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Being back in the news for reasons I don't much care about did remind of a question I had about the Mystery Inc gang.

I mostly know the show from back when they hung out with the Harlem Globetrotters and Adam West's Batman. At that time the mysteries revolved around someone using supernatural beliefs and the group debunked them showing us that, as always, old men were always the true villian. I get the impression that in the last twenty years or so they actually have supernatural elements play a part in the show. Is this accurate? Do they actually have ghosts and zombies these days?


I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.

 Ahtman wrote:

I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.

Eew, a serious Scooby-Doo show without Scooby??
Who wants to see that?

The show “Mystery Inc.” had some supernatural elements that became apparent as the continuing background story evolved. It was a Gen X type of show, with a lot of reference humor and a Buffy vibe.

 Ahtman wrote:
Being back in the news for reasons I don't much care about did remind of a question I had about the Mystery Inc gang.

I mostly know the show from back when they hung out with the Harlem Globetrotters and Adam West's Batman. At that time the mysteries revolved around someone using supernatural beliefs and the group debunked them showing us that, as always, old men were always the true villian. I get the impression that in the last twenty years or so they actually have supernatural elements play a part in the show. Is this accurate? Do they actually have ghosts and zombies these days?


I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.

So, scooby doo in general sucks in the vast majority of it's iterations. But Mystery Inc was legit good. It starts with a bunch of old men in masks and eventually reaches more or less Cthulhu level issues. Whats great is the conclusion of that has them in an alternate reality, traveling around in their van, and basically starting the original show. The one, really bad thing in Mystery Inc is there is a girl nick named Hot Dog Water because that is apparently what she smells like. Just... gross.

I know a fair bit of the movie spin offs have had a lot of legit supernatural and alien villains that weren't just people in costumes or masks. There was one with real zombies and werewolves, weird aliens and I believe one with the Hex Girls where they had to deal with a real witch too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.

Eew, a serious Scooby-Doo show without Scooby??
Who wants to see that?

I mean probably the same people thinking that having a show where Velma being race-swapped as a selling point is going to be enough of a premise for a spin-off series beyond the initial rage-bait views. It's really getting old hat with the usual "if you don't like this, you're "whatever-ist" like Ghostbusters 2016.

I'm just shocked it's not Daphne who got changed given how many red-heads Hollywood has gone after for race-swapping in recent years. Small mercies I guess?

Not Daphne, but they did make Shaggy black.

Scoobynatural is peak Scooby Doo. Fight me.

Fraggin loved Mystery Inc.

Most of the time Scooby Doo is about old white men dressing up as monsters to steal land; a premise probably way more insightful than its original creators intended. Only some rare offshoots have actual supernatural stuff.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Scoobynatural is peak Scooby Doo. Fight me.

One of the best episodes in the entire show.

 Grimskul wrote:
I know a fair bit of the movie spin offs have had a lot of legit supernatural and alien villains that weren't just people in costumes or masks. There was one with real zombies and werewolves, weird aliens and I believe one with the Hex Girls where they had to deal with a real witch too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.

Eew, a serious Scooby-Doo show without Scooby??
Who wants to see that?

I mean probably the same people thinking that having a show where Velma being race-swapped as a selling point is going to be enough of a premise for a spin-off series beyond the initial rage-bait views. It's really getting old hat with the usual "if you don't like this, you're "whatever-ist" like Ghostbusters 2016.

I'm just shocked it's not Daphne who got changed given how many red-heads Hollywood has gone after for race-swapping in recent years. Small mercies I guess?

Daphne is Asian in it.

Honestly the whole thing sounds stupid. No Scooby because they didn’t want his kind of silliness distracting from their grim adult humor, meanwhile Fred has a disease that renders him only able to recognize hot people. Here’s what the four of them look like;

 Lance845 wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
I know a fair bit of the movie spin offs have had a lot of legit supernatural and alien villains that weren't just people in costumes or masks. There was one with real zombies and werewolves, weird aliens and I believe one with the Hex Girls where they had to deal with a real witch too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.

Eew, a serious Scooby-Doo show without Scooby??
Who wants to see that?

