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This is the Velma episode 5 thread. Yes, I am still doing these. I want to be able to write about it from the perspective of having seen the whole thing so yeah
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I'm thinking about Mystery Incorporated. I of course like Mystery Incorporated. It was part of my childhood. And it's solid. But lately, wrt Velma, people have been acting like Mystery Inc is this super faithful and loyal adaptation, and that's why it was so good
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Mystery Inc was actually super weird and non-standard for a Scooby Doo show. It was also super diverse for its time: it marked a major push in retconning Velma to be queer and pretty much invents a Black woman whole cloth to be the original founder of the Mystery Inc we know
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The hot take of the night is that Velma is a lot more like Mystery Inc than any other Scooby Doo and that's part of why it's bad. Velma being a sassy know-it-all and Shaggy being a terrible boyfriend are, in fact, ideas from Mystery Incorporated gone wrong
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CN: Velma episode 5 Fred is a, uh, feminist ally. This joke was so funny when Shaggy was also a feminist ally. Just... so funny. Ha ha
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CN: Velma episode 5 Daphne is the only character I like and the show can't get me interested in learning more about her
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CN: Velma episode 5 The joke about the, uh, apartheid state of Israel is not even the worst one in the show
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CN: Velma episode 5 So, not as bad as episode 3. 3 and 4 were definitely the low points there. I think this episode was characterized by a lot of humor that works on paper because it has the structures of a joke, but isn't actually funny in context
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CN: Velma episode 5 Like the joke about sending a text and only reacting with an emoji two days later is funny on its own. But it's lame because it's Velma being shitty to her friend and the characters having no positive chemistry whatsoever
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CN: Velma episode 5 There are jokes about male feminists that might work in a standup bit, but don't work when they come from Fred Jones of Mystery Incorporated as part of a show that is super uninterested in engaging with feminist ideas
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CN: Velma episode 5 This episode was written by Matt Warburton, from the Simpsons, actually. And I think that tracks. Where the dialogue and pacing are structured better due to having a more experienced writer, but it was written with no regard for the characters or politics

















