The Corner Penthouse

Warner Brothers recently released the Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998) / Return to Zombie Island (2019) Double Feature Blu-ray. Read on to find out more about it...

[ SYNOPSIS ]

Get ready for far-out fun in Scooby-Doo's feature-length animated movie, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998). Scooby-Doo (Scott Innes), Shaggy (Billy West), Velma (B.J. Ward), Daphne (Mary Kay Bergman), and Fred (Frank Welker) reunite to solve the most frightfully funny mystery of their careers. The scream team's headed to a haunted bayou island to investigate the ghost of Moonscar the Pirate. But it turns out the swashbuckler's spirit isn't the only creepy character on the island. The sleuths also meet up with cat creatures and zombies and it looks like for the first time in their lives these ghouls might actually be real. The gang's trip to Zombie Island became one of the most popular of Scooby's feature-length adventures, and twenty years later led to a sequel! In Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island (2019), Scooby (Frank Welker), Shaggy (Matthew Lillard), and the Mystery Inc. gang win a vacation of a lifetime at Monster Island Resort. Velma (Kate Micucci), Daphne (Grey Griffin), and Fred (Frank Welker) can't help but notice how strangely familiar the surroundings are there. The gang soon finds that paradise has a price as they encounter an army of zombies and creepy cat people.

[ SPECIFICATIONS ]

Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998) is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio with a runtime of 1:16:39 across 19 chapters. Return to Zombie Island (2019) is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio with a runtime of 1:19:51 across 20 chapters. Both movies have not been rated. For both movies, audio languages include English, and subtitle languages include English SDH.

I do not believe that either movie has been edited, but the first movie has one minor alteration at the very end. The Scooby-Doo Hanna-Barbera logo no longer says "A Time Warner Company" underneath. This is the original logo screen as it appeared on DVD.


This is what it looks like on the Blu-ray.


Not an "end of the world" alteration, and it's obvious why it was altered, but for the sake of preservation, it would have been nice if it were left alone. On the positive side, at least the logo part is still there and it wasn't edited out entirely.

[ SPECIAL FEATURES ]

All of the content listed below, which can be found the Blu-ray disc, is presented in full HD.

• Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island Promo Trailer (3:27) - Featuring narration by Jim Cummings (who voiced Jacques, Morgan Moonscar, and the Plantationer in the movie), it can be viewed here. (The online copy is the same one as on the Blu-ray with the swamp concept art - see below.)
• Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island Promo Trailer (1:42) - It can be viewed here.

There's something really weird going on with the first film's extras. The original DVD release from 2001 (in the snapper case) advertised a "Behind-the-Scenes 'Making Of' Documentary" on the back, which was not actually on the disc. The "Featurette" on the disc is actually the three-and-a-half minute "Promo Trailer" that's on the Blu-ray. While it's great that that lengthy video was ported over to the Blu-ray, it's slightly different, and I'm not sure why. From 1:36 to 1:46, as narrator Jim Cummings intones, "Here, in this swamp...", we see two long panning shots of the swamp, before we see Scooby chasing some cats.


In the Blu-ray's version of the promo trailer (also uploaded to Youtube in 2014 to the "Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers" channel - link in Special Features section above), these two shots from the final film are replaced by two pieces of concept art for the same shots. I have no idea why there's a difference here. Perhaps the only high definition copy the Warner Archive team could find was the "slightly unfinished" one. The rest of the trailer is a 100% match. (Note: I cropped off the added blackness on the sides to make this 4:3 fullscreen for better presentation online.)


The DVD also includes a "Trailer" (1:20) that is the original video advertisement. It was not ported over to this Blu-ray. Also, if a "Making Of" featurette was created for the movie back in 1998, this would have been a great time to finally premiere it.

As for the other stuff from the DVDs... The first film included some character bios, a trivia quiz that didn't reward a prize if you got all questions correct, and some advertisements for other Scooby videos that came out in the late 1990s/early 2000s (Witch's Ghost, Alien Invaders, and a few others). Nothing of importance that needed to be ported over to the Blu-ray. So, other than the 1:20 Trailer, there's nothing missing on the Blu-ray.

Things are different for the sequel. Aside from trailers for other things, the Return to Zombie Island DVD includes bonus episodes from other Scooby TV series: The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries episode "Ghosts of the Ancient Astronauts" (1984) and the What's New Scooby-Doo? episode "Mummy Scares Best" (2003). Since none of these unrelated bonus episodes are on the Blu-ray, you will have to buy other DVDs in order to get/retain them. While the The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries series is not available on DVD, this episode can also be found on the 13 Spooky Tales Around the World DVD set. For What's New Scooby-Doo?, you are better off buying the three individual Season sets (Season 1, Season 2, Season 3,), as they all include holiday specials that are absent from the Complete Series set. Oddly enough, the Return to Zombie Island DVD doesn't have the promo trailer that's on the Blu-ray.

So, while it seems like the Blu-ray doesn't have much in the way of special features, it doesn't really lose out on much of anything from the previous DVDs of both movies.

[ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ]

No digital copy code voucher is included inside the standard one-disc blue Blu-ray case, nor is there a slipcover.

[ NOTES ]

The Scooby-Doo Zombie Island Double Feature is available on Blu-ray and DVD. (The DVD set, presumably, includes the same two discs that were released individually.) The first film is a classic and is responsible for reviving the franchise after a half-decade dormancy, and has led to the never-ending string of direct-to-video Scooby films and series that have been released nearly every year for the past 25 years. In addition to then-regulars Frank Welker, Mary Kay Bergman, and B.J. Ward (they hadn't settled on new actors for Scooby's and Shaggy's voices yet), you also have Adrienne Barbeau, Mark Hamill, and Tara Strong (then Tara Charendoff). Should you wish to check it out, Kids WB uploaded the first 10 minutes.

As for the sequel, the less said, the better. The only good thing I have to say about it is that Elvira, Mistress of the Dark appears, voiced by Cassandra Peterson, of course. Should you wish to check it out, Kids WB uploaded the first 10 minutes.

Finally, if you enjoy the music from Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, the two main tracks - "The Ghost Is Here" and "Terror Time" - appear as bonus tracks on the Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost soundtrack album.

This item has been provided by Warner Brothers for review on this site.