Dougs 1st Movie

In 1996, Disney bought Nickelodeon’s Doug and as the series was winding down in 1999, the company decided it would be a great idea to give him a movie. Dougs 1^st Movie was release March 26, 1999 and starred Tom McHugh, Fred Newman, Chris Philips, Constance Shulman, Frank Welker, Alice Playten, and Guy Hadley. It was originally going to be direct to video, but Disney released it in theaters in hopes to copy the success of The Rugrats Movie. It tanked and made less than $20 million.

After searching numerous times in the series for the monster of Lucky Duck Lake, and failing, Doug (McHugh) and Skeeter (Newman) find one. It turns out to be quite nice and they name him Herman Melville (Welker). They show him to Mrs. Dink (Doris Belack), the mayor. She decides to keep him a secret due as well as knowledge that Bill Bluff (Doug Preis) has been polluting the lake. But after Doug’s rival, Guy, finds a photo of Herman, he tells Bluff. Now Bluff’s army is searching for the monster and Doug is trying to keep him a secret.

This is just an awful movie. First off, the producers decided to not give it any editing, which made it just drag on and on. And the last 20 minutes just felt like it would never end.

The characters also have absolutely no redeeming qualities. You’d think that with a televisions series to base their qualities off of, that this would be an extension of those qualities. But no, every single character is made into a complete idiot and entirely unlikable. At least in the series, Doug was naïve, but well meaning. Here, he’s just stupid. For instance,Mayor Dink decides to sit on Herman and wait for a press conference because Bluff will kill the story if they don’t. Later, Doug actually tells Guy, who has been well established as friends with Bluff that he’s got proof of Herman and the pollution. Another point has him see what he knows is next week’s school newspaper that reports Herman had been neutralized at a dance. He and Skeeter then spend the next five minutes of the film talking about it, not realizing the dance hasn’t even happened yet.

There are also a few imagine spot cutaway gags, which were the norm in the series. But where those were at least somewhat reasonable, these just go into the realms of ridiculous. Take the time where Doug imagines him and Patti organizing the dance. They’re doing so as World War II generals. The Quail Man sequence is also unnecessarily long.

Disney was actually considering producing sequels to this film, hence its title. But since it did so poorly at the box office, they canned all of them. Which is saying something considering how they continue almost everything.

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