Marking the childhood of several generations since its launch in 1969, ‘Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?’ was responsible for introducing Shaggy Roogers, the dog Scooby-Doo, Fred Jones, Daphn Blake and Velma Dinkley, or rather, the beloved “messy kids” who traveled the world in their van nicknamed the Mystery Machine solving the most bizarre cases involving villains costumed.
Due to its popularity, animation focused on children gained a sequence of live-action films that hit theaters in the early 2000s and even new animated productions released over the years, the most recent of which is, ‘Velma‘, spin-off focused on the nerdy girl who wears glasses and an orange sweater that premieres today, 12, on the streaming platform HBO Max.
The new 10-episode series that was Co-created by Mindy Kaling and Charlie Grandy it will be a prelude to all the productions of the ‘Scooby-Doo’ universe released so far, that is, ‘Velma’ will accompany the five friends years before the formation of the investigation group entitled Mistério S/A and will focus on the investigation of a murder. — But will the target audience of this new story still be children?
A MORE ADULT TONE
Leaving aside the monsters that wear masks and fantasy costumes, the new production will focus on solving puzzles and problems involving murderers in order to bring a new audience to the franchise: young people and adults.
That’s because, the kids who watched ‘Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?’ grew, as well as, there is a continuous interest in narratives that involve the horror genres, as is the case of the great success of ‘Dahmer’, from Netflix.
In addition to terror, murder investigations and plots that bring themes such as sexuality were also seen as opportunities by Mindy, who had as inspirations for the development of the story series like ‘Riverdale’ and ‘Veronica Mars’.
“These shows have a lot of stories of young teenagers dealing with murder and crime. Velma seemed like the perfect character to deal with a hostile environment like horror,” said the actress and screenwriter in a chat with journalists during New York Comic Con 2022 (via Tangerina).
Pointing out Riverdale’s influence on ‘Velma’, Grandy said that just like the Netflix series, the animation will seek to answer the main questions involving the origin of the characters of ‘Scooby-Doo’ as young people.
“Because it’s a prelude, we needed to balance current youth issues with a prelude atmosphere. In the end, we chose to take references from Riverdale and other Greg Berlanti series. [produtor de Hollywood] to explore the now. For me, one of the great mysteries of the original Scooby-Doo is how did these four very different people come together? What really brought them together and how were they raised by their parents? This is a topic of teen dramas. Especially today, teenagers pay for the sins of their parents. I really wanted to include that in this series as well.”
In addition, the teenagers involved in detectives will now be involved in a “love quadrangle”, since Shaggy (Sam Richardson) is in love with Velma, who likes Fred (Glenn Howerton), who has a crush on Daphne (Wu), according to highlights techtudo.
Source: Recreio
