the generally praise-based approach towards the band that this weirdly funny cartoon takes.

Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Scooby gang in makeup

Turns out Kiss “solves mysteries on a cosmic level” so they’re already investigating their own park. They also have superpowers, making this more cartoony. The Sailor Moon-like costume change sequence, complete with Japanese captions, reinforces the over-the-top approach, just in case you weren’t sure. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy weird adventures in an amusement park? You can see part of the transforms in the trailer:

Apparently there are tons of references for Kiss fans, but since I know little about the band (beyond Gene Simmons’ egotism, their willingness to exploit their brand, and the makeup), I’m not sure. The voices are done by the right people:

Scooby-Doo and Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery

  • Fred (and Scooby-Doo) – Frank Welker
  • Velma – Mindy Cohn
  • Daphne – Grey Griffin
  • Shaggy – Matthew Lillard
  • The Demon – Gene Simmons
  • The Starchild – Paul Stanley
  • The Catman – Eric Singer
  • The Spaceman – Tommy Thayer

The opening credit sequence is set to “Rock and Roll All Nite”, with stylized animated band members that looked pretty cool, while classic insert art of the kids running away was added in. Other songs included are

  • Love Gun
  • Shout It Out Loud
  • I Was Made for Loving You
  • Detroit Rock City
  • Modern Day Delilah (over the end credits)
  • And the new “Don’t Touch My Ascot”.

You can get a combo pack with Blu-ray, DVD, and UltraViolet copy, or a plain DVD edition. The extras are as follows:

  • Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? “To Switch a Witch” episode (Blu-ray only)
  • Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? “The Diabolical Disc Demon” episode, where the gang investigates a mystery at a recording studio (Blu-ray only)
  • “Are You a Scooby or a Shaggy?” (2 minutes) asks that question of the real-life KISS band members and other voice talent, including Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, who make vocal cameos.
  • “KISS Cut-Ups” is a minute of the band in makeup goofing around.

I would have expected to have them include the 2003 Halloween episode of What’s New, Scooby-Doo?, where KISS guest-starred, but they didn’t. That series was also the first where Cohn and DeLisle (now Griffin) voiced Velma and Daphne. (The studio provided a review copy.)



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *