How VELMA Became The Most Hated Show Of All Time

I've decided to finally share the bone chilling event that drove me to assemble the greatest team of spooky mystery solvers ever yeah it was me not Fred and his weird sex fan I have something to say and as a man speaking authoritatively you are going to listen to me and you are going to believe me here's your dumb list of hot girls of course if Society we wouldn't have this problem with Fred stop in this day and age you can't speculate about someone's sexuality unless they're famous or Peppermint Patty I'd kill everybody just get away with it it's white guy with a tiny dog [Music] I'm just saying if white people are now the minorities [Music] um [Music] [Music] this video is sponsored by raycon because if I'm going to sit through this trash I might as well get paid for it whether you're looking for some low latency gaming headphones a speaker with a battery that will last through your entire sex playlist or a pair of everyday earbuds like these raycons got your back their custom gel tips offer a fit that's as firm as a father's handshake yet as soft as a Lover's touch not that my audience would know what either of those feels like being sweat and water resistant they're great for making running less unbearable and also for when I go muff diving with your mother good thing they have up to eight hours of battery life too because I'll be down there a while by the way that sound effect is literally called eating juicy meat I'm sorry okay I'm sorry I couldn't not put that in they come with an awareness mode and three customizable sound profiles as well as touch controls that allow you to easily navigate your sound and because they start at half the price of other premium audio Brands you don't need to break the bank to not be left alone with the unbearable Silence of your own thoughts they offer buy now pay later options and every purchase has an easy and free return guarantee to make sure you feel as good about your purchase as a crypto bro does about his latest monkey jpeg so click the link in the description or go to buy recon.com cynicalreviews to get a 15 discount on your order and help support the channel and thanks to raycon for once again fueling my plastic crack addiction all right let's see how fast I can say this okay big thanks to my patrons and YouTube channel members for helping me make videos more information on how you can support and the benefits of doing so at the end now this looks like a job for me so everybody just follow me because we need a little controversy and it be so empty without me I'm about to say something that may prove controversial and yet Brave Thelma is bad so you have chosen death yeah film is bad guys in case you haven't heard that news already oh yes this channel is home to only the most unpopular and spicy of opinions say the line TJ Velma bad yeah but it's hardly unjustified and it's been a long time coming initial announcements for this series were met with a great deal of skepticism its trailers had a reception about as popular as a Bill Cosby combat tour and upon release velma's reception by critics and audiences is perhaps one of the worst I've seen for any mainstream release when IGN only gives it a 6 out of 10 and it isn't a video game that they're too incompetent to play you know something's up it United people across the political Spectrum who either saw it as too woke or too regressive and created an online personalities fell over themselves to produce scathing reviews and parados it's a dumpster fire that's been as entertaining to witness as Elon musk's takeover of Twitter Velma is currently the lowest rated animated series on IMDb as well as being the third lowest rated television series of all time and these two things are one-off programs so Velma does take the title on a technicality and this is after only two months of existence even these possibly fake reviews couldn't save it bit of an oof moment in General really now I've watched a lot of bad stuff in my time I've seen animated projects that were cobbled together by one guy that you could point to and say yeah this is objectively worse than Velma but without any exaggeration I think Velma might be the worst viewing experience I've ever had both as a general audience member and as someone who has to melt their brain with this stuff regularly in order to pay my extortionate energy bills Britain's doing fine by the way thanks for asking but how exactly did we get here the short answer of course is that it's terrible Velma fails to achieve anything that it's set out to achieve and there's not a single aspect in which it could be called successful except for one goal which you should never have attempted in the first place and you've probably heard that from everyone and their mother at this point but there's a lot of contributing factors and reasons to explain this failure and I'd like to take a deeper look at the Colossal mess that is Velma because you know me I love this I love this so so much I'm just gonna say it here before we go any further don't watch this show sometimes I will say that maybe you should check out whatever it is that I'm talking about and make up your own mind and we all love a good ironic watch but in this case not only is it not worth the brain rot but hate watching is exactly what the creators want I'll talk about this a bit more later but yeah for now just don't do it also some of these topics are going to overlap with each other a bit and while I did try to avoid repetition in this script you'll have to forgive me where it wasn't possible and I'm not going to hold back on spoilers but you're not gonna watch it so it doesn't matter right you yeah you you there there's always one isn't there but where to begin this epic Saga well perhaps with a gang [Music] the Scooby-Doo franchise dates all the way back to 1969 and follows the adventures of a gang of teenage sluice called Mystery Incorporated as they travel around in their Mystery Machine solving Mysteries and trying not to get drafted for Vietnam at least that's what I choose to believe the gang of meddling kids consists of All American leading man Fred the danger-prone eye candy Daphne the intelligent but clumsy nerd Velma the cowardly and all but confirmed hippie Stoner Shaggy and the iconic talking Great Dane himself Scooby-Doo typically the gang investigates a supernatural mystery like a monster or ghost that's wreaking havoc in the neighborhood splitting up to search for Clues and inevitably encountering the monster along the way before realizing it's a hoax and capturing the suspect with an elaborate trap unmasking the dastardly Villain at the end its success inspired numerous successor series's spin-offs movies comic books tie-in products and of course incalculable amounts of porn if you grew up in a western country you've probably seen at least one iteration of Scooby-Doo at least once I'm not going to pretend to be overly familiar with all the different versions of Scooby-Doo that were released over the years but the original series was a staple of my childhood I had most of it on VHS tapes remember those kids and I don't know how they didn't wear down for me watching them so much and I'm sure that watching the Hex Girls and Linda Cardellini as Velma probably awaken something in me that's all I'm going to say about that the franchise has had its ups and downs for sure and they've even poked fun at that themselves wow I haven't seen Look Away Daphne we all promised each other that we would never speak of him not ever but despite the years and occasional drops in quality Scooby-Doo still maintains a fairly large and passionate fan base who appreciate it not only for nostalgic reasons but also for its humor like he went through the wall Non-Stop it's a franchise which with some exceptions has been able to remain entertaining and endearing it seems to be generally agreed by most fans that the best series is Mystery Incorporated which ran from 2010 to 2013 and featured a long-running story arc provided more depth to its characters and added more relationship drama and darker elements it also acknowledged its source material occasionally poking fun at it while still respecting and building upon it I haven't seen all of it but if you're gonna watch any version of Scooby-Doo this is the one I'd recommend who the heck can that be [Music] okay [Applause] eventually ownership of Scooby-Doo would pass to Warner Brothers discovery which owns HBO which brings us to the worst iteration of this franchise what if a cartoon said fart no no hear me out what if uh a cartoon now one of the cartoons said fart no you're just repeating yourself okay okay okay what if uh-huh a cartoon yeah said big farts Velma is the brainchild of writer Charlie Grandy known for his work on the office and Saturday Night Live and the comedian Mindy Kaling also known for her time on the office various other film and voice roles and for creating shows such as The Mindy Project on which Grandy also served as a writer the idea was originally kalings and it seems clear that they were more interested in making an adult animated comedy first and a Scooby-Doo show second which explains a great deal what we first wanted it we knew that we wanted to do an adult animated show and it felt like these are high schoolers we love the Velma character she's always been so smart so brave and now it's like let's raise the stakes they both claim to be fans of the Scooby-Doo franchise and so the idea of an adult-oriented origin story for its characters fit in with the type of project they already wanted to make I started I have I work with Warner Brothers and I've never done an animation before and so it's really exciting to see the entire Canon of Hannah Barbera cartoons that they have and I I obviously big fan of Scooby-Doo was raised watching almost every iteration of it and really loved the character of Velma and I said to Charlie like would you have any interest in doing something that told her origin story and he was into it yeah yeah I instantly said yes I mean I've always loved animation particularly adult animation so it just combined a bunch of uh sort of ideas that I wanted to pursue into one project it was just fantastic and thus we have Velma which seeks to tell the story of how Mr Incorporated came to be while offering a more adult interpretation of the franchise and its characters your Spide Ascent should already be tingling because this has been done before well sort of shows like college humor Robot Chicken and Family Guy have all featured adult parodies of Scooby-Doo oh you're right scoob we're dealing with one sick son of a [ __ ] and darker interpretations of its characters is an idea that's been mean to [ __ ] over the past few decades there was even a Blair Witch Project parody produced by Cartoon Network the Scooby-Doo project and it isn't just parodies there are projects like The Unofficial fan series Mystery Incorporated which also seeks to tell a more realistic origin story and there was even that R-rated version of the live-action film that James Gunn never got to make unfortunately my point is that while it may not have been the basis for any Standalone series before Velma at least not that I'm aware of the idea of a more adult take on Scooby-Doo isn't exactly fresh and original and as Studios try to replicate the success of shows like South Park and Rick and Morty the genre of adult animation has already long been saturated to hell with countless examples of cheaply produced unfunny Trek so when somebody says they want to make an adult animation about Scooby-Doo your first thought is probably oh God how much is this one going to make me want to commit super cool it's also incredibly unnecessary what I loved about the original Scooby-Doo was the mix of horror and humor and so it was like okay how can I create a version of Scooby-Doo like of that gang that is funny and scary in a way that I would appreciate and adults might appreciate but loads of adults already appreciate Scooby-Doo for what it is you don't need to consciously make it more adult in order to appeal to older audiences and there are plenty of examples of content that may not be specifically catered to adults but nevertheless can be enjoyed by them and thereby cultivate a grown-up audience of its own not only is it unnecessary but they also went about making it more adult in probably the worst way that they could have I'll talk about the other aspects of this approach later but by far the most important one I think is that the creators seem to believe that in order to make the show adult they had to make everything about it miserable everything in Velma sucks and not just in terms it's poor quality I don't think I've ever seen a show so openly hostile to its own IP and its characters its own audience or even itself Velma oozes with an unjustifiably harsh cynicism towards all of these and a mean-spirited bitterness pervades the entire show it's like they looked at other shows that were dark and gritty reimaginings of ips and thought that they had to do the same while also removing any warmth in humanity that allows its audience to stay grounded and justifies them sticking around basically they went too far and ended up not being compelling but instead repulsive and nowhere is this more prevalent than in the Title Character herself oh that was horrible you're horrible what took you so long idiot my name is Velma Dinkley this is my story told my way Kaling and Grande decided that this show would be an opportunity to bring of all the gang Velma to the Forefront here's a gang that was already assembled at its you know at its Center is this young girl who's like so brilliant and sort of not traditional looking for a lot of other cartoons and I was like let's give her let's make her the front and center like mystery solver and all this ah here's this girl who's sort of a smart one does all of the work doesn't get nearly enough credit I'm not sure what these people are smoking I would ask for some but I don't think even that would have helped me through this but as far as I'm aware Velma definitely never did all the work and she definitely got credit she was never any more of a comedic punching bag or went under-appreciated more than say Shaggy despite jokes about her losing her glasses or having to deal with Shaggy being a crappy boyfriend and Mr Incorporated she was always considered a highly valuable member of the group and the whole point is that she was part of a group that sold Mysteries together no member of the group should be brought to the Forefront because without each other it's not Scooby-Doo of course the real reason why the show centers around Velma is because she's played by Kaling which itself wouldn't be an issue but this Velma is a very obvious self-insert for Kaling herself but when but when Mindy came to me said I want to do this you connected with the character saying ah here's this girl who's sort of a smart smart one does all of the work doesn't get nearly enough credit so you connected on that level so then when we've got glasses short hair yeah yeah she's often spoken about how much she identified with the character of Velma from a young age growing up I just was one of the only people around the animated character I could really identify with you know she's obviously not Indian but she's I felt like she was like you know like really pretty but in an untraditional way like super smart and unafraid of being smart um big big thick glasses which like obviously I can identify with and uh so when you know I started working with Warner Brothers animation and they had this whole catalog of the Hannah Barbera cartoons she was the first one that I thought wow that would be really interesting to find out about her origin story more evidence for this is the decision to match the character's ethnicity to that of kalings we had a conversation or like okay well velma's white and we have this new choice to do the show and if I'm voicing her should she be white or should we be not again I identify so much as her character and I think so many people do so we just said like yeah let's make her Indian in this series oh okay I can already predict how the uh the Youtube comments are gonna go so I'll talk about the race swapping aspect a bit later so save your spicy comments until then you you naughty naughty boys if you still don't believe me Kaling has already developed a reputation for inserting herself into her Creations in some form one noticeable Trend in her work is featuring nerdy Indian girls who have a crush on arrogant white guys and very often her love interests are white men so guess what happens in Velma oh yeah well we'll get to that and for those who want to point out that she isn't credited as a co-creator or as a writer and use that to excuse her it's far from uncommon especially in comedy for lead actors to play a significant role in the creative process without actually being credited for it hell a significant portion of the Judd Apatow movies were entirely improvised by the cast and based on what this Velma says and does and the fact that Kaling is an executive producer on the show I find it utterly inconceivable that she had no creative role whatsoever now self-insert characters aren't inherently bad and can be used to good effect and it's far from uncommon for creators to put parts of their own personalities into their characters but there's a difference between a cameo or autobiographical inspiration and blatantly inserting yourself into a work and then having its whole world revolve around you which is the case here and it's especially distasteful when you do this with an existing character that already has a fan base at that point you can't just treat them as your play thing and it's nothing short of arrogant to force your own opinions and mindset into such a character and then claim that you're doing them Justice especially when you say how much you're honored to voice a character even when you're the one who created the show you cast yourself you don't get to say stuff like this Velma immediately struck a lot of people myself included as being a Brazen vanity project for its lead and no one likes vanity projects except the vain people who make them by the way this is a small percentage of people but it really made me think like okay we gotta be really careful with this character which we will be because we really love her yes have great adventures and were they careful with this character boys and girls were they [ __ ] I can safely say that this Velma is perhaps the single most loathsome annoying irritating unfunny and uncharismatic protagonist in any piece of media I have ever consumed it's a genuine wonder how they thought any viewer would want to identify with her or get invested in her story never have I screamed shut the [ __ ] up at the screen more than while I was watching this show and never have I wanted to punch a character in the face so much and she's not even the villain she's the main character around which the whole show revolves a Mystery Incorporated Velma was sassy but in a way that was still endearing and didn't go too overboard when a Garrison of Spanish conquistadors mysteriously vanished from the harbor oh that is so scary where do they go what part of the word mystery didn't you understand and it's certainly possible for a character to be sarcastic or negative but still likeable except here they've confused being sassy with just insulting people so she comes across as incredibly mean not now Velma this is real estate Championship really it's not the entertainment at a virgin convention she's not sassy she's just a dick and that's putting it mildly she constantly insults everyone around her Velma that's not fair I'm not just a waitress I'm also a basic [ __ ] who doesn't even know how to use hashtags she's incredibly judgmental despite being an absolutely no position to judge others what are you crazy finding Fred innocent would require me to admit I'd incorrectly prejudge someone she often displays a deep-seated insecurity towards those who are more popular and conventionally attractive than her Brenda wait did you climb in my locker to prove how skinny you are again oh we get it this is despite her refusing to do anything about her own body or self-esteem issues then I have to eat a whole pie to feel better and I will die before I give that up what's another way to cure daddy issues she body shames other people but anyone who body shames her is portrayed as a bad person especially from a student who is in no danger from a hot girl murderer the occasional self-deprecation doesn't make up for this person who's ever found me Irreplaceable this is so extreme that it results in sociopathic levels of callousness and cruelty but then the outcropping started to break off and there are weight your weight please legally both of you should still be in car seats who the [ __ ] says something like that in this situation not once does she ever express any sympathy for the other students who are brutally murdered by a serial killer and she makes a point of rubbing it into their friend who for all she knows might be mourning and scared that she'll be next what do you want Vermin just to offer my sincerest condolences for the loss of your more popular friends that you picked over me what a charmer if you hadn't already gathered she is an immensely toxic person she's narcissistic for starters the ego on this girl is unbelievable my criminal parents also abandoned me like I was a puppy after quarantine I'm sorry but is that bigger than no no you're right a good friend would been there for you even if your thing wasn't worse than her thing she has to make everything about herself and be the center of attention regardless of how appropriate it is in that situation yeah I have won how come no one ever cared this much about my missing Mom I'm just spitballing here but it might be because multiple young women have been found brutally murdered whereas your mum just went out to get some milk why would you Market her as having main character energy you do realize that's not a good thing to have right with one possible exception everything she does in this show is for her own selfish gain and she pursues it regardless of the negative consequences for those around her she treats her best friend like trash and is just using him for her own gain up look Gigi and I have decided that maybe I should spend less time with you less time but I only see you when I need you as is she's ungrateful but when it comes to truly crappy parents no one beats my dad I think Joseph fritzer would like a word you think your life is hard she's condescending it's the one call to the registrar and voila it's pronounced Viola you idiot and that's an orchestra thing she's controlling Daphne Daphne what have I told you about texting during my times of need she's manipulative and Norville in light of the recent Revelation I take advantage of you I couldn't expect you to do this for me so oh well I guess my house will just get destroyed she seemingly has no control of her impulses or emotions and she's hypocritical and lacks any sense of self-awareness wait until you see how much pizza I eat I can eat three slices yeah right now you're throwing stones from the world's fattest Glass House her list of sins is longer than the list of celebrities who went to Epstein's Island but here's a few of her more noteworthy calamities before we move on she steals Daphne's diary and starts reading out all of her personal [ __ ] to the entire school and then makes fun of her for going to therapy somehow thinking that she has the moral High Ground she fakes having a panic attack in order to prevent Daphne from spending time taking sexy pictures with a hot girl because she's jealous and at the very end of the season it's revealed that the villain is Fred's mum who then gets brutally crushed to death velma's reaction to this is to start twerking because all she can think about is how she solved the mystery not an ounce of care that the other teenagers just saw someone violently unlifed or that Fred just saw his mother get game ended right in front of him honestly this image is just the whole show in a nutshell and they've made her disgusting but not in a way that's funny or enhances her character in some way Sophie told me I can't pee in the shower anymore because that's where she bathes Amanda now I have to pee in the shower at school like a weirdo it's very transparently an attempt to make us laugh at her for being such a disgusting slob but I hate this character so much that when she's humiliated or made fun of whether by herself or others I don't care it isn't funny it's just sad and pathetic it isn't cathartic it's just sickening it's like yeah we know you're a disgusting skid mark of a person now go away now this may be hard to believe but I was never that popular gee I wonder why and would you believe it it gets even worse you see Velma has a lot of opinions a lot of very annoying opinions you know that sjw like raging feminist stereotype you know the ones who let the side down by just being obnoxious idiots well Velma would make even those people cringe it's not that I'm happy right but are you having a baby or did Society tell you to have a baby are you having a stroke or did Society tell you to be a [ __ ] idiot I thought Santa ink was bad in terms of putting certain opinions on your face but holy [ __ ] nothing I've ever seen comes even remotely close to this level of insufferable politicizing there's a serial killer on the loose in the town of Crystal Cove and the police deduced that the Killer is only targeting hot women so they decide to figure out who the hottest girls are and assigned protection squads to them Velma of course objects couple of middle-aged white dudes are going to decide which of us are hottest note that her objection is not to the police only protecting a few women and leaving the rest at the Killer's Mercy it's to who's doing the judging okay well if you have a better idea how to make the list maybe you should do it Velma you want me to make the list I'd rather die for some unfathomable reason they decide to let her write the list instead which she reluctantly does but she [ __ ] about it the entire time [ __ ] this is exactly the problem with this list men make everything about them and what they want you literally did this in the presentation scene three minutes ago and it's literally what you're doing with this list unlike the most off-putting of this type of person she's hypocritical about her beliefs our whole lives girls are told by guys there's a right way to be hot and I'm not it guys even teach us to be ashamed of our own bodies she's body shamed multiple people by this point in the story every little kid knows how to draw a penis but make a little kid draw a vagina and what happens oh also penises are way easier and funnier to draw everyone knows that it's not that deep she cheats and gets Fred to make the list Becca and Kimmy but Kimmy's so sweet wait is it an inner beauty thing because a girl who's nice can't also be hot what is that supposed to mean of course if Society exerted half this effort teaching girls not to be slaves to the patriarchy we wouldn't have this problem in the first place she must be an absolute riot at children's parties rather than wasting police money on protection details they task her with making the hot girls unattractive like her wait so you're saying I get to actually release these girls from the shackles of the male gays exactly because women can't possibly want to look a certain way just for themselves for their own self-esteem it has to be that pesky patriarchy but you're more than your looks Olive you can reverse your car without even looking at the camera I know Velma just like I know I love looking hot this is of course slot shaming and she's called out for it this wasn't an exercise in deprogramming it's an exercise in [ __ ] shaming no woman should ever have to change who she is or how she dresses to not be murdered you think every girl deep down is like you but you're wrong in fact your definition of Womanhood is even more restrictive than ours this is one of the show's better moments and it leads to a brief crisis of conscience it's just that after yesterday I have no clue how to be a woman in a way that doesn't judge other women at the end of the episode she accepts that both ways of being a woman are equally valid saying what world see asses I'm all sassing glasses baby but then a couple of episodes later she's right back to it proving she learned nothing at all Velma what are you doing up there I'm doing what every girl is doing up here I'm just trying to get my dad's attention she also has a huge chip on her shoulder about men and while there are legitimate issues in society to do with gender differences and so on that need a dressing she comes across like the most delusional man-hating stereotype she goes to a festival dressed as a man and predictable joke since you oh my God that was amazing guys put zero pressure on you to wash your hands Daphne and the hot girls now find her attractive which I refuse