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Arriving on DVD and Digital tomorrow, October 6, 2020, and just in time for Halloween, it's Warner Bros. Home Entertainment's Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo! I had a chance to sit down with writer/director/producer Maxwell Atoms (The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy) to chat about the latest holiday special for Mystery Inc. This flick features guest stars Bill Nye the Science Guy and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark along with the sleuth crew you know and love, but keep an eye out for some special guests along the way.

Atoms and I talked about how he came to be on this project, his history with Scooby-Doo and notable voice acting legends Frank Welker and Grey Griffin. Plus, Atoms revealed the other connection between his hit show The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and this new Halloween special; fans of Atoms' cartoon should spot it pretty quickly. But we also talked about some of the surprising crossover characters from the wider Warner Bros. universe who show up and how they fit perfectly into the story.

Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo! features the familiar voice talents of Welker as Scooby-Doo/Fred Jones, Griffin as Daphne Blake, Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Rogers and Kate Micucci as Velma Dinkley. The film also stars Cassandra Peterson as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and Bill Nye as himself. Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo! was executive produced by Sam Register (Looney Tunes Cartoons), and was written, produced and directed by Atoms.

You’ll be able to see the cast and crew of Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo! -- including Atoms -- during this weekend’s virtual New York Comic Con and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment’s panel. Follow along with our interview below:

So first of all, sir, thank you for taking the time to chat with me today, but before we jump into why we get to talk today, I like to kind of do a wellness check with people to start things off. So simply put, how are you doing in 2020? How are you doing today?

Maxwell Atoms: It's 2020, all things considered, I'm doing pretty well. I had sort of a big personal project that blew up right before lockdown happened, so I got all sad and I shut myself away for a couple of months. Then I was like, I'm going to go out and take on the world. And that didn't really happen. It's all right. Yeah. I've learned to cook a lot of things, been hanging out with my dog. Could be worse.

In talking to folks in the animation industry, for a lot of people, things as far as work, like a day to day, hasn't really changed all that much. Have you seen kind of a big day-to-day change or any big changes since the COVID pandemic started happening?

Maxwell Atoms: I was actually winding down with my time at Warner Bros. when the pandemic hit, so I really only got sort of a little taste of, I guess, working from home in that capacity. But yeah, we were doing records, ADR mixes, all sorts of stuff from home, which is fantastic. Some of the things you do miss a little bit, editing especially. There's just sort of a connection you develop with an editor where you can glance at them and they'll glance at you and they'll just kind of know what to do and that's gone, but most of the time it's pretty good.

You said you were wrapping up work at WB, so that was on this particular project, is that right? So the timing worked out okay there.

Maxwell Atoms: Yeah. I was doing some development. I did Scooby and I did a little bit of writing and I guess, shepherding the next one through post production.

Take me back maybe a little earlier, pre-COVID times, how did the opportunity to write and direct, Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo, originally come up for you?

Maxwell Atoms: I think that was just really luck. My boss at Warner Bros. was my same boss from Cartoon Network, so we sort of had this long history and trust between each other. And I think, when spooky stuff comes up, naturally people kind of look to me, so he was like, "Hey, you want to do... Direct and produce this Scooby-Doo Halloween movie?" And when somebody asks you that, the answer is yes.

What went through your head? Is that one of those properties that you've always had an idea that you've wanted to do, or did you just have a fresh kind of wave of creative ideas? Or what was your creative process like, when you found out yeah, you'd be doing this?

Maxwell Atoms: I mean, it's definitely, as far as classic cartoon properties go, it's up there for me as something I definitely loved as a kid and would love to work on. It just seemed like that probably wasn't my path because Scooby's either tied up in a series or theatrical movies or these things. And I just didn't really see how I would fit into that, but the timing worked out really well. And then just as far as coming up with stuff, I feel like the great part about Scooby-Doo are the characters and everybody kind of knows who all these people are, so. Not that it was, I guess, easy to write in some ways, but in some ways it was.

What were some of the challenges? Because like you said, everybody in the world knows these characters.

Maxwell Atoms: Yeah. I guess that's part of the fun of anything, to me, is like, if you have sort of a formula, you can kind of give yourself additional challenges on top of that formula to sort of push the boundaries and hopefully not break anything but keep it fresh for people who've been through a lot of Scooby-Doo. I mean, 50 years of Scooby-Doo, so you do have to kind of inject some freshness into it. But yeah, there's always fun stuff I want to do. I wanted to do sort of a road chase movie for a long time and I haven't done a mystery before, so just the idea of doing that, I think pushed me in specific directions.

ISo did you look to anything as sources of inspiration for mysteries, or did you just kind of pick a path that would be fun for viewers to follow along and try to figure it out as they went?

