(dramatic music) (Velma screaming)
- Did Velma just die? (laughs)
Here's the deal, all right.
HBO apparently has dropped a Velma trailer
and I need to see it.
I'm here, this is my job now.
Live from the Scooby-Doo News Desk.
I am horribly, horribly sick.
I can't make myself have clear, comprehendible thoughts.
I don't even know if that was a correct thing to say.
But we have things to discuss,
including the burning questions on everyone's mind,
such as, "Hey, where's Scooby in this show
about Scooby-Doo characters?"
And also, "Is Velma gay?"
'Cause they need Velma to be gay?
The answers to both of those questions
will likely disappoint you.
But most of this video was taken from a live stream
I did on my second channel, NerdSync Sidekick,
go check it out, link in the description,
wherein I was completely zonked out on cold medicine
and just rambling like an incoherent dunce.
Which is why, occasionally, I'm gonna interrupt
that stream of consciousness with this,
where I'm still very ill, but I-
my brain can think words clear.
See?!
And hey, if you like this sort of video
let me know in the comments.
Leave a thumbs up, do everything, do all the things.
Subscribe. I don't know,
I don't ask people to subscribe very much.
It'd be nice if you subscribe. Thank you.
It's Scoob-tober, you gotta subscribe for Scoob-tober!
Do it for a dying man! (coughing)
Could a healthy person do that?
Anyway.
We have to watch this Velma trailer.
We're gonna adjust to the audio,
make sure everything sounds good
by first watching this thing I found, called
"Scooby-Doo saying gay rights."
- Women, ah!
- Women, ah! (coughing)
- Shag, when we all graduate from high school-
- I kind of wanna watch-
well you know what?
This will be our treat.
We'll watch the rest of this
after we watch the Velma stuff.
Velma, Official teaser, HBO Max.
All right, let's get into it.
Here we go.
- [Velma] Dear HBO Max
- First things first, here's what I'm gonna say.
I like the look of this show.
I like the way it looks.
All right, sue me!
You know, it reminds me of like Mystery Incorporated.
It reminds me of like classic Scooby-Doo,
where the backgrounds have this like,
really textured painted look to it,
which I really enjoy. I think it looks great.
It also is sort of resembling that sort of,
sixties, seventies sort of background,
like a Dexter's Lab sort of vibe, in the architecture.
I'm gonna say nice things about it.
If you guys came to this stream
thinking I was gonna say bad things
and you thought I was gonna say that it sucks,
I mean, I might say, I might be critic-,
I might criticize it in some ways.
But here's what I'm gonna say.
I think, just from this, it looks good!
- [Velma] I just learned you intend
to make a genre-bending comedic
origin story of Judy Jetson.
- So, who do we think this is now?
'Cause my first thought was, you know,
kind of a green jacket,
probably just because of the lighting.
But my first thought was,
it might be Shaggy.
Especially because, I don't know if you guys remember this,
there were old Cartoon Network bumpers, that were like,
cartoons sort of doing high jinks on each other.
And I bet I could find it, actually.
(phone ringing)
- Hello?
- [Person On Phone] Hello Daphne. Do you like Scooby movies?
- Of course!
- [Person On Phone] I can see you like popcorn
with your movies.
- What did you say?!
- [Person On Phone] Do you like popcorn with your movies?
- That's not what you said!
Where are you?
- Hello Daphne. (laughs)
Good gag, huh?
Could I have some popcorn?
- Scooby movies all next week at seven on-
- So, I don't know, that feels,
that feels like it was a pretty,
maybe not intentional, but like,
it's a very similar gag, right?
So, that's why my first thought was,
it was gonna be Shaggy here,
but I don't think so just because of what we know,
like, photos of stuff that have been released of the cast.
'Cause like, I don't know,
this looks like white guy hand.
(laughs) Is that weird to say?
And Shaggy in the show is gonna be black,
played by Sam Richardson,
who I love, by the way, I love Sam Richardson
in pretty much everything that I've ever seen him in.
