Episode 11, Part 2; Doug Loses Dale

"There I was. Doug Funnie. New recruit in the Foreign Legion; the last refuge for murderers, spies, and assassins. And my crime? All I did was lose my best friend's baby brother."

I love that in Doug's fantasy here at the beginning, the camel can hear his thoughts and is so disgusted he throws Doug and Porkchop off his back. Where did Doug get this idea about a Foreign Legion? What kind of name is that for a group of murderers, spies, assassins and people who lose baby brothers? Why is he on a camel in the desert anyway? All a part of Doug's crazy idea about what they do to people like him. What's this about losing you best friend's baby brother anyway?

Once Doug stops feeding us his crazy bullshit and starts telling his story, we see him meet up with Skeeter and Dale. Porkchop starts playing with Dale while Skeeter explains that they need a babysitter for the day. Their regular babysitter quit, or couldn't make it, or something and they were thinking Doug should babysit Dale.
This is simply the best proof that no one in Doug's life is aware of his severe, frequent delusions that prohibit him from a life of normal, rational decisions. Anyway, Dale starts playing with Doug and that's proof enough for Skeeter to know that Doug will do great.

But first Doug needs to learn a few things about babysitting, so he goes to various people for advice. First up is Judy.

Seems logical. She used to babysit Doug when he needed it. She has experience dealing with the worst sort of kid. She's also batshit crazy because her parents are also Phil and Theda Funnie. Her advice: "To understand a child, you have to become a child." She demonstrates...

This is Judy squirming and crying like an infant. You sure got it, Judy. Doug actually recognizes this advice as bullshit immediately and Judy gives him a mask he can use to make Dale laugh.

Doug's next stop is the Honkerburger, where he has gathered 4 friends to pick their brains about their babysitting experiences. First up is Beebe.

"Let them have whatever they want. That's what my babysitters did." After saying this she steals that girl's ice cream because, as a rich girl, buying her own goddamn ice cream is just out of the question or something. As that girl steals her ice cream back from Beebe, she gives her own advice to Doug. "Try coloring books and crayons, for starters." Thanks, whoever you are. No seriously, who are you? I've never seen you before. Do you have a name? Next up? Chalky.

"Food always works for me. The sweeter, the better. The kind their parents don't want their kids to have." What a dick. Parents, don't hire Chalky or your kid will never get to sleep after you get home, exhausted from that night of quiet dinner and cheap hotel fucking. As Chalky was speaking, Porkchop ate all of his ice cream through the bottom, which is why he has that guilty look on his face now that Chalky noticed it was all gone.
And finally, of all people Doug included in his babysitting research trip to the Honkerburger, we get Roger's advice: "A good lawyer. You're gonna need one after you mess up!" Then he laughs and laughs

Finally, that chubby girl took her eyes off the ice cream, and now she's licking her lips for Roger, with his sexy case rickets.
And so it comes time to babysit. The Valentines are off...

Doug's perception of their car is fucking crazy. Skeeter's mom sits in the middle while his dad is jammed in the front. There's no room for legs up there.
Immediately Dale begins to freak out.

Time to consult the advice of others.

Hallucinating that people are talking to you through clouds again, Doug? They haven't been gone for 5 minutes and you're already proving to us you shouldn't be left in charge of a small child.
The funny mask doesn't work...

Dale runs behind the tv and triggers another hallucination.

As Dale runs behind the tv, it comes on by itself (see also: Doug's crazy mind sees it come on) and a weird show interrupts nothing to bring breaking news regarding Operation Babysit.


Trip McSumack gives a brief useless report to round out Doug's fantasy; in short, Doug sucks at babysitting and coming up with fake reporter names.
Lets try some more hallucinatory referencing to the advice of others.

Right, just give him some of his favorite ice cream, Doug. How could that go wrong?

Well now that Dale is covered in ice cream, he'll need some clean clothes. Doug holds up several outfits and Dale doesn't want to try any of them.

Right, just let him pick his own damn clothes. There's no way that could go wrong...

Which somehow ends up like this...

How did you end up with a child's underwear on your head, Doug? If anyone saw this...

"Right, random girl who told me to start with crayons and coloring books. Now that all other advice has failed, I'll give your bullshit a try."

As Doug finishes coloring, or "colowing" as he accidentally put it, he proudly shows Porkchop, instead of Dale. In this scene he's basically talking to himself and pretending he's talking to Dale. He doesn't look at Dale at all. Then he notices the time and that means...!

