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    Long-Time Scooby-Doo Actor Matthew Lillard Shares His Blunt Opinion of the Velma Series

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    Long-Time Scooby-Doo Actor Matthew Lillard Shares His Blunt Opinion of the Velma Series

    The Scooby-Doo franchise marked its 55th anniversary this September, and it’s genuinely hard to keep track with all the different TV series, specials, and movies (both theatrical and mostly direct-to-video or for TV). Despite all of that and more than half a century of media, only two actors have canonically played Shaggy, the delightfully raspy BFF of the titlular Great Dane. First came the legendary DJ Casey Kasem, who voiced the character for something like 372 episodes of television and 14 made-for-TV movies. Then there was Matthew Lillard, who first joined the franchise in the form of star-studded live-action movies before becoming the voice actor behind Shaggy for approximately 27 direct-to-video movies, eight TV specials, and 156 TV episodes. There is technically one more Shaggy out there…




    The adult animated series Velma takes the intellectual property of Scooby-Doo and completely reworks it in ways that fans of the franchise have absolutely hated. Fortunately, they mainly refer to Shaggy as “Norville” in that series (which is his actual first name, first mentioned in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo from the 1980s). When MovieWeb spoke with Matthew Lillard recently, we were curious if he had any thoughts on Velma or its recent Halloween special. “I did. I saw it,” says Lillard matter-of-factly. “There you go, it wasn’t for me.” One could sense the entirety of his personal opinion from the subtle response, but the actor generously elaborated, saying:

    “Yeah, here’s the truth. The truth of the matter is, I take great responsibility in sort of holding the legacy of this part. I think about what it means to kids: it’s a gateway into storytelling, into horror stories. I think it’s a beautiful place for kids to learn about, you know, what the macabre is, what the spooky is. So that’s my version of the storytelling. Obviously, people liked [
    Velma
    ], but it’s not my iteration, that’s all.”


    Related

    We Watched the New Velma Special So You Don’t Have to, Here Are the 10 Cringiest Jokes

    While intended as a treat for audiences, the majority of the jokes are so cringey that viewers might feel they’ve been tricked instead.


    Does Voicing Shaggy Ruin Lillard’s Voice? Does He Want to Know?

    “You know, I did Horror Nights last night at Universal Studios, and I went hoarse very quickly [from] screaming,” shares Lillard, adding:


    “I have never deeply considered the long-term ramifications of doing that Shaggy voice. It’s so easy for me to do. Early on, I would scream myself hoarse to get that scratchy voice. You know, you can’t do a whole movie like that, let alone two movies, let alone 20 years of screaming or like blowing out your vocal cords. So I do it relatively easily now, and it doesn’t feel like it’s detrimental. And it’s one of those things, like, I don’t want to go ask, because if the answer is, ‘Yeah, you’re going to end up without your voice,’ I don’t know if I really want to know.”

    “The good news is that, right now, like, Scooby goes in fits and starts,” adds Lillard. “We’ve had about two since the pandemic. I mean, we’ve had a long stretch of not doing a Scooby, right? So, yeah, maybe I’ll go back, and I guess I’ll address it as it gets bad.”

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