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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 2: that brings you the secret history and little known facts

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Speaker 2: behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more. We

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Speaker 2: are your nematodes of nerdery, banging on trash cans of trivia.

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Speaker 2: My name is Jordan run Tug.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alex. I'm excited. My name is Alex.

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Speaker 2: It was hard to work in some puns in the

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Speaker 2: intro there. This doesn'tn't really lend itself to it.

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Speaker 1: We're your dougs people happy yet.

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Speaker 2: And today we are talking about a classic from the

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Speaker 2: golden era of nineties Nickelodeon. That's a little name with

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Speaker 2: a big reputation. We are talking about Doug Yes, the

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Speaker 2: eleven year old with his head in the clouds, who

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Speaker 2: navigates the trials and tribulations of youth with his best friend,

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Speaker 2: his dog, and the girl of his dreams, the fair

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Speaker 2: maiden known as Patty Mannaise. Despite his every boy qualities,

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Speaker 2: the imaginative visions he writes in his journal not a diary,

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Speaker 2: a journal dramatically illustrated the high highs and crushing lows

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Speaker 2: of being a kid. In that sense, this show is

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Speaker 2: not unlike my beloved Wonder Years, which we still have

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Speaker 2: to do.

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Speaker 1: We're working on that.

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Speaker 2: It's an impressionistic vision of adolescents that both connected with

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Speaker 2: those going through it and those.

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Speaker 1: Who enjoyed looking back at it.

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Speaker 2: The show kicked off the block of Nicktoons programming way

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Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety one, along with Rugrats and Ren

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Speaker 2: and Stimpy, but Doug was always my favorite.

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Speaker 1: Why, uh, well, should be pretty obvious.

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Speaker 2: I was an anxious and sensitive boy who daydreamed a

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Speaker 2: lot and processed unrequited crushes through writing while claude in

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Speaker 2: a sweater, vest and khakis. So all in all, watching

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Speaker 2: Doug I felt seen Rand and Stimpy was way too

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Speaker 2: grotesque for me. Rug Rats was a little too mannic

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Speaker 2: and weird, but Doug was gentle and even genteel, and

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Speaker 2: he provided a nice alter in a sense. He made

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Speaker 2: the world safe for Sissy's. Sissy representation is so important,

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Speaker 2: it's crucial. He was such a contrast the cartoon heroes

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Speaker 2: out there, Like Bart Simpson, it was rude and crude

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Speaker 2: and had sort of a gen X slacker energy. Doug,

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Speaker 2: on the other hand, was painfully earnest and sweet and

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Speaker 2: so was the show. I really struggled to think of

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Speaker 2: a Nickelodeon show that took such pains to impart messages

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Speaker 2: of kindness and morality.

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Speaker 1: I imagine this means that you hated the show. Ye

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Speaker 1: wait to tee me up there? What did you think

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Speaker 1: of that? You know? I just think it was like,

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Speaker 1: looking back on it, it was honestly just something I

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Speaker 1: watched because I had no interior life. Get you in

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Speaker 1: touch with your interior life by how you No, No,

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Speaker 1: not at all. I remember zero. I was a very

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Speaker 1: amoral child. I remember zero. All of my morals came

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Speaker 1: from martial arts films. I know, I remember, like I don't.

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Speaker 1: I remember Doug. I remember the music, I remember the beats,

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Speaker 1: I remember the curious his sack that beats the sick beats. No,

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Speaker 1: I remember the fact that he's that he wears like

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Speaker 1: that was the first place I saw that David Byrne

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Speaker 1: big suit was Doug. For some reason, say, but I

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Speaker 1: don't remember it particularly fondly or with interest. She said,

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Speaker 1: we discussed this episode. No, I mean it's part of

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Speaker 1: like the whole Nickelodeon milange that I just like, you know,

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Speaker 1: when I was a kid, before I had interests or

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Speaker 1: like I said, an interior life and I would just

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Speaker 1: be flipping through it. I'd be like, oh, Doug is on,

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Speaker 1: That's fine, I bury it, no malice. But it's like

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Speaker 1: it's you know, it's a it's a scoop of vanilla

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Speaker 1: ice cream? Are there things like that?

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Speaker 2: This is a sincere question that just shows that I

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Speaker 2: am now old. Do kids have that now? I think

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Speaker 2: there's so much choice and you can be so proactive

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Speaker 2: of you know, you have anything available at any time,

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Speaker 2: so you make the choice to watch or do X

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Speaker 2: y Z that people just know in the background.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think the experience is the same unless

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Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, just like putting on I've heard like

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Speaker 1: people put on anime in the background and just like

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Speaker 1: that role or any I mean anything that just has

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Speaker 1: like a sheer volume with it. But I think, like

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Speaker 1: so many, uh, the generational divide right now is just

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Speaker 1: like algorithms. Like back in the day, you your algorithm

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Speaker 1: was which channels you knew the the numbers too, yeah too,

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Speaker 1: you know, And now it's just like you can be

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Speaker 1: on you know, YouTube and that's your TV and it's

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Speaker 1: actually cued into what you've watched before, which is again

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Speaker 1: why I was like, Okay, I'll watch Doug. Doug is on,

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Speaker 1: you know, but it's you know, it's it's it's got

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Speaker 1: to it's it had a unique style and and and

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Speaker 1: I suppose it's appeal was precisely that it was so sweet,

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Speaker 1: non threatening. I mean, you did have like red and stimpy,

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Speaker 1: which was like a horrifying fever dream. And then uh,

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Speaker 1: I remember Ava Monsters the most. Yeah, that was a

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Speaker 1: creepy show too. Yeah, but yeah, I don't know, there's

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Speaker 1: I would like Doug episodes. It's it's like a just

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Speaker 1: stalt image for me. I'm like, ah, yes, I remember

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Speaker 1: all of these characters, all of these music cues. I

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Speaker 1: can hear Patty Bannay's weird March simpson preternaturally gravelly voice.

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Speaker 1: But I remembered like not a specific detail about it

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Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, we're not going to get into, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, anything too deep in terms of like the

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Speaker 1: plots on this show, on this episode, but yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: it's something I look back on fondly. And I was

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Speaker 1: really surprised about how many internet fan theories there are

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Speaker 1: out there about Doug for a show that was so

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Speaker 1: not inflammatory There's a lot out there, which we'll get into,

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Speaker 1: but one of the theories that just really resonated with

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Speaker 1: me was that a lot of people put forth the

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Speaker 1: theory that Doug Funny is the original Emo Kid, and

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Speaker 1: I enjoy this. Allow me to quote the theory put

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Speaker 1: forth by a retro junk user named System. Doug was

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Speaker 1: the original Emo Kid. He sat in the corner of

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Speaker 1: the park and wailed on his banjo, singing love songs

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Speaker 1: about Patty Mannaise, what a little kids do, idolize cartoon characters,

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Speaker 1: Emo and the subsequent Emo Kids are all Doug's fault.

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Speaker 1: Doug was Emo, keeping a journal, getting his ass kicked

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Speaker 1: by bullies, and wearing a sweater vest. Doug made being

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Speaker 1: a loser completely acceptable. Sounds like he's taking the negative

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Speaker 1: approach in this, but I say, yes, he did make

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Speaker 1: being a loser completely acceptable, and I say, God bless

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Speaker 1: him for it. I don't know if he's the original

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Speaker 1: Emo Kid, but it is funny when like you look

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Speaker 1: at Jay Gatsby might be I was gonna say, it's

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Speaker 1: funny when you look at like a very specific kind

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Speaker 1: of like nineties hardcore punk band. They like Preppy Chic

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Speaker 1: was kind of in fashion, So I guarantee you you

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Speaker 1: can find pictures of like life of Agony or like

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Speaker 1: integrity or any of these Like those are probably bad examples,

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Speaker 1: but like you can definitely find like nineties hardcore or

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Speaker 1: emo bands that dressed like Doug Funny. Like to a

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Speaker 1: te I mean he kind of looks like a gap ad. Yes,

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Speaker 1: yes he does. Well.

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Speaker 2: From the real life love story that inspired Doug and

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Speaker 2: Patty to the drama of the show's transition from Nick

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Speaker 2: to the House of Mouse, the animation ledend who provided

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Speaker 2: the character's voice, and the completely insane conspiracy theories that

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Speaker 2: have taken roots surrounding the series.

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Speaker 1: Here's everything you didn't know about Nickelodeon's Doug chime in

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Speaker 1: Wherever with You bet I will try and stop me.

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Speaker 2: Doug Funny is the cartoon alter ego of illustrator Jim Jenkins,

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Speaker 2: who somehow manages to have an even more cartoonish name

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Speaker 2: than the character he creates. That's a great name, he

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Speaker 2: would later say, Doug is an exaggerated version of my

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Speaker 2: memory of being a kid.

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Speaker 1: Doug is me, and I am Doug, and we are

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Speaker 1: all together.

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Speaker 2: And many plots on the show are taken directly from

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Speaker 2: his own life and story. Editors would talk about coming

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Speaker 2: up to him and arguing that a certain point in

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Speaker 2: the plot that Jim proposed was just didn't make any

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Speaker 2: sense and didn't seem very realistic, and he would say, well,

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Speaker 2: that's the way it happened. So this was a lot

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Speaker 2: of this was really plucked from his own life. And

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Speaker 2: despite moments like that, it sounds like he was a

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Speaker 2: lovely man to work with. Born in nineteen fifty three

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Speaker 2: to a very devout household in Virginia, Jenkins was a

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Speaker 2: compulsive doodler from his earliest days, and he'd later say,

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Speaker 2: as a little kid having to sit quietly in church,

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Speaker 2: you'd pray there's a little blank spot on the bulletin

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Speaker 2: to draw on church is a big theme in this episode.

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Speaker 2: These doodles provided an outlet for a very straight laced,

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Speaker 2: polite Southern boy to vent some of his more out

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Speaker 2: there thoughts and point of view. And you know, I

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Speaker 2: said a devout family, I mean a devout family. This

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Speaker 2: will become something of a theme in this episode. But

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Speaker 2: his upbringing was pretty strict. He says that he based

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Speaker 2: the whole episode of Doug not being able to dance

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Speaker 2: on the fact that he wasn't allowed to dance as

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Speaker 2: a kid for religious reasons, which is something that he

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Speaker 2: admits now quote seems absurd.

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Speaker 1: I mean, did he grow.

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Speaker 2: Up in the town in footloose, like, yeah, exactly. Jim

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Speaker 2: Jenkins moved to New York City in the late seventies,

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Speaker 2: which must have been a hell of an adjustment for

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Speaker 2: this guy who wasn't allowed to dance.

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Speaker 1: As a kid. I was gonna say, nineteen seventies New

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Speaker 1: York like this stuff that made Frank Miller lose his

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Speaker 1: My good lord, I'm surprised he's alive still.

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Speaker 2: I'm just like super imposing the creator of doug On

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Speaker 2: like Shaft's body in the opening of the movie walking

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Speaker 2: through Times Square and all the Born theaters.

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Speaker 1: So that's weird.

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Speaker 2: And in the late seventies, he worked as an artist

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Speaker 2: and puppeteer for the pioneering children's TV network Pinwheel, which

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Speaker 2: would eventually morph into Nickelodeon in the following decade. But

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Speaker 2: his path to creating one of the first Nicktoons was

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Speaker 2: a little more winding than that. He had a really

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Speaker 2: rough go for a few years there in the early eighties,

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Speaker 2: and he said that He created Doug quote during a

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Speaker 2: very dark time in my life. The whole art thing

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Speaker 2: wasn't really working out for him. So he was stuck

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Speaker 2: in a corporate ad agency job that he hated, and

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Speaker 2: he'd gone through a bad breakup, and he also had

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Speaker 2: a brutal bike accident that sidelined him for a time.

