Velma's Trademark Has Been Abandoned

8/10/2022

According to Trademarkia.com, a site housing legal trademarks and legal registrations, the trademark for the Velma series has been abandoned. The original trademark was registered on the day the series was first announced, February 10, 2021, but Trademarkia lists that on July 11, 2022, Jeanene Jobst of Warner Brothers officially filed to abandon the trademark. This means that Warner Brothers is no longer interested in the series. It doesn't necessarily mean that other networks will not pick up the series, but it presumably means that the series will not happen and will likely be cancelled soon.

A member of the ScoobyAddicts forum with an associate that has a connection within Hanna-Barbera Studios also shared what seems to be an internal record from a different site, which confirms the same information about the abandoned trademark. (This can be seen above)

While there has been no official announcement that the series is cancelled, this seems to imply that Velma is no longer moving forward.

Thank you to Hippyboy86 and Dizagaox from the ScoobyAddicts forum for sharing this information!

70 Comments

Carson Maitland - Smith link

8/10/2022 10:14:06 am

Thank god!

Hebrew Wolfman link

8/12/2022 08:31:37 am

Thank you, God!! What a great news!!

Matt

8/10/2022 11:07:09 am

Well, I am disappointed. I was looking forward to giving it its fair chance.

To me, this appears to be a VERY bad indicator on how interested the new regime at WB is in terms of making Scooby Doo content. We might get a couple of things but I don’t have a lot of hope right now

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 11:32:55 am

I was looking forward to seeing what this was as well, although I would say my feelings are more worry for Scooby in general. It seems like they're on track to cancel everything, and I could see Mystery Pups getting the axe next.

Matt

8/10/2022 02:21:28 pm

Same here… I don’t think that anyone who is happy about this realizes what this very well could mean for the future of the franchise…

Jacob Staggs

8/10/2022 03:38:06 pm

I don't think that they will cancel Mystery Pups or any of the preschool shows like Bugs Bunny Builders, Bat Wheels, or Tom and Jerry Time because building your child audience through a preschool show is the one way to ensure a franchise's lasting durability. An outlet to get people to buy merch and kids to watch newer shows in the future. It's also kind of seen as a public service, something that any studio would want to make to make the execs look good.

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 04:23:18 pm

That's a great point, I really hope that's what will happen.

HotDogWater

8/10/2022 06:15:48 pm

Warner Bros. already announced they wanna move away from animation and kids content in general, which makes me feel as if they're planning to cancel Mystery Pups as well.

But who knows honestly. I guess it kind of depends on how well Cartoonito performs also. We've got about 2 years to see what happens ultimately.

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 06:43:27 pm

I kind of wonder if they're even going to go ahead with Cartoonito. Not trying to be alarmist, but right now it seems like anything is possible given they cancelled Scoob! Holiday Haunt when it was nearly finished.

Jayden

8/10/2022 11:37:53 am

I'm honestly glad. It's series like these that ruin Scooby Doo.

Carson Maitland - Smith link

8/10/2022 12:28:35 pm

He and the gang deserve better

Matt

8/10/2022 01:09:05 pm

I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t understand how one show with a concept you don’t like would “ruin” Scooby Doo. At worst, it could just be ignored

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 02:49:56 pm

I agree with Matt on this one. Even if Velma ended up being a trainwreck, it wouldn't have affected any future Scooby content. Worst case scenario, even if it did somehow change the course of the franchise (which is very unlikely), it wouldn't somehow wreck the 53 years of previous Scooby content.

Jayden

8/11/2022 10:08:59 am

It's not something anyone asked for. Why focus on one person of the gang and twist around their story?

WildwindVampire link

8/11/2022 10:52:38 am

I feel like I heard Mindy Kaling was thinking about doing this story with another franchise, but then it didn't get picked up, so she chose Scooby because she really identified with Velma as a kid. Not sure if that's true, though.

