Scooby-Doo: Abracadabra Doo (2010) - 3.5/4

You can find some real gems in the strange world of straight-to-video cartoons. Take this new Scooby-Doo adventure, for instance. It's inventive, funny, and has some great locations and interesting faces--this is just what cartoons should be. Most kids don't want sweeping, theme-laden Disney epics for brisk entertainment: it's just too exhausting with its drama, music, and character development. Abracadabra Doo has the immediate-gratification and inventive powers of a Tex Avery cartoon along with its fun mystery story. Both kids and adults can appreciate that.

The story concerns Velma's younger, cuter sister, Madelyn. She's studying at a magic school. Now before ol' Hagrid pulls the Harry Potter bells in your head, this is genuine magic, as in conjuring, with David Copperfield. Even the owner of the school, Whirlin' Merlin, sports tight black pants, a flowy shirt, and long blond hair: he's ready for a magic act 24/7, as is his sexy assistant. Anyhow, a griffin has been terrorizing the school and scaring everybody away, so Mystery Inc. shows up in their mighty van to look for clues. Always looking for "clues", those guys. You don't hear much about 'clues' in real detective work anymore; I don't recall the word 'clue' ever being used in an episode of CSI. But I'm getting off track. At the same time the griffin is attacking, an icecream tycoon, Calvin the Cone King, is trying to buy the beleaguered castle from Merlin. The gang have to investigate the history of the castle to find out just where the griffin is coming from and why.

There is an entertaining cast of characters here. Of course the mystery gang is always entertaining. Frank Welker is great voicing Scooby and Fred, and Matthew Lillard does Shaggy himself. They're all on form here: it feels like the same gang I grew up watching, possibly even better. As to the supporting characters, Merlin is always pulling doves out of the unlikeliest places and appearing in vaguely sexy magician poses. His brother Marlin is Brian Posehn, in character design and voice. Sadly they don't let him do any of his jokes about the taste of semen. Instead he invents machinery to do better magic tricks. There's a very butch maid. A creepy groundskeeper always wielding that menacing pitchfork. The snooty ice cream guy always trying to make his real estate deal. They're all kinda suspicious and all amusing to see on screen, especially given Shaggy's and Scooby's reactions to them.

The jokes work for either adults or children. The animators and the writers are always finding interesting ways to exploit the setting, the situation and the characters for a few laughs. Some of the comedy seems to come down to an amusing phrase, like, "Won't somebody dab up this dairy?" I'm not sure why, but the alliteration of the sentence and the way it's delivered is quite funny. It's not even a punchline. There are also jokes using GPS and iPhones. It's a modern world. It should keep the whole family entertained, at any rate.

As to the scares, looming old towers in misty lakes with fierce griffins and screeching banshees set the spooky tone. For adults, this is fun and makes for great atmosphere. For children, this might offer some suspense and mild scares. Possibly it'll work as both a scary movie and a comedy for the kids, which is just what Scooby Doo stories are supposed to do. As an adult, I liked Abracadabra Doo very much; as a kid, I would have loved it.