to believe since she looks like a depressed penny stock Trader whose wife is [ __ ] the milkman wait a second as a guy everyone thinks my worst qualities as a girl are awesome you know what this is this is a blatant attempt to address criticism of this character that they knew they'd receive a common response to people not liking an unpleasant or irritating female character is well you'd find them funny if they were a man which no we wouldn't in this case side note I'm really happy that BuzzFeed is dying because this article is [ __ ] cancer also D from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a great example of a female character who is a terrible human being but still popular with audiences so there's no excuse there holy crap no wonder men are so desperate to hold on to their power this is the easiest [ __ ] ever as a guy I can do anything I should point out that apart from a few sexist comments now and then there's no evidence whatsoever that her life has been made harder because she's a woman as opposed to her having the Charisma of a toilet brush it's embarrassing how hard she projects oh and then there's all the comments about white people why wouldn't he If I Were a Rich white dude I'd kill everybody just to get away with it 99 of the time yes hey no offense but can we just let the actual doctor explain just being a white guy with a clipboard doesn't cut it anymore drugs here get your drugs here Bart Mark white girl with too much money white girl with too much money race was never mentioned why did you feel the need to bring it up enjoy your slow descent into organic farming losers I'm sure if somebody made jokes about her liking Curry she wouldn't appreciate it very much [Music] I'm not gonna do it I'm not gonna say it but I'm not I'm not gonna make a comment I'm not I'm not I'm not gonna do it I I am the better man wow I can't believe that's your mom I mean playing God removing brains that's some white people [ __ ] I guess velma's never heard about Unit 731 if you don't understand that reference don't look into it it's a it's it's pretty gnarly God what um wow blonde-haired people have bad days too what the [ __ ] are you talking about I feel like I'm back on Tumblr in 2014. I'm just gonna say it this film is a racist there's no EVS or Bots or well actually is about it this character is a racist don't believe me I'm going to repeat a few things she says in the show but change the word white to Jew all right I have to point out that none of this is delivered with even the slightest degree of Charisma irony skill or Insight that might make it redeemable instead we're left with this Fred's a rich white guy with a tiny dong he did it this character is meant to be for the most part the morally Superior one in this universe but she sucks but supposedly everyone else sucks more so it's okay but it isn't I don't care about her backstory I don't care about what she wants I don't care about what happens to her I just want to see her take a one-way trip to the Challenger Deep hey you want to see something cool but even worse they've taken this intelligent capable and beloved character and reduced her to the human equivalent of an anal fissure if I were a fan of this franchise I'd be absolutely fuming well excuse was me for having enormous flaws that I don't work on I mean that should be enough really the main character of the show the title character of this show is such a complete piece of rotting smegma that you have no reason to even want to see them fail that alone would kill any show straight up but it doesn't end there in fact we've barely even begun because of course Velma isn't alone you wankers you total total wankers I've wasted my life hacking morons I [ __ ] hear you [ __ ] off [ __ ] off let's talk about Fred Jones I have a disease where I can't recognize people who aren't hot my doctor says it's basically Sickle Cell for Rich guys it's important to note that Fred was the only member of the main cast who wasn't race swapped and it was for an incredibly bad faith reason yeah the whiteness of the characters was not it didn't feel integral to them except Fred as we Fred Fred just felt like a very white person what does that even mean well apparently what it means is that Fred who was a brave and natural leader for Mr Incorporated despite having failings and dumb moments of his own Daphne now I need to talk to her Daphne's gone call me Crush on it lady I'm serious where is she is now a vain self-centered stupid and incompetent rich boy crap I'm all syrupy bathies he's also incredibly sexist what was he doing there I don't know my dad told me never to pay attention to women over 35 and he's also a racist because hey why not double down on this character assassination it's Velma from school you cheated off me in Spanish because you think I'm Mexican before you just started talking I thought you were a housekeeper philma give me the chance and I can help you with anything except filling in your ethnicity on a form I'm guessing Samoan and despite having done absolutely nothing in the past to deserve this treatment Fred is humiliated at every possible turn it's not like previous installments didn't also make jokes at Fred's expense but there was still a fundamentally likable character to get attached to here it's very evident that they just wanted to have a rich white man in the course that they could make jokes about and degrade whenever they got the chance Fred is probably innocent yeah but isn't it a little comforting to see a rich white guy get wrongly convicted from once so naturally he has a tiny penis which they joke about multiple times because of course body shaming is okay when we do it but also that he was just another entitled rich guy who might kill someone because he has a tiny dong and the reason for this and his boyish good looks is because he hasn't gone through puberty yet which feels like a cheap thing to joke about while also pretending to be morally Superior it's also immensely hypocritical to try to use Fred as a way to comment on and criticize toxic masculinity and then to continually make fun of his body and because he's a rich white guy with a small dick he has anger and entitlement issues although to be fair if someone had told an entire Courthouse of people that I have a small dick I'd be I'd probably be pissed off as well it sucks even more because he's voiced by Glenn Howerton who's amazing and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and I'm just like man I hope you got paid well at least hey guys I'm Fred Jones vote for me for fog king or I will make it my life's work to destroy you see if they just made him a lovable sociopath like Dennis from It's Always Sunny it could have been funny albeit still a terrible portrayal of Fred Brenda's dead what no she was my plan B if you ever got too clingy what happened but humiliating him was more important I do miss my mom prison is cool but nobody watches me pee quite like mother wow and remember how I said that kayling is into white guys perhaps weirdly so yeah gentlemen he came in the show and we had to do this flashback sequence where we were in bed together in college and we're just supposed to be having a conversation but like he's so tall and he's so handsome that in the middle of it he was she's just supposed to be like what do you think Mindy and I was like and that looked around and I improvised just kissing him in the scene which was not in the script it's not you just went for it you just started kissing that guy that picture yeah just looming he was looming above me yeah and he asked me a question I was not listening to him at all because who cares what he was saying and I was just like and then and then he reacted like that and I pretend it didn't happen and then I walked backstage we have two writer producers um I can like Baron Helton Davis Dawson and they were like hey man what are you doing you could be sued for that and I got very scared uh and then I said um tell anyone and you're fired I'm sorry what the [ __ ] yeah so basically that's going to be happening a lot more now too because you got away with it so of course Velma likes Fred even though she hates him sorry Fred but for what it's worth I am keeping the picture you sent me for plane rides just so you're gonna masturbate to it don't even bother with euphemisms at this point and after she gives him a copy of the Feminine Mystique which reprograms his brain into being feminist so I'm sorry I'm [ __ ] really [ __ ] sake he starts liking her based on her inner beauty which also doesn't [ __ ] exist I wish I was making this up this is nothing short of fan fiction and a bad one at that it's not like this hasn't been done before and also funnier all you care about are swimsuit models no look I'm a man of substance the dorky chicks like you turn me on too again none of this is funny or insightful or even original reducing Fred to an angry bigoted Rich small [ __ ] white guy with daddy issues is just insulting to this character and the fans that love him I'm just saying if white people are now the minorities on campus Daphne I actually have the least to say about I say that but she's now a sarcastic violent high school [ __ ] with parental issues yay we're your parents Daphne my parents why are you so hairy wait Glenn guys she's now Asian and match our voice actress Constance Wu I mean I think traditionally Daphne's always thought of as just the hot girl and usually the hot girl is the object not the subject I think it's like oh it's really nice to get to play somebody who's like used to be sort of thought of in that way and make her a real person you can only really say this about the OG Series in which yeah there wasn't a whole lot of depth to her character but iteration since then especially Mr Incorporated have done a lot to give her layers and flesh out her character further so no this was neither necessary nor original are you noticing a pattern yet and neither is showing Daphne being physically tough even the live action movie did this more than 20 years ago now who's the dams on distress straight up but I guess they just wanted to Pat themselves on the back and make themselves feel important this Daphne is one of the hot girls at school yeah real original interpretation there guys and a former friend of Velma she also sells drugs because this is an adult show she's dating Fred but also has feelings for Velma oh yeah that's a whole thing in this show but we'll get there when we get there I wouldn't exactly say that she's likable but she's the most likable out of the main cast although it's more accurate to say that she's the least detestable of the gang members she was the one whose character was butchered the least hence why I don't have a huge amount to say at this juncture but then there's Shaggy or Norville and look how they massacred my boy doesn't even come close to encapsulating it Norville Rogers more commonly known as Shaggy has always been one of the primary comic relief characters of The Gang although he's a lazy coward who would rather be eating and hanging out with his best body scoob than Chasing Ghosts he's hilarious endearing and a long time fan favorite so much so that he's the only regular character to appear in every version of Scooby-Doo but this Norville is to Shaggy what a bundle of tissue soaked in pisses to the Sistine Chapel let's go down I'm normal you are who I say you are he's velma's only friend not so secret admirer and reluctant assistant to her investigations he's no longer a coward as such and while you were out slaying [ __ ] he was studying the blade The Shaggy power memes were already a thing and I think there could have been potential to build on these and make him hilariously overpowered one punch man style shame really it's been a long-running joke that shaggy is into drugs and although the creators denied that they ever meant to employ this it's been an enduring meme I'm Mary Jane like that is my favorite name really yeah no way but here he's definitely not into drugs at all no sir he is straight edge for life I think it has something to do with drugs which I hate and I guess I can see the joke they were going for but it ends up not being nearly as funny as the unspoken implication that shaggy likes to 420 Blazer man if I ever even think about getting into 420 420 culture or especially 420 related humor kill me although since he's now black I can also see why they wouldn't want to embrace the black character as a stoner stereotype as is to be expected there's a lot of jokes at his expense and not in a light-hearted way as in previous iterations yeah take out a new pair of pants what's wrong with my pants you promised me you were going to start caring more about your appearance but I like these pants you've worn them since the eighth grade they're comfortable pants look how pathetic this guy is please laugh kinda way my dad says therapy is in my blood I just got my mom to admit she never wanted kids this did lead to an unintentionally racist moment where they accidentally evoked the black men abandon their kids stereotype I mean of course how hard can watching it be right Norville [Music] I've been for college he's also completely emasculated and if I win Norville does whatever I say forever and do I get to weigh in no Velma points out that his dad has taught him how to be a beta male and that it's lame this is after she's gone on many supposedly feminist rants I should point out so he decides to overcompensate by acting really Alpha but they don't use this as an opportunity to criticize and ridicule the concept of Alpha and beta males which would have made sense based on other things said in the show instead the entire joke is that he specifically is bad at it I'm out of here and I might be late for dinner don't pour my milk and when his dumbass attempts to imitate Andrew tightly to his girlfriend almost dying he becomes beta again again not because being an alpha is bad but because he is bad at being one despite being a bit of a doofus Shaggy was capable of having some game but Norville not only lacks game but is really [ __ ] weird and actually quite horrible to his girlfriend also for what it's worth Daphne is technically harder you just have a mildly better personality [Music] that yeah that that's a thing to say yeah that is certainly a thing you could say all right it's embarrassing normal how's it embarrassing to be considered the second hottest girl in school well third of you throwing my mom the worst thing though is that he is a massive simp for Velma I like you like like you wait what no you don't