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Speaker 2: And so he started sketching this character who became kind

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Speaker 2: of a fantasy escape for him, almost like a Walter

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Speaker 2: Midi figure, and that became Doug. And he started to

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Speaker 2: flush these sketches out with this partner, David Campbell's production partner,

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Speaker 2: his future production partner, during happy hours at a Mexican

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Speaker 2: restaurant in Greenwich Village which features prominently in this story.

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Speaker 2: I'm really sad I couldn't figure out which Mexican restaurant

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Speaker 2: Grannis Village it was. I'm going to say it was

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Speaker 2: senyor Swank's, which is no longer there, but it was

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Speaker 2: on LaGuardia and Bleakers. So Jim Jenkins would drown his

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Speaker 2: sorrows at this Mexican place and try to forget about

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Speaker 2: his crappy life and develop this Doug character as a

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Speaker 2: way of blowing off steam. And he'd say much of

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Speaker 2: Doug was created under the influence of Margarita's, which is

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Speaker 2: not what I expected for this very sweet show. Before long,

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Speaker 2: he'd built this out into a whole town of characters,

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Speaker 2: many of which were pooled from his own childhood. He

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Speaker 2: later say, I wanted to create a place where there

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Speaker 2: was no overdue rent and no delinquent phone bills, a

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Speaker 2: place called Bluffington. He was a big fan of the

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Speaker 2: Peanuts cartoons as a kid, saying that he admired the

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Speaker 2: quote simplicity and honesty of the storytelling. He admired its purity,

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Speaker 2: and in this way, Doug became his own personal Charlie

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Speaker 2: Brown and Company, and similar to Charles Schultz. He'd insist

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Speaker 2: that the show had a very strong moral compass, with

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Speaker 2: lessons baked into each episode in a way that has

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Speaker 2: kind of unshakable religious overtones.

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Speaker 1: We'll get more to that later, but.

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Speaker 2: At its heart, Doug is very much Jim Jenkins. He'd

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Speaker 2: later say, I didn't keep a journal like Doug did,

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Speaker 2: but I drew, and Doug was definitely about this any

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Speaker 2: guy my alter ego. Some of the stuff I drew

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Speaker 2: was very dark and cynical, and some of it was

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Speaker 2: very silly. That was the beginning of figuring out that character.

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Speaker 1: And initially the character.

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Speaker 2: Wasn't named Doug but Brian, which is sort of like

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Speaker 2: a Monty Python esque take.

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Speaker 1: On a random generic man's name. But this name really

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Speaker 1: just wasn't landing for Jing.

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Speaker 2: When he started to try to develop Doug, the character,

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Speaker 2: I should say, into something that he would market, he

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Speaker 2: thought that the name Brian was too quote fancy, surely.

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Speaker 1: The only time that's ever been said about the name Brian.

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Speaker 2: He said he wanted a name that was super simple

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Speaker 2: and straightforward, a one syllable kind of deal, much like

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Speaker 2: his own. Jim Jenkins later said, if this were the

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Speaker 2: nineteen forties, I would have called him Joe, And I

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Speaker 2: thought that Doug had that feeling and that sound about it.

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Speaker 2: It was a conscious choice because I wanted him to

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Speaker 2: be this very neutral, middle of the road guy.

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Speaker 1: He's been.

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Speaker 2: The lame Yancy is borrowed from his grandfather. And that's

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Speaker 2: all I have to say about that. And while well

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Speaker 2: the topic of names, I want to give a quick

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Speaker 2: shout out to Doug's neighbors Bud and Tippy Dink.

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Speaker 1: This was the first time I'd ever heard the.

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Speaker 2: Sociological term DINK, which stands for double income, no kids,

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Speaker 2: which is precisely what the dinks are, which is why

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Speaker 2: they have plenty of disposable income to buy very expensive things.

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Speaker 1: I don't know they were swingers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely got that at that vibe. I always

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Speaker 2: had dink in my mind. Always sounded vaguely obscene to me.

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Speaker 1: It could be, yeah, who's to say, Who's to say?

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Speaker 1: There were several early incarnations of Dog that predate the

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Speaker 1: Nickelodeon show, including two commercials, and you could never have

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Speaker 1: I could never have guessed what these were. The first

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Speaker 1: was an ad for the Florida Grapefruit Growers in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty eight, featured Doug and his signature sweater vest on

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Speaker 1: a pogo stick because friend of the pod, pogo stick,

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Speaker 1: Friend of the pod. Grapefruits. I like grapefruits. I do too,

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Speaker 1: It's my favorite citrus. Really. Yeah, This is how you

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Speaker 1: know we're running out of steam creatively, is that we're

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Speaker 1: just getting into discourse about citrus fruits. The second ad,

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Speaker 1: featuring both Doug and his dog, pork Chop, was for

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Speaker 1: a nineteen ninety USA Network commercial. Do I don't remember this?

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Speaker 1: You do I do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it almost looks like an old Red Bull commercial,

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Speaker 2: you know the ones tho oh.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay. But Jim Jenkins's actual ultimate goal for a

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Speaker 1: time was to make Doug into an illustrated book series.

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Speaker 1: He assembled some of these sketches into a book called

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Speaker 1: Doug Got a New Pair of Shoes, and went out

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Speaker 1: pounding the pavement. Title needs work, maybe not. In the nineties,

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Speaker 1: Bar was a lot lower. He would good naturedly joke

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Speaker 1: that he was turned down by all the best publishers

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Speaker 1: in New York, and then as a last ditch effort,

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Speaker 1: he reached out to Nickelodeon at the top of the nineties.

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Speaker 1: Nickelodeon had started out as a more family friendly children's

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Speaker 1: broadcaster in the late nineteen seventies under the name Pinwheel.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy nine, it was rebranded under the name

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Speaker 1: We Know Today, and for most of the eighties Nick

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Speaker 1: got by on pre licensed content stuff like Teenage Mutant,

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Speaker 1: Ninja Turtles, whorls Waldo. But they started to want to

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Speaker 1: get into original content of their own, and they wanted

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Speaker 1: to find creative visionaries and develop their first original slate

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Speaker 1: of animated series. The first Nicktoons so, on a friend's recommendation,

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Speaker 1: Jenkins got a visit with Nickelodeon executive Vanessa Coffee, who

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Speaker 1: is a hugely important figure in the history of children's

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Speaker 1: animation and TV in general in the past thirty years

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Speaker 1: of TV. She ordered series for Ran and Simpy Rugrats,

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Speaker 1: and so Jenkins came in and presented her with a

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Speaker 1: copy of his book, Doug got a new pair of shoes.

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Speaker 1: She said, get out of my office. No. Uh, As

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Speaker 1: Jenkins later described, Coffee looked at the cover of the

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Speaker 1: book and in the middle of me describing it, just

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Speaker 1: ran out of the room, which is, you know, disturbing.

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Speaker 1: But he hadn't needed to worry. She was running to

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Speaker 1: tell her boss that they needed to take this show

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Speaker 1: to pilot immediately. She later explained why she was so

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Speaker 1: immediately drawn to it. She said, Nickelodeon was we're kids,

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Speaker 1: We're the kids channel, We're your channel, and so I

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Speaker 1: thought Doug fit into that perfectly because it was their

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Speaker 1: demographic and their story. Yes, twelve year olds lends into

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Speaker 1: the renderings of a deeply religious, middle aged Southerner m A.

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Speaker 1: Nickelodeon's stated goal with this in this era was being

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Speaker 1: anti Disney so they didn't focus group stuff and test

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Speaker 1: things out. They went by purely on intuition, and Jenkins

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Speaker 1: would say, Vanessa Coffee had this notion of creator driven

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Speaker 1: innovative stuff. They signed a deal that included options for

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Speaker 1: five seasons of thirteen episodes apiece that sounds insane, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: kidding me. This thing would get out and the big

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Speaker 1: computer that lives in David Zaslov's head would say, the

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Speaker 1: algorithm is saying this isn't getting enough ratings. We are

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Speaker 1: deleting it immediately. Oh my god, we live in hell.

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Speaker 1: They ended up not making that many for Nick, but

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Speaker 1: we'll cover that in a few minutes. The show began

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Speaker 1: production immediately and Jenkins put together a small animation studio

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Speaker 1: Jumbo Pictures, leading to an eight minute pilot episode called

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Speaker 1: Doug Can't dance can't as in forbidden from or can't

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Speaker 1: isn't physically unable?

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Speaker 2: I don't remember physically unable so like you or emotionally unable.

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Speaker 2: I'm emostally unable. I can physically do it. I'm able bodied,

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Speaker 2: I just can't.

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Speaker 1: Uh. Nickelodeon was shockingly hands off in those days, and

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Speaker 1: they didn't get rend and much in the way of

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Speaker 1: Notes director Yvette Kaplan, who'd gone to co direct episodes

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Speaker 1: of Beavis and Butthead with Mike Judge as well as

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Speaker 1: the movie version of that Beavis and Butthead to America, said,

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Speaker 1: we had a lot of freedom in those days. It's

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Speaker 1: difficult to remember, in this day of insanely flooded consumer

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Speaker 1: marketplace IP driven crap that a lot of the cartoons

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Speaker 1: of this era were invented solely to sell toys or

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Speaker 1: promote comics which were then linked to toys, or to

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Speaker 1: promote movies which were then made into comics and toys.

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Speaker 1: And Doug was all original baby, an original scoop of

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Speaker 1: well worn, one white cotton.

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Speaker 2: Yes, now we have to talk about the world of Doug,

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Speaker 2: starting with the town where he moves in the first episode, Bluffington.

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Speaker 2: It's a town filled with eccentric characters, not unlike Andy Griffiths,

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Speaker 2: Mayberry or the Simpsons Springfield, and though its location has

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Speaker 2: never stated, Bluffington is a modified version of Jenkins's hometown

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Speaker 2: of Richmond, Virginia. Two of the most obvious references to

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Speaker 2: Richmond are Judy Funnies School the Moody School, which I

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Speaker 2: always thought was just a joke about her because she's

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Speaker 2: so moody, but it's named after the Moody Middle School,

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Speaker 2: which is a real place, and also the four Leaf

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Speaker 2: Clover Mall, which is a nod to the clover Leaf

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Speaker 2: Mall in Richmond as well. And also Doug moves to

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Speaker 2: twenty one Jumbo Street, which it never really picked up

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Speaker 2: on this that was apparently a joke about the high school.

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Speaker 2: Cop showed twenty one Jump Street as well as the

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Speaker 2: series production company, Jumbo Pictures Incorporated. The show bible for

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Speaker 2: the series was extensive, jing Jenkins went nuts. He had

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Speaker 2: four plans that he for each character's home, as well

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Speaker 2: as maps of each street in Bluffington, and he also

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Speaker 2: had elaborate backstories for the founding fathers of this fictional

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Speaker 2: talent as well, which I guess they did touch on

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Speaker 2: that at some points during the series, but still, he

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Speaker 2: really went nuts on the backstory, probably because it was

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Speaker 2: based so much on his own life.

