Casey Kasem Movies

A wicked warlock has cast a diabolical spell over Mystery, Inc. gang, and now it's up to Shaggy and Scooby-Doo to save the day. Join the lovable Great Dane and his easy frightened friend as they attempt to track down the Amazing Krudsky (voice of Wayne Knight), a second rate carnival magician who's using magic stolen from Princess Fairy Willow (voice of Hayden Panettiere) to transform everyone into grotesque Halloween monsters. If the dynamic duo can just hop on the Grim Reaper Railroad and make their way to Halloween land before Krudsky, perhaps they can retrieve the Goblin scepter from the Goblin King (voice of Tim Curry) and save the day. It's not an easy assignment, but fortunately Scooby and Shaggy have a little help from a friendly Jack O'Lantern and a flying broomstick that takes them on the ride of their lives. Additional voice talents include Jay Leno, Lauren Bacall, Wally Shawn, and Russi Taylor. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

When sleuthing archaeologist Velma travels to Egypt to attend a ceremony celebrating the unveiling of the newly restored Sphinx, the discovery of a hidden tomb threatens to unleash an ancient curse in this frightful feature-length mystery featuring everyone's favorite dog detective - Scooby-Doo. Upon discovering the ancient tomb of Eqyptian queen Cleopatra, Scooby and the gang find an ominous warning stating that all who enter will be turned to stone. As the mystery of the ancient tomb deepens, an army of the dead emerges to take revenge on those who would violate the eternal slumber of their revered ruler. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Scooby Doo and the Legend of the Vampire is a contemporary straight-to-video cartoon from 2003, not the TV show from the 1970s. Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby Doo go on vacation in Australia to see a concert, where a creature has been turning the musicians into vampires. The gang goes undercover as a rock band in order to solve the mystery. This production features the original voices of Casey Kasem, Frank Welker, and Nicole Jaffe. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

This Hanna-Barbera version of "The Arabian Nights" goes to great pains not to offend any pressure or minority group--so much so that one suspects its political correctness was actually a gag. At any rate, such familiar Hanna-Barbera stars as Yogi Bear, Boo Boo, Magilla Gorilla, Scooby Doo and Shaggy are featured in a trilogy of familiar-looking stories. Episode one, "Alliyah-Din and His Magic Lamp", features Yogi and Boo Boo as genies and a female version of Alladin; episode two, "Sinbad", is a freewheeling spoof of both the original story and of Hanna-Barbera's rival Disney studios, built around the antics of Magilla Gorilla in the title role; and the closing segment, "Scheherezade", finds Scooby and (especially) Shaggy forsaking the solving of mysteries so that they'll have time to spin tales for a cranky caliph. The 90-minute Arabian Nights originally aired September 3, 1994, on the TBS superstation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This 2-hour TV cartoon special was originally syndicated as Scooby and the Ghoul School. That's right, kids: our hero is Hanna-Barbera's favorite timorous Great Dane, the one and only Scooby Doo. This time, Scooby, his somewhat more courageous nephew Scrappy Doo and hygenically challenged human cohort Shaggy take jobs as gym teachers at a highly suspicous girl's finishing school. Locked in the building in the dark of night, the dauntless trio finds themselves in classroom chock full of monsters and ghosts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Famous disc jockey Kasey Casem hosts this biography on the life of Elvis Presley, arguably the first and most influential rock and roll star. This documentary charts his life and career from his childhood in Tupelo, Mississippi to his early recordings for the Sun label to his meteoric rise to fame to his military service to his movie career, his legendary comeback television special, his famous performances in Las Vegas, and his untimely death. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

