Maxwell Atoms the writer, director, and producer of Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!, created a hilarious tale of Halloween mystery with a ton of guest stars. The movie features not only Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) and Bill Nye (as himself), but also a villain from the Batman universe: Dr. Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow (Dwight Schultz).
At this year’s virtual New York Comic Con, a lively discussion amongst voiceover legend Frank Welker (The Transformers), in his 50th year voicing Fred Jones and 18th year voicing Scooby-Doo; Grey Griffin (DC Super Hero Girls films) in her 20th year as Daphne Blake; Matthew Lillard (Twin Peaks, Bosch, Good Girls) celebrating his 18th year as Shaggy Rogers; Kate Micucci (Unikitty!) in her fifth year as Velma Dinkley; Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark) and director/producer/writer Maxwell Atoms (Fish Hooks, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy).
Atoms admitted he wasn’t sure Warner Bros. would let him get away with dream cast.
“I was sort of shocked that I got away with that,” he said. “I feel like every time I work for a different studio, they’re always like, ‘Yeah, we want synergy.’ And then you’re like, ‘What if we did this and this?’ And they’re like, ‘No … just no.'”
Atoms also revealed the decision to utilize evil pumpkins in the film was a natural extension of the 2003 Halloween special for The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, which he created for Cartoon Network.
“I just wanted to lean on the Halloween stuff and make it the Halloween-iest Halloween special I could,” he explained. “When I started writing it, I realized that pretty much any monster is a Halloween monster and also a Scooby-Doo! monster. I think that’s how I ended up with pumpkins as one of the villains, because I had pumpkins in a Halloween special for Billy and Mandy about 20 years ago, and this was sort of convergent evolution where I decided, ‘Well, there’s nothing more Halloween-y than pumpkins.'”
After the amazing Scooby-Doo! panel, Atoms sat down with The Koalition to further talk about his journey creating this Halloween special.
Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo! is on DVD and Digital HD now.
Check out our interview above.
