Scooby-Doo Is Fully Switching Genres After 57 Years

While the Scooby-Doo franchise has been through many different iterations over the decades since the original show first began back in 1969, Netflix’s upcoming reboot is fully switching its genre, and this could be a good thing for the long-running series. In the 57 years since Scooby-Doo, Where Are You started airing in 1969, the franchise has released over 14 TV shows, 40 direct-to-video animated movies, and five live-action movies, as well as numerous comics, video games, crossovers, TV specials, and shorts.

Most recently, HBO Max’s 2023 disaster Velma became the lowest-rated outing of the franchise so far when the show reintroduced Scooby-Doo’s main characters in a gross-out R-rated animated comedy. Closer in tone to Big Mouth or Family Guy than the franchise’s earlier outings, Velma was roundly slated upon its release, but still lasted two seasons and a Halloween special before its inevitable cancellation. Velma season 2 even introduced Scrappy-Doo in its final storyline, but the franchise then went dormant for two years before its next installment was announced.

Coming from the co-creators of the criminally underrated Netflix teen drama Everything Sucks, Josh Applebaum and Scott Rosenberg, Scooby-Doo: Origins is set to be the first live-action show in the franchise’s six-decade history. The story of Scooby-Doo: Origins will take place on the last day of summer camp as the Mystery Inc. gang meets for the first time and solves their first mystery. With a superb cast that includes Young Sheldon’s breakout star McKenna Grace, Are You There God? It’s Me‘s Margaret’s Abby Ryder Fortson, and Paul Walter Hauser as Scooby-Doo’s owner, the series already sounds exciting.

Netflix’s Scooby-Doo: Origins Reinvents The Show As A Live-Action Teen Drama

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However, Scooby-Doo: Origins also undeniably marks a big change for the overarching style of the series. While Velma was Scooby-Doo’s first R-rated show, one of the most surprising things about Mindy King’s series was just how much it still looked and sounded like a traditional Scooby-Doo series. If it weren’t for its moments of gruesome gore and some tasteless humor, Velma’s outlandishly cartoon gags, self-aware jokes, and light-hearted tone wouldn’t have been entirely out of place in Be Cool, Scooby-Doo or A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.

In contrast, the upcoming live-action reboot signals a major tonal departure from the franchise’s roots. While previous adaptations leaned heavily into camp and self-aware humor, this version is already being marketed as a YA mystery series that reinvents the franchise. Thus, Scooby-Doo: Origins seems destined to lean into longer story arcs, grounded character conflicts, and romantic tension between its leads, with darker conspiracies replacing the standalone “monster-of-the-week” format. Already, Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, The CW’s Riverdale and Nancy Drew, Hulu’s Hardy Boys, and Disney+’s Goosebumps revival all pioneered this familiar reboot style.

Scooby-Doo Has Been Gradually Moving Away From Pure Comedy For Years

Like so many YA reinventions of kids’ franchises, Scooby-Doo: Origins will likely tone down its explicitly comedic elements in favor of more drama and tension. However, this genre shift isn’t unheard of for the franchise, and one could even argue that the show has been working toward this change for years now. As far back as 1998’s cult classic Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, the series had begun to incorporate real monsters and genuine horror elements into its plots.

2010’s spinoff Mystery Incorporated took things further with romantic subplots and serialized mythology that wouldn’t have been out of place in a grown-up mystery show, and romantic subplots that felt like they belonged in a teen drama as much as a kid’s cartoon. This was no bad thing, and Mystery Incorporated went on to become almost as widely beloved in the fandom as the live-action Scooby-Doo movies thanks to its darker take on the franchise’s familiar setup.

In an era when shows like Wednesday, Riverdale, and Netflix’s underrated YA mystery series A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder are all impressing critics, Scooby-Doo: Origins feels like a logical next step for the franchise. The show’s choice to move away from broad, cartoony slapstick and toward something darker is further affirmed by the relative critical underperformance of 2020’s Scoob!, an animated movie reboot that was explicitly aimed at younger viewers and failed to impress critics despite a starry cast including Amanda Seyfried, Zac Efron, and Will Forte.

Netflix’s Live-Action YA Reinvention Could Make Scooby-Doo Relevant Again

Between Velma, Mystery Incorporated, and its riskier spinoff movies such as Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, the franchise has repeatedly tested how far Scooby-Doo could move beyond its kids’ cartoon origins without alienating viewers. Thus, a full-blown pivot into live-action YA mystery territory feels less like a sudden reinvention and more like the culmination of years of gradual experimentation. This, along with the superb cast already assembled for Netflix’s Scooby-Doo: Origins, ensures that the series could be a great idea.

Although Be Cool, Scooby-Doo was far better than Velma, the show didn’t bring critical attention back to the franchise. Even a perfectly hilarious kid’s cartoon reboot of the series is par for the course at this stage, and the last time the franchise truly surprised viewers in a good way was with 2010’s Mystery Incorporated. Since Scooby-Doo: Origins is a live-action series, the reboot could appeal to a broader audience than that cartoon, and the popularity of earlier YA mystery shows means the series has the potential to be huge upon release.

If there is one thing that the shared success of Cobra Kai, Wednesday, and Netflix’s Stranger Things franchise proves, it is that the streaming giant knows how to take pop culture artifacts from earlier decades, retool them for a contemporary teen audience, and turn them into huge hits. The fact that this reboot fits this description to a tee proves that the show has big potential.

Moreover, the reality that the Scooby-Doo franchise has been largely irrelevant for some time now means that the live-action reinvention has nothing to lose. Velma was widely derided from its first trailer, while Scoob! hardly fared any better, with both established fans and newcomers rejecting the saccharine children’s cartoon. In 2026, the Scooby-Doo franchise has nowhere to go but up, and its upcoming Netflix revival could make the series relevant again by switching formats to live action and changing to a darker, more mature tone.

TV Show(s)

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, The New Scooby-Doo Movies, The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show/The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries (1983), The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, What’s New, Scooby-Doo?, Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? (2019), Velma, The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour, Scooby’s All Star Laff-A-Lympics, The Scooby & Scrappy-Doo/Puppy Hour, Scary Scooby Funnies, Scooby’s Mystery Funhouse

Video Game(s)

Scooby-Doo! And The Spooky Swamp

Created by

Joe Ruby, Ken Spears