Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf (1988)
Warner Home Video
Cast:
Extras: Drawing Clip, Music Video, Interactive Game, Trailers
Rating:

In their series of ’Scooby-Doo’ releases, Warner Home Video is now visiting the 1989 full-length TV special ’Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf’ for release on DVD. Filled with exciting extras, the DVD sounds like a perfect addition to the existing releases, so I decided to dive right in.

In ’Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf’ Shaggy is transformed into a werewolf by none other than Count Dracula himself. Dracula wants him to run and win the Monster Car Race. What follows is an outrageous race in which Scooby and Shaggy have to outrun and outwit Count Dracula and the hordes of monsters he unleashes on them.

The DVD features the movie in its original fullscreen format. The image is clean and mostly free of blemishes and defects, creating a very stable presentation. However the film’s colors give away the game of the production. While strongly reproduced, colors all have a grayish muted tone to themselves. But nonetheless, ’Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf’ certainly makes a great entrance on DVD with this version that easily beats all broadcast or video-tape incarnations before. The video is well defined, though a tad soft in many instances, and the compression has been done very well, creating solid colors and textures throughout that are free of noise, artifacting or ringing.

The DVD features the original mono audio tracks of the production in English, French and Spanish. All of them are well produced and finely serve the presentation without overly noticeable limitations.

’Get The Picture: is a 2-minute clip that shows you how Scooby is being drawn, while ’Scooby and Shaggy Love To Eat’ is an entertaining and colorful music video to the song of the same name. ’The Race Is On’ is a fun little game that is also part of the release that is rounded out by five trailers for other animated releases from Warner Home Video.

Like the previous ’Scooby-Doo’ releases, ’Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf’ is a fun package that doesn’t disappoint. It features a great presentation of the film, spiced up with some interesting extras.