Ornery and Hornery posted:

There was a recess episode where a new kid showed up and was the best at everything.

At first the new kid doesn’t want to do anything or actually compete because the new kid knows that others will come to resent his greatness.

I don’t remember how that episode ended or what the lesson was supposed to be.

Heath posted:

I do think it's interesting that this specific cartoon elicits strong feelings in people and that they are often negative. I've seen people talk about Doug elsewhere than these forums and sentiments are mostly of similar caliber. It could be because of the fact that Doug was on all the God drat time and it always seemed to come with the feeling that it was eating up a slot of a more deserving Nicktoon -- I remember watching the show and wishing loving anything else was on, especially Rocko. If you're of a certain age and demographic it's difficult not to have an opinion on Doug, positive or negative.

The show isn't even necessarily bad, just relatively boring when, in spite of the daydreaming sections, the show seems pretty down to Earth when you put it up next to completely bonkers things like Ren and Stimpy. But here you have people arguing with apparent sincerity about the mental state of Doug, that he copes poorly with stimulus and that that "teaches" kids bad lessons and "normalizes" bad thought patterns, that Doug, literal child, responds immaturely to his problems. And again, this is a show that aired concurrently with Ren and Stimpy, which is nightmarish at times, like that episode with Ren's rotted teeth, or the Happy Helmet mind-break episode, or the one where they get lost between dimensions and start experiencing reality-warping body horror. Looking at white bread Doug sidelong and going "man that kid's got some unhealthy issues" next to that rings hollow if you think about it for more than a second or two.

I also think there's an interesting discussion to be had around these things since we (meaning, the Millennials who would have watched Doug etc. growing up) have some degree of a shared cultural experience surrounding these cartoons. I'm going to bet there's a significant number of people who read this thread who grew up more or less living in Doug's (and Rocko's, and Arnold's, and Tommy's, et al) head for several hours a week. These shows definitely formed a portion of my mental landscape as a kid, and looking back on it as an adult, I feel a lot better about Doug and a lot worse about Ren and Stimpy, even though at the time Ren and Stimpy was definitely in my top 3 while Doug and Rugrats would have been at the bottom of my list of choices. Especially since I know dick all about Jim Jinkins except that he's probably a relatively benign Boomer guy while I know more than I'd like to about John K. being a creep, even though I find John K.'s artistic output a lot more entertaining.

...of SCIENCE! posted:

Doug is the progenitor of the entire modern subgenre of cartoons like Bojack Horseman and late-stage Steven Universe where there are no actual jokes and instead everyone is depressed and talks about their feelings and has #relatable moments. Easily the worst legacy of any of the original nicktoons.

AmbientParadox posted:

Is Doug the Shinji of his series? Or is he the Rei?

Mega64 posted:

Propaganda Machine posted:

I went on a road trip recently enough and when we passed billboards for The Thing I immediately thought of the Doug road trip episode. In fact, I think It in that episode was directly based on The Thing (which is apparently the corpse of a two-headed snake).

I'm not saying it was a good show or anything, quite the opposite. The moral of that episode seemed to be "if you whine enough you'll get what you want," which is an excellent lesson for children in the target age range.

COMPAGNIE TOMMY posted:

Mod cocksuckers up to their old tricks. Guess who didn't give consent to this???

A Strange Aeon posted:

Phil and Lil, the twins in Rugrats, had a mom that always rubbed me the wrong way for some reason.

Pretty good posted:

- the one where Chuckie's dad gets involved in some kind of dodgy get rich quick scheme or commits fraud or something so they're like ultra rich for a little while before it all comes crashing down

Roth posted:

Batterypowered7 posted:

Isn't he pulling it out of a pocket in the bib?

Mega64 posted:

e: The most Doug image:

Zombiepop posted:

For a second there I thought there was a live action Doug movie. A man can only dream.

I wonder who would play Doug.

Heath posted:

No one disputes this

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Now I'm reminded that Batman Beyond was gonna have Terry open Bruce's old freezer and find Mr Freeze's head in it, probably being like "Oh, hello." before they decided on a much better if much less funny plot.

Empty Sandwich posted:

Turpitude II posted:

...of SCIENCE! posted:

The only thing funnier than people feeling obligated to love notably bad cartoon Korra just because it had half a second of same-sex hand-holding at the end is that now Disenchantment is doing the same thing and nobody gives a poo poo. It really is a bunch of boomers being completely out of step with the rest of the industry.

Batterypowered7 posted:

Am I gonna eat a probe/ban for this?

Haulin Oates posted:

Beatniks have been visual shorthand for artsy, out-there theatre types for decades

Batterypowered7 posted: