Scooby-Doo meets Courage the Cowardly Dog: Trailer for epic crossover teams up pop culture's most famous canines

SYFY WIRE Exclusives

Scooby-Doo meets Courage the Cowardly Dog: Trailer for epic crossover teams up pop culture's most famous canines

By Josh Weiss

Avengers: Endgame is the most ambitious crossover of all t— what's that? Scooby-Doo is crossing paths with Courage the Cowardly Dog in a brand-new animated feature this September? Ok, Feige, time to pack it in. You've officially been beat.

Hitting Digital and DVD this September, Straight Outta Nowhere is a must-see for longtime fans of old school Cartoon Network programming. Did we mention that SYFY WIRE has the exclusive first trailer?! Stupid dog, you made us look bad!

"[The film] is definitely going to trigger acute nostalgia for those of us who grew up watching both Scooby-Doo and Courage shows, and it will also bring these wonderful characters to a new generation of viewers," the project's director/producer Cecilia Aranovich wrote in a statement.

"There wasn’t anything like it in the past," Courage creator John R. Dilworth explained to SYFY WIRE in 2019 during an interview pegged to the show's 20th anniversary. "You have the nearest predecessor with Scooby-Doo, but I don’t think [that show] ever achieved the kind of intensity that I did on Courage."

Ooga! Booga! Booga! Check out the trailer now:

Written by Mike Ryan, Straight Outta Nowhere finds Mystery, Inc. on the tail of a strange object in Nowhere, Kansas: the desolate hometown of Courage and his owners, Muriel and Eustace Bagge, which also happens to be a nexus of strange supernatural occurences. Scooby (Frank Welker) and the gang soon find themselves contending with a giant cicada monster (particularly fitting in 2021) and her wacky winged warriors.

To take down the insectoid conspiracy that's just too big for a household flyswatter, they'll need the help of another timid mutt, Courage (Marty Grabstein). Can the two iconic mongrels overcome their jitters to solve the case or will they completely bug out? Like, zoinks, man — that's the real mystery!

"Merging the two worlds in a cohesive manner was one of the most challenging aspects of production," Aranovich continued. "But I feel we found the right balance by bringing in the design elements and the color palette from the Courage world, as well as infusing Scooby and the gang with the more over-the-top takes and reactions that are so characteristic of Courage. The movie is filled with Easter eggs from the first Courage series, and it is packed with quirky humor, offbeat characters, outlandish action scenes and, of course, the mystery factor that is inherent in every Scooby-Doo! plot."

Grey Griffin (Daphne Blake), Matthew Lillard (Shaggy Rogers), Kate Micucci (Velma Dinkley), and Jeff Bergman (Eustice Bagge) round out the rest of the voice cast. As per usual, Welker pulls double duty as both Scooby and Fred Jones. Sam Register executive-produced.

The home release includes three bonus episodes: "Decoy for a Dognapper" (Scooby Doo, Where Are You!), "The Gruesome Game of the Gator Ghoul" (The Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Hour), and "Chiller Diller Movie Thriller" (The Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Hour).

Dilworth also told us that the decision to give Courage pink fur stemmed from a desire to play against how dogs had been portrayed in horror media up to that point. "Think of Boys from Brazil and the use of dogs there. Cujo, for instance. Horror films have been populated by quite violent dogs — symbolic dogs, and here, I’m doing the opposite. But still playing on the idea of the brave and the loyal. That’s still there."

Clocking in at 72 minutes, Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo meets Courage the Cowardly Dog arrives on Digital (price is TBD) and DVD ($14.99 in the U.S.; $19.99 in Canada) Tuesday, Sep. 14.