Velma on HBO Max.
- Thread starter CastletonSnob
- Start date
I watched the first two episodes. I found it very ugly in tone, and the characters intensely mean. The opening scene is Daphne, now a drug dealer, underage and naked with a bunch of other underage and naked girls, complaining about TV shows putting underage naked girls in their pilot episodes to get more attention, and then Velma, also a druggy, comes out and tries to kill Daphne, and then they find a dead body.
The show is just filled with intense racial stereotypes and really awkward "jokes" that are more self deprecating than actual structured jokes. The racial changes to the gang are fine in an of themselves. They don't add anything, but they don't take away anything either. Velma is dark now. Okay. And?
Although apparently Mindy Kaling is in hot water with the Hispanic community because Velma has in recent years been portrayed as Hispanic, and to change her to I think Indian, is being seen as removing positive Hispanic representation.
It feels like a show that was meant to fail, or at least garner hate watching.
The show is just filled with intense racial stereotypes and really awkward "jokes" that are more self deprecating than actual structured jokes. The racial changes to the gang are fine in an of themselves. They don't add anything, but they don't take away anything either. Velma is dark now. Okay. And?
Although apparently Mindy Kaling is in hot water with the Hispanic community because Velma has in recent years been portrayed as Hispanic, and to change her to I think Indian, is being seen as removing positive Hispanic representation.
It feels like a show that was meant to fail, or at least garner hate watching.
I don't understand the idea behind taking a beloved children's program and clearly re-making it in a rated R context. Why make an adult version of a kids show?
Nostalgia bait maybe? I mean some of the Scooby Doo movies were pretty intense. Zombie Island springs to mind. But the way the characters are written, and the distinct lack of Scooby Doo, makes it feel like it was an entirely different show about bratty kids being brats, and it was given the Scooby Doo IP as a way to get it greenlighted.
Makes you wonder when Johnny Bravo is gonna get #MeToo.
Not a fan of that, or making R-rated parodies of kids' cartoons.
"Dude, I took this thing for kids and put swearing, violence and sex in it! I'm so original and subversive!"
"Deconstruction" and "your childhood sucked!" Mentality. I know where this is coming from and it dates all the way back to Harvey Birdman. They used different Hana Barbara cartoons and sometimes give them slightly darker takes or personalities. It was mainly done in tongue and cheek though.
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South Park and Drawn Together were both guilty of this. Drawn Together was and still is the worst with this.
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I feel like making a cartoon with adult content, is different than re-making an traditionally kid's IP to be adult though.
South Park and Drawn Together were both made for the purpose of being adult content, not specifically making a children's IP adult.
Though I think you could do it well if you wanted too, so long as the purpose is to make a good show first instead of a propaganda show.
The thing was that even South Park knew when to lay off or not go too far. Usually. The two creators of Drawn Together on the other hand, had it real bad. Especially by the third season. They had these old cartoon characters in cameos or as side characters, either doing really messed up stuff, dying horribly in gory ways, or whatever just for the sake of shock value. All of that way down hill in the third season and that stupid movie that came out. Gore and violence just for the sake of it, and thinking that nothing needs a message. Not every show needs a message, but not every show needs to be a constant shock fest just for the sake of being provocative 24/7. There's a reason why Comedy Central, nor another network, never hired those two ever again.
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I was a high school senior when the third season first started. A college freshman when the third season ended. I'm surprised you didn't know about that one. The movie I get, cuz barely anybody saw it, and it is shit. Don't even waste the 90 minutes.
I stopped watch most TV in High School, and it was only a few later night shows i would catch here and there before bed or whatever. I think I was already not watching much TV when Drawn Together was around.
I only saw the first episode and there's was but one joke that actually got a laugh out of me; the one where when Velma talks about her mother disappearing during Christmas, and we see the two cops wearing a Santa hat and elf ears while investigating. That was the only quality bit of comedy. The rest feels like someone scrapped the old muck off of Judd Apatow's shoe.
Like I said before, you weren't missing much. A lot of late 2000s TV was and still is trash.
These are better Velma shows. Also, just watch Trick Or Treat Scooby Doo. Whatever is happening in that movie is way more interesting than this crap.
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There was also A Pup Named Scooby Doo, which was a far better attempt at satirizing these characters then Velma could ever be. Velma was an egghead who would always just find clues because, Daphne was super rich and would buy the crew out of trouble, and Fred was paranoid and would always accuse a character who was literally called Red Herring. And it had a fucking banger of an opening.
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