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Yes, but, this show isn't trying to lampoon Scooby Doo like MTM was. It's a Scooby prequel in the tone of a rapid fire adult cartoon closer to Harely Quinn.
You wouldn't say the Harely Quinn cartoon is pointless because we already have Batman The Animated series, would you?
It's a different thing.
Criticizing something for not being something it isn't trying to be seems like a weird critique.
As an aside: His last role was on Seth Mcfarlen's totally not Star Trek as a green blob monster.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/01/13 21:53:42
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
Didn't like Scooby Doo when I was little, the ghosts were too scary (yes, I'm serious). Didn't like it when I was larger, it was lame compared to Transformers and GI Joe.
Did not care since, even when Buffy played Daphne. Still don't care now.
The only interesting thing I have to add is that the classic Scooby Doo mystery with fake ghosts is an update of an older trope from the Pulp Era.
Writers wanted to have the horror of ghosts and vampires and suchwot and would write a straight up horror story then undo any supernatural elements in the last few pages with handwaves - mirrors, masks, smoke, drugs. My guess is that editors and writers were afraid to cross the line and have stories where monsters were real, it was too unrealistic.
These stories would have been on the mind of Scooby Doos creators in the 60s who probably saw it as a good trope for kids to show them monsters aren't real.
I watched the first episode, yeah I know I'm behind everyone else here. I found some of the race based commentary stale. Not dated, like the show was using 30 year old jokes, just, well IDK. I don't think the child me from 1993 would have laughed either.
Was it all bad, no. However it feels like Mindy Kaling is desperately grasping onto the last 3 of her 15 minutes of Fame.
Lance845 wrote: Yes, but, this show isn't trying to lampoon Scooby Doo like MTM was. It's a Scooby prequel in the tone of a rapid fire adult cartoon closer to Harely Quinn.
From the people different people I talked to about it was that it had some funny bits but that overall the connection to Scooby Doo detracted from it. That if it had just been its own thing it would have been far better off; it ends up being more of a distraction of "how" and "why".
So not terrible but not that great either.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/01/19 01:39:15
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
For all the talk now days about think of the children and pedophiles, I’m surprised I haven’t seen people making a bigger deal about this opening up on a bunch of 15 year olds in a shower with the bare minimum censored by soap bubbles.
Oh it was definitely brought up by people, probably not as much as the general stuff because of how in your face the poor dialogue and writing is, but that part is also very weird. I feel like it would have made more sense to make them all college freshman instead of being in high school if they wanted to be more raunchy with what they show, because as is it definitely has that borderline creeper vibe due to them being teens.
Probably sometime after people have gotten their fill of milking it for social media outrage points; though I get the impression its more likely to just be forgotten first.
Lance845 wrote: Yes, but, this show isn't trying to lampoon Scooby Doo like MTM was. It's a Scooby prequel in the tone of a rapid fire adult cartoon closer to Harely Quinn.
But Harley Quinn is funny?
Saw the first two eps and my general feeling is that it's aping heavily the Harley Quinn show, but with even meaner spirited jokes and quite a bit less funny and overall worse, at least to me.
Some of the jokes are good, though, I was sufficiently entertained for like 40 minutes.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/01/19 16:21:04
Lance845 wrote: Yeah, it's not an amazing show, but it's not trash either.
Lets face it, Scooby Doo in just about every version has been complete garbage. People getting pissy about this one are pissy for pissys sake.
I'll admit that almost every Scooby reboot has been hot garbage. Just because they were does not make this version good by comparison. It deserves its own tear down.
Lance845 wrote: Yeah, it's not an amazing show, but it's not trash either.
Lets face it, Scooby Doo in just about every version has been complete garbage. People getting pissy about this one are pissy for pissys sake.
I'll admit that almost every Scooby reboot has been hot garbage. Just because they were does not make this version good by comparison. It deserves its own tear down.
Sure. Thats fine. Even the original is total crap, but lets just leave it up to reboots.
Let me ask you a question.
Have you ever seen this level of vitriol for any other version of Scooby Doo? Is this version actually that much worse?
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
Have you ever seen this level of vitriol for any other version of Scooby Doo? Is this version actually that much worse?
The movie from 2002. Daphne and Velma got it pretty bad too but that movie ultimately turned around to be some kind of weird scooby-doo guilty pleasure.
I have no idea if Velma is worse.
Also, hot garbage? You know you don't have to dismiss everything just so you can take a contrarian take on this thing right? Scooby Doo has about as many good renditions as bad.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/01/19 21:49:44
Have you ever seen this level of vitriol for any other version of Scooby Doo? Is this version actually that much worse?
The movie from 2002. Daphne and Velma got it pretty bad too but that movie ultimately turned around to be some kind of weird scooby-doo guilty pleasure.
I have no idea if Velma is worse.
Also, hot garbage? You know you don't have to dismiss everything just so you can take a contrarian take on this thing right? Scooby Doo has about as many good renditions as bad.
I am not being contrarian. Scooby Doo has 1 good rendition. Mysteries Inc.
I cannot think of any other version of Scooby Doo that was actually good in any way.
These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
The OG Cartoon. 13 Ghosts. Boo! School. A Pup Named Scooby-Doo (criminally killed before its time). The New Scooby-Doo Movies? About half the actual movies.
