We all know Little Golden books, they are a staple of the childhood reading experience, so imagine a young Doom, freshly minted as a Scooby-Doo fan, stumbling across a crossover of those 2 icons?
It must have blown his still forming mind.
But how does this story hold up 23 years after it was bought/published?
Let’s all pile into the Mystery Machine and find out!
Big bad ***SPOILER ALERT***, gang, we’re diving deep on this shorty.
First off, I don’t really remember the story of this book from my kidness at all, but I most definitely remember little 8 year old Doom staring at the pictures in this book forever, just absorbing the details of these new friends and their carnival adventure.
Rendered here by Vaccaro Associates, Inc. and Eric Binder, there was always something I loved about the Golden and Little Golden art style.
I have some of them from when Ma was little and, the funny thing about them is it has always been hard to tell when they are published because they have such a warm and distinct style to them that makes them feel timeless.
I’m incredibly curious to see if that style has persevered to this day or if it’s been replaced by a colder, digital approximation.
Written by Ronald Kidd, the Mystery Inc. gang, with Scrappy-Doo, has decided to take a day off from the mystery solving game and head to the local carnival.
Soon after their arrival though, things start getting weird at the carnival: ride attendants vanish, game booths are being pranked, and a mysterious phantom is interrupting shows!
But have no fear, the Gang will figure it out in no time.
My only real issue here is that logic is sacrificed for the sake of brevity, and I know that sounds stupid when talking about a book that stars 2 talking dogs, but just go with me as I explain.
One of the big draws to Scooby-Doo is the mystery aspect and trying to solve it before the Gang, also seeing if you we’re right about the culprit as well as their motivation for being a big fat doo doo head that wants to scare people away.
But in this book, there is absolutely no way you could guess who did it because there are no suspects set up, no clues left behind, or any other indicators, through the visuals or prose, as to who could be behind all of the weirdness that’s going down.
And I get it, a Little Golden Book isn’t the place for some intricate and multilayered mystery with 4 suspects, a crazy chase, and a twist ending, but here the mystery feels like a mostly harmless annoyance that none of the carnies could be bothered to handle because it all just happens and goes so fast.
Now having said that, this does have a genuine Scooby feel, especially when measured against the later Scrappy years where quick hit short stories like this were the bread and butter the franchise survived on.
All of the Mystery Inc. characters feel authentic, though their roles are mostly limited to one line of dialogue (Fred doesn’t even get that).
Overall, I enjoy it, though I think it would benefit from, maybe, 6 additional pages to flesh out and set up a more satisfying mystery than the 15 it currently runs would allow.
It definitely accomplishes it’s goal of being a bit of non-threatening fun for kids and the art can’t be beat.
I highly recommend you check it out.
Special thanks to @ACFerrell1976 for her continued editorial assistance.
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Be sure to check out our very first prose book, the horror short story collection The Camping Trip And Other Stories!
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And finally, given the state of the world, do what you can to leave it a little bit better than you found it.
As difficult as that may be currently, it can have an impact far greater than you know.
Until next time, stay safe out there, gang.