So this is Shaggy, Norville, right?
They're calling him Norville.
I wonder, I'm curious about why
they're not doing Shaggy, you know what I mean?
Why they're not gonna call him Shaggy.
I think it's fun though,
just 'cause I've always liked that Shaggy has just like,
it's like an old school sort of name, Norville.
You don't meet a lot of Norville's.
We got Constance Wu as Daphne,
we got Glenn Howerton as Fred.
Now, I will say this about Fred.
The design is fine.
This is clearly from a point in the show
where he's like a little bit overly stylized
in comparison to the others, right?
He's got a little bit more shadow,
like he's opened a door or something
and it's like a dramatic shot.
Whereas they're a little bit more flat,
like, they've got some shine in the hair and whatnot.
But it looks fine.
I don't mind it.
I sort of like the pencil sketchy look to it.
I've always liked that look in,
like, comic book art and cartoon art,
the way that, like, his eyebrows aren't fully filled in.
You can see little gaps here.
It doesn't look like it's continued
to the other ones though,
like, there's a little bit of irregularity
in some of the darker, you know,
some of the bolder black lines,
but otherwise, I don't know!
They look almost like different,
completely different styles.
Anyway, my point was, I don't think then,
that this is Shaggy.
(laughs) "This is the knife of HBO hating animation."
(laughs) Yeah, 'cause it just goes like,
(imitates knife scraping)
All right, this show is immediately off the air.
(laughs) Like, this is HBO being like,
"All right, so, we tried,
you know, we gave it a shot and there it goes.
And it's already- we gave it a teaser
and it's already off the block."
We've got "Serial killer on the loose,
loves killing girls, obviously."
This one's a magazine about triangles.
And this one's a magazine about circles.
All right, hold on, what's here?
"Jones Gentleman's Accessories."
Aha, an Easter egg!
We found one, everyone!
October, Halloween.
Nope, it's Easter!
- [Velma] If there is one thing the internet agrees on,
it's that you should never change anything, ever!
I hope you die!
- Mm, mhm, mhm.
Yeah, this is sort of one of those, like,
meta, sort of, the Internet's upset about this thing,
so we're gonna make fun of how the Internet's upset
about it on the show itself.
I haven't seen Harley Quinn,
but I've heard that Harley Quinn
does that same sort of thing.
What do we think about Mindy Kaling's voice for Velma?
It's, I feel like it's a little bit
different from her normal voice.
And I think it sounds like a-,
I mean, it sounds like a good Velma.
All right, we gotta look all around for clues.
Crystal Cove Fog Fest.
Okay, so it feel-
Do you think then this show's gonna take place
in Crystal Cove, then?
Because if they- because it's not that way,
it wouldn't be Coolsville, like A Pup named Scooby-Doo,
or any of the other, like, the live-action Scooby-Doo's
take place in Coolsville.
This is a Crystal Cove, which is a, like,
Mystery Incorporated sort of thing.
Little cacti.
What does that mean, huh? (suspicious music)
I don't know.
What's happening here?
Is that Velma?
Or not Velma, I mean, obviously this is Velma.
Is this Daphne?
Are they not friends?
I don't think it's Daphne, it doesn't look like Daphne.
Someone's missing.
"A lot of Scooby-Doo stuff after Mystery Incorporated,
like Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo,
took place in Crystal Cove instead of Coolsville."
That's true.
It's sort of like wherever they want to-
it's sort of like wherever they want to go from here, right?
Like, you've got two options.
And it seems like a lot of modern Scooby-Doo stuff
is aiming for Crystal Cove more than anything.
More than Coolsville, 'cause I guess Coolsville sounds,
like, too childish and Crystal Cove is less so.
"They're dealing with a serial killer,
maybe one main villain for the series?"
I would like that.
I always liked Mystery Incorporated's way
of doing like the one long arc.
I think that's a cool idea.
"Unknown caller."
A cracked phone.
Oh, and it's got the notch! (booing)
Look at it! It's got a sharp notch.
