Episode 2: Doug's New School

This episode begins with a fantasy with Doug and Dr. Porkchoppy investigating the new school at midnight, and the situation is "spooky plus." Doug finds a footprint on the ground and immediately takes it for evidence that aliens are invading the school. Dr. Porkchoppy disagrees and demonstrates that it's his own footprint. After they walk away, an alien sneaks up behind them.

They start running down the halls of the school to get away from the aliens.

They run into a classroom full of Doug's usual classmates and he yells at them. They need to run away because of the invading aliens. They ignore him and continue working on their stacks of papers. When Doug asks why they aren't scared, Skeeter says aliens aren't as scary as homework. The aliens catch up and hear of this homework. They are terrified and run away. None of this makes sense. Is Doug really scared of an alien invasion taking over his school? Why are the students doing their homework in the school at midnight?

It's the day before the first day of school and the kids are still trying to find a hangout to replace the Honker Burger. So here's a restaurant that put too much money into the design of the building.

Also there's no way a place like this would last 3 months. Everything on the menu is some kind of corn. Even the shakes are some sort of corn, except for the frothy goat. Skeeter gets a frothy goat shake and says he's hooked. Doug, Patti and Connie get nothing. After they leave, everyone starts talking about the bullshit they've heard about middle school. Connie starts it by pointing out they'll be the youngest kids in school now. The older kids will treat them like servants. Doug has a fantasy. At lunch, Doug and Skeeter have picked up their usual whole chicken are are walking to wherever the school keeps the normal sized tables when a loud voice yells at Doug and demands his chicken. A large hand grabs Doug's chicken.

There's some loud slurping, chewing and snapping sounds heard, and the chicken skeleton is deposited back onto Doug's tray. Then the hand shoves a piece of paper into Doug's mouth and demands that he do the giant's homework.

Doug protests that he doesn't know quantum mechanics (holy fuck, what middle school kid does? (give the homework to Skeeter)) and suddenly he gets surrounded by the giants.

The loud voice of the older kid tells Doug to read the book, and then a car-sized physics book lands in front of Doug.

After this fantasy, Patti says she heard the new school is going to have a strict old-fashioned dress code. Doug has a fantasy of gym class, doing jumping jacks in clothes that would have been called old-fashioned over a hundred years ago.

After this quick fantasy, Skeeter says he heard they'll have to take tests where they don't give you the questions. Of course, Doug imagines this too.

Doug says, "umm, excuse me Mr. Trollski, but there are no questions on my paper." Mr. Trollski is an actual troll of course, and he just laughs at Doug.

"This is middle school! Not kindergarten! HAHAHAHAHA" Everyone has some pretty ridiculous ideas about middle school. There's aliens and trolls and absurd costumes that only Keira Knightley would love and tests without questions so what the fuck do you do with that? Connie seems just as worried as Doug.

The next day we find out that ex-Mayor Bob White is the principal of the new middle school.

The school isn't quite finished with construction. When Mr. Bluff and ex-Mayor White pull off the curtain to reveal the school, there are some construction workers playing poker on the roof. They quickly get back to work. Genius Skeeter asks, "are those our teachers?" Ex-Mayor White explains they're just putting the finishing touches on the school. Doug, noticing the sign that says, "GLUE SCHOOL NAME HERE," asks what the name of the school is. Ex-Mayor White and Mr. Bluff get nervous and chuckle and decide to make naming the school a contest on the fly. Willy White suggests calling it Bluffington School and Roger mocks him because that is the name of their old school.

Roger then asks what they'll win if their name is picked and Mr. Bluff says, "a big new shiny..."
"...place in the hearts of your fellow students!" Ex-Mayor white finishes for him. It's lame, but it gives Doug a fantasy.

There's a large crowd and they recite a pledge of allegiance to Doug.

In homeroom, Doug's trying to think of a name for the school when a fat girl we've never seen before walks up and says, "hi, Doug! I haven't seen you all summer!"

He says, "yeah, hi...good to see you" without looking up or even really acknowledging the girl. Everybody, meet the girl who's as obsessed with Doug as Doug is with Patti. I didn't include a picture of her because we'll probably never see her again. She clearly doesn't matter to Doug.  So finally, Doug's homeroom teacher enters and introduces herself as Ms. Crystal.

She starts reading Moby Dick and gets really into it.

