#guy graham
“Dear Journal,
You’ll never guess what happened today. Principal White called an assembly to announce a big change that would affect everybody at Beebe Bluff Middle School.”
Patti hopes that the school is finally going to get a decent name. Beebe expresses her displeasure at this idea. Willie White, who really should already know what this is about because his dumb dad is the principal, says that Skunky heard the cafeteria wieners are radioactive and everyone is going to turn into giants. Finally, Principal White walks onstage and says, “young people, I have an important announcement that will change all of your lives.”
“New school name. New school name!”
“Radioactive wieners. Radioactive wieners!”
“Vice Principal Preston Frumply…is leaving us.”
Everyone is mildly annoyed by this announcement they couldn’t care less about. Skeeter says, “I didn’t even know we had a vice principal.”
They’re wrong though. The big news isn’t that Preston Frumply is leaving. The big news is that Lamar Bone is replacing Preston Frumply.
Everyone is horrified by this news. Roger shrieks.
Mr. Bone takes the microphone and says, “playtime’s over, people! The Bone…is back!”
Doug narrates over the rest of Mr. Bone’s speech, while imagining the ghostly heads of the children Mr. Bone has traumatized over the years, flying out of his bodies.
Here’s a part of the episode I assume Doug completely made up. He says that Preston Frumply took an aptitude test from the guidance counselor, and he filled it out because he didn’t have much to do anyway.
When he got the results, the test said he was all wrong for his job.
So he quit his job to become what the test said he’d do best.
“Millionaire industrialist by day!”
“Caped crime fighter by night!”
“Wrongdoers everywhere beware the avenging tail of The Beaver!”
So, Principal White had to search for a replacement vice principal.
“No, he’s covering up something.”
“Ooh…big dog.”
“No depth perception.”
“He’s perfect!”
None of this happened, except obviously Frumply quit and Bone got the job.
Back in reality, Roger is running from the assembly.
Where is the rest of the school? The principal called an assembly and this is all that showed up?
So, right away, Mr. Bone gets back to being an asshole.
Marching through the cafeteria, he announces new rules for lunch, such as how many times you can chew each mouthful, or that you can’t chew at all if you’re eating soup. He says, “the faster you eat, the faster you can get back to learnin’!”
Roger, in spite of his earlier fear of Mr. Bone, takes this to mean that if he eats slowly, he can delay going back to class. He starts eating interminably slow and his friends think his efforts are hilarious.
Mr. Bone just gives him detention. He shoves the detention slip into Roger’s mouth.
Doug and Skeeter sit down for lunch and Skeeter reminds Doug of their plan to go fishing after school. Doug drops a drawing of Mr. Bone bearing the caption, “Middle School Bones Up,” and realizes he forgot to drop his cartoon off at the school newspaper.
In the newspaper classroom, Doug drops off his cartoon and hears Guy saying something in the darkroom.
“Ahoy! Two bells and all is well!”
They do a really stupid, but apparently secret, handshake. One of the guys notices that Doug is outside. Guy opens the door more and Doug is accused of being a spy. He explains that he was just dropping his cartoon off, but the bald guy says he is in big trouble for seeing the secret handshake. Guy intervenes on Doug’s behalf.
Guy suggests they let Doug join their secret club because Doug is cool for his grade. Doug asks what club it is, but Guy says it’s a secret. So Doug backs away saying he needs to get to lunch. He leaves the room and Guy catches up to him.
Guy says it’s a rare honor for them to offer membership to someone in a lower grade. He shows Doug some examples of the great people that are part of the club. The entire football team…
“You mean a club member built this?”
“One of our first.”
“MEMBERS!?”
“NO! THEY’RE JUST COOL!”
“All these guys?”
“No. Just one. The admiral we admire, Mr. William Hornblower Bluff III.”
Guy asks Doug what else he has to do that afternoon. He says he was going to go fishing and Guy has to take a moment to get over what a terrible response that apparently is.
He wants to know what fishing is going to get Doug. Before Doug can answer, Guy makes him imagine that it only results in a future working for The Man. The Man in this fantasy is Roger.
