The Scooby-Doo franchise has spawned numerous adaptations and iterations over the decades. HBO Max’s Velma is the first adult animated series of the bunch. Unfortunately, the series doesn’t seem to be much of a hit. In fact, Velma has already become the lowest rated animated series on IMDb.
As of this writing, the series stands at a 1.3 rating on IMDb. Both average viewers and Scooby-Doo fans alike have banded together to criticize the show. For many, the series is said to be “unfunny and pointlessly woke“. Other fans have expressed their disappointment that the series doesn’t even have a role for Scooby – the talking dog that’s become the face of the franchise.
Here are a few one star reviews from IMDb users that expressed their hatred for Velma:
“This show literally insults you. I’ve never known a show to actively try and make you hate it, this is abominable and one of the worst things I’ve ever seen, I can’t stand it. It feels like a straight up slap in the face and I cannot stress this enough, it doesn’t even have SCOOBY-DOO in it,” one user stated.
The next:
“Imagine taking a kids’ show and turning it into a disgusting college frat house drama where everyone is a bully and vomiting for laughs. This might be the most hate-filled re-interpretation of a cartoon I’ve ever seen.”
Here’s one last example:
“This show is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen, and I would give it 0 stars if I could. I can’t believe how poorly written this show is, how mean-spirited it is and how much contempt it has for its source material.”
In any case, it appears that enough fans must’ve been “hate watching” the show as well. As you can see below, Velma voice actress Mindy Kaling shared a post which declared the premiere of Velma the “biggest premiere day for a Max Original animated series ever.”
Thank you everyone for watching! 🎉 @hbomax @velmatheseries pic.twitter.com/QoZ6AIiPtB
— Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) January 14, 2023
As a result, it seems likely that Velma Season 2 could be on the way despite the backlash from viewers and fans. We’ll just have to see what happens as the series continues its run on HBO Max.
In addition to Mindy Kaling as Velma, the series also features Sam Richardson as Norville, Constance Wu as Daphne, and Glenn Howerton as Fred. The cast for the series also includes Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Russell Peters, Melissa Fumero, Stephen Root, Gary Cole, Ming-Na Wen, Ken Leung, Cherry Jones, Frank Welker, Fortune Feimster, Yvonne Orji, Sarayu Blue, Nicole Byer, Shay Mitchell, Debby Ryan, Kulap Vilaysak, and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional Velma updates as we have them.