Creator of HBO's Worst Show Ever Tries to Defend Himself
Typically, when we talk about 'the best' or 'the worst' shows or movies, we are somewhat subjective. This HBO series, however, really hit the worst ratings ever — and its creator recently tried to come up with excuses for it.
Scooby-Doo is one of the many young adults' favorite childhood franchises.
Throughout its many iterations, we saw brilliance and complete degradation, but the original comic and cartoons were always there to hold our hands.
This is why the release of Velma by HBO broke one too many hearts… And not just hearts. Velma also broke through the bottom of every audience-based rating.
The show that tried to reimagine the iconic Scooby-Doo franchise for adult audiences managed to spoil everything it touched, and most people accused its writers of ruining their favorite childhood franchise — or at the very least, producing the most terrible bit of content the world has seen in a while.
This is no speculation: on Rotten Tomatoes, for instance, Velma's average audience score is 7%, meaning 93% of the viewers outright hated it.
Velma received a massive backlash from the audience, and its creators were keeping quiet — until recently, that is.
In the latest issue of Emmys magazine, Charlie Grandy, one of Velma's creators, finally addressed the issues with the show and the audience's hatred towards it.
Answering the accusations of ruining the original cartoons for the viewers, Grandy insisted that the team wasn't trying to achieve anything to that effect.
"The original Hanna-Barbera shows are still out there to watch. We are not erasing the originals. We just want to be a little ice planet on the outer regions of the Scoobyverse," claimed Velma's creator.
The original idea was to try and center the show around Velma while making it more ethnically diverse and adult-oriented, explained Charlie.
Later, he and his colleagues realized that "none of these characters are rooted in being white," so they wanted to follow this line of thinking, and the executives supported them.
"We were worried about going to Warner Bros. and asking them to do it, but they said, 'Do it. It's time! Just make sure it's funny and good!'" shared Grandy in the interview.
While it's great that the big execs went along with such a bold interpretation of the cult classic, it's safe to say that Grandy and his team failed to deliver what was promised.
According to the creator, the Warner Bros. execs wanted the show to be "funny and good"; according to the audience, it was neither of the two.
We'll have to wait and see whether the next season will learn from the mistakes that turned the first season into such an utter disgrace, but frankly, it doesn't seem like there's much room for recovery after whatever Velma S1 turned out to be.
Source: Emmys