Roger tells him to stop goofing off. His kids want monkey.
Doug says he doesn’t like monkey, but after a stern reminder from Roger regarding who signs his paycheck, he runs over to the kids and starts acting like a monkey.
After the fantasy, Guy says, “Doug, I want you to pry open the clam of life and grab that pearl! Spread the wings of life and fly! Take the bull of life by the horns! And have some BIG! JUICY! LIFE! STEAKS! Or go fish.”
Skeeter approaches Doug at his locker and says he can’t wait to go fishing. Doug informs him that he unfortunately can’t go fishing anymore.
Obviously none of this makes any sense. Doug was going back to lunch and instead he went to football practice, Egypt, a rock concert, and a Bluffco Industries board meeting. If this all actually happened, and given the attendance of the assembly earlier, I’d say this school needs a hard ass like Mr. Bone. Students are barely showing up for class, and they might just fuck off for half the day. Anyway, Doug goes back to the darkroom to find out what he has to do to join the secret club.
This is when the episode starts to follow three separate stories. Skeeter goes fishing without Doug.
Some creaking noises freak Skeeter out. He says he feels like he’s being watched. Presumably he’s saying this to whoever might be watching him, because he is otherwise alone. There’s some air bubbles at his feet, so he looks into the water. He sticks his face just below the surface and sees something terrifying. He runs back up the dock toward land as something tears the dock to pieces.
Or the dock falls to pieces because it is poorly made and/or rotting.
“I wasn’t scared to go into the secret 8th grade club. I was…concerned. I mean, like Guy said, this could change my whole life.”
In the darkroom, Doug knocks on the door to the supply closet. Someone asks him for the password and he says he wasn’t given a password. After a little arguing, they open the door and command Doug to enter.
“So, you want to be a member of the most exclusive and exalted club in the omniverse?”
“Uh, yes?”
They say they don’t take just anybody. If Doug is chosen, he will be one of the best and he’ll get to go on their annual Power Trip. Guy says Doug will get to meet their leader, Mr. Bluff.
They say Doug has to prove that he is worthy. He asks how. The bald guy says if you ask “how,” then you are not worthy. Then he commands Doug to go and prove himself worthy. So, I don’t know, if you have to ask “how,” then maybe you are still worthy. It’s not like a definite disqualification or something.
After they send Doug on his way to prove himself, he has a fantasy about all the benefits he thinks he’ll get once he is a member. He’s at a fancy party with a bunch of dead presidents. Mr. Bluff is there.
In the fantasy, Doug thinks his regular old clothes are appropriate attire for a party with the ghosts of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Kennedy.
Fantasy Doug has Roger join the party acting like a monkey. They are all greatly amused.
While Doug goes in search of information on being worthy, Mr. Bone introduces Roger to the new, high security detention hall.
In the library, Doug can’t find a book about how to be worthy.
He doesn’t have time to realize that there’s just not going to be a book about proving your worth to a secret organization. They don’t just write down instructions and publish them and then make that information freely available to anyone with a library card. No, they put that shit on VHS and make you pay for it.
For only $19.95, you can learn how to prove you’re worthy from the apparent cult leader himself.
Back in Skeeter’s plot line, he’s trying to convince Mayor Dink that the pier didn’t just fall apart. He says it was ripped apart.
Mayor Dink does not believe that the Lucky Duck Lake Monster exists, and so does not believe that it tore the dock apart. Skeeter wants Doug to help him get proof. Obviously, Doug has other priorities.
Doug is carrying at least nine copies of Mr. Bluff’s $19.95 video, which is a good indication that he is not worthy, at least not if this were a normal club that rewarded you for not being dumb as shit. However, this is a cult, and the best way to prove your worth to a cult is to throw all your money at it.
Meanwhile, Roger is moaning in detention about how he can’t get away with anything anymore. He feels like Mr. Bone is watching everything he does.
At home, Doug puts one of his tapes into the VCR, and it’s off to a really bad start.
