Episode 36, Part 1: Doug Inc.

Doug is watching a show on tv about the Sidewalk Surfer. It's a show about a guy on a skateboard being chased by a guy in a van. I suppose the van is having transmission problems, because he can't seem to catch the Sidewalk Surfer. Lucky for him, the Sidewalk Surfer sidewalk surfs off a cliff because the bridge is out.

The show freezes here and a voiceover does that "will the Sidewalk Surfer survive? Find out after these commercial messages" thing that should be brought back into certain tv shows. Maybe the Sidewalk Surfer won't survive. I don't know. This show might not even be about him. It could be about the guy in the van trying to kill him. We'll never know.

Anyway, the first commercial is for that skateboard the Sidewalk Surfer is riding and Doug wants it more than anything in the whole world. Even Porkchop wants it, and as the commercial helpfully points out...

So it's done then. Doug and Porkchop will get Smash O skateboards, say things like "gnarly" and be sidewalk surfers. The commercial ends by telling you the phone number you need to call to order one. Porkchop grabs the phone and dials the number for Doug. After hearing the price, Doug informs the nice person on the other end of the line that he only wants one skateboard. Unfortunately, the price quoted was for one skateboard. Doug's out of luck here. First he tries begging.

Phil says they can't just give him that much money and Theda tells him to just keep saving his money.

Porkchop, acting as Doug's accountant, crunches the numbers, and at Doug's current rate of allowance, he'll have saved up enough money after 20 years. I don't know if this really is the most unreasonably expensive skateboard ever, or Doug's allowance really is that low, or if the dog's accounting is that shitty. I'm inclined to believe that Porkchop is perhaps not the best accountant.

Next door, Mr. Dink is mowing his lawn with his new, coffee-powered mower. He mocks Doug for doing it the old fashioned way, and then his mower falls apart because it's a mower that runs on coffee.  He asks Doug to finish mowing his lawn and pays him for it.

Probably just knocked a year off Porkchop's numbers.

Obviously, Doug realizes he can make more money by mowing more lawns. He mows some woman's lawn and has a fantasy about having the skateboard. He's skating and flying around the mall on his new skateboard.

He zipped past the flower shop, stealing some flowers for the girls. He flies around the mall a little more, attracting a crowd and wooing Patti, before flying out the door. It seems like the end of the fantasy, but then it just keeps going. He speeds past a couple of bikers before speeding past these guys...

He rolls across the finish line way before the people driving racecars. Then an airplane is taking off. Doug catches up and hits a ramp.

Take that, Wright Brothers!

After the fantasy, Doug goes to the bank thinking he could put the money he has in the bank where it could earn a lot of interest. While he's realizing that idea would take way too long, Beebe's dad comes out of the bank.

Realizing that Mr. Bluff is a successful businessman, Doug asks him for some free advice. Mr. Bluff tells him about his first business making bumper stickers by himself. He quickly realized that he was rich and then just hired some suckers to make the stickers for him. Doug gets the point and hires Skeeter.

Of course. Together they find and hire Al and Moo, who are running a failing roadside lemonade stand.

They all get to work and Doug starts collecting the money. He's getting so close he can see it...

That cloud pops pretty quickly though...

How did he forget this part? Porkchop demands to be payed too. He's left with very little money after paying his employees and decides he needs to find a way to make money faster.

It's good that he has that book. The book tells him to expand his market. Simple enough. Doug explains to the guys that they need to get more customers. They go to the mall to hand out business cards.

Now how much did those cards cost Doug? I understand that sometimes you have to spend money to make money, but how can you expect to make any money when your business cards don't have contact information on them? Oh, Doug...

It does work though, of course. They get more customers and the money just piles up. Doug keeps it in a small chest, and that quickly overflows and he has trouble shutting it. He tells the guys they're doing good, and then has a fantasy about the business continuing to expand at the current rate.

I like that Doug plans to change the name so it keeps track of how many guys work for the company. This company and its 2500 employees now have clients all around the world. Skeeter has to take the jet to take care of the raja and the emperor. They are the best landscapers in the world. Beebe is Doug's secretary. The fantasy ends with him trying to figure out what he should ride to lunch.

When did Doug become so obsessed with skateboards?

After the fantasy, Phil asks them if they want to go to the park to play a little baseball, but Doug says they have to work. The guys are very disappointed. They get the work finished, but the guys are clearly less enthusiastic about the whole thing. Doug becomes more single-minded, thinking only about work.

The next day, Doug has a new plan.

