Mindy Kaling’s Velma — the HBO Max animated series centered on the Scooby-Doo character — has landed a star-packed voice cast.
Glenn Howerton, Sam Richardson and Constance Wu will star with Kaling in the adult animated series, which traces the origin story of Velma Dinkley (voiced by Kaling), the underappreciated brains of Mystery Inc. The four appeared onstage together Thursday at New York Comic Con.
Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) will play Fred in the series. Richardson (Veep, The Afterparty) will voice Norville, aka Shaggy, and Wu (Lyle, Lyle Crocodile) will play Daphne.
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The cast also includes Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, Russell Peters, Melissa Fumero, Stephen Root, Gary Cole, Ken Leung, Cherry Jones, Frank Welker, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Fortune Feimster, Yvonne Orji, Sarayu Blue, Nicole Byer, Ming-Na Wen, Shay Mitchell, Debby Ryan, Kulap Vilaysak and NBA All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns. Welker has voiced Fred in almost every animated iteration of Scooby-Doo since its inception in 1969 and has also provided Scooby’s voice in a number of productions.
Kaling showed a still from Velma at May’s upfronts that revealed the character is South Asian. She said at the time that “No one’s imaginations ever had a problem with a talking dog solving mysteries, so I think we can handle a brown Velma.”
Whether Velma is a lesbian — as she apparently is in the latest Scooby-Doo animated movie — remains to be seen.
Kaling executive produces Velma with frequent collaborator Charlie Grandy (The Office, The Mindy Project), Howard Klein and Sam Register, president of Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe.
HBO Max also released a teaser for Velma that pokes fun at complaints over changes to longstanding IP. Watch it below.
