Mindy Kaling has set a star-studded voice cast to join her for the HBO Max series Velma. An adult animated series, the cartoon reimagines Scooby-Doo with a South Asian incarnation of Velma Dinkley taking center stage as voiced by Kaling. Per Variety, it was announced during the show’s official panel at New York Comic-Con that voice cast for the other mystery-solvers, sans a certain dog, will be Sam Richardson (The Afterparty) as Shaggy, Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians) as Daphne, and Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) as Fred.
Additional talents attached to the voice cast have also been revealed, but it wasn’t stated which characters they will be playing. These names are “Weird Al” Yankovic, Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, 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.
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It wasn’t stated if anyone will be voicing Scooby-Doo, or if the cartoon canine himself will even be featured in the series. When Velma was first announced, it was described as an origin story for the character in a world where there’s “no dog and no van.” It seems more likely that Scoob’s voice actor would also have been named alongside those of Shaggy, Daphne, and Fred if he were to be a part of the show. It’s also worth noting that Frank Welker, who has been voicing Scooby-Doo for decades, is listed in the voice cast for Velma. It’s possible that his inclusion will be meant as an Easter egg if there is no Scooby-Doo, or it could be that the dog’s appearance is being kept as a surprise.
Related: Velma: Everything We Know About the Scooby-Doo Spin-Off Series
Velma Reimagines the Famous Mystery Solver
HBO Max
Velma consists of ten episodes with its freshman season. Charlie Grandy serves as showrunner and executive produces with Kaling, Howard Klein, and Sam Register. You can read an official description of the new series below.
“The origin story of Velma Dinkley, the unsung and underappreciated brains of the Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. gang. This original and humorous spin unmasks the complex and colorful past of one of America’s most beloved mystery solvers.”
This news just happens to be coming at a time when Velma Dinkley has been making headlines for other reasons. In the new animated movie Trick or Treat, Scooby-Doo!, Velma can be seen crushing on a woman, marking the first time the character’s homosexuality has been explored in a Scooby-Doo movie or series. Even Google celebrated the occasion by having its search engine rain down gay pride flags and confetti for users trying to search “Velma” and similar terms. The film has no connection with this new Velma series from Kaling, though altogether, this has all been bringing a lot of attention to the bespectacled brainiac in recent days.
Velma does not yet have a premiere date set at HBO Max, but with major updates coming out about the show, we can’t be too far off from a teaser and perhaps a release date announcement.
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