A quick mention, first off, for Rand’s latest review, where he finds good words for What’s New Scooby-Doo? The Complete 3rd Season. Seemingly taking its cue from the recent live-action movies, Rand’s noticed that added is “a healthy dose of post-modernism, with the characters often teasing the show’s long-time convention, commenting on the unfairness of how the team would split up, the types of role each character was expected to play, and the inevitable course every story would take.

“This is fun, but walks the line well enough that the show never quite fell into the realm of parody. It followed closely in the footsteps of its predecessors, while still being smart enough to know that those footsteps were already well trodden.

Those looking for a taste of classic Scooby should like what they see, and those who never quite understood the original should enjoy the poking fun at it. If What’s New, Scooby-Doo? was trying to appeal to both camps, I think they succeeded. This is fun, much like the early years of Scoob – nothing too groundbreaking, but easily digestible”.

Moving on to an upcoming release, and one of the biggest things going around the web today. You’ve got to love Indiana Jones even if you’re just a hard-core animation fan, so I have absolutely no hesitation in admitting that I’m “giddy as a schoolboy” after seeing the trailer for the latest adventure, The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skulls!

Indy is back, but it’s not all good, and in my general tradition of finding at least one thing to complain about (no specific spoilers)…

• “Damn I thought that was closer”…not sure we should be having jokey lines within action scenes…Indy always used to save them for after the action, and took a real beating in fights. Here he seems a little too…superheroic?

• Why does Indy look a few pounds leaner and at least 20 years younger when he swings on that whip? You never could tell when Vic Armstrong was doubling for Harrison Ford in the old days.

• Spielberg promised “no CGI”…I noticed a ton of it, and it didn’t look very good (King Kong‘s weak spot, the unrealistic green screen dinosaur chase, comes to mind).

• The way I imagined the “Teacher?”/“Part time!” exchange didn’t come off as solid as it should have done. I’m still biting my fingers hoping Ford isn’t playing Dr Henry Jones Jr as parody and that this isn’t the Blues Brothers 2000 reunion of Indiana Jones films.

• The music editing of John Williams’ classic theme is awful!

Also, what’s with George Lucas’ insistence on using the Star Wars text font (not the logo typeface, but the general text one) on everything else he does…Indy always used to use more refined lettering, not the sleek, sharp-angled blocks seen in the intertitles in this trailer.

But there are plusses: Cate Blanchett does look great (but we knew that), the Ruskies look like they’re going to do the business as the bad guys, and that glimpse of the Roswell-branded container hints at much to come! Whatever else, this is going to be an earnest crowd pleaser, that’s for sure. To see the teaser, don’t bother with the stop-start nature of Yahoo’s streaming (head on over to the official movie site instead)…but wowsers! I’ve been getting more and more excited at this looms ever closer. And they even fixed that fake-looking Indy logo! May 22 can’t come fast enough!

Have a great weekend and check back next week when we’ll have another cracking bunch of new reviews for you, including Warners’ Academy Award Animation Collection (here’s a new QuickTime clip for you), and a couple of new contests!

Stay tooned! – Ben.