UNCLE GRUNTY has come on! Uncle Grunty is the most molest-y sounding name ever. It's not clear if this is supposed to be a show Doug likes, or Dale likes. Doug and Porkchop are happy and Dale is indifferent, but it looks like children's show that an 11 year old would be too old for. But this is Doug we're talking about, and I'm guessing he's a huge fan of Uncle Grunty; second only to Uncle Happy's Old Clown Trunk. Before Doug can get into the show, or begin to pay attention to Dale, the phone rings. It's Mrs. Valentine. He gladly tells her he's doing fine and that Dale is in the living room alone, coloring.

I'm glad Porkchop immediately recognized this as a stupid thing to say. And now, for the first time since Doug brought out the crayons, he takes a look at Dale.

He's colored all over the walls. Don't let the picture of them both sitting at the coffee table coloring fool you. That's only what Doug assumed was happening. In reality, Dale had colored all over the fucking place. Doug freaks out and yells which caused Dale to run away, and that causes a return to old Trip McSumack.

And so while Doug was too worried about what a fictional reporter was going to say about him on a fictional show, Dale disappeared.

Time for the final piece of Honkerburger advice.


It's strange that the clouds laugh at him too. I just fucking love the look of anger followed by the look of defeat on Doug's face in those two pictures. And here again, instead of looking for Dale everywhere, Doug consults Trip McSumack, who has suddenly joined the crazy Foreign Legion fantasy from the beginning.

He asks Doug what happened.

"I'm sorry, but my lawyer has advised me not to answer questions at this time." Of course Porkchop is his lawyer in fantasy land.

Finally Doug comes to a conclusion: that instead of listening to everyone else's advice, he's going to do what he should've done from the beginning, which is listen to himself. How does that help him find Dale? He thinks about where he liked to hide from babysitters (Judy) when he was a kid. This is essentially the same idea that Judy started to give him before he brushed her off and settled on a mask from her costume trunk. Doug's merely worded it into a way that allows him to take credit for it. Anyway, Doug's favorite hiding spot was...

...so naturally that's where Dale must be. As he's going through the laundry, the Valentines have returned and are trying to get his attention.

He finally hears them and turns around. As he's about to say he lost Dale, guess who pops out of the basket.

TADAA!

And so there you have it. Mr. Valentine asks Doug to be their permanent babysitter and he says he'll think about it. If they only knew that all of Doug's babysitting problems stemmed from his frequent trips to fantasy land and a general lack of attention given to the child he's being paid to watch.
It's nice to know that Doug would hire Porkchop should he ever need a criminal defense lawyer. I love in his fantasy of exile in a barren desert, a watchdog show named "Operation Babysit" would still manage to catch up to question him. What's the point of running away and joining the Foreign Legion if a guy named Trip McSumack is just going to find you anyway, Doug? And the Foreign Legion...murderers, spies, and assassins. Well two of those are the same thing, aren't they? Why spies though? This is coming from a kid who sometimes fantasizes about being James Bond clone, Smash Adams. So sometimes he tries to be a spy, but lumps them together with murderers and assassins. And since losing a child is neither killing nor spying, why does Doug join the Foreign Legion? Seems like he could find a group of people that are guilty of child neglect in that crazy little brain of his.

Episode 11, Part 1; Doug's Cookin'

This episode begins and ends with strange fantasies Doug has about cooking. Doug is at school in home economics class when someone's cooking gets out of control and attacks Patti!

That's okay, because Doug and Porkchop (who really shouldn't be there because he's a dog. Ms. Wingo isn't being paid to teach your dog how to cook...) grab some armor and weapons and attack!

They are overtaken and the fantasy ends.
Then the real story begins with Ms. Wingo announcing that they will have a bake off tomorrow. The girls are excited...

The boys boo and complain...

Ms. Wingo says she has decided on partners for everyone and announces them. First up is Skeeter and Beebe. While everyone is whooping at this, and Roger is asking if they're going to bake a wedding cake (is there some romantic background that Doug has so far failed to tell us about?), Doug goes into fantasy land. He reasons that the bake off might be exciting because he can make an excellent grilled cheese sandwich. So naturally, his fantasy is that he's the host of yet another tv show.

He puts cheese between bread and cooks it to much applause.

Right, Doug. Everyone would be impressed that you were able to competently make a sandwich. Patti would be impressed the most. While he is posing with his masterpiece, his fantasy is interrupted...

And fade to reality, where Ms. Wingo has apparently been trying to get his attention for a minute or so...

Does no one ever think there's something wrong with Doug when he acts out his daydreams? Everyone daydreamed at school, but if any of your classmates frequently did it to this extent, it would've been pointed out. Anyway, Doug has been paired up with Patti, who doesn't seem too thrilled about this...

