Our favorite mystery solver Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc got to solve some Christmas mysteries before they ever did in any of their cartoons back in 1978 on this Xmas LP album that was released. It features two 15 minute stories: The Mystery of the missing Santa and Trouble at Santa’s workshop. Nothing better than solving some mysteries during the holidays so let’s take a listen back at this obscure yet neat little album I found since it has all the original voice actors and well ho ho ho, gets us in the Christmas mood with our favorite detective.
The Mystery of the missing Santa in a way tells us that Santa Claus is not real since it’s a mystery of a man who was going to dress up as Santa bus is gone missing so the crew has to find them or else kids won’t get to see Santa. Not the greatest mystery but eventually they find the guy, no crazy monster chasing them or anything and he is able to dress up as Santa and give gifts to kids all thanks to Scooby solving the mystery. Interestingly enough both stories feature Scooby as the main hero and they highlight this so there’s no confusion, slightly inconsistent with how he was portrayed in the show.
The second story Trouble at Santa’s workshop does include the real Santa Claus, however it’s clearly stated that Scooby-Doo is dreaming this story as both the intro and outro explicitly mention this so Santa not being real in the Scoob universe seems to be canon. Anywho the presents are missing and Mystery Inc (outright stated to be the name of the group) fly to save Santa, Scooby solves the mystery at least in his sleep and mentions he’ll never tell anyone he’s dream.
The cover of the albums is rather retro but I like it, the re-release actually has my favorite pup Scrappy Doo, even if he is nowhere to be found in any of the stories since it was before he was even created but I’ll take anything that includes Scrappy in a Scooby story. You also have the songs “O Christmas Tree”, “Deck the Halls”, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, “Jingle Bells” but sadly they aren’t sung by Scooby Doo or any of the original cast members, just some random kids which is a shame. The in story explanation is that they’re kids singing Christmas Carols.
Overall not a bad little album for Scooby fans and something they might not know about, but also not the most amazing mystery either, just some basic story. Would be interesting if someone actually made an animated video with the voices of the characters so it’s an animated feature one day. You can listen to the album here and here, and check out more scooby articles at MiscRave here.
