Lump Of Coal Indeed... "The Legend of Frosty the Snowman"

The Legend of Frosty the Snowman (2005)

TV-G

Starring Burt Reynolds, Grey DeLisle, Bill Fagerbakke, Larry Miller,

Directed by Greg Sullivan

The Story:

Frosty (Fagerbakke) goes where he is needed most during the holiday season. When the town of Evergreen is experiencing a Christmas crisis, Frosty returns to remind them that the magic of Christmas is real. But is it too late?

Oh. My. Goodness.

Remember the classic, Frosty the Snowman?

Watch that instead.

Watch anything instead.

This one even makes the marginal Frosty Returns (with John Goodman) seem like a stellar Christmas production.

It's bad.

And, it's like 45 minutes long.

Or 3 hours, because that's what it felt like. 

They try to connect the show to the original by way of the magician.

The end almost, almost salvages anything from this wreck.

Of course, if your idea of a good time is watching a cartoon that sucks until the last 5 minutes when a desperate attempt to find a redeeming message and send us home happy, then here you go.

Plus, you get to hear Burt Reynolds warble the Frosty the Snowman song.

Welcome to a special level of hell.

:)

Available to stream on Netflix if you're inclined. You can rent it on Amazon for $7.99.

You could send me $5.00 for saving you the trouble and giving you almost an hour of your life back instead. 

Final Grade: D - raising it out of the "F" territory just for the attempt at the end, and the train wreck of Burt Reynolds totally out of place here.

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: I'll stop celebrating Christmas long before I ever watch this again.

Whatchoo Gonna Doo, Brother? "Scooby Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery"

Scooby Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery (2014)

Not Rated

Starring Frank Welker, Matthew Lillard, Mindy Cohn, Grey DeLisle, John Cena, Triple H, Michael Cole, Kane, The Miz, A.J. Lee, Vince McMahon

Directed by Brandon Vietti

The Story:

Scooby (Welker) ends up winning a contest on a WWE video game and wins a trip to WWE City!  Shaggy (Lillard) an Scooby beg for the gang to tag along, bringing much persuasive evidence that they've never asked for anything in return and have always been used as bait to solve mysteries. 

Point: Scooby & Shaggy!

So they head to WWE City and meet the superstars.  But with a mysterious ghost bear plaguing the town, and Scooby apparently the prime suspect in the theft of the WWE Championship, it's up to Shaggy, Fred (Welker), Daphne (DeLisle) and Velma (Cohn) to clear their canine companion and lay the smackdown on the mysterious bear!

Hanna Barbera teams with WWE Studios to make a movie that's fun for the whole family.

WWE Wrestlers have been compared to cartoons over the years, so it makes sense to go animated.

Hook kids to the fun of WWE, and you might have a fan for life.

Worked on me.

:)

And the WWE offered up some of their best, A-listers John Cena, Triple H and even the Chairman himself, Vince McMahon!

Other wrestlers, like Sin Cara (who is instrumental to the movie) are shown but not given any dialogue.

The wrestlers do quite fine for themselves as voice actors, given the respective size and importance of their roles.  I would say The Miz comes out as the wrestler who seemingly has the most fun in the movie, and has the best lines.

But first and foremost, as the title suggests, this is a Scooby Doo cartoon.

Frank Welker leads the team, still as the intrepid Fred but now also pulling double duty as Scooby.  He is able to differentiate between the two nicely, and I like when the voices are distinct enough that you don't realize it's the same voice.

Lillard was perfectly cast as a live-action Shaggy when Scooby Doo came to the big screen years ago.  He does the memory of Casey Kasem proud as he brings Shaggy to life for a new generation.

While I mentioned in my Scooby Doo review that the main cast did voices for years, eventually they all get replaced.

:(

DeLisle has become the latest Daphne, and I was amused to see that Cohn has taken up the mantle of Velma since the early 2000s.  Yes, Natalie from The Facts of Life.

My childhood is converging as I am now an adult!

Overall, I thought it was pretty well done, and I'm looking forward to the next 45 years of Scooby Doo!

Final Grade: Solid B

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Hey, I liked it.  I would watch it again. :)