The plan can best be described as gibberish. The guys are completely confused by Doug's scribbles and nonsense direction. They get started and it's a terrible disaster. Skeeter starts off mowing the lawn Moo is supposed to be mowing, as if it matters, and Doug tells him to mow this other lawn. He tells Moo to go left. He tells Porkchop to bag some grass. He does all this while standing in the middle of the road with a megaphone.

Doug is a shitty boss and a road hazard. The whole situation gets worse until they all run straight at Doug.

How did this happen?

At the end of the day, he pays them and they pass out on the lawn while Doug tells them he's going to draw work maps for them for tomorrow. Al or Moo says that he thinks Doug has been replaced by an evil alien clone and Skeeter wishes they could just have the old Doug back. That gives Porkchop an idea.

Apparently at Porkchop's suggestion, they have unionized and this is how they plan to get the old Doug back. I like Porkchop's sign the most. No bones? Yeah, that'll show Doug.

Before Doug saw the protest, he figured out they just need to mow 7 more lawns for him to get the skateboard. He was coming out of the garage to tell them when he discovered that his friends think he's a slave-driver. Doug decides to do the work himself. And he does get the work done. Finally, he has all the money he needs and he goes to the mall to get the skateboard. But looking through the window at the skateboard, it doesn't feel right. He's not happy.

I wouldn't be happy if I was being chased by clouds reminding me that I'd been a dick to my friends either. Mr. Bluff walks by calling him Dirk and asking about the business. Doug asks what he would do if his friends worked for him and went on strike because they were mad at him. Mr. Bluff tells him to dump them. "You can always get new friends but a good business is hard to come by." Instead of asking, "yeah, but what should I, a human being, do?" Doug says that he likes the friends he's got. Mr. Bluff expands his point a little, saying that people are either your friends or your employees. That makes more sense to Doug and he shoves his money back into his pocket.

Back at home, Doug has called a company meeting. Skeeter tries to explain about the strike but Doug says he doesn't want an explanation. He finally reached his goal yesterday, and he wants to show them what he bought. Al or Moo says he doesn't want to see the stupid skateboard. Shut your face, Al or Moo!

Those are tickets to Funky Town. And hats. Yes, Funky Town!

This is what Doug spent his money on. So it was either a skateboard or 4 tickets to Funky Town, a theme park 13 years past its expiration date when this episode aired.

I can only assume Funky Town tickets are so expensive because of all the blow the owner and employees must still be doing. I never considered Lipps Inc.'s request to be taken to Funky Town as being terribly unreasonable. I was wrong.

And so that is how Doug didn't get the skateboard he wanted more than anything in the whole world. It's nice that he learned a lesson about treating his friends right, but maybe if he'd learned a lesson about patience, he could have had fun with his friends and bought the skateboard. It was because he became so impatient and obsessed that he became such a dick in the first place. If he had just taken his time and had fun with his friends, he would not have felt so guilty when he finally made enough money.

I was really hoping this whole situation would end with the IRS auditing Doug. In the end, he just didn't have to pay taxes, and we never found out what happened to the Sidewalk Surfer. I like to think that he plummeted to his death.

Episode 35, Part 2: Doug and the Little Liar

It's a new day in Bluffington, and there's a new student at school. A girl. Skeeter tells Doug he should go introduce himself and when Doug is hesitant, he calls him a chicken and starts clucking. Not to be outdone, Doug asks him why he doesn't introduce himself first, then calls him chicken and starts clucking. So like many 11 year old kids, Doug and Skeeter are clucking like chickens at each other. Finally, Skeeter says he'll go talk to her if Doug does.

They walk over and Doug does all the smooth talking. First, he introduces himself as Fun Dougie. He corrects himself and the girl introduces herself as...Loretta LaQuiggly? I guess it's LaQuiggly. She asks Doug about his last name. She wants to know what country his family is from. After he says "here, I guess" he asks where her family is from and she says they are originally from Yakostonia. She goes on to say that her family goes to her famous aunt's estate to go skiing every year. Her aunt is Marlene LaFlamme, famous actor.

She keeps talking about skiing and private jets until she finally asks about Skeeter. Doug introduces him and she spits some gibberish at him. She clarifies that the gibberish was actually Yakostonesian for "pleased to meet you." She talks about Yakostonesian a bit, how much she speaks the language, how wonderful it is, and then leaves. Skeeter didn't say a word. His response...

So Skeeter finally has his own Patti Mayonnaise. Good? While Doug is trying to wake Skeeter from his stupor, Fentruck walks up.

Fentruck inquires about Skeeter's condition and says he knows an old Yakostonesian folk remedy for this. He directs Doug to hold his nose.

Terrifying. Skeeter's head deflates almost immediately, with hearts and smoke flying out of his ears, but it's hard to say he's better off.

Skeeter comes to his senses, speaking Yakostonesian and unaware that Loretta has been gone for a few minutes. He doesn't thank Fentruck for the quick fix (I wouldn't). He just says, "Hey, Doug! Isn't Loretta the greatest? Well, see ya in class! *honk honk*"

Naturally curious about such a strange occurrence, Fentruck asks Doug what happened. Doug says, "Loretta LaQuiggly happened to him." Fentruck says that he has also met her, and then calls her "the girl that pretends to speak Yakostonesian." Apparently she only knows a few basic phrases of the language. Fentruck would know, being Yakostonesian.

This makes Doug ask himself if Loretta had been lying, and we get our first fantasy. Doug is a private investigator.

In his office, he's casually interrogating her. He asks about the time she's spent in Yakostonia, and her grasp of the language. After she says she knows the language, he speaks a sentence in Yakostonesian. She says, "yes, I'd love to."

"Oh, now that's funny. You just agreed that you drink transmission fluid."

Her response to that is that she didn't understand his accent and thought he was asking her to dinner. He gets to the accusation, saying, "Fentruck says you don't speak Yakostonesian for beans!" Then he reveals the strangest, most awesome thing ever. Fentruck's job/hiding place within the fantasy.

Apparently he's some sort of bartender in Doug's office, and the bar is a tiny, crotch-level cabinet behind his desk. If I ever get the chance to make a detective movie, I'm stealing this idea.

Anyway, she calls Fentruck a jealous liar and Doug asks why he should believe anything she says. "Because I'd never even think of lying to someone as strong and handsome as you. And besides, your best friend's nuts about me."

After the fantasy, Doug says, "the more Loretta talkes, the more I suspected it was all lies." While they're walking, she's telling them about how her father is a horse farmer, a novelist, and a professional surfer. Doug is skeptical, of course, because how could anyone possibly do three things?
They walk to the movie theater and she asks them if they want to see her aunt's latest movie.

She gets to the box office where she realizes she forgot her purse. Skeeter quickly offers to buy her ticket and Doug sees exactly where this is going. He has a fantasy, laying it all out.

Loretta decides she likes what that woman is selling. She calls Skeeter over, saying, "I really love these."

"What? The skis?"
"No, silly. THESE MOUNTAINS!"

And so she convinces Skeeter to buy some mountains for her. Grade A fantasy.

At home, Doug is pacing, thinking about a way to stop Loretta from taking advantage of Skeeter. Mr. Dink calls out to him, because it's time for nothing useful from the creepy, weird neighbor. He just wants to show off his latest purchase.

When you lie, two horns pop out and a robotic voice repeats, "LYING!" Very expensive.

Mr. Dink notices Doug is looking a little down and asks if he wants to talk about it. Pointlessly, Doug does that vague "lets say you have a friend" thing that only happens in tv and movies, and Mr. Dink thinks Doug has found out about his great lie.

"Oh Douglas! I'm sorry! I lied about being captain of my high school football team! I was just the equipment manager!"

Doug quickly forgives him, but gets an idea. We go back to the detective fantasy. Doug and Skeeter have walked Loretta home, to her mansion.

Doug insists on opening the door for her, but when he pulls on the knob, it appears to be rubber. He keeps pulling until the handle breaks free and the inflatable castle takes off.

The inflatable mansion flies away, deflating, revealing Loretta's stash of electronics, jewelry, fur coats, and other things that could be sold to purchase a real house.

She breaks down and admits that she's a con artist. She says, "I make boys fall in love with me then take them for all they've got!" Well done, Doug Funnie, P.I., but who hired you? Seriously.

After the fantasy, Doug decides to put this plan into action on Monday. I guess he has better things to do this weekend, and Skeeter's wallet can handle a few days of gold-digging.

Except Skeeter calls right after he makes up his mind to say he's going on a ski trip with Loretta. He's calling from the store where he's about to spend all his money of clothes for her, based on the promise that her aunt will pay him back.

Doug jumps into action. He rides his bike to the mall as fast as he can and stops Skeeter as he's walking up to the cash register.

