After Doug came to an end on Nickelodeon, Disney purchased the show along with the studio that made it claiming the rights on the show and deciding to air it on ABC which at the time they had also acquired. When fans found out about this they were outraged by this while I on the other hand was looking forward to this. I mean its Disney the same company that gave us so many timeless classics, shows and movies. Surely they can find some way to make Doug an interesting show right? Well not really.
There’s really not that much to say about this show as it mostly follows the concept of the original. Only this time Doug and friends are in high school now. A few other notable changes is the voice actors, Pattie getting a new character design, new school, a few new characters, and Roger becoming rich. Yeah Disney really did everything in their power to make sure everyone knew that this was there Doug and not Nickelodeon’s. Probably the biggest change was instead of having two separate stories they instead used all 22-24 minutes to tell one story. Some fans liked this change saying that it opened new doors and revealed more about the characters while others didn’t like it and said it destroyed the show for them. As far as characters they actually did manage to make the side characters a little more interesting like Connie became the school’s hottie after attending a beauty farm and she also has dreams of becoming a singer. Skeeter and Beebe are an on again off again couple and the Sleech call Skeeter the wise one because of his hidden intelligence. He’s also obsess with finding the monster of Lucky Duck Lake. Mr. Dink’s wife is now the mayor of the town and Doug gets a new little sister named Dirtbike. Yeah they added all these changes to characters but the one character they didn’t change was Doug who still remains bland and uninteresting in the show. He also comes across as more of a dork in this version of the show. So was this show better than the Nickelodeon version? Well in my honest opinion these shows are both bland and uninteresting but if I had to choose which one I like the most (and will get a lot of hate for this) I would have to say I liked the Disney version more. Say what you want about the series but give Disney credit they were trying to make the show interesting. They tried to give the show continuity and make the characters have more personality all while trying to stay true to the show’s original theme. Honestly. Did it work out as they hoped? No but at least they tried and that puts them a little higher on my list.