“Hello! I’m Bill Bluff and here’s how I spell success:
Forward thinking
Focus
Undertake
Learn
And B; that spells me! BLUFF!
"Forward thinking” might be my favorite joke in this episode.
Mr. Bluff calls this kid disgusting, and claims no one has this kind of time to waste.
Mr. Bluff goes on a rant about how spending 10 minutes a day to brush your teeth totals about 6.3 months of your life over 75 years, and that’s how long it takes for him to build 15 Bluffco Teeny Marts. He says, “I build 15 Bluffco Teeny Marts every time you brush your dumb teeth!”
So Doug realizes how much time he’s wasting and starts figuring out how he can do everything faster. First, he has to brush his teeth faster. Porkchop times him.
Next, he has to dress faster. He has his clothes prepared on a hanger in his closet so all he has to do is jump in them. I can only imagine it takes him longer to prepare for this maneuver than it would take for him to put his clothes on normally. Also, when he puts his clothes on like a person that hasn’t lost their damned mind, he doesn’t get stuck upside down in his closet. Presumably.
Theda comes to wake him up and he runs past her in a blur several times before falling down the stairs.
At the breakfast table, she asks if Doug came through there. The light fixture is shaking as if blown by the wind produced by Doug’s speed. He slams the door on his way out and hops onto his skateboard.
In detention, Roger tears down a poster of Mr. Bone and finds an air duct.
He figures this will make for an easy escape, and climbs inside without hesitation.
Doug meets with Guy and the other two idiots to show them how he was saving time.
He’s got a pretty detailed report about how much time he saved, but then he wasted that saved time making this report, so was it really saved? No. No, it was not. The bald guy says they want more than someone who can put his pants on fast. They want achievers.
Roger turns a corner and starts celebrating his brilliant escape. Mr. Bone pops up at the end of the air duct and says, “if you’d done your research, you’d know every vent in this school leads to my office!”
Roger’s attempted escape lands him in detention for three more weeks.
Meanwhile, Skeeter is back at the Lucky Duck Lake area searching for the monster.
Again, I feel I have to remind you that Skeeter is a genius. Why is he looking for the monster here when he thinks he saw it in the lake? Who knows? Mr. Dink asks if he’s looking for that monster.
“You know about the monster?”
“Tippy won’t believe it, but my dead uncle saw it. Of course, he was alive at the time.”
“I almost sorta saw it, and I’m gonna get a picture of it!”
“BOLOGNA!”
Mr. Dink explains that bologna is the one thing the monster can’t resist.
Back at the Funnie house, Doug is reviewing his new strict schedule and sees that it is time to pet the dog.
Porkchop is annoyed by how little time was spent on this task.
Phil enters Doug’s room and asks, “is all this rushing around good? You fall down the stairs every day.”
“To be a success, you can’t waste time, Dad. Besides, I timed it. That’s the quickest way down.
Phil tells him it’s important to stop and smell the scenery once in a while. Doug enjoys this piece of advice because he can now check off an item on his schedule and he saved a fall down the stairs.
The secret club, or at least Guy and his two friends, are now meeting with Doug to decide if he’s to be the newest member. They barely glance at Doug’s exhaustive schedule before ignoring it completely and saying they will make their decision based on a series of questions.
Doug begins to protest because what about all that stuff he did, but Guy ignores everything he’s saying and cuts him off. The bald guy says, "name something great you did in the last two months.”
Doug says, “uhhh, oh! I know. I made my grandma’s store trendy. But then I sorta drove her out of business.”
“Ever won the Heisman Trophy!?
"No.”
“Stanley Cup!?”
“No.”
“Peace Prize!?”
“Uhh…no?”
“Emmy!?”
“No.”
“Bravery!? Valor!?”
Doug starts to sort of cry as he says “no” to these and starts to walk away. They stop him and tell him he’s in the club. When he points out that he didn’t do any of those things, Guy points out that they flipped a coin and it came up heads.
Cult. Doug is excited and the bald guy reminds him that he can’t tell anyone.
