Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? wants to do something simple: bring celebrity guests into the Mystery Inc. gang’s mystery-solving machine. It mostly works, even if the series never quite becomes the event that its premise suggests. This is the thirteenth television series in the Scooby-Doo franchise, produced by Warner Bros. Animation and Chris Bailey, and it premiered on Boomerang’s SVOD service on June 27, 2019, before moving to Cartoon Network on July 8, 2019 and the Boomerang channel on October 1, 2020. The remaining episodes of the second season arrived on HBO Max on October 1, 2021, with the Boomerang airing following in 2022.
Trailer, via Cartoon Cartoons.
Premise
The show follows a familiar pattern. Mystery Inc. solves mysteries while encountering and being assisted by various celebrities and fictional characters, including DC Comics and Hanna-Barbera figures. That’s a wide net, and the series tries to catch everything it can. The premise is borrowed from The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which also brought guest stars into the mystery formula. Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? leans on the same idea, but it runs for two seasons and 52 episodes, giving it room to stretch out across more territory than its predecessor ever managed.
The show’s approach is straightforward: every week, a new guest star shows up, gets caught up in a mystery, and helps solve it. That’s a winning formula for a half-hour cartoon. But the series has to keep delivering new names over 52 episodes, and some episodes rely on guests who don’t carry the same weight as the big names.
Cast
The core group stays the same. Frank Welker voices Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo, Matthew Lillard voices Shaggy Rogers, Grey DeLisle voices Daphne Blake, and Kate Micucci voices Velma Dinkley. The supporting celebrity roles come and go with each episode, and that’s where the series finds its identity. Some episodes lean on DC Comics characters; others pull in Hanna-Barbera favorites. The formula is consistent enough that viewers know what they’re getting from the title alone.
What Works
The best episodes land when the guest stars feel like real additions to the mystery, not just cameos. A few stand out:
- Episodes where DC Comics characters appear as suspects or allies.
- Episodes that use Hanna-Barbera characters to build a new mystery world.
- Episodes that let the regular Mystery Inc. dynamic play out without overshadowing the guest star.
When the series commits to a specific universe, it earns its premise. When it doesn’t, the celebrity names feel like a stunt rather than a story element. The balance between the two modes is the series’s biggest challenge, and it never fully resolves it.
Guest-Star Problem
The guest-star format is both the show’s strongest tool and its weakest link. The idea is simple: a famous face shows up, gets caught up in a mystery, and helps solve it. That’s a winning formula for a half-hour cartoon. But the series has to keep delivering new names over 52 episodes, and some episodes rely on guests who don’t carry the same weight as the big names.
The result is a mixed bag. Some episodes feel essential, others feel like filler. The pattern repeats across the two seasons, though the source does not specify which season leans harder on which guest-star pool.
That repetition is the heart of the show’s identity. Every episode follows the same basic structure, but the guest-star choices shift the tone from week to week. One week might be a lighthearted Hanna-Barbera adventure; the next could be a darker DC Comics mystery. The show’s success depends on whether those shifts feel like genuine additions to the story or like empty name-dropping.
Animation
The show is an animated series, and its animation quality holds steady across both seasons. Nothing about it demands attention on its own, but it never gets in the way either. The character designs stay faithful to the Scooby-Doo tradition, and the celebrity guests are rendered consistently enough that viewers can recognize them at a glance. That consistency matters more than it sounds, since the entire premise depends on viewers buying into the presence of these famous faces.
The animation doesn’t try to dazzle; it simply supports the story. That restraint is part of the show’s appeal. The focus stays on the mystery and the guest star, not on flashy visual effects.
Running Time
At 52 episodes, Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? is a substantial entry in the Scooby-Doo catalog. That length gives it room to explore more territory than shorter entries in the franchise, but it also means the show has to sustain its premise across a full season of episodes. Some of those episodes hold up better than others, and the series doesn’t always find fresh angles to justify the sheer number of installments.
The two-season structure gives the show room to develop recurring mysteries and to bring back favorite guests across multiple episodes. That’s a strength compared to earlier Scooby-Doo entries, which often felt like standalone adventures with no through-line. Here, the series can build momentum across episodes, which pays off in the stronger installments.
Verdict
Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? is a solid, occasionally brilliant entry in the Scooby-Doo canon. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it doesn’t need to. The guest-star format gives it a distinct identity, and when it commits to a specific universe — particularly the DC Comics episodes — it delivers real entertainment value. The weaker episodes, where the celebrity names feel like stunts, are the ones that drag down the overall experience.
The show earns its premise more often than it fails it. Its best episodes are genuinely fun, and its worst are merely forgettable. That’s a fair trade for a series built around celebrity cameos, and it’s a credit to the writers that the show finds ways to make these guests feel like real parts of the mystery rather than just names on a list.
Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? is a worthy addition to the Scooby-Doo catalog, one that honors the franchise’s traditions while finding new ways to use its celebrity guest format. It isn’t perfect, but it’s entertaining enough to recommend to fans of the franchise.
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