Matt

8/11/2022 12:22:37 pm

Whether anyone asked for it or not (I feel like many people actually HAVE wanted something of the sort for an older audience ever since Riverdale did it with the Archie comics, so I absolutely 100% disagree when you say that nobody asked for it) still doesn’t make it ruin the rest of Scooby Doo. I’m sorry but that is a complete overreaction

I don’t like Guess Who, but it doesn’t ruin anything else. I just don’t watch it

WildwindVampire link

8/11/2022 01:31:56 pm

Agreed, even if Velma was awful, it doesn't mean all the previous content will be ruined. Many people hate Get a Clue so they just skip over it, so I imagine the same could happen here.

Dimitri Brenick

8/14/2022 07:17:17 am

Look at riverdale, supergirl, and batwoman. all these shows had problems that hurt shows that were gonna be made to be connected to thier respective universe.

Matt

8/15/2022 10:32:28 am

I’m not sure why you would think that it would affect any future additions to those universes, but it is absolutely unfair to prematurely judge this show without it even having a chance, and saying that it would hurt future shows in a universe, especially one with as much quantity as Scooby Doo. Because you haven’t seen it at all

If the show ended up being bad, then you can say that even if it would still feel very overdramatic, but you never even saw the show. I would say most big Scooby fans think Be Cool turned out fine despite the first impressions, wouldn’t they?

Becker

8/10/2022 02:38:06 pm

I was not excited for this show or looking forward to it much, what I'm worried about is the Scooby franchise in general right now, what this could mean for the future.

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 02:51:11 pm

As much as I hate to say it, I feel like Mystery Pups may be next. I don't think we'd get any announcement for Krypto if it were cancelled, since it was never officially announced in the first place.

Becker

8/12/2022 05:06:21 am

The weird thing is that Mystery Pups was announced under the Discovery leadership, so why would Zaslav let it through just to cancel it before it comes out? That would be very strange.

WildwindVampire link

8/12/2022 07:21:16 am

That's what I find really strange too. I also find it odd they had Velma be a part of that panel the week before Mystery Pups was announced if they were just going to cancel it. I know it's not certain that it's cancelled (since it could just be renamed like a couple people have mentioned in the comments), but it's still odd.

Mystery5

8/10/2022 02:46:29 pm

Wow…Holiday Haunt, this, they BETTER have plans to bring back Scooby like omg this is beyond annoying at this point.

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 02:51:55 pm

I hope so too! Honestly though, WB-Discovery just seems like chaos at the moment, so I don't know if even they know what the next steps will be.

Steve

8/10/2022 02:57:04 pm

This doesn't necessarily mean the show isn't happening; they might have just changed the title.

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 04:23:43 pm

Fair point. Hopefully that's the case!

scoobylover

8/10/2022 02:57:57 pm

Honestly the saddest thing to have happened to the franchise. I was so looking forward to this. I am devastated, literally. This is very bad news for the entire franchise.

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 04:24:49 pm

I know a lot of people were skeptical of Velma, but I was also really looking forward to seeing what this series would be like. It's extremely sad they're just cancelling all the Scooby projects like this. Hopefully Mystery Pups and Trick or Treat are still happening.

Amber noel

8/10/2022 05:44:11 pm

To me it seems like they are scrapping projects because of the projects themselves not because of the franchise it came from if they were going to stop the franchise I feel like they would have said so or maybe scrap all scooby doo projects at once I could see them maybe slow down a bit until things are sorted out at warner discovery but I don't see it being the end of the franchise as a whole.

That being said I wonder what direction they are going to take for the franchise are they going back to basics or are they going do what zombie island did either way I think both directions will make money.

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 06:05:26 pm

I also don't think it will mean the end of the franchise, or that it's anything specific to the Scooby franchise that's causing them to cancel all this stuff. It just seems like Zaslav has a radical philosophy on how to make things more cost-effective, and pretty much every property that's owned by WB has the possibility of having projects cancelled since the company is at such a turning point with the merger.

Amber noel

8/10/2022 08:38:08 pm

Honestly I feel like they are going to focus on the aspects of the franchise that make rather than scrap the franchise entirely.

