Episode 16: Doug's Hot Dog

"Bluffington was always a quiet, happy place. Then...the thing came to town."


The thing lands with an explosion. Nondescript townspeople flee from it, clutching their most cherished possessions for some reason. A man carries a tv. A woman carries a sheep. Another man carries a bowling trophy. Whatever the thing is, these people don't want it to get their meager possessions and farm animals.

More explosions and flashes of light reveal nothing of the nature of the thing. Sirens blare as the army rolls in on a tank. After some crushing sounds off screen, the battered tank rolls away defeated. Patti wails in her usual manner, "who can stop that thing!?" It's time for Doug to step up.

Doug says this is all his fault. He started it and now he has to face it. No one disagrees with him. Except me, I guess. I mean, if it started when something fell out of the sky and started destroying everything War of the Worlds-style, I don't understand how Doug could possibly think he started it.

In reality, nothing falls from the sky. Doug and Skeeter are just having a nice day riding bikes. Doug suggests they go home because the sun is going down. Skeeter says they don't need to go home because he has plenty of reflective tape. He then uses the whole roll on himself and I guess if a car swerves to avoid a bright Skeeter and plows into Doug, everything will be okay.

Meanwhile Al and Moo are using a telescope to look for aliens. Because Skeeter is glowing green, they mistake him for an alien. This suggests they need to aim their telescope higher. However, according to their data, a UFO will be landing tonight, right where they are standing. This suggests they need to move over a few feet at least.

Skeeter looks at their calculations for a second and tells them they forgot to carry a two. Skeeter works out their calculations correctly and says the UFO will land next week. He then argues with Al and Moo over the exact spot. This suggests that the three of them are actually really stupid. Doug leaves.

On the way home, a cute dog with a red ball starts following Doug. He ignores it until it jumps in front of his bike, forcing him to stop.

The dog makes him throw the red ball. After throwing it, he quickly gets back on his bike and starts riding. Well that's the end of tha...nope. Two seconds later the dog barks and Doug looks and the dog now has a basketball. What the fuck? He starts to ask the dog where it got the basketball but the basketball's owners have already spotted him.

They yell at him, telling him he has to control his dog. He protests that it's not his dog, then tells the dog to go away. He starts riding away and seconds later the dog comes hopping along beside him with a fucking pizza.

The pizza delivery guy is pissed. He demands that Doug tell his dog to give back the pizza. After an impossible tug-of-war with the pizza, the dog lets go and the delivery guy falls back and slams the pizza into his chest. He grabs an empty box from his car and puts the pizza back where it belongs.

After the pizza guy drives away, Doug tells the dog to go home. The dog starts to walk away looking sad, but then Doug realizes it's just lost. He accepts the dog and says, "don't worry. You're not lost anymore. Now you're found!" So he takes the stupid dog home. The good news is that it's pizza night at the Funnie house.

Phil says it tastes fuzzy. Only a Funnie would say that about a food they intended to continue eating. Judy is the first to notice the dog. She thinks it's adorable. While the whole family starts fawning over the dog, Doug says he's not like Porkchop. He's more like a real dog. Porkchop, who couldn't be bothered to look at the dog lest his salad goes unmade, takes offense.

Theda points out that having a dog is a lot of responsibility, which I guess indicates she agrees that Porkchop is not like a real dog. Doug points out it's only until he finds the dog's owners. Judy asks, "what if nobody claims it?" This makes Porkchop very upset.

Upstairs, Doug decides to make some found puppy posters. Porkchop is eager to get this shit over with, and quickly retrieves a piece of paper that already has all the information written on it. Then he takes a picture of the dog and shows it to Doug and the dog for approval.

The dog does not approve. Doug doesn't care. Porkchop slaps the photo on the paper and the poster is finished. Doug puts the one poster up the next day. He says he only put one up because he didn't want to over-do it. Obviously he just wants to keep the dog at the moment. Porkchop is starting to get really pissed.

Later, the whole family is again fawning over the shitty dog. Porkchop hops up to the piano and starts playing.

The family ignores him while the shitty dog burps. The family loves that the shitty dog burps.

While feeding the shitty dog, Porkchop tries to get some attention by acting more like a dog. Doug tells him to stop acting silly.

For some reason, the Funnies invited the Bluff family over for dinner. Phil expresses his excitement for the occasion. Mr. Bluff points out that they "were curious what the simple folk do." Everyone ignores this insult. Theda makes it less of an insult by serving up portions of the main course, which is of course "weenie casserole au Mexi-Cali."

Beebe, perhaps because she's not very smart, asks, "this isn't French, is it?" Phil says it isn't, but the fries are. No one is amused.

Under the table, Porkchop notices the shitty dog is about to attack Beebe. He leaps but the shitty dog leaps too.

Then Porkchop leaps again and pushes the shitty dog out of the way. Somehow no one noticed the shitty dog and Porkchop takes all the blame. It makes no sense. Porkchop points at the shitty dog, indicating it was the culprit.

No one believes him and Doug puts him outside. Back inside everyone is again fawning over the shitty dog. It burps again and everyone thinks it is cute. Porkchop is fucking pissed.

Meanwhile, there's more B-plot with Al and Moo and the search for extra-terrestrial life. Also, one of them is in love with Judy. None of this pans out for them.

