YMMV / Supernatural S13 E16 "ScoobyNatural"

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Mystery Incorporated brushes off encounters with bloody and even dismembered corpses without any substantial emotion until physical harm actually comes to them. Was it because they somehow developed actual sociopathic tendencies despite their generally Lighter and Softer adventures or because they were locked into playing out the cartoon as close to accurately as possible?
  • The ghost, after the pocketknife he was trapped in was placed in the TV set, decided to pull Sam and Dean into a Scooby-Doo! episode in the desperate hope that they could help him. Look at it from his perspective. He encounters Sam and Dean in the beginning when he's controlling the stuffed dinosaur. Sam and Dean fight back, don't run away, have a plan to defeat him, and don't waste effort commenting on how impossible the situation is. He's a kid, he watches cartoons, Mystery Inc. solves mysteries, these two guys seem to know that they are doing, so maybe if he pulls them into Scooby-land all of them working together might come up with a way to help him...
• And You Thought It Would Fail: When the previews for the episode were released, the initial reaction was rather negative, with many thinking the crossover would be way too alienating for either series, with many predicting that the episode would be nothing but a giant pile of Narm. Then the episode aired and, surprising a number of people, it ended up being one of the better-received outings for both series in years, and scored the highest ratings of the season for Supernatural up to that point, tying only its season premiere. It also helped that Scooby's side brought some Critical Dissonance, in which case despite being one of WB's bigger cashcows year in and out, there's a number of people that regularly ignore it or look down on it. But this crossover showed when both franchises came together, it paid off just fine.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One wonders how things would've went if this episode took place in an episode of Mystery Incorporated or The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, which may or may not have made things easier.
  • Cas comments to Sam and Dean that Scooby is a Talking Animal. Mystery Incorporated explained it as Scooby being the descendant of a Cthulhu-expy Eldritch Abomination species and being destined to be an Antichrist, though the finale ends with him becoming the Anti-Anti-Christ and killing the most evil Eldritch Abomination expy.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Given that the changing quality of Supernatural over the years has been debated, it's safe to say most people are tuning in to see Scooby-Doo! in a project explicitly not for kids. Heck, some people who have never even seen an episode of Supernatural were excited for the episode because of this.
• Les Yay:
  • Daphne and Velma share a bed together, with Daphne wearing rather revealing lingerie. This is not the first time.
  • However, also averted with regards to Velma; although recent incarnations of the franchise starting with 2022's Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! portray her as a lesbian, at least in this episode she shows no attraction to Daphne, but plenty to Sam. This is consistent with the episode's basis on the first rendition of Scooby-Doo that aired in The '70s, when Velma's orientation was not on anyone's radar.
• Narm Charm: General opinion is that while the plot may be on the level of a bad fanfic and crossing over this show with Scooby-Doo of all things is incredibly weird, it manages to do it in the vein of a good bad fanfic, with just enough amount of cheese and not taking itself seriously to make the whole thing entertaining.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Plenty of other Scooby-Doo! entries have the gang encounter real supernatural monsters, including the first four DTV movies, the '80's era movies, Mystery Incorporated, and the original Where Are You! episode that this episode is based on, where the Colonel's ghost briefly thanks Scooby at the end.
  • Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated had Family Unfriendly Deaths, although those were subject to Gory Discretion Shot. If you go even earlier, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island had zombies and cat-monsters rapidly decomposing and disintegrating into dust, and four characters including three of the Gang almost melt alive due to voodoo magic.
  • Fred and Daphne weren't officially seen as a couple until about the '90s, so for all purposes, Daphne might as well be single during the events of this episode.
• The Scrappy: Despite the original episode having aired years before the character was introduced, Scrappy Doo makes a brief (and unexplained) cameo during the episode. Thankfully, he doesn't have a speaking role or interacts with the cast in any way and likely his appearance was Played for Laughs or testing the waters for the reaction, which as usual was mixed.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • Sam and Dean's animated designs have gotten this reaction from a number of people; which is not helped when compared to the more cartoony Scooby gang.
  • Some have noted that seeing the dismembered bodies of the original Scooby episode's crooks end up looking way creepier than most of the special effects for dead bodies and the like used in the show proper; mainly because it's animated in the style of Scooby-Doo!, thus making the reveal of them extremely jarring. Given the horror focus, this ultimately works for it.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The first official crossover with Supernatural is with Scooby-Doo!, of all franchises.
  • Look fast for an appearance by Scrappy Doo during the Scooby-Dooby Doors sequence.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: A mix of this trope is at play here. On one hand it is true that there are some things in this crossover that you may have qualms about showing to younger kids. Potential issues include gore and violence (including "real" death); Dean swearing; the Gang's Freak Out scene, and the more-sexualized-than-usual depiction of Daphne, including a Male Gaze moment (coupled with Dean spending much of the episode coming on to her). If one regards Scooby Doo as something as always family-friendly this episode may come about as too much. However this also highly undermines several more recent examples of Scooby-Doo! media and what they feel is appropriate. The most egregious being Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy which is only several years old, was written by one half of the writers of this episode, featured references to the episode this crossover is parodying and featured former villains make several attempts at the lives of Mystery Inc. (Via car bombing, train derailment and a gas explosion) While not as commonplace, this has also happened in some of the older series as well. Depending on how one views the series you might find this trope applicable or your mileage might also vary if you'd consider Scooby-Doo! that "family friendly" in its current form.
  • It might be due to how, even when some of the other Scooby projects delved into darker territory, they were usually not as explicit as it was done here or pointed out as such, and they still had enough kid friendly material to make them relatively safe to watch. For example, Mystery Incorporated featured quite a few character deaths (at least until they got brought back to life in the end), yet they either never mention it directly such as Cassidy Williams dying in an explosion, or cut away before we saw too many gruesome details, such as Marcie/Hot Dog Water getting shot to death cut away to Scooby and Velma hearing gunfire or the Evil Entity eating people including several major characters, but the camera cuts away before we see it and we only see dangling legs from its mouth. Even with the aforementioned Frankencreepy, no one died in the movie.
  • Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, the darkest Scooby project before this one, also featured deaths, but they were all either in the backstory or by characters that were very corrupted in morality and at least partly inhuman. Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost has Ben Ravencroft sealed in the magic book, and nothing more.