Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright

'Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright' is the twentieth film in the Direct-to-video series of Scooby-Doo films. It was released on August 20, 2013 by Warner Premiere.

Plot
The Mystery Inc. crew head to Chicago for a talent show, called Talent Star, hosted by Brick Pimiento, where songwriting duo Fred and Daphne are finalists with some high hopes. Upon arrival, they learn that the opera house which the show will be held in is being terrorized by a Phantom, who is intensely lauding one of the finalists to win, Christine, a spoiled girl whose noisy parents are no more polite than her. Fred and Daphne also befriend one of the finalists, Emma Gale, a violinist. Not to be left out, Scooby and Shaggy decide to show Pimiento a juggling act, which they are betting will take the contest by storm. However, after Pimiento states his belief that ‘juggling stinks’, throughout the film, the two continually approach Pimiento and show him numerous terrible impromptu acts, hoping that he lets them onto the show.

Not long after checking in for the talent show, the Phantom appears in the opera house and Fred, Daphne and Velma attempt to catch him using the surveillance cameras, but are unsuccessful due to the Phantom’s ability to seemingly appear in multiple places at once and even disappear in the stairway. While being chased briefly by the Phantom, Shaggy and Scooby notice the Phantom had a strange lemon scent and afterwards, the gang split up to search for clues. Fred and Daphne meet the owner of the opera house, Mel Richmond, who inherited the house a few years ago after his father passed away and has been struggling to pay the rent. They learn from Richmond that a Phantom once terrorized the opera house thirty-five years ago when the opera house became a disco. Velma confirmed via the internet that there was a Phantom back then, but that the current Phantom is not the same person (the old Phantom had white shirt sleeves, while the new Phantom has black shirt sleeves). She believes someone is using the same costume for their own ulterior motives. The gang also list the obvious suspects; Pimiento (whose interested in the Phantom, believing that it would boost publicity) Christine’s parents (because of the Phantom’s determination in making her win the contest), Richmond (due to his joke about hoping the Phantom would burn down the building, so he could collect the insurance money), Dewey Ottoman (the mysophobic assistant director, who shows extreme hatred over dogs) and Lotte (another finalist. Shaggy and Scooby only mention her, because she threatened them).

The dress rehearsal commences the next day. Fred and Daphne meet Emma’s parents, who are hoping to get the prize money and save their family home from the banks. During the dress rehearsal, the Phantom sabotages most of the finalists’ acts, scaring them out of the show or forcing them to forfeit, leaving Christine, Emma, Fred and Daphne as the only contestants left. Due to these attacks, Fred and Daphne decide to use themselves as bait to lure the Phantom out. The gang manage to track down a Phantom, only to find out that it is the original Phantom from the 70’s, a man named Steve Trilby. Steve had lived in the sewers since childhood and believed he was hideous, since he only looked at himself through a fun house mirror. Steve admits to the gang that he vandalized the opera house during the 70’s, due to his hatred over disco music, but that now he only goes into the opera house to get food. The gang return to the stage to find the Phantom setting fire to the opera house. With the help of Steve, they catch the Phantom, who is revealed to be Mel Richmond. However, the gang learn that Richmond isn't the Phantom they are after and that he only took the disguise after watching the Phantom, which turns out to be true when they hear the Phantom threatening to destroy the place unless Christine wins, before dropping one of the lights onto the stage. With this threat, Dewey orders the police to assign every officer they have to patrol the opera house for the talent show that night. Velma then goes to the sound room to find the microphone still on, which explains how they were able to hear the Phantom on stage, before searching for clues in the surveillance room.