Her performance only gives Doug terrible ideas for school names. "Moby School. Moby Dick School. Dick, Moby Middle School." Skeeter suggests "The School of Moist Learning" and Doug starts trying to shoehorn the word "moist" in the name, which I think a large majority of people would agree is a terrible word on its own. I think Skeeter was just making a dirty sex joke about his teacher that, even though she's wearing a fake beard and splashing water all over the class, is objectively more attractive than Ms. Wingo.

Doug's math teacher is Mr. Abbot. The man walks in and starts unpacking his briefcase while rambling about his name.

He quickly says he has to go and looks forward to meeting them all another time but he has an important meeting. He packs everything back into his briefcase and leaves. Roger says he likes a school where the teachers skip class. Then Mr. Abbot sticks his head back in the door and tells everyone to read chapters 1-20, and they'll have a test tomorrow. Doug suggests they call the school "Do-It-Yourself Middle School."

Doug's shop class teachers are Mr. Heaver and Mr. Heaver.

One is gentle and likes working with wood. The other yells and likes working with metal. They apparently love to argue about their differences. Doug has a fantasy where both of them help him make a sign for the new school name. There's Old Hickory School and Heavy Metal School.

I don't know why Doug insists on naming the school after any of the things happening in his individual classes. I also don't know why this school pays 2 people to teach the same class, especially considering how shitty the classes are going to be if they always end up arguing about wood vs. metal. It seems entirely possible that Doug is only imagining that this teacher is two people.

After shop class, Doug decides to let us know about one of the ways the school isn't finished. He goes into a bathroom and enters the first toilet stall.

Unfortunately, that particular stall leads to the auditorium.

So which part is Doug hallucinating? Did he walk into a bathroom and think there's an auditorium of students waiting to watch him take a shit, or did he walk through backstage at the auditorium thinking it was a bathroom and come out to the stage to do a little performance art for the crowd? Either way, he points out the problem to a construction worker that likely doesn't exist.

Next, a security van pulls up outside the school and two security guards escort a young baseball enthusiast into the school.

All the kids are staring out the window with great curiosity about the new student. Doug and Skeeter talk about if it could be "him." Hiding outside ex-Mayor White's office (they have no trouble finding the outside window of the principal's office at this school) they overhear him call the new student Mr. Beaumont. Yes, Skunky Beaumont finally makes an appearance.

Ex-Mayor White makes a big deal about how none of Skunky's shit will be tolerated at this school.

At lunch, Doug finally thinks of the perfect name for the school. Skeeter wants to hear it, but Patti's finally showed up and he wants to tell them both together. Before that though, he has to have a fantasy because he's only just realized he's really awesome at naming things.

There's a narrator that explains we're in the office of the "most famous namer of stuff." Doug walks down the line of people holding ridiculous shit that needs to be named. Patti is apparently his assistant and she's still just as excited about his brilliant names for pointless shit as everyone.

After the fantasy, Patti joins them and says she heard about the naming contest. Doug finally reveals his brilliant suggestion: Learning is Educational Middle School! Patti laughs her ass off.

In band class, the teacher takes a girl's piccolo, bends it, and gives her a trumpet. Why? Because look at this asshole.

He then tells her to do 20 pushups. He makes Willy White do 40 pushups because he's the principal's son. He yells at Skunky and says he's going to call him Skunky. Skunky thinks this is cool because that's his name, so he changes his mind and decides to call Skunky Walter. Walter does not have to do pushups. The teacher sees Skeeter and demands to know what instrument he's playing. Skeeter says it's a clarinet but he'd like to play a trumpet. The teacher is very pleased and makes Skeeter do 20 pushups because it's a nice day for pushups. He finally gets to Doug and, after making an obvious crack at his last name, he wants to know about Doug's instrument, which is of course the banjo. He yells, "whoever heard of a banjo in a marching band!?" He then has a fantasy about showing up his rival, the band director for Bloatsburg's middle school. Or Doug has the fantasy. I'm not sure.

This guy has an excellent traditional band with amazing uniforms, but Buffington has Doug Funnie playing the banjo! Everyone loves the banjo! Bloatsburg's marching band runs away in fear and shame while the director drops to his knees and weeps. After the fantasy, the band director calls Doug his secret weapon and demands more pushups.

After school, Doug says only a chocolate soda would make him feel better. Luckily, Mr. Swirly has recently opened a new soda shop in town. Doug starts complaining about Patti laughing about his name and defends the name as compact and self-contained. Skeeter points out that Patti just entered Swirly's.

