Credit: Velma
Velma is here and fans are not happy.
Scooby-Doo is an iconic property that still resonates with most of the world today. When the first airing of the series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, arrived in 1969, people fell in love with Shaggy, Scooby, Daphne, Fred, and the lovable brains of the group, Velma. Even after the show’s cancellation, various spin-offs and movies have been made involving Scooby-Doo and the gang. Recently, Warner Brothers canceled Scoob! Holiday Haunt, though the news was vastly overshadowed by the studio also scrapping Batgirl as well. Still, Velma was in development, and this adult-animated series would focus on the genius of Mystery Inc.
Now, the biggest and most shocking news is that Scooby-Doo himself is nowhere to be seen in the series. The iconic dog brings value to the group just like each member; however, according to the showrunner, Charlie Grandy, at the New York Comic-Con (via Insider), there was just no way for him to fit the adorable Great Dane into the adult series, “What made Scooby-Doo a kid show is Scooby-Doo. We couldn’t get a take on it that was like, ‘How do we kind of do this in a fun, modern way?” he said. “That felt like what made it a show was, Scooby-Doo.”
Though Scooby-Doo isn’t in the upcoming project, it doesn’t particularly mean that Velma will be a bad series. The notion that Scooby-Doo is the reasoning that it feels like a kid’s show is a bit silly, as it comes all down to the writing and tone of the series. It could’ve been fun to explore the iconic dog in an adult animated world, but what’s done is done. However, arguably the biggest controversy stemming from the series isn’t the absence of Scooby-Doo, but the decision to race-swap several important names, Shaggy, into a Black guy named Norville “Shaggy” Rogers (played by Sam Richardson), an Asian Daphne (Constance Wu), and the title character Velma, who is south Asian. Fred will remain White. Kaling explained why they opted to do the race change during the same panel:
“We knew it would be fun for me to play Velma, but we had a conversation where Velma is white, and we have this new choice to do the show and if I’m voicing her, should she be white or should she not? We were really inspired by Into the Spider-Verse – it’s animation, we can do anything. The essence of Velma is not necessarily tied to her whiteness. And I identify so much as her character, and I think so many people do, so it’s, yeah, let’s make her Indian in this series.”
Credit: Velma
It’s interesting that Kaling brings up Miles Morales from Into the Spider-Verse. Though Miles and Peter Parker have the same powers basically, the background and characters aren’t the same. It would’ve been cool to have Velma as the lead and a supporting cast of different named characters that would’ve added nice lore to the Scooby-Doo world and could’ve directly served as a sequel or prequel to the original Scooby-Doo. However, every name in Mystery Inc. is memorable in the eyes of fans, and as you can imagine, many aren’t thrilled with these changes as it’s viewed as another example of Hollywood being woke and politically correct. Kaling addressed the criticism as well:
“I think of the characters in this as so iconic, but in no way is the gang defined by their whiteness, except for Fred,” Kaling stated. “So, I was a little bit surprised and I think most Indian-American girls when they see this skeptical, hardworking, kind of underappreciated character, can identify with her.”
We’ll find out how well the series is reviewed when it’s released on HBO Max sometime in 2023.
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