In 1996, Doug, one of Nickelodeon's first Nicktoons, was sold to Disney. We'll get to the hows and whys later, but Disney gave the show a facelift and a slightly new name. This newer version of Doug was reasonably successful for ABC/Disney, who created a full-length movie in 1999 and tons of merchandise. Doug even had costumed characters at Disney World!
So, what's the problem? Myself, along with countless others in my generation, hated it all. Why, though?
I was a big Doug fan. I was there for the first episode the night it aired on Nickelodeon in 1991. I was (and still am) a big fan of Disney's theme parks and most of their movies, but I still get annoyed when I think of Doug's tenure with Disney.
But after all these years, I still don't know why Disney's Doug leaves a sour taste in everyone's mouth, but we'll try to find out here. Decades later, it's silly, yes, but a quick Google search turns up THOUSANDS of posts and articles about how angry Disney and ABC made people when they acquired Doug.
Since Nickelodeon's debut in the late 1970s, its schedule has included animation in some form or another, all produced by other companies. The channel didn't invest in its own original series until 1989, when Geraldine Laybourne, the then-channel president, began work on what the network called "Nicktoons." The Nicktoon moniker is given to any original animated series created by Nickelodeon Animation Studios and lists Nickelodeon's parent company, Paramount Global (formerly Viacom), as the copyright holder.
Laybourne wanted Nicktoons to be creator-driven rather than toy-driven. That is, based on original characters designed by the animators rather than creating toys for kids to buy and then making a cartoon series to sell those same toys.
Shows like Ninja Turtles or Real Ghostbusters are prime examples of being toy-driven. Yes, they were created after a comic book or feature film, but the animation series was designed primarily to sell new toys. When new lines of figures, vehicles, or playsets appeared in stores, episodes would "suddenly" appear featuring those new characters, outfits, or vehicles, making the toys more desirable to children.
Geraldine Laybourne once said, "(In the 80s) Everybody else was doing toy-driven stuff, and it was garbage. It's hard to create a character out of a toy for a lot of reasons. You have limited time to produce because you have to get the thing (the cartoon) out when the product hits the market. How about, instead, we do this radical thing of looking around the country for animators who have great characters living inside them?"
Laybourne tapped Nick executive Vanessa Coffey to head to Los Angeles and search for new cartoons. Coffey said (at the time), "I'm looking for ideas, I'm looking for concepts. The less developed, the better. I want drawings, not a big pitch." She decided that she did not want a "consistent look like Disney," hoping for projects that had different styles from one another.
The first Nicktoon approved by Coffey was "Doug," created by Jim Jinkins and his studio "Jumbo Pictures." Doug was followed by Klasky and Csupo's "Rugrats." The last was a show titled "Your Gang," featuring a live-action host presenting different cartoons, one of which was Ren and Stimpy. Coffey didn't like the pilot of "Your Gang" but singled out Ren and Stimpy for their own series.
Thanks to her work on finding these three first Nicktoons, Vanessa Coffey was named Nickelodeon's Vice President of Animation.
On August 11, 1991, these three cartoons premiered as part of a 90-minute programming block, officially spawning the term Nicktoons. The first group of Nicktoons debuted to much success, convincing Viacom to invest in more original animation. In 1998, the production moved out of Studio City to Burbank, where, almost immediately after moving, they created a little show you may have heard of called SpongeBob SquarePants.
SpongeBob, by 2004, became the most profitable program in Nickelodeon's history.
When those first shows aired THIRTY THREE YEARS AGO (Good Lord!) in August of 1991, I was there waiting for the shows to start. I would have been 7 at the time, just days from leaving for Maine. I would have returned from our vacation in Maine weeks later, ready for 2nd grade, having missed the second and third episodes.
I must have seen a commercial for these new shows on Nickelodeon because I remember being so excited and ready with the VCR programmed to record. Even my parents knew it was important to me. They allowed me to use the television for MY shows on a Sunday evening instead of COPS or whatever other show we usually would watch on Sundays.
I immediately fell in love with Doug.
The character Doug was a few years older than me and was amidst a pre-teenage crisis, but there was something about the show that had true heart and soul. Even then, it seemed genuine, and I liked it.