Maxwell Atoms: I mean, mostly I did want sort of a real mystery in there. I definitely binge watched a lot of Scooby-Doo before writing this. But yeah, mostly I think I just tried to keep the idea of a real mystery in there. It's hard, because these are sort of... Even though it's a movie, it's kind of done on a TV budget and schedule, so while I would love to sit down and have a fully functioning mystery that you can be like, oh my gosh, I've watched this 16 times and now I went back and picked up on this little detail, I don't feel like I really got to do that. But yeah, I like to think there's enough of a mystery in there that you can figure it out, I guess, for yourself.

I mean, I love just watching the reveals, honestly, more, because it was just kind of like, oh, that's the direction that they're going to go. That's really interesting. You mentioned going back and bingeing previous episodes, what's your earliest memory of some of the classic Scooby-Doos?

Maxwell Atoms: I mean, I used to just binge watch Saturday morning cartoons with my sister every morning. But this was the 80s, so there wasn't really TV like there is now, you just had the five channels. So we'd wake up at six in the morning, start watching cartoons with... I don't know, there was something dumb on at six, but after that you'd get the Smurfs and kind of Shirt Tales and the lighter stuff. And then a couple of hours later, you'd get into the GI Joe and stuff, but Scooby-Doo was somewhere in there, in the middle, along with Hanna-Barbera and all the old Warner Bros. cartoons and the stuff. I really loved all that stuff, I guess.

Talking about the mystery and characters and kind of freshening them up for the modern era. The last couple adventures with Warner Bros. and Scooby, they've kind of brought the mystery gang kind of into the 21st century. They're kind of modern. So what was your approach in sort of modernizing these characters and taking them out of some of the tropes they may have fallen into over the past five decades?

Maxwell Atoms: The nice thing was, I didn't have a ton of oversight. There was nobody saying, hey, this is exactly who Fred is or who Daphne is. So after binge watching all of those Scooby-Doos, I was just like, well, there's so much stuff here, what do I even take? And then I was like, well, what if it's all true? Everything in Scooby-Doo that's ever happened, is kind of true. So they look like they're in the 60s, but they live in Crystal Cove. And I just kind of cherry picked, and even Daphne is kind of heavily based on the, Be Cool, Scooby-Doo Daphne from the TV series a couple of years ago. The one that kind of looked like Family Guy. But I felt like that gave Daphne an added dimension. And I don't know what their reasoning was for doing that to her, but I kind of took that and turned it into my own thing.

That's cool, because this version, they're recognizable. I mean, they've got their particular characteristics that you know this gang for, but there's little twists and sort of modernizations there that I really liked, because it added an extra kind of dimension.

Maxwell Atoms: And I know there's people that are like, you should never use cell phones and they shouldn't use modern slang, and I get some of that. I don't think you want to have them working in an Amazon warehouse or something. Or maybe you do, I don't know, but yeah. I guess it's a fine balance. You don't, again, you don't want to break the formula, but you do want to push it

I wanted to talk about some guest stars that you have in this movie as well. So when did the idea of bringing Elvira and Bill Nye? Where did that come from?

Maxwell Atoms: Elvira is actually in the previous movie. So one of the few things I knew when I started this was that it was a near 50th anniversary, Scooby-Doo Halloween project, and that Elvira was possibly attached. So she kind of came with the package. I started writing her scenes with Daphne, and then I was like, okay, this totally makes sense.

So you found a good pairing between those two. Yeah.

Maxwell Atoms: Yeah. And as far as, I guess, modernizing in general, that's kind of why Bill Nye is there. There is sort of a modern versus classic. You're using tech, or just sort of your wits to solve things, aspect to this, I guess. So that's why he's there.

And he's got a pretty big part to play in how the mystery gang kind of solves things, but we'll leave that for the fans to discover on their own. Did you have conversations with them about sort of their part to play in the whole thing? Did they have any input or were they just happy to just kind of read what you put on the page for them and just happy to be part of the story?

Maxwell Atoms: I always like to give the actors room to play if I can. And I worked with half, I guess, the Scooby gang before, so that was easy with them. But yeah, Bill Nye and Elvira, nobody knows their characters better than they do. So even when I was writing for Bill Nye, I was like, whatever he comes up with is going to be more scientifically accurate than I am, even though I'm kind of researching it. And indeed, there's a whole sort of, I guess, inconsequential background scene where Bill Nye is sort of dressing down these kids for dressing like Aquaman for Halloween and the scientific details in there, he's saying stuff like the pressure in Atlantis is 40,000 millibars or something. And I had that written completely differently, or maybe I did write millibars instead of kilopascals or something. So yeah, he knows-

He knows his stuff. He knows his science. I would love it if he just became the Oracle, just guiding the mystery team and giving them backup tech and scientific advice.

