Movies

Velma NYCC Trailer, Panel Teases Mindy Kaling’s Messy Scooby Reboot

October 7, 2022

Shout “jinkis!” and put on the square glasses: From Warner Bros. Animation, Velma is an animated comedy series unveiling the origin story of Velma Dinkley, the iconic orange turtleneck mastermind of the Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. gang. scooby-doo franchise, Velma is a show aimed at adults (see the poster with the blood-splattered glasses), with rick and morty and harley quinn cited as major inspirations.

executive producer Mindy Kaling, who also voices Velma; showrunner Charlie Grandy; Constance Wu (Daphne); Sam Richardson (Norville, who will be known as “Shaggy”); and Glenn Howerton (Fred) joined fans at New York Comic Con 2022 to explain the new direction for the long-running horror-comedy series. Fans in attendance also got a preview of the show with a screening of the entire pilot episode.

The show features Velma in her high school days as a bespectacled loser. If two cockroaches mating in the opening scene don’t get established Velma, the following scene should do the trick: naked teenage girls participating in physical violence in gym showers (while debating the ethical appropriateness and exploitation of blatant nudity in the media). Later, the corpse of a teenage girl is found in Velma’s locker, making her the prime suspect in the eyes of two cops (Wanda Sykes and Jane Lynch). Of course, she must solve the mystery to clear her name. One problem: Velma hasn’t really solved a mystery in a while, not since her novelist mother disappeared from her life. And every time Velma tries to solve a mystery, she is harassed by horrible zombie spirits.

This preview also reimagines the Mystery Inc. team as high school students. The popular girl Daphne is the antithesis of Velma; she’s a cartoon mean girl and is also the most pop culture savvy of the bunch, Grandy said. Kaling added, “Daphne has her own mysteries about her own life.”

Velma and Daphne begin the series with a burning grudge for each other, as they were former childhood friends. While developing the series, Kaling (who also co-created Netflix’s teen-centric program I have never) brought him his love for high school shows that explored “people from different social strata find[ing] something in common.” Velma is a high school show, “so we see all the high school happenings and dances on top of being a murder mystery.”

According to Grandy, no one involved with HBO Max or the Scooby franchise pushed back against the slicker, bloodier direction the team wanted to take with the iconic mystery gang. He confirmed Warner Bros.’ support: “They said, ‘Great, go have fun.'”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHdtsWn7sgE

The biggest revelation? The Velma driver makes no reference to Norville having a dog. Think Gotham and his glaring absence from Batman. Grandy addressed the Brown-spotted (not) Great Dane in the room, explaining that the team thought a lot about what they could do to distinguish Velma like an adult show. “What made scooby-doo a kids show is Scooby-Doo,” Grandy said. “We could not have an idea, like how can we do this in a fun and modern way. [Our efforts] coincided with Warner Bros. Animation saying we can’t use the dog! For Grandy, the omission of the iconic Great Dane heightens the adult tone of Velma — but who knows what will happen throughout the series’ serialized run.

From the origin Scooby-Doo, where are you? debuted in 1969 on CBS, Velma and the gang have survived multiple iterations, from cartoons to live-action movies to video games. Just this week, Velma made news when the latest direct-to-video animated film (finally) confirmed her as capable of crushing gay people.

Velma’s recent description of gay identity (after decades of ambiguity and James Gunn’s failed attempt to confirm his sexuality) seemed to have been on the moderator’s mind when he asked, “Is there there a moment between Velma and Daphne? insinuating romantic sailing and lifting the crowd to cheers.

Kaling replied, “[Velma] has unresolved sexual tension with a lot of characters. Sa Velma really comes face-to-face with Daphne at one point in the pilot, and she finds the arrogant Fred extremely hot. “We were drawn to this journey of self-discovery for her,” Kaling said. “We wanted to honor other interpretations and do what is modern.”

A post from Daphne with a purple dress and a green bow tie with the words

Fred in his white shirt and red tie doing

Velma’s only friend in high school is Shaggy – proper name Norville – who was shown to be softer. Shaggy “definitely doesn’t like drugs,” he says in the pilot. His “telling jokes” – actually just him sincerely admitting his crush on Velma – plays a role in rescuing the heroine which solves the mystery later in the pilot. So how does Shaggy become a “burnout” later in the canon? Grandy promised, “You will see the evolution of the character.”

VelmaThe creators reimagined the character as being of South Asian descent, like Kaling, because “most American Indians [women], when they see a skeptical, hard-working, underappreciated character, they can relate to her. This show is for them.

Daphne and Shaggy were also recast as East Asian and Black, respectively, as their voice actors, because “no one on [Scooby-Doo] is defined by their whiteness,” Kaling said — “except Fred is overwhelmingly white.

This made Howerton (a former student of Philadelphia is always sunny and by Kaling Mindy Project) perfect for the role, with his penchant for playing titled white men. He agreed, saying, “It’s similar to what me and my friends did together as an extremely authoritative white kid, like, Mom, give me exactly what I want! I kinda expected it [the voice direction] to stop me. But no one stopped me. »

The moderator asked a question regarding the euphoria of screen representation. When did the cast see each other on TV? Wu replied – likely referring to her role as Jessica Huang in Fresh off the boat, the production of which recently appeared as a subject of her tell-all book – “I Think I Could Have Played It. The first time I saw her was maybe myself. For Richardson, he saw himself in the Black Power Ranger.

It remains to be seen whether Velma explore the reworked ethnicities of its characters; the show seems to prioritize a mix of adult-friendly comedy and gratuitous violence that only animation could achieve. The first season of Velmawhich will also feature Stephen Root and Weird Al Yankovic as guest stars, is set to debut on HBO Max in 2023.