you're like a brother to me that's hilarious and yes they make so many jokes about this you're the main character in all my dreams okay stop I'm peeing if Velma had an only fans he'd be uploading contributes to her on PornHub and selling his organs to be a top-tier donor in fact he does try to sell a kidney for her at one point but just so he can blackmail her into going on a date it very quickly stops being funny in fact it never is and goes straight to being sad any more simping for her we're through Gigi I'm not doing this because I'm simping for Velma I'm simping or myself oh yeah but you can't feel sorry for him either because he's a nice guy TM men make everything about them and what they want not me I'm an ally now get back to my question someone who pretends to be nice in the hopes of getting laid and doesn't actually care and is therefore as much of a scumbag as the others no don't kiss me I'm already too confused kissing me would confuse you wait why this isn't about you right now just make me laugh like last time but a kiss might awaken passions we've been too scared to admit why did deprive ourselves that knowledge in fact his motivation to get Velma to like him causes him to threaten to abandon Daphne in a scary place by herself because he realizes he can no longer copy the parts of her personality that Velma likes I hate danger so I can't mimic your personality to make Velma like me yeah that's what I've been trying to do no trust me there's someone other than Velma out there for you yeah sorry I can't do this dumb talk anymore I'm gonna have what what a stand-up guy the downgrade from what we had before just boggles the mind for all Shaggy's faults he was lovable Norville can just [ __ ] right off into the Sun but what about Scooby-Doo where is he we need some help from him now Scooby himself isn't in this series aside from a few scattered references and Easter eggs Scooby Scooby and wait what did Scooby Do there was a rumor going around that this character who becomes norville's girlfriend was going to be the equivalent of Scooby-Doo in this show that turned out to be just misinformation and I'm glad the creators weren't that stupid at least there were several reasons for this but bluntly Warner Brothers wouldn't let the dogs out so when we're thinking about what show what makes an adult show that the dog spooky is what really seemed to we couldn't get a take on it yet that was like how do you kind of do this in a you know fun modern way that coincides up like what what made it a kid show was Scooby-Doo that coinciding with Warner Brothers animation saying hey you can't use the dog so you're like great Warner Brothers wouldn't let them use Scooby and something adult that would tarnish the image of such a popular and beloved children's character and the creators couldn't figure out how to integrate Scooby into this adult animation anyway so it was convenient for them and I sort of get it what were they gonna do make him a grizzled traumatized former police dog who can't even talk because this is meant to be more realistic I don't think anybody would have wanted to see that although unironically if they'd made Scooby the killer that would have been better than what we got I also take this as more proof that they wanted to make an adult animation first and a Scooby-Doo show second for me the biggest mystery of um Scooby-Doo just the the original is how can a dog die you know we can't have the dog from Warner said we couldn't ever use it and that was okay because again like the dog is what rooted it as a kid's show I don't know for me personally without Scooby himself an essential part of the formula and gang Dynamic is lacking to the extent that I would question why you would bother at all because it isn't Scooby-Doo at that point my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined and so the Beloved Mystery Incorporated has been reduced to a gaggle of petty immature hypocritical obnoxious [ __ ] it's been an unfortunate Trend in recent times for iconic and adored characters to be mangled due to creative incompetence and ego but desecration of the characters to this extent should be considered a war crime punishable by defenestration you can't say things like and additionally we wanted to you know we love the original it really is a love letter to the original that honors the original show and really we want to just honor the original Scooby as much as we can and then create something like this do you even hear the words that are coming out of your mouth and this lies at the very heart of why Velma failed to be a Scooby-Doo show none of that warmth Good Humor gang banter adventurous spirit and group dynamic that fans love so much has been carried over because the creators didn't want it regardless of what they say there's simply no reason for fans to watch this any more than anyone would want to watch their beloved puppies stabbed strangled curb stomped and pissed on in front of them and what about the origin story angle well these characters are so far removed from what made the gang who they are that they simply aren't even the same characters and your attempts to provide an origin story for them are simply moot because they're not the same characters and they try and excuse this by saying yeah I mean it's an origin story so that for me it's always like how did they get from A to B so I think when you first meet the characters they'll be different than what you what you're used to but you stick with the series because you sort of see where you're going we drop Easter eggs along the way and you know and so those moments when a character does something that um uh is sort of more identified with their original version it's like ah okay now I now I get it no amount of character progression could make this Velma into the Velma we all know and love mad no I'm so excited now you have Gigi to talk about boring stuff like your swords and feelings so when we're together we can focus solely on finding my mom and you've made these characters utterly unwatchable why would I want to stick around I've got so many better things to do like see which of the bottles under my sink tastes the best what is a fan of this franchise supposed to do when presented with this how did you expect them to react what's a general audience supposed to do when you insist that these are the characters they're supposed to care about you know what they do they go no I'm not watching this go [ __ ] yourselves and they decided to try to explain things that never needed explaining I wanted to pay tribute to all of the iconic either items or sayings you know I wanted to I wanted it to mean something when Thelma said jinkies for the first time you know you where does it come from you know sort of why is her vision so bad you know just those things that you know about velma's like okay well let's put story weight behind this but most of these things didn't need a justification maybe she was just born with bad eyesight maybe she says jinkies because she doesn't want to say holy [ __ ] hairy [ __ ] stained ball sacks it really ain't that deep Bro and the way they explain these things is so stupid so I put on my mom's glasses and vowed I wouldn't open her gift until I found her so you just messed up your eyesight because you're an idiot well done my glasses I hope this doesn't keep happening her iconic catchphrase jinkies is written on a note left by her missing mum which gives her a clue but it's so forced jinkies jinkies why are you saying jinkies is this like when you tried to make keep it Frosty a thing cheekies okay now you're totally trying to make it a thing and why do we need to know how she got her red shoes they're not important at all why waste any time on this who gives a [ __ ] I'm definitely searching for her lost parents because she wants to know why she as an Asian girl has naturally red hair and this is the answer say yes and we'll tell you why you have orange hair oh my God yes during pregnancy like a lot like I should be dead oh this is so flippant and anticlimactic why should I take the show seriously when this is how seriously it takes itself [Music] it's worse than pointless or frivolous though it's outright disrespectful despite claims to love the franchise Velma repeatedly insults it you're saying my mom was taken by the ghost of your mom really I thought only idiots in b-list actresses believed in ghosts it turns out that Fred is the one who painted the flowers on the future mystery machine but since the joke is that they look terrible because he's incompetent this is directly dunking on the original design because nothing's trashier or more petal tinged than teens in an old van on that note the mystery machine now does look like a free candy pedo van which aptly sums up how Velma treats its IP in general you know what 420 is right um yeah it's code for adults who still watch cartoons yeah insult your own audience see how that works out for you at one point they emulate a Chase sequence from the original show complete with music and sound effects problem is it's not a new recording it sounds like it's from the 60s and is therefore very jarring out of place with the rest of the show would it have been too much to just record a new version stop going through doors like this isn't physical oh this isn't possible that's the [ __ ] joke an old tiny photo booth we can disguise ourselves daddy looks stupid it will take at least five minutes to change who would ever stop to put on a costume in the middle of a Chase my doctor has advised that I watch my blood pressure so why don't you just go away you nincompoopy person I think Charlie did such a brilliant thing with the the writing staff of taking all these things and providing Easter eggs so that real fans of the show know that we like know the series Inside and Out Easter eggs might make a good show more interesting for fans but they don't do anything to redeem a badge show or convince fans that know this is good actually so throwing in Easter eggs and references in a pathetic attempt to make the fan base squealing Glee does nothing to compensate for any of this and actually adds more insult to injury by reminding them that better versions of this exist it also makes it worse because it proves that the creators weren't ignorant about the IP they just didn't care well it appears I've gotten away with it you meddling [ __ ] tinfoil hat on her but you can almost feel that they secretly resented having to tie their own ideas into an existing property and took out that resentment by ruining it out of spite Velma is the worst thing to happen to the Scooby-Doo franchise since Scrappy-Doo so much so that it doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard everyone in this room is now Dumber for having listened to it and may God have mercy on your soul we'll get to the comedy in a bit but the other aspects of the writing are also less than subpar real surprising I know the story is that Velma is investigating a serial killer that's preying on hot girls in her hometown of Crystal Cove while also trying to find out what happened to her mum who went missing two years beforehand recruiting the other members of the gang along the way aside from any other issues the story itself is poorly written and the narrative is riddled with numerous examples of stupidity the crystal mines of course that would explain how the serial killer moves around unseen there's a sewer system under the entire city and you already knew about this you smooth brained bint it made me think that the writing team's favorite food was wood glue there's so many of these that I can't possibly go through every one so here's some of the more egregious like for example the first two dead girls are discovered in velma's locker and garbage bin so she's treated as a suspect but Fred gets convicted based on the flimsiest reasoning and then exonerated but never does the suspicion pass back to Velma like you'd think it would she basically gets her free pass it's never shown how Velma obtains Daphne's Journal I mentioned earlier leading to a not insignificant plot hole when she's dressed as a man she gets up on stage to convince everyone that the Killer is real and not just a ghost and everyone believes her because of the male privilege she apparently now has I have something to say and as a man speaking authoritatively you are going to listen to me and you are going to believe me the insultingly Named Scooby turns out to be a plan to swap the brains of soldiers with those of hippies back in the 60s because this General really hated those meddling kids norville's Grandma was the scientist in charge of this program but she went insane and hid her journal so no one could recreate her work eventually it's revealed that she wasn't insane but she did hide the journals in order to foil the scheme but why not just destroy the journals completely if that's what she wanted they're made of paper this doesn't make any sense it's such a massive contrivance oh and they established that snapping your fingers breaks someone out of hypnosis but it's never brought up again even when multiple characters turn out to have been hypnotized and it would have been useful too much of the time Vilma figures something out due to chance or pure rather than her own intelligence which cheapens the mystery Velma finds a clue by reading one of her mum's smutty stories which features invisible ink she then holds up the jinky's note she found which was written by her mum revealing what turns out to be the serial Killer's phone number it's never explained how her mum who was kidnapped and hypnotized discovered this number or obtained invisible ink or how she even escaped from wherever she was being confined in the last episode Velma Gets a Clue because her glasses were made by Fred's parents company as was the Killer's pocket watch that she found and the general used this type of watch to hypnotize people therefore Fred's mum must be the killer that's so flimsy that could all be a complete coincidence and I don't care if the franchise ever did stuff like this before it's still dumb as hell but the best part you want to know the best part Fred's mom wants to plant another brain inside Fred because he's too much of a dumbass to entrust the company to and she wants the brain of a woman who would appreciate the advantages that being a rich white man would bring her and she suddenly decides that that is Velma yes this is why they've had her make so many snarky comments about men and white people throughout the show just so they could set up this moment my