Maxwell Atoms: I knew he was in an episode of the series, the current series, so I just kind of used him as though they knew him, but yeah. He's kind of a stand in for the old-school Doctor Quest, sort of mad scientist. Yes.

eah, that's a nice call back too. And again, we're keeping spoiler free here, but there's a fun crossover that I definitely have to kind of dance around, but I want to talk about it. So there's a fun crossover here between the Scooby universe and other very famous Warner Bros. property that we get to fold in some interesting characters from the wider kind of universe. So where did that idea come from and how exciting was that to bring that particular character into the story?

Maxwell Atoms: I would say you can probably spoil that because it's in the trailer, but I'll stay vague. But no, he came from... The idea originally was that there was sort of... Each member of the Scooby gang kind of had a foil. So Daphne had her Elvira and Velma ... Dr. Crane was supposed to be sort of Velma's foil and he's all about fear and she's all about conquering fear through science. So I just gave away the spoiler there, but yeah, that's where that came from.

Nice. Okay. So that was kind of story driven and because you have access to some of these characters for the crossovers, you were just like, that's a good fit.

Maxwell Atoms: Yeah. Yeah. So ideally, I had hoped to get him and I'm so glad that I did, because otherwise it would have just been sort of a previously defeated Scooby villain, and I don't feel like that would have had the same impact.

Speaking of stuff for the fans out there that they get to discover, you are going to be part of the panel at the upcoming virtual edition of New York, Comic-Con, coming up soon for Warner Brothers home entertainment. So it's pretty cool. I think it's the first time.

Maxwell Atoms: My first time.

Oh, so it's your first time doing that too?

Maxwell Atoms: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Oh, very cool. Because I think it's the first time that the four kind of core voices for the team get to come together as well. So that'll be a pretty cool experience to have everybody there together. So what are you looking forward to with that?

Maxwell Atoms: I mean, it'll just be good to see everybody together again or together really for the first time, because we weren't able to get everyone together to record ensemble style, but yeah. These are people that I only get to see once every blue moon, so it's always good to see them.

Exactly. And you said you've worked with half the cast before. I'm assuming, just because you've been around in the industry and obviously Frank Welker, Grey Griffin have been around forever and done thousands of voices. So you've worked with those two before.

Maxwell Atoms: Those two specifically, were main characters on my Cartoon Network show.

Yeah, exactly. So what's kind of your history been with them and how has it been to see their kind of their evolution as actors and your evolution as a creative writer, director? What's kind of your history like with those two and how's it been to work with them on this project?

Maxwell Atoms: It's been great. I mean, I met Grey when we were both probably 22 or 23, and I think she just came from an audio tape that somebody gave me.

Oh, wow.

Maxwell Atoms: So just watching her go from that to one of the biggest voice actors in the industry, has been amazing. And Frank was already a legend when we got him.

Right.

Maxwell Atoms: I was so fortunate to have that and to still be occasionally working with him to this day is great, but he's amazing.

Yeah. I mean, I've had the pleasure of talking to him a couple of times. I mean, this was the guy who was basically every villain in every cartoon I watched while growing up, so it's amazing to sit and talk to him and I'm so glad he's still doing it.

Maxwell Atoms: Yeah, and I've been watching a ton of... This probably shows as well in the project, but I've been watching a ton of 80s horror movies and he's also almost every monster animal in 1980s, horror movie.

I really liked the creature design in this movie as well too. So did that come from, I don't know, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes? Any kinds of those kinds of classic throwback horror movies, or did you have a specific one that you looked to for the design?

Maxwell Atoms: It actually gets compared a lot, and I don't blame people, to the Halloween special I did for the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, I did 20 years ago, which also had living pumpkins coming alive to chase people. But in this case, I guess they both came from the same problem, which is, with Scooby-Doo and Billy and Mandy, any monster, like a vampire or a werewolf or whatever, is already kind of a Scooby-Doo or Billy and Mandy monster, so. How do you get really Halloweeny with something? And in both cases, I was like, well, living pumpkins. So in this one, I tried to stop myself from doing it, but once I got the whole plot together, it just made too much sense not to. And just the dumb idea of pumpkin's driving cars, made it worth it.

Well, look, I love puns too, so to coin the term, Jackal Lantern, was a delight, so that was worth it, I think.

Maxwell Atoms: Oh, thanks. Yeah. I feel like that's going to fly by most people, but yeah.

Before I run out of time with you today, I wanted to just ask, what's up next for you? Is there anything on the horizon that you can share with your fans out there, while they wait and watch Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo!?

Maxwell Atoms: Nope. I'm on the edge of my seat just like everyone else. I don't know what's going to happen next.

Well, nobody knows what's going to happen next in 2020. So I hope the year has some nice surprises in store for you. Hope you get to enjoy some time off, and best of luck with the rollout of Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo! Looking forward to it.

Maxwell Atoms: Well hey, and good luck to you. Nice talking to you.