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Speaker 1: It's so funny to me that so much detail went

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Speaker 1: into this to create just the most boring sounding stuff

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Speaker 1: in the world, Like and you literally how long did

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Speaker 1: he sit and think of names before arriving on mayonnaise

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Speaker 1: as a surname.

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Speaker 2: Well, he took that from there was a friend of

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Speaker 2: his name, Pam Mayo.

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Speaker 1: I know, I'm just saying it's it's it's He was like.

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Speaker 2: Marguerite is deep at that point, I know again as

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Speaker 2: wacky as man Aise.

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Speaker 1: Exactly like the most boring man alive. It's like, it's

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Speaker 1: like Jim Morrison taking paote to write like good Day Sunshine.

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Speaker 2: Well, like the town itself, the inhabitants are borrowed from

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Speaker 2: jim childhood.

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Speaker 1: The most extreme example of this, if you could really.

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Speaker 2: Okay, extreme is a bad word to use in the

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Speaker 2: context of Doug, but the most elaborate example of this

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Speaker 2: is the wonderful Patty Mayonnaise, who steals Doug's heart as

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Speaker 2: soon as he moves to town in the first episode.

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Speaker 1: She's based on two people.

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Speaker 2: A woman named Patty I don't think her last name

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Speaker 2: has ever been publicly stated, and also someone named Pam Mayo,

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Speaker 2: hence the Mayonnaise.

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Speaker 1: Why would why would? Why would a parent do that

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Speaker 1: to their child, give them the first name that rhymes

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Speaker 1: with ham? Oh wow? How do they not think of that?

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Speaker 1: I didn't think of that? Did you ever see that?

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Speaker 2: Sunday Night Live sketch with Nicholas Cage where it's just

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Speaker 2: him and his pregnant wife like working out trying what

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Speaker 2: they're gonna call.

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Speaker 1: The baby, and every name that the wife.

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Speaker 2: Suggests, Nicholas Cage shoots it down with like he comes

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Speaker 2: up with some reason why the kids will make fun

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Speaker 2: of him, and then like a fat X guy comes.

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Speaker 1: And is all right, mister and missus as Wipe Nelson.

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Speaker 2: So there mister mister Aswhite Nelson here, and he's like,

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Speaker 2: it's pronounced as weepey.

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Speaker 1: It's Swedish. That's medium funny.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good. Nicholas casually sold it. So there are

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Speaker 2: these two women that he based Patty Manaise on. It's

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Speaker 2: my understanding that he had a crush on both, but

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Speaker 2: Patty no last name, was his big crush.

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Speaker 1: And this is sweet. When the show was.

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Speaker 2: About to launch, I guess they sent out cards announcing

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Speaker 2: the premiere, and Jenkins sent one out to this Patty

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Speaker 2: woman and wrote her a little note that said, pay

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Speaker 2: particular attention to Patty.

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Speaker 1: You were the inspiration.

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Speaker 2: Considering her name was Patty, I'm guessing she probably had

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Speaker 2: an idea, but it was nice that he gave her

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Speaker 2: a heads up, I forgot how tragic Patty Manne's backstory is.

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Speaker 2: Her mom died in a car crash before the series began,

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Speaker 2: which also paralyzed her father, which is why he's in

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Speaker 2: a wheelchair.

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Speaker 1: Dark. Yeah, such groundbreaking representation for the sadness of life

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Speaker 1: in this early slate of Nickelodeon shows, you know.

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Speaker 2: Just as stark as like Chucky's mom's subplot from rug Rats.

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Speaker 2: But I guess Disney kind of has the precedent of

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Speaker 2: every lead character.

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Speaker 1: Has some hargedy story. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, anyhow, onto happier, greener pastors or bluer pastors.

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Speaker 1: I should say.

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Speaker 2: The character of Skeeter, Doug's best friend is based on

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Speaker 2: Jim Jenkins' best friend from childhood, and this is cute too.

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Speaker 2: They had fallen out of touch but reconnected after Doug launched,

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Speaker 2: which I just I think that's very sweet.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Less sweet is the character of Roger the Bully, who

432
00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:37,040
Speaker 2: was indeed based on an older neighbor of Jim Jenkins

433
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:40,000
Speaker 2: who lived down the street and I guess this bully

434
00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:43,800
Speaker 2: lived next door to the Klock's family, hence the bully's

435
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:46,399
Speaker 2: last name. And when the Doug movie came out in

436
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,080
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, they held the premiere in Richmond just

437
00:22:49,119 --> 00:22:52,200
Speaker 2: in honor of Jim Jenkins's background, and so Jim reached

438
00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:54,640
Speaker 2: out to the real life Roger and said, I hope

439
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:56,440
Speaker 2: you don't want to beat me up for this character.

440
00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:00,639
Speaker 2: According to Jenkins, the ex bully laughed and said, well,

441
00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:03,119
Speaker 2: you know, we all have somebody who's a little older

442
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:06,200
Speaker 2: than us, a little further along and a little more forceful.

443
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 2: He told me I had some bullies in his life too,

444
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 2: which I had never thought about. He's a good guy

445
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:15,639
Speaker 2: that all sounds like non excuses to me. All the

446
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 2: goofy names in Doug, which for my entire life I

447
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:21,840
Speaker 2: assumed we're just made up for the sake of being quirky,

448
00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:24,119
Speaker 2: are in fact taken from real life.

449
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:29,440
Speaker 1: That's yeah, even he even found though non interesting, somewhat

450
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 1: like that, like ah whatever.

451
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 2: Missus Wingo was Jenkins's favorite teacher in school, and that

452
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:36,639
Speaker 2: was Doug's teacher.

453
00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:40,680
Speaker 1: The name of Doug's unseen principle, mister butt Savage, which

454
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 1: I always was so sure was yeah, some kind of

455
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 1: obscene joke, was actually the name of his elementary school principle.

456
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah, no word on the vice principal, mister Bone.

457
00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:54,399
Speaker 1: I think that name was made up. They modeled that

458
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:58,360
Speaker 1: character after Don Knots, and Jim Jenkins later said, anybody

459
00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:00,160
Speaker 1: that was from Richmond, it was from my past. It's

460
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 1: got a sort of extra bonus when they watched this show.

461
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 1: He didn't even change the name.

462
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 2: This was 'tsued Oh, Doug's beat nick or hippie or whatever.

463
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: She has.

464
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 2: Older sister Judy has kind of an interesting literary background,

465
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:18,200
Speaker 2: which feels appropriate for her. She's always clad in dark

466
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:21,200
Speaker 2: clothes and a beret in glasses and is very theatrical,

467
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:24,920
Speaker 2: and reportedly she's named after the play Shakespeare's Sister by

468
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:27,919
Speaker 2: Virginia Wolf, in which she writes that if Shakespeare had

469
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 2: a sister, she would be named Judith. And that's also

470
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 2: why the character of Judy Funny is obsessed with shakespeare plays.

471
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 2: And also, before we move on from this, we've perhaps

472
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 2: should given a nod to the Nema TODs, which are

473
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 2: a recurring bit in Doug and also a number of.

474
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: Other nicktoons which I didn't realize.

475
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:46,879
Speaker 2: They crop up not only in Doug, but Ren and

476
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:51,359
Speaker 2: Snimpy Hey Arnold, all real monsters, and also SpongeBob SquarePants

477
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 2: and the Nema toads actually have a basis. In reality,

478
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 2: they're microscopic roundworms of the phylum Nema toda. In the

479
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 2: world of the show, they are just elusive monsters who

480
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 2: live at Stinson's pond, and Doug goes searching for them

481
00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 2: in the second episode. I don't think we ever see them.

482
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: What is your conception of a Nema tode? Is it

483
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:13,360
Speaker 1: like a snipe or more like a lockness monster kind

484
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 1: of thing? I was seeing creature from Black Lagoon. Oh

485
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: you got you gotcha? Okay, okay, As you meditate on that,

486
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: we'll be right back with more too much information.

487
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:45,919
Speaker 3: After these messages, we got to talk about the writing

488
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:47,399
Speaker 3: of the show, which was done with some of the

489
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 3: same story editors who worked on the Adventures of Pete

490
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 3: and Pete and Clarissa explains it all tonally, three very

491
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:54,920
Speaker 3: different shows.

492
00:25:55,359 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: Man CLIs explains it all that just sucked, really boring show.

493
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 2: Really.

494
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: The only thing I remember that as a guitar stinger,

495
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:06,920
Speaker 1: when that guy comes in the window.

496
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:09,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember always finding it weird that this guy

497
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 2: would just just kind of had a ladder handy to.

498
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 1: Go into this teen girls bedroom. Friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

499
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 1: I don't like Melissa Joan Hart.

500
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:18,400
Speaker 4: Yeah.

501
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 1: Is it because she's really in the Shirley Temple. Well,

502
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 1: that's certainly a red flag. One of the things that

503
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: said Doug apart was that, as we said earlier, Jenkins

504
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: insisted that each episode center around some sort of ethical

505
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 1: dilemma and contain a moral of some kind. For example,

506
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:36,679
Speaker 1: there's an episode where Doug finds a wallet filled with

507
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 1: money and grapples about whether or not to return it

508
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:42,640
Speaker 1: to the owner, Rube. He buys fancy shoes that don't

509
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:46,640
Speaker 1: actually fit. His teacher discovers a rude caricature he drew

510
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 1: of her, and he has to own up to his

511
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: actions and apologize. Jenkins asked the writing staff to literally

512
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 1: write out the central theme of each episode at the

513
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: top of the script. Before turning it in. He would

514
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 1: tell the writers, I want the show to remain relevant

515
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 1: in thirty years. Jenkins would later say, I of course

516
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: wanted the show to be funny and well structured, but

517
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: more than anything, I wanted it to matter. I wanted

518
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: to make a statement about how, at least from my perspective,

519
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 1: we ought to treat each other and ought to live.

520
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 1: One of the ways that jenkins intensely religious upbringing influenced

521
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 1: the shows. There are a lot of little nods to that.

522
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: If an episode takes place on a Sunday, you'll see

523
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 1: that Doug's family is in their church clothes. And there

524
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:27,120
Speaker 1: was a time when Jenkins even considered becoming a youth minister.

525
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: He said, I had a lot of training that way.

526
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 1: When I graduated college, I actually worked in a church

527
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,919
Speaker 1: as an apprenticed minister. I pretty quickly realized that was

528
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 1: not for me, and I was very grateful. There's nothing

529
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: wrong with it, but it was not my path. And

530
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 1: in ten years he'd be slugging down Margarita's in the

531
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: East Village and creating animation. That is a cautionary tale

532
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 1: that people still tell in his perish growing up. If

533
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,920
Speaker 1: you move to New York, you will follow the path

534
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 1: of ruin that Jim Jenkins, that Pastor Jenkins did. If

535
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 1: you don't follow the word of God, you will create

536
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:06,400
Speaker 1: beloved Art a Melpatos cartoon series. Oh yeah, in a way.

537
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:08,440
Speaker 2: I mean it's kind of like mister Rogers, where he

538
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 2: had this religious background and he decided to turn the

539
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:13,120
Speaker 2: television as his pulp.

540
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: But we put ourselves through enormous pain to avoid pain,

541
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: and I had this notion of what if we didn't

542
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:20,679
Speaker 1: do that, what if we just told the truth. But

543
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,239
Speaker 1: in the adult world, the notion of truth and not

544
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 1: truth is complicated. I didn't want to show all of

545
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:28,960
Speaker 1: the ambiguity of the adult world to kids. I wanted

546
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,919
Speaker 1: to show kids a world where everyone took honesty seriously.

