ABC, September 7, 1996-June 26, 1999)
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| Classic Doug. |
Cartoonist Jim Jinkins
created his character one day while doodling in his sketchbook. Initially, he
planned to make it an autobiographical character named “Brian”, but decided on
“Doug” instead as it sounded plainer and middle of the road. Jinkins viewed
Doug as an alter-ego and drew him in a variety of scenarios in his sketchbook.
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| Doug's book debut. |
In 1984, Jinkins’ life took a hard
turn and he wanted to create a bit of escapism from the harshness of reality.
He began to develop Doug and his environment further, with the help of friend and
eventual business partner David
Campbell and margaritas from a local Mexican restaurant.
Campbell suggested turning Doug into a children’s book, which Jinkins did. He
shopped Doug’s Got a New Pair of Shoes to all of New
York’s publishers and it was passed up by everyone except Simon & Schuster—at
least until a management change happened before the deal could be finalized. In
1988, Jinkins brought Doug to television in a series of Florida Grapefruit
Growers commercials (narrated by Lorenzo Music)
and for USA Network promotional bumpers
in 1989.
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| Doug, Judy and their parents are comin' to town! |
Meanwhile, cable network Nickelodeon
was looking to expand its original content and find creative people to do it. Jinkins
met with executive Vanessa
Coffey and showed her his Doug book. Coffey immediately
became excited for the project and quickly ordered a pilot based on Jinkins’
characters. His was one of three pilots chosen out of eight to become one of
Nick’s debut “Nicktoons”.
Jinkins negotiated a contract that would allow him to maintain a strong measure
of control over the show, allowing his Jumbo Pictures
studio to produce the series. He also got the right to shop the series to
another network if Nick failed to order a complete run of 65 episodes as a
means to keep his creation alive.
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| Doug hanging out with Porkchop and working on a Quailman story. |
The show, while no longer strictly autobiographical,
drew heavily on Jinkins’ experiences growing up and the people he knew. It
centered around the title character, 11-year-old Douglas Yancy Funnie (Billy
West), moving to the fictional town of Bluffington (loosely based on Jinkins’
childhood home of Richmond, Virginia) with his family: mother Theda (Becca
Lish), father Phillip (Doug Preis), older sister Judy (also Lish), and faithful
dog Porkchop (Fred Newman). Doug spent a lot of time writing about his
experiences and lessons learned in his journal, while also partaking in some
creative writing; particularly in the adventures of his own superhero, Quailman
(inspired by Jinkins home movies playing pretend). The Funnies lived next door
to the Dinks: Bud (Newman) and Tippy (Doris Belack).
Doug often turned to Mr. Dink for advice, although most of the time his
eccentric neighbor was no help at all. The Dinks’ name came from the acronym
for “Dual Income, No Kids”.
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| Doug with Skeeter and Patti. |
Doug’s first new (and eventually
best) friend was Mosquito “Skeeter” Valentine (Newman), who helped Doug
navigate the strange ordering system at the local fast food hangout, the Honker
Burger. Skeeter was modeled after Jinkins’ best friend, Tommy Roberts. Doug’s
other close friend was Patricia “Patti” Mayonnaise (Constance Shulman), who was
kind and helpful towards others but could become very competitive and exhibited
a short fuse when pushed far enough. She was based on Jinkins’ crush from
junior to high school and her name came from two girls he knew growing up. There
was also the Sleech Brothers; identical twins Albert and Moose (both Eddie
Korbich) who were geniuses and occasionally helped Doug with some of his
problems. Their other friends were Beebe Bluff (Alice Playten), the spoiled
heiress to the Bluff family fortune, and Connie Benge (who had a different
appearance and went unnamed in the first season, voiced by Lish), Patti’s best
friend who seemed to have a crush on Doug.
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| Roger with his gang of Willie, Boomer and Ned. |
Of course, no town is a purely
friendly place. Doug often found himself at odds with the local bully, Roger
Klotz (West), based on a bully that plagued Jinkins’ neighborhood. Roger was
three years older than everyone else, having been left back repeatedly. He
lived in a trailer park with his mother and cat, Stinky (Newman). Roger also
had an on/off crush on Judy (awk-ward!). Roger’s main cronies were William
“Willie” White (Pries), the dimwitted son of the scatterbrained Mayor Bob White
(Greg Lee); Ned Cauphee (Newman), the smartest and most vocal of the trio with
ten brothers and twin sisters; and Boomer Bledsoe (West), who was comparatively
the nicest of Roger’s gang. Antagonists weren’t just fellow classmates,
however, but also authority figures. Particularly in the form of Assistant
Principal Lamar Bone (patterned after Don Knotts, voiced by Pires),
who was extremely strict and uptight when it came to his job, although not
entirely unreasonable when presented with a good argument.