Come on, that's old school.
Everyone's got the, what's it called,
the Dynamic Island now on the iPhones.
Get outta here with this.
Ah, this does look like a Daphne then.
So they were friends and now they're not friends.
So, another little Easter egg that we see here
in Velma's room is this little note
that looks like VD plus FJ,
which to me indicates that Velma
is gonna have some sort of unprecedented crush
on Fred in this series.
And I'm pretty sure their Twitter account
for this series did confirm that.
And this is so frustrating to me
because this comes on the heels of like,
two days earlier, there was a whole clip
going around from a new Scooby-Doo movie
where Velma is clearly into women.
- Here are your Scooby Snacks-ahhhhh!
(joyful orchestra music)
Jinkies!
- And it's like, they immediately course-corrected
by saying, "Nevermind, just kidding.
Velma is actually gonna have a crush on Fred."
And like, if I'm trying to give the show
the benefit of the doubt here, maybe they'll surprise us.
Maybe this'll be, a long Velma's journey
of discovering that she doesn't like dudes as much.
Or maybe that she's bi, I can get behind a bi icon.
I am a bi icon.
Hey there.
How's it going?
But I don't know, it feels almost backwards with like,
they're obviously trying to make some sort
of progressive inclusive steps with this show.
But then immediately throwing one that like,
was so clear cut from day one,
just throwing that out the window.
I don't know.
We all know that every member of the,
of Mystery Inc. is gay in some capacity.
"Call Norville."
All right, so we got references
to just about everybody, right?
'Cause we got Velma Dinkley and Fred Jones.
We got Velma and Daphne.
And then, what does this say down here?
St- Stummy, Stlumpy. Stlumpy's in this one, everyone!
We all know the favorite character in Scooby-Doo's Stlumpy.
Throw a picture of Stlumpy up on screen.
Everyone knows Stlumpy!
Stlumpy, of course!
Just, everyone just write out Stlumpy's catchphrase.
Remember Stlumpy?
- Wait, you're inside my house?!
(Velma screams)
- All right, this is how we get-
that's- oh bloody.
Look, it looks good.
The show looks good, right?
Look at this lighting. It's dramatic, it's fun.
Yeah, Stlumpy says, "Legalize it."
I love when Stlumpy said-
Remember guys, it's Stlumpy with a T before the L.
It's Stlumpy.
Remember when Stlumpy said, "Gee willikers?"
That was a good one.
"Stlump in time."
A couple "Stlump in times."
That was his, that was his big one.
That one was a little derivative, was Stlump in time.
"What is Scoob?"
Scooby? Scoobi?
The killer is Scooby, that's what I think.
I think the killer's either Scooby or it's Stlumpy.
'Cause he's always been- Stlumpy's always been around.
Yeah, well this is true 'cause if it was Stlumpy,
then he would've said, "Awooga,"
which is Stlumpy's catch phrase.
So, this is another question that I've seen people
have in this show regarding this trailer,
which is, "Where's Scooby?"
And there are two explanations,
two reasons why Scooby-Doo isn't in this show,
according to Mindy Kaling.
She talks about how, when they were adapting the show
they didn't just want to take these beloved characters
and put them into, you know,
these more mature adult situations.
Which is like, what they're gonna be doing
for most of the characters, anyway.
But I guess Scooby-Doo was more,
too cartoonish, too childish.
Which sort of makes it feel like the explanation is either,
that they didn't want to take Scooby-Doo and bring him
to the level of the of the show by making it sort of dark,
and gritty, and murdery, it seems.
Or they thought that having Scooby-Doo in the show,
who is a little bit more cartoony, as like a talking dog,
would sort of break the immersion of the viewers
and distract from this otherwise, sort of,
quote unquote mature sort of take on the franchise.
Now, the thing about that explanation is,
it's pretty generous.
It's like they're saying, "We wanna do this darker take
but it doesn't work with the dog.
So we'll not use the dog."
Which I'm sure there's some merit
and there's some truth to that.
