Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright

Plot

The Mystery Inc. gang head to Chicago, Illinois for a talent show called Talent Star, hosted by Brick Pimiento, where songwriting duo Fred and Daphne are finalists. Upon arrival, they learn the opera house is being terrorized by a Phantom, who intensely lauds one finalist, Chrissy, a spoiled girl whose noisy parents are no more polite than she is. Fred and Daphne also befriend finalist Emma Gale, a violinist. After checking in, the Phantom appears; Fred, Daphne, and Velma try to catch him using surveillance cameras but fail due to his ability to appear in multiple places at once.

While being chased, Shaggy and Scooby notice the Phantom has a strange lemon scent. The gang splits up to search for clues. Fred and Daphne meet opera house owner Mel Richmond, who tells them a Phantom terrorized the opera house thirty-five years ago when it was a disco. At dress rehearsal, the Phantom sabotages most acts, leaving only Chrissy, Emma, and Fred and Daphne as contestants.

The gang tracks down a Phantom and finds it is the original, Steve Trilby, who admits he vandalized the opera house due to his hatred for disco music but now only goes there for food. Returning to the stage, they find the Phantom setting fire to the opera house. With Steve's help, they catch him, revealed to be Mel Richmond, hoping to collect insurance money. However, they learn Richmond is not the Phantom they are after when another Phantom threatens to destroy the place.

Later, using Emma as bait, they capture the Phantom, who turns out to be Chrissy's father Lance. But Shaggy and Scooby find assistant director Dewey Ottoman putting on lemon-scented hand sanitizer, rush to his office, and find a magazine about the Soap Diamond on display at a nearby mineralogical center. They catch Ottoman running out of the center, he drops the Soap Diamond, and Scooby catches it. Ottoman chases them toward a drawbridge, where Fred tricks him into jumping into a barge filled with garbage.

Ottoman is arrested. The gang returns for Fred and Daphne's tie-breaker performance; realizing what the loss would mean to Emma, they throw the competition, letting Emma win. At the end, Brick Pimiento confesses he used the Phantom to boost ratings. During the credits, the gang stops at a gas station and sees news that Steve has become the new host of Talent Star after the show was renewed for a tenth season.

Velma advises Daphne to talk to Fred about their possible relationship, and Shaggy and Scooby advise Fred to do the same. Then they head to Goose Lake to solve the mystery of the Goose Lake Monster.

Critical response

DVD Verdict offered that the plot was an unoriginal 'rip-off of the classic The Phantom of the Opera' mixed with 'overtones of American Idol' and other reality-based music shows. They noted that while Blu-ray quality gives the film a ghoulish quality, it would be scary only to the youngest viewers. They noted Frank Welker as the voice of Fred, the only holdover from the original series, and Matthew Lillard's return as Shaggy. They 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 car and foot chases and various adventures, but '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.' Common Sense Media deemed it a generic Scooby-Doo movie, giving it 3 out of 5 stars, while noting a greater degree of romance compared to most other Scooby-Doo films. They praised Brady's performance as Brick Pimiento, calling it 'extremely believable.'