547
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:34,880
Speaker 1: This approach was unique in the animation sphere at the time.

548
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 1: Doug director Ken Kimmelman would say to me it was

549
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: a breath of fresh air looking at Doug. It really

550
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: had humanity, good spirit and ethos. With so many other cartoons,

551
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: you can get laughs from contempt, but this had a

552
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 1: lot of respect in it. It was kind of uphill,

553
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: not downhill, speaking of humanity good. Nope, I got nothing.

554
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: Do you remember that popsicle commercial where the kid was like,

555
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: he was like the colors, colors, the color colors, I'm colorblind, kid. Well,

556
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: the colors, Jordan, the colors of the characters on Doug.

557
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 1: In case you can't make that, thanks, In case you

558
00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: can't remember, Doug's world is filled with people who are

559
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: literally every hue of the rainbow. Roger is green, Doug's

560
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: best friend, Skeeter is blue. There are purple folks in

561
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: there is I think, aren't the Dinks purple? One of the.

562
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 2: Dinks talk he's Studebaker maybe, or maybe he's blue. No,

563
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 2: baby might be blue because he's a blue blood.

564
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 1: I don't know. I forget. But yeah, now we're getting

565
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: into eugenics. Many have theorized that over the years this

566
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: was an intentional political statement on race or commentary on

567
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 1: the world being filled with all kinds of people. In fact,

568
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: this was not the case. It was born of alcoholism

569
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: and Mexican food. Jenkins said that he and Doug co

570
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 1: producer David Campbell came up with the notion of unorthodox

571
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: color tones in a margarita stupor. As a quote. He

572
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: added that the colors themselves were totally random. On the

573
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 1: Huffington Post, now it's time to color in the people.

574
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: So you grab your eight shades of skin, you put

575
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: them in your hand and start eight shades of skin.

576
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, isn't that what Buffalo Bill said?

577
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 4: Ah?

578
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 1: But then I looked back up at my full set

579
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: of two hundred design markers and thought, I'm making this up.

580
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: I can do it. I want to why stop here,

581
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 1: He says he began experimenting with the character of Patty

582
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 1: mannais Patty is a little more thoughtful. I wanted her

583
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: to have dark skin, not going to unpack that one.

584
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 1: So I picked a flesh range color and that can

585
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: be a great tan or ethnicity. But what But it

586
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:37,239
Speaker 1: all just started out as an experiment and how they

587
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 1: could go. I don't think I like Jim Jenkins. I

588
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 1: don't think I care for him.

589
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 5: Okay, I can understand, uh, Jim said, he you know,

590
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 5: this was completely random.

591
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:56,959
Speaker 1: There there's no logic to character as being certain colors.

592
00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 1: You know, Roger the Bully is green. But Jim Jenkins

593
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: said he went out of his way to make Doug's

594
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: sweet old teacher Missus Wingo also green, so viewers wouldn't

595
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 1: get the idea that all green people were bad, which

596
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: is obviously true in real life. Yet despite all this,

597
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:12,479
Speaker 1: over the years, fans have looked to find a logic

598
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: in the assignment of the colors. The most prevalent theory

599
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: is that Skeeter and his family are black. Jenkins denies this,

600
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: saying people are certain that Skeeter is an African American guy.

601
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, he's blue. You put together that he's

602
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: the music guy and he does some rap stuff or

603
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: several other things. Great, if that's how you see him,

604
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: that's great. It's not a bad thing, but I never

605
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: planned it. Skeeter is blue and he's Doug's friend. But

606
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: then you may ask why was Doug white? Jenkins said

607
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: that this was because the character's design was finalized before

608
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: he was inspired to start experimenting with color shades. But

609
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 1: this has somewhat troubling implications as the show ages with

610
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: Doug and his family being presented as the white norm

611
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 1: the main characters. In two thousand and nine, a blogger

612
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 1: going under the nom diplume Wolfy g. Nards, which is

613
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: a reference to the movie Monster Squad, in which a

614
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: child kicks a werewolf in the groin and exclaims Wolfman's

615
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 1: got Nerds, wrote, you've talked about that in this episode

616
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: of the series before. It's a deeply formative memory for

617
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 1: Menards messrs Nards wrote, every supporting character around Doug is

618
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: some wacky shade, except of course, for Doug Funny, who

619
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: is a regular white kid. The main character is white

620
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 1: in a world full of colorful yet ancillary characters, what

621
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: does that tell our children. It tells him that only

622
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: the white race is deserving of a spotlight. Only the

623
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: white race is worthy of being the star of the show.

624
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: All other skin tones must remain in the background. Jezebel

625
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 1: posted a lengthy exploration of the topic of Bluffington's racial

626
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 1: breakdown in twenty thirteen titled why was Doug from Doug

627
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: White when everyone else was multi colored? In this piece,

628
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: the author Callie Buseman writes, the universe of the show

629
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: hovers at the edge of being the most bully infested

630
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 1: post racial society of all time, and then is like nafket,

631
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 1: Let's just have a white protagonist. Journalist Matthew Klickstein did

632
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: a little digging on the topic in his epic Toome Slimed,

633
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 1: an oral history of Nickelodeon's golden age, and the responses

634
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: from Nick execs are staggeringly, breathtakingly not media trained. Rather

635
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 1: than claiming that this was all merely an accident or

636
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 1: privilege based racial blindness, one of Nickelodeon's founders explicitly said

637
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: that Nick was catering to a white audience because the

638
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 1: others didn't get Nickelodeon. He literally called them the others,

639
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: children who couldn't afford cable were getting some children's programming

640
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: from PBS. Sure it brings up issues of diversity and

641
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: income level, as wow, the others didn't get Nickelodeon. There'll

642
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: be no Nickelodeon for the others, not until they learned

643
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 1: their place. In the same book, Jenkin's production partner David

644
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 1: Campbell said, Look, we're not black, peace people, we're not Mexican,

645
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 1: but we want the cartoon to speak to all groups.

646
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: Campbell said, and slimed, how do we get past the

647
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,839
Speaker 1: barrier of ethnicity? And Jim Jenkins, the show's creator, said,

648
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 1: let's try coloring them all different colors. The writer Callie

649
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,840
Speaker 1: Boseman commented on the he's black, but he's blue, but

650
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: he's black explanation, calling it a double edged sword. She said,

651
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see how he tend to project race

652
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 1: distinctions into an ostensibly raceless arena. Again, though, since Doug's

653
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: entire family is white, it's not as raceless as one

654
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 1: would hope. So Skeeter became a non stereotypical point of

655
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: identification for black viewers, which was great, but he also

656
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 1: became a dead end of sorts a way to allow

657
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: for increased diversity while simultaneously avoiding the often fraught process

658
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 1: of representing race. It's also worth noting that there was

659
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: a semi satirical Facebook group founded in twenty eleven or

660
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: relatively recent in the timeline of people still using Facebook

661
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 1: yeah called why the does Doug fun only mac on

662
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 1: white Chicks. It's mission statement reads, in part, over one

663
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 1: hundred students are enrolled at B. B. Bluff Middle School,

664
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 1: changed from Bluffing to middle school in February of nineteen

665
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: ninety six. They are all of different colors, some purple,

666
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: some green, some yellow, some blue. It's a crock pot

667
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 1: of diversity. And out of these hundreds of female students,

668
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:24,439
Speaker 1: there's only one, I repeat, one white girl. Her name

669
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: is Patty Mayonnaise, and who just dug just to be

670
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: his lover. You guessed it, Miss Patty Mayne's coincidence? I

671
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:35,920
Speaker 1: think not. Thus, race has to be a factor. She'd

672
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 1: just do a show where we read unhinged Facebook group postings.

673
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: What do you think of all that? You know? They're right?

674
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 5: Like?

675
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 1: It is like a breathtakingly easy out of having to

676
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 1: actually talk about diversities, to be like, look, everyone's different,

677
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 1: colors like yay. But it's also very telling that like

678
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:01,280
Speaker 1: the middle aged, intensely religious guy from a the literal

679
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: capital of the Confederacy as his home, was like, oh yeah,

680
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: but the main characters are white. Yeah, because I'm white,

681
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 1: Doug is me. The rest of you aren't real. They're

682
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 1: all just funny colors. Only me and my family in

683
00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 1: our church clothes are real. What about you? What do

684
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 1: you think?

685
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 2: I think it's a good intentions product of its time.

686
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 2: It's the way it's somebody in the nineties saying, oh, yeah,

687
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 2: I don't see color, I'm colorblind.

688
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 1: Yeah.

689
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 2: It seems like the most progressive thing you could possibly say,

690
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 2: and now the spectrum has shifted so much that that's

691
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 2: incredibly tone deaf. I just think it's another one of

692
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,640
Speaker 2: those types of cultural mistranslations.

693
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: I just think it's either the most generous reading is

694
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 1: that he's breathtakingly unoriginal, you know, just like stealing every

695
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:55,319
Speaker 1: character name and basing the characters off himself and his

696
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 1: family and then being like, well, how do I make

697
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 1: this look different? I'll throw a dart at my Marker

698
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: collection and go from there. Like that's the most charitable

699
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: thing you can say, is that he's just a lazy,

700
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: lazy creative. Wow.

701
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 2: Wait, maybe that's why he did the colors in the

702
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 2: first place. It's like how Disney gave Mickey Mouse like

703
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:15,439
Speaker 2: three fingers or something, or four fingers instead of five.

704
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe it's just so the people wouldn't sue. Well,

705
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 1: now it's time to.

706
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:22,960
Speaker 2: Talk about one of my favorite names in the cartoon world.

707
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,320
Speaker 2: I love this guy, the Man of a Thousand Voices,

708
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 2: mister Billy West.

709
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 1: Gotta love Billy. Oh yeah, Billy West, right, probably the

710
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:32,440
Speaker 1: most important person that we're going to talk about in

711
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: this episode.

712
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 2: Yes, he's one of the most prolific voice actors of

713
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 2: his generation. He's been called the new Mel Blank by

714
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,840
Speaker 2: E W in nineteen ninety eight, and he was slash

715
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 2: is I think one of the only people who could

716
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 2: basically approach the diversity of Mel Blank's voice. Mel Blank

717
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 2: was the Looney Tunes Man of a Thousand Voices. He

718
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:56,480
Speaker 2: did everybody, and so did Billy West. I'm forgetting his

719
00:37:56,520 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 2: start on Boston's legendary WBCN radio station, then work with

720
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 2: Howard Stern. He went on the play I don't know

721
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 2: why I led with this The Honey Nuts Cheerios, b

722
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 2: the red eminem Philip K. Fry from Futurama, and most

723
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 2: notably the two title roles on Ren and Stimpy. I

724
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 2: guess first he was Stimpy and then after animator John

725
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 2: k was fired, he took over the role of Wren,

726
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 2: which is crazy that he was able to take over

727
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 2: a voice as distinctive as Wren, you know, and he

728
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:25,839
Speaker 2: didn't have any choice in the matter. He was like, oh, yeah,

729
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:29,399
Speaker 2: do that? Do that now now that we're a huge show. Yeah,

730
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 2: that is crazy. The guy his vocal cords are elastic.

