Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! is a 2022 direct-to-video installment in the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video film series. It is the first to use the art style introduced in the series Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?
The gang has finally tracked down the nefarious fashionista behind a number of their costumed crooks, and just in time for Halloween too. However, before they get a chance to celebrate, they find themselves encountering a new case: mysterious phantom versions of themselves!
The movie was released on October 4, 2022. It made headlines for being the first official piece of Scooby-Doo media to, after years of fan speculation and attempts that were bogged down by executive meddling, portray Velma as a lesbian
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Tropes:
- Admiring the Abomination: When Coco Diablo first sees the ghost of Count Nefario (AKA the Evil Twin of Fred), she remarks on the quality of his outfit instead of cowering like the gang.
- Animation Bump: Being animated by Snipple Animation (rather than Digital eMation as prior Scooby-Doo movies were), the animation is considerably bouncier and more fluid.
- Art Shift: The fourth one of the Direct-to-video movies to date. This time adopting the character designs of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? with more stylized, scratchy background art and fluid animation. This is accentuated by a change in animation studio to Snipple Animation.
- Balance Between Good and Evil: The lore that the gang researches into their phantom doubles leads Coco to conclude that them solving all the mysteries threw off the balance between good and evil, creating their evil doppelgangers to destroy them and restore the balance.
- Brick Joke:
- After the opening credits, the gang is investigating an accountant named Mr. Humdrum who was inflating tax reductions for his clients. He ends up being the warden's replacement at the end of the movie, stating that he's already used to being around shady people.
- Shortly after dealing with Mr. Humdrum, Fred visits a wishing well and throws in a coin to wish for one last exciting case after a year of dealing with nothing but mundane issues. The local prison warden seeing him do this is what inspires the rest of the film's events, as he wants to make Mystery Inc. happy after all the business they've sent his way over the years. At the end of the movie, Fred starts throwing in a whole stack of bills while asking for even more spookier and wilder cases... and something listens.
- Butt-Monkey: Harry the Hypnotist, the former Ghost Clown, gets hit like this more than anyone. His very first scene has his insult at Mystery Inc. fall flat, the warden angrily gets in his face and puts him down a peg, and then he goes crazy and tries to escape after the bars in his cell are retracted by the warden, only to become a live demonstration of an electrical forcefield that blasts him to the back of the room. His last scene during the mass candy crime spree has him hypnotize two kids dressed as superheroes into giving him their candy, only for Shaggy to re-hypnotize the kids into beating him up.
- Card-Carrying Villain: While giving a customer a tour of her business at the start of the episode, Coco Diablo pulls out a costume based on herself and describes the look as "Treacherous Maven", then calls down "her office" that's set up inside a fake devil's head.
- Cats Are Mean: Esteban, Coco Diablo's Right-Hand Cat, at least as far as Scooby is concerned, the others don't see it.
- Central Theme: From the start of the movie, Fred questions if they've had "too much of a good thing" now that they've put an end to the source of the costumed criminals' costumes, with the opening credits sequence showing them now stuck helping with more mundane problems like helping a cat in a tree. The theme persists throughout the film, and even compared to Shaggy and Scooby-Doo getting sick from eating too much candy at the end.
- Chained Heat: In order to assist Mystery Inc. with their investigation, the warden attaches bracelets to Coco Diablo and (a very enthusiastic) Velma that will keep them close together. Coco ends up breaking out of them during their investigation of her former assistant Trevor Glume.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Diablo keeps a pool of alligators under a Trap Door to dispose of rejects (costumes that is). Shaggy and Scooby lure the phantom doubles over it and drop them down.
- When Shaggy and Scooby are posing as one of Coco's clients, she shows them the 10,000-Volt Ghost costume, and mentions it can be used to control minds. At the end of the movie, Coco dons the costume to force the escaped criminals to give back the candy they stole.
- Cool Car: After getting caught in an explosion, the Mystery Machine is driven around in a sorry state until the gang, with Trevor Glume's help, turn the van into a hearse-inspired hot rod.
- Coordinated Clothes: In a dream sequence the day before Halloween, Scooby is dressed as Shaggy and Shaggy is dressed as Scooby when they go trick-or-treating. When they wake up and get into their actual costumes, they're both dressed as jack-o'-lanterns.
