"The Ozark Witch Switch" was one of my favourite episodes of 'The Scooby Doo Show', for me still the second best Scooby Doo show after the original, when younger. The setting was great, there were some really fun character moments and the villain was very memorable (though not quite as nightmare inducing as other villains of the show). Basically, as a child it had everything that made me, and still makes me, love Scooby Doo so much.
As a young adult, "The Ozark Witch Switch" is still one of my favourite episodes of 'The Scooby Doo Show'. It is one of the best episodes of Season 2, for me the best of the show's three seasons (Season 1 had a great first half but the second wasn't quite as strong while Season 3 was very inconsistent), along with "Vampires Bats and Scaredy Cats" and "Creepy Cruise". Have seen and heard many people/fans say that it bears some similarities with the 'Scooby Doo Where are You' episode "Which Witch is Which?" (one of that show's high-points), and can see what they mean. Wouldn't go as far to call it a "rip-off" though.
Where to begin? Lets talk about the animation, which has for the franchise at this point not been always praised highly but was quite good here. The animation looks pretty good on the whole and to me this improved over-time. Some nice atmosphere in the colours and the backgrounding is meticulously done. Witch McCoy has a cool look. The music has a nice nostalgic style that is true to the style of 'Scooby Doo Where Are You' while having enough of its own flavour. The theme song is one of the best of the franchise as well as one of the catchiest.
Furthermore, the writing is still a lot of fun and does has a lot of interest value. Shaggy and Scooby have some amusing lines and the mystery is strong enough for enough surprises to stop it from being too predictable. The perpetrator is not surprising but the motive is not obvious until a lot later.
Story-wise, "The Ozark Witch Switch" is great. Didn't feel anything that felt too derivative, there may a couple of familiar elements from elsewhere but it wasn't rip-off level. The part where Scooby, Shaggy and Velma try to impersonate another witch was one of the season's most inspired moments and was good fun and the pretty ingenious final trap was in the top 5 cleverest for the show. Witch McCoy was a creepy villain and has a look that has always stayed with me whenever watching anything Scooby Doo (which has been admittedly a lot, have to find some nostalgic enjoyment through these hard times). The motive was not foreseeable too early and even if it wasn't an original one at least it wasn't obvious early on like a few other episodes in previous episodes of the overall franchise.
Shaggy and Scooby are typically delightful and love their chemistry with Velma (they should have been partnered together more, they are a decent team), this is one of the few Season 2 episodes where they are seen to be in some kind of peril where one is worried as to whether they are going to get out of this. The voice acting is typically (well for this show of this point of the show, it varied in Season 3 though), of the voices for the characters up to this point of the franchise this is one of the better teams and Janet Waldo is creepy as Witch McCoy.
Concluding, one of the season's and show's best. 10/10
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