The Scooby-Doo Project (1999)

In 1999, The Blair Witch Project was the hottest thing in horror. The filmmakers had marketed the film over the internet and managed to blur the lines between fantasy and reality. The film was a major success and like any successful property, this led to parodies and copycats. One such parody came via Cartoon Network and was dubbed The Scooby-Doo Project.

The Scooby-Doo Project aired on Halloween in 1999 (twenty years ago today!) amongst a Scooby-Doo, Where Are You marathon. The special was broadcast in small chunks through the marathon and then aired in full after the marathon with an extended ending. One of the things that made this special so unique is that the animation existed on top of live-action, which is something you normally see with Scooby-Doo.

The plot of the special was what you’d expect: Mystery Inc goes missing in the woods and the found footage reveals the events that unfolded prior to their disappearance.

One of the unique things about this special is it was only aired Halloween 1999 and it has never been released officially in anyway. Luckily for us, some helpful archivers have uploaded it to YouTube (and even upscaled it to 4k!) for our enjoyment and I hope this Halloween you’ll give it a shot.

The writers of the special also did a commentary track which you can listen to below:

I reviewed this special a few years back on a different blog, but it’s not the type of property that is really worth reviewing. It’s a cute, short romp into a time period when Cartoon Network parodied an R rated movie. It’s fun and definitely worth watching for any Scooby-Doo fan and I hope you’ll enjoy it this Halloween season.