2021.02.23 - Rolling Stone - Watch Axl Rose’s Cameo Appearance on ‘Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?’ (& related articles)

Watch Axl Rose’s Cameo Appearance on ‘Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?’

Episode will air Thursday, February 25th on Boomerang

By Claire Shaffer

Axl Rose stars as an animated version of himself on a new episode of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?

When Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby take a road trip down historic Route 66, they encounter a mysterious group of mud men who steal the Mystery Machine. While stranded in the desert, they check out an abandoned diner “to see if they have Wi-Fi inside” — Daphne’s priorities — where they discover Axl, who turns out to already be buddies with Shaggy and Scooby. As the gang dives deeper into the case, each member begins to disappear, and it’s eventually up to Shaggy, Scooby, and Axl to find their friends and solve the mystery.

The episode airs Thursday, February 25th at 6:00 p.m. PT/9:00 p.m. ET on Boomerang, and will subsequently be available to stream on Boomerang OTT.

Axl Rose has spent much of the past year as an outspoken critic of the former Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. On July 3rd, the Guns N’ Roses singer slammed U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams after he appeared in an interview and refused to comment on whether or not U.S. citizens — in the midst of a pandemic — should attend July 4th parties. “Jerome Adams is a: A coward b: A POS c: Both,” Rose tweeted. “Resign. U don’t deserve the job or title. America deserves better.” He also took aim at Steven Mnuchin, stating that the Treasury Secretary is “officially an asshole.” He later elaborated on his criticisms in a July 4th message.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/axl-rose-scooby-doo-and-guess-who-1131907/

Rolling Stone, February 25, 2021:

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How ‘Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?’ Landed That Axl Rose Guest Spot

By Andy Greene

It’s been many years since Axl Rose released a note of new music or agreed to an in-depth interview, but the elusive Guns N’ Roses frontman has shown a surprising willingness to lend his voice to cartoons. Two years ago, he appeared on Boomerang’s New Looney Tunes where he saved the world from an asteroid by singing “Rock the Rock” with Bugs Bunny on guitar. And tonight he’ll be guesting on the network’s Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? where he’ll get to interact with Shaggy, Fred, Velma, and Scooby-Doo himself.

The singer is the latest in a long line of celebrities to guest on the show during the past two years, including Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg, Halsey, Ricky Gervais, Christian Slater, and George Takei. We phoned up showrunner Chris Bailey to hear about this newest version of Scooby-Doo and what it was like working with Axl Rose.

[...]

How does this work logistically? Do the guest stars go into the studio, or do they work from home because of Covid?

Luckily, when we did Axl, he actually came into the studio, which is always ideal. Most of our guest stars record by themselves. The gang usually gets together and we love to record guest stars with the gang, but it rarely works out scheduling-wise for us. Since Covid, I did do a few recording sessions last year when we were finishing up Season Two. It was mostly over the phone.

What sparked the idea to bring in Axl Rose?

Well, I was having a meeting with my directors and Mike Ryan, my story editor. It was one of our semi-regular meetings where we go, “Who should we have on the show?” People would just raise their hands. And Mike Milo, the director of the episode, he just said, “How about Axl Rose?”

He’s a huge Axl Rose fan. We were like, “Yeah, that would be great. Would he do it?” He was like, “I don’t know. He did that Bugs Bunny thing. Maybe he’ll do this.” Our executives said, “Great,” and most importantly, Axl said yes. It was literally that simple.

It didn’t take long to get him to agree?

No. I think it came pretty quickly, as I recall. Some people take a little while to get back to us and we don’t know if they aren’t sure or if their agent is hedging, but I don’t recall any of that with him, so it must have gone pretty smoothly.

What was so fun about it is that I’m a morning person. I just do my best work before noon. We booked a recording studio and were told, “He likes to work at 1 a.m.” I was like, “What?” And there was indeed a request that he do it at midnight or 11 p.m. I was like, “I’m going to be wrecked by then.” We compromised and did it at 9 p.m.

Mike Ryan, the story editor who wrote the premise, we just went to dinner and hung out at the recording studio. When Axl showed up, he was so cool and, like, “Hey, hi.” It was like, “Wait, you’re Axl Rose. …” It was wonderful.

