Episode 17, Part 2: Doug Meets Fentruck

Like nearly all episodes of Doug, we begin with a fantasy. This time Doug is an old west sheriff, sitting at the bar in a saloon with a carton of moo moo milk.

Everyone else has run to the hills because some dangerous stranger has come into town for a showdown with Sheriff Doug! This will certainly be relevant to Doug's real life crisis...

So at school, everyone is dressed in weird costumes that involve silly hats and bowls of fruit worn as hats.

Roger's playing the old "where's Doug? Has anybody seen Doug?" routine to get laughs. Everyone laughs.

Oh, why are they wearing this shit? They're getting a foreign exchange student and Mr. Bone made them dress in the new student's traditional clothes. He also teaches them their traditional greeting.

The traditional greeting involves saying "zwooba zwooba zwooba" while making armpit farts. This new student is from the wonderful country Yakostonia.

Anyway, the new student walks up and says "Greetings to you! My heart is spongy with happiness. I am so delighted for you to see you...me!" Hardly the traditional Yakostonian greeting there, Fentruck. Oh, yeah...his name is Fentruck.

Beebe and one of the girls I'm not sure was ever named giggle and say he's cute and has a dreamy accent.
Later Roger introduces himself and says that there's a tradition that the new kid has to buy him lunch. Then he leaves without being much of a dick.

Doug sees it and helps out before any kicking happens.

Fentruck is pleased he is meeting so many new friends. He invites Doug over to Mr. Bone's after school, because that's where he's staying. Fentruck and Mr. Bone are members of the International Organization of Yodelers. They sponsored his trip to Bluffington for some reason.

So the reason Fentruck wanted Doug to come over was because he needed help writing a letter.

It begins strong. "Hi yellow-haired girl who sits in front of me,"

Doug is impressed. It's only been a day and he's already got his eye's on a girl. "But who was it? Shouldn't be too hard to figure out." Doug has to work through this for some reason.

I like that he focuses on the "sits in front of me part" and not the "yellow-haired" part. It would be too easy to narrow it down to one person if he just went by hair color. Also, this sort of reinforces my theory about Doug and how he sees color. Oh shit...

Patti always uses the fog machine and stage lights. It just makes her entrances more dramatic. She sits down and Fentruck flirts with her. It's great. Then the real Fentruck has to rock Doug's chair to wake him from this crazy fantasy.

Oh, right. Shit, Doug. Fentruck from Yakostonia is moving in on your girl. Well...not your girl. A girl you like but are too scared to do anything about. Still! What are you going to do!? He wants you to help him write her a letter!

Doug tells him he doesn't have time to work on it now, so maybe he should take it home to finish it. As thanks, Fentruck gives him a jar of air from the top of some mountain in Yakostonia.

At school the next day, Doug is wondering how he's going to tell Fentruck that he can't write the letter. Then Fentruck walks up and says, "Hurry Doog (that's how he pronounces it with his dreamy accent), if we are to be picking lab partners." Then Doug worries that he'll pick Patti to be his lab partner. After that, they'll probably get engaged, then married, then they'll have kids and name them all Doug just to fuck with him.
Roger and his goons walk up and laugh at Fentruck's accent.

The rickets situation is getting a lot better. Boomer has the best line here. "Yeah, but the girls like his accent."

HAHAHA! GIRLS LIKE YOUR ACCENT, YOU STUPID FOREIGNER! I BET YOU WISH YOU DIDN'T HAVE THAT ACCENT, HUH!?

Anyway, this gives Doug a brilliant idea. He'll put on a fake accent.

Doug and Fentruck are sitting at different tables when Patti walks in.

For fuck's sake, Doug. When are you going to realize this kind of vision is not normal. Get medication.

Doug puts on his best French accent as Patti gets closer and closer.

"Patti...would you be ze lab partner of et moi?" He goes on with other French shit. He's saying this shit out loud, and Patti completely ignores him.

Patti walks right up to Fentruck and asks to be his lab partner. Doug gets partnered up with Roger because he's the only one left.

After school Doug tries to do the whole "I have this friend, who isn't me" routine that only happens in tv and movie to explain the situation to Skeeter. Skeeter falls on the ground because of how confusing Doug is being with his problem.

Seriously. Skeeter tells Doug that he should just tell Fentruck how he feels about Patti. How simple. Why don't you tell Patti too, while you're at it?

The next day, Doug is walking into school.

"This was it. The showdown. It was either gonna be him or me. And it wasn't gonna be me."
And after walking through the front doors, we are taken back to his old west fantasy.

"Hey, hombre! I'm callin' you out!"
"Are you talking to me, fair and good sheriff Doog?"
"You know who I'm talkin' to, dude! And you better saddle your horse and get if you know what's good for ya!"
"What means you?"
"I said 'get!'"
"'Get? Get'...what means this 'get,' Doog?"

And on that last line, Doug fades back into reality.

Pretty awesome how Doug is bullying foreigners old west-style. Pretty troubling that he slips in and out of reality like this.

Doug clarifies. "It means I can't write your letter for you and you better get someone else."

When Fentruck asks why, Doug explains that he also has the same feelings for the girl that sits in front of him.
Then Fentruck asks him how he knows his sister. Because apparently in Yakostonia they have this idiotic expression where they say an older sibling sits in front of them. See?

Other cultures are stupid. When I write a letter to someone (never happened), I use that person's name, because a vague description of them is idiotic. Yellow-haired girl that sits in front of me? What the shit is that? Doug should be pissed. Also, why was it necessary for Doug's help anyway? He said he wanted the letter in English, but why? Unnecessary. And what was the letter going to be about? It would've been terribly embarrassing if Doug had written a love letter confession from Fentruck to his sister, but Fentruck gave him no details regarding the contents of the letter. All he had was the greeting for the letter. If you need help with the grammar, write the fucking letter and ask Doug to help you fix parts that are grammatically incorrect. This is the craziest way to write your sister a letter.

At the realization that it's just a letter to his sister, this happens...

So anyway, Doug takes it back and decides to help write the letter. He comes to the conclusion that Fentruck doesn't like Patti based on no evidence at all. Patti didn't come up in the conversation, but still Doug says "so Fentruck didn't like Patti. What a relief! But did Patti like Fentruck?"

He approaches Patti who quickly tells him that she was going to ask him to be her lab partner but she decided to help Fentruck because she heard he was already helping him with the letter. This pleases Doug a lot, but just not enough for him to tell her he likes her and to ask her on a date. A real date. Not that stupid time when they went to the fair as friends, or the fucking dinner date shit. Doug wastes all of his opportunities. He sucks.
And so back in the lab Roger tries to use the Yakostonian air jar for his lab assignment.

But Doug stops him.

And he used the beaker that has some purple shit in it.

And everyone laughs at the poor kid with rickets. Thanks, Doug.