A delightful Scooby-Doo! mystery.
With being only the second episode of Scooby-Doo! and Srcappy-Doo!, it is clear that the show had already found its footing. Though in later Scrappy cartoons, the mystery elements and the rest of the Mystery Inc. gang would fade away, here both of those are pretty much the focus. In fact you could say that Velma is in fact the main character here and the gang works with the greatest detective of all time (or a robot version of him).
This episode is a light parody of both the movie Westworld (1973) and the TV show Fantasy Island (1977-1984). The gang travels to a place called Wonderworld, this is a place where with the help of robots, people can go to live out their greatest fantasies. Velma's fantasy is to solve a mystery with the great Sherlock Holmes. So here she teams up with a Sherlock Holmes robot to solve a mystery that a computer has created for her. However when a robot of the evil Night Ghoul seems to malfunction, the gang may have a real mystery on their hands.
This is a fast paced and very fun episode. Wonderworld is an excellent Scooby-Doo! setting. It is both creepy and a lot of fun. The Night Ghoul, while not one of Scooby's most original villains is scary and threatening enough to feel like a real threat to our heroes. His design is especially appealing and will remind Scooby fans of the best villains of Scooby-Doo! Where Are You. The humor is quite good and while this may not be laugh out loud funny, it does keep a smile firmly planted on your face. Though many people hate Scrappy, he is very well utilized here. He gets to play on his strengths as a character, mainly the truly funny running joke of him believing his uncle Scooby is not afraid of anything. Yet he never attempts to steal the spotlight, which instead remains firmly on the Mystery Inc. gang. I never hated Scrappy the way so many people do and this episode shows why. When he is used well he really can work as a character. However I think even those who hate the little guy will find he doesn't get much in the way here. The basic story and mystery are also a lot of fun.
The only real problem with this episode is the lack of suspects. It is very easy to figure out who done it, because there are not that many characters besides the Mystery Inc. gang.
This is a fun episode
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