In his journal, Doug smugly brags about how his new club makes him powerful and successful. He’s waiting outside the bus that’s going to take him to his first Power Trip. He greets Chalky, Beebe, and a stranger as if he’s someone important and all three of them walk past him like he’s not even there.
So successful and powerful. It’s already working.
Guy tells Doug to tell non-members that they’re the puppet club. I don’t know what they plan to do if an actual puppet enthusiast wants to join, but I imagine it rarely comes up. If I had to guess, I’d say Larry is the only one that would want to join the puppet club.
Skeeter asks Doug to come monster hunting with him. He’s got plenty of bologna. Doug says he can’t because he has the puppet club picnic.
In detention, Roger sees the puppet club picnic bus and gets an idea.
When the puppet club gets to their destination, Doug is amazed to see all the members from everywhere. They’re all boarding a yacht and being greeted by the great and wonderful Bill Bluff. He shakes their hands and they give him the secret sign, which is hardly secret as they’re all doing it out in the open.
Right after boarding, Doug receives a uniform. Mr. Bluff congratulates him and calls him Dave.
Nearby, Skeeter has hung several bologna sausages in the trees. He’s staked out with Mr. Dink, and Mr. Dink is delighted by the smell of bologna.
Also nearby, Roger has finally escaped detention.
Mr. Bone has been sufficiently fooled.
Unfortunately, the silhouettes get bold. A bird and Abraham Lincoln appear as silhouettes next to Roger and these seem reasonable to Mr. Bone. When a cute fluffy bunny appears, however, he realizes something is wrong.
“Ah ha! I knew there was no bunny in here!”
But the bird and Lincoln? Sure.
On the yacht, they finally reveal the secrets to Doug. There’s a trunk and he’s allowed to open it and discover the truth.
Doug points out that it’s full of old tests and research papers. The bald guy says that studying takes up valuable time they need to build their futures. Guy’s other friend asks Doug if he’d rather succeed or, pointing at Skeeter, be like “that goofus.”
Mr. Bluff says, “be glad you’re one of us, Dudley. A winner, not a slacker.”
Skeeter’s bologna trap finally has a bite. Mr. Dink is nowhere to be seen. Something emerges from the water.
Skeeter runs towards it, taking several pictures. He trips and falls into the water. The thing in the water keeps rising until it is clearly a small submarine. It is Mr. Bone’s sub.
Roger shrieks again and runs away. Mr. Bone chases him. Skeeter is hacking and coughing in the shallow water.
The members of the puppet club are just watching the spectacle. The bald guy laughs and Doug tells him he shouldn’t. He says, “Skeeter is just as good as you guys!”
Mr. Bluff does a spit take as the other guy tells Doug to take that back. Guy asks Doug if the phrase “walk the plank” means anything to him. Doug admits that Skeeter is not like them. He’s better.
“He doesn’t cheat, or laugh at anybody else, and he’s fun to be with. Not a big showoff!”
Mr. Bluff is so surprised, his teeth fall out. Doug is surprised that Mr. Bluff has no teeth. Someone reminds Doug what a waste of time brushing your teeth is. Mr. Bluff wants to know who recommended Dan for membership.
Guy tells Doug to apologize but he quits the club instead. He takes off the uniform and throws it down.
Apparently they actually make Doug and Guy walk a plank. Doug apologizes for getting Guy kicked out of the group. Roger runs past them shouting at the yacht, trying to get them to accept him so they can get him away from Mr. Bone.
Looking at a bunch of half eaten bologna sausages hanging from the trees, Skeeter wonders what could have eaten them if it wasn’t the monster. I’m afraid I don’t follow his logic here. Yes, he thought he was seeing the monster just now and it turned out to be Mr. Bone in a small submarine. That doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a monster, or that what he thought he saw earlier was just Mr. Bone’s submarine. Anyway, it was Mr. Dink. Mr. Dink is eating the bologna.
Mayor Dink was likely correct when she blamed the shitty rotten dock for its own collapse. There is no monster. Mr. Dink just saw an opportunity for a lot of free bologna and went with it.
