Happy Wednesday Scribblers. I hope you are all doing well today. I’m happy to report that today is the first full day we didn’t have any rain, since, I want to say, around Christmas. I don’t mind the rain, however it’s nice to see the sun. We are actually drying out a bit, especially after the thunder, hail and downpour we had yesterday. On the flip side, that means we’ve gotten, California cold, which means our lows are in the 30s at night and the low 50s during the day.
Don’t laugh, when you aren’t from the snow, that can be cold. Plus, I’m delicate.
Eric and I started watching Velma, this weekend and I wanted to share my thoughts on the first two episodes we’ve seen. I want to give the writers some credit here because if this wasn’t an origin story about a popular character from a hugely successful kid’s cartoon from the late 1960s and early 1970s the show is good. The characters are interesting and different. I loved the mixed of characters and the diversity. I enjoyed (especially in the first episode) them making fun of other modern TV shows, especially nudity. Both Eric and I had a chuckle at that.
Unfortunately, Velma is not a new show. These aren’t new and fresh characters, these are characters that several generations (from Gen X forward) grew up with. This is the issue I’m having with the show so far. They have taken these characters we all know and love, then thrown them into a blender and we ended up with this mix of… well I’m not sure what to call it. Let me give you some simple examples:
Velma Dinkely: She’s a geek/nerd who has family trauma and a really unlikeable father. She’s a know-it-all and doesn’t like anyone. She thinks they are all idiots.
Daphine Blake: A ‘mean girl’ who you don’t like from the start and continue to dislike (she and Velma were BFFs until Daphine made friends with the popular girls. The best part about her character is she has two moms who are detectives (and not very good detectives at that).
Fred Jones: Ugh… a childish freak (sorry that is the best word I have to describe him). He is a rich pampered snob (he doesn’t even remember Velma’s name at first even though they go to school together). He can’t even cut his own food for himself. He too comes from an odd (read mildly abusive) family. The most interesting part of his character so far is, for some reason, he hasn’t gone through puberty and has an underdeveloped penis.
Norville "Shaggy" Rogers: He’s a friend of Velma’s who has a crush on her (he’s the most likable of the characters so far). I do like that they have him creating SM content about food, I thought that was clever and interesting.
Scooby-Doo: MIA. We haven’t seen or heard the namesake of the cartoon yet. WTF!
Now, don’t get me wrong, the talent is giving their acting and these characters there all, which is wonderful to see. And I really appreciate all the diversity, as it modernizes this show for a new generation. The animation is excellent as well, so they are really putting out a visually beautiful work. Honestly, this should have been called something else, and I think they would have something quite good. Instead you, the viewer, are trying to watch the show and you keep getting pulled out of it with all the differences from the original source material.
Eric and I will continue to watch the show, because it is interesting, but this is not Scooby-Doo by any stretch of the imagination. Will the series live or die? Will we actually get Scooby-Doo? I don’t know. But if you want to watch a dark gritty adult cartoon, then give Velma a watch. If you want something fun from your childhood run the other way and avoid at all cost.
There you have it, my thoughts on the first two episodes of Velma (2023). Have you watched Velma yet? What did you think? Did you watch Scooby-Doo (1969) as a kid? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, have a great week.