A Pup Named Scooby Doo Episode Review: "The Ghost of Mrs Shushman"

[brendala]

Note: This title screen is a typo. All the characters in the show clearly call her "Mrs Shushman". So I will do the same.

This is the obligatory “teach kids about the importance of reading” episode that cartoons of the late 80s and early 90s were required to have (along with the unintentionally hilarious drug episode). Luckily, Pup’s foray into this Very Special Episode territory isn’t too preachy or heavy handed. Sadly, the same can’t be said for it’s “say no to drugs” special (and don’t worry, I promise to get to that one eventually).


Our story begins with the gang chilling at the treehouse on a rainy day.










Shaggy and Scooby start freaking out when they run out of food and read through all their comics.






And Daphne starts acting like some weird lit-snob and tells them they should read “real books” for a change.



And Freddie tries to help them out by offering up his tabloids.


Comic books are looking pretty good right now aren’t they, Daph?


Shaggy tells Daphne that comics are, like, totally real and a knock on the door ends that argument. Shag and Scoob assume it’s the pizza dude. But it’s actually a librarian ghost who demands that Shaggy give back her book.


Shaggy and Scooby do a silly wild take…


…and after the ghost knocks them around a bit…



Seriously guys, don’t try to help or anything. Shag and Scoob seem to be doing OK by themselves.


…they tell the gang that it’s the ghost of the former Coolsville librarian, Mrs Shushman. Shaggy begs Scooby to “do something” and Scooby decides that the best way to defeat a dead librarian is to.....dress in drag?

Because everyone knows that stuffy librarians are terrified of transvestite dogs!



Scooby’s disguise creeps her out enough to get her to leave. But on her way out she swears that Shaggy will be sorry if she doesn’t get her book back by midnight. Prompting Shaggy and Scooby to, understandably, freak the hell out



Freddie asks what book the librarian wants back and why Shaggy never returned it (Freddie asked a relevant question! Hell must have frozen over!), and this leads to a cute flashback….


Toddler-Shaggy thanks Mrs Shushman for the book. Prompting her shush him and whip out a “No Talking” sign


Baby-Scooby (judging by all of this show’s different flashbacks, I guess he’s been a “puppy” for about 5-10 years now :P) tries to win her over by playfully licking the sign. But she’s immune to his doggy charms

If Scooby had been wearing a dress, she would have beat him with that sign!

The boys give up trying to win her over and go home.


Shaggy then explains that he dropped the book in Scooby’s bone pile right before he buried it. And that the old Coolsville Library shut down not long after that. So he never bothered to dig it back up





Daphne asks why the book would be so important that Mrs Shushman would return from the grave to claim it, and Shaggy says “It’s because ‘Pizza Parrot and the Butterbean Bunnies’ is a classic”.
If that book is so darn great, why did Shaggy leave it under the dirt in his backyard? This is never explained. But whatever...







Anyway, Scooby sniffs a clue and the kids find a book that was dropped by the ghost as she fled in terror from the cross-dressing dog.





The book has a label inside that say’s it’s from "Bernice Binder's Used Bookstore". Prompting Shaggy and Scooby to do another wild take…



This wild take disturbs Fred and Velma. Daphne couldn't care less


…and jump into fred’s shirt..


…before admitting they have no idea who Bernice Binder is. I guess they just really wanted to get in there. Maybe Mrs Shushman was right to be creeped out by them.


The gang waltzes into the bookstore and Shaggy describes the place as “goosebump central”. I don’t understand why. The place is well-lit and looks like a normal bookstore to me. It certainly isn’t “creepy” compared to some of the other places they’ve been. But I guess places full of books would spook me, too if a dead librarian had just promised to kill me within the next 24 hours.




Freddie rings the bell


And gets Bernice Binder’s attention.

Gee whiz, THAT look isn’t suspicious at all!


She immediately jumps down and starts screaming like a banshee

 
And I guess Shaggy and Scooby feel bad for her because they act completely uninterested for a while before pulling out some Wile E Coyote signs





Fred decides to be chivalrous for once in this show by helping her off the desk and asking her what’s wrong


Bernice says she freaked because she thought Mrs Shushman had come back. And Shaggy’s fear of bookstores only heightens when he finds what Mrs Shushman left behind



Fred asks what the ghost wanted (another relevant question from Fred!? Holy crap!) and Bernice explains that she bought all the books from the library that was shut down and Mrs Shushman wanted a book that she didn’t have. Take a wild guess which one she’s talking about.


Daphne asks what happened to Mrs Shushman after the library closed and Bernice replies that she disappeared after the library shut down.


Prompting Shaggy and Scooby to flip out and scream “SHE CAME BACK JUST TO GET US!”


Bernice tries to reassure them that Mrs Shushman won’t hurt them


She’ll just haunt them until they either cough up the book or DIE!





Given those options, Shaggy and Scooby opt to dig up the book. They have to tear up Shaggy’s entire backyard (I wonder how long he got grounded for that), but they eventually find it. And more importantly to Scooby, he finds his favorite bone.









While the gang is heading off the library, we get a cute little scene where Scooby drops his bone, Velma stays behind to pick it up for him, and then Scooby helps her catch up to the others. It doesn’t contribute to the plot in any way; it’s just adorable and helps to take one’s mind of THAT OTHER F&*%ING SHOW!!!!









HUGS!!!





CUT TO THE SPOOKY OLD COOLSVILLE LIBRARY

Complete with spooky lightning!


As usual, the kids have to force Scooby in with a Scooby Snack







And the kids barely make it to the front door before some weirdo in a trenchcoat tries to jump them.


