Despite the show's poor reception, many viewers have praised the animators responsible for "Velma." CHANG: Can't win. It shows a South Asian woman seeking romance and validation from a white guy. TV URBAN LEGEND: Scooby Doo's now-out Velma was based on a sitcom character played by Sheila Kuehl, a noted LGBTQ activist. You're, like, smart. Cinemablend is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. and one book, 100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, from Triumph Books. However, aside from these trippy scenes, most of the animation surrounds some pretty straightforward storytelling that doesn't allow much room for creative license. Season All Stars 2 Episode 4 'Drag Movie Shequels' Performers: Katya, Detox#LogoTV #DragRace #AllStarsMore from RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars:Official Website. I Am Not a Human Being II followed in 2013. The decision to change her ethnic background should make things fresh though, based on the show's first trailer, her personality will definitely stay intact. Lil Wayne, byname of Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr., also called Weezy, (born September 27, 1982, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.), American rapper who became one of the top-selling artists in hip-hop in the early 21st century. GLEN HOWERTON: (As Fred Jones) Maybe. DEGGANS: So Kaling's getting criticism from both sides of the pop culture, sociopolitical spectrum. Others have flat-out accused Kaling of hating her heritage. A highly intelligent woman who literally and figuratively carried her friends through one harrowing adventure after another, Velma was a role model to millions (even if she always lost her glasses). In fact, that guy who did Fred's voice dubbed in things for me in motion pictures, whenever they were looping and I couldn't make the session. Corrections? There are plenty of reasons why bringing back old IP can be a solid bet, not least of which is a pre-existing fanbase. Lover of music (US and international). Alaska - Drag Movie Shequels. Like I owe it to every race and minority and beleaguered person." They made her South Asian like Kaling. DEGGANS: (Laughter) Well, the simple answer is it's a comedy that's just not funny. And this is my origin story. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. "It's being raunchy for the sake of being raunchy, which makes it pointless.". Funeral (2020) was Lil Waynes fifth album to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 chart. DEGGANS: Well, ultimately, I'm not sure this is going to have a lot of impact on HBO Max. RING THE WISHING BELL. Here are ten things you never knew about Velma Dinkley. For example, "Velma" tries to modernize the characters from the Scooby-Doo universe by making them more cynical, more sexual and more self-centered. Velma Dinkley is part of the iconic Mystery Inc. from Scooby-Doo. He also founded that year Young Money Entertainment, a record label that would eventually release numerous hits by Lil Wayne,Drake, andNicki Minaj. While Fred does have his moments, Velma is the brains behind the operation. Watch RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 2 Thursdays at 8/7c on Logo and VH1. Manage all your favorite fandoms in one place! We're following the clues to unmask the real truth behind the brutal backlash to HBO Max's "Velma." HBO Max's new animated series Velma is drawing wide criticism, prompting one newspaper to call the show, based on characters from the Scooby Doo universe, "the most hated series on TV.". goes through in live-action and in animation, and part of it is because there's never really been much established about the character. And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed and Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies. She said: We knew it would be fun for me to play Velma, but we had a conversation where Velma is white, and we have this new choice to do the show and if I'm voicing her, should she be white or should she not? It contained the singles A Milli and Lollipop. By the end of the year, the album had sold more than 2.8 million copies, making it the countrys best-selling album of the year. Mindy Kaling's VELMA tv show reminds me why I dislike modern media as a whole.Velma has become the "I'm not like other girls" trope on steroids bc they only took the surface aspects of her character. Reviewers like Saberspark noted the show's interesting redesign of iconic characters, observing the animators' attentive focus on giving each character a "distinct and polished look." Velma is also being criticized for its shallow sense of humor, which is extremely self-referential, and packed with snarky, pseudo-progressive one-liners that seem stolen from 2016 girlboss Twitter. %%EOF The series starred Dwayne Hickman as the every teen Dobie Gillis (Hickman had to bleach his hair blonde early on in the series, but after a while, they let him go back to his natural hair coloring, as the constant bleaching was destroying his hair) A pre-Gilligan's Island Bob Denver was Dobie's best friend, the beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs A young Warren Beatty was the rich jerk Milton and Tuesday Weld was the rich girl Thalia that Dobie desperately wanted to impress (Beatty left the show before the first season even ended to pursue a film career, and Weld left the show after the first season to also pursue a film career. Whenever a franchise with an established fandom gets a new entry, there tends to be plenty of