731
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 2: So Billy West was assigned to the role of Doug

732
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 2: by Nickelodeon executive Vanessa Coffee, the person who green lit

733
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 2: the show, and I guess she was probably the same

734
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:42,360
Speaker 2: person who tapped him for Ren and Stimpy too, considering

735
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 2: she green lit that and amazingly for all of his

736
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:47,240
Speaker 2: just incredible vocal talent.

737
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:49,240
Speaker 1: Jim Jenkins, who.

738
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 2: Never really seems to have a bad word to say

739
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 2: about anybody, was initially against Billy West casting, but ultimately

740
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 2: he was won over and admitted that Billy was the

741
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 2: best choice for the job. If Jim Jenkins the heart

742
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:03,879
Speaker 2: of Doug, than Billy West is the soul. For the role,

743
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 2: he adopted a quote higher kind of genderless voice meant

744
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 2: to signify the eleven and a half year old hadn't

745
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 2: quite hit puberty yet.

746
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: Wes said, I was that kid too. I loved Doug.

747
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 2: He'd later say of recording lines, there's a lot of

748
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 2: me in there too, because I'm going through my own

749
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:19,359
Speaker 2: experiences in.

750
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:20,800
Speaker 1: There, because I have a conscience.

751
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:24,240
Speaker 2: Here's a devastating fact to what I learned while researching

752
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 2: this episode. Billy West has been very open about the

753
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 2: abuse he experience as a child from his father, and

754
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:32,400
Speaker 2: he said that he developed his impressionism skills as a

755
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 2: way to distract himself from his trauma. So that's horrifying

756
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:39,720
Speaker 2: or strong and brave. I don't know which.

757
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:41,760
Speaker 1: No, I hate that. It makes me very sad.

758
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,359
Speaker 2: Yeah I do too, But it sounds like this role

759
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 2: brought him a lot of joy. He tells the story

760
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:51,360
Speaker 2: of staying in a bed and breakfast soon after Doug launched,

761
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:53,720
Speaker 2: and he came down into the common area one morning

762
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 2: to find a bunch of kids in front of the

763
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 2: communal television watching Doug. And he said, my heart was

764
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 2: warmed and I sat there and I I watched it

765
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:02,720
Speaker 2: with them, and I can't remember if I let everybody

766
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:04,799
Speaker 2: in on it or not. I just wanted to watch

767
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 2: the reaction and see if it had the effect that

768
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:07,879
Speaker 2: I thought it would have.

769
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: That's very sweet.

770
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 2: He also had some very cute run ins with fans

771
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 2: over the years as well. He said, I was at

772
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:15,759
Speaker 2: a convention once and this big biker came up to

773
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:18,360
Speaker 2: me with this whole compliment of leather jackets, boots and

774
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 2: the whole works. He's got this big handlebar mustache, and

775
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 2: he comes over and goes, I can't do a gruff voice.

776
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 1: It's not in my nature. Brother Doug was my whole childhood.

777
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: He just seemed like he was a little boy. Again.

778
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,400
Speaker 1: There wasn't I could have done that better, but just

779
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 1: do the macho man. Randy Savage for brother Doug was

780
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 1: my whole childhood.

781
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 2: Speaking of voices, I totally forgot that the voice of

782
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 2: Patty Maynaise is Constin Schulman, who's Yoga Jones on Orange

783
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 2: is the New Black.

784
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,760
Speaker 1: Aw. Yeah. Oh, she did a commercial for Kraft Mayonnaise

785
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine. No eighty nine, not ninety nine.

786
00:40:55,400 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's hilarious. Well, speaking of voices. We talk about

787
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:02,760
Speaker 2: Fred Newman, who was hired to do the voice of Skeeter,

788
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:06,399
Speaker 2: including his honks and also pork Chop and Mister Dink

789
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 2: complete with his sputters, but he also worked double duty

790
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:13,239
Speaker 2: getting the show's a cappella theme together. Jim Jenkins later said,

791
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 2: I love fooling with different sounds, taking a conventional type

792
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 2: of music but spinning it by throwing in some weird instrument.

793
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:21,600
Speaker 2: Fred showed me how you could take out a guitar

794
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 2: and I can use it and use a tunic can

795
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 2: filled with water that you thump with your finger.

796
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:30,280
Speaker 1: That's it. That's all we got on the theme song. Yeah,

797
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 1: that's it.

798
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:35,280
Speaker 2: They got a lot about the Beats, though, I bet you, dude,

799
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:38,959
Speaker 2: we can't talk about music on Doug without talking about

800
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:41,840
Speaker 2: the greatest rock and roll band in the world, The Beats,

801
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 2: with hits like killer Tofu, shout your lungs out and

802
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 2: I need more allowance or is it need my allowance?

803
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:51,399
Speaker 1: I think it's more? Yeah, more, it was more? OK? Good? Why?

804
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: Because I do.

805
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 2: Their place in the rock pantheon is secure. We know

806
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:03,240
Speaker 2: their names. Lead singer Monroe Yoder chap Litman on guitar

807
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 2: Flounder on drums and Wendy Nespah on keys.

808
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 1: I didn't know Wendy. I don't think I remember Flounder either.

809
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 2: They were inspired, of course, by the Beatles, as the

810
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 2: logo suggests, among other more modern New Wave influences like

811
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 2: the Rhythmics, but of course the Beatles remained the biggest influence.

812
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 2: Jim Jenkins would say, I was a kid during the

813
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:24,400
Speaker 2: British Invasion era, so again right place, right time as

814
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 2: a kid. In terms of music, the Beats were certainly

815
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 2: inspired by the Beatles, but it's also the Rolling Stones,

816
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 2: the Who, and many other groups. If you notice, with

817
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 2: the band, acrimony is at the very core of their being.

818
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:37,920
Speaker 2: So they're always having their breakup last concert or reunion concert.

819
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,479
Speaker 2: And that's the Who Who. Seemed like they just broke

820
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:43,879
Speaker 2: up every year. True, some of the ways they're drawn

821
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,000
Speaker 2: remind me of Robert Plant and Ringo Starr. Our drummer

822
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 2: Clyde Littman. Oh, oh, I think he's gotten the I

823
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 2: think he's gotten the names wrong. Our drummer Clyde Littman

824
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 2: talks like Ringo. It's a mixed bag of those exotic

825
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:58,839
Speaker 2: British Invasion bands. This bugs me because the lead single

826
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:00,719
Speaker 2: looks exactly like John Lenny to me all the way

827
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 2: down to the round classes.

828
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: But I won't argue with this man. I kind of

829
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 1: thought they were part of like they had some ramones

830
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:09,719
Speaker 1: in there too. Oh I could see that.

831
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess the voice actor Fred Newman, who

832
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 2: is the voice of lead singer Monroe Yoder, voiced his

833
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 2: singing voice on sting.

834
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:21,720
Speaker 1: Hmmm, terrible. Yeah.

835
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 2: But now what about their smash hit Killer Tofu? Is

836
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 2: it a strident anthem against veganism? Jim Jenkins says this

837
00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 2: is not so. He says, in that particular case, an

838
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 2: outside writer named Alan Silberberg came up with that. And

839
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 2: the primary thing about Killer Tofu is that it made

840
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:39,840
Speaker 2: us all laugh more than healthy eating or anything.

841
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:40,880
Speaker 1: It just made us laugh.

842
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 2: So we worked around it and gave that notion of

843
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:46,280
Speaker 2: Killer Tofu to our music guys Fred Newman and Dan Sawyer,

844
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 2: who took it and turned it into a song. And

845
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 2: I guess this guy was also behind Banging on the

846
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,360
Speaker 2: trash Can, which is the song that Doug writes for

847
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 2: his garage band with Skeeter to put him at a

848
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:56,720
Speaker 2: friend's birthday party.

849
00:43:56,760 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 1: I think b B Bluff's birthday party and Ug's fantasy.

850
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 2: Music video for the song features nods to David Byrne's

851
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 2: big suit that he wore in the Talking Heads concert

852
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:09,880
Speaker 2: film Stopped Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demi, who also

853
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:12,799
Speaker 2: directed Silence of the Lambs, which we talked about last week.

854
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 1: Hence the synergy there, there's always a connection.

855
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 2: I want to go back through all the one hundred

856
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 2: and eleven episodes we've done now and try to find

857
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 2: a way to link that episode with the previous one.

858
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: I wonder if we could make it.

859
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 2: All the way back almost certainly, Yeah, yeah, six degrees

860
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:31,400
Speaker 2: of TMI. If anyone works out like a whole graph

861
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:33,719
Speaker 2: of that or like a diagram, send it our way

862
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 2: and we'll you five bucks.

863
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: You know, Fred Newman has two Emmys. You mentioned him

864
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,640
Speaker 1: in he gave him a single graph, You gave him

865
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: three lines. Well, tell me about him, great big story.

866
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 1: The website did an interview with Fred Newman, who is

867
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 1: the voice of Gizmo the Magua and who's in The

868
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: Aliens and Men in Black, among many other things, where

869
00:44:56,640 --> 00:44:58,719
Speaker 1: he's just sitting in his living room running through all

870
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:02,520
Speaker 1: of the Doug voices and it's amazing. As you mentioned earlier,

871
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:04,759
Speaker 1: he said a big part of what they wanted to

872
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:06,920
Speaker 1: do with the theme song was not just use the

873
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 1: kind of a cappella sounds, but percussion in things that

874
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 1: would have been at hand for children that might want

875
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 1: to make music with. Hence the shaker sounds, hence the

876
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: sort of beatboxing of it. But that's all done in

877
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 1: his own voice. That's not supposed to be any of

878
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: the characters for the show. And yes, sadly he confirms

879
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: that the lead singer of the Beats is based on

880
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 1: Sting or at least his voice. Sorry, as you were,

881
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:36,760
Speaker 1: I'm very impressed that you know so much about Fred Newman.

882
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: I just love voice actors. Yes, I know you do.

883
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:45,800
Speaker 2: Jim Jenkins, I know you have some not very positive

884
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:47,960
Speaker 2: feelings about him, but he is a very i would say,

885
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 2: beautiful quote about the song Banging on a trash Can

886
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:54,399
Speaker 2: that he gave to Vice of all people, he says

887
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 2: that the meaning of Banging on a trash can is

888
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:59,720
Speaker 2: make your own music. And remember the hook was think Big.

889
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 2: It was this whole idea of even if you're a kid,

890
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 2: you have your kid powers intact and you can do

891
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:09,279
Speaker 2: and dream anything, and you can accomplish anything. This one

892
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:12,239
Speaker 2: little voice can do this thing if nowhere else in

893
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 2: your imagination. It starts with us hanging around in the

894
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:18,400
Speaker 2: backyard with sticks, banging on a trash can. That's what

895
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 2: the KKK's motto was for a while. My band in

896
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,280
Speaker 2: high school did bang it on a trash can. I'm sorry,

897
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:31,279
Speaker 2: I should stop undercutting you. It's very sweet. It's a

898
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 2: very sweet quote. He seems like a lovely man. This

899
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 2: is terminally boring. We're gonna take a quick break, but

900
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:44,080
Speaker 2: we'll be right back with more too much information in

901
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 2: just a moment.

902
00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: Doug premiered as part of the Nicktoons programming block on

903
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 1: August eleventh, nineteen ninety one. It has the distinction of

904
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 1: being the very first Nicktoon, followed by Rugrats and rend

905
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 1: and Stimpy to watch. The first episode, Jenkins and his

906
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,720
Speaker 1: New York based creative team rented out his beloved Mexican

907
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 1: restaurant where he'd first developed the show all those years earlier,

908
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: and they really came to the air fully formed, not

909
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:19,760
Speaker 1: just from the art style, but in the first episode,

910
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: we meet Doug Yancey Funny. Doug gets pranked by the

911
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: local bully Roger meets his crush Patty, and his new

912
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 1: best friend Skeeter gets bailed out of trouble by his

913
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: trusty dog, pork Chop. It's all there right from the jump.

