Earlier this year, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and a familiar Great Dane named Scooby-Doo rolled into toy departments as part of a new collection from Playmobil. Launched with a reimagined version of the iconic Mystery Machine and a collection of blind bagged villains, the one thing missing was an epic location for the Mystery Inc. gang to investigate. Now, kids everywhere can search for clues to catch ghosts and ghouls (or shifty humans pretending to be creeps) in the new Playmobil Scooby-Doo! Adventure in the Mystery Mansion playset!
The Mystery Mansion is exactly what it sounds like — a haunted house packed with tricks and treats around every corner. The two-sided playset comes with four figures — Fred, Daphne, Scooby-Doo, and a Vampire — and features a fantastically decrepit mansion with boarded-up windows and foliage overgrowth that turns around to reveal an interior that’s more than meets the eye.
A trick staircase provides the perfect spot for silliness as kids slide the wall-mounted candelabra to change the stair into a slide. A suspicious square among the floorboards on the ground floor opens up to reveal treasures or creepy critters (whatever kids want to hide in there); while the old bookcase spins around to provide a slick route for figures to get in or out of the house. On the upper floor, a trap door can make finding footing a precarious task while the top of the chimney can be removed and packed with accessories that kids can send dropping into the fireplace on the first floor.
One really cool feature of the Playmobil Scooby-Doo! collection is the Ghost Cards that each figure and set comes with. These translucent pieces contain information on the specters and spooks that the Mystery Inc. gang is chasing. The Mystery Mansion comes with a coffin that includes sound effects (perfect for amplifying the cartoon vibe) and a built-in projector that kids can use to display the information from each Ghost Card on any surface! For an additional new school element to complement the traditional play, the free Playmobil app works with this set to project ghosts onto a special clear surface using the light from a smartphone.
To fully build-out a Scooby-Doo! world, kids will want to collect additional new sets including Dinner with Shaggy (which makes a perfect “dining room” for the Mystery Mansion), Adventure in the Witch’s Cauldron (which is perfect for Halloween!), and Adventure in the Cemetery which my kids pretend is on the same property as the Mystery Mansion with a freshly dug grave and a mausoleum that isn’t quite what it appears at face value.
Kids, along with collectors, parents, and grandparents who grew up enjoying Scooby-Doo! will find a lot to love with all of the Playmobil Scooby-Doo! sets, and since they’re the same scale as other figures and sets in the Playmobil range, kids can mix-and-match with other themes that may already be in their toy box or playrooms.
