Western Animation / Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold is the 27th entry in the Scooby-Doo Direct-to-Video Film Series, released on January 9, 2018. This time, it's a crossover with a DC Comics cartoon, specifically Batman: The Brave and the Bold , which ended back in 2011. The movie involves Batman teaming up with the Scooby-Doo gang when DC villains unite to wreak havoc in Gotham City. A deeper mystery runs through as they have to deal with a new villain called the Crimson Cloak, and also deal with Batman's unsolved case.

The movie also features classic DC villains like the Joker, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, the Riddler, and so forth, alongside heroes like Aquaman, Black Canary, and Plastic Man.

A 12-issue digital comic-book released in 2021-22, The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries, is a Spiritual Sequel to the film, but included character designs from both The Brave and the Bold and The Batman Adventures.

You can watch the trailer here.

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The movie contains examples of:

• Achievements in Ignorance: Aquaman innocently noting how Question has a sense of humor and isn't ending things with questions eventually leads to Batman learning that he's being tricked.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Jeffrey Combs was previously in the Scooby-Doo franchise as HP Hatecraft in Mystery Incorporated. Now instead of playing a homage to the supernatural influences of Scooby-Doo, he's playing a conspiracy theorist and detective in Scooby-Doo.
  • Plastic Man takes the appearance of Red's would-be suitor Wolfie at Daphne, whose voice-actress Grey DeLisle also recently voiced Red.
  • The climax of the film has Shaggy putting on Nightwing's costume. Shaggy's original voice actor Casey Kasem also voiced Robin in The New Scooby-Doo Movies and in Superfriends.
• Adaptational Jerkass: While the movie generally does a good job rerailing most of the Brave and the Bold heroes back from their Flanderized Season 3 personalities, Martian Manhunter gets hit with this hard, turning from a professional Only Sane Man to an egotistical sugar addict who'll gleefully snatch cookies out of Shaggy's hand.
• Art Evolution: The art style improving is a given considering that the show ended in 2011, but the Scooby gang is given slightly darker shading to match the Art Deco aesthetic of the series.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: When the Mystery Inc. gang all dress up in the costumes of each of the Bat-Family, Daphne — dressed in Batgirl's costume — is the only one who convincingly resembles the original.
• Bait-and-Switch: Batman has a "Martian Failsafe" against Martian Manhunter. One assumes that he's gonna turn the Batmobile's rocket engine on full blast...^note Something his cross-continuity brethren have been all too happy to do before. He even makes a fire-themed Bond One-Liner! instead, Batman just flings a box of Choco cookies for Manhunter to snack on.
• Big Bad: The Riddler turns out to be behind everything, having hired Clayface to pose as the Crimson Cloak.
• Broad Strokes: Since the girls from Young Justice (2010) make The Cameo appearance in Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery, they're presumably not actually from the Young Justice universe as it is and are instead some sort of Broad Strokes of them in The Brave and the Bold universe. Then again, this movie could simply take place in a separate continuity from the rest.
• Call-Back: The first thing in the movie's intro is the eyes from The New Scooby-Doo Movies opening, which was the first series that had Scooby-Doo team up with the Silver Age Batman.
• The Cameo: Loads and loads of them, by almost every villain who appeared back in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, along with a couple of Canon Immigrant.
• Canon Character All Along: The Crimson Cloak at first appears to be a new villain created for the movie, but is actually Clayface in disguise.
• Canon Immigrant: Included among the cameo-appearing villains are Simon the Pie-Man from the 1968 Batman cartoons, and the Sweet Tooth from the 1977 cartoons.
• Casanova Wannabe: Plastic Man acts this way towards Daphne.
• Cast as a Mask:
  • John DiMaggio voices Crimson Cloak, while Kevin Michael Richardson voices Clayface.
  • When the Riddler impersonates the Question for most of the movie, Jeffrey Combs still does the voice instead of John Michael Higgins.
• Charlie Brown from Outta Town: Aquaman is not a detective but determined to hang out with Batman and the others anyway. His solution: put on a Paper-Thin Disguise and reintroduce himself as Quirot of the Cleveland Yard.^note Complete with Maurice Chevalier Accent! He drops the shtick by Act 2, though he insists on tagging along for the remainder.
• Clear My Name: The Crimson Cloak/Clayface and the Riddler frame Batman and Mystery Inc. for their crimes, forcing them to flee and clear their names.
• Composite Character: The comic in a flashback story had Bruce's mentor Harvey Harris using Henri Ducard's name and appearance to disguise himself,
