DOUG ODDITIES: Did it all begin with Shoes?

Shoes Shoes Shoes!!!

What is it about shoes that make us unique?

It's been said that DOUG as a franchise started with the manuscript for the book 

DOUG'S GOT A NEW PAIR OF SHOES.

A 1984 book Written by JOE AARON and Illustrated by JIM JINKINS.

The book however was rejected by all the major publishing houses in New York.

SIMON AND SCHUSTER was at one point very close to closing a deal to have the book published but unfortunately, the publishing firm backed out at the last minute due to a change in management, greatly distressing Jim and Joe because if the ANIMATION was at it's lowest point in America in the mid-80s, how is it that Book Publishing could have sunk to such a new low?

The manuscript stuck with Jim for many years until 1989 when he gained notice from VANESSA COFFEY, an executive at Nickelodeon, who was searching across America for disgruntled artists who were unable to sell their new creative ideas to other studios, so it was her job to offer these said artists a chance to develop original show ideas for this BRAND SPANKING NEW! empire of Cartoons for Nickelodeon called NICKTOONS.

Jim already had some animation experience in the past working on SESAME STREET as well as several Florida Grapefruit Commercials and a few Bumpers for the USA NETWORK but determined to make sense of bringing DOUG into this world of CREATOR-DRIVEN Animation, he showed the manuscript for DOUG'S GOT A NEW PAIR OF SHOES to Vanessa.

Vanessa promptly bolted shortly after, which Jim thought was another sign that he'd once again been rejected for a pitch.

NOT!!!!!

Vanessa bolted because she recognized potential in JIM and told the other executives at THE SLIME FACTORY and proceeded to give him the greenlight to make a TV Series based on DOUG.

But first, he needed to create an animated Pilot before it could be ready for primetime. 

Jim wanted to adapt his unpublished Book into a TV Pilot but....

Learning from his experience with rejected material, Jim decided that an original story was the only way for his pilot pitch to work.

So he got to work on writing a new treatment for his pilot.

Taking inspiration from a traumatic Childhood memory where because of his family's religious upbringing, he was not allowed to dance, Jim created an original story based on said Childhood. 

The name of the Pilot?

The pilot revolved around DOUG thinking he cannot dance because he'd embarrass himself in front of his girlfriend Patti Mayonnaise.

But it's then later revealed that DOUG can actually dance.

And the only thing that's stopping him is his crippling anxieties.

DAMMIT ROGER!!!

The pilot was surprisingly successful which gave Jim Jinkins the greenlight for an entire series of 52 episodes.....

actually it was susposed to be 65 Episodes due to Animation Syndication rules but a string of budget issues with Viacom in the later years would create a mess of things that Jim wanted no part of.

As for the book, it wasn't all for waste.

It's just that it was used in two pieces of media.

The first attempt to salvage the unpublished Manuscript was in the 1991 Nickelodeon episode DOUG's COOL SHOES.

The plot is similar where DOUG needs new shoes because he felt his old ones were going to make him the laughingstock in all of Bluffington, Virgina.

It's only the intervention of famous basketball star SKY DAVIS

that convinced DOUG to keep his old shoes for the better part of his childhood.


When Disney bought DOUG & Jumbo Pictures in 1996, for better or worse, 

the executives firmly believed that Jim can't let his original manuscripts go to waste so they offered to publish it, with a few tweaks to the artwork to make it more.....CONVENTIONAL, and to tie-in with the respective series that was concurrently airing on Disney's ONE SATURDAY MORNING block.

In 1997, 

DOUG'S GOT A NEW PAIR OF SHOES was finally published by both DISNEY PRESS & SCHOLASTIC after 13 years of going unpublished......

though it was retitled as DOUG'S BIG SHOE DISASTER.

So you tell me?

Was DOUG really started because of Shoes?

Or was it really Jim's childhood in Richmond, Virgina that started it all?

For me, it all started at Jim's Richmond, Virginia hometown growing up.

But I'll let you readers be the judge of all that.