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 09:56:43 pm

I don't think they'd scrap the franchise completely; that would be a huge mistake and loss of money for them. Hopefully what's going to happen is maybe there will be only a couple years with much less Scooby content during the restructuring, and then we'll start getting more regular content again.

Jakob123

8/10/2022 08:48:48 pm

First Holiday Haunt! and now Velma will be getting the boot too?
What in the freaking hell is the meaning of this?!!!!!!!!

Jakob123

8/10/2022 08:54:07 pm

I don't understand!

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 10:00:07 pm

It's because of the new WB-Discovery CEO, David Zaslav's philosophy about streaming shows not making enough money. It's really unfortunate, but I'm hoping they don't cancel any other Scooby projects now that they've cancelled these two.

Dimitri Brenick

8/10/2022 09:40:14 pm

Chances are they are renaming it something else, i really don't care about this series as a darker scooby series is welcome, something as adult as they were seemly going for isn't the route to go to, at least not at first. Espically if they can't even let the gang encounter real monster in the movies anymore. >:(

WildwindVampire link

8/10/2022 09:55:18 pm

That's certainly possible, although I wouldn't put it past them to have cancelled this given what they did with Holiday Haunt, and considering it had a lot of controversy around it.

The real monster thing was a studio mandate by WB executives, but now that the leadership has changed quite a bit with this merger, I'm hoping that mandate is gone. It didn't seem to affect the Courage DTV.

John Locke

8/11/2022 01:52:04 am

Huh, don't know what to feel about this, was generally not looking forward to it, simply cause I feel a largely all ages franchise should stay all ages... but well with everything else WB has done lately just depresses me all the more, perhaps I should try to take advantage of Warner Archive's sale before that's shuttered too...

WildwindVampire link

8/11/2022 09:52:16 am

It is extremely depressing to see everything cancelled like this. I hope this is the last of the Scooby projects to get cut.

James Dixon

8/11/2022 02:16:42 am

Naming it something instead of Velma might be so, and that's something I never thought of.

I guess it depends on how far along the series has gone and if it's worth pulling the plug at the point it is.

The thing about HBO Max is that they've been announcing and cancelling projects right on top of each other.

So, Cartoonito had its hours cut down which showed signs that it was already failing (but a friend said that they were cutting back by an hour because they were working at how long the block should be, and having it at 2 hours instead of 3 just made more sense (or whatever the times really were)).

They announced Mystery Pups right around the same time that HBO Max is cutting back on their family programming, although I think this is in terms of live-action. (Netflix is also cutting back on its children's stuff, which is interesting. It's a shame, really, because they're cancelling stuff that has actually been entertaining.)

And then they promoting Velma at events when HBO Max is then cutting back costs.

I don't believe it would have made much sense for it to be advertised like that just to be cancelled.

But then strange things are afoot at the Warner Bros. at the moment, so who knows what's going to happen.

I think we're at a point in time, where whatever we get we should be grateful, whether we like it or not.

Something that always seemed to be the case, that no matter the quality, Scooby-Doo was always a money maker, so what is changing their minds right now? Scooby-Doo isn't the great money maker that they've always claimed it to be?

WildwindVampire link

8/11/2022 09:50:34 am

I hadn't realized Netflix was cutting back on their children's programming too. It's surprising to know that Cartoonito is already cutting back its hours. I guess if the current hours reduced even further, we'll know that it's not doing well.

I would be very confused as well if Velma was just cancelled despite all the promotion, but I have no idea what to believe now.

The only thing I can think of is that Zaslav is just going overboard with his philosophy and cancelling anything that even has the remote chance of not doing well.

Mr Neither

8/11/2022 03:57:02 am

Probably for the best but not good seeing WB killing off Scooby, are we possibly entering another period like the 90s?

WildwindVampire link

8/11/2022 09:45:05 am

I could see us entering another 90s like period, but even then, I think that would only be temporary. The 90s only had three consecutive years without Scooby content (if you count "Bravo Dooby Doo").