• Confusion Fu: Scooby and Shaggy, regular masters of this back in Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, get rid of Bane and Blockbuster by posing as football stadium tailgate pros, bamboozling the bruiser duo with cheap disguises and faux attitude. Batman lampshades that there is no way that ever should have worked.
• Continuity Nod: While talking about suspects for the Crimson Cloak, the gang quickly suspect Professor Milo, though Batman automatically rules him out, citing the cold open to "Gorillas in Our Midst!" (where the Spectre turned Milo into cheese for rats to eat).
  • Per the cold open to "The Mask of Matches Malone!", Poison Ivy still calls her Man-Eating Plant Georgia.
  • At one point, Aquaman asks whether Batman has "lost another Robin", possibly canonizing the reference to Jason Todd's death in "Emperor Joker!" Then again, he could just be referring to how Dick Grayson graduated into an independent hero.
  • When Velma points out that Batman has become a fugitive for helping the gang, Batman simply states "it wouldn't be the first time". He may be referring to the time his Mirror Universe counterpart Owlman disguised himself as Batman to frame him in "Game Over for Owlman!".^note It may also be a Mythology Gag to Batman: Year One, where he was originally wanted by the police during his first few years.
• Crossover: Batman has crossed over with Scooby several times before, most notably in The New Scooby-Doo Movies and the Brave and the Bold episode "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!".^note Though the latter arguably took place in an alternate universe based on The New Scooby-Doo Movies. This episode pays various homages to both.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Freddy is enamored with Black Canary. And when Daphne lands into Batman's arms, the feel of his shoulders and pecs makes her sigh dreamily.
• Double Take: Daphne has one when she learns that Plastic Man used to be notorious criminal Eel O'Brian.
• Drives Like Crazy: Scooby, when he takes the wheel of the Mystery Machine, drives rather recklessly.
• Food Fight: Shaggy and Scooby accidentally instigate a food fight in Arkham Asylum, which they use to their advantage.
• Foreshadowing: At the start of the film, Puppetto's ghost recoils when Fred waves some flames at him which during the unmasking when Fred states that how he knew Pupetto's ghost was a fake as the real one worked with fire. Martian Manhunter is weak to and afraid of fire, hence why he recoils, even in disguise.
• Hyperspace Mallet: Sorely missed during The Brave and the Bold proper, Harley Quinn finally gets to whip one out during the Arkham riot.
  Shaggy: (panicking) Zoinks! Like, man, where did that come from!?
  Harley: Beats me. Beats you, too.
• The Heavy: The Crimson Cloak facilitates the plot on behalf of the Riddler.
• Hero Antagonist: Detective Bullock gets in the way of Batman and Mystery Incorporated a lot, but he's still firmly on the side of the law.
• Hidden Depths: Of the gang, Daphne proves the most adept at superheroics and one-liners. Velma lampshades it.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • When Detective Chimp starts talking, Shaggy remarks how talking animals freak him out, even though his best friend is Scooby-Doo, a talking dog. And Scooby agrees.
  • In the aftermath of a battle, Batman and the Question depart, leaving Aquaman to complain about being left behind to do all the work. He then summons a giant squid and commands, "Edgar! Do all the work!"
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: The police have a photo of Shaggy committing a robbery. How does Velma know it's not really him? "Shaggy" walked by food on a table without even trying to eat it.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • When Shaggy and Scooby are being chased by the villain at the beginning of the movie, he questions why the two are the bait. Velma just answers "default behavior" at this point.
  • The big unmasking and wrap-up are done by DC's finest. Shaggy acknowledges how it's just odd when others do that instead of the Mystery Inc. crew.
• Mythology Gag
  • The Joker and the Penguin show up in the second act for a Car Chase, as a nod to their traditional roles of being The Heavy in any Batman-Scooby crossover.
  • The main Arkham guard Batman interacts with is an obvious caricature of fellow Scooby team-up veteran Don Knotts. And the cell that the Riddler is in, DC140, is a nod to his debut comic Detective Comics #140.
  • Batman mentions meeting the gang at the malt shop on the corner of Ruby and Spears.
  • There's a Batman Beyond style set of costume cases in the Batcave, featuring the Golden Age Batsuit, the original Robin costume, the Batgirl costume, the Nightwing costume, and Ace the Bathound's cape and cowl. Sure enough, Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby don the respective uniforms in the climax. While wearing the Robin suit, Velma looks similar to Carrie Kelley.
• Non-Action Guy: Fred, Shaggy, and even Scooby all qualify. At no point do they throw any punches or get into fisticuffs with the various villains, though they do make up for their lack of fighting skills with their cunning and detective skills.