The series focused on Doug Funnie's early adolescent life, during which he experienced the common predicaments of attending a school in a new town. Doug narrated each episode as a story in his journal and addressed topics like trying to fit in, developing platonic and romantic relationships, self-esteem, and bullying. Most episodes center on his attempts to impress his classmate (and crush), Patti Mayonnaise.
When the first episode of Doug ended, Rugrats was up next. Even at 7, I was indifferent to it. My parents let me stay up and watch Ren and Stimpy since the debut of the Nicktoons was considered a special event, but the television was turned off within minutes, and I was sent to bed. I'm sure whatever it was that my parents didn't like would be tame by 2024 standards, but back then, it reminded them of those evil Simpsons I also wasn't allowed to watch.
A year later, Nickelodeon began working on its first totally in-house series, "Rocko's Modern Life."
I immediately fell in love with Rocko, although after a more recent viewing, it's incredible that I was allowed to watch it at all, considering the significant R (or even X) rated undertone to the whole thing. For those who didn't pick up on it as kids, Rocko worked as a sex phone operator, among other adult-themed jokes. The writers on the show even said their whole intent was to push the envelope to see what would get censored and what wouldn't.
I really enjoyed Rocko because its animation style was softer and "cuter" than Ren and Stimpy's, and to be honest, it was funny. However, in hindsight, I didn't know what I was truly laughing at.
In 1993, one of the things I truly enjoyed was watching the Nicktoons. My good friend Joe loved them too, and he even bought me a set of Nicktoon trading cards as a gift one day. I was blown away; I couldn't believe someone other than my parents would buy me a gift for absolutely no reason other than he saw it in the store and knew I would like it.
Joe was the nicest kid, and we would be great friends during the years we shared classes together but ran in other circles when we didn't see each other every day. He was always the jokester, quick to make anyone laugh or smile. He also had a talent for drawing cartoons and often doodled Doug or Rocko during class.
He was always the skinny, nerdy kid, and a growth spurt in high school made him over 6 feet tall. He tried hockey for a while but didn't stick with it, and that was the last time we hung out. He's now a prison guard, and the last time I saw him at ShopRite back home when visiting Mom and Dad, I noticed his muscles had muscles.
Two years later, in 1995, a budget freeze at Viacom disrupted the apple cart. This caused the cancellation of "Ren and Stimpy" and "Doug" when the network passed on an option for the final 13 episodes of each series.
Years earlier, Jim Jinkins had been forced to turn away offers from Disney for his Jumbo Pictures due to his contract with Nickelodeon. When Nickelodeon passed on the final season, he gave Disney a call.
Disney quickly purchased Jumbo Pictures for $5 million and signed Jim Jinkins and his partner, David Campbell, to a five-year Disney executive contract complete with stock options. Nickelodeon (and Viacom/Paramount) would retain the rights to the original 52 episodes created between 1991 and 1994 as part of the sale. New episodes of Doug were slated for Saturday mornings on ABC, which was currently undergoing a rebranding.
As big a fan of Doug as I was in 1994, I didn't understand how television worked, nor did I even notice that there weren't any new episodes on Nick after that 1994 season ended. A ten-year-old shouldn't have to know such things anyway, and I had countless other things distracting my mind from Doug at that age. There were always reruns on Nickelodeon anyway, so it always appeared that he was still there.
From my writing on this site, it's pretty clear that I have always loved television, but Saturday mornings were the best as a kid. It was kid-focused programming all day! Or at least until noon or so, anyway.
As I got older, after the cartoons ended, I even enjoyed watching long-form infomercials like RonCo or similar hour-long infomercials for kitchen gadgets that featured a phony home kitchen with bad acting in front of a studio audience. Those were great, and I'm assuming they have died off with most people cutting the cord and replacing them with 30-second TikTok videos.
WPIX 11 in New York would also host the "Saturday Afternoon Movie," where I would spend my Saturdays watching some of the lesser-known films of the 80s and 90s, like Sylvester Stallone's "Oliver." Oliver stands out for some reason as one of the PIX Saturday Afternoon films that I watched and then later discussed with friends in school. If you haven't seen it, it's pretty funny. We recently rewatched it, and I still recommend it.
