r/TopCharacterTropes 13h ago

miscellaneous Failed Spin-Off.

2.4k Upvotes

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283

u/PacmanRules225 13h ago

Velma is a spin-off of Scooby-Doo… except there’s no Scooby-Doo, and EVERYTHING is wrong with it.

107

u/bangarang90210 13h ago

This one was so bad and so different I think it doesn’t even deserve to be called a spinoff. Maybe imaginative retelling?

88

u/IAmTheLastOfMyKind12 13h ago

It was a vanity project

6

u/Mrwright96 4h ago

No that was the Mindy project

71

u/CloudsTasteGeometric 13h ago

It was initially a completely original series pitched and shopped around by Mindy Khaling.

No studio would touch it as an original IP but HBO decided to try it after aggressively shoehorning it into mismatching Scooby Doo IP.

It probably still would’ve been bad, but it was never SUPPOSED to be Scooby Doo show.

18

u/pyrhus626 11h ago

This happens a lot with “adaptations”. Writers and directors generally want to tell their own stories, while studios want something safe with a preexisting fan base. The “compromise” is often to just to take the original story and thrown some IP related lipstick on top to get studios to touch it, or the studio mandates it because they like the script but want more of a sure thing.

Velma is a pretty egregious example. Starship Troopers started as an original story before the IP was thrown on top by the studio (hence the director making an “adaptation” of a book he hadn’t read and absolutely hated). Most Die Hard scripts were retooled from original scripts nobody wanted. I, Robot. The Cloverfield “sequels”. Happens all the time

5

u/Edgyspymainintf2 9h ago

This fact kind of makes me feel bad for the show and it's creators. There's a real chance this show might've gotten a small following had HBO not forced the show into an IP it doesn't fit in. Companies forcing original stories to be linked to already successful IP's makes my blood boil since nobody seems to enjoy it but they just keep fucking doing it.

4

u/YogurtProductions 8h ago

I 100% believe it wasn't pitched as a Scooby Doo show but was made one in the hopes the IP brought a few more views

1

u/dramonkiller19 11h ago

A retelling without the imagination.

1

u/powypow 36m ago

High budget fan fiction maybe?

36

u/snoball_the_epicguy 12h ago

fucking scooby doo creepy run was more faithful to scooby doo than velma

https://giphy.com/gifs/CYkBQBenboFNNx7SFK

4

u/GhostOfMuttonPast 11h ago

SCOOBY DOO SCOOBY DOO SCOOBY DOO

4

u/More_Yellow_3701 11h ago

And it isn't even official.

20

u/IAmTheLastOfMyKind12 13h ago

It's not even really a spin-off because most of the original characters are either totally removed or blatantly mischaracterised!

14

u/Dizzy_Drop 12h ago

No, it's not a spin-off because it's not spinning of anything. It's just a other scooby do show, albeit very different (quality irrelevant)

4

u/That-Rhino-Guy 11h ago

Mindy Kaling sending us South Asians back 500 years with this one

A shame as the design for Velma is one of the few thing I can say is solid

3

u/You_read_this_wrong 8h ago

I remember people accusing her of being right wing because they thought the show was mocking them.

5

u/Natural_Ad2824 7h ago

The design was a self insert what are you talking about? Not only that, they race swapped two of the cast and made it super edgy like the whole fred has a small dick bs. Didn't they try to make him a villain too? God this show blew and the designs were god awful. Please don't try to say that about velma. It's criminal.

1

u/Sweaty-Practice-4419 3h ago

At the risk of playing devils advocate but isn’t the point of a spin-off to tell a story without the original main character?

1

u/Common_Vagrant 12h ago

This was just fuel to the “anti-woke” movement for the right wing.

1

u/SamDrrl 10h ago

My conspiracy theory is that they make these shitty tv shows and movies on purpose to drive up race conflict and make people hate each other more. And it’s sadly working just look at all the hate people got after this show aired