They're both surprised to see Doug. He says he knows she's been lying. He says Fentruck told him that she doesn't really speak Yakostonesian. A little embarrassed, she admits that she only knows a few common phrases. Skeeter asks why she would lie about something dumb like that and she says she wanted him to think she was cool. He says he thinks she's cool anyway, so it's no problem. Then Skeeter says he better pay for those clothes before Aunt Marlene gets there, and while Doug is trying to explain that there is no Aunt Marlene, guess who shows up.

Aunt Marlene. Skeeter pays for the clothes (for some reason, Marlene doesn't just pay for them herself. She's apparently going to pay him back anyway, right?) and they get in the private jet and go have fun skiing.

At home, Doug writes in his journal about how he learned you shouldn't judge someone too quickly. "Even if they don't speak Yakostonesian, they still might be speaking the truth about everything else."

Then he promises to Porkchop...

...that he'll never judge anybody again.

"LYING! LYING! LYING! LYING!"

The fantasies are great in this episode. In the first one, Loretta is sort of hitting on Doug, implying he wishes she was attracted to him. He also wants her to drink transmission fluid. The second one is all about what a gold-digger bitch she is, based on the simple fact that Skeeter had to buy her a movie ticket. And the third one is all about winning his friend back. This episode is Doug putting "misery loves company" into practice. He's clearly jealous. Skeeter found his Patti Mayonnaise crush, and instead of sitting on it and developing an anxiety disorder, he's going on a ski trip to another country with his crush within a week. What has Doug done with Patti? He made her a failed towel rack and destroyed her old house. Doug apparently learned a lesson about judging people, but completely missed the lesson Skeeter gave him about taking action. Skeeter don't fuck around.

Episode 35, Part 1: Doug's Hot Property

This is Sully's Comic & Book Nook. Right now, Doug is inside negotiating a trade. He's trying to give Sully 3 Brainwave Womans, 4 Human Cyclones, and 1 Yo-yo Girl for a copy of The Amazing Man O Steel Man #45. Sully is not convinced. This comic is the last issue drawn by the original creator, Darby Blue. Doug throws in the first 5 issues of The Lumpy Squad. Deal.

While celebrating this amazing deal, Skeeter tells Sully that Doug has the entire Man O Steel Man series. Doug points out that he doesn't have #1 and Sully figures this is the best moment to show his dick to these children.

This cover is not as cool as Action Comics #1.

Sully was storing this comic in a drawer under the desk saying it just came in. Doug asks how much it costs and Sully says it's not for sale. It took him 10 years to find that copy. It's his! He does let Doug hold it for a bit before he puts it on a special shelf behind the counter to prove that he has the biggest nerd dick of all the comic shop owners in Bluffington. All the children will be in to see Sully's priceless nerd dick.

Later, Doug is distracting Skeeter from his badass arcade game by lamenting the idea of collecting comics. What's the point of collecting them if you can't get the first one? Doug points out that there are only 75 copies in the whole world.

Some guy in the arcade overhears him talking about comics and offers to sell him some. Doug and Skeeter follow him outside to his car, because they have shitty parents that never told them they shouldn't do that.

At first Doug is unimpressed with the comics he sees, even though you can see that some of them are the same ones he just traded to Sully. You can see The Lumpy Squad right there on top. But digging around, he finds a copy of The Amazing Man O Steel Man #1 and almost loses his shit.

Doug thinks they might not realize what they have and decides to see if he can lowball them. He has to keep elbowing Skeeter because he keeps trying to point out how expensive and rare that comic is. The guys think the comic might be worth something since it's wrapped in plastic but Doug says it's not even in mint condition. He says there are "thumb marks on the edges of the pages, and a rolled spine, and look at that tear right there." Being the savvy businessmen they are, the guys ask Doug how much he'll pay for it. Doug grabs all the money in his pocket, which looks like a ten, a couple of ones, and some change, and they take the deal.

At home, Doug puts the comic with his collection and has a fantasy.

Looks very inappropriate, but he's just holding Doug up while he's flying.

Man O Steel Man takes him to meet the other superheroes.

That's Yo-yo Girl, the Human Cyclone, and Brainwave Woman. They are all very impressed with Doug's ability to collect comics. Brainwave Woman interrupts the celebration to say that she has detected a massive disturbance. She uses her powers to show them shots of people on the street as their clothes disappear. Man O Steel Man says it could only be the work of one man and Doug says it must be Dr. Master Snatcher, first introduced in issue #45. Now they are all really impressed with Doug's knowledge. Finally they have a friend that can answer those really tough questions on trivia night! In fact, Man O Steel Man uses one of his powers to turn Doug into a superhero.


He is now Comic Collector Boy.