I had a slew of Saturday Morning shows I loved to watch, as I'm sure any kid of that era did. I remember one fall when I was pretty young, probably in 1990 or 91, taking the local paper's version of the TV guide into my bedroom, where I planned out my Saturday mornings in my bright green marble notebook that I used for doodling and making notes to myself.
Thanks to Gramps, who always carried a paper and his trademark black Papermate "Flair" pen in his shirt pocket, I've always been big on writing out any mental notes or plans.
Network by network, show by show, I circled, highlighted, rewrote, and adjusted my personal viewing schedule. Dad came in to ask what I was doing and scoffed when I told him. I believe "waste of time" was used, suggesting I do something more constructive with my time, like go outside and play in the sunshine.
I don't mean to make it sound like ALL I did was watch television; I had hockey games or, for a time, baseball. I'd go out with Mom on Saturday during her errands (which would frequently end in a video rental). We had other activities we did, too, but unless I had an early morning hockey game, I'd get up around 5:30 AM on my own to start my weekend with a slew of cartoons until I was shoved out the door by Mom or Dad.
As a youngster, I'd often wake up early, as my own child does these days. At about the same time as all of these changes happened to Doug, I would "cook" breakfast for Mom and Dad while they slept. On one of the bigger meals I attempted, I tried my hand at French toast and scrambled eggs, a meal I had "learned" in 5th grade home-ec, among other things. My cooking probably only lasted a few Saturdays because I'm sure by "letting my parents sleep," they were really just laying in bed, hoping not to hear any crashes or crying.
I don't remember all of the shows that were on back then, nor can I honestly remember WHEN they were on, but I had a litany of shows I loved. I do, however, remember some great programming like the Beetlejuice cartoon, Real Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bobby's World, Tazmania, Pee Wee's Playhouse, and whatever the WWF syndicated morning wrestling show was at the time. I believe it was called Mania, but it was for sure later called LiveWire.
WCW also had a show on Saturday mornings called World Wide. It was taped in Orlando at Disney, with a rotating ring and steep bleacher-style seating for the theme park audience. I loved these wrestling shows because I could see some of the lesser talents and journeymen who didn't get air time on Mondays, and it was frequently just match after match instead of a promo-filled affair.
I mostly saw Real Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice in the afternoons after preschool or kindergarten, but I occasionally watched them on Saturday mornings. Saved by the Bell was also a Saturday morning show, but I watched it more in early weekday morning reruns on TBS or USA, and I only remember seeing "The New Class" on Saturdays.
Then, as the fall of 1997 approached, countless television commercials informed me that ABC would revamp its Saturday morning lineup and change its name to "Disney's One Saturday Morning." A slew of new shows would begin airing Saturday mornings on ABC, including... DOUG? What?! My favorite Nicktoon is now on ABC? I was very confused but so very happy!
When The Walt Disney Company purchased ABC's parent company, Capital Cities/ABC Inc., in 1996, the network immediately began programming ABC's Saturday Morning lineup with Disney-produced series like The Mighty Ducks, Jungle Cubs, and Gargoyles. Disney CEO Michael Eisner sought to create a Saturday morning block different from those carried by its main network competitors, Fox Kids and Kids' WB.
Around that time, in February of 1997, Peter Hastings left Warner Brothers Animation in a heated dispute over the direction of two shows he had been writing. They were hit shows kids of the 90s would recognize: Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. Hastings almost immediately joined Disney and was tasked with overhauling their Saturday morning lineup.
His pitch was "One Saturday Morning." It was planned for a debut on September 6, 1997, but due to Princess Diana's funeral, it was pushed back a week later to September 13. ABC's Saturday lineup was broadcast in two parts: a three-hour block of regularly scheduled cartoons and a two-hour hosted show that included features, comedy, and other skits featuring the characters of the "One Saturday Morning" shows.
The two-hour block would include full episodes of the recently acquired Doug, plus new shows "Recess" and "Pepper Ann." It first broadcast as a two-hour block in two parts. The three shows were given 40-minute timeslots, extending each half-hour show by 10 minutes (of advertisements) to fill the two-hour block with interstitials and other educational features. The live-action wraparound segments were hosted by various actors and, for a time, an elephant voiced by comedian Brad Garrett.
One Saturday Morning would be a massive success, beating Fox in its first season as the most-watched Saturday television for children. It remained competitive in its second season, beating everything on Fox Kids except The Power Rangers. By the third season, though, all broadcast television had fallen far behind Nickelodeon.