brain just about dribbled out of my nose at this point and like I said this is just some of the issues with the plot there are also many examples where proper care and attention to detail was lacking some of these are minor things that you wouldn't notice unless you were paying attention but there's enough of them that it makes the presentation really sloppy and some of them lead to story errors like how they figure out the password to the Killer's phone because only those numbers have fingerprints on them have these people ever seen or used smartphone screen and like how Velma no clips through a wall at one point to get past the Killer and how could they [ __ ] up the quadratic formula all they had to do was copy paste it even Peppa Pig got that right because of their lame attempts to mix serious murder mystery with teen drama with adult comedy the tone is all over the place rapidly shifting within the same scene or between scenes it's so jarring and whenever the show isn't irritating you or pissing you off it is so boring how they expected anyone to sit through this without a shock collar is anyone's guess but you could probably upload this to Pornhub under the ball busting category and it wouldn't be out of place right off the bat the characters are so awful that I just don't care about any of their goals why would I want Velma to find out what happens to her mum when I'd rather watch her get fed into a wood chipper the emotional buy-in is just not there but it's also partly because the show is incredibly predictable I watched this with a group and we had some Bingo cards with a list of our expectations on them and within one minute of run time someone had a bingo it relies on a lot of the same tropes and stereotypes that you've seen for decades without doing anything new or interesting with them this is the first chance I've had to focus thank God hot girls would rather be murdered than enter the band room it's also due to the absolutely horrendous pacing Velma suffers from it feels like very little of any substance happens for very long stretches of the run time and there's so much padding repetition and redundancy like they have Fred escape from prison but then at the end of the episode he gets thrown back into prison just to have him leave again in the next episode it's also pointless and it's mostly because the actual mystery of the series only takes up if we're being generous about half the run time the rest is spent on a bunch of [ __ ] subplots that either don't go anywhere contribute nothing to the main story or intended for character development but only make us hate the characters more and the episodes move between subplots so rapidly that it's disorienting structurally it's a mess the most egregious of these subplots although it is related to the main plot is velma's panic attacks whenever she tries to solve a mystery she has violent hallucinations that can even give her a heart attack the way that she is snapped out of these is either by someone making her laugh or Daphne kissing her it comes across as a contrived and unnecessary obstacle to make solving Mysteries more difficult for her and she overcomes it very quickly when she discovers the root of her anxiety oh wait oh no I hallucinate because I have Daddy Issues gross many people who deal with anxiety attacks were quick to denounce this inaccurate and kind of offensive portrayal and to compare it to the way they're dealt with in Puss in Boots 2 which came out around the same time I'd also make a comparison with hollyhock's panic attacking BoJack Horseman which again is a far superior depiction and to top it all off it's eventually revealed that her hallucinations were not actually due to anxiety but because she was hypnotized by the killer to keep her from investigating her mom's disappearance but the serial killer could have just killed her right there and then there's literally no reason why she should still be alive and they spend so much time on stupid teen drama that's neither original interesting or particularly captivating the usual High School nonsense and love quadrangles that to make me want to snort anti-freeze and remember when they said in additionally we wanted to you know we loved the original it really is a love letter to the original we wanted to sort of say okay well Scooby-Doo made me laugh and also really scared me when I was a child how can I adapt that to an adult audience and try to give them the same level of humor and horror that they experienced as a kid with this new version well nothing in this show is Scary or thrilling at all none of it the space cook law from the original show is scarier than anything in Velma even as an adult it's kind of freaky no but let's talk about the adult part now we briefly touched on this earlier but yes Velma is an adult show for adults who do adulty things like pay taxes and read newspapers and cheat on their wives but it doesn't mean that the show explores any adult themes in a way that's intelligent and also funny no no no instead let's just have all the characters be stupid [ __ ] or both out of a misguided attempt to make them more interesting for adults because you can't have an adult show without everyone being a stupid [ __ ] right and of course this means that Crystal Cove has to be a [ __ ] and the show has to include violence Gore and lots of sexy sexy sex things which there's nothing wrong with in themselves but it's a mistake to think that the inclusion of these makes your work more mature as opposed to just not being suitable for kids having cockroaches [ __ ] within the first proper scene of your show doesn't make you look adult it makes you look like you're trying too hard and Mindy Kaling seems to really like writing teenagers having sexy times despite also claiming to not understand them does it let you understand gen Z better do you understand the Younglings I don't I don't understand them any better and I so between that show and I have another show called The Sex lives of college girls and I just I'm like what am I doing like why am I writing these sexy shows about teens are you making up for a lost time by giving these racy experiences to younger people I think yes it should also be noted at this point that none of the characters sound or act like teenagers so no that's not an excuse for them being awful anyway while there isn't any full-on sex barely two minutes in and we're seeing naked girls wrestling in the school showers just admit we are all Velma is openly quite horny damn dilf City I mean sure if someone was like want to see a naked picture of Fred I'd be like but I do women's comedy stuff you know talk about how fat you are and how you wanna have sex with guys and then say yeah we even get to witness her pole dancing which makes me want to give myself the Oedipus treatment where we're going we won't need eyes to say again we wanted to be respectful to the IP we didn't want to say ah look what we can do with these people and you know kind of put them in in what might be a little uncomfortable where you're going to be like I don't I don't know if I want to see Velma or or normal or you know Fred doing that um well what the [ __ ] is this then the big problem with all this that the writers either didn't notice or Worse care about is that Velma is 15 years old at least according to this promotional poster and you can't tell me her younger self two years prior is any older than 13. and while the other ages are never specified it's pretty heavily implied that the other kids are around the same age they act like these characters are over age when they're not which means that when velma's dad takes her to a strip club it isn't just inappropriate it's something else entirely it means that all the sexual discussions about Fred and the mocking of his penis take on a whole nother level of bad and all of the instances where the hot girls are sexualized are put in a whole new context she's underage and she's underage and she thinks that he is over age this is all kinds of [ __ ] up but and this is crucial none of this is portrayed as if it's [ __ ] up this becomes less surprising when you learn that Kaling has previously been criticized over her handling of sex and consent in her previous works I guess they can use the big mouth excuse of well they're only cartoons so it's okay but but really want to best strategy in this situation bit of a fail moment there to be honest and this extends to the exploration of velma's sexual identity so yeah let's do this I've avoided it long enough with weights and nods let's finally talk about the only thing you've ever really wanted to know about me is Velma dinklies snap out of it it's been a long-running subject of speculation that Velma is in fact a lesbian and if she had been all along I don't think it would have been particularly surprising to anyone in fact she was confirmed to be gay by the producer of Mystery Incorporated and was portrayed as such in 2022's trick-or-treat Scooby-Doo so once again this angle isn't exactly original or necessary but in Velma they really go for it her kind of discovering herself and her identity in its her friendships her relationships her romantic relationships was really what was really fun about the show coming from my other shows never have I ever in the sex lives of college girls that Charlie worked on like we really think that stuff is Juicy and it felt like yet another reason why it was great that this was a modern show they spend so much time on this will they won't they relationship between Velma and Daphne because of course it's Daphne Daphne and me kiss what her hands on my hips what I think he's passing between us what this is despite them having no chemistry and being so diametrically opposed as people that there's really no reason they should get together Daphne is dating Fred who Velma also likes and Fred likes them both and because they're all such idiots we have to suffer through an unbearable love hate triangle with Norville simping off to the side and you'll never convince me that this wasn't some kind of wish fulfillment on kaling's part wait Fred that's huge though not you might be gave you okay stop in this day and age you can't speculate about someone's sexuality unless they're famous or Peppermint Patty oh yeah The Meta commentary how has it taken me so long to mention this but if the kids in every teen show ever can get through a brush with a deranged serial killer so can I both in terms of its quality and quantity the metacometry in this show alone had me nearly lying down in front of a truck normally origin stories are about tall handsome guys struggling with the burden of being handed even more power the entire opening scene is one long meta commentary on opening scenes because that's clever right have you ever noticed how pilot episodes of TV shows always have more gratuitous sex annuity than the rest of the series spec sells and in today's overcrowded Market you need a hook um the only hook a good show ever needs is good storytelling which is hilarious because this show has neither the first few episodes in particular lay this on thicker than your mother according to TV it's morally okay to deal drugs if your life is just kinda crappy those are all white people Daphne minorities on TV can only deal drugs to escape poverty you possibly being gay is a huge deal for one it reduces me to cliched straight best friend it's like it was written by people who are only familiar with similar shows and they were trying to demonstrate that knowledge as much as possible then why was your favorite part of the Riverdale pilot when Betty and Veronica kiss but because I was instantly called I was tired in the scene I thought lesbians were good at solving crimes it's like the one positive stereotype perpetuated by cop shows sorry I'm not a drunk on the verge of losing custody like every other woman solving murders these days oh my God we get it you know the genre that you're part of now shot the [ __ ] up it is so transparently an attempt to be clever and also cover-up for their creative bankruptcy but just pointing out your knowledge of the genre you're operating in which most people watching this would already know doesn't make you look smart it makes you look like a try-hard wait in teen movies whenever a girl needs money a guy sells something and then blackmails the girl in the dating him for it problematic but effective and pointing out the tropes and plot points that you're copying from other examples in your genre doesn't give you a get out of jail free card for copying them hey guys If This Were a YouTube video there'd be an ad right about now you uh you Adblock users won't be able to appreciate that joke I see you most of the time they don't even say anything about the tropes they highlight they don't offer any kind of intelligent commentary or post modern subversion they just say hey everybody look at this thing we're doing and then they and then they do it over characters making dramatic entrances on TV shows I actually love dramatic entrances it's just incredibly lazy writing the point is I don't know but I'm sure I'll figure it out it would be pretty lazy not to and you know what else it is it's pretentious they structure one episode in a non-linear way with multiple flashbacks and Flash forwards this can work in certain things depending on how it's handled but in the wrong hands it's clunky and well pretentious they only do this for one episode and it doesn't add anything at all that a linear structure wouldn't it's unnecessary but they try to excuse it with meta commentary I like you when they use a title card with the character's name when they cut to a different flashback now that feels lazy it's stylized it's Tarantino what is the incident some of this metacometry was intended to address criticism that they knew they'd receive which Ghostbusters 2016 and more recently She-Hulk also attempted and how do you feel about race Point casting Daphne well as an Asian woman I um think it's cool I mean not to oversimplify authority issue but everyone loves it when white people play Jesus or a professional boxer why can't it ever go the other way right I hope this doesn't become a regular Trend because it isn't the win that they think it is you know how he beat the trolls you make something good but I guess that was too hard I still say it's more seamless without the title card and I still say my old job is a television executive makes me worry audiences won't be able to follow it sitting through all this dribble is like being naught Alive by rats what else what else about the