914
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 1: One crucial difference though in the pilot episode, Doug originally

915
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 1: wrote in a diary instead of a journal, while in

916
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:41,240
Speaker 1: later episodes Doug would get annoyed whenever another character referred

917
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: to his journal as a diary. Doug initially underperformed when

918
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 1: it was first released, at least comparatively. Ren and Stimpy

919
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,360
Speaker 1: and Rugrats both became immediate cross demo hits. You remember.

920
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:54,319
Speaker 1: Rugrats was temporarily canceled until it did so well in

921
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: reruns that they brought it back. Success of Ren and Stimpy,

922
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,359
Speaker 1: along with The Simpsons and Beavis and Butt heead, helped

923
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 1: jump start the adult animation genre, which had been languishing

924
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: since The Flintstones. Rugrats became the most successful of the

925
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 1: shows from a broadcast standpoint, remaining in production for thirteen

926
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:14,800
Speaker 1: years until two thousand and four. Meanwhile, Doug struggled to

927
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 1: find an audience. This made Nickelodeon nervous, considering they had

928
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 1: been banking on Doug to be the breakout hit of

929
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:23,720
Speaker 1: their three openers. This understandably led to some tension between

930
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: Jenkins and the network. His description of the era very

931
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 1: much sounds like a Doug cutaway. The way I remember

932
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:31,840
Speaker 1: it is, one day you were in slow motion, tripping

933
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:34,920
Speaker 1: through a field of flowers, birds landing on your shoulders, singing,

934
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 1: and the next day we're all gonna die. People yell

935
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: at in each other. You're an idiot. You don't know

936
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Not people inside our company, although that

937
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 1: could happen, but with the parent company, your co production.

938
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:48,239
Speaker 1: I'd go home and see my lovely wife Lisa, who

939
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:50,400
Speaker 1: is so patient and supportive, and go I don't know

940
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: if we're gonna make it. It sounds like this show

941
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 1: you're my lovely wife Lisa. Actually, I guess I'm in

942
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: this you or I'm your lovely wife Lisa, and I'm

943
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: your lovely wife Lisa. Alex Heigel. I'm just reassociating at

944
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:14,280
Speaker 1: this point. Uh. Now we move over to Heigel's conspiracy corner.

945
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:17,480
Speaker 1: Everyone's favorite part of the show that happens once every

946
00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:20,480
Speaker 1: six or seven shows. No one has ever said it's

947
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 1: their favorite. I did, except for my except for my

948
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 1: lovely supportive wife, Lisa uh. The show gave rise to

949
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:34,400
Speaker 1: a number of outlandish fan theories. The big one is

950
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: that Doug's frequent daydreaming and his alter egos are a

951
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 1: result of an undiagnosed mental disorder. Hence the fantasy is

952
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:45,239
Speaker 1: involving the superhero Quoioman, secret agent Smash Adams, and the

953
00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones like Swashbuckler Race Canyon. The most troubling instance

954
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 1: of this occurred when Doug has one of his hallucinatory

955
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 1: daydreams while riding his bike in traffic and crashes into

956
00:49:56,640 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 1: a car, and often he acts out his musing physically clearly.

957
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 1: They are so vivid that he has troubled discerning fantasy

958
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 1: from reality, occasionally to near fatal results. Other theories include

959
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: that he grew up to become Zach Braff from Scrubs

960
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:14,839
Speaker 1: or the other guy from How I Met Your Mother

961
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: and the rest just all from Breddit. God, people on

962
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: Reddit are weird.

963
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Rugrats ones have some truly dark fan theories.

964
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 2: I remember doing that for the first episode, and that

965
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 2: was that was rough.

966
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:33,799
Speaker 1: I like the Schizophrenia one. I can buy that. Yeah, well,

967
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:37,240
Speaker 1: maybe Nickelodeon suddenly started thinking of Doug as the others

968
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:42,720
Speaker 1: because in nineteen ninety four they pulled the plug.

969
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 2: Yes after four seasons, they declined to pick up the

970
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 2: option for the fifth season, supposedly because the budget cuts,

971
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 2: but Doug was also not really in line with the

972
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 2: creative direction that they wanted to pursue. Following the world

973
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:59,080
Speaker 2: beating success of Rugrats and Red and Stimpy, Doug director

974
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 2: Juvett Kaplan si Doug was too sweet, too nice, too tender,

975
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 2: Ren and Snippy was the big hit. They wanted to

976
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 2: do things that were edgier, So Jim Jenkins started shopping

977
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 2: Doug around to other networks in Disney as they are

978
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:14,280
Speaker 2: wont to do made him an offer that he couldn't refuse.

979
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 2: That's Jim Jenkins's literal quote. In exchange for buying Jumbo Productions,

980
00:51:19,120 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 2: Jim Jenkins production company that created Doug, Doug would become

981
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:26,160
Speaker 2: the marquee feature of ABC's which was owned by Disney's

982
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 2: newly launched One Saturday Morning cartoon block, and thus the

983
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 2: ruining of Doug began. It was a very difficult transition

984
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 2: from nickelodeonto Disney, and one that many of the original

985
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 2: writers and directors did not make quite a few people

986
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 2: left the project, and the biggest change to the O

987
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 2: curred when Doug went from nickelodeonto Disney was that the

988
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:50,840
Speaker 2: production lost Billy West, voice of Doug. My beloved Billy West,

989
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 2: and the reasons for why Billy West left depend on

990
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:57,240
Speaker 2: who you ask. Jim Jenkins claims that West hated Disney

991
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:00,440
Speaker 2: and was making outrageous salary demands that would have just

992
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 2: tanked the show's budget, considering they were going from Nickelodeon,

993
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:07,560
Speaker 2: which was still a relative outlaw upstart, to Disney. I

994
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:10,240
Speaker 2: find this hard to believe because the House of Mouse

995
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 2: has some deep pockets.

996
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: Billy West, on the other.

997
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:15,399
Speaker 2: Hand, claims that Disney wanted to essentially make him take

998
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 2: a pay cut all wall forcing him to do even

999
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:20,719
Speaker 2: more characters. I read up to eight voices on the

1000
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:24,239
Speaker 2: show that sounds more in lined with what we know

1001
00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:28,600
Speaker 2: about Disney, but I'll refrained from editorializing any further. Billy

1002
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:30,959
Speaker 2: West later told the Huffington Post it was a deal

1003
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 2: that I just couldn't take. No One was taking me seriously,

1004
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 2: and they kept sending me deal memos, and they kept

1005
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 2: saying time is running out, and I kept saying, I

1006
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:45,560
Speaker 2: don't care. Jim Jenkins, in his role as Resident Nice Guys,

1007
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 2: spent many years worried that Billy West didn't know how

1008
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 2: hard he fought to try to keep him on the show.

1009
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:53,280
Speaker 2: Jenkins said, we have one hundred and eighty degree different

1010
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 2: storytelling about this. But I was there and he was not.

1011
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 2: He's been told what his agents tell him. The deal

1012
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 2: was just breaking the back of our budget, and Billy

1013
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:04,279
Speaker 2: doesn't know that. And Billy has recently said that he

1014
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:07,200
Speaker 2: can't bring himself to watch the Disney episodes of Doug

1015
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:10,320
Speaker 2: because it's too painful. But given all the Doug related

1016
00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:12,799
Speaker 2: events that he does, it seems like he and Jim

1017
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:17,120
Speaker 2: Jenkins are fine for these Disney episodes. The production instead

1018
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:21,600
Speaker 2: hired the voice talent of Tom McHugh, who does not

1019
00:53:21,640 --> 00:53:25,200
Speaker 2: have a Wikipedia page. I'm sure he's a lovely man.

1020
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 2: And as a result of these slight change in Doug's voice,

1021
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 2: the writers of the show aged Doug by a year

1022
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,239
Speaker 2: in this new Disney version, taking him from eleven and

1023
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:35,840
Speaker 2: a half to twelve and a half.

1024
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:40,880
Speaker 1: Did you watch it once? It moved a couple times.

1025
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:43,760
Speaker 1: I was more of a recess guy. Mmmm. Yeah, recess

1026
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 1: was fine. Yeah, yeah, I liked Recess a lot. Yeah,

1027
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 1: this pretty much ended that guy's career. His IMDb page

1028
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:54,480
Speaker 1: stops with one other teenage series, with one other TV series,

1029
00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:59,560
Speaker 1: p B and Jay Otter, which he was in one

1030
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:02,480
Speaker 1: episode of in two thousand and then it abruptly stops.

1031
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:07,800
Speaker 1: And that's the Jim Jenkins production. Wow. Wow, Sorry Thomas.

1032
00:54:08,640 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 1: Shouldn't have Billy West, shouldn't have scabbed, shouldn't have crossed

1033
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:16,800
Speaker 1: the picket line. Well. Despite the voice actor kerfuffle, Disney

1034
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: production kicked into high gear and the new version of

1035
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: Doug launched in September of nineteen ninety six. In order

1036
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:26,000
Speaker 1: to differentiate the show from the Nick incarnation, its official

1037
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 1: title was Disney's brand Spankin New Doug or just Disney's Doug,

1038
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 1: both of which suck. Why brand spankin New Why? Who

1039
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 1: would say that? Who would? How do they know that

1040
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:40,480
Speaker 1: it would not immediately date it and get it clowned

1041
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:47,480
Speaker 1: on into perpetuity? Ah C, sweet brain God, I hate executives. Um,

1042
00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:49,319
Speaker 1: if you are listening to this and you have an

1043
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:53,239
Speaker 1: MBA to rethink your life. Numerous annoying tweaks were done

1044
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 1: to the show. A new less good theme song, notably

1045
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 1: and the near universal consensus is that this version is

1046
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:02,280
Speaker 1: nowhere near as good as the Nick original. There's actually

1047
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 1: a whole article dedicated to this phenomenon on Refinery twenty

1048
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:08,920
Speaker 1: nine called Let's be honest, Disney Ruined Doug by Ali Hixon.

1049
00:55:09,440 --> 00:55:11,799
Speaker 1: She outlines the many minor character changes they made that

1050
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 1: messed with the emotional heart of the show. For example,

1051
00:55:14,320 --> 00:55:16,759
Speaker 1: Roger was portrayed as much more of a bully than

1052
00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:19,040
Speaker 1: he was in the Nick original, and he also went

1053
00:55:19,040 --> 00:55:21,160
Speaker 1: from living in a trailer park to being rich, thus

1054
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 1: eliminating the only element of socioeconomic diversity on the show

1055
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:30,799
Speaker 1: and removing a possible mitigating factor for his character. Why

1056
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:34,720
Speaker 1: would they do that? They're like, Oh, this bully character

1057
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 1: is too finely shaded because he's also poor. Let's make

1058
00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:43,120
Speaker 1: him even more cartoonishly incredible Sea Sweet Brain. In Hickson's piece,

1059
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: she also writes about being especially offended by the character

1060
00:55:45,719 --> 00:55:48,240
Speaker 1: of Connie. One of the most glaring examples. She writes,

1061
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:50,920
Speaker 1: Connie was a fun secondary character on the Nickelodeon show

1062
00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:53,080
Speaker 1: who hung out with Patty and Beebie. She was also

1063
00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:55,239
Speaker 1: fantastic because she didn't have the same body as every

1064
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:58,319
Speaker 1: other cartoon girl on the show, Connie wasn't skinny, she

1065
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:01,640
Speaker 1: had curves. They never made her body central to her storyline,

1066
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 1: but it was still part of who she was. When

1067
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:06,719
Speaker 1: the show went to Disney, Connie became noticeably thinner. They

1068
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:08,839
Speaker 1: even made it part of the plot that Connie went

1069
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:11,480
Speaker 1: to a beauty farm with her mom over the summer.

