While 'The New Scooby Doo Movies' was a patchy and inconsistent show, it was also interesting and entertaining, with some great episodes, a handful of decent to good ones, some average to mediocre and a few bad.
"The Weird Winds on Winona" is one of the average ones, and one of the lesser episodes of the show to me. It is better than "Mystery in Persia" and "The Haunted Showboat" and on par with "The Phantom of the Country Music Hall". It is also the one episode where the title of it sums it up very aptly, "The Weird Winds on Winona" is one weird episode and not in a particularly good way.
Granted, the music is haunting and energetic, and while the theme tune is not as iconic as that for 'Scooby Doo Where are You' it is still infectiously catchy. The voice is also fine, with Don Messick and Casey Kasem unbeatable as Scooby and Shaggy, again the standout characters and their friendship being amusing and charming and Mel Blanc was one of those great voice actors who could turn not so good material into gold unless it was unsalvageable.
Speed Buggy and how he functions is incredibly cool and imaginative, and there is a suitable spookiness sometimes. Some of the humour is nice and fun.
However, the animation continues to be poor. It's not the worst episode of the show, but it is still flatly coloured, stiff, choppy, sloppy and crude with a good deal of inept goofs such as agreed some incredibly strange changes and distortions in size. The rest of Mystery Inc are underused and bland somewhat, and while not as badly as Jeannie and Josie and the Pussycats the rest of the Speed Buggy gang (Speed Buggy was a cool and memorable character) are also a bit dull and don't fit as well into the mystery as they ought, it also feels a bit cluttered.
Coming off least here is the execution of the story. Some good ideas but they could have been developed much better, despite moments of spookiness generally the episode could have done with more atmosphere and the story also feels thin and stretched, something that could have easily have been solved with less of the repetitious cave scenes. The villains are so bland and forgettable that they are completely lost within the story, almost out of sight.
In conclusion, not the worst episode of 'The New Scooby Doo Movies' but the weirdest? Very likely. 5/10 Bethany Cox
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