- Crush Blush: Velma does this whenever she is with Coco Diablo. Heck, even her glasses start to fog!
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Parodied; Scooby accuses Coco Diablo's cat Esteban of this.
- Don't Celebrate Just Yet: The gang manages to capture the true culprit fifteen minutes before the end of the movie. Then he accidentally deactivates all of the security at the Coolsville Penitentiary while showing off the tech that let him build and control the Misery Company robots, which leads to the prisoners escaping and going on a candy-stealing spree that needs to be stopped.
- Dropped Glasses: When Velma gets a compliment from Coco, the glasses literally melt off her face, prompting Velma to go into her usual "My glasses" routine without realizing what just happened.
- Enemy Mine: The team is forced to team up with Coco Diablo, the maker of their enemies’ costumes, to solve this latest mystery.
- Enhance Button: When reviewing the security footage at Trevor Glume's shop, Fred keeps asking to rewind the tape, but all it shows is Trevor at the desk waiting for customers that never arrive. Fred then asks to zoom in on Trevor, then again, and then again, until the camera shows a single tear running down his face.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: The movie ends with one, as Fred dumps a ton of money into a wishing well to wish for more cases as he did near the movie's start, but it quickly turns into the gang Laughing Mad.
- Evil Is Petty: The first thing that the escaped criminals do after being set free is steal candy from children.
- Evil Twin: The Monsters of the Movie are rotted phantom doubles of Mystery Incorporated, specifically targeting them. More specifically, they're a group called "Misery Company" that made a pact to balance good and evil in exchange for immortality as spirits, formed by a rich noble, a vain socialite, a scientist unconcerned with morality, and a hunter with an attack dog; Coco Diablo immediately notices the obvious parallels but the gang is oblivious.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: One of her costume designs that Coco Diablo shows to a client is a costume of herself called "Treacherous Maven".
- Foreshadowing: The same way as in Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy, vintage clips from the franchise's original series are displayed early on and show four specific past villains who will significantly appear near the film's end.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- Among the past villains on Velma's computer display are both Charlie the robot and Sarah Jenkins, and Jenkins is among the villains in prison and then the escapees, even though Charlie wasn't a costumed villain and Jenkins didn't commit a crime in their original episode (although a case might have been made for Reckless Endangerment).
- When Fred solves the mystery of the clogged drain, the camera pans up over a cross-section of the house, and a skeleton can be briefly seen hidden under the floorboards of the bathroom.
- Full-Body Disguise: A gag in the movie's denouement has Shaggy saying that Trevor has a golden heart inside of his ghoulish appearance after Trevor gives them a giant sack of trick-or-treating candy, causing Trevor (who outright stated he got the candy because people mistook his regular appearance for a costume) to suddenly unzip and become a muscular blond surfer dude who's also somehow at least a foot taller than he used to be.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Coco Diablo is revealed to be the maker of each and every one of the spook and monster costumes used by all the crooks that Mystery Inc have foiled in their entire history.
- Heel–Face Turn: Coco Diablo goes from evil fashion designer to friend for the Mystery Inc. gang. She gives them costumes to wear while rounding up the escaped convicts and she forces the criminals to hand over the candy they stole. She also seems to reciprocate Velma’s affections before she goes back to prison (and will presumably get that early parole she was helping them for).
- Heroic BSoD: Fred resorts to a wishing well after their mystery cases become unbearably mundane after they busted Coco Diablo. After the events of the film are resolved, he tosses a pile of cash into the wishing well hoping to avert being reduced back to boring mysteries.
- I'm Your Biggest Fan: The warden at Coolsville Penitentiary is the biggest fan of Mystery Inc., due to how many criminals they put in his prison. In fact, he's the mastermind behind the whole plot, as he wanted Mystery Inc. to have one last big mystery to solve.
- Irony: Played for laughs during the mass prison escape and candy crime spree; Mr Wickles (Black Knight), Captain Cutler (ghost of himself in the glowing diving suit), Henry Bascomb (Space Kook), and Harry the Hypnotist (Ghost Clown) are each recaptured by the gang using their own costumes and gimmicks against them. Wickles and Fred even lampshade it; Wickles wondering if it's "karma", and Fred remarks, "What a night for a knight.".