writing oh the dialogue the dialogue is ass because most of it is either poorly written characterization poorly written insults poorly written metachometry or poorly written social commentary I punch you of men didn't sexualize a women fighting and the rest is utterly forgettable oh and they make use of intercredits scenes which are completely pointless and could have just been tagged on to the end of the episode because into credit scenes are all the rage now so they have to do them I I swear they did this just to [ __ ] with us just say who the serial killer is of course it's it's me oh you see guys you see they pulled a fast one on us they did a sneaky one even though this doesn't make any sense because this episode aired back to back with the next one so it's not much of a cliffhanger is it you know what though all of this could have been forgiven if the show were at least funny but velma's about as amusing as gonorrhea did you ever notice how men always leave the toilet seat up that's the joke I've said this in previous videos but a failure in any other category of media could still be enjoyable because of how bad it is I did not hit her it's not true it's [ __ ] I did not hit her I did not oh hi Mark but a bad comedy offers nothing to go on and it's actually impressive how much Velma fails at comedy they should be taught in schools not only is Velma far less funny than other iterations of Scooby-Doo but I've met bricks that have a better grasp of humor than this Show's writers did I have to be [ __ ] wait you said fog King not [ __ ] the jokes are painfully eye rollingly unfunny and let's count the ways how whenever we're talking about comedy there's always going to be an element that is unavoidably subjective and that is audience buy-in the extent to which the audience is on board with the comedy and willing to laugh at the jokes the Charisma of the person telling the joke can go a long way to ensuring this buy-in if you hate someone you're not gonna laugh at their jokes and because Velma is so contemptible and inspires nothing but negativity from its audience that initial buy-in either wears off very quickly or it never gets achieved in the first place many Watchers quickly came to hate the show what it was trying to achieve and what it did to its franchise and so the phrase tough crowd doesn't really do the situation Justice and I think that for many people myself included this is one of the main reasons why they refuse to participate in the comedy and find it funny While most of velma's jokes are dog [ __ ] we don't even want to laugh at the ones that aren't dog [ __ ] because we resent this end of price so much but don't get me wrong the jokes here are dog [ __ ] and I'm about to perform the audiobook voices isn't it well [ __ ] you too you [ __ ] some of the jokes are just straight up not funny there are jokes that are so poorly written that even though you know they're meant to be a joke they're indistinguishable from any other line of dialogue our sexy dancing is for ourselves and wants to raise money for a dog that needed hip surgery this is set up like a joke but there's no punchline it isn't funny and it's redundant who [ __ ] cares about this information if the audience has to repeatedly ask what the joke is maybe reconsider your role as a comedy writer people only wear fleece when they're looking for startup money or oh no going hiking there are jokes that I could swear I've witnessed before in other media which means they don't feel fresh laughs well well and in at least one case there's a joke ripped almost entirely from something else although I don't know if this was intentional so we have one day to unlearn a lifetime of internalized misogyny I'm getting waxed at four then we have until four I don't care how long it takes I will keep you here all night we can't keep them past four I will keep you here until four and then there are the jokes that I swear were only written because they felt they had to be constantly making jokes regardless of how good those jokes are or what implications they create for the characters themselves well then call me a medieval Minstrel cause I'm about to loot that joke was more forced in than this ad again if you're using YouTube premium or Adblock or you're watching on patreon this is probably kind of awkward right now so we're just we're just gonna sit in silence for a minute I am now dissing her she has no brain well now you just look like a sociopath there's also too much of what you might call Joss Whedon humor or Marvel humor which has become unfortunately commonplace over the last 20 years happy come on it's time to go look for the serial killer in the woods and yes saying that out loud for the first time it sounds like a terrible idea but all I can really do in response to these is let out an exasperated sigh they don't warrant any further comment they're just tiresome the show frequently demonstrates a poor sense of comic timing jokes either go on too long or cut off too quickly before they can sink in thus ruining what might otherwise have been okay jokes hey I don't want to ruin the moment but the brains are starting to smell and repetition by itself is so funny you guys you didn't answer my VMS voicemails VMS voicemails VMS voice I know what VMS are get to the point I already did in my VMS I left you six more VMS it's sad when the background pawns are funnier than the actual jokes you're meant to be focusing on although that's not saying a lot can you teach me how to unhinge my jaw like that I want to join a sorority Velma falls into that trap that many other adult comedies do of thinking that being funny for adults just means being inappropriate for kids to their credit unlike say Santa incor Hoops they didn't employ copious amounts of swearing or even swear much at all even when a curse word might have been funnier than the written punchline now even just being myself will work ROM comes and kiss my ass but they did make sure to serve up a big helping of sex jokes gross out humor and meaningless violence I cannot believe I wore edible underwear for this again 15. maybe chill out with this why is it funny for some random guy to get his leg cut off and then the next episode he gets it cut off again despite doing nothing to deserve it except looking like a Reddit mode be in itself and does nothing to justify its inclusion unlike similar examples you could find and bear in mind that the gross stuff is happening to and around previously beloved characters and none of it's funny even in context it's just it's just crass I shut everyone out I still haven't seen my dentist nor do I intend to this is who we're supposed to be rooting for do you get it because it's like like the root of your teeth you got it these are all such transparent attempts to shock you into laughing out of shearing credulity which can work in certain situations and they're clearly trying to emulate successful examples of comedies that achieve this like South Park but the jokes don't make sense or are poorly executed when they do and you can feel their desperation to get a reaction from you wait no keep them on the only time I laughed at one of these jokes is when she got hit by a car and that's only because I wanted to see her suffer because she's a terrible person which they thought was funny and that's another major reason why all the characters are [ __ ] because comedy centered around a group of eccentric idiots who were also bad people such as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia can be absolutely hilarious depending on the context and execution velma's writers thought this meant being an [ __ ] equals funny which is why the characters insult each other so much and are just generally despicable Cindy I am sad my husband died anything crucial difference is that you can't base a comedy around the escapades of awful people if those characters are insufferable to watch and it's also lacking in any Charisma and wit that it just comes across as mean-spirited instead of amusing you know what 420 is right um yeah it's code for adults who still watch cartoons the reason I'm using this clip again is because it could have come across as playful banter with their target audience had it not been delivered with so much sincere vitriol and condescension hey you yeah you you watching this video right now your mother's a fat [ __ ] please laugh much of the metacometry we discussed earlier is used for comedic purposes yeah well there's no world where I'm ever solving a mystery in an abandoned amusement parks aha good one guys you had the whole hosting and pissing and crying it's actually ridiculous how many of these jokes there are I've never seen anything try this hard to do meta humor see now if this was a shell it'd be super hard if you two kissed Krista if this is a show you'd be killed after being horny we've already talked about their attempts to be meta but I'll just reiterate that acknowledging the tropes in your genre and saying that you're using them is not funny in and of itself and it's not a substitute for writing actual jokes yeah normally in pop culture when a [ __ ] girl is murdered we're all a little like well maybe she deserved it she was the rare [ __ ] that did not deserve to be murdered well as opposed to all the other slots that had it coming what what the [ __ ] metahumor like this has been done to death by this point and none of it is insightful or funny all of it needed to go in the bin and the bin needed to be set on fire we wouldn't be stuck here like a 127 Hours reboot with a bigger more diverse cast that all people will gripe about you want to know how to do good meta humor like this the token black guy and Not Another Teen Movie which pokes fun at the Trope that was common in related media at the time and points out how absurd and kind of racist it is you know you're an intelligent insightful human being who doesn't get the respect and attention that he deserves you really mean that Jake great man because I've always wanted to discuss with you the repercussions of the ramification [ __ ] but the writers of Velma weren't actually interested in saying anything of worth and substance they just wanted to prove how smart they are I don't know how much longer I can take being unpopular how to network sitcoms handle it which also explains the use of reference humor of Mandos I know you ate why doesn't she like talking is it is it because he's white again making a reference by itself isn't a joke especially when it's to a dated meme or has been celebrity I'd be an idiot not to at least try and go for it and is this really the best joke they could think of oh so you're gonna work are you well then call me Ernest Shackleton because I'm headed to a poll referencing 20th century explorers and existentialist philosophers doesn't impress me if the joke itself isn't funny oh God there's no exit anywhere oh my Jean-Paul Sartre did you get that Mom no exit like Star Trek seminal play about hell I do hell truly is other people and naturally there's failed attempts to provide humorous social commentary places like this help skip Gates learn which white actors are descended from slave owners I'm named after Theodore Roosevelt a wealthy demagogue who massacred indigenous people in the name of imperialism well I tried but only got halfway there that's just me living up to my label as a male feminist socially or politically charged jokes can be hilarious just look at The Boondocks or even Scooby-Doo itself has done this but you've got a job as a teacher why do you need more money [Music] but then there's stuff like this is it up we just learned someone somewhere as being intolerant [Applause] again it's clear that they're trying to copy South Park where this thing works because the whole show is so absurd and deliberately over the top and because the jokes are still woven into the narrative and makes sense in the context of the episode but here there's none of that it's just thrown in and doesn't match the general tone of the show and it again shows that they refuse to take anything seriously while also demanding that we take them seriously is that a joke Fred or are you being serious or is it that cable comedy thing where it's both I think smiling friends got this right [Applause] great job everyone within their Reuters room they all thought this was some of the funniest [ __ ] they'd ever seen on pickle Rick I think the worst part though is that there are occasional glimpses of comedic ability that are never fully allowed to shine through okay so don't search for daddy issues and teenage girls and bookmarks they do have the makings of some okay jokes but they never fully realized because they sabotage themselves at every turn like in one episode Velma and norville's girlfriend Gigi have a flute off the joke is that they're both bad at it and in a different context it might have been funny one kid removes his hearing aid which could be funny if you just left it at the visual but they framed it so poorly that they had to have a character literally explain what the joke is I think Devin just unplugged his Cochlear implants I could try to fix more examples of failed jokes but what's the point this thing is beyond saving and okay jokes just aren't good enough what results is a stillbirth of a comedy so utterly devoid of effective humor that it's genuinely baffling that this was the product of real human beings and not aliens struggling to understand Humanity so they can distract us while they turn the frogs gay why didn't the hallucination start until then as a man analyzing a woman can we assume Menzies where do you say Toby the truth looks like [ __ ] that's why I love children no girl it does look like [ __ ] there's nothing redeeming about velma's production values either on the surface it isn't the worst looking animation I've ever seen at least it doesn't look like another generic Family Guy clone or even be called Scooby-Doo seriously what is this I vomit but the more you evaluate velma's visuals the worse they get early concept art showed off character designs that were at least somewhat interesting although they made Fred a Shortcake for some reason but the designs we got are honestly pretty boring and in some cases don't look anything like their original characters like Norville for example an artist created a version that was much more heavily inspired by Shaggy's older designs and looks much better to boot these character designs feel very uninspired in comparison visually the show is just very dull to look at there are some exceptions to this like for example the hallucination scenes don't actually look half bad and at one point they show flashbacks to eras like the 30s and 80s and replicate the visual styles of Animation from those decades which offer brief glimpses of something as critically interesting but it makes the rest of the show look even more bland in comparison it's clear that HBO didn't dig deep into their pockets for this one or if they did it was to make the tax write-off more worthwhile because the standards of Animation in Velma are Unworthy of the genre frankly and I'm not blaming the overworked and underpaid artist that I'm sure was suffering under the cracking whip we all have to pay bills after all this is a failure at higher levels but the amount of inconsistencies errors and sloppy work is inexcusable of course cartoons don't have to be 100 realistic but there are still some basic standards Velma failed to adhere to character designs can change between consecutive scenes or even between consecutive shots in the same scene it's like they were drawn by completely different people which of course is how animation teams often work but they shouldn't be this inconsistent and this happens numerous times Velma is so squashed sometimes she ends up looking like an Oompa Loompa or E.T and I love the animation it's so beautiful in the show say what you want about Family Guy clones but at least they are more consistent in how bland they look sometimes the animation is just bad one of the biggest reasons why is that the character movements aren't smooth which makes for cheaper animation but it looks weird and artificial compared with other animations that I've seen mouth movements in particular can look quite ugly another big reason is that the characters stand out from the backgrounds but not in a way that feels either natural or visually appealing in general the backgrounds are rendered with more detail and have gradients to their colors and shading whereas the characters all have flat colors and little to no shading this combined with differences in perspectives angles and lighting between the characters and the backgrounds results in the former looking artificial and superimposed which of course they are but again they shouldn't look like it again as boring as Family Guy Clones look at least their characters look like they belong in their environments they also kept trying to blur distant objects as a way to artificially establish depth of field but not only were they horrifically inconsistent at applying it at all they were really incompetent when they did take this shot for example the signs the bin and the nerd are all the same distance away from the camera but you wouldn't know that none of these objects should be this blurry when they're this close and this house in the background isn't even blurred at all which doesn't make any sense based on the effect they were trying to achieve I'm guessing this was because they couldn't apply a blur to the background without blurring the entire background which I'm sure they could have found a fix for and if they couldn't why even bother with any of it at all and there are so many examples of cheaply done and cheap looking effects whether it's eyebrows being on top of hair because that's easier to animate or it's wet hair being shown just by putting blue patches on it or having a falling animation that's just a static pose of the characters getting smaller it doesn't get any lazier than that and as with the writing there's a lack of proper attention to visual details whether it's background objects looking different in different shots characters getting soaking wet and then looking completely dry 20 seconds later a whiskey bottle being dropped on the back of a laptop and then the screen itself showing a point of impact or numerous other examples and while I can understand using the same assets repeatedly to save on costs when you start copy pasting them into the same scene it not only looks very obvious and lazy but creates blatant inconsistencies let's analyze one scene in particular to demonstrate just how poorly this show is put together from this wide shot of the courthouse with a small crowd on either side of the stairs it cuts to a female reporter who is not previously visible and the now larger crowd is directly behind her the crowd is very obviously on a one second Loop they haven't even tried to hide how little work they put in here then in the next shot the crowd is blurred when they really shouldn't be not only are the exact same signs repeated several times but the guy in the white shirt and the guy in the suit are shown twice in the same camera pan and multiple characters teleport around the scene also note the use of depth of field here the crowd is blurred but the interior of the limo isn't this approaches food fight levels of laziness sheepness and inconsistency and I wouldn't be surprised if velma's animators refused to list this on their resume as for the performances I've shown enough clips that you should have an idea by now but the most I can say about them is that they're adequate at best but they don't Elevate the material out of its place in the trash tier nor are they going to win any awards for it I mean what they supposed to do when the material is this crap there was no chance they were going to get a voice cast that was either the most appropriate for the characters or the most talented at voice acting this is a vanity project that came about due to Industry connections and it was inevitable that they would just hire a bunch of their mates in the industry but even so Velma does feel like a waste of the cast Talent like Jane Lynch is great but in this she's mired in how bad the material is God where is that Candyman I mean candy it could be anybody even though we both definitely know it's a man and they got Weird Al Yankovic to do a cameo but it's so lame and you wouldn't even know it was him and I do think that Mindy kaling's voice is a bit annoying to listen to at least it isn't Sarah Silverman's in Santa Inc that woman should never be allowed to voice act again I'm sorry I need to scream more [Applause] haha but kailyn's voice is like the cherry on top of an already ingratiating character how dare you call any woman a monster you monster I'm dressed like this to show support for all the beautiful ways women Express themselves even the ones I think are stupid and there are many many issues with the lip syncing but I have a clue about my mom and I can't research it without you I'm assuming the animation software's algorithm soiled itself but there are many occasions where the mouth movements barely match the dialogue no but I have found a way to make you like me we do make a good team don't we every little kid knows how to draw a penis but make a little kid draw a vagina and what happens and so there's really nothing for aficionados of Animation to enjoy here nothing that makes it stand out from the rest of its genre and despite its initial appeal it actively comes out worse compared to many other adult animations in virtue of its poor quality cheap and inconsistent presentation looking good and having good production values would not have made up for velma's other terrible qualities but [ __ ] me they haven't exactly help themselves have they oh so forming an angry mommy who are we going after that's all I have to say about the show itself for now but Velma wouldn't be the perfect subject for a video like this without an unhealthy amount of spice and you know me I do I do love me some good controversy so pour yourself a nice glass of milk and get ready to be called a racist it's unfortunate that in a video about a terrible comedy we have to talk about race but Velma put its foot into that frying pan long ago and then it was announced about a month ago that the development character would be reimagined as South Asian and people were not happy they weren't happy with the change they were not happy there was a lot of like show not Velma it was decided that Velma who was previously white would have her ethnicity change to Indian to match that of kalings and the essence of Velma is not you know it's not necessarily tied to her whiteness you know like and I identify so much as her character and I think so many people do so we just had like yeah let's make her Indian in this series yeah perhaps off the back of this the other characters were also change to match their voice actors now some people will complain about this just on principle they resent any attempt to introduce diversity into media denouncing it as woke trash regardless of the logic behind it with Velma though there's a little bit more going on they chose to misrepresent the reasons why people took umbrage with this decision well it's like she's such a great character she's so smart and I just couldn't understand how people couldn't imagine a really smart nerdy girl with terrible eyesight and loved to solve Mysteries could not be Indie right like there are Indian nerds they think that it shouldn't be a surprise to people the point isn't that they couldn't imagine a character like this being Indian the point is why change an existing character in the first place the purpose of course was to achieve more representation the creators were open about wanting to achieve more representation for ethnic minorities in animation and about how important representation was to them personally it's a weird thing to grow up and to love a genre and a fantasy of things and to know that it doesn't love you back because it doesn't show anybody that looks like you ever in it it's cool to be part of this movie because you think that you know the eight-year-old version of of Mindy Kaling the the chubby friendly Indian girl with big glasses because she'd be like oh like it we are being represented Kaling repeatedly said that she was inspired by into the spider-verse when making Velma I think we were really inspired by you know into the spider-verse and these ideas that there's so many iterations of the characters in its animation we can do anything the difference of course is that Mars Morales was an original character who was always black whereas Velma had to be race swapped and the essence of Velma is not you know it's not necessarily tied to her whiteness you know but you haven't even preserved the same essence of Velma this is some [ __ ] Abomination do you really think Indian girls are going to be happy about seeing themselves represented like this by the way I'm not saying that representative characters have to be perfect in fact if they are that's a little bit condescending but like there's a middle ground here guys Velma is the worst thing to happen to Indians since the British and I can say that because I am British Kaling has previously attracted controversy over issues of representation in her work which I won't get into here except to say that her efforts in this regard have inspired mixed feelings to say the least and with Velma Kaling has been accused of perpetuating the same harmful stereotypes about Indian girls that she has in her previous work but I'll let other people address that topic personally I think race swapping is the least of this Show's problems and I couldn't care less if they wanted to add more diversity while also recognizing that representation is something I've never really had to worry about myself but simply race swapping existing characters is the laziest way to achieve this creating original works and filling them with diversity is a far more organic and valuable use of a Creator's time rather than changing something that already exists the characters are not defined by their whiteness um and so we thought there's it felt like there is time in an inclination from in an appetite for people to see them reimagined I'm sorry but not a single [ __ ] person on this planet whose opinion is worth taking seriously looked at Scooby-Doo and went oh gee howdy I do love this show I just wish these three specific characters weren't white growing up I just was one of the only people around the animated character could really identify with you know she's obviously not Indian but she's I felt like she was like you know like really pretty but an untraditional way like super smart and unafraid of being smart um big big thick glasses which like obviously I can identify with so you admit that you could identify with a character even though they don't look like you if the characters aren't defined by their race then why even change them at all because you can already identify with them it makes the whole Enterprise pointless especially when that race swapping is of no other consequence Kaling was very happy about Velma being Indian and I take all this to be more evidence of Kaling inserting herself into the show and imposing her identity on an existing character but when she was asked how her Indian identity would affect her as a character she couldn't give an answer so a lot of your work whether you start on it or not um you'll always bring a little South Asian culture to it you know just beyond the characters physical appearance so I was wondering how do you hope to bring that as well well she has an Indian family um and I don't know like I love this opportunity I have now to be able to have representation of Indian Americans like modern Indian American teams and I've done in a couple other shows and Charlie obviously has written with me before and we just thought it was such a great opportunity and at the beginning I identify so much with the Velma character and I think she's a character we're like I don't know her ethnicity and the original yeah I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was tired after doing a lot of interviews but this question never comes up in any other interview that I saw so as far as I'm concerned it's unanswered and aside from a couple of jokes her ethnicity and cultural background has no effect on her characterization whatsoever when you see your pops next tell him thanks from me homie changed my life Fred I've told you my dad isn't the bhagwan Shri rajnish so this change feels meaningless all but it was so important to keep Fred white so they could constantly make white man bad jokes and what's it like being been able to reimagine vilma's Identity and finally creating a story with classic characters for people who want to see someone like them well honestly we wouldn't be doing this if in the 60s 70s 80s 90s and early 2000s there was more cartoons that really represented us we wouldn't feel the need I mean granted the franchise did have its questionable moments as did many kids cartoons if you go back