There’s been a lot of chat about Scooby Doo’s Velma Dinkley lately, largely because the release of Amazon Prime’s Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! revealed that the character is gay. Fans rejoiced, and so did Google.
So there’s more than enough intrigue to fuel HBO Max’s Velma, an entirely separate work that intends to play out as an origin story for Velma and the rest of the gang. The adult animated series will not feature the beloved, mystery-loving dog Scooby.
The titular character is voiced by Mindy Kaling, whose sass and signature charm do wonders for the role, at least from what the teaser suggests. Kaling co-created he series alongside Charlie Grandy.
The series also stars Constance Wu as Daphne, Glenn Howerton as Fred, and Sam Richardson as Shaggy. The rest of the cast is star-studded, with appearances from Weird Al Yankovic, Sarayu Blue, Melissa Fumero, Ken Leung, Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, Ming-Na Wen, Shay Mitchell, and more.
Without Scooby in the mix, Velma differentiates itself from more kids-centric Scooby-Doo content by focusing on the four solving the mystery of a classmate found dead in a locker room at their high school.
The teaser begins extremely meta, with Velma writing an angry message to HBO Max about a « genre-bending, comedic origin story » of Judy Jetson, concluding that « if there’s ONE thing the Internet agrees on, it’s that you should never change anything ever! »
Hopefully any changes coming our way with Velma will be welcome.
Velma is streaming in 2023 on HBO Max.