By the launch day of One Saturday Morning, September 13, I was back in school starting 8th grade following a good summer. My best friend Chris was seated next to me in every period that year, and the first week had been a blast as we cracked each other up. I had just spent the summer watching pro wrestling at its peak (although we didn't know it had peaked yet), and I was about to begin playing freshman-level ice hockey for my high school a year early.
Even as an 8th grader in middle school who played sports, I was still a nerd. I'd barely even call myself the "middle man on campus" because I felt I fit most with the "regular" kids. We weren't outcasts or on the far ends of the popularity spectrum, but we certainly weren't going to win Prom King either. Although thanks to playing sports, I was generally accepted in most circles and was friendly with even the most popular kids in the social hierarchy.
I rarely hung out with anyone outside of school or hockey, and I preferred returning home to the internet and television. While 8th grade may be too old for Saturday morning cartoons, I still loved them, along with tons of other dorky little things that would have gotten me mercilessly teased had it been known in school.
In any event, I had been looking forward to the debut of new episodes of Doug for a while and still didn't know it had even been canceled and was about to change. Back then, Cablevision would frequently change our cable lineup station numbers, so I thought this was similar, and Doug was just on a new channel. Silly me.
I noticed they started calling it "Brand Spankin' New! Doug," which later, in 1998, would change to simply "Disney's Doug."
Ok, that's not THAT weird, right? It's still Doug, and they technically are "brand-spankin' new" episodes.
I was so excited when it debuted that I not only watched the episode live but also taped it.
By the time that first episode ended, I was... confused.
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| Image created by Reddit user: "Midcentury24" |
Several changes were made to the show, including character names, traits, and backstories. I thought it was my fault that things seemed off; I couldn't understand how I remembered one of my favorite shows so wrong. The 13-year-old me didn't know anything about the "business" of television or how Disney and ABC could suddenly have input on an old Nickelodeon show. I genuinely expected a continuation of the old show and was confused as to why it wasn't.
Besides the slightly new name for the series, the characters were all depicted as being a year or two older than those in the Nickelodeon series. The kids were now in middle school and had all new teachers.
One of the more significant changes in the show was Doug's voice. Billy West, the original voice of Doug and Roger, had become too expensive for Disney. According to multiple claims after the fact, he allegedly thought "very highly of himself" after doing voices on Space Jam and a few other high-profile works, and Disney was able to hire two people for what he was asking, hiring Thomas McHugh to replace West as Doug and Chris Philips as Roger Klotz. Jim Jinkins has insisted over the years he fought for Billy West to stay with the show, but his pleas did nothing but cause him grief.
Most of the characters' outfits or hairstyles were changed from their original appearances on Nick. For example, Patti Mayonnaise received a very short haircut and new earrings. She also began wearing pants instead of her trademark skirt.
To spice things up, Doug and Judy gained a new baby sister, Cleopatra Dirtbike, born on the Disney series Christmas special. That episode also contained "the talk" between Doug and his Dad about where babies come from. That sort of topic was way off-limits for the old Doug, even though the Disney version skirted around it with innuendo and awkwardness.
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| The Original Honker Burger |
The old hangout, The Honker Burger, was sold and turned into a fancy restaurant named Chez Honque. The new hangout became Swirly's, owned by Mr. Swirly, the ice cream man.
A character named Guy Graham appeared out of nowhere to become an instant rival for Doug, both in general and for Patti's affection.
Among other things, Doug's day-to-day interactions changed considerably. Roger and his mom became extremely wealthy after selling the land where their trailer was parked. Doug's crush, Patti, left school to be homeschooled for the first half of the Disney series. She later returned to school when her Dad became the science teacher. Connie lost weight and gained a new sense of fashion, changing from a relatively plain girl to a popular girl in school.
Also, possibly most egregiously (I kid), Porkchop's (the dog) bed was no longer a cute little igloo but now a teepee.
They also broke up Doug's favorite band, "The Beets." So long, Killer Tofu.
Days later, I saw an old episode of Doug on Nickelodeon one evening, and it was like everything was suddenly back to normal. How on earth? What was happening? How could it be the same show but so different?