far enough and I can sympathize to some extent with the desire for more and better representation for one's demographic and media which has definitely been an issue in the past this is the strongest argument they had for making these changes and it isn't completely without Merit but existing characters and franchises aren't your play things to achieve your personal visions and imposing your viewpoint on characters with a long history and large fan base is at Best of questionable taste and at worst arrogant and obnoxious but partly this also reads like virtue signaling on the part of the creators particularly Kaling herself just watch this clip where she's talking about being in the Monsters Inc spin-off series there's no female characters in the first one wait no that's not true that's not that's a lie that I just opened with a lie I instantly thought of two characters I was about to make this big political point about how exciting it was and I can name three characters that are female you already got up to three you said zero and then you said two and now you're after three so um I guess it's not that exciting that I'm in the show why would a person come on a show with a fact that's not correct did you know what I was I wanted to come in and make a statement yeah I wanted to be like I'm breaking barriers with this show I was like I am the first woman of color that's ever been in an animated movie or TV show and it's a lie it's a lie is she taking the piss is it is this a piss take is she is she trolling us why would she say any of this it seems clear to me that in addition to wanting to feel like they were doing something necessary and important they were also trying to market the show as such although genuinely important to some representation has become another buzzword that media companies like to use to appeal to certain markets as well as the stifle criticism and unfortunately there are gullible audience members that will line up to swallow this nonsense gravy and to denounce anyone who took issue with velma's approach to representation as racist is absolutely ridiculous and we've already talked about the irritating political commentary and snarky quips and they really are overbearing using existing and beloved characters as a mouthpiece for politically charged opinions whether they your own or not is best avoided and honestly pretty disrespectful in many cases it doesn't feel like any of the scripts were like didactic or trying to like force anything down anybody's throats it's actually just how the world looks today well that was a [ __ ] lie velma's interesting in that it's managed to unite both sides of the political Spectrum Left Right woke anti-woke whatever terms you want to use it became the latest Target in the ever exhausting culture War except that instead of conflicting sides fighting over it everyone hates it right-wing people hate it because it's not only bad but woke and based basically a wet dream for them in terms of confirming their opinions about Progressive media conversely left-wing people hate it because it's so poorly written and insufferable that it makes their side look bad in fact many didn't buy that it was Progressive at all which is certainly debatable and it's even been accused of being what right-wingers think of woke show is leading to accusations that it's a right-wing psyop intended to paint Progressive people in a bad light much like for example the trailer for Netflix's Q force was indistinguishable from a homophobic parody I don't believe this Theory myself and the evidence for it is pretty flimsy Mindy Kaling liking a tweet from JK Rowling saying some of the jokes in the office would upset people nowadays and the show's occasional Jabs at Young people's sensitivity simply aren't good enough proof in addition if they were trying to parody awoke show they could have gone much harder with it something can be Progressive and cringy without being a Double Bluff psyop oh I would rather watch an R-rated animated Christmas comedy with a touch of a feminist agenda an equally right-wing media can also be pretty bad Velma isn't bad because it's outwardly Progressive it's bad because it's obnoxious and misguided about it and parody can sometimes be indistinguishable from reality because sometimes reality really is that stupid despite all this I don't think the creators of Velma were actually trying to push a specific political agenda with this show I think they genuinely thought this [ __ ] was funny or at least would piss people off you can tell that they were desperately trying to be equal opportunity offenders like say South Park but without the balls to commit to actually being offensive and without the talent and moral Center to pull it off these people don't actually believe in anything which is why they're so inconsistent maybe vilma's creators really were just that incompetent and self-absorbed but while they do say that you should never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity there was certainly at least some malice involved oh that wasn't a bit nice you have made me very angry very angry indeed Velma is a deliberate exercise in Rage bait and while it may not have been the whole reason behind its creation it's undeniable that at least part of their strategy involved pissing off a great swath of people in order to farm outrage views and I'm not talking about making something bad so that people who ironically enjoy bad media will watch it out of amusement and curiosity I'm talking about actively pissing people off there's too much evidence for this to attribute it all to stupidity alone the teaser trailer was very obviously bait it was making fun of trolls who had criticized the show's race swapping if there is one thing the internet agrees on it's that you should never change anything ever I hope you die sincerely Velma well at least Judy's still white ah and why slap an insulting remark about your audience and franchise onto the end of your release trailer if you weren't trying to provoke a negative reaction adults who still watch cartoons and it's not a coincidence that the first two episodes were filled with some of the most egregious and provocative statements in imagery why would you deride your franchise and solely its Legacy so thoroughly and so openly if you weren't trying to piss off its fan base into watching out of outrage to see how much damage you've done to their beloved franchise there's so much evidence nowadays that changing the race of existing characters or adding diverse characters in general unfortunately leads to a backlash that can be formed for some easy sympathy and free advertising and I refuse to believe that it didn't at least occur to them as part of their strategy when viewed in conjunction with other things and filling your show with enough cringy and off-putting political comments to whip up a frenzy among the anti-whope crowd while also being so simultaneously on the nose and off the mark that it also annoys Progressive people it's sure to motivate a ton of coverage on social media it's an incredibly cynical tactic that also screams of an attempt to overcompensate for a lack of interest in another lame adult reimagining and blatant soulless cash grab I believe that the choice to release two episodes every week rather than the entire series at once was to take advantage of the negative coverage of the show giving it free publicity and thereby making it relevant for a longer period of time thereby increasing viewership overall the fact that Velma was engaging in Rage bait was transparent to many people and only led to further widespread derision it would take a staggering amount of Disconnect for the people behind Velma not to realize any of this and to be oblivious to the dissonance between their statements and how the show actually turned out and it may well be that they were legitimately that stupid but I'm not sure they deserve the benefit of the doubt on that hate watching is something that's been around for a while and Velma wasn't the first thing to try to encourage her but it is perhaps one of the most blatant examples of something trying to encourage it that I've ever seen as someone who makes videos bashing bad media despite usually telling you guys that the thing I'm talking about isn't worth your time of course I must have contributed to this in some way one of the reasons I waited a bit to get this video out is because I didn't want to add to velma's publicity if I could help it although I do still believe Velma deserves to be talked about and criticized in some capacity and by the way I'm not throwing shade or [ __ ] on any YouTubers that did get their videos out earlier like I understand the algorithm I understand the grind I totally get it but it does feel like a down if you do down if you don't situation Velma is one of the worst things I've seen and it's an irresistible Target but at the same time I don't just want to take the bait and give it what it wants that isn't going to stop me from having my say well clearly but it is why I'll repeat that you at home shouldn't watch Velma even if you're curious it simply isn't worth your time and it's what they want so don't give them that because this tactic of inducing rage to boost viewership numbers whether directly or indirectly unfortunately it kind of works Velma is a true test of the idea that there's no such thing as bad publicity HBO claimed that it was the biggest Premiere day for a Max original animated series ever and its numbers received a Boost after its debut despite all the negative reception with a second season reportedly being in development the question does arise as to the extent to which the haters are responsible for this we'll never know for sure though what I am sure of is that hate watching probably did contribute to the show's popularity on paper the fact remains though that a lot of I don't want to say normies but people who aren't terminally online and have no idea about any of this stuff watch HBO and probably watch Velma because it was being promoted and they were interested in it and this group of people was probably far greater than the number of hate Watchers and it is an unheard of for shows to be commissioned for multiple Seasons even if this knowledge isn't public especially if the people behind it are friendly with the studios and this may well be what happened ultimately if you don't want trash like this to be made then vote with your eyes and watch something else leave it up to sacrificial Lambs like me to absorb all this cancer you're welcome Shrek I'm gonna [ __ ] kill myself Velma is Beyond description as in my brain is dead help me I've thought about this show far more than I'd like to admit and far more than it deserves it's unclear who Velma was actually intended for because none of the groups you could point to as its intended audience will enjoy this at all Scooby-Doo fans will hate how insulting it is comedy fans will think it's on funny animation fans will think it's ugly fans of murder mysteries or High School dramas will think it's poorly written and unoriginal and young progressives will think it's overbearing or even black propaganda the only people it seems to be four is Mindy Kaling and the circle around her and when you look at it that way it all starts to make sense quick aside by the way while I was making this Kaling was awarded a medal for the Arts by all Joey himself it wasn't for Velma but I just think it's very very funny that this happened also this article didn't age well Vilma is an absolute failure at everything it set out to do except annoy people which is something it should never have attempted in the first place it has nothing going for it no redeeming qualities to make it worth a watch except perhaps as an academic lesson on what not to do it blatantly borrows tropes and formulas from other successful media without actually understanding what made those things successful it's a wasted opportunity it's a waste of an IP a waste of talent a waste of money and a waste of its audience's time but beyond that it's a bitter manipulative and cynical Enterprise that has nothing to offer the world but on originality toxicity and pettiness this isn't even the bottom of the barrel we've broken right through the bottom of the barrel through the crust of the earth and we're scratching Satan's [ __ ] it's firmly earned its place as one of the most despised shows in history and deserves nothing less and it stings all the more when you look at it in the context of Warner Brothers canceling a whole bunch of good animations some of which will never be released again so that they can use them as a tax write-off including a complete animated Scooby-Doo movie that will never be released so that they could write it off on their taxes oh and they're also raising the subscription price of HBO Max piss on the wound why don't you I am I'm so tired you guys why can't things just be better why are we still here is it just to suffer I don't even know how to end this really If This Were one of my other videos I'd end it with a joke hey folks if you're still with me thank you so much for watching I know it's been a while but hopefully this video can kind of make up for lost time I want to say a big thank you to my patrons and YouTube channel members specifically for sticking with me through this period thanks so much guys I really do appreciate it but for the rest of you who also hung in there my hat also goes off to you this video was an absolute mission to make and all of your support has been really appreciated the next video won't be quite as big and it'll be on something a bit more Niche if you want early access to ad-free and sponsor free versions of these videos as well as I mention here in the credits uh consider becoming a patron or YouTube channel member links to everything and all the social media and stuff is down in the description below thanks again guys and I'm I'm gonna go lay down now

Channel: Cynical Reviews

Views: 2,801,946

Keywords: Velma, Velma HBO, Velma HBO Show, Velma Review, Velma HBO Review, Velma Show Review, Velma 2023, Cynical Reviews, Cynical CJ, Cynical Reviews Velma, How Velma Became The Most Hated Show Of All Time, Most Hated TV Show, Hated TV Show, Velma backlash, Velma controversy, Velma Commentary, Velma Criticism, Parody, Satire, Critique, Critisicm, Commentary, Mindy Kaling, Scooby Doo, Scooby Doo Show, Velma Scooby Doo, Ad, animation, review, adult animation, velma hbo adult animation

Id: 3eJZcpoSpKY

Length: 115min 14sec (6914 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 01 2023