Bangin on a trash can...
I know I'm not the only guy who grew up watching Doug. That kid had one fucked up imagination. Let's talk about Doug, Skeeter, Mr. Dink, Patty, Porkchop, The Beets, and all things Doug before Disney came along and screwed it up.
This show could not have existed at any other time other than the 90s. It's too quaint, surreal, and offbeat without being obnoxious about it.
I was re-watching some of it a few months ago, but I got sidetracked by other things. There's still nothing quite like it.
I grew up watching Doug religiously, but I don't really care for it anymore. Not completely sure if I even liked it all that much back then, either...
I know I showed this to Avaitor and some of the other chatters, but I recently stumbled across this blog, titled Doug Funnie is Crazy (http://dougfunniesjournal.blogspot.com/). For each episode, the author goes into detail about what he thinks is going through Doug's head(or isn't, in a lot of cases). Some of the analyses are pretty messed up, but a lot of it is funny, and worth a read.
I just read the entry about Doug being an executive and holy shit, I got a good laugh out of this. This is some good archive binging shit right here.
I still have all of these queued up in my tumblr feed to read, and when I get the time, I'll get to a few of them.
Honestly, Doug was my favorite of the 90's Nicktoons when I was a kid. I really liked how all of Doug's fantasy's interconnected and how zany the characters were. It doesn't really hold up for me now though, at least not as well as a lot of other shows from the era. Still, I'd buy a DVD of it in an instant.
Good thing the show ended after four seasons on Nick and no one tried to use the characters afterwords. :humhumhum:
Here's a trivia that not many people know: one of the early episodes were made at Spumco.
This was during a downtime when no work was coming in at Spumco (and this was before Nick fired them), so Nickelodeon sent one of the Doug episodes to be laid out over there. Completely in that show's style.
Yeah, one can imagine that John K. was really desperate if he agreed to do this. I wonder how they felt having to do this.
And no, I don't know which one was done there.
That's interesting, though I can't imagine him being all too happy to do it.
John K. once called Doug "drawing for retards".
He must've really needed to be on Nick's good side for this to happen.
Well there was that time that a Doug look a like was featured on Ren and Stimpy as the tooth fairy, replacing John's George Liquor character that Nick wouldn't let him use. Wasn't the rumor that John put "Doug" in the episode as a dig towards Nick and them having quite a bit more faith in Doug than in R&S? Maybe there was more to the story.
edit: okay yeah, there's some talk about it here (http://here), but I know I've seen it mentioned somewhere else.
Quote from: Comeau on July 30, 2013, 06:21:43 PM
Well there was that time that a Doug look a like was featured on Ren and Stimpy as the tooth fairy, replacing John's George Liquor character that Nick wouldn't let him use. Wasn't the rumor that John put "Doug" in the episode as a dig towards Nick and them having quite a bit more faith in Doug than in R&S? Maybe there was more to the story.
That's pretty much how it was.
This would be the Doug appearance in question. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpE-9kod_FY) It's the only thing I can think of. He's The Bloody Head Fairy. The episode is from Haunted House.
This brought back memories due to the controversy surrounding it at the time. Anyways, I did a lil digging..
As the story goes (or.. the legend of a marriage made in hell), Nickelodeon had many issues with Spumco content and effectively became their watchdog for nearly every ounce of material produced. As Comeau mentioned, apparently George Liquor was supposed to have been The Bloody Head Fairy, but Nick was opposed to that idea. Spumco decided to give Nick a playful 'flip the bird' by making the fairy into a character of one of Nick's more higher rated shows of the time - Their target was Doug Funnie.
I think it would've been even funnier if they got Billy West to voice The Bloody Head Fairy (since he voiced Stimpy as well as Doug). But that would've created a three-way triangle of bad blood between Nickelodeon, Doug's production studio, and Spumco. That doesn't mean they probably didn't think about doing it, though! ;D
I didn't find that very funny.
