Western Animation / Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! meets Courage the Cowardly Dog

The things they do for love...or a Scooby Snack.

Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog is a Direct to Video crossover film between the Scooby-Doo and Courage the Cowardly Dog franchises, both starring cowardly canines that frequently face off against various assortments of monsters and bizarre occurrences. It is considered part of the former franchise's DTV film series, and premiered on September 14, 2021, on both DVD and digital platforms.

Scooby and the gang follow the trail of a mysterious object to the backwater town of Nowhere, USA, home of the elderly Muriel and Eustace Bagge, as well as their meek but fiercely loyal dog, Courage. Turns out, a lot of strange things happen in Nowhere, and whatever this object is, it seems to be causing a cicada plague like no other in the town.

This is the first entry in the Courage franchise since the 2014 short film The Fog of Courage, as well as the first movie based on the property overall. This is also the last time Thea White would voice Muriel as she died a month before the movie's intended release.

You can watch the trailer here.

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The film provides examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Not only the Mystery Machine is rendered in 3D (common in the later Scooby-Doo films), but also Eustace's truck. This is especially evident in a chase sequence involving the two vehicles. Somehow, a cicada is driving the truck. Some cicadas (but not all) are also in 3D.
• Absurd Phobia: Scooby and Shaggy are afraid of selfies.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Katz's affable nature seems to be more genuine here compared to the show since he spontaneously explains the plan he and Le Quack had and admits he enjoys dancing.
• All Up to You: Velma quotes this trope verbatim as she is whisked away by the cicadas, leaving only Shaggy, Scooby, and Courage to save the day. A few minutes later, Shaggy is captured as well, leaving only the two dogs.
  • All of the members of Mystery Inc. are trapped by a cave-in during the climax, leaving only Courage and Muriel for the final battle.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite spending the entire movie with two talking dogs, Freddy and the girls initially don't believe Katz is an actual talking cat and manhandle him trying to remove the "mask," while also thinking Le Quack is an animatronic as opposed to an actual talking duck.
• Art Shift: Done briefly when Scooby and Courage chase after the meteorite while dodging the cicada. The flashes from the meteor keep shifting them to different styles for a bit.
• Art-Style Clash: While the Scooby Gang are drawn as they usually are, both existing and new denizens of Nowhere are designed to look identical to their home series.
• Artistic License – Paleontology: The meteor that caused the K-Pg Extinction Event was shown crashing into the United States, specifically Nowhere, when it was believed to have fallen into the Yucatan Peninsula. Also, the video depicting the event shows a Tyrannosaurus and a Stegosaurus side-by-side, when the latter predated the former by roughly 80 million years. Not to mention the Earth looking the same as it is now when the impact happened, despite taking place during the end of the Cretaceous.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Queen Cicada uses the meteorite to grow. After that, Courage himself uses the same Meteor on himself to fight the Queen Cicada.
• Behemoth Battle: During the climax, both Courage and the Cicada Queen are turned into gargantuan size by the dark matter meteor. Unfortunately for Courage, the best he can do is tackle the Cicada Queen and is beaten to a pulp until he is turned back to normal size.
• Berserk Button: Upon seeing the Mystery Machine's hippie design, Eustace refuses to enter it.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Katz and Le Quack (disguised as the Mayor).
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Nowhere seems to be going through a nasty infestation of giant cicadas, and they provide the main conflict of the film. The mayor mentions that the town of Nowhere has all sorts of giant bugs, including a mosquito that pilots a helicopter.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: One of Courage's reactions to seeing the cicada queen is to briefly morph into Shaggy and shout "Zoinks!"
• Canon Character All Along: The mayor and his servants turned out to be characters from Courage's series in disguise. The mayor is both Katz and Le Quack while the butler and maid are the General and Lieutenant respectively.
• Character Catchphrase: Along with Mystery Inc's typical catchphrases sprinkled throughout the film, many catchphrases from Courage the Cowardly Dog make a return, including Eustace's "Stupid dog(s)." and Courage's "The things I do for love!".
• Character Development: Surprisingly, Courage himself! While Courage has always been sort of courageous and by no means too cowardly to stand up for Muriel in his home series, by the end, he finally becomes less frightened to be able to take on the Cicada Queen and lives up to his name.
• Continuity Cavalcade:
