History Theatre / TheSolveItSquadReturns

* TwoGirlsToATeam: Mirroring the original Scooby Gang's gender ratio. Also lampshaded and made fun of, since Gwen tries to get a "Girl Power!" photo with Esther and Esther reacts to it with [[TheSnarkKnight the same disdain as everything else]] and, unlike the Velma/Daphne relationship, makes zero effort to spend any time with Gwen or pass the UsefulNotes/BechdelTest the whole show.

* TheCaseOf: The Solve-It Squad's past cases apparently all had cheesy titles like this; the ones we hear of are "The Case of the Hairless Werewolf", "The Case of the Witch in the Wings", "The Case of the People-Eating Pickle", "The Case of the Fast-Food Ghoul", "The Case of the Swim-Meet Swamp Thing", and "[[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers The Case of the Demonic Apostle]]". (We see them solving the first two of these -- and [[MyGreatestFailure their total failure to solve the last one]] -- in the OpeningChorus.)

* CharacterDevelopment: The whole theme of the show. All of the Solve-It Squad members have been wildly altered since their idyllic childhoods; everyone TookALevelInJerkass over the past twenty years, with lovable goofball Scrags becoming an uptight, embittered FBI agent, bundle of sunshine ChildProdigy Esther becoming a GeniusBurnout AddledAddict, adorable {{Ingenue}} Gwen becoming an openly materialistic and selfish WhiteDwarfStarlet, and lovable ButtMonkey Keith being... [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers exactly the same guy he was when he was a teenager]], which is somehow [[{{Manchild}} saddest of all]]. The show is about unpacking how and why this happened and how they can start to forgive each other for it.

** The OpeningChorus gives each of the Solve-It Squad a chance to give one of these, all of which highlight their own unique skill in solving mysteries... except [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers Keith's]], where his summation was completely wrong and the culprit turned out to be the other suspect everyone else had already guessed.

* SlapSlapKiss: [[spoiler: This happens ''twice'' in the ending, when Keith is revealed as the Demonic Apostle, leading to first Gwen, then Camille smacking and immediately kissing him for being such a MagnificentBastard. Note that Camille is [[HoYay just played by Brian Rosenthal in a wig]].]]

The show is about a [[Franchise/ScoobyDoo suspiciously familiar gang of four young teens with a talking dog]] whose crime-fighting career is derailed by the [[DarkerAndEdgier unexpected violent murder]] of their TeamPet Cluebert, sending the four of them into a downward spiral over the course of the next twenty years. Now, in the present day, one of them finds a lead on Cluebert's killer and sets out to [[PuttingTheBandBackTogether put the band back together]] to finally bring him to justice. Can the Solve-It Squad overcome their long-buried resentments and dysfunctions and come back together as a team to put their demons to rest?

* DramaticThunder: The RunningGag where in the first hotel scene, each of the characters trails off ominously while a thunderclap plays after ''everything they say'', potentially relevant to the case or not. There's some HowlingToTheNight thrown in there too.

''The Solve-It Squad Returns!'' is the second full-length narrative stage production by sketch comedy troupe The Creator/TinCanBrothers (Creator/JoeyRichter, Creator/CoreyLubowich and Creator/BrianRosenthal), following their initial success with ''Theatre/SpiesAreForever'' in 2016. Unlike its predecessor (and the Creator/TeamStarkid shows where the members of Creator/TinCanBrothers got their start), it's a somewhat stripped-down production, a one-act straight play with an OpeningChorus ThemeTune and a SuddenMusicalEnding, rather than a true musical, with a MinimalistCast of only five actors: Creator/JoeyRichter as Scrags, Ashley Clements (star of ''WebVideo/TheLizzieBennetDiaries'') as Gwen, Gabe Greenspan (the creator of ''Theatre/PokemonTheMewsical'', who played Gary Oak) as Keith, Creator/LaurenLopez as Esther, and Brian Rosenthal as "[[LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles Everyone Else]]".

* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: The major female characters in the story run this gamut, with Gwen as the FieryRedhead, Esther as the BrainyBrunette and Camille as the DumbBlonde. (Keeping in mind that Camille is a CrossCastRole and one of Creator/BrianRosenthal's LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles.)

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles: Brian Rosenthal has the same "Everyone Else" role that Creator/JoeyRichter did in ''Theatre/TheTrailToOregon'', playing all of the {{NPC}}s in the cast with nothing more than a WigDressAccent quick-change. (With one exception: Creator/LaurenLopez plays the role of Chief O'Brien's secretary in the FBI headquarters scene.) This gets taken up to eleven when the staff of the hotel have a climactic dramatic confrontation with each other ''without the Solve-It Squad present'', just Brian rapid-fire switching costume pieces and accents in order to carry on a one-man scene.
* LoveTriangle: PlayedForLaughs. Gwen has one between her husband Nicholas and Keith, Keith has one between Gwen and Camille, and Ricky the concierge allegedly has one between his girlfriend Beth and Stefani the maid. ([[LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles The last three of these are all played by the same actor.]]) Scrags and Esther find all of these to be an [[RomanticPlotTumor irritating distraction]].

