Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage The Cowardly Dog [DVD]

Director: Cecilia Aranovich

Cast: Frank Welker, Grey Griffin, Marty Grabstein (VOICES)

Release Date: September 14, 2021

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 8/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

Synopsis:

An original animated feature so exciting it’s scratching at the door! Comedy is unleashed when Scooby-Doo, your favorite mystery-solving mutt, teams up for the first time with Courage the Cowardly Dog. The canine colleagues sniff out a strange object in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas, the backwoods hometown of Courage and his owners, Eustace and Muriel Bagge. Soon, the mysterious discovery puts them on the trail of a giant cicada monster and her wacky winged warriors. Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy know that this job is too big for a flyswatter. They’ll need the help of the doggy duo to piece together the puzzle. Can Scooby and Courage overcome their jitters and defeat the insect army before the whole world bugs out? Try not to get scared. We double-dog dare you!

Please Note: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

Two of your favorite scaredy-dogs join forces in ‘Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog’ which finds the Scooby gang wrapping up a standard mystery when a strange noise causes Scooby to wander off. As the gang heads out to track him down, they find him in the town of Nowhere, Kansas at the home of Eustace and Muriel Bagge and their dog Courage who experienced similar strange sensations from the noise which they determine could only be heard by canine ears. Determined to figure out what caused it and why, the Scooby gang teams up with the Muriel and Courage to delve into the mysterious town of Nowhere and the forces at play within.

‘Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog’ is a delightfully fun, funny and just altogether great time with two legendary animated dogs teaming up to deliver ample amounts of laughs and excitement. With a fun new mystery at its core to be solved and plenty of goofy gags, hilarious moments and creepy surprises sprinkled throughout, it largely follows the standard pattern of animated Scooby-Doo movies (and reportedly the crossover was originally thought of as a ‘Scooby-Doo and Guess Who’ episode but expanded and revamped into a feature) while still serving up a surprising number of nods at the ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ series that fans of the beloved (and sadly somewhat short-lived) cartoon will thoroughly appreciate. It even features series voice actors Marty Grabstein and Thea White reprising the voice roles of Courage and Muriel respectively, joined by the usual roster of current Scooby-Doo voice actors including Frank Welker, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard and Kate Micucci who all mesh together quite splendidly and help to make this fun and rewarding crossover a real treat.  Whether you’re a fan of Scooby-Doo, Courage or both, I would strongly encourage giving ‘Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog’ a whirl at your earliest convenience, you’ll likely be thrilled that you did.

Overall, ‘Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog’ is an incredibly fun, beautifully animated and consistently funny crossover film that fans of both leading dogs definitely won’t want to miss out on or overlook; keeping true to the spirit of both sides for the most part while doing a great job of embracing the best and most compatible traits of each. ‘Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog’ is highly recommended, especially for fans of Scooby-Doo and Courage the Cowardly Dog (or even better, both!) who are sure to have a tremendous amount of fun with this splendidly enjoyable crossover. Those who tend to purchase every new Scooby animated film shouldn’t hesitate to do so here and those who would understandably prefer not to buy a copy before watching are certainly encouraged to keep your eyes peeled for a rental option.

VIDEO:

The DVD release of ‘Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog’ is presented in a 16×9 friendly Widescreen presentation with the film’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks quite solid as a whole, especially within the restrictions of the DVD format. It delivers a clean, colorful and smoothly detailed presentation from start to finish that does occasionally find itself a victim of some video noise and pixilation (at least on my 4K TV) which is expected of DVD, and aside from such brief and largely untroublesome moments during darkly lit and fast moving sequences, it holds up surprisingly well and keeps everything looking quite sharp and clean altogether. Overall, this is a very nice standard definition video presentation that should thoroughly please those who are still satisfied the DVD format and it should also suffice without much issue for those more accustomed to Blu-ray and 4K UHD.

AUDIO:

The DVD release features a 384 kbps 5.1 channel Dolby Digital soundtrack. This multichannel soundtrack perfectly complements the fun and laughs onscreen and provides a clean, crisp and nicely balanced audio presentation throughout. It regularly utilizes all five available channels in order to send some music, creatures and other effects throughout the various speakers whenever appropriate and never allowing any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or rendered inaudible in the process. Overall, this is a great 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack that sounds solid throughout and shouldn’t disappoint.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The DVD release of ‘Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog’ includes ‘3 Bonus Cartoons Starring Scooby-Doo’: the first of which is ‘Scooby-Doo! Where Are You’: “Decoy for a Dognapper”’ (running approximately 22 minutes), along with 2 episodes of ‘The Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Hour’ (aka ‘The Scooby-Doo Show’); “The Gruesome Game of the Gator Ghoul” (approximately 24 minutes) and “Chiller Diller Movie Thriller“(24 minutes).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the DVD and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this DVD release are the property of their respective owners.

–

 Film Rating: 8/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

–

‘Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog’ Arrives Home on DVD & Digital September 14, 2021 from Cartoon Network, Hanna-Barbera & Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

–

*Screen-Connections.com is an Amazon Associate that earns from qualifying purchases