I mean probably the same people thinking that having a show where Velma being race-swapped as a selling point is going to be enough of a premise for a spin-off series beyond the initial rage-bait views. It's really getting old hat with the usual "if you don't like this, you're "whatever-ist" like Ghostbusters 2016.

I'm just shocked it's not Daphne who got changed given how many red-heads Hollywood has gone after for race-swapping in recent years. Small mercies I guess?

Daphne is Asian in it.

Whelp, I stand corrected. Hollywood can never resist eliminating legit redheads. I only saw the cringe Velma trailer so far, so I missed the changes to the rest of the Scooby Doo crew. Pretty lame. They really should have just took a page out of Mystery Inc in terms of having coherent storytelling rather than do....whatever this is.

 Grimskul wrote:
They really should have just took a page out of Mystery Inc in terms of having coherent storytelling rather than do....whatever this is.

You literally haven't even watched it yet.

Having alternative designs for the characters doesn't necessarily mean anything for the storytelling.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
They really should have just took a page out of Mystery Inc in terms of having coherent storytelling rather than do....whatever this is.

You literally haven't even watched it yet.

Having alternative designs for the characters doesn't necessarily mean anything for the storytelling.

Agree with all this. Like the ninja turtles, this has been going so long that it should just be rebooted and changed as often as possible wfor whatever they want to do with it.

Making daphne asain doesn't make her "not a red head" (asains can have natural red hair). And until we see the product judging it is exactly like the meltdown everyone was having about fenale ghost busters when all we saw was a logo.

I think the oldest Scooby-Doo incarnation where the ghosts were 'real' was the 1985 show 'The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo' where Scooby, Shaggy, Vincent Price, and this stereotypical asian kid that appeared all over the place in the 80s would run around trying to re-capture a series of mini-bosses that I think Scrappy accidentally released.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
They really should have just took a page out of Mystery Inc in terms of having coherent storytelling rather than do....whatever this is.

You literally haven't even watched it yet.

Having alternative designs for the characters doesn't necessarily mean anything for the storytelling.

Agree with all this. Like the ninja turtles, this has been going so long that it should just be rebooted and changed as often as possible wfor whatever they want to do with it.

Making daphne asain doesn't make her "not a red head" (asains can have natural red hair). And until we see the product judging it is exactly like the meltdown everyone was having about fenale ghost busters when all we saw was a logo.

Honestly my only issue with the female Ghost Busters was it felt like it was 20 years late in coming.

Also lets not forget this new Scooby program doesn't have Scooby.
That's like rebooting Buffy the Vampire Slayer and deciding you don't need Buffy



Also part of me wonders if the show creators aren't just trolling us for marketing. Considering how on the nose the Velma trailer has been I do wonder if they are going to pull a "fooled you all" twist and the actual show is entirely different.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
They really should have just took a page out of Mystery Inc in terms of having coherent storytelling rather than do....whatever this is.

You literally haven't even watched it yet.

Having alternative designs for the characters doesn't necessarily mean anything for the storytelling.

Right, but the fact that this is what they're mostly focusing on in the trailer (look guys! we're self-aware of race-baiting! Change is bad hurr-durr, what a bunch of internet babies) is less about what the story is actually about versus preemptively trying to be inflammatory towards their viewer base is not a great sign this is a show based on strong writing.

Very little of what they've shown so far suggests that they'll do anything more than attempt to do the usual deconstruction of the classic characters, probably make a weird shoehorned "romance" between Velma and Daphne based on the early show description and try to make Fred (the only white main character) the butt of every joke while they ham up the pop culture references and sex jokes as an attempt to show how "adult" the show is. Just wait for them to change Fred's interest in traps to be twisted into him liking femboys like Astolfo

Basically when you're clearly starting to change the personality of all the characters and take out the talking dog, whats the point of making this a scooby doo related project?

This looks like another Riverdale in the making, with the show having nothing to do at all with Archie's comics. And my criticism is the same. And it's just...why?

I'm totally fine with a show about a southasian teen detective, her redhaired girlfriend and two side male friends. So why cover it up under a scooby doo skin, especially without the Scooby Doo?

Hell, if you want to keep it in the Scooby Doo universe, just make the show about their descendants. Mindy's character could be Velma's daughter, Constance Wu the daughter of Daphne and Freddy, and Norville could be Norville Jr, Shaggys adopted son. It also works out in explaining where the heck Scooby went.