Matt

8/11/2022 12:26:37 pm

See, I would’ve been okay with a 90s period if it resulted in another masterpiece like Zombie Island as a comeback if you asked me a year or two ago

But with the current streaming focused world, I would be VERY concerned. The thing about the 90s is that Cartoon Network would still play Where Are You A LOT. It would be much harder for Scooby to keep an audience like that in streaming to garner the hype for the big comeback

WildwindVampire link

8/11/2022 01:30:20 pm

Totally agreed. I know people credit Zombie Island for the franchise's revival, and rightfully so, but I think sometimes people forget how big of an impact the reruns on Cartoon Network in the 90s had on the franchise's revival.

Mr Neither

8/12/2022 04:08:30 am

Having grown up on Scooby reruns I know exactly what you mean!

WildwindVampire link

8/12/2022 07:23:08 am

My parents taping reruns in the early 90s on VHS and showing them to me is actually how I first discovered Scooby. I think the 90s reruns are responsible for a large majority of people getting into the franchise.

Samuel Kirkwood

8/13/2022 07:51:08 am

Oh yeah that was me to, plus a couple of official video releases, one even came with a free t-shirt!

WildwindVampire link

8/13/2022 05:29:47 pm

That's cool one of them came with a free t-shirt! I don't recall them doing that for any releases in the US.

Carson Maitland - Smith link

8/11/2022 04:21:10 am

David Zaslav must be stopped.

Shadowscooby

8/11/2022 06:07:06 am

Wow two Scooby Doo projects just getting axed like that. I wonder what that means for the franchise or any other Warner bros animation project.

James Dixon

8/11/2022 09:35:08 am

I think it would've been more worthwhile to have spun SCOOB off into a TV series of its own instead of "Velma." Maybe with "Jellystone!" that might be redundant, but there's a little something called the DC Universe. And if they didn't want a bunch of HB characters in a SCOOB TV series, then they could just focus on the Gang.

There's a lot of untapped potential in the gang in that movie and they had given themselves an inbuilt gateway of exploring that.

WildwindVampire link

8/11/2022 09:51:36 am

I remember a bunch of people suggesting a TV series around the time Tony Cervone talked about a follow-up to SCOOB!, and I thought that would be a great idea. I think a majority of fans probably would have enjoyed that.

Carson Maitland - Smith link

8/11/2022 10:16:13 am

Next month is Scooby's birthday 🤎

Lamont

8/11/2022 03:51:19 pm

The Warner Bros/ Discovery partnership is the absolute worst thing to happen to WB animation. Why’d that even happen!? We’re losing So many Scooby projects, even if it was just 2 upcoming projects.

WildwindVampire link

8/11/2022 10:03:35 pm

I couldn't agree more. I mean, the blunt answer for why it happened is money lol, although I really wish it hadn't happened.

Carson Maitland - Smith link

8/12/2022 04:46:34 am

The Discovery partnership should just stop altogether!

MysteryMan59

8/12/2022 03:52:00 pm

This sucks! I really wanted to see how this series would go. I tell ya, this is NOT the year for animation.

WildwindVampire link

8/13/2022 07:18:05 am

No kidding lol.

Teddy Berry

8/12/2022 07:48:47 pm

I love this site. I’m a lurker, though. I love hearing all of your opinions and this is one time where I feel like voicing my own. Forgive my lack of brevity; I went off the rails. I’m just a stranger who watches Scooby Doo day in, day out, who’s been waiting for the franchise to rediscover its soul for far too long. I don’t know if it’s in line with the silent majority of Scooby Doo fans or not, but here’s my two cents.

This is great news! I’m loving all these ballsy announcements. I hated Scoob and I hated the idea of Velma (hell, I’m even glad they cancelled Batgirl*.)

I understand people saying “just ignore the stuff you don’t like,” but there’s too much of it. I detested the mind-numbingly formulaic Guess Who. That’s been an extremely long wait (and an annoying one because I actually liked the art design and the voice work minus Velma**.) I’ve also been waiting out the soulless modern comics that look and feel like they were produced by AI. Thank god for all the old content, including some good comics, and the occasional good DTV movie. But this franchise is long overdue for a good shot in the arm. And Velma ain’t it. I’m ready for quality Scooby material and I’d rather the franchise rests and regroups than get “like it or lump it” fare like this ill-conceived Velma show.

