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Doug’s 1st Movie (1999)

Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Television Animation/Jumbo Pictures/Plus One Animation
Director: Maurice Joyce
Cast: Thomas McHugh (Doug Funnie, Lincoln), Fred Newman (Skeeter Valentine, Mr. Dink, Porkchop, Ned), Chris Phillips (Roger Klotz, Boomer, Larry, Mr. Chiminy), Constance Shulman (Patti Mayonnaise), Frank Welker (Herman Melville), Alice Playten (Beebe Bluff, Elmo), Guy Hadley (Guy Graham), Doug Preis (Mr. Funnie, Mr. Bluff, Willie, Chalky, Bluff Agent), Eddie Korbich (Al and Moo Sleech, Robocrusher), Doris Belack (Mayor Tippi Dink), Becca Lish (Mrs. Funnie, Judy Funnie, Connie), Greg Lee (Principal White), David O’Brian (Quailman Announcer)
Runtime: 83 min.
MPAA rating: G (all ages admitted)

This movie, based on the cartoon series Disney’s Doug, is about the near-adolescent Doug Funnie and his friend Skeeter Valentine who, while out at Lucky Duck Lake, are hunting for a rumored monster while they have to deal with harassment from Roger Klotz and his gang of goons. When they discover the monster is real, Doug and Skeeter try to protect the friendly beast while Roger contacts some school nerds to protect him, thinking it’s hostile. At the same time, Doug knows the school’s Valentine’s Day Dance is coming up and he wants to ask Patti Mayonnaise to it, while upperclassman Guy Graham is also putting the moves on her. Naming the monster “Herman Melville” after he tries to eat a copy of Moby d**k, Doug and Skeeter learn that the lake is being polluted by the powerful tycoon Mr. Bluff, who wants to capture and kill the monster to save face. So with his work cut out for him, and the aid of Mayor Tippi Dink, can Doug and Skeeter save Herman Melville, expose Mr. Bluff for his corrupt deeds and win Patti’s heart in time for the Valentine’s Day dance?

I’m very sure if you remember growing in the early 1990s, specifically 1991, you probably remember being introduced to Nickelodeon’s original programming they called the “Nicktoons”. The first three shows they had were Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren and Stimpy Show. This would be huge for Nick as they would now have some cartoons you wouldn’t be seeing anywhere else.

Plans for movies about all three shows dated all the way back to the beginning. Things started at 20th Century Fox but nothing materialized; all three shows came and went and never got movies. In the end only The Rugrats Movie was released after the series was revived in the late 90s.

You may recall, back when I was reviewing The Rugrats Movie, that I did seemingly allude to, but did not elaborate on, Doug. This show, created by Jim Jinkins in a fictionalization of his childhood in Virginia, was the first but least memorable. There are a bunch of reasons for this; for one, while The Ren and Stimpy Show became a cult favorite overnight and Rugrats would evolve into the media juggernaut Nickelodeon wanted, Doug was easily the odd one out in that it was the least successful despite high hopes. Don’t get me wrong, it was a modest hit, and got decent ratings. Like that one friend you had in grade school that disappeared before you started junior high, Doug felt like a safer, kid-friendlier answer to edgier fare like The Simpsons or Beavis and Butt-head. Indeed, Nickelodeon was supposed to give Doug a full 65-episode package but stopped at 52 citing budget reasons.

So now you probably know my thoughts on the first three Nicktoons. The Ren and Stimpy Show started great but faded fast, Rugrats became pop culture osmosis but I never truly flipped for it, and Doug?

…Doug just… doesn’t hold up all that well for me.

Yeah, that’s right—compared to some other shows you probably remember watching, not only does Doug feel like one of those “oh yeah, I remember watching that” shows you personally thought you wouldn’t wax very much nostalgia for, but… it doesn’t even hold up all that well! This is because in retrospect, not only was Doug never terribly… well, funny and the animation feels very vanilla but it was never even very well-written.

Ultimately, ownership did transfer after Disney bought out Jumbo Pictures, and now called Disney’s Doug, it would become part of Disney’s new “One Saturday Morning” block that started the year after they bought ABC alongside shows like Recess, Pepper Ann and 101 Dalmatians: the Series. It became much more popular under Disney, spawning books, a stage show and even a video game. That doesn’t mean, however, that it was a better show, as everyone from viewers to the series’ staff thought Nickelodeon Doug was superior to Disney’s Doug. There may have been a change in viewership when this occurred, as the kids who liked Disney’s Doug grew up while the Web was still in its infancy and probably thought it was always under the House of Mouse. These were the kids that grew up playing Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation and just got introduced to Pokémon, not the kids that grew up playing SNES and Sega Genesis and loved Ninja Turtles/Power Rangers.