detractors who struggle to accept their beloved characters being completely reimagined. While fans of Scooby and Shaggy have long joked about the pair's apparent cannabis use, "Velma" sees Daphne turned into a drug dealer nicknamed the Candy Woman, even enlisting her old pal Velma to help out with her final sale. It packs a surprising amount of sex, violence, and drug references into a half-hour cartoon. We've never done anything about it. There he came to the attention of Cash Money Records head Bryan Williams, and he soon became a memberwith Juvenile, B.G., and Turkof the labels all-star group Hot Boys and won notice for the albums Get It How U Live! But I said, 'Oh, shit, let's not go through that.' I forget what the hell his name was [Alan Reed]. She should probably just stay put and throw a punch. Did CNN Try to 'Steal' James Earl Jones' Voice? So, like, why do you think so much of the reaction has been focused on Kaling? You cheat off me in Spanish because you think I'm Mexican. Lil Wayne acknowledged those delays with his Sorry 4 the Wait mixtape, and he remained a presence on the hip-hop scene as a frequent guest vocalist. Lil Wayne, byname of Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr., also called Weezy, (born September 27, 1982, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.), American rapper who became one of the top-selling artists in hip-hop in the early 21st century. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, to feature a Top 2 Lip sync mid-season. As Kimberly Terasaki of The Mary Sue put it, the line "seems designed almost entirely for shock value, with almost no self-awareness or acknowledgment of how out there it is." Lil Wayne found a new avenue to success in 2003 with Da Drought, his first solo mixtape. This type of self-referential or "meta" humor served as a device for examining or even subverting a genre's use of tropes and was integral to the comedy writing of shows like "Arrested Development" and "Community." While it has never been confirmed, fans have speculated about a romantic relationship between Daphne and Velma for years. The bell facing the sky is truly enchanting, making you build composure to come and make a wish. Therefore, when you hear that the characters on a cartoon are based on X characters, do note that we're almost always just talking about a "jumping off" point, and not a specific one-to-one adaptation (although, again, you have things like The Flintstones that get pretty darn close to a one-for-one adaptation). Shangela - My Best Squirrelfriend's Dragsmaids Wedding Trip, Trixie Mattel - My Best Squirrelfriend's Dragsmaids Wedding Trip, Monique Heart - Sex and the Kitty, Girl 3, Trinity The Tuck - Sex and the Kitty, Girl 3, Kylie Sonique Love - RuMerican Horror Story: Coven Girls, Morgan McMichaels - My Best Squirrelfriend's Dragsmaids Wedding Trip, Latrice Royale - Sex and the Kitty, Girl 3, A'keria C. Davenport - RuMerican Horror Story: Coven Girls, AS7 E8 Santa's School for Girls Acting Challenge. In the new film "Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!,". In the latest TV Legends Revealed, discover how Velma's roots as a lesbian character go back to the actor whose character Velma was based upon! He features legends about entertainment and sports at his website, Legends Revealed and other pop culture features at Pop Culture References. This behavior of Velma's clock . First, they changed the race of the character. To Grandy, this was an acceptable loss, since he and Kaling intended the series to be an adult animation anyway. As Quinton Reviews noted, the animators incorporate pop culture references that aren't supported by the acting or storytelling, tweeting: "The main cop in the show is visually based on Don Knotts, a famous guest in the og show but his voice isn't?" Example: EPA clients (Regions, Office of Water, Office of Air and Radiation) who require information on potential effects of a policy change on . Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. While continuing to build his reputation through mixtapes and collaborations, Lil Wayne released the critically praised album Tha Carter II (2005), which sold more than one million copies. "I'm down if they're bisexual," Lyra Hale of Fangirlish said before adding that the uneven storytelling leaves viewers with "a set of relationships that feel disingenuous from the start.". Why is that the case? As a character, Velma has long been seen as a lesbian icon. Heres how it works. From a business perspective, developing existing properties can help mitigate some of the risk associated with a new production, making the new series less of a gamble. This was on. While OG Fred was a likable fellow with a borderline obsessive love of traps, "Velma" Fred is a narcissistic, barely functional rich kid who can't remember Velma from one interaction to the next. We proved, using Einstein's two basic principles, that if Velma is moving past Mort then Mort should observe Velma's clock to go slow. That and . has never been a show super into details about its characters, preferring just to throw them into the mystery of the week. