Having grown up on Cartoon Network Scooby-Doo reruns, I have some pretty strong opinions about the classic Hanna-Barbera franchise–mainly in regards to Shaggy’s voice.
Norville “Shaggy” Rogers is one of the most influential characters in all of Western animation. Why? Not only is Shaggy all-powerful, he’s also perpetually high. This goes to show children that not every great mystery solver needs to be an ascot-wearing jock like Fred. You can also aim to be a scruffy dude who gorges on sandwiches and thinks he can talk to dogs, and that’s cool, too.
Warner Bros.
But in order to properly convey the chillness of Shaggy, an actor needs to perfect the fluctuation between slacker drawl and voice-cracking falsetto. There’s a distinct art form to a perfect “Like, SCOOB!” and as far as I’m concerned, only two people have been up to the task: Casey Kasem and Matthew Lillard.
Kasem originated the character, voicing Shaggy from 1969 to 1997 and again from 2002 until his retirement in 2009. But while Kasem may have created the voice, Lillard took the character to the next level, fully embodying Shaggy’s very essence in the first two live action Scooby-Doo movies. Lillard was so great in the role that he moved onto voicing Shaggy in the majority of subsequent Scooby-Doo spin-offs.
Watch this clip and try to tell me that Matthew Lillard isn’t actually Shaggy. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
So when the new animated Scoob movie was announced back in the 2014 in an attempt to reboot the franchise for the big screen, everyone naturally assumed that Lillard would continue as the quintessential voice of Shaggy. But then this happened:
In what appears to be an effort to only cast big name stars, the role of Shaggy went to SNL alum Will Forte. And while Forte seems like a perfectly nice guy, the fact that Lillard wasn’t even asked to audition for the role is an outright travesty. There’s no way that Forte could possibly step into Lillard’s sandwich-stained shoes…right?
Well, the first Scoob official trailer just dropped and…yeah, we were right to be upset. Forte’s clearly doing his best here, but he sound like a Shaggy impersonator. He’s missing the true Shaggy essence that Lillard was born with.
SCOOB! – Official Teaser Trailerwww.youtube.com
The story looks cute, and as a Scooby-Doo fan I might catch it when it’s streaming. But no Matthew Lillard means I, for one, will not be buying a ticket.
- SCOOB! – Official Teaser Trailer – YouTube ›
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- SCOOB! – Official Teaser Trailer : movies ›
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