Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Episode 20, Part 2: Doug's a Genius


This episode starts with the theme song and opening animation we're all so familiar with. But then something happens and the stuff Doug is drawing turns on him. It draws a funny mustache and silly glasses. It eventually gets to what you see above, which is just Doug stumbling through utter chaos. So obviously this episode is either going to be about Doug's artwork or he's finally completely lost his mind and he's going to be taken to a mental health facility for minors.

Shit. Maybe next time.

So the episode actually begins with Doug and some other people painting in the park. Porkchop is chasing a raccoon. The raccoon finds a bigger raccoon.

And now the bigger raccoon is chasing Porkchop. Doug is finishing up his painting when the animal chase knocks him down. Both animals stomp through Doug's paints and then run over him several times.

Doug is powerless against the weight and strength of Porkchop and his slightly larger nemesis. Look at him, cowering there hoping for the nightmare to end. When the chase finally ends, Doug stands up and is just glad they only ruined the backside of his painting. His boring landscape is safe. He should maybe be concerned that the raccoon had rabies, but the thought never crosses his mind.

Finally, Doug explains that he's been taking painting classes every Saturday at the Bluffington Art Guild. Today, the teacher was going to pick two paintings to go in the annual art guild's competition.

This one doesn't make the cut. Beebe painted a self-portrait and Mr. Dink used some stupid automatic painting machine that controls your arm to paint a standard landscape bunch of bullshit. Patti calls Doug over to ask him about her painting. In his haste, he puts his painting down backwards, so the Porkchop/raccoon collaboration is showing. This is the first view we get of Patti's shit.

Just a standard mountain landscape. Doug is quick to say he thinks it's wonderful.

She's ecstatic. Then he tells her to put a little more snow on top. Maybe a few trees. She's confused. He says maybe just forget the trees. It's a perfectly beautiful mountain, just the way it is.
"It...it's not a mountain, Doug. It's my grandmother."

I don't even know what to say to that. This is just Doug's brain at its best.

The teacher interrupts to pour praise onto Doug, finishing by saying he's going to be a very famous artist. "Me? Famous? Maybe like that guy on tv..."

Best fantasy ever? Yes.

So then everyone has surrounded the back of Doug's painting to admire the shit out of it.

He didn't realize at first that they were admiring the fucked up backside of his painting. When he realizes, he says, "but I didn't...Porkchop..." and the teacher cuts him off, asking if Porkchop is the name of the painting.
It eventually fades to Doug sitting on the couch at home, explaining the situation to someone, but who?

Of course. You have a very simple problem with a very simple solution, and you go to the fucking dog for help.

And then he asks, "what am I supposed to do?" Porkchop's response is a back handspring. Seriously.

And Doug says, "flip flops? Well how are flip flops gonna help?"

Look, Doug. If you ask a fucking dog for advice, don't be so surprised when it's fucking ridiculous.
To clarify, Porkchop pulls out a Smash Adams comic.

So naturally we see a fantasy where Doug imagines what Smash Adams would do.

After Smash and his sidekick dog tumble through the museum hallway unnecessarily, he just turns the painting around. Problem solved. Why did Doug need a dog to walk him through this particular solution to what really isn't a problem to begin with?

Then some of Judy's friends come over to admire the genius that is Doug Funnie. They are followed by Doug's art teacher and a reporter.

They hound him with inane questions. They also want to see more of his work.

This is Quailman and Porkchop.

"And this is...well, this is a friend of mine."

They hate it and insist it's not him. Then they demand he paint something for them right now. This is just what people do to great artists. They give him a canvas and some paints and before he finishes one brush stroke, they rip the canvas out of his hands and proclaim it to be a brilliant painting.

The reporter says it's sensational. "Keep this up and you'll have your own show at the museum."

"My own show?" This is a great fantasy where Doug assumes his own show will display his apparent talents for copying famous artists.





And of course, who is most impressed with Doug's show?

Another one of Doug's best fantasies.

At the real art show, Doug is trying to explain his painting to the crowd. "Y'see, art lovers, I tried to bring out the essential porkchoppiness of...the porkchop."

