When you think of great creators in animation, what names come to mind? There’s Matt Groening with the Simpsons, Mike Judge with Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill; Trey Parker and Matt Stone with South Park; and, Stephen Hillenburg with Spongebob Squarepants.
On the Mount Rushmore of Animation, I think creator Jim Jinkins deserves to be recognized.
Nickelodeon has been on our cable channels since 1979, and changes in the mid and late 80’s helped shape the network into what it was coming into the 1990’s. One of those things was the debut of Nicktoons. These three cartoons made their debut on August 11, 1991. We were introduced to a chihuahua named Ren and a cat named Stimpy. We saw life through the mind of a baby on Rugrats. And, we could identify with the curious 11 ½ year old who had a vivid imagination and zest for life in Doug.
While Ren and Stimpy never really stuck with me, Doug and Rugrats have. That talking yellow sponge has long since established itself as the greatest of all time to most. However, Rugrats will always hold that title for me.
The ‘90s were a good time to be a kid, and a great time to be watching Nickelodeon.
Doug always about wrote about life in his trusty journal. He even resorted to writing on toilet paper or multi-colored looseleaf when that beloved log went missing. The show is remembered for his alter egos like Quailman, as well the music and sound effects. A lot of us have always asked why the characters were different colors. Skeeter was blue, Patti was orange, and Mr. Dink was purple. I read that it was to promote diversity. I feel like the characters inspired other cartoons like Hey Arnold and Arthur. Those two shows are about to turn 30 this Fall.
Recently I listened to a podcast called “Kultivation with Kevie” and his guest was the creator of Doug. Jim Jinkins gave a great interview, and his experience in television goes back to the early days of Nickelodeon as well as Sesame Street. His inspiration from Doug came from his doodles. I liked the music from the show as it was sampled in the podcast.
I recently rediscovered Jim Jinkins through his Instagram page “therealjimjinkins”. I commented on some of his posts including the one about Mrs. Wingo (the teacher on Doug). That was the name of one of Jim’s teachers and I even compared the character to Mr. Ratburn or Mrs. Krabappel. Life’s different when you’re not dealing with a Bart or a Buster.
I loved hearing about the inspiration that Jim shared when creating Doug and other characters. A lot of great voice acting talent came from that cartoon including Greg Lee and Fred Newman. The former was the host of one of my favorite shows on PBS as a kid (Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego). The latter created many of the amazing sound effects you heard on the show including Skeeter’s “Honk Honk”.
Other shows Jim has created included Nick Jr.’s Allegra’s Window and Disney’s PB&J Otter.
I’ll close with this: either you love or hate the Disney version of Doug. For Jim, it was a good opportunity to continue the series into middle school after the Nick version ended in 1994. The finale was a good one with the kids graduating elementary school. They all had mixed reactions to the event, as we all do. The Disney version debuted in the Fall of 1996 in ABC’s Saturday morning block.
Check out “Kultivation With Kevie” for the interview and for more Nickelodeon nostalgia, visit “Pop Arena” on YouTube. A video on Doug recently launched on that channel.
Stylish 🍒 