The robotic cartoon adventure series The Transformers begins its second season with the episode "Autobot Spike," in which one of the human allies of the Autobots in their ongoing battle against the Decepticons literally loses his mind to a super-Transformer. "Autobot Spike" is one of the few single-episode storylines to be found this season. Many of the other scenarios take up two episodes or more, notably "Dinobot Island," wherein the discovery of a remote island populated by prehistoric beasts leads to a serious schism in the time-space continuum; "Megatron's Master Plan," in which the leader of the evil Decepticons does his best to turn public opinion against the Autobots; and "Desertion of the Dinobots," which finds the title characters rebelling against their enslavement by the robots and trying to claim the Autobots' home planet as their own. The best of The Transformers' two-parters during the series' second season is "The Key to Vector Sigma," a story built around a computer from the planet Alpatrian with which the Decepticons intend to bestow artificial intelligence upon their newly created flunkies, the Stunticons. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

There's a new supervillain in town, and his name is The Ace. Gathering together a gang of four hardened delinquents, the Ace decks them out in sinister playing-card costumes, and thus the Royal Flush Gang is born. In their efforts to defeat this scurrilous quintet of no-goods, Robin and Cyborg discover that the Ace is taking his orders directly from their perennial enemy Darkseid--while Robin's sidekick Batman learns to his astonishment that the Ace is not a "new" nemesis at all, but instead a very old one! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Transformers was one of several syndicated half-hour cartoon series of the 1980s designed to promote a line of toys. In this instance, the playthings, marketed by Hasbro, were tiny robots that could be "transformed" into automotive vehicles, and vice versa. It was not for nothing that the series' theme song boasted that its characters were "more than meets the eye." Basically, the series chronicled the eons-old battle between two branches of the Transformer family: the Autobots, mentored by Optimus Prime, and the Decepticons, headed by Megatron. After battling for centuries on their home planet Zobitron (also known as Cybertron), the two warring factions decided to move their battleground to another world, and in the process crash-landed on a prehistoric Earth. Released from suspended animation in 2005 A.D., the good-guy Autobots (bearing such names as Inferno, Grapple, Red, and Smoke Screen) and the bad-guy Decepticons (numbering among their ranks the likes of Dirge and Thrust) resumed their conflict as though no time had passed at all. The Autobots managed to win several humans over to their side, notably earthlings Spike and Sparkplug, and, when the battle returned to the Autobots' home planet, Marrisa Fairborne of the Earth Defense Command. Although the animation was mediocre, The Transformers boasted excellent writing and story values, thanks to the input of such fantastic-fiction specialists as Donald F. Glut and Marv Wolfman. Also, the writers did a nice job weaving the Hasbro-licensed characters into the action, rather than have them merely show up as walking and talking advertisements. Debuting in daily "strip" syndication in September of 1984, the series remained in active production for three years. After its syndicated run, The Transformers was rebroadcast by cable's Sci-Fi Channel from 1992 to 1997. The series has also spawned a number of sequels, among them Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and several Japanese anime versions of the property, released in the U.S. under such titles as Transformers: Robots in Disguise and Transformers Armada. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second of Rankin/Bass' animated TV specials based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Return of the King plots the quest to defeat the evil wizard Sauron. Frodo, nephew of The Hobbit protagonist Bilbo Baggins, vows to destroy the Ring, even if it costs him his own life. He carries the Ring to the volcanic innards of Mount Doom. All this he does on behalf of good-guy Aragon, who will never be able to escape the dreaded land of Sauron so long as the Ring retains its evil powers. Orson Bean, who'd been the voice of Bilbo Baggins in the 1977 Hobbit cartoon special, returns to portray Frodo. Return of the King originally aired May 11, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Night That Panicked America is centered around Orson Welles' notorious "War of the Worlds" broadcast of October 30, 1938. Welles (Paul Shenar) arrives at CBS studios just in time to assume his directing post for the radio adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic, which has been updated and rewritten in the form of news bulletins. Unfortunately, millions of listeners tune in late and assume that the Earth is actually being invaded by Martians. This TV movie periodically cuts away from the broadcast in progress to concentrate on the panicky reactions of several listeners -- including a terrified mother (Eileen Brennan) who nearly kills her own children rather than allow them to fall into the tentacles of the Men From Mars. Advised of the panic, Welles is convinced that his career is over, but the ensuing publicity makes him nationally famous. As he absorbs the events of the evening, the hoodwinked radio fans crawl back sheepishly to the safety of their homes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide