50 Fun Facts About Doug

What does Doug write in as he narrates every episode?

His journal frames every story, yet creator Jim Jinkins did not keep one himself: he drew instead, and those doodles are where Doug began.

Which two series premiered alongside Doug on Nickelodeon's first Nicktoons night?

Rugrats and The Ren & Stimpy Show made the bigger splash, yet Doug was the one a rival later bought: Disney took over the show and its studio in 1996.

Which town does Doug's family move to at the start of the series?

Bluffington began as an escape: Jim Jinkins started doodling Doug's world in the 1980s, when his work had dried up and a relationship had ended.

Doug's fictional town is loosely based on which real city, creator Jim Jinkins's hometown?

Richmond, Virginia: Jinkins wrote people he grew up with there into the show, so Doug's teacher Mrs. Wingo is named after the best teacher he says he ever had.

What does Doug wear on his head as a superhero?

A belt, plus underpants worn over his clothes: creator Jim Jinkins says he has a photo of himself wearing underpants that way when he was about Doug's age.

What instrument does Doug play?

Banjo: he writes his own songs on it, though the episode about his garage band ends with Doug and Skeeter happily drumming on trash cans instead.

What kind of doghouse does Doug's dog Porkchop live in on the Nickelodeon episodes?

An igloo is his home on Nickelodeon, but when the show moved to Disney the animators rehoused him in a tipi.

Where did the character who became Doug first appear in animation, years before the show?

A Florida grapefruit commercial gave the character his first screen outing; Jim Jinkins also pitched him as a picture book, which publishers turned down before Nickelodeon said yes.

What is the real first name of Doug's blue-skinned best friend?

Mosquito is what the nickname Skeeter is short for, and Jim Jinkins modelled him on Tommy Roberts, his own best friend from second grade through high school.

What noise does Doug's best friend Skeeter make when he talks?

A honk, usually two at a time: much of the series is scored with sounds made by mouth, including a theme tune that is sung instead of played.

At which restaurant does Skeeter help a newly arrived Doug order his first meal in town?

Honker Burger is the gang's hangout on Nickelodeon, but by the Disney episodes it has been sold and turned into a French restaurant called Chez Honque.

Who is Doug's crush?

Patti Mayonnaise took her surname from Pam Mayo, a girl Jim Jinkins briefly fell for, while the character herself is based on a Patti he pined after all through school.

Which dish makes Doug dread a dinner invitation?

Liver and onions: when a friend announces it as the menu for her dinner party, Doug tries everything he can think of, hypnosis included, to get over his dread of it.

What colour is Roger Klotz's skin?

Green: faced with a box of 200 markers, Jim Jinkins decided his characters didn't need real skin tones, and later said the point was that colour doesn't matter.

Why is Roger Klotz older than his classmates?

He repeated sixth grade twice, so it took him three years to get out; Jim Jinkins named him after a real Roger who lived down the street when he was a boy.

In 'Doug's Worst Nightmare', whom does the bully Roger Klotz fall for?

Judy Funnie, Doug's sister: the bully turns suddenly nice and takes to quoting Shakespeare to impress her, but his courtship gets him nowhere.

What is the name of Roger Klotz's pet cat in Doug?

Stinky was taken for a tom until the episode 'Doug's Fat Cat', where the cat's odd cravings turn out to mean that three kittens are on the way.

How did Roger Klotz's family become rich in the Disney-era episodes of Doug?

A trailer park real-estate deal lifted the Klotzes out of the park they lived in; Jim Jinkins said making the bully rich opened up 'a whole new set of jokes'.

Beebe Bluff is the daughter of which local figure?

The richest man in town is her father, Bill Bluff, who turns villain in the feature film when Doug catches his company polluting.

What did Jim Jinkins call his doodled alter ego before renaming him Doug?

Brian came first; Jinkins wanted the flattest, most neutral name he could find for an everyman, and decided that Doug sounded even more ordinary.

What does Doug's dramatic older sister almost always wear?

Purple and black, with a beret and dark glasses she rarely takes off: Judy is the family beatnik, and her brother dreads the performances she stages at his school.

What is the name of the arts school attended by Doug's sister Judy?

The Moody School is one Doug has to sneak into: when his own school's parade float goes missing, he is accused of helping its students steal it and goes to see for himself.

What is Doug's superhero alter ego called?

Quailman grew out of home movies the young Jim Jinkins shot with his best friend, in which the two of them played a hero they called Super Clod.

Doug's other alter ego, Smash Adams, parodies which character?

James Bond: when Doug hands in a doodle of his teacher instead of his essay, he pictures himself as the suave Smash Adams breaking into school to get it back.

What is the name of Doug's favourite band?

The Beets are named in tribute to the Beatles: Jim Jinkins, a child of the British Invasion, built the band from the records he played at Doug's age.

Doug's favourite band had a hit about which 'killer' food?

Tofu: 'Killer Tofu' is the single Skeeter is blasting when he first introduces Doug to the band, and it keeps turning up in later episodes.

Which made-up creature does the bully Roger send new kid Doug to catch at a local pond?

A neematoad is Roger's prank on the new boy, but it backfires: a mud-caked Porkchop bursts out of the bushes and the bully takes him for the real thing.

In Doug, what job do the brainy Sleech twins try to hide that their father does?

Doughnut baker: the twins are embarrassed that he is no genius like them, and they are bright enough that the Disney episodes skip them past middle school straight into high school.

What does Doug's gadget-loving neighbour Mr. Dink proudly say about each new purchase?

Very expensive: the Dinks can afford it because, as Jim Jinkins has explained, their surname is an acronym for a double income and no kids.

Which office does Mr. Dink's wife win in the later Nickelodeon episodes of Doug?

Town mayor: she unseats Mayor White, who is so busy running his son's campaign for class treasurer that he neglects his own re-election.

What is the name of the strict assistant principal at Doug's school?

Mr. Bone spends his free time yodelling and clog dancing, which have won him a shelf of trophies; his jumpy manner is a send-up of Don Knotts.

Where does Doug's father Phil work?

Busy Beaver department store employs him as its photographer; late in the Nickelodeon run he quits to open his own studio, then goes back to the old job.

What is the nickname of Doug's baby sister, born in the Disney series?

Dirtbike is what everyone calls Cleopatra, born on Christmas Day; her name was chosen by the winner of a contest in Disney Adventures magazine.

Who voiced Doug in the Nickelodeon seasons?

Billy West also voiced Doug's tormentor Roger Klotz, and performed both sides of their arguments in real time, switching voices as he went.

Who performed Doug's a cappella soundtrack of scat singing and mouth noises?

Fred Newman also voiced Skeeter, Porkchop and Mr. Dink, so some scenes are one man talking to himself over music he made with his own mouth.

Which early Nickelodeon show did Doug's creator work on a dozen years before Doug?

Pinwheel was the channel's very first show, made before it was even called Nickelodeon, so Jim Jinkins was there at the network's birth long before it bought his cartoon.

What was the title of the short pilot Jim Jinkins made to sell Doug to Nickelodeon?

Doug Can't Dance won one of three series slots from the eight pilots Nickelodeon paid for, and an extended version opened the first episode in 1991.

What was the title of Jim Jinkins's rejected picture book about Doug?

Doug Got a New Pair of Shoes was turned down by New York's publishers, but when Jinkins showed it to a Nickelodeon executive she ran out of the room to demand a pilot.

What did creator Jim Jinkins ask Doug's writers to put at the top of every script?

A moral: each script opened with the problem Doug faced and what he would learn, though Jinkins, who once trained for the ministry, banned outright preaching.

Which comic strip did creator Jim Jinkins cite as an inspiration for Doug?

Peanuts: Jinkins says Charlie Brown loomed over his childhood and shaped Doug, while Porkchop, who acts as the boy's conscience, owes a good deal to Snoopy.

What did Jim Jinkins want to rename Doug during development, until Nickelodeon talked him out of it?

The Funnies appealed to him for its double meaning, but he later said he was thankful that Nickelodeon's executives steered him back to plain Doug.

How did Doug get his dog Porkchop?

A Christmas gift, and a later Christmas nearly parts the two: Porkchop pulls Beebe away from thin ice and is sent to the pound, accused of attacking her.

What was Doug renamed when new episodes began on network television in 1996?

Brand Spanking New Doug was the banner for the first Disney-made episodes, which aged the hero by a year; the series was later retitled Disney's Doug.

On which network did the Disney-made episodes of Doug first air on Saturday mornings?

ABC had just been bought by Disney, which suddenly had a Saturday morning block to fill and made the new Doug its cornerstone.

Why did Disney's Doug get a new lead voice?

He cost too much, says creator Jim Jinkins: fame from louder cartoons had lifted the original star's fee past the new budget, so Tom McHugh took over and Jinkins joked that Doug had simply aged a year.

What was the title of the Doug feature film released in cinemas in 1999?

Doug's 1st Movie turned out to be his only one: it took about $19 million at the box office, and no second film followed.

In the 1999 Doug feature film, where do Doug and Skeeter find a friendly monster?

Lucky Duck Lake is where they meet him, and they name him Herman Melville after he tries to eat a copy of Moby-Dick.

What reward does Doug get for returning an envelope holding thousands of dollars to its elderly owner?

A stick of gum: the police had already said the unclaimed cash was his to keep, and the writers argued over an ending in which doing right costs him all of it.

Where was the Doug Live! musical staged from 1999 to 2001?

Disney-MGM Studios, now Disney's Hollywood Studios, closed its SuperStar Television attraction to make room for the musical, which then played five times a day.

Which later preschool series did Doug's creator Jim Jinkins also create?

PB&J Otter reunited much of the Doug team in 1998: the same studio made it, and the man behind Doug's mouth-made music wrote its songs.