So finally, Doug and Skeeter get to enjoy each others’ company. Doug gets to waste his time fishing and Skeeter is still determined to get a picture of the monster.
Some creepy noises and air bubbles in the water near the boat force Doug and Skeeter to scramble for land. They’re convinced it’s the monster but it’s just a frog.
Or is that all it is? Again, this doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a monster. Why don’t they consider that the frog might also be running from the monster?
This episode should end right after Doug discovers that Guy is in a secret group. If Doug considered Guy to be a good friend, it could go on from there. Doug should have just said, “I don’t know how to say this without being offensive, but if you’re a member, Guy, the group isn’t worth joining. Good day!”
If only this episode had been about radioactive wieners…
Wed, 25 May 2016 21:15:31You’ll never guess what happened today. Principal White called an assembly to announce a big change that would affect everybody at Beebe Bluff Middle School.”
Patti hopes that the school is finally going to get a decent name. Beebe expresses her displeasure at this idea. Willie White, who really should already know what this is about because his dumb dad is the principal, says that Skunky heard the cafeteria wieners are radioactive and everyone is going to turn into giants. Finally, Principal White walks onstage and says, “young people, I have an important announcement that will change all of your lives.”
“New school name. New school name!”
“Radioactive wieners. Radioactive wieners!”
“Vice Principal Preston Frumply…is leaving us.”
Everyone is mildly annoyed by this announcement they couldn’t care less about. Skeeter says, “I didn’t even know we had a vice principal.”
They’re wrong though. The big news isn’t that Preston Frumply is leaving. The big news is that Lamar Bone is replacing Preston Frumply.
Everyone is horrified by this news. Roger shrieks.
Mr. Bone takes the microphone and says, “playtime’s over, people! The Bone…is back!”
Doug narrates over the rest of Mr. Bone’s speech, while imagining the ghostly heads of the children Mr. Bone has traumatized over the years, flying out of his bodies.
Here’s a part of the episode I assume Doug completely made up. He says that Preston Frumply took an aptitude test from the guidance counselor, and he filled it out because he didn’t have much to do anyway.
When he got the results, the test said he was all wrong for his job.
So he quit his job to become what the test said he’d do best.
“Millionaire industrialist by day!”
“Caped crime fighter by night!”
“Wrongdoers everywhere beware the avenging tail of The Beaver!”
So, Principal White had to search for a replacement vice principal.
“No, he’s covering up something.”
“Ooh…big dog.”
“No depth perception.”
“He’s perfect!”
None of this happened, except obviously Frumply quit and Bone got the job.
Back in reality, Roger is running from the assembly.
Where is the rest of the school? The principal called an assembly and this is all that showed up?
So, right away, Mr. Bone gets back to being an asshole.
Marching through the cafeteria, he announces new rules for lunch, such as how many times you can chew each mouthful, or that you can’t chew at all if you’re eating soup. He says, “the faster you eat, the faster you can get back to learnin’!”
Roger, in spite of his earlier fear of Mr. Bone, takes this to mean that if he eats slowly, he can delay going back to class. He starts eating interminably slow and his friends think his efforts are hilarious.
Mr. Bone just gives him detention. He shoves the detention slip into Roger’s mouth.
Doug and Skeeter sit down for lunch and Skeeter reminds Doug of their plan to go fishing after school. Doug drops a drawing of Mr. Bone bearing the caption, “Middle School Bones Up,” and realizes he forgot to drop his cartoon off at the school newspaper.
In the newspaper classroom, Doug drops off his cartoon and hears Guy saying something in the darkroom.
“Ahoy! Two bells and all is well!”
They do a really stupid, but apparently secret, handshake. One of the guys notices that Doug is outside. Guy opens the door more and Doug is accused of being a spy. He explains that he was just dropping his cartoon off, but the bald guy says he is in big trouble for seeing the secret handshake. Guy intervenes on Doug’s behalf.