After the fantasy, Doug is walking with Skeeter to Sully's, talking about how he can't wait to tell him how he got the comic. Unfortunately, Sully's is closed. Looking through the door window, Doug notices that Sully's copy of #1 is gone. He says, "no way it could be the same one, Skeeter." They reason that stuff like this happens all the time. While Doug is saying they still don't know anything out of the ordinary happened, Porkchop interrupts with the newspaper.

Who didn't see that coming? Doug immediately goes back to his fantasy where he's Comic Collector Boy, flying with his new team to stop the evil Dr. Master Snatcher.

Poor Human Cyclone has to fly by windmilling his arms constantly.

They fly down to Sully's comic shop and notice all their comics have been stolen. This makes all the superheroes, except for Comic Collector Boy, very weak.

They point out that if Dr. Master Snatcher has every comic book in the galaxy, he'll have control of their super powers. It doesn't make a lot of sense...

After the fantasy, Doug and Skeeter go back to the mall to try to find the guys that sold them the comic. Skeeter can't remember what they looked like, and Doug gives him a vague description that could be applied to literally everyone around them.


"The store stayed closed for over a week. I knew that if I could only talk to Mr. Sully, he'd tell me my issue #1 wasn't a stolen one. That it was just some...crazy coincidence."

Doug sees Sully walking towards the store and runs off, because he apparently doesn't actually want to talk to him about it. He reasons that, even if it was the stolen one, he bought it fair and square. It was pretty fair and square if you overlook the fact that he lowballed the shit out of those idiots to buy stolen property. He finally decides to ask his dad what to do.

"Um, there's this kid, right? And he's got a hold of this...this thing, right? And later this kid finds out that this thing that he's wanted for so long, may be a bad thing. Well, it's a good thing. It's really great. But it may be bad..."
"Uhhh huh..."
"And whatever that thing is, he didn't do the bad thing. Somebody else did."
"Which thing are we talking about?"
"Well, the most important thing in the whole world! And he bought it fair and square."
"Well, if it's fair and square..."
"You mean he should keep it?"
"Well, if it's fair and square..."

It's honestly hard to tell if Phil is actually agreeing with Doug here or if he intended to have some dumbass rhyming lesson about how Doug wouldn't be worried about it if it really was fair and square. It does seem like Doug cuts him off at the end. Maybe if Phil actually got the whole story and not the vague, barely applicable version Doug fed him, it would be clearer what he thought on the subject. It's hard to believe he'd actually be helpful though.

Excited, Doug runs off with Skeeter, who is also impressed that Phil gave him permission to keep it. They notice that Sully's store is open again and there's a line to get in. New signs on the door indicate that they are now only allowing one kid under the age of 18 in at a time. They get in line.
Doug finally gets his chance and to add to the absurdity of his one kid policy, he's added two security guards at the door and watches Doug from a monitor.You can see it in this picture...

Doug apologizes about the robbery and Sully grunts. Doug asks him if Man O Steel Man #1 got stolen too. Sully turns to him and says, "they all got lifted. Now either buy something or leave, so the next greedy kid can come in a snoop around!" Doug is shocked and returns to the fantasy.

The superheroes are fading. Without the comics, they have no history. Without a history, they don't exist. Yo-yo Girl points out that Comic Collector Boy isn't fading like them. Man O Steel Man says that it's because he has issue #1. Comic Collector Boy protests that he bought it fair and square, and Man O Steel Man says, "we know! Goodbye, Comic Collector Boy." Then they all fade out of existence, as you can see Brainwave Woman above.

After the fantasy, Doug gives Sully the comic and says he's not the one that stole it. Sully tells his security guards, Eric and Norman, to get rid of the signs. Because he's so happy to have #1 back, Sully lets all the kids into the store and gives them complimentary copies of the latest issue of The Lumpy Squad. I wish I had been there that day.

That's the end. There's a fantasy where Comic Collector Boy is just Doug and he's sharing his comics with the superheroes. He doesn't go to the police with information about the guys that sold him the comic. He never bothers to find out if his dad meant to give him good advice. At this point, you have to believe that Doug thinks his father is shitty. Whether Phil meant to give him good advice before Doug interrupted him and took off is irrelevant. Doug took what he thought his father was saying and saw that it was wrong. To him, his dad was wrong and it was making a nice old man into a miserable cunt.

What's wrong with the police in Bluffington? They can't catch those two idiot thieves? They were selling the comics out of the trunk of their car at the mall in broad daylight right after the robbery happened. And they were approaching young boys in the mall to lure them outside to sell the comics. Pathetic.