This movie, meant to be the series finale, was planned to be a direct-to-video release (I believe the movie’s original title was “The First Doug Movie… Ever!”). However, once the execs at Disney saw how well The Rugrats Movie did in theaters (after all, Doug was originally a Nicktoon), they changed gears and now, in a prime example of an oxymoron, this series-ending movie was given a theatrical release under the moniker Doug’s 1st Movie.

Even weirder? Unlike how Pokemon: the First Movie had the animation in the can and was extremely popular to the point of having sequels, Doug’s 1st Movie was not successful enough to warrant sequels and as of this writing, Disney has no plans to do anything else with Doug. So, being this is the first time I saw this movie since its release on home video all the way back at the end of the 90s when VHS was still a thing, let’s go ahead and dive into Doug’s 1st–and only—Movie.

Maybe I should start with the story. Being that this is a film adaptation of a then-popular show, you would think that they would step up the ante so that we would think it was just too big for the small screen. But being that this is about Doug, and in terms of danger 4-5 out of 10 is as high as it will go, you don’t get something bigger and more grandiose than what you would expect from the series. What you get is a story where the hero has to juggle two issues he’s dealing with, first being finding a lake monster and exposing the business tycoon responsible for its mutation, and the second being working up the courage to ask his crush to the school Valentine’s Day dance.

However, it does neither of which terribly well. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good 1980s-styled movie about a hero coming to terms with growing up and responsibilities, dealing with pressure, having a crush, that sort of thing. But not only does Doug’s 1st Movie depend on your already-existing fondness for the show, it feels like it’s lost its charm and personality as age set in. The characters now seem weird rather than lovable and I suppose that Doug may be your gateway into the movie’s world, but for reasons you’ll hear about, just doesn’t seem possible.

For the movie’s two paths it takes… well I’ll start with the former, that being about the lake monster. An analogy I can make is there is a short sequence where Doug’s neighbor Mr. Dink pulls Doug and Skeeter into his house and has them try out his virtual reality simulation device. He tells them while they feel like they are standing in his living room he states that they are doing just that, but in what I imagine was a joke he states it’s just a lot more expensive. Doug and Skeeter don’t necessarily do anything out of the ordinary from what you would expect normal kids to be doing but the writing isn’t clever enough to have them be anything more than ordinary kids. The other story about Doug wanting to win over Patti to be his date for the Valentine’s Day dance just doesn’t get the screentime necessary to be worth very much, and for reasons I’ll explain, feels like a waste and further evidence of bad writing. They go and add a few aspects from the series that you would expect Doug to be doing, an example of which being how he imagines himself as Quailman as an analogy to an issue that he’s facing, but they add nothing to the narrative and just feel like fanservice for the sake of fanservice. Then there is also some odd decision making on the characters’ parts, the most egregious of which being the cliché of having the monster pose as a foreign exchange student and everyone falling for it and the fact it just feels like a movie that clearly was made in the 90s with some corrupt polluters and a seeming attempt to care for the environment. In addition, this movie doesn’t contain much unless you are under the age of 10, unless you consider a police car with a license plate that says “DONUT1” as highly witty. They say time makes things better, but it clearly wasn’t on this movie’s side!

Now, the animation. This movie was originally meant to be a direct-to-video release and you can tell just from the way it looks! This animation doesn’t look any better than what you would probably expect to see on TV, with flat colors and lack of anything you would consider depth. I wasn’t expecting the type of animation you would expect from a more recent CGI feature with 3D rendering and textures but this just looks like the type of product you’d think should have stayed on TV. Then there is some other factors like how due to the characters’ minimalist designs they aren’t expressive enough when they would need to be. I understand that the characters have a different set of skin colors as it’s supposed to be indictive of their personalities, but something seems to have been lost in the interim as I don’t understand why Doug has a white flesh tone looking like a colored-in version of Fido Dido but everyone else seems to have their weird, non-normal skin colors. Why is Skeeter green? Why is Patti tan? Why is Beebe purple? Why is Guy light purple? Why is Roger lime-green? But what has to be the ultimate sin is for the design of the monster Herman Melville. I’m aware he’s supposed to be a lake monster who means no harm but his design just reminds me of Denver the Last Dinosaur. I’d be cool with this having been a DTV movie, but no it was a theatrical release!