Turns out the weirdo is Rhona, the ex-president of the Coolsville stamp collecting club. Fred asks, “What does a stamp collecting club do?”. Prompting Daphne to level so many sarcastic barbs at him that she almost breaks the snark-o-meter!







Shaggy explains that Rhona has a grudge against him because she believes people like him (i.e. people who didn’t return books or pay their late fees) are what caused the old library to shut down.


And, when the library shut down, she was forced to hold her stamp club meetings outdoors. And when it rained on one of her meetings, this happened:

QUICK! SOMEBODY CALL CHRIS HANSEN!!!


.....wow. That’s a pretty messed up reason for a grown woman to carry a grudge against a 12-year-old. It’s not Shaggy’s fault that she was too stupid to buy plastic sheets for her stamp collection.

Anyhoo, she tells the kids that she plans to talk to her club members about her recent appearance in the National Exaggerator (which impresses Freddie, naturally) and scuttles off.




Freddie leads the gang right into the spooky abandoned library which is, of course, unlocked and unguarded. Just like EVERY building in this city!


Freddie comments that “This place looks deserted”. Prompting Daphne to break the snark-o-meter yet again by reminding him that it IS deserted. This exchange is a lot funnier when you can actually hear the line delivery (Kellie Martin was just AMAZING in this show).





Scooby goes sniffing for clues and leads the gang to the list of all the books that were still overdue when the library shut down.







Scooby spots another clue. Prompting Shaggy to announce that he’s solved the mystery!






Sadly, before he can reveal the culprit, the ghost shows up. Prompting yet another bizarre wild take





And a short, song-free chase scene ensues




The ghost chases Velma, Freddie, and Daphne into a dead end. But Shaggy and Scooby lure her over to a wobbly bookshelf and then they PULL THE DAMN THING RIGHT DOWN ON TOP OF HER! Dang! I guess the threat of immanent murder turns these two into bad-asses











Velma says she still doesn’t know who the ghost is (really, Velma? It’s kinda obvious…). Daphne is sure that Rhona is the culprit on account of her creepy delusion that Shaggy is the reason she has to dress like a flasher 24/7. And just as Fred starts to accuse Red Herring, he gets a call from Red saying that he can’t show up to yell at him because his bike has a flat. This makes Freddie sad


Daphne tells Fred that it’s not the end of the world if his boyfriend can’t come over and watch the end of the mystery with him (OK, she didn’t say that. But she was thinking it!). But when Fred continues to pout, Daphne lets her inner softie take over and has her butler bring Red to the library.




Once Fred is happy again…    


…the mystery wrap up continues with Shaggy revealing the culprit to be **drum roll** Bernice Binder!!!



Oh, c’mon, kids! It’s not THAT big of a shock!


Shaggy explains that he knew it was her because she fanned him with a napkin from their treehouse and because a bookmark from her store was found in the book they picked up earlier (which was a rare book price guide). Turns out the book Shaggy had was super rare and worth a lot of money; and Bernice wanted to scare him into giving to her so she could sell it in her shop.


Shaggy and Scooby’s display of mad detective skillz prompts Velma to tell them that she’s “proud of them both” (D’awwwww)

Don’t think of that other show. Don’t think of that other show. Don't think of that other show......


The episode ends with Daphne telling Shaggy that she’s glad he's reading something other than comics (THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH COMICS, DAPHNE!). And Shaggy says that he found lots of awesome, picture-less cookbooks at the new Coolsville library. And now they don’t have to pay to have pizza delivered anymore!







I have to give this show credit; that’s a pretty clever and subtle way to get a “reading is good” message across to kids. I just wish they didn’t feel the need to denigrate comic books in order to do it.


By the way, I couldn't find a spot in the review to put this last screen shot. But it's too cute to leave out; so I'm just gonna stick it in the end here:



If THAT doesn't inspire you to read, I don't know what will!

[cross-posted to scooby_doo ]

Comments

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

This is probably one of the better "reading is good" episodes made, the only other one that comes to mind was the one Gargoyles did, that was done especially well.

Still, I really wish they weren't so hard on comic. They count as reading! Heaven forbid kids don't read literally classics, it's still reading.

With that said, the episode I remember the most from this show was when the gang was taking Shaggy's baby sister Jellybean to her sitter's and the woman was so scary they instantly thought she was a ghost. I just found it cute because we saw Shaggy's big brother side.

[brendala.livejournal.com]

Still, I really wish they weren't so hard on comic. They count as reading! Heaven forbid kids don't read literally classics, it's still reading.

Not only that, but there are tons of brilliantly written comics out there and just as many god-awful, picture-free novels.


The baby sitter episode is definitely high on my to-do list. Trust me, it's just as adorable as you remember. ^_^
Making Shaggy a super-affectionate and protective big brother added a nice new dimension to him (even though his sister only appeared in two episodes).

I was surprised when she was left out of Mystery Incorporated (she wasn't just invented for Pup. She appeared in one of the 70s specials, too). But I guess including her would have undermined the "insensitive asshat who doesn't understand women" persona that MI decided he ought to have.
**grumblegrumblegrumble**

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

Oh good, I'll be curious to see your review on that, it's one of my favorite episodes.

I was just thinking it's weird Jellybean wasn't in the new series, but as you said maybe it's just as well. (Either that or she knew what was going to happen and bailed when she could. XD)

[brendala.livejournal.com]

LOL. She saw what they were doing to her brother and their dog and she left in protest!

I still think the recent Abracadabra Doo movie would have been WAY better if it had been about Shaggy bonding with his little sister instead of being about Velma's sister constantly trying to glomp him. I could see Shaggy asking the gang to tell her that he's the team leader out of fear that she'll look down on him for being the team butt-monkey.