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Daphne has been consistently depicted as a rich socialite. He is known for his hit albums, mixtapes, and singles including Tha Block Is Hot , "A Milli," and "Lollipop.". Fans have long believed Velma was part of the LGBTQ+ community. And I understand that she's gotten a lot of criticism for the whole series even though she didn't create the show. Well that was quick. In the story, Velma is possessed by a witch but is freed through the magic of song. (another pause) My partner and I were very young and very, very deeply in the closet. KALING: (As Velma Dinkley) Is it called rudeness? Perhaps viewers are beginning to reject the idea that every single franchise they ever enjoyed as children needs to be resurrected into something unrecognizable, and boring. Although "Velma" features a few central characters from the "Scooby-Doo" franchise, it's hard not to notice the very prominent absence of the linguistically gifted Great Dane himself, an absence that many fans of the franchise find hard to swallow. While fans have debated Velma's sexuality from the beginning, Gunn intended to explicitly show that Velma was indeed a lesbian. Donald Trump. %PDF-1.6 % This is a BETA experience. Scooby-Doo: Behind the Scenes, which was also known as Those Meddling Kids, spotlit each member of the Scooby Gang and added in some additional information about them. According to Grandy (who Kaling met when he was writing for "The Office"), Kaling approached him about developing an origin story for the Mystery Inc. gang, something he jumped at. At its public offering price earlier . And then they also show her having a crush on a female friend, leaning into these ideas that the character has always been gay. He was not based on the stereotype, he was based on Maynard G. Krebs from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. But maybe something called Velma as in Scooby Doo, shouldn't start with a girls locker shower scene. Forbes even reported on a theory that Mindy Kaling (the voice of Velma and an executive producer) created the show to parody progressives, though the writer of the piece didn't buy into it. Like, what happened here? "We couldn't get a take on it that was like, 'How do we kind of do this in a fun, modern way?'" So just like how Kuehl came out decades into her public life, so, too, has Velma come out decades into her public existence, as well. "I was NOT laughing when Kaling used transphobic language," said The Feminist Lens. However, more often than not, what happens is that a cartoon will take a character as the general concept and then essentially riff on it. Now here, by changing the character so radically with no real creative benefit, you wind up with a show that removes the reason that the fans originally fell in love with the characters without giving them any new reasons to care. KALING: (As Velma Dinkley) It's Velma from school. Sheila Kuehl (then using her stage name, Sheila James), had been acting since she was a kid, and was finding great success as Zelda Gilroy, as there weren't a lot of roles out there for brainy teen girls on TV, so she was certainly distinct. Velma made her live-action debut in the 2002 Scooby-Doo feature film written and directed by James Gunn. Velmas 10-episode first season will premiere in 2023, so make sure you have an HBO Max subscription by then if you want to check it out. Like, I saw that The Telegraph, a British newspaper, called this the most hated show on TV. Mindy Kaling used the Warner Bros Discovery Upfront presentation Wednesday to let everyone know she doesn't care what you think about her Scooby-Doo animated spinoff Velma on HBO Max. Motorcycle riders wearing. "[We] felt like what made it a kid show was Scooby-Doo." Recently, Scooby Doo fans finally saw confirmation in a canonical Scooby Doo cartoon that one of its main characters throughout its more than 50 years of existence, Velma Dinkley, was, in fact, a lesbian. We were really inspired by Into the Spider-Verse it's animation, we can do anything. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Lil Waynes first solo LP, Tha Block Is Hot, arrived later in 1999 and sold more than a million copies, but two subsequent releases, Lights Out (2000) and 500 Degreez (2002), were less popular with the public. It's a good show. was deemed offensive and insensitive by some reviewers. Again, though, clearly the characters' personalities all developed on their own beyond their initial inspirations. At the show's outset, Velma is obsessed not with Daphne but Fred, which may seem an odd choice for the brainy gal. Velma provides cloud-based marketing automation, content, CRM, and multimedia communication that has delighted our clients since 2007 with its ease of use, quality, and effect Read More Contact Who is Velma Headquarters "Velma," which premiered on HBO Max o n Jan. 12, received mixed to negative reviews from critics and overwhelmingly negative reviews from viewers, with the animated adult series receiving an. The challenge never appeared in the season. Lil Wayne's real name is Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. Lil Wayne released his first album, Tha Block Is Hot, in 1999. Producer Tony Cervone confirmed fans' speculation in an Instagram post where he revealed that Velma was gay. endstream endobj startxref It occurred in the most recent Scooby Doo cartoon TV movie, Trick or Treat, Scooby Doo CBR's own Joshua Patton reacted to the news in a feature where he explained how this news was important, "While some audience members offer both good and bad faith complaints about this, making a character like Scooby-Doo's Velma gay (or bisexual) is a way to increase representation, which can be a good thing. Predictably, groups like the fundamentalist Christian group One Million Moms railed against the series. It's a joke that looks even worse when juxtaposed against a throwaway