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| An assortment of the unique colorings of Bluffington's citizenry at the Honker Burger. |
A creative choice was made to give
the characters all unique skin colors. Doug was pink, Skeeter was blue, Patti
was orange, Roger was light green, Mr. Dink and Bebe were purple, and so on
down the line. Jinkins selected that coloring after being inspired by his set
of 200 design markers (and a few margaritas during the initial brainstorming
sessions). In the years following, many would assume that Skeeter’s blue skin,
along with his mannerisms, would indicate that he was African American. In
reality, Jinkins just thought he would look good in blue. In interviews,
Jinkins would say the colors “came to symbolize the irrelevance of race.” Animation was handled by Hanho Heung-Up Company and Shanghai Morning
Sun Animation.
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| An early rendition of the series' characters. |
Doug
debuted on Nickelodeon on August 11, 1991 alongside Rugrats and The
Ren and Stimpy Show.
Jinkins
wanted to change the show’s name to The
Funnies, but the network encouraged him to use the original title. Jinkins
was heavily involved in every aspect of the show and intended for it to have a
timelessness that would keep it relevant in decades to come. He tasked the
show’s writers to place a central theme at the top of each script to detail the
issue Doug would be facing and what he’d learn from it. It was also important
that the show didn’t become too preachy in its messages, so the production’s
schedule was built around several weeks being dedicated to crafting the
scripts. Every writer also had to familiarize themselves with the series’
massive bible which included a backstory for the town, street maps, and
detailed floor plans for every featured house. The stable of writers included Ken Scarborough,
Matt Steinglass,
Marcy
Winograd, Alan Silbeberg,
Alan J. Higgins,
Joe Fallon
and Joe
Aaron, amongst others. To oversee the writers, Nick
assigned Mitchell Kriegman
from Clarissa Explains it All and Will McRobb
of The Adventures of Pete & Pete as the story
editors.
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| Their favorite band, The Beets. |
For the music, Jinkins wanted to get
away from the typical sound you’d hear in a cartoon soundtrack. The majority of
the music utilized simple instrumentation by Dan Sawyer
with mouth sounds provided by Newman, and his scat singing was used for scene
transitions. The most complicated piece of music was the series’ theme. The
theme was composed before the intro was even made, which was unusual. For the
outro, a song from that episode’s second segment would play until Porkchop
donned a pair of headphones that drowned out the music with a piece from the
first one. That practice continued throughout the first season, but was
abandoned in subsequent seasons for a single piece of music over the same
animation. Each episode’s title card featured Doug opening a door into a dark
room and his turning a light on to reveal his name. Porkchop would then scribble
the title below it and Doug with chase him off-camera with a variation of a gag
to follow (such as getting his foot stuck in a paint can) before he returned
and turned the light back off.
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| Doug runs into Patti, Connie and Beebe. |
Doug ran
for a total of four seasons, falling 13 short of the 65 Jinkins contracted Nick
for. The network cited the show’s expensive budget as the reason why they
wouldn’t order a new season. And while the show did gain good ratings after a
rocky start, it really didn’t fit in with the manic energy of the other
Nicktoons shown at the time. As Nick had a two-year window to reverse their
decision, Jinkins and Campbell tried to speed up the process by letting them
know every time another network expressed interest in continuing the series.
Ultimately, Nick didn’t change its mind, leaving the door open for Disney executive Linda Steiner
to acquire the show for Disney’s recently-acquired television network: ABC.
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| Trading burgers for ice cream. |
Jinkins
sold Disney both Doug and his production company. To explain the gap between
runs, it was treated as an extended summer vacation for the characters and the
new show began with the kids starting a new grade at Beebe Bluff Middle School;
advancing from 11 to 12-years-old. That was far from the only change: Roger and
his mother became rich through a real-estate deal with the trailer park; The
Beets, the favorite band of the main characters, broke up; The Honker Burger,
their primary hangout, became the trendy Chez Honque and was replaced by an ice
cream parlor run by Mr. Swirly (Bruce Bayley Johnson);
Connie lost a significant amount of weight; the Sleech Brothers completely
bypassed middle school and went to high school, leaving them out of
school-based stories; with Mrs. Dink having been elected mayor, the former
mayor became the principal of the junior high. Many of the characters got new,
yet similar, looks: Doug’s sleeves and pant legs grew, Skeeter wore a blue
vest, Patti switched from skirts to pants and had shorter hair, Roger’s leather
jacket became a leather vest, and Beebe gained pants under her dress, amongst
others.