* MinimalistCast: Only five actors, one of whom plays [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles a dozen different characters]].

** The best such moment is arguably after the extremely painful and shocking confrontation Scrags has with the rest of the Squad at the dinner table, leading to Gwen bursting out of the room in tears and Keith furiously threatening Scrags if he ever hurts her like that again... followed by the hotel staff having their own [[{{Foil}} parallel scene]] where their own personal issues come to a head and Beth storms off after finding out Ricky has been cheating on her, with ''[[LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles all of the staff members being played by a single actor]]'' rapidly switching between [[WigDressAccent accents and silly wigs and hats]].

* QuirkyHousehold: The staff of the Mayberry Gardens Motel and Spa is, indeed, very quirky, each of them having a [[WigDressAccent quirky accent and quirky accessory]] that makes them instantly identifiable, and all of them are involved in a somewhat complex set of grievances and intrigues against each other that no one but Esther can really keep track of. [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles And they're all played by the same person.]]

* IconicOutfit: All of them had one when they were kids, and they all dress very differently now that they're adults. (Scrags and Esther being the most dramatic shifts, with Scrags now wearing the business attire expected of an FBI agent and Esther dressed in baggy androgynous clothes befitting her slob persona.) When the Squad first gets back together, we find out the extremely disturbing fact that Keith retrieved and kept everyone's outfits from their teen years and proposes that they put them back on, revealing he's now wearing the "same shirt" he was in the opening (actually a much smaller version of the shirt that [[BareYourMidriff bares his midriff]]).

** Esther's fate as an adult is a dark take on what it means to be a ChildProdigy with SherlockScan powers, showing that like all too many gifted kids she ends up a GeniusBurnout as an adult, whose special abilities were linked to some form of [[AmbiguousDisorder neurodivergence]] that's caused her great suffering and seriously harmed her ability to function.

** Esther is still TheSmartGirl, now taken UpToEleven where she could basically do the Solve-It Squad's job by herself (if not for her [[BlindWithoutEm one crippling weakness]], now increased to ''two'' crippling weaknesses with the [[AddledAddict drug addiction]]).

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles: Brian Rosenthal has the same "Everyone Else" role that Creator/JoeyRichter did in ''Theatre/TheTrailToOregon'', playing all of the {{NPC}}s in the cast with nothing more than a WigDressAccent quick-change. (With one exception: Creator/LaurenLopez plays the role of Chief O'Brien's secretary in the FBI headquarters scene.) This gets taken UpToEleven when the staff of the hotel have a climactic dramatic confrontation with each other ''without the Solve-It Squad present'', just Brian rapid-fire switching costume pieces and accents in order to carry on a one-man scene.

* UpToEleven: In the SuddenMusicalEnding -- the Solve-It Squad helpfully sort themselves in ascending order of coolness, "Keith, Gwen, Scrags, Esther/Good, better, best, bester!"

* {{Corpsing}}: Ashley Clements can't look at Creator/JoeyRichter doing "the sandwich trick" without corpsing, which is why Gwen spends this scene filming Scrags on her phone and not looking at him directly. Joey and Gabe made a game of trying to do this to each other during the show, which is why on one night of the LA run, when Keith suddenly takes Gwen's side in the argument about whether to stay at the hotel -- which typically had Joey angrily averting his gaze -- he {{improv}}ised an added line, "Hey! Look at me!", with the intensity of his gaze successfully breaking him.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The nature of this show requires that there be ''tons'' of {{Bit Character}}s -- the various villains in the OpeningChorus montage of the Squad's past cases, the whole gallery of suspects who make up the staff of the hotel. Since the Creator/TinCanBrothers obviously don't have the budget to hire over a dozen actors to play all of these parts, this leads to...

** Keith insisting that Scrags is a "spy" and calling him "James Boned" because he's in the FBI -- which Scrags [[CIAEvilFBIGood seems to take strong exception to]] -- may be a CallBack to the Creator/TinCanBrothers' previous show, ''Theatre/SpiesAreForever'', where Creator/JoeyRichter indeed did play a spy. (And, after all, "once a spy, always a spy, forever".)

* CerebusSyndrome: In-universe, the death of Cluebert radically changes the setting, marking the end of the Squad's childhoods and the beginning of their having to face adult problems and {{Adult Fear}}s involving mental and physical health, finances, and their dysfunctional relationships.