Did he want art approval or story approval? How did that work?

We always let the stars sign off on their likeness. But there’s no real approval of story or anything like that. What Mike Ryan does is look into the personal lives of some of the guests we have on. That hooks our story up with an interest or something to make it more personal. We just read that Axl was into archeology and motorcycles. And so it was like, “Alright, let’s have some ancient Mayan ruins in the middle of the desert and some big Mudmen Scooby-Doo monsters in there that are trying to steal the gold.”

What was it like being with Axl?

It’s funny because he was so professional and easy-going. He was just like, “Yeah, however you want to do it, man.” That’s great because I like working with people and connecting with people. But in the back of your mind you’re like, “Wow, it’s Axl Rose.”

What’s funny is usually when I work with actors for the first time, I’ll ask them if they want me to read the voices with them. Usually, the next question is, “Do you want me to do the voices or not do the voices?” Some actors are distracted by it.

And so Axl read his passage and then I jumped in with my best Shaggy and Scooby, and he busted up laughing. He must have laughed for 30 seconds. He was like, “Man, I was not expecting that.” I was like, “Should I not do that?” He was like, “No, no. It’s great. I just did not know that was coming.”

I imagine he grew up on Scooby-Doo as a kid in the Seventies.

Yeah. He totally got it. He got all the jokes. He knew who they were. Somehow, it made sense to him that he was acquainted with Shaggy and Scooby and they bonded over their love of diner pie. Shaggy and Scooby were the only ones that could keep up with him. And in the episode, Axl carries around these tiny, little tasting forks and he has them for Shaggy and Scooby. It’s very silly, but they played together very nicely.

Oh, one more thing happened. At the end of the recording, we ask people to make a bunch of silly noises for the episodes. A simple one might be like, “Give me five seconds of walking a tightrope and you’re afraid to fall.” Or I’ll go, ” … the sound you make when you’re punched in the stomach or picking up a heavy object and throwing it.”

Some people are like, “You’re kidding me, right?” But he was like, “I’m in!” Whatever we asked for, he was like, “Great!” But it’s funny. A bunch of people get self-conscious about making silly noises, but not him.

Does he sing at any point?

No. That would have been our holy grail, but no. He doesn’t sing. We would love to have had a song or original piece, but it wasn’t something that was worked out, for whatever reason. It was on our wish list and it didn’t happen, but I can’t speak to why.

The mere fact he was on was a real coup. He doesn’t say yes to a lot.

I know. It’s funny. He came in under the radar and was like, “Hey.” I remember walking to my car at the end and he was driving away in his truck. He came in like the wind, did his job, was magnanimous with everybody, and then he was gone. It was like Batman. You turn around and it’s like, “Hey, where did he go?”

Are you thinking about having more rock stars on in the future?

We finished Season Two and that’s all we’ve done for now. We did have a few other musicians. We had “Weird Al,” Kacey Musgraves, Sia, and Cher. They were all great episodes, but much different than Axl.

If you landed Axl Rose, you should go for someone even harder next time, like Bob Dylan or Zack de la Rocha.

I know, right? We had a few people that normally say no and we were like, “Wait, they said yes?” But I’d love to do more. It would be awesome. What’s fun is you get people you don’t expect would do Scooby-Doo, like Morgan Freeman and Jessica Biel and Terry Bradshaw. I got to talk Star Trek with Whoopi Goldberg, which was great fun. It was like, “Really? Morgan Freeman said yes to Scooby-Doo? What?” And this episode comes out as this really smart, off-center episode.

I imagine someone like him wants to show his grandchildren.

I think so. Maybe it has a little of the Wheaties-box appeal. Depending on their age group, some may have watched it as kids and now are like, “Yeah, that sounds like fun. I’d like to do that.”

What’s funny is you get people like Axl or Morgan Freeman, they’re so extreme in their own way that it scares Scooby into a slightly new lane for everybody. Scooby clearly has a formula that we embrace with the rubber masks and the never-ending backgrounds where you see the same plant over and over. I think that’s comforting to a lot of people. But having these stars makes it seem fresh.

Full article:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/scooby-doo-axl-rose-cameo-interview-1132969/