Disney's Doug: Roger Klotz, The Doug Archetype, and The Slice of Life Fantasy

12:53 AM · Dec 26, 2020 ""well, i'm not a guy" -doug funnie, 1998"

 

 

 

 

 

Now that we're in the Disney One Saturday Morning era, a lot more of the cartoons we discuss are going to be "my childhood," and Doug is one of them, though not in the way it was for most kids my age.

I had a very on and off sort of relationship with Doug. Sometimes I loved it. Sometimes I hated it. As I watched more Doug as an adult, both Nick and Disney, I quickly figured out why.

1:50 AM · Dec 26, 2020 "honestly this sorta explains the youthful flip flopping i had regarding doug. i would like it some times and i would hate it others. and most times i liked it it was disney doug."

Though a lot of Doug fans would disagree with me, I really had a strong preference to the new Doug. I certainly agree that Nickelodeon's Doug had a lot more depth to its characters and a more down to earth feel, but that ultimately made the show really boring, even with all the Nonbinary Vice Principal Bone jokes I made watching the show.

10:43 AM · Dec 26, 2020 "hello nonbinary icon"

I think my opinions on this are at their strongest and most controversial whenever Roger Klotz shows up. In the original series, Roger is a poor kid who has some real self esteem issues. He usually bullies people because he isn't all that good at making friends. It's some relatable stuff, and I think people get a lot out of him being a bad guy but having a reason to.

In the Disney series though, he's suddenly rich and a cartoonish villain.

8:55 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "the surrealism of disney's doug is surprisingly fun!!!! i love whatever roger is doing.... he's so cartoonish"
9:04 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "i would watch an entire show about rich roger...."
9:10 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "like he MAKES this show.... i dont care as much about doug but whatever shit roger is going through is GREAT. i'd rather see him as sort of this maniacal nut doing his own thing than it antagonist"
10:54 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "yah i'm starting to get it. doug isn't actually funny. roger is."
2:22 AM · Dec 26, 2020 "a lot of the appeal of disney doug is how kinda cazy it went. nick kept the crazy in imagine spots most of the time. it felt surreal like something was off but barely, but the really weird stuff was limited to imagine spots. disney doug said fuck it. let's make roger cartoonish"
2:23 AM · Dec 26, 2020 "and this is something i see a lot. like over the top cartoony characters, and with roger it's interesting because a lot of people respect roger's character in the nick show. like. i don't. but. he has depth to him... personally i prefer him cartoonish rich and fucked up"

I think a lot of bullies (and villains in general) get this treatment where they're treated as multifaceted, for a ton of reasons, but you really don't see a lot of school bully characters being cartoonishly evil in a way that's still charming and fun. I do understand people feeling like Roger's character was stepped on for this, but I think it's important to remember: There Is No Ideal Roger Klotz.

Disney's Doug was also a bit more mature than Nickelodeon's Doug. I think it had an advantage with Doug being a year older, and going through puberty, but there's also the inclusion of Cleotapra Dirtbike Funnie (yes this is her real name) that causes Doug's dad to go through a multi episode mini-arc trying to give Doug the talk using various metaphors that ends with Doug giving his father the talk during the Christmas episode.

10:37 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "me when i start this disney thon: oh wow funny morshu isekai man
me now: SEX????????"
12:38 AM · Dec 26, 2020 "it's a surprisingly mature show like idk if nick doug tackled things like sex and eds...."

There's also an episode where Patti gets an eating disorder, which I think it's good to educate preteen kids about. Body positivity in general has kind of a long way to go in the year of our lord 2022, but for the 1990s, it's still a good episode.

Anyway, remember what I said about Doug's dad's mini arc?

9:32 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "what do you mean disney's doug has lore"

The entire Disney run has this overarching story about a monster living in the town's lake. The whole thing is resolved in Doug's First Movie, but this is set up from the beginning of the second season "Doug's Secret of Success." It's kind of an amazing episode. There's three different stories going on: One with Doug trying to join the capitalist club at his school, one with Skeeter and Mr. Dink trying to catch this monster, and one with Vice Principal Bone and Roger playing cat and mouse.

8:25 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "this seems suspiciously like a capitalist cult and not just a funny 8th grader club"
8:28 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "DOES BLUFF NOT BRUSH HIS TEETH????"
8:34 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "this feels more authentic than nick doug. the a b and c plots all together. roger and vice principal bone detention adventures. skeeter and mr dink hunting monsters. doug and capitalism"
8:37 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "BLUFF ACTUALLY DOESN'T BRUSH HIS TEEEEEETH"

Another ep I liked was "The Big Switch," which doesn't really have the Doug themed title a lot of the Nick episodes have... Disney's a bit off and on with that, but I'm not a diehard Doug-ist so I don't care. It's really fun. I enjoy role swap episodes, so this one was fun!

1:14 AM · Dec 26, 2020 "doug and patti are swapping.... the main ship skeeter and beebe... who also are a ship and roger and chalky........... never thought roger would rep the lgbt community but good for him"
1:24 AM · Dec 26, 2020 "i love how everyone had real problems.
doug had to deal with patti's rigorous homeschool
patti had to deal with being a protagonist
skeeter was judged for his ignorance of class
beebe couldn't take care of a baby
roger had to do physical labor
and chalky just got lost..."

