Scooby-Doo And The Alien Invaders

Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders is the third of a series of direct-to-video animated films based upon the Scooby-Doo Saturday morning cartoons. It was released on October 3, 2000, and it was produced, starting in 1999, by Warner Bros. Animation (though it had a Hanna-Barbera Cartoons logo and copyright notice at the end). Unlike the previous films, in spite of the grimmer atmosphere, it also had a lighter tone since the real monsters are the good guys and the disguised humans are the primary antagonists.

Plot

The film starts off with the Mystery Machine driving through a desert town. A sand storm kicks in, and Shaggy makes an accidental turn into government property. The sight of a UFO causes Shaggy to lose control of the vehicle, and find themselves on the outskirts of a small town. While Scooby and Shaggy stay with the van, the rest of the gang walks into a local diner to ask for directions. Shaggy and Scooby then encounter a fictional animal called a jackalope. Shaggy and Scooby run in the diner in panic while the Scooby-Doo, Where are You theme song (sang by Jennifer Love Hewitt) is played, claiming to have seen aliens.

The diner waitress, Dottie, says that they never see the aliens but see strange lights and hear strange sounds at night. The chef, Sergio (called "Serge" by Dottie) says that a month ago, local cattle vanished overnight without a trace and a lot of people moved away. A man named Lester claims to have been abducted once before, and believes the two. He also says that he has pictures, so the gang goes to his house to see them. They turn out to be nothing more than paintings by Lester. He then points out the nearby SALF: the Search for Alien Life Forms (which is an obvious play on the real-life organization S.E.T.I., or the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), dishes, saying that ever since they were built, there were numerous UFO sightings and cattle disappearances. Daphne and Velma sleep in a bunk bed and Fred sleeps on Lester's couch. Scooby and Shaggy fall into a deep sleep on the roof, and are abducted. The aliens try to examine the two of them, but Scooby is able to free them. After some struggle on the ship, the two find themselves in the middle of nowhere the next morning. They are awakened by a hippie-chick photographer, Crystal, and her golden retriever, Amber. Scooby and Shaggy fall head over heels in love with them. They meet up with the rest of the gang in the cafe and are too love sick that they don't want to eat which shocks Fred, Velma, and Daphne. Shaggy then has a musical dream sequence with the song "Groovy".

Velma, Fred and Daphne meet the crew of SALF, Steve, Laura and Max, while Shaggy and Scooby hang out with Crystal and Amber. Velma becomes suspicious when she sees dried mud on their boots, since they are in the desert. Later, she decides to take the gang to a canyon where she presumes a river might run. The canyon proves to be dry, but they find mining equipment, and in the caves, gold. The SALF crew (the main antagonists of the film) capture them and hold them hostage as they explain that they stumbled upon this cave when searching for ground to place another SALF dish. Since it was on government land, they decided not to report it, and plan to keep it that way. They are also revealed to be the aliens who abducted Scooby and Shaggy; the UFO was nothing more than a dressed-up helicopter, and the inside was an old movie set.

At the end of the film, Crystal and Amber prove to be aliens from 20 light years away, and are dressed like they are because their interpretations of the way humans are dressed were derived from 1960s television broadcasts, to which Shaggy says, "Hey, why mess with a classic look." The UFO that ran Shaggy off the road was actually Crystal's. The SALF crew and the fake MPs are arrested by the police. Shaggy and Scooby are broken-hearted but a box of Scooby Snacks does the trick to snap the duo out of their sadness.

Featured Villains

• Max
• Laura
• Steve
• False MP's

Cast

• Scott Innes – Scooby-Doo, Shaggy Rogers
• Frank Welker – Fred Jones
• Mary Kay Bergman – Daphne Blake
• B.J. Ward – Velma Dinkley
• Jeff Bennett – Lester
• Candi Milo – Crystal, Amber
• Mark Hamill – Steve
• Audrey Wasilewski – Laura
• Kevin Michael Richardson – Max
• Jennifer Hale – Dottie

Production

• In a part of the movie when Shaggy and Crystal are far away talking, you can hear him telling her about his and Scooby's first encounter with the Witch's Ghost ("We thought we'd got away from the first three witches, when this ghost chased us from down there...") from the previous animated movie (speaking what sounds very much like the original audio track from the Witch's Ghost). This is not the first time continuity was shown in the movies, as a scene from the Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost also shows evidence of continuity from some events in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, also, Shaggy and Scooby meet the Hex Girls again after their previous meeting (Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost) in Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire, a future movie which Casey Kasem was returned to reprise his role as Shaggy along with Willa Holland and A.J. Cook, who played Emma and Marti (Childhood friends of Shaggy and also they are a big fan of The Hex Girls) later on. Steve mentioned to Velma that he was working with Ben Ravencroft along with Laura and Max.
• Jennifer Love Hewitt performed Scooby Doo, Where Are You? for the film. The track was played when Shaggy and Scooby were being chased by the "fake aliens".
• "Groovy", another main movie track, performed by Scott Innes as Shaggy (and in part, Scooby Doo) saw Shaggy in one of the most rare scenes where he kisses a girl on the lips (Crystal), but it was all just a dream sequence.
• One of the men eating at the diner, in a yellow plaid shirt, was previously seen in Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost, where he was a crowd member, waiting for the ghost's arrival. He appeared again in Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase.
• Alien Invaders is notable for Mary Kay Bergman's final performance as Daphne as this film is dedicated to her. It was released almost a year after her death. Grey DeLisle would take over after Bergman's passing.
• One of the bad guys (played by Mark Hamill) almost says the famous "And I would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling kids!" but as soon as he comes to "meddling kids", he is ordered to be quiet by a police officer.
• Crystal and Amber were dressed in 60's clothing due the television broadcasts during that decade. This was probably a tribute to the era when the original cartoon series was held.
• This is the second time Mark Hamill has played a character in the direct-to-video series of Scooby Doo. He played Steve in this film, and he had also played Snakebite Scruggs in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.
• During the song that Shaggy sings, he says that when he and Crystal get a house they'd fill it with stuff from 1969, the year that Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! first premiered on television.

External links

• Scooby-Doo And The Alien Invaders at the Internet Movie Database
• Scooby-Doo And The Alien Invaders at AllRovi