Gasp, I know.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on July 31, 2013, 07:22:55 PM
I didn't find that very funny.
Gasp, I know.
Agreed. That joke was crap. I liked Ren and Stimpy when I was younger, but to me, none of it holds up in my mind. Doug was overall a better show than Ren and Stimpy. :bleh:
lol!
I'll bet John K. and the Spumco crew were laughing their asses off more than anyone.
Interestingly enough, that clip was edited out of future airings.
Man, I don't think I can agree with Doug holding up better than Ren & Stimpy.
I don't think either of them hold up too well.
But one of them doesn't include APC.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on July 31, 2013, 08:53:11 PM
I don't think either of them hold up too well.
But one of them doesn't include APC.
At least when Disney got Doug, they treated it better. APC still creeps me out to this day.
APC... yeah. That's a whole other story.
The only episode of Doug that I remember really liking was the one where Porkchop was incarcerated in a Pound due to a misunderstanding and Doug desperately tried to get him back before he was put to sleep.
I agree that neither show really holds up, though.
I think Doug, these days, is pretty alright. On the other hand, I really don't like Ren & Stimpy. Just because it's less garbage than APC doesn't mean it's not garbage. :P
Yeah, I guess it's a minority opinion to like R&S on here, but them's the breaks.
I like some of the early stuff, but think the rest is awful. It went south too quickly for me to really stick up for in any discussion.
Doug is simply inoffensive to me and at least makes good background noise in comparison. But while it's forgetful, it doesn't really have anything that makes me questions the writers' sanity.
On the other hand there's Ren Seeks Help.
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on July 31, 2013, 08:53:11 PM
I don't think either of them hold up too well.
But one of them doesn't include APC.
One big reason why I stand by what I said. With Doug, its dated a bit by certain 90s stuff in it, but I've seen episodes of it only a year or so ago and they were just as fun and entertaining. Some of episodes of the both the Nick and Disney runs aren't that good, but its still fun.
That movie though? I have no interest to see that anytime soon.
Doug's show concept of kids living crazy lives and going to school was done 1,000x's better in Hey Arnold.
"Space Madness," "Marooned," "Stimpy's Invention," and "The Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksman" are fantastic.
Other than those, though, Ren and Stimpy is pretty unentertaining aside for the expressive animation in the Spumco episodes. At least Doug is just bland, whereas Ren and Stimpy goes out of it's way to be freakishly and offensively bad as it goes on.
Honestly, I don't even think the early stuff in R&S holds up that well. It's okay, but even at its best the show was still way too weird and gross to be enjoyed in anything over very small doses. Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that the guy who created it is a complete narcissist that hasn't contributed dick to the animation industry in over 20 years. So... there's also that.
In fact, I'll redact my previous statement that Doug has held up worse than any other Nicktoon, because I think this one takes the cake. I have even less interest in catching up with this than I do with Rocket Power.
Quote from: Lord Il on July 31, 2013, 07:52:28 PM
lol!
I'll bet John K. and the Spumco crew were laughing their asses off more than anyone.
Interestingly enough, that clip was edited out of future airings.
It also wasn't included in any of the DVD releases. It's said that John K himself isn't actually a fan of the scene.
Rocket Power was my childhood guilty pleasure. I always knew it was terrible, but I always watched it and knew so many episodes.
Rocket Power was the reason that I was a Cartoon Network kid.
I didn't understand Rocket Power's appeal. The fact that it wasn't funny didn't help.
Tony Hawk had just landed the 900 at the X-Games at the time the show premiered. He also had his line of video games coming out. Tech Decks were huge.
That was the appeal. In the late 90's skateboarding and X-treme sports were huge, and it capitalized on that. It was just as faddish as any of the toy-selling cartoons were.
Oh, it was an appeal to "extreme" culture. I completely forgot that was a thing. My memory's going...
