HBO Max Brings us the Darker, Grittier, More Ass-Filled Scooby Doo Remake that we all Desperately Wanted

IGN:

HBO Max is teaming up with Mindy Kaling on a mature origin story for Velma and Scooby gang and we got our first look at the series at New York Comic Con.

In a panel, HBO Max shared a sneak peek of the first episode which establishes Velma as an origin story set before the gang officially teamed up to solve mysteries. The preview was full of a grisly murder, profanity, and some butts.

Did I miss some sort of grassroots “we want Scooby-Doo and we want blood and guts,” movement somewhere? I know I’m not big on perusing every random nook and cranny of the interwebs, but I’m pretty sure no one asked for that. And they certainly wouldn’t have asked for it if they knew they would be getting this in particular.

Oh my goodness is that trailer ever pain. The trailer starts with Velma typing this out on her phone while narrating it for us plebs. I’ve included the like/dislike ratio so you can see that no, you are not alone in your disdain for this.

We then get a glimpse of Velma, who is brown for some reason, saying “well, at least Judy’s still White.” 

Trust me, it gets worse from here.

Velma gets a call from a serial killer. I have to transcribe the entire thing so you can see for yourself how exceedingly unclever the writers are.

Velma: Unknown caller? Spooky!

*Answers phone*

Velma: Hello. Velma Dinkly speaking.

Caller *with spooky computer masked voice*: Hello Velma, do you like solving mysteries?

Velma: Uh yeah. But I’m actually much more three dimensional than that. Who is this? 

JFC.

Caller: That’s the mystery, and solve it quick because I’m in your house.

Velma: A serial killer calling from inside my house? Yes! That’s a classic. And that’s my point, why change anything when the classics all still work, right?

There is a long pause before Velma finally realizes that her life is in danger.

Velma: WAIT! You’re inside my house!

Velma then turns around to see the serial killer behind her. The camera cuts away to what appears to be her blood splattering the window.

With that she dies, and the show is over. Or at least it would be in a merciful universe. No, in this one, even though she’s dead her re-animated corpse will continue to haunt your television with her entirely unclever little fourth wall breaks and annoying midwit snarkiness.

The top comments are, unsurprisingly, entirely unenthused. This is becoming a recurring theme for these things. Also, there may be a small easter egg for TRS Forum Enjoyers at the bottom of the above picture.

Anyway, back to the IGN tonguing of this garbage.

While HBO Max hasn’t shared the preview online, IGN was in attendance and got a glimpse of the first episode preview which begins with a voiceover from Velma Dinkley (played by Mindy Kaling) telling the audience about the bone-chilling events that lead up to the greatest mystery-solving team-up ever.

A full voice cast has also been revealed including Glenn Howerton, Constance Wu, and Sam Richardson.

Shaggy is black now for some reason.

The preview begins in the girl’s locker room (“Sex sells,” according to Velma in the preview) where Daphne (Constance Wu) and Velma are there together when a body falls out of one of the lockers. The corpse turns out to be another student named Brenda who is missing her brain.

Apparently this is a screenshot from the preview. It’s not in the original article, but it’s been going around for a while.

The show appears unnecessarily gory and offputting, but in a cartoon and stupid way that doesn’t scare me. Perhaps the real horror is the show we destroyed along the way.

The mystery to find Brenda’s killer will unite crime-loving Velma with Daphne, who was Brenda’s ex-best friend. Daphne’s parents, who are cops, interrogate the two girls and give Velma 24 hours to solve the murder.

Fred (Glenn Howerton) is also introduced as a vain individual who has a disease where he can’t recognize people who aren’t hot. He is apparently dating Daphne, but Brenda was his “plan B in case she was too clingy.”

While the gang’s quest to find Brenda’s killer leads to sketchy drug dealers, dismembered body parts, and forbidden romances this certainly appears to be a mature take on the Scooby gang, leaning towards adult animated comedies than the original cartoons.

We’re stopping here. And no, at no point in this preview do they mention the Scooby Doo, who does not appear to be in this made for (retarded) adults version.

Scooby Doo is nothing special. In fact it has always been awful, and South Park did a great parody of them way back in the day.

Even as a kid I thought the show was unbearably stupid. None of the explanations for how the murderer did it made any sense at all. Five year old me couldn’t quite articulate what was so nonsensical and dumb about the plot, but I knew something was off nevertheless.

As for the one note joke of “what if Scoobs and the gang stumbled upon a really sickening murder,” Family Guy did that a decade ago. It’s a sixteen second clip, and that’s pretty much exactly how long this one absurd gag should get. Not sixteen episodes, not sixteen hours, not even sixteen minutes, but sixteen seconds. Then you move on to something else.

Or maybe you don’t if you’re the geniuses at HBO Max who thought that taking this moderately funny gag and turning it into an entire show was a great idea. After that, turning Shaggy Black and Velma Brown just had to be done. Finally, sending Scooby Doo to the vet to be put down and never spoken of was the icing on the cake of this 9,000 IQ show idea.

But hey, if you’ve got $10 burning a hole in your pocket then sign up for HBO Max.

It seems like a solid investment.