Velma is at last openly gay in HBO Max’s new animated movie Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo.
Director/co-writer Audie Harrison’s Halloween-centric film finally cements a reality long known among many Scooby fans. The project was released on demand on Tuesday (it streams on Max starting Oct. 16) and clips circulating on social media show the Kate Micucci-voiced Velma swooning over costume designer Coco Diablo (Myrna Velasco), admiring her as “obviously brilliant” with an “amazing turtleneck,” trademark glasses fogging up in the process.
At another point the beloved detective tells her intrepid co-investigator Daphne, after some feigned aloofness and hesitation, that she’s “crushing big time” and seeks advice.
Scooby-Doo creatives have previously expressed their desire to depict Velma Dinkley as gay. In 2020, James Gunn, who penned 2002’s Raja Gosnell-directed live-action adaption as well as the ’04 sequel Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, shared that he pushed to have his Velma be openly queer.
“In 2001 Velma was explicitly gay in my initial script,” the Guardians of the Galaxy filmmaker wrote. “But the studio just kept watering it down & watering it down, becoming ambiguous (the version shot), then nothing (the released version) & finally having a boyfriend (the sequel).”
Tony Cervone, a creative director for Cartoon Network’s Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, confirmed the same in an Instagram post that celebrated 2020 Pride Month.
“I’ve said this before, but Velma in Mystery Incorporated is not bi. She’s gay,” he wrote of the animated series that ran from 2010 to 2013. “We always planned on Velma acting a little off and out of character when she was dating Shaggy because that relationship was wrong for her and she had unspoken difficulty with the why. There are hints about the why in that episode with the mermaid, and if you follow the entire Marcie arc it seems as clear as we could make it 10 years ago. I don’t think Marcie and Velma had time to act on their feelings during the main timeline, but post reset, they are a couple. You can not like it, but this was our intention.”