- It Was with You All Along: After thinking that she contributed nothing to the arrest of Coco Diablo, Daphne starts doubting her usefulness in the group and coming to the realization she might make a better leader than Fred, whose Cloud Cuckoolander traits slow them down at various points. In the end, Fred admits that he always thought that Daphne was the leader of their group, being the dependable glue that holds the team together, while he just has the "more prestigious" job of driving the van.
- Karmic Jackpot: Shaggy and Scooby-Doo initially hesitate dealing with ghosts at all, wanting to just go trick-or-treating. They then have to help the team rebuild the Mystery Machine instead of having fun in town, forego getting candy from a vending machine to save the rest of the gang, and have to return all of the candy that escaped prisoners stole from trick-or-treating children. Thus, it's quite a jackpot when Trevor Glume decides to give them a sack of candy larger than a bus because people kept thinking his regular ghoulish appearance was a costume and gave him treats when he's actually on a diet.
- Latex Perfection: The customer that Coco Diablo meets with at the start of the movie turns out to be Shaggy on top of Scooby-Doo with a perfect latex mask on in order to set Coco up in a police sting.
- Laughing Mad: Fred and then all the gang become this while he's dumping the cash into the well at the movie's end, with Ocular Gushers flying from them.
- Letting the Air out of the Band: When Fred runs out of breath during the chase in the library, the chase music drones out only to pick up again a second later when Fred declares he was just kidding.
- Loony Fan: The warden of the Coolsville prison idolizes Mystery Inc because they've given him so much business, and he creates the Misery Company robots after overhearing Fred wish for a new exciting mystery.
- Love at First Sight: Velma falls hard for Coco the second she lays eyes on her, and frequently blushing like crazy whenever she's around.
- The Man Behind the Man: Coco Diablo is the designer of a number of costumes used by villains the gang has put away over the years.
- Medium Awareness:
- Fred announces that they're doing a montage where they transform the Mystery Machine.
- Scooby points out, "This whole franchise is named after me."
- The warden reminds everyone, "[This] is a family movie."
- Mirror Routine: Daphne does this with her monstrous counterpart during the chase in the library.
- Ms. Fanservice: Coco Diablo. Not only does she wear very figure-hugging clothes, but she has a tendency to strike some very sexy poses.
- Mythology Gag:
- The main story takes place entirely in Coolsville.
- The film begins with the gang in their usual winter outfits and dealing with a mystery at a ski resort. And the film later features the 10,000-Volt Ghost costume. All of these details were in the original "Watt A Shocking Ghost" episode.
- In a dream sequence the day before Halloween, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo dress up as each other to go trick-or-treating, just like they did in the What's New, Scooby-Doo? episode "A Scooby-Doo Halloween". (Shaggy had also worn a Scooby-Doo Latex Perfection mask in the episode "Never Ape an Ape Man".)
- Nearly every crook recognizable without their costumes from Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! appear in the penitentiary and later escaping from same.
- A Cartoon Network mockumentary commercial featured a special penitentiary (the "San Hanna-Barbera Penitentiary") exclusively for keeping all the crooks foiled by Mystery Inc, and that's what's right here too.
- Daphne confronts Fred about being made the group's leader instead of him. She actually was the leader in all the series where both Fred and Velma were absent.
- When the gang huddles around a book in the library in order to learn about Count Nefario and the Misery Company, and then snap to look at the camera (actually to Coco) when she remarks on the similarity between the ghosts and Mystery Inc., they recreate the poses from the opening of the original series (except Fred and Velma have exchanged places here).
- Out-of-Character Alert: When Coco confesses to being behind the phantoms, the gang suspect something is amiss because she says it very awkwardly and without her usual flair. Turns out the warden has Esteban hostage to coerce her to take the fall.
- Race Against the Clock: For Shaggy and Scooby, at least. They want the mystery solved as soon as posible so they can go trick-or-treating that night.
- Redemption Rejection: Played for Laughs. Once the mystery is solved, Scooby manages to get the last laugh on Esteban by offering a truce and a sucker. When they agree to remain enemies, it's revealed that Scooby gave the cat a "Nuclear Hot Lollipop".
- Right-Hand Cat: Coco Diablo, fashion designer for potential criminals, has a cat sidekick named Esteban.