I’m not against the idea of a more mature take at all, like some, by the way, I’m just not the least bit confident in Mindy and her team’s ideas. And I think it speaks to the current dearth of creativity and imagination in Hollywood right now when Mindy’s big, new ideas are to take innuendo and make it beyond explicit, and to randomly alter the fundamentals of the characters (all the while attacking anybody who doesn’t offer their hearty congratulations.) Why manhandle a square peg into a round hole? Why on earth wouldn’t Mindy just make a new cartoon based on her own “clever” ideas? Because those ideas are likely lame or stale and have zero cache on their own merits? Without the Scooby Doo brand behind it Velma would probably never have gotten off the ground; with it, and the accompanying de rigueur clickbait “controversy,” it’d likely be just another low-hanging fruit “update” that pleases 100% of the critics and 12% of the audience before quickly disappearing from the cultural zeitgeist.

As for Scoob, the sooner this take on the gang goes away the sooner we can get other, hopefully better takes. How cool would it have been if they’d gotten that Scoob budget to make a timeless SDWAY type of film (sans the bogus “big name” casting)? It boggles my everloving mind that they never even try to swing for the fences for another Zombie Island or Witch’s Ghost. Zombie Island 2, no offense to living legend Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, is a testament to Hollywood’s current cowardice.

Also, if “like it or lump it” or “just ignore it” works in one direction I don’t see why it doesn’t remain true the other way around. Like it or lump it, if Velma gets cancelled, too. Let’s all rewatch all the good stuff (God knows nobody at WB does) and wait until some big brain/big heart comes in who actually “gets” the characters and knows how to tell stories—without relying on stunts or formulas or shaggy dogs (zing!) Enough with both exploitative, lazy ideas and with by-the-numbers, factory-produced mush.

I will concede that no matter how hot the Velma garbage is/was/yet may still be (steaming by the look and sound of it), I don’t think it has as much potential of poisoning the IP as did a potentially ubercrappy Batgirl movie. (Remember when we almost had a Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman flick and instead we got that Halle Berry monstrosity which scorched the loamy earth that was Catwoman-on-film-prospects? I didn’t want that for Barbara Gordon.) Scooby Doo will outlive us all and it will certainly outlive any Hollywood executive. There is zero chance we won’t get great SD content at some point, but naturally the sooner the friggin’ better for all involved, fans and stakeholders alike, especially while we have such an excellent voice cast (minus Velma**) willing and ready. I’d be shocked if we don’t hear something relatively soon that will set our minds at ease. You don’t weed the garden just to let it go to seed.

(Keep up the good work, guys. If only every beloved property had such an amazing resource as scoobysnax1.)

*What does Hollywood have against redheads anyway? (And, no, a cheap wig doesn’t count for Batgirl.) Will Catherine Tate’s skit about ginger safe houses in the future prove prophetic? Inquiring redheads want to know.

**Nothing to do with the Mindy show, I just don’t much care for the current Velm

Becker

8/13/2022 01:42:15 am

Very interesting read, a different take from most of what I've seen in response to the latest pieces of news. While I don't agree with a decent number of things you've said, I'm glad someone's taken a stance like this in the discourse.

Teddy Berry

8/13/2022 06:12:20 pm

Thanks. With a property that’s been around for as long as Scooby Doo has, with a ton of different versions, it stands to reason that we don’t all see it the exact same way. But I think we have enough common ground.

WildwindVampire link

8/13/2022 07:46:12 am

This is a really interesting perspective; thank you for sharing it, Teddy!

I also found that a lot of the Guess Who episodes played it too safe for my liking. There were some solid episodes I enjoyed, like the Hex Girls one and the Reverend Run episode, for example; but for the most part (like I've mentioned in previous articles), Guess Who forced the nostalgia too much and often didn't develop the mystery enough because there was too much focus on the guest star. The episodes were also often dependent on whether you enjoyed the guest star's performance. I've stopped following the Where Are You comics entirely, just because they seem very cut-and-paste with generic stock poses and such.

