During the summer I get a chance to watch a lot of the movies I end up buying from the Goodwill. Some of the movies are ones my mom bought hoping I might like, others are something silly I bought on a lark. Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching two such movies, Scooby Doo meets Batman, and Double Dragons: Shield of Shadow Khan

Follow up:

Batman Meets Scooby Doo

During the 1970's there were several incarnations of Scooby Doo, as the era was sort of Hanna Barbera's golden age, with dozens of its properties on the air. In addition to Scooby Doo Where are You? were longer episodes known as the 'All New Scooby Doo Movies' which featured guest stars from King Kong to the Adams Family. Scooby Doo meets Batman is a collection of the two episodes where Scooby and the Mystery Machine gang meet Batman and Robin and help to defeat the Joker and Penguin. The plots are pretty typical Scooby Doo fair: Fred tells everyone what to do while being useless, Velma finds all the clues and makes the deductions, Daphne gets in trouble and Scooby and Shaggy are scaredy cats. They see a ghost, try to discover the mystery, chasing ensues, they unmask the real villian and they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those darn meddling kids. In these episodes however are the included the elements of the 70s Batman show with Adam West. While the episodes don't actually feature the actor's voice, the corner dialog and silly puns are straight out of the show. (Holy Manhole Batman!)

But Holy Bad Animation Batman!

The first episode wasn't so bad, except for Robin's waaaaay too short shorts, and the plot wasn't too bad, except somehow the mystery machine manages to beat the batmobile to the factory (did Batman get lost or something?) And in addition, Batman and Robin don't actually do that much. The only tool they use more than once are the Bat Cookies (not kidding). It was the second episode that was really bad. The second episode was much more like a regular Scooby Doo episode since Batman and Robin spend most of the episode stuck in a room (and apparently Batman invented LoJack), but my god, the animation mistakes! It's like 4 teams of people worked on it without seeing the others work. Every few scenes the bat logo would get inverted colors, Velma's glasses turned white and in one scene Batman isn't wearing his gloves and has on a ring, and the next he's got on his gloves. But they didn't seem to forget to give Robin the booty shorts....

Double Dragons: Shield of the Shadow Khan

There used to be a time when a show based off of a video game was as bad as having a movie that was based off a video game. Just before you'd watch it you'd get a heavy feeling in your stomach that you just know it's going to suck. And Double Dragons is one of those shows. Based off of the Mortal Kombat lite fighting game of the same name, this is one of those series that makes Pokemon look like Hayao Miasaki. The plot, such as it is, is about two brothers (who don't look remotely related) who run the Double Dragon dojo and are always in an epic fight with the people of the Shadow Dojo, led by the Shadow Master (natch). In true late 80s-early 90s fashion, there's some punk kid who is supposed to be funny and endearing who hangs around the brothers, who is pretty much the source of most problems and always needs rescuing. Why the kid hangs around doesn't make much sense anyway, as he is only interested in video games anyway. In addition to the fighting show that says violence is wrong hypocracy, there is an especially funny irony to the fact Billy Lee always tells the kid playing too many video games is bad for you--as the show is based on a video game. When I pointed it out to my mom she made a very logical point: you shouldn't play video games you should only play one video game: Double Dragons.

The movie, which is just one of those 3 episode edited together and called a movie deals, is about the discovery of the Dragon Claw Daggers, which are supposed to be the only weapon that can permenantly destroy the ultimate evil: the Shadow Khan, who was sealed away in a shield. During an archeological dig the father of the punk kid goes with the Double Dragon brothers and finds both the shield and daggers. The kid whines the whole time about his dad being a geek. What a role model to young boys everywhere: there's nothing more embarrassing than an educated man who enjoys his work and intellegent. The more you know. Somehow, the shield possesses the kid's father and he goes to the Shadow Master. The dig starts falling apart a la Indiana Jones and the Shadow Master's cronies randomly show up. The thing about these cronies is that they make Jessie and James look like freaking Moriarty. I love how at one point a WALL falls on one of the dragon brothers and the kid gets all upset that the injured brother didn't take part in saving his dad. Billy Lee screams at him: 'This isn't a video game, this is real life!' Um, in real life when a wall fall on a person they usually aren't conscious, I'm gonna give the kid a little credit in his assumption. Anyway, they end up saving the kid's father and for the rest of the movie, they fight over the possession of the Dragon Claw Daggers, as the daggers have the power to both completely destroy the Shadow Khan, as well as set him free to reek havok upon the world. There's a six legged dog, a bunch of dragons in training, more stupid cronies, and a climax in which the shadow khan forces people to see their greatest fears. The brothers deal with the shame of not looking for their father, the kid's friend is terrified of sea life because he can't swim (which kind of a bad stereotype as the kid is black) but the kid himself, his greatest fear is: ending up a 'geek' like his dad. Seriously. The good guys win and the movie kinds of just ends, it doesn't really have a conclusion, it just ends with the Shadow Master asking if the Shadow Khan is okay, and when he says he is they start to bicker. Fin.

The animation in the show wasn't that horrible, but the voice acting on dialog was pure velveeta. This is easily one of the cheesiest and stupidest things I've ever seen, but it's still not as bad as Fatal Fury.