Doug quickly asks why she doesn't want to be his partner and she says it isn't him. It's just that she can't cook. Aww. She says the one time she's tried cooking she filled her whole house with smoke. Then, to Doug's joy, she suggests they get together that night to practice at his house. This also causes him to fret about what they could cook together.

Here's a wonderful moment as Doug flips through cookbooks for a recipe. Doug has taught porkchop how to use a stool, hold a glass, and turn on and off the water so he can get his own damn water when he's thirsty. Oh, and those cookbooks Doug is looking through?

Really fucking obsessed with cheese sandwiches. After looking through all four books and finding nothing, he asks Porkchop what to do. Surprisingly, Porkchop has a suggestion...

Of course. Go ask Mr. Dink. He'll have some cookbooks. Well, he does, but he spends the entire time showing Doug his very expensive automatic cooking machine that prepares whatever he wants. It's called Julia and talks like Julia Child. He asks the machine for a milkshake to demonstrate how awesome it is, but Julia points out he just had one and spits out a carrot for him instead. Doug takes the carrot and a cookbook and gets an idea.

He'll make a carrot cake with Patti. And that's when she shows up, apparently as soon as she finished with basketball practice.

She quickly demonstrates to Doug how useless she is as a cook. She just doesn't pay attention to what she's doing. First she pours the milk...

Then she pours too much flour...

Then Doug tells her to separate the eggs...

And finally she turns on the mixer before sticking it into the bowl, causing everything to go everywhere.

Shit, if she'd stop fucking around with that dirty basketball, she might be able to pay enough attention to do one thing right. Then something happens I don't know how to explain. Porkchop turns on the tv.

For no apparent reason, Porkchop walks into the kitchen and turns on the tv. Why doesn't he watch a tv in another room? Why doesn't he stay in the kitchen after he turns it on? Is Porkchop Doug's Tyler Durden and is this his way of making a move on Marla Singer? Whatever. Appropriately enough the tv stays on this loop of a man spinning some pizza dough exactly how Patti is spinning the basketball.

This is too obvious for even Doug to miss...

Of course. Just make a pizza. It combines Doug's love of cheese and bread with Patti's basketball skills.

The next day they make what looks like a standard pepperoni pizza. Patti continues spinning it after it has sauce and cheese on it. I don't know why.
Meanwhile, Beebe is barking orders at Skeeter, who passes out once their cake is in the oven. Roger (who was teamed up with Ms. Wingo) had 6 bananas for a pudding recipe that called for 8, and so he just subtracted two from everything. It turned into a goopy mess that Roger was going to throw away.
Doug and Patti pull their pizza out of the oven and as they're carrying it back to their work station, Roger is running with his failed pudding when his hat falls down into his face. There's no explanation for why Roger is suddenly running with his pudding, or why he doesn't just stop when his hat falls and covers his eyes. Roger is just too retarded. Anyway, he bumps into Doug and Patti and their pizza goes flying...

Fucking Roger. How can you even run with that horrible case of rickets?

Oh, it seems to be okay...

Fucked. Doug and Patti pick it up and leave the room defeated. But not before they put it down next to Head Astronaut Skeeter Valentine.

He comes running after them saying everyone loves the pizza they made.

Ms. Wingo asks them how they came up with something so original and delicious and Doug says "I guess you could say it was an accident." Roger gets no credit for his dumbass contribution.
And then Doug finishes up his journal entry with a snack.

He's just dipped a banana in a can of pizza sauce. This is hardly the same thing as what they made in class. Where's the bread, cheese and pepperoni? Where's the rest of the ingredients to the aborted banana pudding?
Like I said, this episode also ends with a fantasy. This time, Porkchop has caused a massive cooking disaster.


The fantasy at the beginning sort of makes sense after you know what happens. Doug has to save Patti from her terrible cooking. Very simple. He imagines he's some sort of knight. It doesn't make sense that in that fantasy, he fails and is over run by the mysterious blob from the oven. That's not how shit turned out in reality. He saved her and they got A's. This fantasy at the end is just weird and unwarranted. Is it a warning to everyone? Don't let your dog cook? It isn't framed up as a fantasy either. Are we supposed to take it as reality and the Funnie's house was totally ruined when Doug let the dog cook? Why can't Doug just write his stories in his journal without making up all this bullshit about an anthropomorphic dog getting glasses of water, impersonating neighbors, turning on tvs, and cooking shit? The more this type of thing appears in Doug's journal, the more inclined I am to believe that he believes it actually happened.
As for his relationship with Patti here, well...why didn't he take the opportunity to finally ask her out? He just helped her with the one thing she sucks at, and she said the two of them made a great team, and he was just like, "Yeah, we are." Wasted opportunity.