Mystery Incorporated character Velma Dinkley has finally been depicted as gay in the latest animated movie, Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!
As reported by Variety, clips from the newly released film started making the rounds on Twitter, with one particularly viral moment showing Velma's first encounter with costume designer Coco Diablo. The 13-second video sees the bespectacled detective getting stopped in her tracks at the sight of Coco, who she instantly swoons over as her glasses fog up.
Velma first meets Coco Diablo in “Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo”#Scoobydoohistory pic.twitter.com/TnWGS0B5GK
— Scooby-Doo History (@scoobyhistory) October 4, 2022
this my fave scene of her !! pic.twitter.com/V07OfY1nsS
— Pia 🍃 (@soleildiddle) October 4, 2022
In another clip, Velma is shown being complimentary towards Coco as she praises her ability to make "brilliant observations" during a recent encounter that the group had together, right before Coco rests her hand on Velma's shoulder, prompting a reaction from Velma who visibly struggles to hide her infatuation for her newfound love interest.
Google celebrated the moment by showering screens with a cascade of animated confetti and various LGBTQ+ flags when queries such as "Velma," "Velma Dinkley" and "Velma Scooby-Doo" were typed into the search engine, with the results pages of these entries popping up with an option to replay the animation or share it with others.
This comes two years after James Gunn said he tried to make Velma canonically gay in the 2002 live-action adaptation of the Hanna-Barbera animation, but that the studio "kept watering it down and watering it down" until it became "ambiguous (the version shot), then nothing (the released version) and finally having a boyfriend (the sequel)."
Tony Cervone, supervising producer on the Mystery Incorporated series, also previously confirmed Velma's sexual orientation, writing on Instagram: "I’ve said this before, but Velma in Mystery Incorporated is not bi. She's gay. 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," he continued. "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."
Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! is out now on Prime Video and will debut on HBO Max on October 16 — so grab some Scooby Snacks and add it to your watchlist along with all the other big titles coming to your favorite streaming platforms this month.
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
