Billy West voices Doug and Roger in the Nick series. Other voice actors have marveled at West's ability to switch from one character to another without missing a beat.
After West left, Roger ended up talking to himself with Boomer's voice actor in the Disney series.
Judy shares her voice actress with her mom, Theda.
Fred Newman voices many characters in the series, so this happens frequently (whenever Skeeter and Mr. Dink interact, for example).
The Cast Showoff: In both versions of the show, Skeeter Valentine is voiced by Fred Newman, who, much like Skeeter, is highly talented at providing sound effects with his mouth. In addition, Newman did most of the music on the show with just his mouth sounds. And he voiced both Porkchop the dog and Stinky the cat.
Started out on Nickelodeon. Then moved to ABC. Then finally to Disney Channel before disappearing off the radar completely. The Nickelodeon series also aired on Telemundo in Spanish during the late 1990s.
It's all very complicated company politics. Jumbo Pictures first managed to sell some of their ideas to Viacom and become a partner, subsequently getting on Viacom's payroll. Shortly after Doug ended with its fourth season due to Nick no longer being able to afford the show (meanwhile, Jumbo went to work on Allegra's Window, The Beginner's Bible, and Hoyt'n Andy's Sportsbender; the latter two being co-productions with Sony, whose Sony Wonder subsidiary had previously released the first DougVHS sets), Disney convinced them to make new episodes for their new Saturday morning season on ABC (prior to 1996, Nick had a rule where the rights to any Nicktoon that ran under sixty-five episodes would revert back to the creators while Nick kept the airing and video rights). They cut off all ties with Viacom and then managed to partner up with Disney instead, getting on Disney's payroll. Which after 4 seasons and a movie, ended in another dispute because Disney forced both Doug and PB&J Otter to end with sixty-five episodes and no more. They then broke up their ties with Disney, changed the company name to Cartoon Pizza, and learned the hard way the downsides of partnering up with a major television network.
Children Voicing Children: In the Latin American Spanish dub of the Disney series, Enzo Fortuny was fifteen years old when he began voicing the twelve-year-old Doug Funnie.
Creator Backlash: Jim Jinkins wasn't as involved with Disney's Doug as much as people often thought he was according to Mathew Klickstein's book Slimed: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age. Although he has said he is grateful to Disney for giving him the chance to tell more Doug stories and for that reason does not regret signing with Disney, he's also one of the few creators that actually agrees with the majority of the fan-base that the Nickelodeon version was better except for "The Dark Quail Saga". Constance Shulman (Patti) and Billy West (Nickelodeon Doug/Roger) prefer the Nickelodeon version too.
In the American version, Elmo is voiced by Beebe's voice actress, and Doug's grandmother is voiced by Fred Newman (who also played Skeeter, Mr. Dink, and others). In "Doug's Fan Club", Todd Bentley, an 8-year-old boy who idolizes Doug, is played by Melissa Greenspan.
Dawson Casting: All of the children in Bluffington are voiced by adults.
Development Gag: The show originated as a potential series of children books before Jenkins turned it into a cartoon. The story of "Doug's New Shoes" was the original intended premiere book.
Edited for Syndication: The episode "Doug's Chubby Buddy" originally ended with a voiceover PSA from Patty about eating disorders and mental health resources. In reruns, this part was removed and replaced by Skeeter and Roger's in-episode dialogue.
Fandom Life Cycle: The Nickelodeon series was at the lower end of Stage 4 for the majority of its run, being overshadowed by its fellow Nicktoons Ren & Stimpy and Rugrats. When the show was Un-Canceled and moved to Disney, it was at a Stage 2 or 3, gaining a significant fanbase, but derided by fans of the original show.
Flip-Flop of God: In 2016, Jim Jenkins shared his ideas for a Sequel Series with Doug as an adult, which would have revealed that Doug and Patti never became a couple and Patti eventually married someone else. But in 2023, he shared his plans for a completely different Sequel Series, Doug Kids, with the adult Doug and Patti as a married couple who have two children.
God Never Said That: Since Doug started in the 1990s, it was often rumored that Skeeter was supposed to be the Token Black Friend (but depicted as blue, as blue and purple are often used in Sci-Fi and speculative fiction to depict black people or any minority who isn't white). Jim Jinkins has stated that he didn't color Skeeter blue as a substitute for making him black; he made Skeeter blue because he thought he looked good that way.
Acclaimed writer/director Kenneth Lonergan wrote at least one episode of the series, "Doug Throws a Party", a mere two years before what's considered to be his Breakthrough Hit play This Is Our Youth premiered.
Two writers for this show, Ken Scarborough and Joe Fallon, would later move on to work on Arthur. Quite fitting, as people who have watched both shows will often point out the number of similarities between the two (both being realistic animated Slice of Life shows, similar character types, the heavy reliance on Imagine Spots...). Joe Fallon even threw in a Shout-Out to Arthur in the pilot of the Disney series, where it turns out that Arthur and Buster were the names of Doug's pre-Bluffington best friends.
The Nickelodeon series: When it was first released on Amazon for their on-demand service, there was a good chance that it had playback errors, and two episodes were missing from season four because of "technical difficulties". However, in June 2014, Amazon made a new release of the show available on DVD now known as "The Complete Nickelodeon Series" including every Nickelodeon episode including the two segments missing from the Season 4 set. It's available on iTunes and Paramount+ as well.