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| The Funnies with their new addition, Dirtbike. |
Several
new characters were introduced. Doug gained a new baby sister, Cleopatra
“Dirtbike” Funnie (Newman), so named based on a suggestion from Judy and her
making fun of a list of Doug’s suggestions. Walter “Skunky” Beaumont (Pries)
was a slacker surfer dude that was commonly mentioned in the Nick series and
only heard once, but was made a regular character in the Disney series. Guy
Graham (Guy Hadley) was the handsome and eccentric, though selfish and
inconsiderate, editor-in-chief of the school newspaper (where Doug worked) and
was made Doug’s rival, particularly for Patti’s affections; however, unlike
Roger, Guy actually liked Doug. Doug’s new teacher was Emily Kristal (Fran
Brill), who was a friendly and immense book lover and eventually became
romantically involved with Patti’s father.
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| Quailman has a new rival for Patti's affections. |
The
biggest change of all came behind the scenes. As West’s status grew in the
years since starting Doug, Disney
couldn’t afford his salary on the show’s budget (rumored for years to be because
he hated the changes Disney was making) and instead replaced him with Tom
McHugh as Doug and Chris Phillips as Roger and Boomer. Along with West, many of
those involved with the production of the series had also moved on to other
projects and were unable to return for Disney’s run. Jinkins himself also had
other commitments, meaning he wasn’t able to put as much attention on Doug as he had during the Nick years.
The
series returned to television on ABC on September 7, 1996 for an additional three
seasons, joining the One Saturday Morning programming block
when it debuted the following year. Initially, it was called Brand Spankin’ New! Doug until it was
renamed Disney’s Doug for the third
and final season. Unlike the Nick version, the Disney show opted to feature a
single story in every episode and the moral wasn’t as subtly presented. Along
with returning writers Scarbrough, Steinglass and Fallon, new series writers included
Don Gillies,
Glenn Leopold,
Dennis Garvey,
Marcy Brown,
Scott Fellows,
and Steve
Bannos, amongst others. Steve Granat
and Cydne Clark served as
the story editors, while Jim
Rubin was the script coordinator. As Nickelodeon had
copyrighted the original Doug theme,
Disney’s version used a new theme as well as more instrumental music by Sawyer.
Some of the original score did remain, but in a much smaller capacity.
During
the final season, a live stage show called Doug
Live! opened
in Disney MGM Studios (now Disney’s
Hollywood Studios) and ran from 1999 until 2001. Doug and
Patti appeared as meet ‘n’ greet characters around the park. Disney also
revisited the concept of giving Doug his own movie. In 1993, Nickelodeon had
planned to give its Nicktoons their own films with 20th Century Fox,
but the plans fell through. Ultimately, Nick did succeed in bringing The
Rugrats Movie to
theaters in 1998 through Paramount.
Doug’s 1st Movie was
initially going to be a direct-to-video release called The First Doug Movie Ever, but when Rugrats proved successful, Disney decided to give Doug a theatrical release. Opening on
March 26, 1999, the film was critically panned as feeling too much like an
extended episode of the series, but due to its small budget it was able to
become a commercial success by pulling in $19.4 million.
Doug continued
to air on Nickelodeon in reruns until 2003, as well as on the Nicktoons channel
from 2002-2005 and later on TeenNick
in the programming block called The Splat.
The Disney version was packaged for syndication under the Disney’s Doug title with a new closing credits sequence, replacing
the one of Doug
chasing Porkchop across the screen, and character-based
shorts between commercial breaks. Reruns ran on The Disney Channel from 1999-2002, Disney’s
One Too on
UPN from 1999-2000 and
Toon
Disney from 2001-04. It would also have a run as part of the
Kids’
WB
weekday morning line-up.
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| Ad for Doug's 1st Movie toys. |
Disney
heavily merchandised Doug during its
run. They released trading cards, toys
by Mattel,
a handheld
game
by Tiger
Electronics, a video game
by ImaginEngine
and Disney Interactive,
lunchboxes
and clothing.
Three series of books were published by Disney
Press: Disney’s Doug in the Disney
Chapters series, which adapted
various episodes, Doug Chronicles, which were all-new
stories, and The Funnie Mysteries, which were all-new
stories with a mystery twist. Picture
books were also published for younger fans. Short comics
were printed in the pages of Disney
Adventures magazine.
For the series’ debut, Jack-in-the-Box
included toys with their kids meals, and McDonald’s did the same
in 1999 for the release of the
movie on VHS by Walt Disney Home Video.
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| Disney's Doug on VHS. |
Beginning
in 1993, Nickelodeon released a series of
VHS tapes containing multiple episodes of Doug through Sony
Pictures Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Video. They later released
three of the five seasons onto DVD across three sets between 2008 and 2009. In
2014, the entire Nick run was released in a complete
series set. Beginning in 1997, Walt Disney Home Video released the Disney
version onto VHS
with two episodes apiece. However, to date, the only part of the Disney version
to see a DVD release was the
film
as part of the Disney
Movie Club in 2012.
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