The following contains spoilers for Velma Season 1, Episode 5, "Marching Band Sleepover" and Episode 6, "The Sins of the Fathers and Some of the Mothers," now streaming on HBO Max.
Season 1 of HBO Max'sVelma continues to reinterpret the titular heroine and the iconic Mystery, Inc. gang for a new generation of fans as they hunt the Crystal Cove slasher. In this iteration of the series, Shaggy (aka Norville) has become an expert detective, while Fred is a toxic male trying to heal. Apart from their budding romance, Velma and Daphne are both tracking down key members of their respective families, crafting a more personal, emotive journey than the whodunit of old.
While Velma drastically changes the Scooby-Doo characters, there are still many nods and Easter eggs to yesteryear. This has previously come in the form of a character at Velma's school that resembles Red Herring. Another nod to the past are the ghosts Velma hallucinates as part of her depression over her missing mother, Diya. In Episodes 5 and 6, these references aren't just limited to the Scooby-Doo, but other signature Hanna-Barbera characters as well.
Velma Reveals the Flintstones
Outside the Scooby-Doo franchise, the Flintstones family are up there as some of Hanna-Barbera's most popular characters. The Flintstones are seen in a montage that details Daphne finally meeting her birth parents. As she spends time with them, it's revealed they became criminals and escaped society, hiding underground in the mines they worked in.
Daphne's parents got bitter when the mines were shut down, which saw them and their ex-workers shift from putting on shows for tourists to more sinister endeavors. While bonding, Daphne and her birth parents take pictures, posing in a cardboard cutout of the Fred, Wilma, and their daughter, Pebbles. Notably, the Flintstones have a slightly updated design to fit the animation style of Velma, leaving fans wondering if someday they'd be re-imagined for modern viewers after running for six seasons in the 1960s.
Velma Unveils the Jetsons
The other big Hanna-Barbara family to get a nod is The Jetsons. This occurs when Velma plots a sleepover and is found video-calling her dad, Aman, and stepmom, Sophie, to ensure she doesn't get caught. It turns out, they're doing a photo-shoot, cosplaying as George, Jane and Judy Jetson, from clothes right down to the hair. The Jetsons ran for three seasons in the 1960s and in the 1980s, moving from ABC to syndication. This put the series right up there with The Flintstones, as a space age take on the concept of family. It's ironic that the Dinkleys mimic them, however, as this family is way more dysfunctional and kooky.
Velma Nods to Captain Caveman
Hanna-Barbera also put out Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels in the 1970s and 1980s. the series focused on Captain Caveman as a prehistoric superhero some young girls thawed. Granted, it wasn't as popular as Hanna-Barbera's other shows, but there was still a fun action-comedy dynamic at play. The girls partnered up and went on Charlie's Angels-like missions with Captain Caveman, who even crossed over with Scooby-Doo, at times. In Episode 5, when Daphne first meets her parents in the mines, they're wearing Captain Caveman costumes. In fact, their entire gang rocked that look in the abandoned resort down below, hating on the surface for decades.
Velma Reframes Jinkies
Outside of Velma's mean girls being murdered, the titular character ends up in a lair beneath Fred's home, discovering clues over her mother's disappearance. She ends up finding a note marked "Jinkies" with her dad, confirming this was her mom's way of celebrating a clue. Diya was a sleuth, after all, which is where Velma got her penchant for solving mysteries from. It's another sentimental cut, as Velma also wears Diya's iconic turtleneck, leaving her certain her mother is still alive somewhere below Crystal Cove.
Velma Revives the Classic Shaggy
The classic Shaggy design gets called back in flashbacks that depict how Norville's dad Lamont and his mom Blythe looked decades prior. Both are now working at Norville's high school -- with Blythe as principal and Lamont as a counselor -- but the trip down memory lane has Blythe introducing him to her mad scientist mom, Edna. Interestingly, while the new Shaggy is Black, the white Lamont is modeled after the old-school Shaggy, paying homage to the past cartoons and animated flicks in a very nostalgic, true-to-form manner.
Velma Subverts the Scooby Name
While Scooby-Doo isn't in the show, the Great Dane gets mentioned in a different breath. When Blythe educates Velma on Edna's work, she admits her own mother was commissioned by the military to mess with teens' brains in the 1970s to get them to stop protesting war. This project was called the "Special Covert Operations Brain Initiative, or SCOOBI." The rundown for this came after Velma asked what did "SCOOBI do," cleverly making a pun on Scooby's name, while reminding fans how much the show has subverted these characters.
Velma Formalizes Meddling Kids
The highly-popular Velma already had a reporter joking about Fred, who was a suspect for the town's killings at the time, being caught by "meddling kids." Of course, this phrase was used by Mystery, Inc.'s villains when they got unmasked, vowing how they'd have gotten away with their schemes if not for the gang. In Velma, the military boss, who hired Edna, Meeting, deemed the protesters "meddling kids." In fact, the entire project was fashioned after this phrase, which led to him wearing masks and posing as a teen. He later got exposed when his mask was pulled off after trying to convince them to end their protests.
Velma Honors Casey Kasem
When Daphne gets into a tour boat in the sewers to get to her birth parents in the mines, the voice recording of the operator touting up Crystal Cove as a tourist hub mimics Casey Kasem. The famous American DJ voiced Shaggy in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and is widely regarded as the definitive Shaggy. Sadly, he passed away in 2014, aged 82, which makes the tribute that much more endearing, especially as it leads Daphne to the secret society causing chaos underground -- a mystery that the town has failed to solve for years.
Velma debuts new episodes every Thursday on HBO Max.