• Once More, with Clarity: The Question gets hurled by Catwoman into a pile of boxes and tackled by one of Riddler's henchmen. When the scene is played again, said henchman is actually the Riddler himself, who takes on the appearance of the Question.
• Real After All: While the bulk of the Crimson Cloak plot is a variation on the traditional "Scooby-Doo" Hoax, it's eventually revealed that Leo Scarlett did in fact survive his accident with the wormhole machine, and his - for lack of a better word - ghost has been whispering messages into Batman's ear.
• Red Herring: During earlier encounters with the Crimson Cloak, both Martian Manhunter and Plastic Man are conspicuously absent, leading the audience to believe that for whatever motive they're conspiring to antagonize Batman.
• Rewatch Bonus: After the twist of Riddler disguising himself as The Question, go back and pay attention to how The Question talks. Aquaman is right; he's not ending things with questions!
• Running Gag: Martian Manhunter and his love of Choco cookies; in fact, Batman has a Martian Failsafe that involves those cookies!
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: While being chased through Arkham Asylum, no less!
• Secret Test of Character: The Cold Open mystery is really this, with Detective Chimp and Martian Manhunter (on Batman's orders) acting as the monsters. Batman told the gang to leave for their own safety, but they didn't and solved the case, completing their Initiation Ceremony into the Mystery Analysts of Gotham.
• Shout-Out:
  • When he partners himself with the redheaded Daphne in the warehouse search, Plastic Man briefly takes the appearance of Tex Avery's MGM cartoon character "Wolfie", who regularly lusted after the redheaded "Red".
  • A rather dark one sees among the food items in the Arkham cafeteria when Shaggy and Scooby visit there being Bates Burgers and Hanni-bowls. The burgers even come with knives similar to Norman's trademark knife and the bowls are in the mold of a head with the top opened, much like Paul Krendler's fate.
  • The movie's climax is reminiscent of the ending of Big Hero 6, complete with a dimension portal from which a person whose absence partially motivated the plot is rescued from.
  • Poison Ivy calls her pet plant 'Georgia', after Georgia O'Keefe's (in)famously suggestive plant photography.
• Series Continuity Error: If one considers all the DTV movies to be canon with each other, this movie shows Scooby not really knowing what he's doing when he winds up behind the wheel of the Mystery Machine, but The Teaser of Scooby-Doo! Moon Monster Madness showed he was a good enough driver to pass a driving exam.
• Significant Anagram: This happens twice (once with the pathway to the headquarters of the detective agency Mystery, Inc. have joined and once with figuring out an alias the Riddler used), with Daphne uncovering them out easily. She explains that she does word scrambles for fun during the Gang's many, many road trips.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Just like in his previous appearance in the series, Dr. Milo doesn't play a huge role in the film. However, it's still a pivotal role, as he was the villain involved in That One Case Batman hadn't solved for all these years.
• Spotting the Thread: Aquaman notes that the Question isn't ending his speech with questions; this turns out to be an important clue for the reveal that it's Riddler disguised as Question.
• The Tease: Black Canary is playfully amused by Fred's crush on her, treating him to some light flirting here and there.
• That One Case: The crux of the plot. During his first year, Batman stopped one of Milo's experiments and saved one of his two assistants from being sucked into a portal, who'd go on to become the Riddler. However, Leo Scarlett, the other assistant, got sucked in. However, with Mystery Inc.'s help, Batman rescues Leo.
• Tragic Monster: Clayface did very little out of genuine malice, instead acting on the Riddler's orders in exchange for the cure to a very horrifying degenerative disease. Daphne even openly says she feels sorry for him as he's carted off.
• Villain Team-Up: Apart from the Riddler-Clayface scheme driving the main plot, the movie has two separate setpieces demonstrating how quickly Gotham's supervillains will team up for a chance to beat the snot out of Batman and five random hippies.
• Villainous Legacy: Dr. Milo's teleportation experiment from years ago plays a major part in the Riddler's plan, when Milo is long dead by the story's present setting.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Averted with a vengeance. Failing to save a random Mook in his very first year of crimefighting has haunted Batman for his entire career, no matter how many successes he's had since. The movie even goes out of its way to show said mook has a father who dearly misses him.
• Withholding the Cure: How Riddler coerces Clayface into carrying out his plan, though Clayface ultimately suspects Riddler never intended to make good on it.
• Worth It: The supervillain car chase ends in complete failure, but the Joker says it was still a blast. The Penguin just rolls his eyes and says he needs new friends.

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