Shout Out / Doug

• The "Spacemonks" game that Doug plays is a small tribute to Wing Commander, using several similar scenes from the game, including the infamous space funeral.
• "Silver Skeeter" is a tribute to the Silver Surfer.
• A rather blatant one to Arthur appears in the first episode of Disney's Doug. (It was actually written by Joe Fallon, one of the writers from the show.)
• The "Bangin' on a Trash Can/Think Big" music video has a few. Doug dreams he, Skeeter and Beebe perform in a concert wearing a really big suit. A few Michael Jackson homages are present, including Doug performing wearing one glove and a shout-out to the "Black or White" video in the segment in which Beebe morphs into Doug who morphs into Porkchop who morphs into Skeeter. And just before the "big suits" performance, Beebe's wearing a very Madonna-like outfit for her solo bit.
• Similarly, the Disney episode "Doug's Dougapalooza" features several that should be instantly recognizable to music aficionados. One of the bands participating in the song contest is a fairly blatant homage to Devo, with a song reminiscent of "Whip It." And Connie comes up with an off-the-cuff song called "Retainer Blues," with a vocal sounding eerily like Janis Joplin. Connie's rock star ambitions themselves may have been an homage to the massive popularity at the time (late 1990s) of female alternative rockers like Alanis Morissette.
• Doug lives on 21 Jumbo Street, a shout to the then-popular cop show 21 Jump Street. And to the show's production company, Jumbo Pictures.
• Dr. Klotzenstein's game show in "Doug vs. the Klotzoid Zombies" is called Wheel of Snack Food, a takeoff on Wheel of Fortune, right down to having the audience yell out the name of the show in unison.
  • In one episode, Doug goes to see a Smash Adams movie that opens with an evil dentist about to torture the titular character with a dental drill while shouting "Is it safe? Is it safe?!"
• "Doug's Derby Dilemma" has Doug imagining the prize for winning the derby being a night on the town for two, complete with himself and Patti re-enacting the famous spaghetti-eating scene from Lady and the Tramp. Not a case of Product Placement, as this was in the Nickelodeon series.
• In the episode where Doug has to get used to a new barber in his new hometown, his old barber's name was Mr. Sweeney. Maybe Doug should be glad to have a new barber...
• When Doug, Skeeter and Roger visit Bloodstone Manor, notices can be seen that says "Abandon all beverages, ye who enter." The same episode features an obvious Indiana Jones parody, complete with a sound-alike of the film series' theme.
• Doug wants a Smash-O skateboard in "Doug Inc." Smash-O is likely a takeoff on Wham-O, inventors of such childhood favorites as Hula Hoops, Frisbees, Silly String, and the Slip 'n' Slide. The TV commercial jingle also is reminiscent of 1960s surfer pop music like The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean.
• Judy does a Mae West imitation ("Come on up and see me sometime, big boy") to try to trick babysitter Mrs. Stinson's bird Sunflower in "Doug's Babysitter."
• One of Doug's imagine spots in "Doug's Got No Gift" is a near-duplicate scene from the movie adaptation of The Who's "Tommy", specifically, Elton John as the Local Lad getting out of the limo at the start of "Pinball Wizard". Similar styled music is even used for the scene.
• The local theme park, Funkytown, is accompanied by a piece of background music somewhat reminiscent of the classic disco hit of the same title by Lipps Inc.
• In an episode where Doug's home alone for the first time, what's the first thing he does? Slides across the floor in his underwear, jamming to rock music.
• "Family Court" in the episode "Doug's Servitude" is a fairly obvious homage to The People's Court.
• The "Doug's Cookin'" episode has several. Mr. Dink's new "cooking machine" is named "Julia" and talks with a high-pitched East-Coast accent. In a later scene Mrs. Wingo rushes over to help two classmates named "Jimmy" and "Vanessa" who are having trouble with their recipe; it's possible this could be an homage to Jim Jinkins himself and Nickelodeon producer Vanessa Coffey.
  • A classmate named Vanessa (assumedly the same girl) also appears in "Doug's Secret Admirer."