** [[spoiler: It turns out {{Manchild}} Keith actually had the most CharacterDevelopment of all, as the one who {{Mastermind}}ed this whole plot behind a mask of ObfuscatingStupidity -- and, most surprisingly, his ultimate reason for doing so was an [[PetTheDog altruistic]] one. Even though he and Scrags never got along and Scrags and Cluebert obviously held him in contempt, he felt the duty to help Scrags make peace with Cluebert's death.]]

* SocietyMarchesOn: The off-Broadway run of ''The Solve-It Squad'' {{retcon}}s the original script of ''The Solve-It Squad Returns!'', changing Gwen's line in the OpeningChorus from "Witches don't have penises!" to "Ghouls don't have penises!", to avoid the [[UnfortunateImplications transphobic implications]] of the original joke (and changing it into Gwen being a CloudCuckooLander who thinks it's a rule that "[[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghouls]]" have BarbieDollAnatomy).

* CharacterDevelopment: The whole theme of the show. All of the Solve-It Squad members have been wildly altered since their idyllic childhoods to the point where fans would likely be screaming CharacterDerailment if there actually were an original Solve-It Squad show; everyone TookALevelInJerkass over the past twenty years, with lovable goofball Scrags becoming an uptight, embittered FBI agent, bundle of sunshine ChildProdigy Esther becoming a GeniusBurnout AddledAddict, adorable {{Ingenue}} Gwen becoming an openly materialistic and selfish WhiteDwarfStarlet, and lovable ButtMonkey Keith being... [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers exactly the same guy he was when he was a teenager]], which is somehow [[{{Manchild}} saddest of all]]. The show is about unpacking how and why this happened and how they can start to forgive each other for it.

-->'''Scrags''': [[NotSoDifferent Welcome to the club!]] No one cares!

* CreatorInJoke: The "sandwich trick" is a reference to Scooby and Shaggy's {{Dagwood Sandwich}}es that they assembled out of {{Hammerspace}}, of course, but it has its roots in an experience Creator/JoeyRichter had in clown college where he tried to do a comedy "magic trick" by putting a bunch of sandwich ingredients in his pants and assembling them with his butt and then reveal a perfectly-made sandwich at the end. His teacher admonished him that his character ''attempting'' this magic trick and then showing the ''actual'' results of trying to do this -- [[RealityEnsues a horrifyingly misshapen wad of bread, cheese and bologna]] -- was a [[BaitAndSwitch much funnier punchline]]. Joey used this experience to give us the BaitAndSwitch of the shockingly disappointing result of Scrags' "sandwich trick" (which, ironically, in this context is very much PlayedForDrama).

* RealityEnsues: As is common for a KidHeroAllGrownUp {{Deconstruction}}, looking at what the realistic consequences of putting minors in confrontations with dangerous criminals on a regular basis would actually be. The group falls apart the first time they run into a NotSoHarmlessVillain who's actually willing to resort to violence, and the trauma of having their [[KickTheDog dog killed]] has left them all [[ShellShockedVeteran badly traumatized]], as does the experience of having their childhoods [[FormerChildStar badly disrupted by celebrity]].
** Scrags gets hit by this, where his ability to be a BigEater who NeverGetsFat is due to his youthful metabolism -- the BigEater tendencies being driven by an unaddressed [[NervousWreck anxiety problem]] -- ends up screwing him over badly later in life, where he ends up gaining a whole lot of weight and contracting diabetes, and having to [[FormerlyFat work really hard]] to lose weight and get his health under control.
** Esther's fate as an adult is a dark take on what it means to be a ChildProdigy with SherlockScan powers, showing that like all too many gifted kids she ends up a GeniusBurnout as an adult, whose special abilities were linked to some form of [[AmbiguousDisorder neurodivergence]] that's caused her great suffering and seriously harmed her ability to function.
** [[spoiler: The ending of the show is this in the opposite direction -- it was always tremendously unlikely that the "Demonic Apostle" actually had some kind of vendetta against the Solve-It Squad that lasted twenty whole years, as opposed to the Apostle's reappearance being a copycat criminal trying to resurrect the Solve-It Squad's legacy for selfish reasons.]]
** The "sandwich trick" scene is a metaphor for the show in general -- obviously in a live stage show it's impossible for Creator/JoeyRichter to actually "shuffle the ingredients like a deck of cards" and instantly create a fully-assembled DagwoodSandwich. We wait to see what kind of parlor trick he'll use to pull it off... [[BaitAndSwitch and then he just doesn't, and fails]], letting us know that [[GrowingUpSucks we're in the real world now]].

* RetroactiveLegacy: The title of the show implies that this is a ReunionShow for an old-school series that, obviously, [[UnInstallment doesn't actually exist]]. On a meta level, of course, we're meant to imagine this show as a RealityEnsues DistantSequel and {{Deconstruction}} of the Franchise/ScoobyDoo franchise.