  • The movie is jam-packed with references to Courage's series. Needless to say, if you're a fan of that show, you'll spot plenty of references.
  • When the gang watches a video detailing the history of Nowhere, it even plays direct footage of episodes from the series showcasing the various monsters Courage and his family have had to deal with over the years.
• Crossover: Well yeah, it's two of the biggest Cowardly Lion canines in one big adventure together, though not the first time. In 1999, they crossover-ed in a special promo event dubbed Scare-A-Thon. See YMMV for more info on that.
• Dance Party Ending: The movie ends with the entire cast (Including Katz and Le Quack, who are forced to before being taken to prison) using the dark matter meteor to have a dance party inside the Bagge household.
• Disney Acid Sequence: When Scooby and Courage have to dig beneath the farm and start hearing the strange music, the colors get a little...crazy.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: After Eustace's truck falls into a canyon, Shaggy assures him it's "probably fine." Cue said truck exploding for no apparent reason.
• Food as Bribe: Lampshaded by Daphne to Muriel, that usually Scooby and Shaggy need to be persuaded with food to go forward someplace scary. Catching on, Muriel offers them homemade "Courage Snacks", to which Shaggy, Scooby, and Courage all enjoy.
  Muriel: (aside) They're just store-bought biscuits I put in a jar. No one's the wiser.
• Forced Transformation: Multiple characters end up undergoing various transformations at the climax of the film.
• Get a Room!: Courage's Computer and Velma's Tablet work together to find out the "center" of the cicadas, but slowly veer into flirting. Although they don't say anything, Scooby and Courage's reactions show they are not amused.
• Good All Along: The mayor's creepy butler and his wife are shown to be incredibly menacing, but they turn out to be the General and his Lieutenant from the show and arrest Katz and Le Quack.
• Gratuitous Rap: After Eustace becomes rich, he starts rapping a song called "Straight Outta Nowhere".
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Daphne had two grappling hook mods installed onto the Mystery Machine on the front and at the back.
• Gravity Screw: The gang comes across a cave where water somehow drips upwards. The mayor of Nowhere's butler can also somehow drop from the ceiling in order to serve refreshments.
• Karma Houdini: As Scooby-Doo abruptly runs away at the beginning of the film, the gang have to follow him, allowing the clown they captured to get away scot-free with the money. However, it's subverted (to some extent) as he too falls under the mind control of the villain and delivers the stolen money to the Bagge's farm.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: At the mayor's mansion, Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Muriel explore the museum wing to learn about the history of Nowhere, while Shaggy, Scooby, Courage and Eustace stay behind to raid the kitchen.
• Lighter and Softer: The film is considerably less dark and violent than the average Courage the Cowardly Dog episode, possibly due to the Scooby-Doo franchise being lighter and softer compared to Courage. For example Katz's plan, unlike all of his previous appearances, only involve getting rich rather than directly killing people for fun or profit. He even joins in on the Dance Party Ending (though he does help Le Quack try to brutally beat Courage to death, however, and he could have been planning on using the money for some extremely cruel task).
• Lost in the Maize: After escaping the tunnels beneath the mayor's house, the gang comes across a cornfield they must pass through in order to reach the Bagge's farmhouse. Not long after entering, they are ambushed by the Cicada Queen, who kidnaps the gang sans the two dogs.
• Magic Meteor: All of Nowhere's weirdness has been happening for millions of years due to a meteor that crashed into it in prehistory. The villains of the film are exploiting its properties to carry out their scheme.
• Mobile-Suit Human: The Mayor turns out to be one controlled by Katz and Le Quack.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Both Katz and Dr. LeQuack, recurring antagonists from the Courage franchise, appear as statues. Fred bumping into the Katz statue triggers a Bookcase Passage. This ends up being a hint to the fact that the mayor is actually Katz and Dr. LeQuack in disguise.
  • Theodore, the Bigfoot from "Courage meets Bigfoot", serves as the representative creature for Nowhere's flag.
  • Pictures sprawled throughout the Mayor's mansion show various monsters from Courage such as the alien from "Car Broke, Phone, Yes?", the violin demon/little girl from "Courage in the Big Stinkin' City", and the Mummified Mayan Baker from "Courage Meets The Mummy".
  • Whenever Scooby or Courage hear weird noises and dance uncontrollably, the "Panic theme" plays.
  • Courage shape-shifts into various villains that scare him when sharing with Shaggy and Scooby, from Big Toe, the Weevil, to Karmen the sea serpent.
  • The music that plays over the ending credits is a rearrangement of the Courage credits music.
