My Thoughts - Scooby Doo, Where Are You!: What a Night for a Knight (1969)

Synopsis: Scooby (Don Messick) and Shaggy (Casey Kasem) come across a truck with a suit of armor in the driver's seat. They, along with the rest of the Mystery Gang, deliver it to the local museum and after learning the armor has a strange legend and the "Black Knight" comes alive when the moon is full.

My Thoughts:

I am a bit confused about where Scooby and his friends are supposed to live. The delivery label on the suit of armor's crate says London, England. Yet, at least as far as I know, they live somewhere in the United States. And yes, there was another shipping label, but I would think any shipper would be extremely confused.

I never realized how much I hate laugh tracks until watching this episode. Not everything is as funny as the episode makes it seem, which sort of minimizes the actual funny scenes.

I also never realized just how much of a bad example this series set. The gang not only breaks into a museum, but they also destroy a ton of priceless artifacts in the process. How are they not the villains? How did they not at least get a scolding from the sheriff?

Speaking of that scene, does anyone really believe Shaggy is their high school's best gymnast. Even in this very first episode, he doesn't seem like the type to be interested in any sport.

Was that museum built with Time Lord technology? It certainly didn't look that big from the outside and based on Shaggy's comical fall after breaking into the museum from a window, I don't think it was supposed to have multiple floors. Yet, it seemed to go on forever and somehow managed to have a secret room.

The episode ruins the illusion of the suit of armor supposedly being haunted by making it clear someone else is in the museum with them. I know it's a kid's show but at least try to keep the supernatural a possibility for a bit. Of course, to be fair, it was kind of a convoluted plan to begin with. It kind of feels like the bad guy wouldn't have gotten caught had he just stayed hidden rather than trying to pretend to be a ghost.

Final Opinion: I watched this for nostalgia (boredom) and clearly it is easy to spot a lot of things as an adult that the target audience for this series might have missed. However, despite everything that left me scratching my head, I do think the episode did a good job establishing the main characters from the series and setting up what has become a long-lasting cartoon dynasty.

My Grade: B