1070
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 1: How awful is that? That is? That is up. They

1071
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:20,240
Speaker 1: also messed with a literal format of the show, taking

1072
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:22,640
Speaker 1: it from two eleven minute stories to one twenty two

1073
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:26,200
Speaker 1: minute long story. So instead of having these smaller versions

1074
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:28,239
Speaker 1: where you could focus in on a secondary character or

1075
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:31,200
Speaker 1: just get bizarre, the plots then had to sustain a

1076
00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:34,000
Speaker 1: full episode, and that's when you start getting into sitcom

1077
00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 1: territory with the cliched stories and plot structures and beats.

1078
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:40,040
Speaker 1: No one associated with the show would argue the merits

1079
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:42,720
Speaker 1: of the Disney episodes over the Nick originals, and most

1080
00:56:42,760 --> 00:56:46,160
Speaker 1: fans blamed Disney for meddling with Jenkins wholesome show, although

1081
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:49,520
Speaker 1: he claims that the alterations were generally his call. We'd

1082
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:51,719
Speaker 1: already done one hundred and fifty some odd stories, so

1083
00:56:51,719 --> 00:56:53,560
Speaker 1: our writing team was looking for a way to restart.

1084
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 1: The changes were my doing. I wanted to shake it up.

1085
00:56:57,200 --> 00:56:58,919
Speaker 1: He also said that part of his new Disney Deer

1086
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:01,239
Speaker 1: required him to do a fair of executive work, which

1087
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:04,319
Speaker 1: left him overwhelmed and stretched thin, so he admits that

1088
00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:06,120
Speaker 1: his hand was taken off the wheel just a bit.

1089
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:09,160
Speaker 1: He'd later say, I mostly agree with Doug fans who

1090
00:57:09,200 --> 00:57:11,719
Speaker 1: think the original one hundred and four eleven minute Doug

1091
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:14,720
Speaker 1: stories made for nick were the best. His production partner,

1092
00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:18,200
Speaker 1: David Campbell, felt the Nickelodeon stories were quirkier and better,

1093
00:57:18,280 --> 00:57:22,600
Speaker 1: while Constance Schulmann, Patty Manneys's voice actress, bemoaned the fact

1094
00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:25,040
Speaker 1: that production relocated to La so all the New York

1095
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: based voice actors had to do their parts remotely. She'd say,

1096
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:31,160
Speaker 1: I missed all the gang crammed in the studio waiting

1097
00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:33,520
Speaker 1: for their turn for the big group scene. Someone just

1098
00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 1: dimmed the magic a little bit. I missed I missed

1099
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:39,520
Speaker 1: the cocaine. Billy West had the best stuff.

1100
00:57:42,880 --> 00:57:45,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is pretty much when I stopped engaging with Doug.

1101
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:47,959
Speaker 2: And I'm tempted to say the bad decisions on both

1102
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:51,360
Speaker 2: Nickelodeon and Disney's parts squandered this gem of a show.

1103
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:54,720
Speaker 2: But researching this episode, I was surprised to see that

1104
00:57:54,800 --> 00:57:57,080
Speaker 2: Doug was way more in the mix than ever. Once

1105
00:57:57,120 --> 00:57:59,880
Speaker 2: it moved to Disney, there was a live action musical,

1106
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:03,680
Speaker 2: Disney's theme park, and toy merchandise with fast food tie ins.

1107
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:06,080
Speaker 2: And when the Disney version of the show ended in

1108
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, they capped off the series with Doug's

1109
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:12,480
Speaker 2: First Movie. That's the name of it. That's not a descriptor.

1110
00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:14,880
Speaker 2: It's also a bad first name. Yeah, you know think

1111
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:17,200
Speaker 2: I as much as I love the show, and as

1112
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 2: much as I think that Jim Jenkins is saying okay, guy,

1113
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:24,360
Speaker 2: a lot of these are first draft ideas. The plot

1114
00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:27,560
Speaker 2: of Doug's First Movie is kind of shaky. Doug and

1115
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:30,760
Speaker 2: Skeeter discover a horrifying monster in a local lake, and

1116
00:58:30,840 --> 00:58:33,480
Speaker 2: after getting to know the monster, they become friends with

1117
00:58:33,520 --> 00:58:36,360
Speaker 2: it and discover that the titans of industry in Bluffington,

1118
00:58:36,600 --> 00:58:39,280
Speaker 2: including BB's dad, I think we're polluting the lake.

1119
00:58:39,640 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 1: See.

1120
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:42,120
Speaker 2: I hate shows that are like based in some form

1121
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:44,560
Speaker 2: of reality, and then midway through they add like a

1122
00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:47,640
Speaker 2: fantastical element. That's why I hated Gazoo and Flints in

1123
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 2: the Flintstones. I have thoughts on this. Jink and see

1124
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:54,600
Speaker 2: me after class. But I guess it doesn't really matter

1125
00:58:54,640 --> 00:58:56,400
Speaker 2: that the plot was crappy because it was supposed to

1126
00:58:56,480 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 2: go to home video, which is kind of you know,

1127
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:01,600
Speaker 2: this is we're in their a game innw it. But

1128
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 2: then the powers of be it Nickelodeon decided to put

1129
00:59:04,320 --> 00:59:07,120
Speaker 2: in theaters after seeing how well the nineteen ninety eight

1130
00:59:07,200 --> 00:59:11,000
Speaker 2: movie for the Rugrats did, and Jim Jenkins and Erotic

1131
00:59:11,040 --> 00:59:14,240
Speaker 2: after my Own Heart was both thrilled and terrified by this.

1132
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:17,080
Speaker 2: He said, we were originally making a direct to video

1133
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:19,360
Speaker 2: movie of Doug that we were assured would never see

1134
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:23,040
Speaker 2: the big screen. That reflected in its budget, its schedule,

1135
00:59:23,200 --> 00:59:25,920
Speaker 2: and the way we animated it. Then we're almost done

1136
00:59:25,960 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 2: and about to deliver it, and for whatever reason, Disney

1137
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:30,360
Speaker 2: looked at the rough cut of the story and decided

1138
00:59:30,360 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 2: that we're going to fly to New York. They came

1139
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:34,000
Speaker 2: to tell me that my Doug movie was going to

1140
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:37,760
Speaker 2: go theatrical. Of course I fainted. Why in my life

1141
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:40,160
Speaker 2: did I ever think I'd be given that shot? Right

1142
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:42,640
Speaker 2: behind that panic and fainting from that good news was

1143
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:43,280
Speaker 2: the notion.

1144
00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:44,800
Speaker 1: Of how do we get it ready?

1145
00:59:45,920 --> 00:59:49,600
Speaker 2: And it did okay financially with a five million dollar budget,

1146
00:59:49,640 --> 00:59:52,760
Speaker 2: It earned nineteen million in the box office, and things

1147
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:55,400
Speaker 2: seemed pretty bright prior to its release, with the La

1148
00:59:55,480 --> 00:59:58,520
Speaker 2: Times estimating that the value of the Doug franchise was

1149
00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:01,920
Speaker 2: about one hundred million dollar in nineteen ninety nine, so

1150
01:00:01,960 --> 01:00:04,760
Speaker 2: there seemed every possibility that Doug could live on in movies,

1151
01:00:04,880 --> 01:00:08,720
Speaker 2: But his first runout was not received well by critics,

1152
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:12,640
Speaker 2: and I personally don't really remember this movie ever being

1153
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 2: talked about much and doesn't have Dug a lot more. Yeah,

1154
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 2: I liked Dug a lot more than I liked rug Rats,

1155
01:00:19,080 --> 01:00:21,440
Speaker 2: but I actually like owned the Rugrats movie, and I

1156
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:23,960
Speaker 2: think I saw it in theaters too, So yeah, there

1157
01:00:24,040 --> 01:00:27,400
Speaker 2: must have been some kind of advertising whiff there, or

1158
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:28,400
Speaker 2: maybe it just looked bad.

1159
01:00:28,480 --> 01:00:32,080
Speaker 1: I don't know what else happened with it. Not much.

1160
01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 1: Is that sad for them? Oh the movie? What do

1161
01:00:35,320 --> 01:00:39,439
Speaker 1: you think about it? I know nothing about it. Well,

1162
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:41,320
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, I mean, the Simpsons movie kind

1163
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:44,040
Speaker 1: of bombed too, didn't it. That's a good question.

1164
01:00:44,320 --> 01:00:45,720
Speaker 2: I don't know if it bombed or not, but it

1165
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:47,920
Speaker 2: was the kind of thing like no one felt the

1166
01:00:47,960 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 2: need to do another, which leads me to believe that

1167
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:52,400
Speaker 2: it failed on some level.

1168
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 1: I think it came in late, but it did. It

1169
01:00:56,520 --> 01:00:59,080
Speaker 1: did have a five hundred and thirty six million worldwide.

1170
01:01:00,040 --> 01:01:03,440
Speaker 1: The Simpsons, yeah, on a seventy five million budget. But

1171
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 1: like no one talks about the Simpsons movie, my dad

1172
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:12,520
Speaker 1: is endlessly entertained by the spider Pig bit. So there's that.

1173
01:01:17,200 --> 01:01:22,960
Speaker 1: The Doug Movie essentially spelled the end of Doug everything else.

1174
01:01:23,840 --> 01:01:26,080
Speaker 1: By the dawn of the two thousands, more irreverent, fast

1175
01:01:26,080 --> 01:01:29,800
Speaker 1: paced shows like SpongeBob, Dexter's Laboratory and my personal favorite,

1176
01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:32,840
Speaker 1: Angry Beavers became all the rage, essentially following in the

1177
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:36,160
Speaker 1: footsteps of Red and Stimpy. In that sense, that show

1178
01:01:36,200 --> 01:01:38,880
Speaker 1: won the Battle of the Nicktoons in terms of influence,

1179
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:43,800
Speaker 1: but in a sense the spirit. But in a sense,

1180
01:01:44,160 --> 01:01:46,480
Speaker 1: the spirit of Doug lived on in the PBS animated

1181
01:01:46,520 --> 01:01:50,560
Speaker 1: series Arthur, which was a similarly structured show, and several

1182
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:52,520
Speaker 1: people who worked on Doug went and worked on that.