They'd all like to have a word. Some of them haven't even aged that well (Did Scooby really need a Shortround expy?) and they're still pretty good.
It's mostly the modern stuff that's been cheap and kind of trashy, but the studioes behind Get a Clue and What's new clearly weren't putting much effort into it. Scooby-Doo is probably about as challenged in modern media as Sonic the Hedgehog but that doesn't make the OG material hot garbage.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/01/19 22:02:41
Lance845 wrote: Yeah, it's not an amazing show, but it's not trash either.
Lets face it, Scooby Doo in just about every version has been complete garbage. People getting pissy about this one are pissy for pissys sake.
I'll admit that almost every Scooby reboot has been hot garbage. Just because they were does not make this version good by comparison. It deserves its own tear down.
Sure. Thats fine. Even the original is total crap, but lets just leave it up to reboots.
Let me ask you a question.
Have you ever seen this level of vitriol for any other version of Scooby Doo? Is this version actually that much worse?
Honestly, no, I think this one is the most hated. I went pretty hard on a couple of the others, but much of that was the animation style that didn't agree with me, which admittedly is subjective. Animation alone I actually kinda like Velma. I think this one isn't hated more per se, just hated more broadly. Of all the reboots, and even some of the parodies, this version deviates the most from the original. It's adult humor, it's sans-dog, it has some semi-racism, the characters are intentionally unlikable.
While we often see the past with rose colored glasses, sometimes we do the opposite as well. Originally Scooby Doo was a very hokey, kid friendly, Saturday cartoon from the 70's to watch while you ate cereal. It was episodic in nature, and you didn't need to watch any particular episode to get the plot any other episode. This is literally the exact opposite of that.
There is a fine line between an homage to the original and intentionally giving it the middle finger. I've actually quite enjoyed many shows that have laid waste to my cherished childhood memories. Robot Chicken, Family Guy, South Park, Simpsons, etc have all parodied Scooby, and done it well, even with the adult humor. However, doing it well for a few minutes or a single episode is much different to an entire series, and I think that is where the staying power of this show is going to have a problem.
Honestly the show's greatest enemy is likely to be Discovery slashing stuff left and right to write them off as losses.
I doubt the show is doing badly. Controversy does sell and how many people have probably already watched it just to see what the fuss is about? There'd have to be a serious failure to retain viewers for HBO to consider the show a loss.
LordofHats wrote: Honestly the show's greatest enemy is likely to be Discovery slashing stuff left and right to write them off as losses.
I doubt the show is doing badly. Controversy does sell and how many people have probably already watched it just to see what the fuss is about? There'd have to be a serious failure to retain viewers for HBO to consider the show a loss.
Thing is the first episodes are going to do well on views and internet hype because of the hate. However unless the hate is super strong chances are many will get turned off by it and won't watch the rest of the episodes. So if they greenlight season 2 based on the opening viewer numbers they could still end up with a dead duck.
Also for all the ups and downs of many (most) of the earlier adaptations, they were at least trying to stick to the original core concepts and just play with the formula a bit here and there.
But this new adaptation, everything I've heard and seen of it is just not Scooby in any way shape nor form. It shares the brand name and some character names and some visual design elements here and there, but otherwise its just not Scooby Doo. It might be called it, but its not it.
lord_blackfang wrote: So how long until people figure out this a reactionary show clumsily parodying over the top wokeness?
Mindy Kaling's writing is neither that profound NOR that talented. I think this is just a show done by someone who hates the franchise. Isn't the first time that's happened.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/01/20 02:31:39
Also for all the ups and downs of many (most) of the earlier adaptations, they were at least trying to stick to the original core concepts and just play with the formula a bit here and there.
But this new adaptation, everything I've heard and seen of it is just not Scooby in any way shape nor form. It shares the brand name and some character names and some visual design elements here and there, but otherwise its just not Scooby Doo. It might be called it, but its not it.
Well... I mean. There is a couple of mysteries and Velma is going around the crew trying to solve them while establishing the interpersonal relationships of the group. Thats about all Scooby Doo ever was + having characters that are more than "This ones hungry" "This one gets captured" etc...
lord_blackfang wrote: So how long until people figure out this a reactionary show clumsily parodying over the top wokeness?
It's not though.
Takes a real leap to think that this is some right-wing anti-woke psy-op.
IMHO it's most likely the combination of tone-deaf comedians and making a show to please the metrics instead of the audience. If you only measure audience engagement and optimize for that, outrage and negativity have the same effect as genuine happy audiences on the face of it, so it's 'mission accomplished' for that particular type of beancountery. Long-term viability of that strategy is of course another kettle of fish.
Outrage has a much more positive effect. It's cheaper to make and drives more "engagement" than happy.
It's fascinating that I've seen almost no one go to bat for this thing. Even the people that usually recommend giving things a try do not recommend giving it a try.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/01/23 14:50:09
It seems like it was going for meta commentary on tropes but wasn't really clever enough to do it well. Like at the beginning of the first episode that says that origin stories are for hunky guys or how a woman went crazy and that doesn't really hold up all that well. They wanted to make a joke about origin stories but didn't have a good joke so just threw something out there hoping the audience would be ok with it.
I've enjoyed Mindy's other projects but this one just falls flat.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
