George Bernard Shaw once remarked that youth is wasted on the young. I have to disagree. Before discovering cigarettes, alcohol, and trying to solve the riddle of where pornographic magazines came from – why were there always piles of discarded adult magazines in the woods? – the hours spent fiddling away on my Super Nintendo were among the happiest days of my life. Yet for this particular writer, nothing encapsulates a misspent youth more than Scooby-Doo.
Originally airing on CBS between 1969 and 1976, the animated show was a lighthearted piece of throwaway fun. It had a well-meaning message about the power of friendship and the strength of working together with others, regardless of race or class.
The plot was simple. A group of teenagers drove across the country to solve mysteries. More often than not, their van, known as the mystery machine, would break down outside an abandoned property inhabited by all manner of ghosts and ghouls. The show featured Fred, the suave and sophisticated leader of the crew; Daphne, the beautiful yet naive and clumsy girlfriend of Fred; Velma, the nerdy one who was good at solving puzzles; and Shaggy, the hippie, who got into all kinds of mischief alongside his talking dog Scooby-Doo.
Well, HBO has their hands on the IP, and they have decided in their collective wisdom that it needs to be updated. Because nothing screams ‘modern remake’ like an origin story based on a campy 1970s animation.
Let me describe to you what happens when a classic family-friendly franchise meets the wrecking ball of modern entertainment.
Velma is a modern-day remake of Scooby-Doo. The high school drama and theoretical comedy are based around the origin of the mystery team. Yet it doesn’t take long for what I will politely call ‘subtle differences’ to emerge from the original. Velma is now a bitter race-swapped lesbian. Daphne is a stereotypical mean girl who is also a drug dealer and lives with her two mothers. Shaggy, now Norville, is a black journalist for the high school paper, and because every show now requires an object of ridicule, Fred has devolved into a spoiled rich kid incapable of performing even the most basic of functions essentially performing to the #WHITEMANBAD social media crowd.
Welcome to the world of the modern-day remake and of an old IP that gender and race swaps its main characters, makes women the focal point behind every storyline, introduces a gay relationship where none existed before, and makes straight white men the butt of every conceivable joke.
What amazes me most about all of this is the amount of time and money that must’ve been spent turning this into reality. Executives approved it, writers actually wrote it, and whole teams of voice actors, editors, and animators all helped bring this monstrosity to life. Just when you think we have finally reached our creative nadir, something new comes along to lower the bar a little bit more. And this is it.
The plot for Velma is basic; and I stress the word basic. A series of bloody murders at the local high school gets the attention of Velma Dinkley, a geeky loner. She sets out to investigate, bringing in Daphne and Shaggy. All roads lead to Fred Jones, a local rich kid who has both the means and motive to commit the murders. Was he responsible, or could something more sinister be at hand? I don’t know. By this point, I had given up caring.
The writers clearly wanted Velma to delve more deeply into the relationships and personalities of the characters and provide more context about who they are when not driving around in the mystery machine. I can help. They are your modern-day teenagers: charmless, self-obsessed, neurotic, unlikable morons who all talk with that annoying California inflection. The humour fares little better. The cultural references are dated, and the hacky observational humour could come straight from a Michael McIntyre stand-up routine.
When it comes to modern-day animation, Velma is atrocious. You can’t even argue that the anti-white bigotry is subtext; it is the driving force of the narrative. By doing this, it comes across as mean-spirited to the point of being vindictive. A lot of this can be attributed to the writing.
I’ll go further and say I honestly think this is one of the worst shows I have had the misfortune of watching in recent years. Don’t take my word for it; IMDb has rated it the worst animated show on its platform. With a score of just 1.3/10, it is the third worst rated TV show in the site’s history.
Modern-day remakes of classic franchises have become a vehicle for progressively minded industry executives to virtue signal their righteous credentials. With more remakes and reboots on the way, Velma won’t be the last long-running series to be altered for political expediency. According to Screenrant’s forty ‘most anticipated films’ of 2023, a mere three are based on new original content. Furthermore, the majority are derived from the twentieth century. So expect more of the same. Just for context, in the 1980s, between 40 and 75 percent of all films were based on original content.
If you want to create a show featuring a bunch of surly teenagers lecturing you on intersectional feminism, write something new. Stop messing with the classics.
Noel Yaxley is a freelance writer and researcher. He writes for a number of publications such as City Journal and has written for The Critic and Quillette.
