Aloha, Scooby-Doo

The 1.78:1 anamorphic picture looks gorgeous, with sparkling colours and excellent shadow detail. The tropical setting, varied colour pallets, water effects and fire come together seamlessly and it looks as good as hand-drawn animation can possible be. And to think that the Region 1 release is in crappy full frame (Aloha, Scooby-Doo was drawn in widescreen).

The Dolby 5.1 soundtrack, while hardly reference quality, uses bass to good effect during the eruption scenes and ambient and stereo effects give the overall sound design a great deal more sophistication than that of the TV show, of which you may be more familiar.

The Tubular Scooby-Doo Aloha challenge is a short game, controlled with the arrow buttons on your DVD remote.

A six-minute fluff featurette comes across as a bit childish and superficial, but I guess the target audience won't be complaining.

An interesting extra called An Evening With The Scooby-Doo Gang has Mystery Inc. interviewed, Parkinson-style, only for the host to turn out to be a monster himself. In an ingenious twist, he's wearing a rubber human mask.

An extra called National Geographic's Hula Hullabaloola is featured on the Region 1 release, but somehow missing from the R2.

Pop the DVD in your computer and you'll be taken to the Scooby-Doo website. An insert, promoting the Official Scooby-Doo Fan Club, is inside the DVD case. I recommend you join.

Trailers for Tom And Jerry Blast-Off To Mars, Justice League and Kangaroo Jack 2 (good God!) are also included.