There are so many ways of doing this without it looking like "HEY WE ARE SUPER DIVERSE, LIBERALS, ADORE US LIKE WE ARE GODS, CONSERVATIVES, GET MAD AT US FOR "FORCED INCLUSION". WE DON'T CARE, JUST GIVE US FREE MARKETING"

The more vocal and the more consistent the usual crowd of haters are the more likely the art is to address them in the art. Art imitates life.

These ass holes were going to throw a hissy fit. They knew it. They addressed them head on. Those hissy fit throwers were never their audience.

The problem is that they didn't even do that right, by conflating that different=good / fans wanting respect for the source material = bad".

Frankly, the trailer fundamentally failed at doing the one thing a trailer is supposed to do which is tell us why we should want to watch the show. By trying to do a meta-jab at critics, all it does is double down on being based on internet drama rather than standing on its own merits. How much you want to bet it will blame on "isms" for it not doing well if it tanks in ratings? At some point you can't keep trying to have your cake and eat it too.

I feel like the only people who would want to watch it based on seeing it is to spite people dumping on the show for virtue signal points and the others are to see the train wreck that this show is going to be.

They may be taking a page from She Hulk, which also took on the usual haters, pretty successfully. I suspect if the Velma show is good there will still be many hate-watchers who constantly complain about how unenjoyable the very enjoyable parts of the show are because it’s “not for them” or they wonder “who is this [widely enjoyed and well-regarded] show even for?”. The writers could mine a lot of material from that situation.

 Grimskul wrote:
The problem is that they didn't even do that right, by conflating that different=good / fans wanting respect for the source material = bad".

Frankly, the trailer fundamentally failed at doing the one thing a trailer is supposed to do which is tell us why we should want to watch the show. By trying to do a meta-jab at critics, all it does is double down on being based on internet drama rather than standing on its own merits. How much you want to bet it will blame on "isms" for it not doing well if it tanks in ratings? At some point you can't keep trying to have your cake and eat it too.

I feel like the only people who would want to watch it based on seeing it is to spite people dumping on the show for virtue signal points and the others are to see the train wreck that this show is going to be.

The original IS bad. Scooby Doo original is a terrible show.

The rating WILL get tanked. They will be tanked before the first episode ever reaches streaming. Just like Ghost Busters. Ms Marvel She-Hulk and all the other times this kind of stuff has happened. Does anyone remember when there was a fury about Miles Morales being announced as the Ultimate Spider Man? "What! They made spiderman black! AND Hispanic! Why can't they just leave the classic character alone!" Issue 1 was months away.

It's not a cop out when the isms are actually doing it. Knowing they are going to do it and making fun of them for being big babies before they even get a chance is fair game. And it lets us know they are both aware and don't give a gak. Maybe thats not for you, and that is fine. But it's a message that attracts somebody. Just not you.

Removed.

 Grimskul wrote:
So why cover it up under a scooby doo skin, especially without the Scooby Doo?

Free advertising, creative bankruptcy, and a crowded market.

Controversy also creates a 'them vs us' kind of situation. Nothing is easier to sell than something that 'sticks it to the other guy', and nothing is easier to forgive than the thing that 'pisses off the haters'. And so it has always been.

It doesn't automatically mean the show will be bad. It's pragmatic, it just doesn't scream confidence in their own material.

How is Daphne being Asian race baiting? Seems like a bit of a stretch.

Anyway, I usually enjoy Mindy Kahling's work so I'll at least check it out when it releases.

And yeah the original Scooby Doo is definitely more of a nostalgia love than because of its timeless writing and high end animation.

No. I am not talking about actual performance. Ghost Busters: Answer the Call is not a good movie. That is not what I said.

What I said is that it was getting hate before anyone saw a single image of the cast in costume. We had 1 logo image with the press announcement of an all female Ghost Busters and the hate started then.

What I am saying is that consistently, these shows get review bombed before they even release.

You have to be actively ignoring the time line of events to not see this happen over and over again.

Also, because the original wasn't super great it's okay to run ramshod over it and radically alter their characters to the point where they're almost completely different?

