Scooby-doobie-doo! The new Velma will be a brown South Asian

Mindy Kaling, left, will provide the voice for the  cartoon charcter Velma Dinkley, right.

There's much to do about Velma Dinkley, the main character in Mindy Kaling's 2022 version of Scobby-Doo.

HBO Max's producer and writer Kaling's adult animated series Velma re-imagines the iconic Scooby-Doo character as South Asian -- and Kaling doesn't care if some people are upset with that.

"Getting to voice this iconic character in her first ever origin story is a dream come true, and not just because it requires literally zero time and hair and makeup," Kaling continued. "And also you've hopefully noticed by now my Velma is South Asian. And if people freak out about that, I don't care."

Velma, as the title suggests, will be the main character in the updated Scooby-Doo. In the original cartoon of the '70's Velma was the bookish sidekick.

"No one's imaginations ever had a problem with a talking dog solving mysteries. So a brown Velma is fine. I think we can all handle it. In any case, you won't want to miss this, coming to HBO Max."

In an interview with Seth Myers, producer Kaling admitted she was a bit puzzled about the blowback. “I just couldn’t understand how people couldn’t imagine a really smart, nerdy girl with terrible eyesight and who loved to solve mysteries, could be Indian. There are Indian nerds.”

Hayley Kyoko, left, played Velma in the short-lived live-action series in 2009-2010. The first
image from the new version , right, shows that it is not directed for young children. 

Kaling's updated cartoon won't be for kids. Velma is an adult animated comedy series telling the origin story of Velma Dinkley, the unsung and underappreciated brains of the Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. gang.

As the first image from the  new cartoon series indicates, there will be gore and semi-nudity in the Kaling version.

It also won't be the first time that Velma was depicted as a nonwhite character. In the 2009-2010 live-action series of Scooby-Doo, Velmas was played by Hayley Kyoko.

HBO-Max has not announced a debut date but it will likely be sometime this summer.

For all the fuss South Asian Velma has created, you can almost hear the series catchphrase when a major discovery has been made" "Scooby-doobie-doo!"

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