Later that night, the Talent Star finals commence and many people flock into the opera house, with some hoping to get a glimpse of the Phantom. Using Emma as bait, the gang manage to capture the Phantom, who turns out to be Christine’s father, Lance. Afterwards, however, Shaggy and Scooby find out that Ottoman is also the phantom, when they see him putting on lemon-scented hand sanitizer. They rush to Ottoman’s office and find a magazine about the Soap Diamond, which is on display at a mineralogical centre nearby. They quickly alert the rest of the gang and realize Ottoman ordered all the police to patrol the opera house so that the mineralogical centre would be unguarded. They rush to the mineralogical centre and find Ottoman running out of the building. Ottoman trips on his own cape and drops the Soap Diamond, which Scooby catches. Ottoman pursues the gang toward a drawbridge, where Fred tricks him into jumping into a barge filled with garbage, by taking the diamond out the bag and replacing it with a dog bone, before throwing it off. Ottoman is arrested and the gang is given a ride back to the opera house, after being informed by one of the policeman that Fred and Daphne are doing a tie-breaking encore performance against Emma.

As they head back, Velma explains that Ottoman was the Phantom that vanished on the stairway by looping the current footage with one showing an empty stairway. Velma also claims to have found some interesting footage which she plans to roll at the end of the show. The gang arrives back in time for Fred and Daphne to do their tie-breaker performance. During their performance, Fred and Daphne kiss. The performance takes them in the lead of the voting chart, however, when they realize what it would mean if Emma lost, they decide to tell some of Shaggy and Scooby’s cheesy jokes, which enables them to lose enough votes, allowing Emma to win. At the end of the show, when Pimiento congrats the top two performers, Velma plays the footage that she found, which shows Pimiento putting on the Phantom costume and using the microphone in the sound room. Pimiento admits that he used the Phantom in hopes that it would boost the show’s ratings. After the police take away Pimiento, Steve jumps on stage to wrap up the show.

During the credits, Shaggy and Scooby go to a store to grab some snacks and find out from a news report that Steve will be hosting the next season. Also it shows a puzzled Daphne asking Velma, while an equally nervous Fred asks Shaggy and Scooby about whether they kissed to make their performance look good or because they were actually in love with each other, to which Velma, Shaggy and Scooby all tell them to ‘just talk to him/her’. During the drive, Fred and Daphne are about to ask each other, but are interrupted by Velma, who informs them about another mystery, which they all decide to investigate.

Voice Cast

 * Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo, Fred Jones
 * Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Rogers
 * Grey DeLisle as Daphne Blake
 * Mindy Cohn as Velma Dinkley
 * Isabella Acres as Emma Gale
 * Troy Baker as Phantom, Lance Damon
 * Eric Bauza as K.J.
 * Jeff Bennett as Mike Gale, Mel Richmond
 * Wayne Brady as Brick Pimiento
 * Vivica A. Fox as Lotte Lavoie
 * Kate Higgins as Meg Gale, Cathy
 * Peter MacNicol as Dewey Ottoman
 * Candi Milo as Barb Damon
 * John O'Hurley as The Great Pauldini
 * Cristina Pucelli as Colette
 * Kevin Michael Richardson as Security Guard #1, Hotel Clerk
 * Paul Rugg as Steve Trilby
 * Tara Sands as Nancy
 * Tara Strong as Donna, News Anchor
 * Travis Willingham as Waldo
 * Ariel Winter as Chrissy Damon

Critical response
DVD Verdict offered that the plot was an unoriginal "rip off rip-off of the classic The Phantom of the Opera" mixed with "overtones of American IdolAmerican Idol" as well as other "reality based music shows". They also offered that while Blu-ray quality gives the film a ghoulish quality, it would be scary to only the youngest viewers. They noted Frank Welker as the voice of Fred, being the only holdover from the original series, and Matthew Lillard's return as the voice of Shaggy. They also offered that Mindy Cohn "fits in well as nerdy Velma " and that Vivica A. Fox, Peter MacNicol, and Wayne Brady in supporting roles "make the film slightly more interesting for adults who want to play the 'is that so-and-so's voice?' game." They concluded that for children, the film "will probably be a lot of fun and somewhat thrilling", due to the car and foot chases and its various adventures, but that "adults will find it to be a bit tedious, but if that surprises you, clearly you haven't spent much time around children's entertainment."