No. The original not being great has nothing to do with it. You are ALWAYS fine to radically alter and change whatever the hell you want however the hell you want whenever the hell you want. Guess what, Bram Stoker's Dracula has been adapted over and over and over again with radical alterations. Some are better some are worse and all are fine that they happened.

The classic Boris Karloff Frankenstein is a radical alteration of it's source material. Turning the monster into a lumbering near brainless beast when in the actual source material he was intelligent. Spoke, clearly and intelligently. Did math. Etc etc...

The people in charge of Simpsons should do whatever they want with Simpsons. It's theirs. If you don't like the changes they made but you do like the original, go watch the original.

Scooby Doo is a franchise that has already been re-imagined and Scrappy Doo’ed into worthlessness. The formula is so thin and stale they have nothing left but to shake it up even further from the original.

The characters were never really about their race(s). That’s a cosmetic change that probably won’t impact their personalities or interpersonal dynamics (unless the show attempts to delve deeper like Mystery Inc., in which case they might have something new to add to the same old characters). Unfortunately we live in times where studios are so risk adverse they prefer to raid old IP over developing new ones, even when the old IP is a poor fit; it’s pretty common for reboots and reimaginings to fail because of this. The problem is when studios want to reuse IP from a time when casting was…let’s say markedly less diverse than the actual population. They can either change some characters’ ethnicities, maybe tapping into a new market, or they can stick with older, dated ideas on who gets to be seen on screen as per the original IP…and make some fans much happier.

A.T. wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
So why cover it up under a scooby doo skin, especially without the Scooby Doo?

Free advertising, creative bankruptcy, and a crowded market.

Controversy also creates a 'them vs us' kind of situation. Nothing is easier to sell than something that 'sticks it to the other guy', and nothing is easier to forgive than the thing that 'pisses off the haters'. And so it has always been.

It doesn't automatically mean the show will be bad. It's pragmatic, it just doesn't scream confidence in their own material.

Let me take you back to a time before I was born. A time when Scooby Doo first landed. And Hanna Barbera promptly vomited forth many of its own copycats from the same flimsy mould. Josie and the Pussycats, Captain Caveman, The Funky Phantom, Speed Buggy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids (no, really!), Goober and the Ghost Chasers. I could go on but I’m even boring myself to death.

 Ahtman wrote:
Being back in the news for reasons I don't much care about did remind of a question I had about the Mystery Inc gang.

I mostly know the show from back when they hung out with the Harlem Globetrotters and Adam West's Batman. At that time the mysteries revolved around someone using supernatural beliefs and the group debunked them showing us that, as always, old men were always the true villian. I get the impression that in the last twenty years or so they actually have supernatural elements play a part in the show. Is this accurate? Do they actually have ghosts and zombies these days?


I know the new adult HBO animated series is going to revolve around an actual serial killer that, unsurprisingly, kills people so there is that as well. No Scooby in that though, just the rest of the group. So I guess there is that too.

It's varied. As I grew up there were several reboots/iterations of Scooby-Doo. Some stuck to the old formula where the supernatural wasn't real. Others adapted that it was sometimes real. Some made it central to the plot.

It's varied.

One of my favorites though is the relatively recent 2 season series Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.



This one adapted elements of Lovecraftian horror very well IMO, and was on the whole one of the better modern iterations of the show. It leaned into slap-stick comedy at times, but had great emotional highs and lows, a good balance between stand-alone episode and myth arc, and had a great overall feel. Easily my favorite revival of the show. I believe it's available on HBO Max for anyone interested. I'll shill this gak cause it deserves shilling.

Racists really gonna pretend they love Scooby Doo just so they can cry about how it was ruined, huh.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Racists really gonna pretend they love Scooby Doo just so they can cry about how it was ruined, huh.

I didn't give a gak until I heard there was no Scooby man.

No Scooby? That's like a Gundam series without Gundams or Batman without Batman... Alright, I concede at least one of those ideas has worked in the past, but it's one hell of a bar to vault! I'm half expecting it's a fakeout and Scooby will actually show up, just not necessarily at the start of the show cause I don't get how you can have the show without a talking dog. The talking dog is one of the main characters.