What The Hex Going On?/Never Ape an Ape Man

What The Hex Going On?

I remember this episode best for actually taking place at the iconic mansion from the opening sequence, which made me very excited. We open with a hypnotized man being lured to a mansion.

The gang is heading up to their friend Sharon’s “Weatherby Estate” for the weekend. They drive by the guy walking and are like, “Weird lol.” They keep driving.

Arriving at the Weatherby estate, Sharon greets them and says it was the wrong weekend for them to visit. I’m sorry, did phones not exist in the 60s? They could have called. Sharon says they’ve been hearing strange noises and now their Uncle Stewart has disappeared. The gang wonders if he was the man they saw blindly walking in the street. Gee, if only someone had been around to help him. Sharon says that must have been the old Kingston estate so the gang goes back to investigate. They find Uncle Stewart but he’s 50 years old! To clarify, he was not before.

Back at the Weatherby estate, they ask him what happened. He was lured into the mansion by Elias Kingston, a little blue man in a giant trenchcoat.

He insists that the Kingston fortune belongs to him and turns Stewart into an old man as a warning. Not sure what a ghost would do with money. They try to call the sheriff but the phone line’s been cut. He probably couldn’t have helped much anyway.

The gang makes Scooby stand watch. Scooby immediately falls asleep and Uncle Stewart is whisked away again, along with Sharon. They run back to the Kingston estate.

Shaggy brings along his rollerskates in an attempt to escape from the ghost if he shows up. It feels like those would be harder to manuever on. Ol’ Elias begins to creep up on them and shoves Shaggy into a bathroom where he takes a cold shower.

Scooby finds the kitchen and thankfully, there’s a bone covered in cobwebs kept in the pantry for occasions such as these. Unluckily, it belongs to a mean old bulldog who snarls at Scooby and gives chase. Scooby pummels the dog with a wooden bucket and sends him running off to push Shaggy back in the bathroom.

The gang deduces that a ghost probably wouldn’t need a watch dog. Unfortunately, they find Uncle Stewart, only he’s a little older - the ripe old age of DEAD! The ghost appears and tells them to bring the fortune or ELSE! Scooby hides in a closet and puts up an “Out to Lunch” sign in a noble attempt to avoid the hard labor of catching the ghost.

The gang spots the ghost going into the mausoleum and decide to dust for fingerprints rather than just catch him. They realize ghosts don’t leave fingerprints so maybe he’s not a ghost. Seems like a poor use of their time.

The gang once again decides to risk the wrath of PETA and send Scooby in as a sacrificial lamb for the steep toll of 4 Scooby Snacks, but Shaggy takes them up on the offer instead. Shaggy scopes out the place and reflects on his crippling Scooby Snack addiction.

They find a book on crystallomancy, the science of using a crystal ball. The ghost locks them in but, thank god, there’s a secret passage leading them to safety that Scooby discovers. After some Young Frankenstein business with the rotating wall, the gang heads to “an old swami’s” place to ask about the crystal ball. The swami is out, so they just break in and start touching everything in sight. An old woman also breaks in and wants to have her fortune told so the gang dresses up Scooby in a turban. Shaggy does Scooby’s voice and reads the woman’s future in the crystal ball. She then asks for her palm read so Scooby paints her palm red. She storms off.

Now that the gang has destroyed the swami’s reputation, they continue investigating. The table begins levitating and the ghost appears in the crystal ball and chases them. The table crashes into Scooby and they discover a fan was propelling the table, which doesn’t exactly explain the levitation. They find a professional makeup kit and a camera connected to the crystal ball. I’m not sure why these guys go into ghost impersonation when they could make a fortune in special effects.

The gang realizes 19 minutes have passed and decide to wrap this caper up. They bring out a chest with the Weatherby fortune and lure the ghost out. The chest just has a jack-in-the-box in it and the ghost, enraged at being tricked, gives chase. They trick him into punching an anvil. They use the video camera to play mind games with him using a giant image of Scooby.

Sharon (remember her?) has been rescued off camera and laughs at them tricking the ghost. They drop a net on him and catch him. The ghost is revealed as Uncle Stewart! He used old age makeup to trick them into thinking he became old. Sharon caught him in the act so he kidnapped her.

Sharon rightly asks, “Where does the swami come in?” Velma responds with “What better way to make a professional swindler disappear?” HUH??? That doesn’t answer any questions! Did he murder the swami? Or was he the swami all along?

There’s some gag with Scooby and food but I frankly wasn’t paying attention because I was busy trying to track the logic of the mystery or how any of this works.

Memorable Dialogue

“If there’s one thing I hate, it’s taking a bath in a haunted house.”

Scooby Snack Stock Market

It’s a bull week for Shaggy. Or bear. Whatever the good one is. He gets a generous lump sum of 4 Scooby Snacks for the cost of opening a door and walking into a room. Scooby gets denied again! Really hope he gets some form of recompense soon.

Where does the gang live?

I’m gonna assume they’ve returned from their spring break in the American Southwest  to do the old New England mansion circuit.