Guy suggests they let Doug join their secret club because Doug is cool for his grade. Doug asks what club it is, but Guy says it’s a secret. So Doug backs away saying he needs to get to lunch. He leaves the room and Guy catches up to him.
Guy says it’s a rare honor for them to offer membership to someone in a lower grade. He shows Doug some examples of the great people that are part of the club. The entire football team…
“You mean a club member built this?”
“One of our first.”
“MEMBERS!?”
“NO! THEY’RE JUST COOL!”
“All these guys?”
“No. Just one. The admiral we admire, Mr. William Hornblower Bluff III.”
Guy asks Doug what else he has to do that afternoon. He says he was going to go fishing and Guy has to take a moment to get over what a terrible response that apparently is.
He wants to know what fishing is going to get Doug. Before Doug can answer, Guy makes him imagine that it only results in a future working for The Man. The Man in this fantasy is Roger.
Roger tells him to stop goofing off. His kids want monkey.
Doug says he doesn’t like monkey, but after a stern reminder from Roger regarding who signs his paycheck, he runs over to the kids and starts acting like a monkey.
After the fantasy, Guy says, “Doug, I want you to pry open the clam of life and grab that pearl! Spread the wings of life and fly! Take the bull of life by the horns! And have some BIG! JUICY! LIFE! STEAKS! Or go fish.”
Skeeter approaches Doug at his locker and says he can’t wait to go fishing. Doug informs him that he unfortunately can’t go fishing anymore.
Obviously none of this makes any sense. Doug was going back to lunch and instead he went to football practice, Egypt, a rock concert, and a Bluffco Industries board meeting. If this all actually happened, and given the attendance of the assembly earlier, I’d say this school needs a hard ass like Mr. Bone. Students are barely showing up for class, and they might just fuck off for half the day. Anyway, Doug goes back to the darkroom to find out what he has to do to join the secret club.
This is when the episode starts to follow three separate stories. Skeeter goes fishing without Doug.
Some creaking noises freak Skeeter out. He says he feels like he’s being watched. Presumably he’s saying this to whoever might be watching him, because he is otherwise alone. There’s some air bubbles at his feet, so he looks into the water. He sticks his face just below the surface and sees something terrifying. He runs back up the dock toward land as something tears the dock to pieces.
Or the dock falls to pieces because it is poorly made and/or rotting.
“I wasn’t scared to go into the secret 8th grade club. I was…concerned. I mean, like Guy said, this could change my whole life.”
In the darkroom, Doug knocks on the door to the supply closet. Someone asks him for the password and he says he wasn’t given a password. After a little arguing, they open the door and command Doug to enter.
“So, you want to be a member of the most exclusive and exalted club in the omniverse?”
“Uh, yes?”
They say they don’t take just anybody. If Doug is chosen, he will be one of the best and he’ll get to go on their annual Power Trip. Guy says Doug will get to meet their leader, Mr. Bluff.
They say Doug has to prove that he is worthy. He asks how. The bald guy says if you ask “how,” then you are not worthy. Then he commands Doug to go and prove himself worthy. So, I don’t know, if you have to ask “how,” then maybe you are still worthy. It’s not like a definite disqualification or something.
After they send Doug on his way to prove himself, he has a fantasy about all the benefits he thinks he’ll get once he is a member. He’s at a fancy party with a bunch of dead presidents. Mr. Bluff is there.
In the fantasy, Doug thinks his regular old clothes are appropriate attire for a party with the ghosts of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Kennedy.
Fantasy Doug has Roger join the party acting like a monkey. They are all greatly amused.
While Doug goes in search of information on being worthy, Mr. Bone introduces Roger to the new, high security detention hall.
In the library, Doug can’t find a book about how to be worthy.
He doesn’t have time to realize that there’s just not going to be a book about proving your worth to a secret organization. They don’t just write down instructions and publish them and then make that information freely available to anyone with a library card. No, they put that shit on VHS and make you pay for it.
For only $19.95, you can learn how to prove you’re worthy from the apparent cult leader himself.
Back in Skeeter’s plot line, he’s trying to convince Mayor Dink that the pier didn’t just fall apart. He says it was ripped apart.
