Doug's 1st Movie Review
by Susan Granger (Ssg722 AT aol DOT com)April 3rd, 1999
http://www.speakers-podium.com/susangranger.
Susan Granger's review of "DOUG'S 1st MOVIE" (Walt Disney Pictures)
"Disney's Doug" leaps from ABC-TV's Saturday morning series onto the big screen but, for the most part, I doubt if it's worth paying - at a theater - for what you can get free - at home, unless you're the parent of a pre-schooler who is desperate for something-to-do. The 77-minute story revolves around 12 1/2 year-old Doug Funnie (voiced by Thomas McHugh) and his blue-faced buddy Skeeter (Fred Newman) and their search for the supposedly mythical monster of Bluffington's Lucky Duck Lake. When they find the creature - a gentle baby dinosaur mutant - and befriend him, naming him Herman Melville, they also discover an environmental hazard, a pond of industrial waste, covered-up by evil industrialist Bill Bluff (Doug Preis) who is determined to keep his nasty secret. In addition, Doug's romantic crush, Patti Mayonnaise (Constance Shulman), is being courted by Guy Graham (Guy Hadley), the slick editor of the school newspaper, who just happens to be the powerful Bluff's spy in the community. Will Doug risk Patti's love and do the right thing? To put it tactfully, Nickelodeon screenwriter Ken Scarborough was obviously inspired by the plot of "E.T.," and the animation, while pleasant, is flat and unimaginative except in one virtual-reality sequence in which everything is exactly the same as in real life - except more expensive. "Doug's" was originally conceived as a direct-to-video project but diverted to theaters following the success of "The Rugrats Movie." On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Doug's 1st Movie" is a flimsy 3. Wait for the video.
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