The characters? Well okay. Being that this is a movie about a popular show, there are a lot of characters they can and did cram into the movie. And the result? It’s not… pleasant. Maybe I should start with Doug Funnie, the movie’s hero. Doug is supposed to be your gateway into this movie’s world and that feels far too much like it! For starters, Doug is just… too virtuous to be a hero; he always wants to do the right thing but probably the worst factor is when he suffers a BSoD moment after he thinks he’s permanently lost Patti; the writing isn’t strong enough to make you feel the weight of his plight. Not to mention he is supposed to be the hero but he sure does nothing to get you rooting for him; he should be lucky that he has the hand of God on his side to get him out of a jam! Skeeter Valentine is his best friend who’s only real personality trait is that he’s a kook. Patti Mayonnaise is Doug’s crush, as while true of the series, she’s still just a very bland one. Not helping matters? Well, Guy Graham, Doug’s rival for her affections, is an upperclassman who tries to undermine Doug’s efforts and win Patti over. Major problem this movie has is well, does it feel like there might be better chemistry between Guy and Patti? You know, instead of her and the character you’d probably want to see her paired up with? They even seem to get more screentime! Mr. Bluff, Beebe’s father who is responsible for the lake monster’s genesis, is trying to kill the monster to save his image but he feels like he was adapted into villainy. Worse? For what he’s done to Lucky Duck Lake he never faces any type of punishment! The monster Herman Melville is a harmless monster but that’s the extent of his character. Then you have the other characters that are in the movie for what feels like, well, they appear on the show so they gotta be here too! You have Beebe Bluff, Mr. Bluff’s daughter who literally has their school molded after her, the school nerds and bullies who don’t have names, Mr. Dink and his wife Mayor Tippi Dink who are respectively the nut and the voice of reason, Doug’s parents and his sister Judy who just are there to let you know Doug isn’t living in that house alone, Porkchop who just reminds me a little too much of Snoopy… oh yeah, and then there is Roger Klotz, who while being a bully and the typical thorn in Doug’s side, here he’s suffered the most as now he’s nothing more than a dumb comedy relief. After he and his pals antagonize Doug and Skeeter in the beginning he de-evolves into a joke that suffers at the clamps of the robot that he makes the nerds build. Keep your day job Doug!

I guess it’s true… just because you can make a movie about a popular IP doesn’t mean you should. Doug’s 1st Movie has got no real entertainment value for adults, and while yes, it is a movie meant for kids, chances are they won’t have any interest in watching this movie nowadays as it just feels too passé and antiquated for them. Its only audience now would be hardcore Doug fans, and I can only recommend this movie to them, provided they still exist! Adding insult to injury is the fact Doug’s 1st Movie, being originally meant to be a direct-to-video release, again was only given a theatrical release for no reason other than the execs at Disney saw how well The Rugrats Movie did and they just thought this would be easy money! For shame. And like the show, it doesn’t even hold up all that well, so with this review, I think I can say I will be checking out of Bluffington for good. This may be Doug’s 1st Movie, but with a product like this, let's hope "Doug's 2nd Movie" never occurs.



Doug's 1st Movie (1999)
TreyVore rates it: F

Well, no Paramount entry so why not?

Yep, I remember how I created her like it was yesterday. Very cool how we have notable characters so close in genesis babclayman!

Indeed, this is also going to be the 30th anniversary of movies like The Fugitive, Demolition Man, Sleepless in Seattle and The Pelican Brief, shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Beavis and Butt-head, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Rocko's Modern Life, Grace Under Fire and Sonic SatAM, video games like Super Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat 2, Mega Man X, The Lost Vikings, Robocop vs. the Terminator, Super Mario All-Stars and the original SNES Star Fox! Not to mention the debut of the Atari Jaguar and the beginning of Food Network!

It's also the 40th anniversary of Flashdance, Trading Places, WarGames and Risky Business, shows like Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock, G.I. Joe, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Love Connection, Inspector Gadget, The A-Team, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Press Your Luck and the start of the Disney Channel, and while the Video Game Crash of 1983 was just starting, Don Bluth gave us Dragon's Lair!

Just ask her and she'll comply.

Thank you very much. Maybe a spoiler? I have a few pics that I promised Shawn.

Indeed I did care to see some pics?

Anyway, I did this pic to kill two birds with one stone:

www.deviantart.com/trey-vore/art/Roxy-s-16th-and-40-years-of-Beat-It-950168077

Something everyone will agree with: hate blinds you.

I don't necessarily think adding onto Toy Story and Frozen would be necessary and probably are just being done to keep the copyrights active.

For one, Frozen 2 I didn't think was all that great. It had some high standards to meet but it felt a lot darker than the first movie and wasn't as charming. And I do wonder how a Toy Story 5 would work as I really do think it should have ended with Toy Story 3. If Woody left Bonnie's toys to stay as a lost toy with Bo Peep, then is that going to mean we shouldn't expect to see Buzz, Rex, Hamm, et al? Or if Woody does choose to go back, is that going to render Toy Story 4 a Shaggy Dog Story?

Now that Zootopia 2 I do like. I did hear about the prospects of an Inside Out 2 as well.

I just heard we lost Melinda Dillon. You probably know her best as the original actress who played Ralphie and Randy's mom on the 1983 Christmas movie A Christmas Story.

She was 83 and no full details were given.

www.yahoo.com/entertainment/melinda-dillon-dies-83-christmas-story-close-encounters-obituary-013544018.html