• The VJ on the music-video TV channel seems to be an homage to '90s MTV icon "Downtown" Julie Brown.
• In a fantasy sequence in "Doug Rocks the House," Boomer yells, "The whole world is watching!" before Patti throws the rock that destroys Doug's old house in Bloatsburg. This phrase entered the popular lexicon in 1968 when it became a mantra for antiwar protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
• In "Doug's New Teacher," he imagines himself profiled on a true-crime TV show called Bluffington's Most Troublesome, with Mr. Bone in the John Walsh role.
• When Doug tries to sneak into Moody School, the security guard is seen passing the time by playing Tetris.
• In "Doug's Nightmare on Jumbo Street", Doug's second nightmare has the monster disguised as his dog, he comes toward Doug saying "Here's Porkchop!".
• "Doug's Bum Rap": Doug, in comparing himself to Chalky, imagines himself being eliminated in his third-grade spelling bee for misspelling "baloney" while Chalky won for correctly spelling "antidisestablishmentarianism." The latter word was the one that won a 12-year-old girl named Gloria Lockerman the grand prize on the infamous TV game show The $64,000 Question (despite the show's reputation, she denied having received any behind-the-scenes coaching).
• "Doug Goes Hollywood" has Doug imagining that his success will lead him to become a wildly popular action film star who's very tall and strong, wears a ponytail and has a soft-spoken voice. Sounds familiar?
• The Beets are a shout-out to The Beatles by more than just name: There's even an ugly split (actually, more than one), and there's one of the band members' new project; see below.
  • Flounder's name may be inspired by the former Marillion singer Derek "Fish" Dick. It's highly unlikely that "Flounder" is his real name, let alone his full name.
  • Monroe Yoder, singer and guitarist, is Roger Daltrey, down to his singing, meets John Lennon.
    • Wendy Nespah, the bald female keyboardist, seems to be inspired by Sinéad O'Connor who had her only big hit with "Nothing Compares 2 U" the year before the show started.
• Post-split, Flounder starts a new project with his then-girlfriend Judy Funnie named Plastic Judy Band. Interestingly, Judy is only about 16 at that point whereas Yoko Ono is seven years older than John Lennon, and Flounder isn't even the actual John Lennon Expy in the band.
• The Psychedelic Fuzz for which Phil Funnie played the drums are named after the Psychedelic Furs.
• The scene in which the Fuzz are spontaneously joined by the Beets to jam together may be a reference to that famous Muddy Waters gig that had The Rolling Stones first in the audience and then joining Muddy, one of their role-models, on stage for a jam session. The Psychedelic Fuzz happen to be role-models to the Beets, too.
• Flounder and Connie Benge make a deal: Flounder helps Connie become a rock musician, and she teaches the analphabetic face of the Beets to read and write. Sounds familiar?
• Speaking of Connie as a rock musician: Her guitar which alternates between four and five necks within the same episode could be a nod to Rick Neilsen of Cheap Trick who is famous for wielding unwieldy but fully functional quintuple-neck Hamer guitars.
• It really goes to show that Jim Jinkins is a fan of Madonna: The superheroine based on Beebe Bluff in the Quailman universe is named Material Girl. Also, Beebe is seen in a Madonna-esque outfit in the "Bangin' on a Trashcan/Think Big" music video.
• "Doug's Great Beet War" contains a Rambo parody.
• In the first episode of the Disney series, Doug's barber, insisting that Doug get another style suited to his age, shows him several potential hairstyles. One of which is Charlie Brown's famous curl. A Linus and Lucy soundalike tune is heard and Doug says "Good grief!"
• Mr. Bone's voice and Small Name, Big Ego mannerisms are based on Barney Fife.
• While channel surfing in "Doug Grows Up", Doug comes across expies of Hoyt and Andy from another Jim Jinkins show, the unreleased-at-the-time (in the United States) Hoyt n' Andy's Sportsbender, meaning it also doubles as an Early-Bird Cameo.
• In "Doug's Chubby Buddy", Patti declares to her friends, "as y'all are my witness, I'll never be heavy again!"