Overall Rating: 2/5 Scooby Snacks. The idea of people turning old and then dying if they don’t listen to the ghost is a great, genuinely spooky conceit. Apart from that, this is a fucking mess! The mystery is insanely confusing and the monster of the week is a guy wearing bad blue makeup in a trenchcoat. A waste of a promising setup.

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Never Ape An Ape Man

I believe this is the first time we visit one of the Scooby gang’s extended relatives. Here, Daphne’s Uncle John is directing a film called The Ape Man of Forbidden Mountain. The gang is there to work as extras and they thank Uncle John for the opportunity. Uncle John clarifies a little too quickly that he NEVER would have called them if it wasn’t for the REAL Ape Man who’s been haunting the set.

I shit you not, the Ape Man appears behind Uncle John for most of this scene and no one ever comments on it.

They commence filming a scene and Carl, the stunt man, is preparing to attack Candy, the star, in an ape costume. To the surprise of exactly no one, the real Ape Man appears and tries to murder Candy. She just kind of stands there and waits for death which I really related to.

Scooby surprisingly goes to her rescue barking at the Ape Man while Candy makes her escape.

The bridge breaks, but Scooby lands on a branch and bounces back up. He then proceeds to kick the shit out of the Ape Man and throws him off the cliff. Well, that was a quick episode! Or not, because they still need to find the missing Carl.

The gang investigates his trailer and finds him locked in a trunk. He claims the Ape Man locked him in the trunk. Candy and Carl quit until the beast is caught, which is weird because he was just pushed off a cliff and is almost certainly a pile of organs on the bottom of the canyon floor.

As they investigate the set, the gang discovers that the set was built on the ruins of the old mansion where the Ape Man of legend appeared. That seems unwise.

The gang finds a half-eaten hamburger and concludes the Ape Man must have eaten it. Scooby finishes his leftovers. They split up to investigate the set, but Fred reminds them it’s a haunted house set so there’s traps everywhere. Fred, I’m pretty sure most movie sets aren’t constantly trying to murder their crewmembers. That’s not how horror movies work.

In the library, Fred finds a copy of the shooting script, which is not unusual on a movie set. Daphne sarcastically says, “Maybe the Ape Man was reading it.” I think everyone is sick of Fred at this point, including the writers, because they quickly shove him through a trap door.

The Ape Man puts on a fake Scooby mask and does some pantomime with him in a mirror before attempting to rip his head off. The gang tries to escape. No one even notices Fred has gone and I think they would honestly be happier without him. Trapped by a locked door, they rely on Scooby again to viciously attack the Ape Man and send him up the stairs. Very “How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man?” Daphne hits a switch and turns the stairs into a slide, saving the Ape Man’s life.

As the Ape Man makes his escape, everyone examines the switchboard and Velma says, “With your luck, Daph, the next button will bring the roof down.” Lots of tension within the gang this week. They hit another switch and Fred reappears. Everyone shrugs their shoulders. Fred leads them in the basement and shows them the trap he’s rigged up to catch the Ape Aan. Coincidentally, it’s identical to the trap the actual movie uses to catch the fake Ape Man.

Velma begins shuffling 5 Scooby Snacks like a card shark to enlist Scooby’s help to act as bait and promises him a bonus snack upon completion of the job. Scooby is sold, but Shaggy is not. Daphne has whipped up a Shaggy Snack for the occasion, a “pot pie with anchovies, pepperoni, cherries and all in a thick chocolate sauce.” Sorry, what the fuck???

Anyway, they’re sold. These knuckleheads lure the Ape Man back into the trap but Velma has been temporarily blinded and accidentally hits the lights. Needless to say, they miss their chance. The gang is sure the Ape Man is still trapped in the room but they discover a trap door concealed in a wine cask. The door leads into a dark cave in the mountain. The tunnel leads back to the dressing room.

The gang splits up to investigate, but Scooby and Shaggy just play in the wardrobe department, which apparently has costumes for every movie ever made. Scooby puts on an Ape Man head and Shaggy takes a picture. The real Ape Man appears without his mask on and Shaggy takes his picture. Convenient!

The gang lures the Ape Man back to the mansion and tricks him with the stair/slide switch. They capture him and it turns out the Ape Man was just Carl. Look, if I was dressing up as a monster to scare everyone, I wouldn’t use a costume that only I had access to and do something that only I had the skills to do. Luckily for Carl, everyone here is an idiot and it worked on them for most of the episode.

Also, no one explains how Carl survived falling off a cliff! That was my main question.

Scooby Snack Stock Market

Lots to discuss here but I just want to circle back to the Shaggy Snack. It’s truly the most demented, unhinged thing I’ve ever seen. How has he not died from food poisoning? I imagine a doctor will sit him down later this year and tell him he has six months to live.

Where does the gang live?

The film set is up in the mountains so I’m going to say they’re back in the Southwest somewhere. Maybe they aired out of continuity.

Overall Rating: 2/5 Scooby Snacks. The episode is frankly too long and there’s too much shenanigans. Also not a good mystery.

Next: After several duds in a row, we hopefully get back to the quality Scooby content with “Foul Play in Funland” and “The Backstage Rage.”