Episode 1: Doug Bags a Nematoad

Our first look at our hero in full color. Of course, he's writing in his journal on his way to his new home, because some things just can't wait. As Doug explains that they are moving to Bluffington because of his father's new department store photographer job, we get a glimpse of what that's going to be like as Phillip prepares to take a family photo in front of the new house.

Wait, is that a Polaroid camera?

Goddammit, you're fired.


So after the family photo (that was, for reasons unknown, ruined by the movers), Phillip sends Doug off on his bike to find a hamburger joint in town so he can get everyone dinner and explore Bluffington. Responsible parenting. This is when we meet his new neighbors, the Dinks. The Dinks are Bud and Tippy. Apparently rich, Bud likes to buy gadgets and talk about how expensive they are. Tippy always shows disdain for Bud's enthusiasm in everything, begging the question of why they are even together. She's never happy. Anyway, Bud shows Doug a welcome to Bluffington video, hosted by Mayor Bob White. This is his annoying way of giving Doug directions to Honker Burger, where all the kids hang out. This is where our first good delusion kicks in.

Doug, at first excited about meeting kids at the local hangout, quickly panics about the possibility that no one will like him. This isn't normal panicking either. Doug visualizes the mayor of Bluffington announcing to everyone that he is a loser. He has this whole vision of all the kids in town laughing at him. Hardly a realistic thing to worry about. Yet Doug really runs with it to the point of being unaware of his surroundings. See, while Doug was assuming everyone would hate him based on the mayor's opinion of him, the traffic light he was waiting for changed and he was holding up traffic.

DAMN YOU, MAYOR!

So Doug makes it to Honker Burger, meets Skeeter because you must run your order through a translator so it is retarded, and accidentally squirts ketchup on Roger Klotz's shoe. Uh oh! The ketchup accident was a result of seeing Patti Mayonnaise ride by on her bike outside. Instead of being cool about it, Roger decides to play a prank on Doug by telling him to meet him at Stinson's Pond so he can be the first person to bag a neematoad. Thanks Roger, for triggering another fantasy where Doug becomes a hero.

Already fantasizing about a girl he hasn't met until crushing reality hits him in the form of Roger's voice.

Anyway, Doug meets Roger and his goons the next day and they tell him how to catch a neematoad and he does it for hours before he notices that they're just across the pond laughing at him because neematoads are just made up bullshit. Then porkchop emerges from the pond covered in mud and they all freak out thinking it's a neematoad. Skeeter believes it is a neematoad too, in spite of Doug insisting that it's just his muddy dog. I can only believe that these people are not this retarded, and that Doug is lying to his journal about everyone believing it's not just a muddy dog.

Doug finally meets Patti the same way he met Roger, but instead of squirting the ketchup on her, he squirts it on her hamburger. She says he has great aim in spite of the fact that it was a total accident, and after Skeeter's introductions, we get this lovely bunch of infatuation.

And that's pretty much it. Doug writes in his journal about everyone he met; how he hopes Skeeter will be his best friend (best human friend after Porkchop protests (because as a dog, he can either read what Doug is writing, or hear what he is thinking), how the Dinks are weird, and how he might be in love with Patti. It is at this point in the series that Patti should think about a restraining order.