Google pays tribute after Scooby Doo character Velma ‘comes out’ ahead of new film

Google has celebrated Scooby Doo character Velma Dinkley officially coming out as lesbian with a joyful animation.

On Wednesday (5 October), Prime Video released a clip of Velma’s first encounter with her crush, villain Coco Diablo, in the newest iteration of the beloved franchise titled Trick or Treat Scooby Doo!.

The video quickly went viral, as fans celebrated the first confirmation of Velma’s sexuality in a Scooby Doo movie – despite it being widely acknowledged by creatives such as James Gunn, who wrote the earlier live-action movies.

To mark the moment Velma officially came out, Google engineered a LGBT+-themed animation that plays whenever the terms “Velma,” “Velma Scooby-Doo,” “Velma Dinkley” or even just “Dinkley” are entered in the search bar.

The prompts cause a burst of confetti and LGBT+ flags to cascade over the Google search results page.

In 2020, Gunn tweeted that he had “tried” to make Velma a visible lesbian in the live-action movies, but claimed that the studio “just kept watering it down & watering it down, becoming ambiguous (the version shot), then nothing (the released version) & finally having a boyfriend (the sequel)”.

“In 2001, Velma was explicitly gay in my initial script,” he added.

Released on Tuesday (4 October), Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! is out now on Prime Video.