They eat that shit up. Doug realizes he sounds like an idiot, and then notices that Patti's painting was the other one chosen from class to be in the show. He goes over to talk to her and it makes him finally decide to tell the truth. Before he can do it, the mayor walks in and does what he always does.

And then he tries to tell the teacher, but is again interrupted. This time by the appearance of Werner Schnozel. Werner Schnozel is a famous artist that has flown to Bluffington to judge the competition. The Bluffington Art Guild's competitions are very important in the art world.

I love this guy. His voice has hints of Dr. Zoidberg in it.

After the mayor introduces himself, Schnozel says, "that's the most amazing painting I've ever seen. Who did that amazing painting?"

And that's when they introduce Doug, who finally tells everyone Porkchop and a raccoon painted it. Schnozel then walks right by the mentally challenged boy wearing grey pants and a green jacket to Patti.

He was talking about Patti, of course. And so that's it. I suppose Patti won the competition, but Doug doesn't mention it. He never mentions what the prize was anyway, but based on the general incompetence of the art teacher, the prize was probably a year subscription to Seventeen Magazine or some other stupid thing.
I am terribly disappointed with Doug here. He had the opportunity to pull off another Pierre Brassau, but he felt guilty about it. He only fooled a bunch of jerkoffs trying to be pretentious about art. It was perfect. String those morons along for as long as possible. Why would he feel bad about that? If he isn't going to use the opportunity to mock them, what's the big deal with telling them the truth? Just tell them. They might be embarrassed for a minute, but it's not his fault they mistook garbage for art. They are the ones that repeatedly claimed he was a genius. If only they knew about "flip flops" and how frequently Doug gets advice from his dog. This is just another example of Doug having no problem at all, and getting upset about it. It has to be signs of an anxiety disorder.

This episode also provides more evidence to support this bullshit. Doug sees people in crazy colors that has nothing to do with their actual skin color. Everyone in his art class, and everyone at the show appears to have the craziest skin colors in the show.


Not a normal skin or hair color to be found. This is just how Doug sees the party.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Episode 20, Part 1: Doug Battles the Rulemeister

Time for another Quailman episode! This one begins with Roger and his goons convincing Doug to put some polka-dotted underpants on the statue of the town founder for something he calls "school anniversary day."

Let's take a look at that statue...

What? So the school has a statue of the town founder, nude, holding a book that says "KNOW LEGE" on it? Who or what is lege? Bluffington is the perfect town for a mentally deranged boy to get all the "knowlege" he'll ever need.

Anyway, Doug is easily convinced and starts to slip the underpants over the statue's head when his friends walk up and, of course, wonder what the fuck he's doing.

They laugh at him when he says he's just helping out for school anniversary day. Damn Roger and his made-up bullshit!

Then the statue starts to fall and everyone (Roger included) quickly move to stop it when Mr. Bone catches them!

Mr. Bone gets out his big rule book to look up the punishment for tampering with school property. His rule book is surprisingly specific.

And that's rule 47? That was so important it was the 47th rule Mr. Bone thought of when he made his rule book? Wonderful.

So the punishment is detention. Saturday detention. For all of them, because they were all in and around the act of putting polka-dotted underwear on the statue. Highly unreasonable. They saved the fucking statue.

Everyone is pissed at Doug for ruining their weekend. Even Roger. Jackass.

Doug quickly occupies his time by wondering how Quailman would deal with all the silly, pointless rules that Mr. Bone has made up. And we begin this part of the episode with the excitement of checking the mail in the Thicket of Solitude.

I always figured Quailman would have a P.O. Box, so his secret hideout would be...you know...secret. But what's this!?

What a bunch of stupid garbage. According to Quailman, it looks like the Rulemeister is up to his old tricks again! He flies with Quaildog to the mall to investigate. After reading a poster that says "Obey the rules or else" inside the mall, he turns around and this is what's happening.