- Robotic Reveal: The phantom versions of the gang are revealed to be androids after they fall down the Trap Door into the alligator pool, then get thrown back out by the gators in anger.
- Running Gag:
- In the library, the elderly librarian repeatedly shushes the gang — and even the phantoms — and scares all of them.
- During the montage of the Mystery Machine being rebuilt, Trevor keeps popping out to hang a toy bat on things Fred stops to admire his reflection in.
- Scary Librarian: The elderly librarian is insistent that the gang remains quiet while they're at the library, to the point that she ends up shaming their ghostly Evil Twins when their terrorizing causes a ruckus.
- Schizo Tech: Minor example for a quick gag; the library scene includes a collision into a card catalog, though American libraries ceased having card catalogs long ago.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: Subverted. When the gang is chased in the library, the shot is framed like a classic hallway with the shelves serving as doors, but there is no Offscreen Teleportation. Instead, each member of the gang is chased through the shot only once before the camera cuts to another shot.
- Shout-Out:
- Trevor Glume's look resembles Peter Lorre, except taller.
- The prison warden is a lot like Fred Flintstone's Uncle Giggles from "A Haunted House Is Not a Home" episode.
- Skewed Priorities: Shaggy and Scooby initially plan to not tell the gang about the monster at the Halloween festival because they are worried that solving a mystery will cut into their trick-or-treating time. Later, Shaggy refuses to leave his costume behind even when it is keeping him from escaping out a window, because he can't go trick-or-treating without a costume.
- Song Parody: The Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! theme song gets an epic one as the reality of the gang's lives without Coco's business in operation sinks in for them.
- Stalker without a Crush: The Warden was apparently following the gang at the movie’s start and overheard Fred’s wish at the well for a new mystery. Being their biggest fan, he decided to help grant Fred’s wish.
- The Starscream: Coco initially accuses Trevor, her ghoulish assistant prior to being arrested, of taking over her old job and selling costumes to the Evil Twin ghosts. It turns out that, while Trevor recently fulfilled one order for the local penitentiary, he's otherwise had so little business selling even mundane costumes that he's brought to tears when having to admit so to the gang.
- The Stinger: Spoofed, as it's only a return to the Vengeful Vending Machine.
- Suddenly Voiced: Esteban, at the end, when Scooby offers him a sucker and asks if they're friends, Esteban stands up on his hind legs, takes the sucker and says, "No".
- The End... Or Is It?: After all is said and done, and there's no more mysteries left, Fred decides to drop an entire stack of dollar bills into a wishing well in order to wish for more cases to solve. And then it turns out there actually is something supernatural when a creature at the bottom of that wishing well opens its eye.
- Totem Pole Trench: Coco's customer in the movie's opening isn't just Shaggy in a coat and Latex Perfection mask; he's also using Scooby-Doo to give himself some extra height.
- Undercover When Alone: When tracking down an escaped Coco to Coco's now-abandoned warehouse, they catch all of the Misery Company ghosts playing Go Fish and accusing each other of cheating, even though they're all just remote-controlled robots.
- Vengeful Vending Machine: While at Coco Diablo's factory, Scooby and Shaggy spot a vending machine and try to get some snacks, only for the bag to get stuck inside the machine. They're trying to get it out when they hear the others call for help and have to leave it to save the team. At the very end, the bag finally drops when there's no one to retrieve it.
- Victory Is Boring: Fred bemoans that without a case to solve, he doesn't know what to do. Considering that he and his friends have been helping with the most mundane tasks like rescuing cats from trees and helping people find their socks and wallets ever since Coco was arrested, it’s hard not to blame him.
- Villainous Breakdown: Prison seems to have taken a toll on all of Mystery Inc.'s villains. When they get the chance to escape, instead of fleeing town or stealing money they're all stealing the candy from the trick-or-treaters instead.
- Villains Out Shopping: The gang's phantom versions are playing cards during their off time.
- Worst. Whatever. Ever!: Scooby says it's the worst Halloween ever when they have to deal with ghosts instead of going trick-or-treating like he and Shaggy had been looking forward to.
- You Meddling Kids: Several lampshades are hung all over the movie on this. For example, Coco's factory has a parking lot specifically for meddlers.