The Disney series: Compared to the Nick series, the Disney series was more challenging to come across (legally). The show was only released on VHS and, even then, it was only a select few episodes. Heck, The Movie never saw a DVD release until recently as a Disney Movie Club-exclusive (although it's the Toon Disney cut, with some missing/altered scenes). The uncut version is available for video rental/purchase on Amazon, if you want to view the original version of it in this day and age. According to Jim Jinkins, Disney, which continues to hold the rights to Doug to this day, has not expressed interest in re-releasing or reviving the franchise, which is why the Disney series remains largely lost to time while the Nickelodeon series is still available in some capacity...or was, until Disney+ released the entire Disney series of Doug (including the movie) on November of 2019. Now fans of either Disney's Doug or the Nickelodeon Doug can enjoy the show in reruns.
The movie was released on Video CD in many second world countries. The catch? Was. It's out of print, too.
Kids' Meal Toy: In Fall 1994, Hardee's released a set of eight race cars based on the Nickelodeon series, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rugrats (1991), and Rocko's Modern Life, with each franchise having two characters. The toys based on this series depicted Doug in a drag racer and Porkchop on a skateboard.
Live on Stage!: From 1999 to 2001, Doug Live! was a stage show performed at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida. It was a musical adaptation of the Disney series, with original songs and plot elements taken from the Nickelodeon series, the most glaring of which being Roger's outfit taken straight from the Nick series rather than the Disney series.
Missing Episode: As of 2021, NickRewind only airs the first two seasons. When they finish said seasons, they go back to Season 1 as if the next two seasons were nothing.
No Export for You: Some foreign markets only air the Nickelodeon series of the show in these days, although the Disney series also aired internationally in its day.
Italy got only the Disney series.
Non-Singing Voice: Doug Pries is the voice of Mr. Bone but Fred Newman voices him when he yodels.
Thomas McHugh and Chris Phillips replaced Billy West (who was now too expensive note Though it's also said West left the show when Disney refused to match Nickelodeon's salary and has been rather critical of McHugh's performance for the Disney variation of Doug) as Doug and Roger's voices, respectively, in the Disney series. This was made note of with Doug in its first episode.
When the Disney series was released in Latin America, it suffered a whole dub recast from the Nick's version.
Patti Mayonnaise was guest-voiced by Roxanne Beck (primarily known for her roles in anime like Pokémon: The Series and Lum in the Urusei Yatsura movie Beautiful Dreamer) in one Nickelodeon episode.
Out of Order: When the Disney series came to Disney+, some of the episodes were released willy-nilly, including the Grand Finale "Doug's Marriage Madness".
Playing Against Type: Doug is much more soft-spoken than Billy West's other roles. He's also notably neither an idiot nor a jerk like most of West's characters, though Roger is much more in his usual wheelhouse.
Star-Making Role: Along with Stimpy, Billy West's roles as both the titular character and Roger in the Nick series are what established his reputation as one of the biggest voice actors of the modern era.
The original Doug product was going to be a children's book, "Doug Gets a New Pair of Shoes", until Jim Jinkins found out that Nickelodeon was looking for cartoonists to create new original animated series (during this time, all of Nickelodeon's cartoons were either imported from other countries [mostly from continental Europe, Japan, or Canada] or part of a syndication package (the Looney Tunes shorts and the UPA cartoons of The '50s) and decided to turn it into a cartoon series. The book ended up serving as the episode "Doug's Cool Shoes" in season one.
Roger was going to be a rival to Doug for the latter's love interest, Patti. This was scrapped, and the role was taken by Guy once the show was switched over to Disney.
The movie was going to be a Direct to Video release, but Disney decided to put it into theaters due to the success of The Rugrats Movie. Critically, it didn't work. In box office numbers, it grossed much less than Rugrats, but it was still a huge profit for Disney, and since Disney's mainline animated movies weren't doing so good by then (having to rely on Pixar to stay competitive with up-and-coming studio DreamWorks Animation), this was big.
Doug could have had a movie in 1993. Nickelodeon signed for a contract deal with the 20th Century Fox to release movie adaptations for its three original Nicktoons, but the contract fell through before they could make a movie deal. So, once Viacom (Nick's company) bought Paramount, Rugrats got its movie in 1998, Disney ended up making a Doug movie, while The Ren & Stimpy Show never got one (and never will). It's unknown whether Fox's version of "Doug's 1st Movie" would've been the same movie as it became.
Jim Jinkins pitched ideas for Spin-Off series focusing on Judy and Quailman to Disney. Nothing ever came of it.
The series bible reveals that Doug's Uncle Happy, who lives on a farm with his family, was intended to be a recurring character. However, he gets nothing more than a mention in one episode, and a very brief cameo in another.
During the original run of the Disney series, an online "interview" with Patti confirmed what many fans have guessed: that her Missing Mom died in a car accident, which also left her father paraplegic.
According to Billy West in an interview, when asked where Roger would be as an adult, he (in character) stated that he's currently in jail. The reason why is unknown.
The setting and characters all come from Jim Jinkins' childhood. Patty was based on a real girl named Patty whom he had a huge crush on, Roger was named after a friend of his (whom Jinkins jokingly apologized to afterwards) and he even had a principal named Buttsavich.
Jinkins was somewhat pudgy as a child, thus no surprise that he gave Doug something of a pot belly and created a plus-sized character in Connie. Also, although he never had a dog, "Porkchop" was his childhood nickname because of his physique.
In an interesting coincidence, Jinkins got Constance Shulman to portray Patti's voice after seeing the actress in a commercial for Kraft mayonnaise. However, this was not the origin of Patti's last name, as the character was already named Patti Mayonnaise (after Pam Mayo, another childhood crush of Jinkins'). In addition, Jinkins' wife, an aerobics teacher, was already acquainted with Shulman as the actress was one of her students.
Doug keeping a journal where he writes and draws cartoons once every night is taken verbatim from how Jim Jinkins conceived the show itself. Although Jinkins says he did not keep a journal as a kid, he did doodle — a lot — and so does Doug.
.