One of the most enduring cartoon series is almost ready to return to the big screen. A new animated Scooby-Doo movie is in the works and it's found some Grade-A talent to voice the iconic characters. Will Forte and Gina Rodriquez have joined the cast and they will be joined by Scooby-Doo voice actor Frank Welker and -- surprisingly enough -- Tracy Morgan as Hanna-Barbera character Captain Caveman.
There have been plenty of actors to voice Scooby-Doo characters over the decades that the cartoon has appeared, but it looks like the new animated film is going mostly for more familiar actors to voice the parts. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Will Forte will voice Shaggy, Scooby-Doo's best friend and lover of dog treats. Velma, the brains of the bunch, will be voiced by Gina Rodriquez, while Scooby-Doo will be voiced by Frank Welker. Welker is a veteran voice actor and has voiced Scooby-Doo characters since 1969 -- starting with Fred, and as Scooby since 2002 -- so the talking Great Dane will largely sound the same.
And that's not all! Tracy Morgan has been cast as Captain Caveman, a lesser-known cartoon character. He really has nothing to do with Scooby-Doo but the new film will serve as a crossover between various Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters. Captain Caveman appeared in Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, a soft parody of Charlie's Angels that found three teenage girls solving mysteries with a super-powered caveman they thawed from ice.
That's pretty solid cast right there. Will Forte as Shaggy is pretty spot-on casting, and Rodriquez's star has been rising ever since she starred on the CW's Jane the Virgin. Both of them are no stranger to voice work. Forte has voiced characters in The LEGO Movies, Bob's Burgers, and Cloudy With a Change of Meatballs. Rodriquez voices the titular character of Carmen Sandiego on the Netflix TV series. Tracy Morgan will be providing his voice for the Green Eggs and Ham TV show.
The plot of the new film will find the Mystery Inc. gang joining forces with other heroes of the Hanna-Barbera universe to save the world from Dick Dastardly and his evil plans. Dick Dastardly is a no good so-and-so from Wacky Races and was always up to nefarious schemes to win a race. He was always accompanied by his sidekick Muttley, an anthromorphic dog.
This is a pretty cool idea for a Scooby-Doo movie, seeing as how the character has basically drained the masked-man-scares-kids well dry. Plus, Scooby-Doo is no stranger to crossovers, having met Batman, The Three Stooges, WWE Wrestlers, Supernatural, and the Harlem Globetrotters over the years. I'm curious if kids today will care at all about old Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but it's certainly a fun idea.
The animated Scoody-Doo film is directed by Tony Cervone and will arrive in theaters in May 2020.