Little did I realize that this sort of thing frequently happens when television shows get sold. At 12 or 13, I may sound a bit old not to understand what was happening, but don't forget that we didn't have the Internet and social media to explain everything back then.
Doug would continue on ABC until June 26, 1999.
At ABC/Disney, Jinkins became less hands-on than his self-admitted micro-management style at Nickelodeon. Many attribute this to the noticeable shift in the show's "heart. " It just didn't seem as genuine to viewers, and Jinkins would later say he agrees with Doug fans who think the original Nick episodes were the best, calling them "quirkier" and "fun."
Changes made to the show's music have upset fans over the years. Originally, Jinkins wanted the music to be different from other cartoons, and most people can remember the riffing scat music that was the theme song. The music was part of the show's identity, and the theme song and the makeshift drumming and scatting between segments made the show unique.
Doug's favorite band, The Beets (modeled after The Beatles), also provided some memorable moments through interesting music that my generation still remembers. Getting rid of the Beets was just a larger degradation of music in the new version.
I suppose bands break up all the time in real life, and a teenager losing their favorite band is a big moment, but for me, it wasn't as bad as closing down The Honker Burger or turning Roger from a tough bully to a snooty, spoiled, rich snob.
Disney watered all of the music down into a whistle. Really... a whistle. Lots of whistling. It tried to keep the spirit of the original theme song but fell way short.
On Nickelodeon, Patti wasn't just the girl Doug had a crush on, but a tomboy with a single parent who also had a disability. I'm not saying that to be all "hooray for inclusion," but in what other show of that era did characters get so fleshed out? Those things made her unique, unlike nearly every other generic character in cartoons of that era. The voice of Patti, Constance Shulman, noted that the changes diminished the show. She said, "I missed all the gang crammed into the small studio, waiting for their turn for the big group scene." She said when they switched to recording their lines alone, it "dimmed the magic a bit." It was a small change that the average viewer might even have trouble putting their finger on, even if they noticed something was "off."
When Doug moved to Disney, the network and production studio decided everyone needed some sort of change to freshen things up. One of the biggest was that Connie, a fun secondary character on the old show, was slightly overweight and dressed to blend into the background. The Disney version had her attend a "beauty farm" over the summer and return as a thin, well-dressed "popular girl."
In addition to Connie's significant change, one major change (to me) is that Roger became rich and no longer lived in the trailer park, perhaps explaining his tendency to act out. He was no longer "just the bully" but a rich bully nonetheless, and over time, he even became more of an ally than a rival. He wasn't the tough guy anymore once he could just buy his way out of things.
One last complaint that most Doug fans hold on to is one I didn't notice until years after the show had been canceled. Nickelodeon would air two short stories during the 22-minute episode, but Disney only had one longer storyline per episode.
Ultimately, I've decided that Disney doesn't deserve the hate it gets for the changes made to Doug. Jim Jinkins told the Huffington Post, "For all the kids who complain about what Disney did with 'Doug,' almost every one of those changes came from me." His only regret was being unable to have Billy West do the voice for Disney, and he only chose to age up Doug and his friends to cover the different voices.
Despite what Doug changed into, the show received numerous domestic and international awards and even more nominations. It won two Parents' Choice Awards and two Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards and was nominated for four Daytime Emmys and three Cable ACE Awards.
A feature-length theatrical film, "Doug's 1st Movie," was released on March 26, 1999, just before production on the television show ceased. To celebrate the movie, Disney introduced a meet-and-greet of costumed characters like Doug and Patti at Walt Disney World.
Regardless of my feelings, in the grand scheme of animation and nostalgia, Disney's Doug may have detoured from its original story, but let's not forget that Doug Funnie's constant existential crises and unrequited love for Patti remained as pure and heartfelt as any cartoon of its era... or maybe ever.
Like many of us, the show tried to reinvent itself as it aged. Doug's journey through adolescence, much like our own, was about finding where we fit in. While I may have found the changes more bitter than sweet, Doug's spirit lived on for several more years through Disney when it would have simply died in 1994 at Nickelodeon, and for that, I'm grateful.
In the end, Doug's legacy is in the lessons we all learned as youngsters watching him. We learned that life constantly changes, but if you stay true to yourself, those "major changes" we fret about often end up inconsequential.
And that might be the most Disney-ish lesson of all.
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