Trivia / Doug's 1st Movie

• Direct to Video: What this movie was originally intended to be released as, which explains why the animation is only a slight notch above the show's (not horrible by any means, but definitely not cinematic-looking).
• Dueling Movies: The movie was made as a direct response to the massive box office success of The Rugrats Movie that same year, both films being based off of the highly successful frontrunners of each network at the time. Unsurprisingly, that film performed significantly better, to the point of getting two sequels, while Doug's 1st Movie ended up also being his last.
• Edited for Syndication: The Disney Movie Club DVD of the film uses the Toon Disney edit of the movie, making it one of the few instances where the tape has better quality than the DVD.
• Franchise Killer: The movie is often erroneously believed to be this for Doug, as while the movie had a decent box office gross, it was massacred by the critics. In reality, the show lasted for fourteen more episodes before ending due to Disney's 65-episode policy. Merchandise only ended production after the closure of Doug Live!, with only Funko Pop! figures of Doug, Patti, Skeeter, Porkchop, Quailman, and Quaildog having been released since in 2018.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The movie was released on video in September 1999 and was quietly re-issued in mid-2000, and only on VHS, even though Disney had entered the DVD market by then.^note Disney was slow to accept DVD at the time. The film went out of print around 2001, when Doug was removed from ABC's lineup. For a while, the film wasn't available, aside from being shown on Toon Disney often. Then, in 2011, the film was put onto iTunes (rental only) and Amazon Instant Video. Thirteen years after the video release, Disney finally released the movie on DVD in 2012, though with two drawbacks - the first being that it was exclusive to the Disney Movie Club (which is US only), and the second being that instead of remastering the film, Disney used the TV edit master, with various fade out / fade ins in between various scenes, and speeding up the credits, featuring only half of "Someone Like Me." This was corrected for Disney+, but the version on the streaming service is a non-HD 4:3 version of the film and not the theatrical widescreen presentation, which hasn't been seen since 1999. An HD version of the film is known to exist and has been shown on European television, but it hasn't been put out in the US.
• Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's released a set of eight clip-on toys to promote the film's VHS release.
• No Export for You: The 2012 DVD, being an exclusive to the Disney Movie Club, is not available outside of the United States.
  • In a similarly bizarre case to The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, an HD widescreen version of this film does exist; however, it has only been shown on European television, and has never been issued in America digitally or physically.
• Stillborn Franchise: Doug's 1st Movie was also his last. The two reasons why a sequel was never planned could possibly contribute to the movie not being as successful as planned, and the other being that Doug wrapped shortly after the movie was released (the movie came out in March 1999; the last episode premiered in June) and Disney wanted to focus more on Recess at the time.
• What Could Have Been:
  • This film was originally intended to be a Direct to Video release, and was also advertised as such on certain Disney tapes at the time. However, after seeing the surprise success of The Rugrats Movie, Disney decided to quickly turn it into a theatrical release to try and capitalize on it.
  • Originally, Roger's subplot would have been about him having a crush on Herman in his girl disguise. This subplot was kept in the novelization.
  • In 1993, 20th Century Fox was originally going to make movies based on the first three Nicktoons. The Ren & Stimpy Show never got the feature film they announced, and The Rugrats Movie was released in 1998 by Paramount. What the original plot consisted of is unknown.
• Working Title: Early advertisements made before the movie went theatrical referred to it as The First Doug Movie Ever.

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