Apparently one of the rules is that you have to stand on your head at 3:00. That is silly and pointless!!!
Quailman: "Someone has to stand up to the Rulemeister and just say 'no' to silly and pointless rules."
Beebe: "Wow. What a super hero!" (perhaps Doug went through a Beebe phase and didn't tell his journal/us. It's odd that Patti isn't the one saying this)
"I'll take care of him. But first, time for some ice cold nourishment! Come, Quaildog!"

No urgency whatsoever. Everyone is being forced to stand on their head and do other stupid shit, but fuck that. I want some frozen cheese. Oh yeah...that's what he's eating. Frozen cheese. Is that a thing? Sounds awful.

Anyway, the clerk comes and gives Quailman his quailchange and starts hopping around like a jackass.

We have stumbled onto yet another rule. "When you give someone change, you have to hop up and down." Hmmm. Silly and pointless, indeed.

In the evil Rulemeister's lair, he takes note of the fact that Quailman is completely ignoring all of the rules. Perhaps this is why there was no immediate need to stop him. It's not affecting Quailman yet. Everyone else? Yeah. But fuck them. And fuck the rules. Well, it's time to punish everyone because of Quailman.

"My precious weekend blaster will speed up the Earth's rotation from Friday to Monday!"

Don't worry, nerds. The Rulemeister simply misspoke. His weekend blaster doesn't speed up the Earth's rotation. That wouldn't get rid of the weekend. That would add days and make them shorter. The weekend blaster speeds up the orbit, and there's a wacky shot demonstrating this.

Anyway, the weekend blaster works!

I guess when the Rulemeister used his weekend blaster to remove days from the year, everyone just agreed that it would be all the weekend days, instead of just having fewer 7-day weeks in the year. After all, that is what the Rulemeister wanted when he got rid of those days.

Back in the Thicket of Solitude, Quailman is checking his answering machine (full of messages from people he was supposed to hang out with over the weekend confused because they couldn't find the weekend) and his calendar which he went ahead and adjusted to fit the new format.

Well now it's time to do something about the Rulemeister! He was only affecting those who followed his silly and pointless rules before. Now he's taken the weekend away and Quailman was supposed to play golf with the mayor this weekend! Time for action! They sneak into his evil lair and surprise him.

He solves this problem by making up another rule and claiming they're breaking it!

Checkmate!

Well, two can play at that game. Quailman decides to finally read the rule book. He reads it backwards for some reason.

He found one that the Rulemeister was breaking. Rule #1,987,642
"All socks must match at all times, except on weekends."

Defeated, the Rulemeister allows Quailman to disable the weekend blaster.

Usuing the instruction manual, he discovers that he can use the machine to add a day to the week. He decides he must make the weekends longer.

Best day ever?

Back in reality (which of course faded out from the fantasy with Mr. Bone repeatedly trying to get Doug's attention, and Doug so wrapped up in the fantasy that he called Mr. Bone "Rulemeister"), Mr. Bone confiscates the comic and tells Doug he's breaking another rule by drawing in detention.

Doug thinks about what Quailman would do, and asks if the rules apply to everyone, even Mr. Bone. Well, of course they do!

Fucked. The other kids look up the punishment for breaking that rule and find that Mr. Bone will also have Saturday detention. He's practically crying because this means he'll miss his yodeling class until Doug suggests a new rule. No more Saturday detention. Mr. Bone agrees and says, "last one out's a rotten egg!"

Everyone else runs out too. Except Doug. Doug must pick up his comic and hallucinate.

It is important to note that Doug fails to recognize that he's done something wrong. Being gullible enough to fall for Roger's tricks is no excuse. He was vandalizing school property and he almost destroyed it. But none of that is his fault. It's all Mr. Bone and his silly and pointless rules. I'm guessing his rule book isn't as specific as mentioning polka-dotted underwear on the statue. Mr. Bone probably saw a group of kids almost destroy school property. Or he probably saw a bunch of kids save school property from a stupid vandal trying to put underwear on a statue. It's possible he only punished Doug, and Doug wrote in his journal that he punished everyone to make it seem like Mr. Bone is the bad guy here, instead of himself.

Also, kudos on making your super hero behave so selfishly. Bravo.