Finally, the shitty dog starts to be a problem for Doug. First, as he's leaving to go see a movie with Skeeter, Theda asks if he's walked the dog. Second, as he's watching tv and eating cake, Judy tells him about the shitty dog using the bathroom on the floor of the kitchen.

After school, Patti invites him to play beetball. Excited, he quickly remembers he has to go home to feed the puppy.

Judy wakes Doug up early to walk the dog. Also, rain.

The shitty dog just wants to play in the rain. Then there's this.

The dog, as indicated from the first time Doug met it, is just an asshole.

Mr. Dink sees how stressed Doug is and offers his advice. Unfortunately, his advice only applies to robotic dogs.

After a short scene where Porkchop watches a commercial advertising puppies (seriously), the shitty dog commits its latest atrocity.

It has destroyed a Shakespeare book Judy borrowed special from a museum. Why did she borrow it from a museum? Doesn't she already have the complete works of her favorite playwright? Why did she leave this special book anywhere that it could possibly be damaged by anything? These questions are not answered.

After Doug finally makes countless found puppy posters (by hand (because Doug is apparently not aware that humans have had the technology to make copies for centuries)), he tries to pass the dog off onto Patti.

This is among the worst ideas he's ever had. I know he's stressed. I know he's desperate to be rid of the shitty dog. I know Patti thought the dog was cute. But I also know Doug is in love with Patti and he knows the shitty dog is an asshole. When Patti said she wished she had a dog like this at home, he should have told her what a shitty little asshole it is. Instead, he just gives her the dog. And how does that work out?

The shitty dog either ate or buried all of her sports equipment. Up next is Chalky. Chalky thinks the dog is cute, so Doug passes him off without a word. The shitty dog spends the whole night howling at the moon, keeping Chalky awake all night. He falls asleep during his football game the next day. Ned takes the dog next and the dog destroys his garage.

"Before long, I had run out of volunteers."

After this there's a lot of B-plot with Al, Moo, and Skeeter sending images into space. After sending a map of Bluffington, they argue about what else to send. One wants to send a poster of Hamlet featuring Judy (portraying Hamlet for some reason), one wants to send photos from their vacation and their math joke book, and one wants to send a copy of Man O Steel Man. The one pining for Judy comes to his senses and they laugh at Skeeter for his love of comics.

Doug continues complaining to himself about the shitty dog. Judy has an idea though. She knows two weird guys that might like a weird dog. Doug thinks it's hopeless and she thinks it couldn't hurt to ask. So here she is asking.

Actually, they won't let her ask. The one in love with her does that thing people in tv shows do where they think the person they are infatuated with felt the same way, so they make a big deal out of ending the whole nothing.

And now for something strange. Doug, walking home from who knows where, notices a bunch of torn up pages from Man 'O Steel Man comics after a page hits him in the face. The pages are clearly flying out of his front door, but he's still just like, "man, someone will be sorry they tore this up."

Finally, once he's inside his house and he's picked up several pages, he realizes it's got to be his collection. Of course the shitty dog has torn them up, and apparently created a nice wind current that carried them down the stairs and out the open front door. Bluffington is such a nice, crime-free town, you don't even have to close your front door.

Finally, Doug does the smartest thing he's done the entire episode. He abandons the dog where he found it.

Unfortunately, he has, I don't know, a conscience, and as he's cleaning up his comic book collection, he realizes what he's done because of this fantastic fantasy where he watches the shitty dog ride some sort of river trash or ice or something over a waterfall.

Downstairs, Doug asks Porkchop for help finding the dog. Initially excited to get any attention from Doug, Porkchop sits down and resumes his tv watching. Doug finally realizes he's been mean to Porkchop too.

And what show about a crazy young man would be complete without the crazy young man being comforted and reassured by his dog?

So Porkchop decides to help a depressed Doug find a dog they both hate.

Meanwhile, Al and Moo continue their search for extra-terrestrial life in the park. They're dressed in some sort of suits that wouldn't protect them from anything.

In the grips of insanity, Mr. Bluff has purchased a blimp and at the moment, he is demanding that the pilot use the blimp's lasers to spell his name in the sky. The pilot says it's not quite ready. Mr. Bluff doesn't care. When the lasers are activated, they malfunction and shoot at the ground. Al and Moo see the lasers, assume it is aliens, and are greeted by the shittiest coincidence. The dog walks over the hill from where they saw the lasers hit.

So here's your fucking alien. Doug sees them talking to the local news. He starts to go tell them it's just a dog, but Porkchop stops him. Good job, Porkchop.

So, I get where Doug is coming from with his first fantasy now. Sure, the dog didn't literally fall out of the sky. It was abandoned by someone like Doug. With good reason. But he did pass it off on several people and it fucked up a lot of shit in the short week it was getting passed around. It's entirely his fault that everyone else runs away from the dog. I just wish we got to see the next day or two at the Sleech house. Because the first day or two and the Funnie house was wonderful. Everyone loved that dog (except Porkchop). Not enough to give it a name, but enough to forget they already had a dog. They vow to take care of the alien until the UFO comes back for it, but unless that happens the next day (it won't (Mr. Bluff fired the blimp pilot)) they are going to abandon the dog in a week.