I'm a little conflicted about your opinions on Velma, just because we haven't seen hardly anything about the show, but I can definitely understand why you have the opinion you do. Yes, they've released that image with the nude woman and the person's head cut open, but I don't know if that's actually representative of the show or if it was more for the "shock appeal." I definitely agree though that without the Scooby-Doo property attached to it, Mindy's idea wouldn't have seen much traction.

I actually thought the Scoob! Holiday Haunt film looked kind of cute, but then again, I liked the original SCOOB! and I know many fans didn't. I will say though that it really surprises me too that they don't try to make another actual Zombie Island/Witch's Ghost style movie. I was actually just talking about this in another post yesterday with Curse of the 13th Ghost, but that film and Return to Zombie Island really illustrate your "God knows nobody at WB does." The tone was nothing like the original series/film, and felt like they were just trying to make a generic ending in the style of the current DTVs. The continuity errors really annoy me in both of these films, because it would have been so easy to have just taken a day and had somebody rewatch both of them to ensure there weren't any continuity issues. I don't blame Tim Sheridan for that though; the executive meddling is really what screwed these films up. I still can't believe they thought it was a good idea to hire somebody to make a 13 Ghosts film, and then say there can't be any Scrappy or real monsters. That boxed Tim Sheridan into a corner he couldn't possibly get out of, and I actually appreciate what he did where left it kind of open-ended as to if the ghosts were real. From what he's said in an interview, WB was trying to flat-out force him to make it all fake, so I can appreciate his creativity in trying to get around that mandate. I could go on a whole tangent about this, but I feel like a lot of the issues you're talking about are caused by the meddling of WB executives. We got a good view into that with what JCB told us about Be Cool, where he'd share that he'd try to write episodes certain ways, and then WB would change stuff without his permission (often in ways that made no sense/lowered the quality of the episodes). It would be nice if the executives just let the writers do what they wanted. I thought the first half of Be Cool season 2 was a good example of this: this is when JCB said WB started trusting him, and honestly, I thought some of the best episodes of the series were in that part of the season. Just goes to show that things would work out if WB didn't meddle so much in the production process.

I'm hopeful we'll hear something about a good Scooby project too sometime soon.

Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoy the site, and thank you for sharing this interesting perspective!

Teddy Berry

8/13/2022 07:31:43 pm

Thanks, it’s nice to join in the conversation for a change!

I think part of the reason I feel as strongly as I do is that these days, because nostalgia is a hell of a drug and sincere creation is hard work, so many media conglomerates are throwing tons of money at some of my favorite fictional worlds and consistently getting it wrong. It’s like they’re taking a legendary opera singer out of retirement, asking her to sing insurance commercial jingles, all the while standing on her neck. And when it fails the moral of the story is “people don’t like opera.”

The Hex Girls episode to me doesn’t really even count, in a good way, because they’re not just some random celebrities. They’re part of the SD world. And, heck, I may even like the Sandy Duncan episode and the one with the voice cast—I haven’t watched them yet. (I did watch the Cher episode and found it about as annoying as the other Guess Who episodes, especially the star worship—the plague of our times. Although had I watched it back-to-back with her TSDM appearance I may have felt differently.)

And “cut and paste” is the best description for that Scooby comic! It’s such an eyesore on every level. And as for Scoob, I did actually have a little hope that Holiday Haunt would be better. For what it’s worth.

As for 13 Ghosts and Mr. Sheridan, I can believe that. I 100% believe the DTVs directors could have gotten away with a good flick if not for those meddling studio executives! I also can believe the only take away the suits have from Zombie Island (and friends) is “the monsters were real and that’s off-brand.” Out with that bath water are things like art direction, characterization, atmosphere, etc.

