What the fuck was David Zaslav thinking? How badly was Batgirl that Zaslav, the CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery, to look at Velma and mak the Sophie’s Choice that Batgirl was worst? Velma isn’t the bottom of the barrel of TV shows, it’s the sludge that exits underneath barrels when condensation forms with the bacteria on the ground.
Mindy Kaling, who became popular for her work on The Office and a lot of bad movies that you probably have forgotten about from the late 2000s and early 2010s, plays Velma Dinkley in the latest (and worst) variation of the Scooby-Doo franchise. I mean, Scrappy Doo was the universally disliked thing about Scooby-Doo until this came along. And there’s also no Scooby-Doo.
The series is set when the gang of the Mystery Incorporated were in high school and Velma is now of Indian ancestry. I have no problem with that. I have a problem with how the first episode makes so many references to it “not being a TV show.” There’s also an opening scene of two cockroaches having sex which sets the tone. Someone is going around high school killing people by removing their brains. Velma is suspected then Fred Jones (voiced by Glenn Howerton). Or at least I think that’s what happened. I couldn’t make it through the second episode and just had it on as background noise listening a little here and there.
And even I couldn’t stand to finish the episode. Shaggy is now Norville Rogers (voiced by Sam Richardson). He’s black and a high school reporter who opposes drug use. I have nothing wrong with that, because Shaggy or Norville can be like that. But the character isn’t funny. Daphne Blake (voiced by Constance Wu) is now of Asian descent and adopted by two mothers, Donna (voiced by Jane Lynch) and Linda (voiced by Wanda Sykes), who are the police investigating the murders.
It’s not that I didn’t like the new approach to the Scooby-Doo franchise. I’m not one of these geeks who gets mad about every little thing from their childhood being tweaked. Scooby-Doo has gone through so much since 1969. It’s just that I didn’t find anything at all funny or interesting. There’s too many attempts at jokes they all fall flat. There’s too many self-aware jokes. And judging from the cast, I feel this is a common problem in today’s comedy, there’s too many comics trying to have the last laugh.
This may have worked if the show was good, but it’s not. It’s lazy and the animation is sloppy. There’s also so many pop culture references (another thing wrong with today’s comedies) that you feel that somewhere the actors improvised so much in the recording booths, the animators and directors didn’t know what to do. The series was created by Charles Grandy who worked with Kaling on The Office and The Mindy Project. Kaling also is credited as an executive producers.
In 2021, HBO aired the atrociously bad Santa Inc. with Sarah Silverman and Seth Rogen and it had the same set-up. And HBO quietly removed it from HBO Max. Sometimes stoner gross-out humor is just stoner gross-out humor. If they’re smart, they’ll cancel this show. This reminds me of a 13-year-old pulling a booger out of his nose and showing it to people. Also, it’s written with the same mentality of a young kid who’s found a Hustler magazine and is obsessed with sex that there’s a shower scene of young women who seem like they are about to kiss.
The second episodes ends with Daphne and Velma kissing, because a bunch of Gen Xers have been fantasizing about this since they first got hair on their balls. And just like that, this show stinks like a 13-year-old’s taint who still hasn’t learned how to practice proper hygience. (Not saying I know what a 13-year-old’s taint smells like, but if I had to guess, I say it would have the same effect as sitting through 40 minutes of Velma. )
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 