One of the best Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo shorts.
In this cartoon, Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy investigate a mysterious disappearance in cars. While on a stakeout, the Mystery Machine is shrunk along with our heroes inside.
This is a really fun cartoon. The villain, Pistons McGee, is a wonderful villain. He has a great design (that is a bit reminiscent of the Batman villain Hugo Strange) and a great voice. He also feels like a real threat to our heroes and despite not being in a monster costume is a bit reminiscent of classic Scooby villains in being such a threat. A giant rat, who appears here even brings some delightful creepiness into an era that was lacking just that. The gimmick of a shrinking ray allows for a cartoon that feels unique among Scooby adventures. This allows for some very clever, playful and imaginative moments. Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy are all each well utilized here, each having their moment to shine. Plus, the final gag is delightful.
Writer Ron Sellz remembered having great trouble with the shrink ray. He originally referred to it as a shrinking gun, but network censors were dead set against any sort of gun appearing in a cartoon watched by children. Not only could it not be referred to as a gun, but it couldn't look like one either. Sellz remembered, "The animators were given the task of drawing or attempting to draw a shrinking device that didn’t look like a gun. After several drawings were turned down, I was summoned once again. The producers, “Joe Ruby and Ken Spears”, informed me that if a solution wasn’t found, the episode would be scrubbed. Afterall, we can’t have a shrinking device that resembles a gun. When I was a kid, I remembered that the toy company, “Wammo” had a device called an air blaster. It used compressed air to shoot targets., I drew a picture to show them that it couldn’t be confused as a gun, but they said that it looked like a gun, so my idea was thrown out. Back to the drawing board. Anyway, several more secret meetings ensued and a solution was reached. I was sent a drawing of the shrinking device. Would you believe, it looked like a gun! That’s right! It was truly a circle jerk. Back to square one. What a waste of everyone’s time."
The villain was quite similar to actor Lionell Atwill. Some readers of this blog might be familiar with Atwill, who played villains in such classic 1930's horror movies as Doctor X (1932), The Vampire Bat (1933), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) and Murders in the Zoo (1933). About the similarity Sellz stated, " They kept saying that the car thief was a Lionel Atwill type. I pretended to know who Lionel Atwill was because he was before my time. As it turned out, I saw a picture of him and the car thief looks like him. He always played a mad scientist or something. A good bit of casting."
This episode features the only time Shaggy's uncle Fearless Shagaford appears onscreen. He is mentioned in other episodes but never shown. He is only shown briefly here, but he never talks.
A superior Scooby and Scrappy short.
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