Quote from: Spark Of Spirit on August 01, 2013, 05:34:40 PM
Oh, it was an appeal to "extreme" culture. I completely forgot that was a thing. My memory's going...
Don't worry Sparky, tomorrow... we'll start looking for a retirement home for you to live in forever.
Well it's not his fault. He's not even allowed to read the newspaper, it angers up the blood.
(https://animationrevelation.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fts3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DH.4579089087988142%26amp%3Bpid%3D15.1&hash=02b36cfea5a5180b0fba798f19e7910af993c117)
*starts up the electroshock therapy*
Man, I fucking loathed Rocket Power as a kid. Making fun of people for wearing shoes, and getting everything handed to them pissed me off so much. :srs:
I distinctly remember an episode where the main kid wasn't allowed to go on a trip because he wasn't doing in well in school, and in the end the dad felt bad and came back for him, and the kid hadn't done a thing to earn it. He learned nothing. Absolute piece of crap cartoon.
Yeah Rocket Power was atrocious... Just don't ask why I watched it. :srs:
I liked the first season when I watched it, but the second season and so on (whenever Twister's voice deepened) just got boring to me. It didn't help that I never liked Otto. He was a spoiled brat. Reggie wasn't as bad as him, but I didn't care about her. Sam and that Hawaiian guy are the only characters I really liked.
I also hated the spray-tan like art style. It made Reggie and their dad look disgusting. And yeah, the biggest problem with this show is that it is VERY dated with the late 90s. It may very well be even more dated than some of the cartoons of the early 90s, and that's just embarrassing for this show when you think about it.
An argument could be made that this was the worst Nicktoon.
While still on the subject of Rocket Power, here's a couple comments from another board where it came up......
QuoteI hate that we live in a a snobby hipster world where Rocket Power is for some reason called terrible, when everyone, myself included loved that shit when it was on.
Because anyone who hates or doesn't care about what you like is a hipster. ::)
QuoteStill to this day one of my favorite cartoons. Screw the haters
It's always easier to just say "screw the haters" then try to explain why they might be wrong, isn't it? :sly:
Eh, everything has its fans. There are already people on the internet who miss My Gym Partner's a Monkey, the Buzz on Maggie, the X's, etc.
Just wait until a few years when Fish Hooks and Almost Naked Animals are considered "beloved" classics.
Lest we not forget Catscratch.
That reminds me, Doug TenNapel is like an extreme right-wing John K. This industry sure has some real cards in it.
Didn't he tell Huntsman to kill himself?
Quote from: Avaitor on August 06, 2013, 01:40:49 PM
Eh, everything has its fans. There are already people on the internet who miss My Gym Partner's a Monkey, the Buzz on Maggie, the X's, etc.
Just wait until a few years when Fish Hooks and Almost Naked Animals are considered "beloved" classics.
It's not about them being a fan of Rocket Power, it's that saying "I like it, so screw the critics!" is about the opposite extreme as saying "Anyone who likes the Transformers movies should get sent to concentration camps!" .
Quote from: Avaitor on August 07, 2013, 11:20:48 AM
Didn't he tell Huntsman to kill himself?
I thought that was Beau he said that to? Either way, that TenAppel guy's a jackass. Can't believe he made Earthworm Jim.
Quote from: Peanutbutter on August 07, 2013, 07:27:45 PM
Quote from: Avaitor on August 07, 2013, 11:20:48 AM
Didn't he tell Huntsman to kill himself?
I thought that was Beau he said that to? Either way, that TenAppel guy's a jackass. Can't believe he made Earthworm Jim.
Maybe it was both. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised.
What exactly is so wrong with Doug that "doesn't hold up?" Because I have seen plenty of episodes from it recently and I didn't encounter any problems. The imagine spots, Mr. Dink's antics, Skeeter's wierdness, Roger's antics, and Doug's imagination. No not every epsiode was perfect, but come on. I've seen others that hold up way worse than this.
I just don't feel like it's meant for people who are older than Doug is.