What's New, Scooby-Doo? (TV Series) The Unnatural (2003) User Reviews

The Gang visits a Baseball Ballpark.

[jrfranchi · 6/10 · 25 February 2007]

Freddy wins the Meet Luis Santiago Contest. He is on the verge of breaking the home run record and of course someone or something does not want him to break the record.

Look for the cartoon cameo by Mike Piazza.

--------- minor spoilers -------------

The ghost of the Home Run king is the one that wants to stop the record from being broken.

The current stadium is built over the sunken remains of the old stadium.

It was a an OK episode.

The Unnatural

[MrFilmAndTelevisionShow · 8/10 · 17 August 2021]

A great episode, not the best not the worst. They really like the idea of having some professional actor, magician, baseball player die and have their ghost come back to haunt everyone in this season.

The spooky spirit sport show

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 7 December 2021]

The sports theme is very common in the Scooby Doo franchise, with almost every show having at least one ('The Scooby Doo Show' had three). The episodes centered around sports were very variable, some were great like "The Spooky Case of the Grand Prix Race" and others were mediocre like "The Warlock of Wimbledon". Overall though, sports and Scooby Doo are a good mix and seeing it cropping up a lot focusing on a variety of sports has been fine with me.

While not one of my favourite Scooby Doo episodes or one of my favourites of 'What's New Scooby Doo', "The Unnatural" is still one of the franchise's better sports themed episodes and a contender for the best one based around baseball. It's not a brilliant episode like "Toy Scary Boo" was, with it being lacking in the originality department, but it is a very good episode nonetheless with lots to like. Which is true of most episodes of 'What's New Scooby Doo'.

As said, a lot is good with "The Unnatural". It is well animated, especially on the ghost and in the main chase. Which is a good one, if not one of the show's best. The music is breezy and upbeat as well as atmospheric, the contemporary groove is appealing. Love the theme song and the intro still. One of the standout aspects of "The Unnatural" has always been the villain and he still gives me the creeps, from the look alone.

Furthermore, the writing is funny with the jokes being lovingly goofy in pure Shaggy and Scooby style in particular. The chemistry between the two is truly charming and has always been one of the best things about the franchise and they are iconic characters. The episode also does a great capturing the excitement and danger of baseball, which is something that most of the franchise's sports themed episodes excelled in.

Here the perpetrator is a surprise (one of the improvements 'What's New Scooby Doo' has over most incarnations is a much lower number of obvious reveals, some in the show have shocked me), due to actually not suspecting them. Did at the same time have always found it on the implausible side, due to their standard of playing being well below that of the ghost. The motive was on the extreme side too for my liking.

Very good episode overall. 8/10.

Third strike and this episode out not of park pitcher got pitched

[MarkLynnIreland1294 · 4/10 · 26 September 2022]

This is one Scooby-Doo episode I haven't watched much of, and despite it is another sport-themed yet not as greatly likeable or memorable as golf episode with monstrous clown robot or Fred participating in some car racing Motorsport event with skeleton driver.

As for baseball, despite many use terms like out of the park or three strikes you're out, not much everyone's kind of sport I'd mistaken it for basketball.

The mystery is not too tricky nor predicable, while Daphne had a potential suspect (based on fashion trend of wet footwear) which I wasn't too sure was the culprit of the baseball player ghost.

The chase scene music plays bit in my head yet not popular.