Trivia / Velma

• Approval of God:
  • Original Velma voice actress Nicole Jaffe approved of Kaling's casting, saying it was a long time coming for the character to be played by a person of color.
  • Matthew Lillard, the 2000s live action actor and modern voice actor for Shaggy, voiced support for the new voice cast on October 8, 2022. This includes Sam Richardson as his counterpart.
• Disowned Adaptation: In contrast with Jaffe, Grey DeLisle mocked the show, tweeting "Jeepers!" with a link to an article discussing the show's poor reception. That being said, she refused to insult Constance Wu for her performance as Daphne, saying she would not tear down a fellow voice actress.
• Executive Veto: According to showrunner Charlie Grandy at the show's NYCC 2022 panel, Warner Bros. Animation executives forbid them from directly including Scooby-Doo in the series' cast, though by the time they were told, the crew was already considering against using the character since they couldn't figure out how to use him without ruining the show's tone. Scrappy-Doo, however, was apparently fair game.
  What made Scooby-Doo a kid show is Scooby-Doo. We couldn't have a take on it, like how can we do this in a fun and modern way. [Our efforts] coincided with Warner Bros. Animation saying we can't use the dog!
• Exiled from Continuity: Scooby is absent largely due to Warner Bros. not wanting the character to appear in the series, though the writing crew admitted that they didn't know how to work him in anyway.
• Follow the Leader: It's no doubt that the Harley Quinn animated series was a major influence when the show was made. Daphne even looks like that show's incarnation of Poison Ivy, but with regular human skin instead of green.
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • The NYCC 2022 panel had showrunner Charlie Grandy cite two animated shows for the show's humor style: the aforementioned Harley Quinn and Rick and Morty.
  • In a later interview with Animation World News, Grandy cites Riverdale as another series inspiration. Backed up by Constance Wu, they were inspired by how that show took darker sensibilities with the lighter Archie stories, but still felt recognizable to the source material. The show was given a Shout-Out with the locker room scene with Daphne in the first episode.
• No Export for You: No service outside of America has picked the series up.
• The Other Darrin: The main Scooby-Doo cast are all voiced by different actors than usual. Velma is voiced by Mindy Kaling instead of Kate Micucci, Daphne is voiced by Constance Wu instead of Grey DeLisle, Norville (aka Shaggy) is voiced by Sam Richardson instead of Matthew Lillard, and Fred, in a rare occasion, is voiced by Glenn Howerton instead of Frank Welker, who voices his father (much like Shaggy's father being voiced by Casey Kasem in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated and Uncle Albert in Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue!).
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
  • On January 16, 2023, a wildly circulated tweet claimed to have a screenshot leak of a future episode, showing that Scooby-Doo had secretly been adapted to the series after all, allegedly as a Black human woman named Scoobi - a food reviewer serving as a love interest of Norville. Detractors of the series quickly spread the news throughout the day. It was later revealed by Paste Magazine's Rendy Jones that "Scoobi" was an unrelated original character named Gigi, from Daphne's clique. Since critics had earlier access to the episodes, Jones could easily refer to their review as proof; in addition, the character was already present in the first two episodes as a side character, being present in several scenes (just with a different hairstyle).
  • Shortly after the release of Season 2, a screenshot depicting Velma delivering a Take That! toward Coyote Vs. ACME and the movement to release it (with her directly calling those supporting its release "a bunch of losers") during a conversation with Daphne was widely circulated on social media. In the actual episode, no such Take That! is delivered and Velma's actual dialogue in the scene is: "Do you really wanna have a deep conversation about our feelings right now?"
• Production Lead Time: "Fog Fest" draws parallels with the town coming out of curfew with a serial killer still on the loose and the loosening of COVID-19 lockdowns when the virus is still around years after multiple COVID vaccines were developed, rendering lockdowns redundant.
• Production Posse: Mindy Kaling worked with another former writer of The Office (US), Charlie Grandy,^note Son of Fred Grandy in creating the show.
• Promoted Fanboy: Back in November 2018, Sam Richardson stated A Pup Named Scooby-Doo was superior to the original series. Fast-forward to 2023, where he's officially voicing a variant on Shaggy appropriately named "Norville", where A Pup Named Scooby-Doo coined the name.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Daphne's mothers are played by lesbian actresses Wanda Sykes and Jane Lynch.
• Remake Cameo: Frank Welker, the usual voice of Fred and Scooby in most incarnations of the characters, voices Fred's father William Jones.
• Role Reprise: Jennifer Hale once again reprises her role as Thorn in season 2.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to pre-production concept art by Annie Wu, the main Mystery Inc. Gang could've worn more modern urban outfits reminiscent of their usual clothes.
  • Shaggy was pitched to have a drop shoulder jacket and wore a "Japanese-inspired sleeve" to mimic his usual shirt.
  • Fred was pitched as shorter than most interpretations, and visually looked closer to the Jerk Jock characterization of this show's take.

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