1183
01:01:53,240 --> 01:01:57,520
Speaker 1: Jim Jenkins Jumbo Productions closed down, probably because they sold

1184
01:01:57,520 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: the whole thing to Disney, and he and his production

1185
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:03,200
Speaker 1: partner formed Cartoon Pizza, which produced a show called Jojo

1186
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:06,560
Speaker 1: Circus shorts for Sesame Streets and Jenkins created the kids

1187
01:02:06,600 --> 01:02:09,720
Speaker 1: show pbj Otter, which is the only other voice credit

1188
01:02:09,760 --> 01:02:12,920
Speaker 1: of the new voice of Doug, and another show for

1189
01:02:13,040 --> 01:02:17,800
Speaker 1: Nick Junior called Allegra's Window. As of twenty seventeen, Jenkins

1190
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:20,320
Speaker 1: lives in Brunswick, Georgia, where he runs what he calls

1191
01:02:20,400 --> 01:02:25,439
Speaker 1: a wordsmithing workshop. Boy, I hate that. In recent years

1192
01:02:25,440 --> 01:02:28,320
Speaker 1: he started kicking around an idea, at least in interviews

1193
01:02:28,400 --> 01:02:31,280
Speaker 1: for what he called Doug's Last Movie. As a bookend

1194
01:02:31,520 --> 01:02:34,920
Speaker 1: to Doug's First movie, he goes to an Ethanas clinic

1195
01:02:34,920 --> 01:02:39,720
Speaker 1: in Switzerland. I was gonna say, goes to a right

1196
01:02:39,800 --> 01:02:42,760
Speaker 1: to die state. Talking to Lauren Duco for The Huffington

1197
01:02:42,760 --> 01:02:45,360
Speaker 1: Post in twenty fourteen, Jenkins described it as focusing on

1198
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:48,240
Speaker 1: the ways we process our childhood friendships and what they

1199
01:02:48,280 --> 01:02:50,440
Speaker 1: mean to us even after they've come to an end.

1200
01:02:51,080 --> 01:02:54,040
Speaker 1: That would be the final message to fans. These relationships

1201
01:02:54,120 --> 01:02:56,800
Speaker 1: change and they shape us, but they don't last forever.

1202
01:03:00,320 --> 01:03:03,360
Speaker 2: And this brings us to Doug and his beloved Patty Mayonnaise.

1203
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:06,160
Speaker 2: Jenkins has been asked many times over the years whether

1204
01:03:06,200 --> 01:03:08,520
Speaker 2: he thinks that they ended up together, and you know,

1205
01:03:08,560 --> 01:03:09,360
Speaker 2: it's a fair question.

1206
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:12,320
Speaker 1: They are sweet together. Patty once kissed him on the cheek,

1207
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:12,720
Speaker 1: and in.

1208
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:15,520
Speaker 2: The final episode of the series, she asks Doug out

1209
01:03:15,520 --> 01:03:19,440
Speaker 2: on a date. And yet, when pressed on the subject, Jenkins'

1210
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:21,680
Speaker 2: is adamant that the pair do not end up together.

1211
01:03:22,240 --> 01:03:25,600
Speaker 2: Speaking to EW in twenty sixteen, he explained his reasoning quote,

1212
01:03:25,880 --> 01:03:28,560
Speaker 2: it doesn't happen because really, most people don't end up

1213
01:03:28,600 --> 01:03:29,560
Speaker 2: with their first loves.

1214
01:03:30,040 --> 01:03:33,200
Speaker 1: But then again, maybe they do. There isn't some rule.

1215
01:03:33,280 --> 01:03:35,920
Speaker 1: It's not in the Bible. It's just that most people don't.

1216
01:03:36,320 --> 01:03:38,360
Speaker 2: I don't know the answer yet, but I would predict

1217
01:03:38,400 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 2: that what I would do is make it where Patty

1218
01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:43,320
Speaker 2: is maybe not married, but in a serious relationship. And

1219
01:03:43,360 --> 01:03:45,400
Speaker 2: he goes on the theorized that Doug would cope with

1220
01:03:45,440 --> 01:03:47,760
Speaker 2: this crushing blow by pouring his heart out to a

1221
01:03:47,800 --> 01:03:50,680
Speaker 2: friend of his who happens to be a girl. And

1222
01:03:50,720 --> 01:03:53,880
Speaker 2: he continues and naturally, I guess maybe it's a little predictable,

1223
01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:56,200
Speaker 2: but that's the one, that's the one he's comfortable enough

1224
01:03:56,200 --> 01:03:58,560
Speaker 2: to bear his soul to in this next phase of

1225
01:03:58,560 --> 01:03:59,000
Speaker 2: his life.

1226
01:03:59,040 --> 01:04:01,400
Speaker 1: And he discovers the love and didn't even know it.

1227
01:04:02,520 --> 01:04:05,160
Speaker 1: That was me all through high school. Just the most

1228
01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:12,480
Speaker 1: cliches possible yeah.

1229
01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:11,920
Speaker 2: But you know, once again, he's taking this from his

1230
01:04:12,000 --> 01:04:14,400
Speaker 2: real life. Jim Jenkins might feel this way because that's

1231
01:04:14,520 --> 01:04:16,400
Speaker 2: very similar to how it worked out with the real

1232
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:17,360
Speaker 2: Patty in his life.

1233
01:04:18,120 --> 01:04:19,480
Speaker 1: On a Nickelodeon.

1234
01:04:18,960 --> 01:04:21,080
Speaker 2: Podcast, he told the story of how he met up

1235
01:04:21,120 --> 01:04:23,560
Speaker 2: with the woman who inspired Patty in the eighties when

1236
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:27,960
Speaker 2: he was in his wilderness years, sucking down Margarita's at

1237
01:04:27,960 --> 01:04:32,040
Speaker 2: this Mexican restaurant all day. I'd like to quote him.

1238
01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:34,960
Speaker 2: It's my ten year reunion, he says, and I didn't go.

1239
01:04:35,280 --> 01:04:37,200
Speaker 2: I was in New York working like crazy as a

1240
01:04:37,240 --> 01:04:39,720
Speaker 2: freelancer and just trying to make it there. And I

1241
01:04:39,760 --> 01:04:41,560
Speaker 2: got a phone call in New York and it's Patty,

1242
01:04:41,760 --> 01:04:44,880
Speaker 2: the real Patty, and my heart's beating fast. She's like,

1243
01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:47,080
Speaker 2: I was at the reunion and you weren't. And I

1244
01:04:47,120 --> 01:04:49,840
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, sorry, I had to work. And she goes,

1245
01:04:49,880 --> 01:04:51,800
Speaker 2: I found out you live in New York. Guess what

1246
01:04:51,880 --> 01:04:54,200
Speaker 2: I do too, And she told me where she lives,

1247
01:04:54,200 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 2: and he lived across Central Park from one another, and

1248
01:04:56,680 --> 01:04:59,000
Speaker 2: she says, why didn't you come over for dinner? And

1249
01:04:59,040 --> 01:05:01,240
Speaker 2: he likens the leader up to a Doug episode. He

1250
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:03,160
Speaker 2: says he's thinking what do I wear? What are you

1251
01:05:03,240 --> 01:05:06,000
Speaker 2: gonna look like? All that's happening is I'm walking across

1252
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:08,720
Speaker 2: Central Park to her apartment, just wondering and just hoping

1253
01:05:08,760 --> 01:05:12,120
Speaker 2: all those things. I was at the time very available.

1254
01:05:12,400 --> 01:05:14,000
Speaker 2: And so I walk up to the apartment and I

1255
01:05:14,040 --> 01:05:16,680
Speaker 2: hear the lock turn. It's getting ready to happen, and

1256
01:05:16,720 --> 01:05:19,640
Speaker 2: she opens the door and she's perfect, just perfect. She

1257
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:22,439
Speaker 2: looks spectacular and she's so happy and her arms fly

1258
01:05:22,560 --> 01:05:25,280
Speaker 2: up and we hug. This is all wonderful, right, And

1259
01:05:25,280 --> 01:05:27,680
Speaker 2: then she wheels around and goes, oh, Jimmy, I want

1260
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:30,720
Speaker 2: you to meet my husband. And I don't even remember

1261
01:05:30,720 --> 01:05:31,640
Speaker 2: the rest of the evening.

1262
01:05:32,640 --> 01:05:36,080
Speaker 1: That's so sad. What a sad little beta he is?

1263
01:05:37,200 --> 01:05:40,080
Speaker 1: So is Doug. What a sad? This is high fidelity.

1264
01:05:40,680 --> 01:05:43,720
Speaker 2: Ah, And yeah, you know, I've been talking about doing

1265
01:05:43,800 --> 01:05:47,080
Speaker 2: a episode on my beloved Wonder Years for months now.

1266
01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:50,800
Speaker 2: And spoiler, it's the same reason why the writers didn't

1267
01:05:50,800 --> 01:05:53,040
Speaker 2: have Kenny and Winnie end up together in the Wonder Years,

1268
01:05:53,480 --> 01:05:57,120
Speaker 2: because that's not especially realistic, Jenkins said of his own

1269
01:05:57,160 --> 01:05:59,640
Speaker 2: experience with the real life Patty In the end, that's

1270
01:05:59,680 --> 01:06:00,640
Speaker 2: the way life is.

1271
01:06:00,760 --> 01:06:04,040
Speaker 1: It's bittersweet. It doesn't always work out the way you dreamed.

1272
01:06:05,360 --> 01:06:08,080
Speaker 2: And I'm struggling to think an uplifting kicker for such

1273
01:06:08,080 --> 01:06:10,560
Speaker 2: a gut punch of an emotional truth. So allow me

1274
01:06:10,600 --> 01:06:13,560
Speaker 2: to quote from the poet laureates Mick Jagger and Keith Richards,

1275
01:06:14,120 --> 01:06:17,520
Speaker 2: whose lives I am documenting on another podcast that is

1276
01:06:17,560 --> 01:06:19,600
Speaker 2: slowly killing me, which is why I have so few

1277
01:06:19,640 --> 01:06:22,200
Speaker 2: brain cells left to come up with any other closing

1278
01:06:22,240 --> 01:06:25,240
Speaker 2: sentiments for this episode. You can't always get what you want,

1279
01:06:25,600 --> 01:06:28,760
Speaker 2: but if you try, sometimes you find you get what

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Speaker 2: you need. And you know, Jim Jenkins seems to have

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Speaker 2: a good life, and he says that people still regularly

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01:06:34,320 --> 01:06:36,720
Speaker 2: come up with him and say thank you for making

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01:06:36,760 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 2: a show that taught me how to treat people.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's a pretty cool legacy. Is that

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Speaker 1: it close the thoughts?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all I uh, I'm very And the really

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01:07:12,560 --> 01:07:14,720
Speaker 2: weird thing is watching you do that, Like the sounds

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Speaker 2: don't match up with what your mouth is doing. I

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Speaker 2: don't know if it's a lag and zoom or if

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Speaker 2: it's just yeah, it's pretty cool. I'll try to like

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Speaker 2: on's I get the video of this back, I'll cut

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Speaker 2: that out and send it. I don't really want to

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Speaker 2: see that, I'd say maybe don't. Uh.

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Speaker 4: Final thoughts, Final thoughts, Final thoughts, folks, thank you for listening.

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Speaker 1: This has been too much information. I'm a beatbox, I'm Alex,

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Speaker 1: and I'm Jordan run Sog. We'll catch you next time.

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Speaker 1: Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's

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01:08:06,280 --> 01:08:09,680
Speaker 1: executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtogg. The show's

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Speaker 1: supervising producer is Michael Alder June. The show was researched,

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01:08:13,600 --> 01:08:16,640
Speaker 1: written and hosted by Jordan Runtogg and Alex Heigel.

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01:08:16,479 --> 01:08:19,679
Speaker 2: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

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Speaker 2: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

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01:08:22,120 --> 01:08:25,120
Speaker 2: us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the

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Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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Speaker 2: favorite shows.