Don't Buy The New Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated DVD

The DVD for the latest Scooby Doo cartoon series, Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated, hits the shelves on Tuesday, January 25th and I want you to do yourself a favor: Don't buy it.

Not that it's a bad cartoon. Actually, I think it's a really entertaining reboot that's fun, spooky and honors the original 1969 series. Visually, it's kind of a nod to 60s psychedelia with it's garish colors and surreal texture overlays. And there are just enough inside jokes to keep fans of the original series grinning without forcing everyone to take a trip down memory lane.

So, why shouldn't you buy it? Because Warner Home Video has decided to release only a small portion of the first season -- the first four episodes -- for $9.99. That means if you want to get the entire first season (16 episodes) and are forced to purchase it four episodes at a time, it'll cost you a whopping forty bucks! It's a fun cartoon but forty bucks for a season's worth of 20-minute episodes is beyond steep. It's gouging. And besides being greedy, it's destructive. Because, unlike the original Scooby series, Mystery Incorporated actually has a few running sub-plots that build toward the climax of the season. Chopping it up and leaking it piecemeal destroys the flow of the narrative and, ultimately, ruins the fun for everyone. So what do you do? Here are some options.

The show is running in repeats now on Cartoon Network, so try to catch it there. Here's a schedule:

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/schedule/index.html

And if you'd like to get a taste of what the show's all about, here's a link to an episode Cartoon Network is streaming online. It's not the first one, so be forewarned -- you'll be jumping in in the middle:

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/video/index.html

For those purists who want to start from the beginning, you'll have to do some searching and maybe Tivo an episode or two. IMDb has the episode list, in order, right here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1660055/episodes

It really is a fun series and I hope you get a chance to enjoy it. I just don't think you should have to pay through the nose to do that. Rooby Roooooo! -v