• Nitro Boost: At some point, Daphne installs boosters into the Mystery Machine, which allows them to cross a broken bridge.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: Played with. After all their friends were taken by Cicadas, Shaggy proclaims he'll figure the mystery out despite being afraid, because courage is about facing your fears instead of not having them. Then he gets taken too, leaving Scooby and Courage on their own. At the climax, Courage remembers Shaggy's speech and realizes it applies to him too, because his very name is Courage.
• Not a Mask: Fred, Daphne, and Velma think Katz is a guy in a cat costume, and that Le Quack is a puppet.
• One-Winged Angel: The Cicada Queen uses the Dark Matter Meteor to grow to the size of a Kaiju.
• Our Dark Matter Is Mysterious: Nowhere's weirdness is due to a meteor made of pure dark matter that crashed in what would be its dead center in prehistory, which appears to be stone studded with crystals. Certain interactions cause it to release energy that warps reality around it, such as reversing gravity, random transformations, or inducing wacky dancing.
• Out of Focus: This film focuses more on the Courage characters than the Scooby-Doo characters. While Shaggy and Scooby share much of their screen time with Courage and Velma gets some focus as the brains of the group, Fred and Daphne are pretty much just there. Though this is hardly anything new for the Scooby franchise.
• Parking Problems: When the gang rushes into the Mystery Machine to catch up to Scooby, and Fred makes an issue of seating arrangements and seat belts in the name of safety, they were parked next to a hydrant, but didn't get ticketed.
• Pet the Dog: For once, the Computer doesn't tease Courage or call him a twit. In fact, this is the first time the Computer actually calls Courage by his name.
• Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: The meteor that causes all the weird things in Nowhere happens to be the same one that caused the Cretaceous extinction.
• Red Herring: During the Dance Party Ending, Fred and Daphne mention that they thought that Eustace was the bad guy.
• The Reveal: All of the strange happenings in Nowhere are caused by a meteorite composed of dark matter buried deep underneath the Bagge farm, which is theorized to be the same meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs.
  • The queen cicada is actually the mayor in a costume, who in turn is actually Katz and Le Quack operating a suit, who planned to use the meteorite's power to hypnotize people into giving them their valuables, and they utilized the giant cicadas to try and eliminate Mystery Inc. once they entered the picture.
  • The creepy butler and chef are actually The General and The Lieutenant in disguise, who were trying to apprehend the actual villains.
• Running Gag:
  • Muriel thinks that the gang are riddle solvers even after being told that they solved mysteries. She also comes up with a riddle that they fail to solve, much to the exasperation of Velma.
  • Eustace scaring Shaggy and the two dogs with his "Ooga Booga Booga", using different masks.
  • Whenever the cook's name (Frau Glockenspiel) is said, lighting strikes and a horse whinny can be heard.
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: As per tradition. Scooby, Shaggy, Courage and the cicadas get involved in such a sequence.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Played with. While the queen cicada turns out to be the mayor in a costume, who in turn is revealed to be Katz and Le Quack operating a suit, the cicada troops, along with the dark matter meteor controlling them and causing all the weird stuff in Nowhere, turn out to be quite real supernatural phenomena.
• Shout-Out: "Frau Glockenspiel!" *Cue whinnying horses.*
• Signature Team Transport: This film exploits this trope when both of each franchise's iconic vehicles, the Scooby gang's Mystery Machine and the Bagge family's farm truck, get involved in a high-speed chase.
• Toilet Humor: Shaggy, Scooby and Courage get a real kick out of the squirting sound produced from squeezing a mustard bottle. This is the last straw that causes Eustace to leave the gang behind and head back to the farmhouse by himself. Later, when he does the same thing while making himself a sandwich, he admits that he finds it Actually Pretty Funny.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Courage's computer is a lot less abrasive here than in the original series, giving Courage and Scooby the info they want without much in the way of snark and even referring to Courage by name instead of calling him a twit.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: The song "The Opposite Of Fear Is Fun" starts in B-flat major and ends in C major.
• Villain Team-Up: Katz and Le Quack are the culprits, revealing they teamed up to use the cicadas and the meteorite to make themselves rich.
• Vocal Evolution: While their performances were excellent otherwise, Marty Grabstein and Thea White's voices for Courage and Muriel both sound more aged. White would pass away shortly before the film's release date.
• Weirdness Magnet: Lampshaded. Nowhere is apparently statistically the place in the world where most mysterious and unexplained things happen per capita. They happily promote this in their flag. It's revealed it's caused by a meteor full of dark matter.

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