Top 10 Reasons Why Velma (2023) is Awful

Velma (2023) is a reboot of the Scooby-Doo series created by Mindy Kaling. So far, it's been widely criticized for how much it disrespects the Scooby-Doo franchise and alters the classic characters, making them nearly unrecognizable.

For this list, we will be counting down the top reasons why Velma (2023) is considered awful.

The Top Ten

  1. Velma Is a Horrible Protagonist

    She's terrible. In every way, shape and form. She's not fun to watch, she's not clever, she figures out everything purely by coincidence, and she's a terrible person overall with no empathy, sympathy, or understanding.

    Everything has to be centered around her REGARDLESS of whether or not it makes sense in the context of the writing.

    Velma is possibly the worst offender of this show being extremely unlikable by being extremely arrogant, smug, dismissive of others, and always thinking she's right despite what others think. She acts nothing like how Velma is normally portrayed.

  2. The Characters Are Unlikable

    There's not a single one of these iterations that is an upgrade from their predecessors. They only exist to be one-note stereotypes of stereotypes.

    Velma is the worst of the worst because she is self-centered, narcissistic, uncaring, and overall, a HORRIBLE person.

    Daphne is used as a punchline whenever Velma has a panic attack, which isn't treated seriously. It's treated as a joke to force unneeded sexual advances. If someone in real life was having a panic attack, you SHOULD NOT kiss them or make advances. It's handled SO disrespectfully that it's actually sickening.

    Fred is reduced to being a "rich white boy" and is portrayed as incredibly idiotic. He is constantly mocked for no real reason other than he's the only character from the original core four who is still white.

    Norville is not Shaggy. He is a horrible boyfriend and a MASSIVE simp for Velma to his own detriment. He has no character outside of his proximity to the lead.

  3. It Has No Respect for Scooby-Doo Fans

    I'm not gonna act like the original Scooby-Doo was a masterpiece, but it was at least recognizable and had a formula that it followed for most episodes.

    All of that is tossed aside for meta-commentary, forced humor, and unearned shock humor.

    Teen and adult-oriented installments of family-friendly things weird me out, man! Isn't the charm and magic of Scooby-Doo that, like Halloween, it's spookiness for any age?

    This show has zero respect for the Scooby Doo franchise and goes out of its way to disrespect the series by changing the characters and turning them into the opposite of how the characters are usually portrayed.

  4. It Insults the Viewers

    The show really goes out of its way to insult its target audience. Like in one scene where the show throws out this joke where Norville asks Velma if she knows what 420 is, and Velma responds it's code for adults who still watch cartoons. This feels like a direct insult to the viewers as well as the animation industry as a whole.

    The nerve of Mindy Kaling mocking adults like me for watching cartoons as adults. What were HBO Max thinking? Spoiler Alert, they weren't! Although I'm not surprised, just "Iago from Aladdin" surprised. #NotMyVelma

  5. It Tries Too Hard to Be Shocking

    Shock humor without intent and follow-through is nothing. Absolutely NOTHING about the payoff outweighs the cost. So the jokes don't land, they're not thought through AT ALL, and they are the LAZIEST jokes I've heard in anything.

    This show is a lot like Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon by trying to be shocking and disturbing just for the sake of being shocking and disturbing. Literally, one of the first jokes has them show a pair of cockroaches having sex, which is just there to shock the audience and serve no purpose to the rest of the episode. Then there are all the scenes where characters are violently killed in gruesome fashion, and it lingers on too long so that it overstays its welcome.

  6. It Has No Scooby-Doo

  7. It's Not Funny

    The jokes in this all revolve around meta-commentary and mean-spirited energy, and it's horrifically lazy in every aspect. The jokes that come from self-awareness don't come from misery or suffering, which is the most basic element of comedy. Instead, they come from how despicably unlikable all of the characters are towards each other.

    A lot of the jokes are not funny as the characters just spout random vulgar things just to get a laugh from the viewers. Many of the jokes are repetitive and just beat you over the head with it.

  8. Fred Is Treated Like the Show's Punching Bag

    Fred is a rich white boy in this incarnation. As such, he is constantly mocked, portrayed as stupid and self-absorbed, and is just a terribly written character who's also in a forced love triangle with Velma and Daphne. But you end up not rooting for anyone because there's not a single meaningful interaction.

    They completely turned Fred from a competent leader to a pathetic whiny brat who the show loves to treat like a punching bag and make jokes at his expense. At one point, he literally gets turned into Hitler just to set up a joke which isn't even funny.

  9. The Velma and Daphne Romantic Relationship Is Forced

    In the series, it's established that Velma and Daphne used to be childhood friends who now hate each other in high school and are horrible to one another. Then in the second episode, they have them kiss with no build-up. It comes out of nowhere and doesn't feel earned. There's no way you want to see them together seeing how awful they are towards each other.

  10. It Lacks Substance

    The original Scooby-Doo isn't perfect, but at least there's a MYSTERY that they uncover that always ends up being a person in a mask. "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids." Simple.

    Here, they're trying to solve a serial murder case. It feels forced and out of place. While that might have been a good direction in any other Scooby-Doo spinoff with a more adult edge, that's never what any of its predecessors attempted. Therefore, it feels forced and unnecessary.

    Like a lot of terrible adult cartoon shows, it relies too heavily on shocking and offensive material that it lacks any substance to go along with it.

    11. The Newcomers
  11. ?

    It's Sexist

  12. ?

    It Has a Bad Art Style

    13. The Contenders

  13. Norville Is One of the Few Tolerable Characters

    Norville, who is not even Shaggy in this show, is about one of the few characters that is tolerable compared to everyone else, who are unlikable jerks.

  14. Velma Is a Hypocrite

  15. It's Too Woke

  16. It's an Insult to the LGBTQ+ Community

  17. It Gives the Characters Less Personality

  18. Velma Insults Adults Who Still Watch Cartoons

  19. It's Mean-Spirited

    I cannot stand the so-called female protagonist and a main cast of mean-spirited characters being mean-spirited for no reason other than because the scriptwriters demanded it.

  20. The Plot and Characters Are Poorly Written

  21. It's Uncreative

  22. Velma Is a Mary Sue

  23. Velma Is Mindy Kaling's Self-Insert

    A typical Mindy Kaling project that is an insult to Scooby-Doo fans. Not to mention the fact that the executives at HBO Max and Warner Brothers hired her despite the fact that she kissed a male actor on the lips without his consent in the past.

  24. It's an Insult to Holocaust Survivors

    I'm talking about that one moment when Fred turned into Hitler.

  25. It Promotes Propaganda

  26. Weird Al Yankovic Has a Voice Role

    Only awful because he deserves to be in a much better series.

  27. It's an Insult to POC

8Load More
PSearch List