I always thought Scooby Doo could make a great adult oriented cartoon, something along the likes of the first Scooby Doo movie. And I don’t mean just a simple parody that we’ve seen countless shows do. But a well written one and well when they announced Velma on HBO Max I thought this could fianlly be it. Once it released it seemeed everyone was against it, no real person tried defending the show. I wasn’t that interested either, it seemed like it had missed the point of what a more mature comedic Scooby Doo show could be. But of course as a true Scooby Historian I had to watch it eventually and I did.
Velma: in a way reminds me a lot of Daria…except the show let’s you see how arrogant and delusional Velma is. She is smart but not as smart as she thinks she is, she’s just unlikeable. That’s fine, since the point is that she is meant to be unlikeable, so by disliking her she is doing her job.
Norvel: Shaggy in here is just boring. I’m happy they didn’t go the stoner route, but instead he is just a chill dude but also a SIMP. And the straght head was perhaps not the best idea.
I like Daphne, she isn’t the most interesting and well at leas they play new unlikability stuff about her than in previous parodies. She has an interesting dynamic with Velma
Freddy being useless has already been done, he is also rich, it works fine though not as interesting as the rest.
Lets talk about the race swapping. In general it’s something that usually bothers me a lot unless it’s done extremely well. Velma being Indian is irrelevant, no reason why she wasn’t white, it seems like a needless change other than the creator wanting her to be in the show, but besides being brown Velma does look like Velma should. Shaggy being black almost works, since we do get a chill guy and I can buy it, but Shaggy’s look is just too iconic that it’s way too distracting. Daphne being asian I guess she looks a bit yellowish but she doesn’t really look Asian with the red hair anyway so besides some off comments it’s not something that distracts you. So in general yes it’s distracting but that’s not what dooms the show, it’s the writing.
So it’s an adult show apparently but no nudity. It feels odd how they go about to avoid showing nudity where it should’ve been shown. It’s more distracting to show how convinient things are placed to avoid showing anything than not. I mean it’d be mostly for comedic purposes anywho. Especially since they clearly have no problem with showing gruesome violent stuff. The humor is just not good, it’s filled with humor that seems edgy but more like edgy for a 13 year old kid. It tries to be PC but in a way it also makes fun of PC tropes which helps balance that out. Granted I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but it does seem like it’s sattire of Political correctness culture in general. That would’ve made a refreshing show whether sattire or not the problem is the writing, it’s not that good it’s just “meh”.
In general I think there’s mroe that could’ve been made with an adult Scooby Doo show without going for the cliches we’ve seen dozens of times both official and unofficially in other shows and cartoons. It even jokes with “beloved cartoon to a playful reimagining” except it’s not playful enough. I did chuckle from time to time, and the animation is for the most part good. There’s potential to be a great show but they dont do enough, it needed more Scooby references, better jokes, better writing, it’s not the characters and world they established.
there’s potential int he reimagining but they dont’ do enough, it needed a few more scooby references, better joke/writings. the potential was there even telling the same story.. even doing the whole PC jokes and personlaities,. fred being mroe of a white guy. shaggy being a simp is not the best
season 1 mystery is alright it was sort of fun coudl’ve been better but it had a nice villain and interesting twists. show had potential.
season 2 is not as good, the shock value is now gone and the characters aren’t strong enough to make up for it. They are not as dislikable this time around which oddly enough is bad since that just made them boring instead. It’s a lamer version of S1, it still ahs the stuff people hated but isntead of being a shockingly fun take, it’s just stale now. The serial killer mystery was less interesting than the one before.
Hallowween Special and it’s so odd. It’s just two episodes into one but it works really well since it’s a full mystery. It’s a fun little mystery and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was great for the most part. Although makes me wish Scooby was in it. I still feel like it’s not the character changes or the ethnicity chages it’s not horrible, it’s just not good enough to make up for the lackluster choices. The season story arc was an interesting take but so was this one. A one time longer episode, this coudl’ve worked for the series going forward.
I liked Scrappy Doo appearing in the show, even if making him the generic villain that has been done many times before is not fresh. I did like his origin and the origin of his name Shitty and Crappy, Scrappy. I liked that it happened, I’m sure if we had gotten to Season 3 or Season 4 we would’ve gotten to see the real Scooby Doo. I wouldn’t have minded more seasons, the show had so much potential and it never reached it though. Too bad since likely we won’t see another interpretation that will go this route of a mature comedy again.