Doug has a quick fantasy where Patti immediately apologizes for laughing at his obviously brilliant name.

In reality, she says, "Doug, after thinking about it, I guess you realize how lame your school name was."
"No need to apologize, Patti. HUH!?"
"Fortunately I came up with a real good one: Tomorrow's Adults Studying Today in the Future Yesterday Middle School."

Doug laughs and it pisses off Patti. To be fair, her name is at least as shitty as Doug's. Doug could at least play off the stupidity of his by saying he meant it to be subversive. At the Learning is Educational Middle School, we put the L.I.E. back in public education! Right? What has Patti got? There's no redeemable qualities to her terrible suggestion. Anyway, here's a picture of how well it went for Doug when he laughed at her suggestion.

The next day at the school name assembly/contest, Doug tries to apologize. Patti says he should drop it until he cools off. He was clearly going to apologize from the tone of his voice, but she just won't hear it and walks away.

So finally, we get to the naming contest. Chalky goes first and suggests Middle School #1! "That way we can always say, 'we're number 1!' YES!"

Skeeter has two ideas. The first is "Gallia Est Omnis Divisa in Partes Tres Middle School."

That's Latin and translates into "All of Gaul is Divided into Three Parts Middle School." Why is Skeeter making this reference? I guess he's taking Latin and took a page from Doug's "what's happening right now and how can I make a school name out of it" book and stuck with it. His other suggestion is Kool Skool.

Because this particular middle school is sponsored by a cigarette company.

Meanwhile backstage, Doug is showing off the shirt he made for his school name. He put the initials on the front. Patti finally asks him if he realizes "Learning is Educational" spells out "L.I.E." in the initials and asks what they'd cheer at games, "WIN ONE FOR THE BIG L.I.E.!"

Doug gets upset and says, "what do you care anyway? You don't even go to this school!" He storms off before he gets to see how upset that made her.

Roger's suggestion for the new school is Fat Jack's Jr. High. Ex-Mayor White says "thank you" immediately and Roger points out that it's because the school is built where Fat Jack's Trailer Park used to be. Also...

Rickets.

Next it's Connie's turn. She suggests they call it Turbo School Now. She wrote a school song to go with it.

So Connie is pretty awesome. If we can't have The Beets, I hope we can at least have Connie and her band writing songs like this.

Next up is Patti, and instead of seeing how poorly her stupid suggestion is received, Doug has a fantasy about how she'll soon see how he was right all along. At a game in a rather large stadium for a middle school, the crowd does that thing where a large section holds up signs to make one big picture. At first it just says "L.I.E." but then they flip over the cards and it's a picture of Doug giving the big thumbs up.

Then Patti says into a microphone, "Doug's right! LEARNING IS EDUCATIONAL!"

So finally it's Doug's turn. He goes out and states his case for repetitive redundancy in naming the new school name.

No one gives a shit. Doug's the last one to give a suggestion and ex-Mayor White thanks everyone for their suggestions and says it's time to vote. Mr. Bluff says it isn't time to vote. Since he built the school, he'll choose a name. He decides to name it Beebe Bluff Middle School, after his princess.

Guess who isn't annoyed by that. It's only one person, and that's Beebe Bluff. If you're paying attention, that makes this whole episode completely pointless. Mr. Bluff could have done that at the beginning when Doug first asked about the name. He wouldn't have had such a ridiculous argument with Patti. In the end, Doug and Patti make up and agree that if they had worked together, they probably would have come up with the perfect name. Doug asks if she wants to go to Swirly's for a shake, and then they have trouble finding their way out of the unfinished school, because some doorways lead to brick walls, while others lead to chalkboards. It doesn't make sense.

You know when you have friends that are a couple, and they'll often fight about really stupid shit and make your friendship with both of them awkward because you know they're both wrong and stupid? That's Doug and Patti. This is why they'd never last as a serious couple. I know they're just in middle school and they still need to grow up, but also, they're still in middle school and need to grow up. They won't be together anyway.

But seriously, Doug's delusions of grandeur are on full display in this episode. He thinks he's going to give this middle school such a great name that he'll actually make a career out of naming things. He thinks large crowds of people will forever praise his name for being the guy that came up with Learning is Educational Middle School. They will pledge allegiance to his name! Patti will see the error of her ways and finally love him as much as he loves her. On top of that, his bathroom/auditorium hallucination is rather troubling.