Doug Funnie

Doug Funnie is an adolescent daydreaming boy from Bluffington, although he was originally from Bloatsburg, as evidenced when his father moved to Bluffington for a job and along came Doug's mother and Judy, Doug's avant-garde Bohemian hippy-chick of a sister who'd read stuff along the lines of Nietzsche and amp up her melodramatics.

Doug's overall character as a dreamer is comparable to the character Walter Mitty from "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and had been considered the one character to best illustrate the common hopes and fears of young people, especially when talking of adolescence in general.

Origin
Doug originated from a book Jim Jinkins, Doug's creator, had written and illustrated, titled "Doug Got A New Pair of Shoes". This lead to a pilot, "Doug Can't Dance", which shows an alternate timeline where he's already a teen (over 13) and is already friends with Skeeter and Patti. Roger appears, without his goons. The pilot was incorporated into a 30 minute episode as the A story, which airs within the first half of the episode.

Series 1: Nickelodeon Era
On August 11, 1991, Nickelodeon debuted their first cartoon stable. (A stable in this case, refers to cartoons that can be run numerous times over the years. The more famous stables were Disney's animal characters, Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald, Daisy and Goofy and Warner Brothers' The Looney Tunes, both franchises were known to be at odds on their standards and their company image.)

Although it may not matter much, the time each aired would be the depending factor of who came first. In this case, "Doug" came first.

They then aired "Rugrats", One of their longest running shows before being ended in 2004, and "Ren and Stimpy". Due to artistic and economic differences, when John Kricfalusi argued with Nickelodeon on the matter of adding Ren and Stimpy, his characters to the stable, he quit during the Nick-era run of "Ren and Stimpy", leaving Billy West, who voiced Doug on "Doug" (originally) and Stimpy to voice Ren as the show continued on without John.

Relationships and Friendships
Doug has his dog, Porkchop, who does many human things like listen to a vinyl record stereo and break dance, order a salad from the salad bar and decorate his igloo dog house with various electronics and he also paints the full title during the title card sequence, a scuffle would happen off-screen and either Doug or Porkchop would return to switch off the light. Doug is friends with Mosquito "Skeeter" Valentine, and romantically interested in Patti Mayonnaise, a player in a fictional sport called Beetball. Doug has to watch out for Roger Klotz, the local bully and his minions, one of whom is Willy White, son of lame duck mayor Bob White. Near the end of the series, he is voted out of office, leaving Willy in a bind. In fact, as time went on, Roger's minions disbanded and Roger began to soften over time, even admitting to Doug at 6th grade graduation near the end of the first series he couldn't keep up the tough guy image.

Doug's Imagination
Doug's heart and mind are usually in the same place when he's in the mood to romance Patti to share time with him.

Doug has created a few personas that are common in his mind.

Quail-Man: A superhero who uses the virtuous traits of patience, intelligence and speed to accomplish his goals. Although not based on any known superhero, the white briefs on the outside of the shorts is a nod to the brief-like design found on famous superheroes such as Superman, Batman and Aquaman.

Smash Atoms: A suave James Bond-style secret agent who will use any tactics, even if underhanded, to retrieve lost items. He had fantasized this persona, sometimes theme music along the lines of Tom Jones' "Thunderball" or Madonna's "Die Another Day" was incorporated.

Jack Bandit: A slightly evil but overly dramatic villain on the lam from a rumored lab explosion rumored to have been started by Doug in term of who lit the wick. He is based upon highway men, men who'd rob horse coaches in Europe during the era Rococo fashion was in vogue in terms of dress.

These personas would slip from "in his mind" to "mildly-affected behaviors"

Out of the few, he also had an Indiana Jones-type and in certain cases of this one persona, Skeeter would be cast as a sidekick named "Skeetari"

Doug's Educational Career
Doug is around 4th grade at the very beginning of the series, but the many school functions (particularly the dance in "Doug Can't Dance") resembled junior high, which might have confused some viewers as elementary schools don't host school dances or allow for science project that are above the curricular level (teaching carnivorous plants to sing was a "Little Shop of Horrors" joke, but you get the idea.) and the cap and gown in graduation ceremony are left for high schools, colleges and universities and depending on what school you go to, you're either after Kindergarten going 6-3-3 (6 years of elementary 1-6, 3 years of junior high 7-9, and 3 years of high school 10-12) OR 5-3-4 (5 years of elementary 1-5, 3 years of middle school 6-8 and 4 years of high school 9-12).

Doug's graduation episode was the final regular episode as a few specials aired before the first series ended its first run. A Halloween one concerning a condemned, broken attraction at the local amusement park "Funky Town" and the Christmas one when a simple selfless gesture to save the local tycoon's daughter Beebe Bluff is misinterpreted as a vicious mauling and Porkchop is sentenced to euthanization on a doggie Death Row at the shelter. Doug must appeal to the Bluffs and the shelter owner that Porkchop is not vicious.

Series 2: Disney Era
During the time of between Nickelodeon-era and Disney-era, the show was overhauled and revamped to fit the mood of it being a Saturday Morning Cartoon as it appeared on Disney's 1 Saturday Morning block on ABC. The most noticeable was the fact that Billy West left the production when it migrated to Disney. A lot of character from the Nickelodeon era were given wardrobe changes, new hairstyles, a new body, a new way of life or in the case of Skunky Beaumont, who was merely mentioned in an episode, appear on camera. Instead of airing two stories in a half hour, all of the Disney-era Doug episodes were one long story, broken up into 3-4 segments of the story itself.

The Baby Sister Naming Contest
In one of the arcs in the overall story in the Disney-era Doug, Doug's mother was pregnant with a third child. A contest was held by the now-defunct "Disney Adventures" magazine during the time of production of the naming episode. In a later issue, the revealed winning name was Cleopatra Dirtbike Funnie and the reading viewers were told to tune in for the naming episode.

ABC Afterschool Special Syndrome
One of the more hard to swallow concepts for Nick-era Doug fans was the preachy episode that explored a real teen issue like starvation dieting, underage use of drugs and the effects of the drug on a minor's body and disobeying the R rating on a violent film. This is something that fell under the categorization of "ABC Afterschool Special" and the irony of it was that the second Doug series aired on ABC during "1 Saturday Morning" a now-defunct program block.

After the Second Series: Doug's First Movie
Before Jim Jinkins decided to shut down the production altogether, he made a film with Doug trying to find a classmate who went missing and the responsible entity was a creature known as the Lucky Duck Lake Monster.

Although this was the last animated program that bear Doug's name, it didn't see a DVD release until 2012, 13 years after its theatrical release. However, the only way to obtain the movie was to be part of Disney's DVD Exclusives Club.

Reception Between Nick-era and Disney Era
During the Nick-era, Doug first aired on August 11, 1991, with

•Rugrats (by husband-and-wife team studio Klasky-Csupo, who'd go on to animate cartoons with slice-of-life themes, such as growing up, firsts that every infant, baby, toddler, kid or teen experiences and the fact that life will reveal the many personalities of humanity.)

and

•Ren and Stimpy (although I was going to be 4 when I first saw it, it molded me into the twisted individual I am.)

and such nostalgia had been brought up in the past five years, as of 2014, that the Nick-era Doug eventually became available for purchase through Amazon (Physical format) and iTunes (Digital Download)

As for the Disney-era...Well...

A lot of fans who watched the first episode of "Brand Spanking New Doug" (The title was overhauled to avoid infringing on Nickelodeon's copyright) had rejected the new Doug, especially since it wasn't like old times.