But also, the bigger reason why they couldn't use Scooby-Doo
is because Warner Brothers told them,
"You can't use, you can't use the dog.
You can't, if you're doing this with the show
you can't use, you can't use the dog, you can't use him."
Which is why it's so weird to me
that they would pose the question in the show.
It's in the teaser for the show itself.
He's nowhere.
He's not in your show.
It's not a question.
You can't use the dog.
Do we think, now this is me getting real
in the weeds of it here.
All right?
I mean, I'm real in the weeds of it
'cause I'm on four different cold medicines
and my brain is on an entire different
plane of existence than all the rest of you.
Do we think that this "B",
looks less like a "B", potentially,
and it instead looks like a 13?
Like, a 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
And then, but then there's the what, maybe 131.
What does that mean? 131?
(ambulance siren)
- Don't go anywhere. Don't-
Stay with me! Stay with me!
- Am I missing any more clues here?
What are these three little things?
If I put my mouse cursor right here
and if- and it almost looks like a dog print, doesn't it?
Oh hey, we can look for teasers in here.
All right, we got glasses, broken glasses.
Don't you like my set design?
You can't even tell,
in my rush I have a, I have some glasses.
I just put some glasses there, 'cause I'm a genius.
This looks like a "G" to me.
Which stands for g-g-g-ghosts.
Some would say, "Ah, nachos!"
What is this?
Three of them, three triangles.
"New things are nice for a series.
Even if it doesn't work out it sets precedent
for someone else to do something neat."
That's what I think.
I mean, Scooby-Doo was just people-
was like, teenagers just solving mysteries
and then people kept experimenting with it
by being like, "Oh, the ghosts are gonna be real this time.
Oh, but this one's gonna be different
'cause the ghosts are gonna be real this time."
But I understand that most of that-
like all of those up to this point really,
have just been like,
there's still shows that are for all ages,
whereas this feels like it's a little bit,
a little bit different.
"I want to know how representative
this teaser is of the actual tone of the show."
That's a good question. I do too.
I'm interested to know if the whole show
is gonna be very meta like this,
if the whole show is gonna be very self-aware
in what it's bringing to the table.
And if it is gonna bring anything to the,
you know, all this sort of, I don't-
Well, you said it best.
Don't, like, don't- just everyone stop me
when I keep talking for too long.
No one's stopping me.
I was very clear about this in my like,
sort of video that I did about the Velma Show
when it was like first sort of teased.
Where I was like, "I am totally fine with them changing
whatever they wanna change about the show."
Because I just want more Scoob content and I want-
I'm glad that they're trying different things.
I just want it to be good on its own sort of merits.
I even have another video coming out
later this week about HBO's recent animation changes
and why I'm very concerned for everything
in the animation department.
"Velma representing the fans that are complaining
though is weird, it's like meta in the wrong direction."
I, and I sort of agree with you there.
It's weird, at least from this teaser
it doesn't feel like she's doing it sarcastically.
She seems, she sounds like she's doing it very earnestly
and it's like, that doesn't mean it makes sense to me.
Oh, I was gonna watch more of them
saying gay rights really quickly.
Oh yeah, I mean, what are the Hex Girls
if not the embodiment of just gay rights?
Hey everyone, thanks for watching.
I gotta go record a podcast.
It's called, "It's Probably Not Aliens."
I do it with my buddy Tristan
where we debunk Ancient Astronaut Theory
and Ancient Aliens, the TV show on History Channel.
Go watch it.
I'm extremely sick!
I think I forgot to mention that and I don't feel good.
But the Scooby-Doo news waits for no one.
Someone needed to cover it and that someone was me.
What did you think of the Velma trailer?
Let me know in the comments down below.
Or you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram
at Scott Niswander or at Nerd Sync.
If you wanna do more brand account, I'm on both of them.
Go follow me everywhere.
Oh, that's everything.
Okay, that's fine.
Well, there's 15 more seconds.
Let's get, let's hear it out.
Nope. Okay. (laughs)