line from Episode 1, in which one of Daphne's cop moms tells Velma, "You were lurking around the showers like a gym teacher who isn't a gym teacher anymore." On the surface, it seems like "Velma" takes a positive step in changing the races of three main characters. Curse of the Lake Monster, fans find out that her middle name is Daisy. Velma is a reboot of Scooby-Doo that doesn't feature Scooby-Doo, and reimagines the Mystery Gang as a diverse group of teens with dramatically different personalities from the original characters. My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com. I mean, if you think about those live-action Scooby-Doo films, they were always careful about how they modernized the characters 'cause they knew that nostalgia was a big reason why people would show up for them. Your Villa Elma experience will never be completed without making a wish and ringing the bell situated beside the astonishing statue of The Risen Christ. as I've noted in an old TV Legends Revealed. Reboots of beloved childhood films and television shows inevitably become a fierce battleground for the culture war, as adult content creators find new opportunities for performative outrage. An animation enthusiast (anime, US and international films, television). New York, And perhaps because it's such an easy formula to write, "Velma" makes abundant use of this joke writing strategy, much to the chagrin of some viewers. 4th Annual Asian Comedy Fest Comes To New York This May, Super Mario Bros. Movie Tops $1 Billion Box Office In Fourth Weekend, Saturday Conversation: Herbie Hancock On International Jazz Day, What Jazz Means To Him, AI And More, Roo Powell Talks New Season Of Undercover Underage Tracking Down Online Predators, Traverse Nature And Humanity Through The Spiritual, Scholarly, Humorous Visual Narratives Of Artist Josh Tiessen, Video Premiere: Sage Bava, Your Next Great Musical Find, On Reconnecting To Home, Jazz And More, Zack Snyder Full Circle 2023: Man Of Steel 10 Year Retro-Review, Review: Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. Typically, re-imagined shows catch a lot of hate because of their divergence from the source material. Things got even worse when the show's audience ratings tanked on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic. Everyones favorite bespectacled know-it-all has been white since the franchise began in the 1960s. She continues to be a fascinating character over fifty years after her debut. Slate cited the show's adherence to the cash grab streamer formula of "rebooting major IP, darkening the tone of a beloved children's franchise, [and] attempting the 'wokeification' of older franchises." Omissions? Fans find out thatVelma is secretly working for the series' Big Bad, Mr. E, in addition toan unmasked villain from season one, Marcie "Hot Dog Water" Fleach, who just happens to be Velma's rival in her school's science fairs. to Shaggy, the legendary catchphrase actually is a product entirely of Velma, or rather, the actress who played her. Usually, theres a strict divide between progressives and anti-woke content creators, but HBO Maxs Velma has, somehow, united both camps; everyone, it seems, hates Velma. VELMA Users The VELMA 2.0 software and user manual are designed for several kinds of user groups, based on experience and need: Group 1: User describes questions and goals, VELMA team does the rest. KALING: (As Velma Dinkley) I've decided to finally share the bone-chilling events that drove me to assemble the greatest team of spooky mystery-solvers ever. Mindy Kaling explained why Velma's race was changed for the new Scooby-Doo spinoff. But, unlike the backlash from other well-established fandoms, the response to "Velma" seems to be uniting many disparate groups of viewers in their dislike. The subsequent I Am Not a Human Being (2010), released while he was in jail (he ultimately served eight months of a one-year sentence), was stylistically more consistent with his previous work and was better-received. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Although you are right, these are incredibly subtle, Velma's little quirks - along with her smarts, pragmatism, and penchant for short skirts -- sent a big message, leading her to become a long-running icon/common crush among members of the LGBTQAI+ community, a phenomenon Steuver detailed in his article. CHANG: OK. In 2020 he also pleaded guilty to illegally taking a handgun and ammunition on a private plane. Follow him on Twitter at @Brian_Cronin and feel free to e-mail him suggestions for stories about comic books that you'd like to see featured at brianc@cbr.com! The show mocks Fred for being a white man and having a small penis (groundbreaking stuff), but also makes edgelord jokes about how #MeToo has neutered comedians. As Steve Reviews lamented, "You can't go more than two minutes without the show trying to show off how clever and self-aware it is." But there's others who note the way that Velma has this crush on Fred. In 2020 Lil Wayne pleaded guilty to illegally taking a handgun and ammunition on a private plane. "Mindy Kaling openly bragging about sexually harassing co-workers and using her position to threaten people with their jobs," one YouTube user said in the comments section. And then there's Daphne, the ultimate Mean Girl who calls Velma "Vermin" and demands $500 in exchange for Velma's mom's cold case file. After watching Velma, however, the hate seems a tad overblown. Reactions came pouring in, many of them angry, others confused.