The Winchester Boys Get Animated When a Scooby-Doo Adventure Goes Off Script

[froodle]

I'll admit up front that I have not watched a lot of SUPERNATURAL. And by "not a lot" I mean I've seen perhaps two episodes.It's not a taste or preference thing, I just haven't added it to my overwhelming list of things to watch. But when I learned they were doing a team-up with Scooby-Doo and the gang, I made watching this special episode, "Scoobynatural," a priority.

Sam and Dean (JARED PADALECKI and JENSEN ACKLES, not the musical duo) Winchester are fighting a giant stuffed dinosaur when the episode opens, setting the tone for the silliness that is to follow. In payment for saving his life, the grateful toy store owner gives Dean the widescreen television off his wall, which Dean uses open up "The Deancave." But it turns out the television is also a cursed object, like the toy dinosaur, and almost instantly the brothers are sucked into the screen and animated.

I've always loved that trope! Whether it was the THE BANANA SPLITS IN HOCUS-POCUS PARK or KIDD VIDEO, the plot where the real becomes cartoon is just a fun one, and the SUPERNATURAL team does it proud.

It doesn't take long for Dean to realize they're not just in a cartoon, but they're in one of his favorites -- SCOOBY-DOO. After befriending Fred (FRANK WELKER), Daphne (GREY GRIFFIN), Shaggy (MATTHEW LILLARD), Velma (KATE MICUCCI) and Scooby (also Welker), Dean convinces Sam that the only way to figure out what's going on is to act out the roles dealt to them. Following the Mystery Machine (following because Dean loses a drag race to Fred), they end up at a haunted mansion where Scooby and others are set to inherit money -- if they can spend the whole night in the house. Dean recognizes the episode as "A Night of Fright is No Delight," and knows how the plot is supposed to play out.

However, the plot doesn't run according to script, and the first person to disappear is instead murdered, leaving an actual (okay, drawn) bloody body behind. Shortly after, Castiel (MISHA COLLINS) joins the cast and explains how he got sucked into the television after seeing the brothers on the screen in their cartoon scene. And then it's time for an investigation, the only way an investigation can be done when you're in a haunted house and someone has been killed -- split up and search for clues!

While searching, Sam tries to convince Velma that ghosts and the supernatural are real, but Velma keeps finding reasonable explanations, even when they run into a supernatural event themselves. Suddenly the entire gang is being chased through the house by a ghost, and...

...(thank you God)...

...we get the classic song and hallway door chase routine! I could just cry, I'm so happy.

But then the chase ends with Fred charging the ghost, like he usually does -- only to get thrown against a wall. The girls are levitated. And Shaggy is thrown out a window, with Scooby jumping after him. The two are saved by Castiel, but not in time to avoid Shaggy getting injured in the fall, which utterly stuns all of Mystery Inc, because Shaggy has jumped out of a biplane in a museum before, and was just fine..

So the Winchesters sit the gang down and tell them the truth about ghosts and monsters. And the results are hilarious, as the members of Mystery, Inc. each go through their own personal nervous breakdowns. Fred feels he's wasted his life chasing crooked real estate developers, while Daphne begins to fear for her immortal soul since there really is an afterlife. But after Sam and Dean help them cope, they're ready to take down the ghost together, as Fred builds the trap.

Of course, as Dean well knows, Fred's traps never work, so he has a Plan B.

By now you have to know that the brothers and Castiel find a way out of the cartoon and solve the real mystery. But the way they put things right with the gang, and the mystery in the physical world that gets resolved, are just too perfect for this episode, and really put a smile on this old Scooby-Doo fan.

Even if you've never watched SUPERNATURAL before, you owe it to your inner child to watch "Scoobynatural." It's such a perfect tribute to the cartoon series, and quite likely may hook you on watching SUPERNATURAL as well! It's the greatest thing to happen to television in decades!