Do Doug Funnie and Patti Mayonnaise end up together?
Tell me if you’ve ever had this experience: you are sitting at your computer ready to work when all of a sudden Twitter is checked, and you see something on your feed that averts your attention for the next half an hour.
Of course you have. I have too.
Just the other day, I was researching articles for a middle school project on mythology when an article popped up in my feed with a picture of original Nickelodeon cartoons from my youth (otherwise known as “Nicktoons”). It was in this moment that my nostalgia took over, and I was compelled to click on it. The article attached explored the original Nicktoons and their potential returns.
As I was reading this article, which was really a press release about Nickelodeon’s potential reboot of Rocko’s Modern Life (another early Nicktoon), old memories of other shows like Rugrats, Ren & Stimpy, and Hey, Arnold! conjured in my mind. It wasn’t long before my thoughts shifted to Doug, my personal favorite of the Nicktoons.
Doug was a show about an adolescent boy, who often day-dreamed about being a spy, a superhero, a Rockstar; and in real life, pined for Patti Mayonnaise, his ultimate crush. At the time of its original run, series creator Jim Jinkins created Doug to reflect where he saw most kids of the time were at. “Doug is not a powerful character. He is more where I feel that kids are today. They are soft spoken and bewildered. But they often make the right decisions. What we tried to get across was that you should feel good about yourself and not give into peer pressure. The underlying foundation was that doing the right thing will pay off.”
I think I gravitated towards Doug as a kid because I saw a lot of myself in him. I was a daydreamer who wasn’t comfortable in my own skin, but I, like others, had a sense of right and wrong. As much as I would have liked to have been a “cooler” kid, I was not. When Doug succeeded in life or in love, it gave me a little bit of hope.
I began to wonder this: What happened to Doug Funnie after he grew up? What did he struggle with? What kind of person did he become? Is he still like me? I began to go down a Doug rabbit hole. While I usually try to stick to academic journals found in databases for my inquiry searches, the answer to my question surfaced in a press release from Entertainment Magazine tiled “Nicktoons Bombshell: Do Doug and Patti end up together?” Instantly, my inquiry search had its main question: Do Doug Funnie and Patti Mayonnaise end up together?
In 2016, Entertainment Weekly was running, what they called, Nicktoons Week. EW reached out to Mr. Jinkins to talk about the feasibility of the show’s return, and instead of a clear answer, Jim Jinkins dropped a bombshell: he told us, in so many words, the answer to my inquiry question. “The story of Doug has always been synonymous with Jinkins, who conceived of the character in the early 80s as a cartoon alter ego. Many of the show’s storylines came from Jenkins own life.” It’s this same autobiographical context that has fueled Jinkins potential follow up to the Doug series. It’s answer lies in what happened when Jim Jinkins had a surprise reconnection with the real Patti Mayonnaise, the apple of both Doug and Jinkins’s eye.
In the article, Jinkins recounts a moment shortly following a ten-year high school reunion that he did not go to. Jinkins states, “It’s my ten-year reunion, and I didn’t go. I was in New York working…as a freelancer…just trying to make it there. And I got a phone call…and it’s Patti. The real Patti. And my heart’s beating fast.” The two end up talking on the phone, catching up, and Jinkins finds out that they actually live across Central Park from each other.
The real Patti ends up inviting Jinkins over for dinner, and on his walk over, he starts to realize that he’s basically in an episode of Doug. Jinkins goes on to say, “So now we’re in a Doug show. I’m like, what do I wear? What will she look like!? All that’s happening as I’m walking across Central Park to her apartment, just wondering and just hoping.” It’s here where you can see how Jinkins uses real life events to springboard into his writing.
He eventually gets to the door, gets buzzed up, and anxiously waits for her to arrive at the door. When it opens, Jinkins had this to say, “She opens the door, and she’s perfect. Just perfect. She just looks spectacular and she’s so happy, and her arms fly up and we hug.”
Patti makes a joke about how she finally has boobs, and Jinkins continues to be flabbergasted that this is actually happening. He goes on to say, “She was just funny and fun and innocent…It’s like Doug and Patti together again, ten years later, right?” Just as soon as he starts to revel in the moment, the real Patti “wheels and goes, ‘Oh, Jimmy, I want you to meet my husband.’
And Jinkins goes on to barely remember the rest of the evening.
If you’ve ever watched the show. This is perfect. It’s so… Doug. And with a serving of real-life events, I have the answer to my inquiry question. Jinkins says, “it doesn’t happen because really, most people don’t end up with their first love.” Jinkins does go on to say that if he ever does make a follow up to Doug that includes this story, he hasn’t ruled out “correcting” the event with fiction.
It’s here that my own question starts to turn into others as the inquiry cycle often dictates. What other real-life experiences did Jinkins “correct” while making episodes of Doug? Do all of these reboots and continuations ultimately cheapen and/or change the experience of the original creation?
And with that, I hope these insights have generated your own interest and inquiry into the topic.