While Nickelodeon Doug had more in depth characters, Disney Doug had greater humor, overarching story, relatability for an aging audience, and fantastical elements.

10:01 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "i hate to admit how entertained i am but disney's doug is actually pretty good"
10:42 AM · Dec 26, 2020 "i am really enjoying how much the writers on doug decided to do whatever they wanted. like. why is this version of doug so much funnier than nick doug????"

It's... still Doug though. Most of the show's humor came from Roger. Disney does have a weak point in its characters, and that usually means that if they're not funny, they kind of suck.

9:33 AM · Dec 26, 2020 "doug's father was a hippie and doug thinks it's uncool"

Something you may notice is that the cartoons are getting more simple. It wasn't as big a thing with Jungle Cubs, but Madeline had a very simple style to it and so does Doug. I think this is a really good mark of the One Saturday Morning era. We're gonna get less 90's furries and more characters who are shapes!

11:22 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "the really nice thing about this whole era of shows (the abc one saturday morning era) is that all the characters look really simplistic and cartoony and just generally appealing to the eyes. like look at this cruella. so angular and fun!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

11:24 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "tho ig there are shows like recess that do keep things pretty realistic but still fun. again not as detailed as some of the insanely cartoon shows of the disafternoon era."

 

 

 

 

11:31 PM · Dec 25, 2020 "i think despite my feeling about doug jim jinkins may be the person to thank. doug is sort of a proto the same way ren and stimpy is and it's a proto that worked well for disney"

I'm not sure if Doug pioneered this or what, but I would like to speculate a bit. Because Doug did pioneer quite a bit.

What we do know is that Jim Jinkins, creator of Doug went on to create three more shows for Disney Channel: PB&J Otter, Stanley, and Jojo's Circus. All of these shows were mid.

We also know that many characters are seen as various iterations of Doug. A tweet by Ian Jones-Quartey from 2018 shows various iterations of Doug. On the Disney side, we have Funny Girl Doug (Pepper Ann Pearson), Space Doug (Lloyd Nebulon), Four Dougs (Tino Tonitini, Lor McQuarrie, Carver Descartes, and Tish Katsufrakis), School Doug (Vince LaSalle, Spinelli, Mikey Blumberg, TJ Detweiler, Gus Griswald, and Gretchen Grundler), Black Girl Doug (Penny Proud), and Dog Doug (Scott Leadready II). Do I agree with all of these? Probably not. I would argue Penny, Scott, and the Recess kids are too cool to actually be Dougs, but I'll get back to that. Let's talk about the first archetype this blog will go over: The Doug.

11:07 PM · Jan 8, 2021 doug archetype
character must:
-be a young person in school
-show interest in social life/popularity
-err to the side of uncoolness or be painfully average (cannot actually be popular)
additional qualities
-overactive imagination
-best subject is art
-not great at school 

Pepper Ann Pearson? Definitely a Doug. Lloyd Nebulon? Yeah! Carver Descartes? Totally! Scott Leadready II? Actually I think Leonard Helperman might be your more typical Doug character.

1:48 AM · Dec 26, 2020 "part of me is wondering if doug paved the way for the "disney teen" sort of deal but..... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

However, even if a character isn't necessarily a Doug, Doug still looks like it played a part in the "fantastical slice of life" series.

I bring this up because I've been watching Proud Family and Amphibia lately. (I actually finished Amphibia and I may bring its rating back down to B; the second half of season 3 was a bit of a flop.) The Proud Family in particular is a lot more fantastical than I remember it being as a kid. Penny can talk to animals, the girls have their own internationally acclaimed girl group, Bebe and Cece become teenagers. 

Amphibia on the other hand is much more of an adventure show, but pulls particularly in its style from Pepper Ann, which I quietly took note of until I saw her cameo in "All In."

While the original Doug series had these wild imagine spots, Disney's Doug was a little more off the walls and also monsters were real in it. It's enough to make me wonder... Were these more fantastical slice of life shows inspired by Doug?

A lot of Disney's original live action stuff started in the 2000s, with Even Stevens and Lizzie McGuire. I don't know a ton about Even Stevens, but from what I do know, it was a pretty chill series with a Truman Show-esque finale movie. Lizzie McGuire had a lot of similarities to Doug and Pepper Ann with the imagine spot alter ego (this time being a cartoon), but also had some more fantastical stuff like "Those Freaky McGuires" or Hilary Duff having a pop sensation doppelganger in "The Lizzie McGuire Movie." (Keep in mind my knowledge of live action Disney isn't super big.) Eventually, we got shows like That's So Raven and Phil of the Future, and a ton of ads about how the Disney Channel live action stars are "Just like you" save some fantastical element of their lives.

That's actually kind of smart though. Giving your characters some strange fantastical things to go through for a lot of younger fans looking for something silly and new while also staying grounded for your older fans looking for someone to relate to. This certainly didn't start with Doug, especially since gimmicky sitcoms have been around since the 1960s with stuff like Mr. Ed, Addams Family, and Flintstones. But now it feels like there's a new direction for Disney and at least one new trend. Don't worry! The One Saturday Morning Era will have more!

Overall Rating for Disney's Doug: B Tier