 "Photo: PHOTO COURTESY OF NICKELODEON")
I remember Saturday mornings, sometimes waking up before the sun, and practically dashing into the kitchen, where I would pour myself a big bowl of cereal or open up a pack of doughnuts.
I’d carry my breakfast into the living room and turn on the TV, and for the next few hours I’d lose myself in cartoons while I consumed a lot of sugar.
My all-time favorite cartoon was “Doug,” a show about an imaginative and big-hearted 11-year-old whose family moves to a town called Bluffington. Here, he meets his best friend Skeeter Valentine (who is blue), falls in love with a girl named Patti Mayonnaise, and sparks the ire of bully Roger Klotz (who is green).
In one episode Roger, offers Doug a “Hurts Doughnut.” But instead of receiving a sweet, doughy treat, Roger gives Doug a sharp punch to his arm and says, “Hurts, don’t it?”
In the first-ever episode, soon after Doug and his family arrive in Bluffington, Doug goes to the popular local burger joint to pick up some food for his family. At the counter he orders three burgers (one with no pickles, one no onions), a fish sandwich, four orders of fries, and four grape sodas, only to discover the cashier doesn’t comprehend his order. The restaurant has its own code.
“Hey, man, let me take care of it,” says Skeeter, stepping up to the counter. “The new kid wants three moo cows, one no cukes, one no sneakers, one wet one, four cubers, and four from the vine. Do you want anything else?”
“How do you order a salad from the salad bar?” Doug asks.
“One salad from the salad bar!” Skeeter tells the cashier.
In another memorable episode, Doug goes to a recording studio that is the new fad among Bluffington adolescents where they can make videotapes of themselves singing karaoke. A party is planned where all the kids could play their videos.
When the camera starts rolling, Doug gets nervous and starts to play the song he wrote about Patti Mayonnaise, his good friend whom he is secretly in love with.
“Patti, you’re the mayonnaise for me, whoa whoa whoa!” Doug sings.
Tapes get switched at the counter and Doug ends up with Patti Mayonnaise’s tape, who was also at the recording studio at the same time as Doug. Doug worries that Patti might have gotten the tape his love song is on and she’ll discover how he feels.
But in the end, as it always did, everything turned out alright. Doug could rest easy because Patti received Roger’s tape instead.
One of the reasons why “Doug” was so appealing to children (spanning 166 episodes over eight years and being picked up by ABC after being cancelled by Nickelodeon, as well as made into a movie) was because it so tenderly and truthfully depicted the real, personal struggles of adolescence – the first zit, bullies, best friends and the roller coaster ride of first love – through the eyes and thoughts of a cartoon character.
The best “Doug” episodes were the first 52 on Nickelodeon, before the show’s rights were sold to Disney. The show was never quite the same after that. Somewhere in the two-year hiatus the show seemed to lose some of its loving touch (and probably some writers).
It could be that I hit double digits in age and began to catch up to Doug Funnie, whose personal problems had always preceded my own, and I began to outgrow him. But I still remember that small – but priceless – thrill that bubbled in my chest when I heard the show’s familiar jingle begin to play.
And along the way Doug taught me some important lessons when I was going through a critical stage of development: that it doesn’t matter if someone is black or white or blue or green; that perhaps it’s better to take things slow and be friends first with the girl who steals your heart; that usually the things you dread never turn out to be as bad as you imagined; and that there was someone else like me – even if he was only a cartoon – out there who also became lost in daydreams.
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