I do understand what you’re saying about Velma. Maybe that image isn’t/wasn’t representative of the show as a whole. I can’t help but question the taste level of someone who genuinely thought it would help sell the show, though. The cynic in me guesses it was purposefully released to stir up more press. That’s not my style. To me, it doesn’t even seem to line up with the kind of humor found in Mindy’s other work, from what I’ve seen (admittedly not much.) In any case, I can’t imagine doing any of that with borrowed toys. I think you’re bang on about shock value. Sadly.

And I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong. Maybe it’ll be released and it’ll be hilarious. I actually had a pretty knee jerk reaction to Be Cool initially: it was literally based on the artwork and the artwork alone. I couldn’t get past the McFarlane-like designs and colors. Until I did. And then I loved it. I’ll have to keep an eye out for the the quality changes. I’ve only watched the whole show once plus a random dozen episodes besides that. Unlike, well, every single series that feature the entire gang. So I haven’t trained my eye for that stuff yet. (What can I say, I’m a slow learner.)

Again, love the site. This is a real gold nugget!

WildwindVampire link

8/14/2022 10:10:12 am

I totally agree with you about nostalgia, and I like your example about the opera singer. My biggest issue with Guess Who is that the nostalgia didn't feel genuine. It felt forced, and the Easter Eggs were just referencing things from the same pool over and over. Yes, we got that off reference to 13 Ghosts and a couple others, but for the most part, they just referenced stuff from Where Are You over and over. Given there's 50 years of Scooby content they could have drawn from, them just referencing Where Are You over and over didn't really feel creative. Part of the fun of Easter Eggs is having something obscure referenced that you haven't heard about in a long time. I also think it's generally a good practice to have Easter Eggs being occasional, rather than making them so constant you feel like you're being hit over the head with them (like Guess Who did)

I also have an issue with the old villains showing up too; that being that they just pick from the same pool of about 10 or so Where Are You villains over and over. If they are going to re-use old villains, it would be good if they'd choose more obscure ones, so that it would be a surprise rather than making fans say "I guess The Creeper's showing up for the tenth time!"

Interesting, the Hex Girls episode was originally supposed to guest star KISS instead of them, but the girls got substituted in last minute. I liked the Sandy Duncan episode, and the voice actors one was decent, though it does fall into that same trap of having Redbeard, Charlie the Robot, Captain Cutler and The Creeper serve as the villains. I wouldn't have minded as much if they had some backstory for being there, but the gang doesn't even know who these villains are, which makes it feel kind of pointless for them to be there again. I wish they would come up with an interesting backstory for why these villains are there if they are going to have older villains re-appear again.

Curse of the 13th Ghost and Return to Zombie Island fall into that "nostalgic cash grab" category you mention above, IMO. I don't blame Tim Sheridan at all, because I think he did a good job with what he had; it was the executives that were the problem. The fact that they didn't even care to try to make it true to the original series/movie, and in fact imposed mandates that completely misunderstood the original material, makes it feel like they just wanted to cash in on nostalgia for the 50th anniversary without putting in the work to make a movie that would respect the source materials.

That's a fair point about Velma, I guess I was just trying to stay as neutral on it as possible, since I was one of the people who previously thought the Be Cool designs looked terrible, and yet it turned out to be one of my favorite Scooby series because of the writing.

Thank you!

Becker

8/14/2022 12:24:06 pm

Worth making it clear that Jeremy Adams wrote Return to Zombie Island. Tim Sheridan only wrote Curse of the 13th Ghost. Mentioning only Tim when talking about both movies might not give the most accurate representation of the background information of both films together. Obviously Jeremy experienced the same issues as Tim with the exec meddling though.

WildwindVampire link

8/14/2022 09:19:02 pm

Sorry, I knew that. I didn't word my comment very clearly when I was switching back and forth between talking about just 13th Ghost and both of the films.

Becker

8/16/2022 07:36:32 am

This show's future might not look so grim with Hippyboy86's latest comment here:
https://scoobyaddicts.proboards.com/thread/5778/announces-velma-adult-animated-series?page=13

WildwindVampire link

8/16/2022 09:19:41 am

That's great news! Thanks so much for this info!

Velma's Trademark Has Been Abandoned

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