Mayor Dink does not believe that the Lucky Duck Lake Monster exists, and so does not believe that it tore the dock apart. Skeeter wants Doug to help him get proof. Obviously, Doug has other priorities.
Doug is carrying at least nine copies of Mr. Bluff’s $19.95 video, which is a good indication that he is not worthy, at least not if this were a normal club that rewarded you for not being dumb as shit. However, this is a cult, and the best way to prove your worth to a cult is to throw all your money at it.
Meanwhile, Roger is moaning in detention about how he can’t get away with anything anymore. He feels like Mr. Bone is watching everything he does.
At home, Doug puts one of his tapes into the VCR, and it’s off to a really bad start.
“Hello! I’m Bill Bluff and here’s how I spell success:
Forward thinking
Focus
Undertake
Learn
And B; that spells me! BLUFF!
"Forward thinking” might be my favorite joke in this episode.
Mr. Bluff calls this kid disgusting, and claims no one has this kind of time to waste.
Mr. Bluff goes on a rant about how spending 10 minutes a day to brush your teeth totals about 6.3 months of your life over 75 years, and that’s how long it takes for him to build 15 Bluffco Teeny Marts. He says, “I build 15 Bluffco Teeny Marts every time you brush your dumb teeth!”
So Doug realizes how much time he’s wasting and starts figuring out how he can do everything faster. First, he has to brush his teeth faster. Porkchop times him.
Next, he has to dress faster. He has his clothes prepared on a hanger in his closet so all he has to do is jump in them. I can only imagine it takes him longer to prepare for this maneuver than it would take for him to put his clothes on normally. Also, when he puts his clothes on like a person that hasn’t lost their damned mind, he doesn’t get stuck upside down in his closet. Presumably.
Theda comes to wake him up and he runs past her in a blur several times before falling down the stairs.
At the breakfast table, she asks if Doug came through there. The light fixture is shaking as if blown by the wind produced by Doug’s speed. He slams the door on his way out and hops onto his skateboard.
In detention, Roger tears down a poster of Mr. Bone and finds an air duct.
He figures this will make for an easy escape, and climbs inside without hesitation.
Doug meets with Guy and the other two idiots to show them how he was saving time.
He’s got a pretty detailed report about how much time he saved, but then he wasted that saved time making this report, so was it really saved? No. No, it was not. The bald guy says they want more than someone who can put his pants on fast. They want achievers.
Roger turns a corner and starts celebrating his brilliant escape. Mr. Bone pops up at the end of the air duct and says, “if you’d done your research, you’d know every vent in this school leads to my office!”
Roger’s attempted escape lands him in detention for three more weeks.
Meanwhile, Skeeter is back at the Lucky Duck Lake area searching for the monster.
Again, I feel I have to remind you that Skeeter is a genius. Why is he looking for the monster here when he thinks he saw it in the lake? Who knows? Mr. Dink asks if he’s looking for that monster.
“You know about the monster?”
“Tippy won’t believe it, but my dead uncle saw it. Of course, he was alive at the time.”
“I almost sorta saw it, and I’m gonna get a picture of it!”
“BOLOGNA!”
Mr. Dink explains that bologna is the one thing the monster can’t resist.
Back at the Funnie house, Doug is reviewing his new strict schedule and sees that it is time to pet the dog.
Porkchop is annoyed by how little time was spent on this task.
Phil enters Doug’s room and asks, “is all this rushing around good? You fall down the stairs every day.”
“To be a success, you can’t waste time, Dad. Besides, I timed it. That’s the quickest way down.
Phil tells him it’s important to stop and smell the scenery once in a while. Doug enjoys this piece of advice because he can now check off an item on his schedule and he saved a fall down the stairs.
The secret club, or at least Guy and his two friends, are now meeting with Doug to decide if he’s to be the newest member. They barely glance at Doug’s exhaustive schedule before ignoring it completely and saying they will make their decision based on a series of questions.
Doug begins to protest because what about all that stuff he did, but Guy ignores everything he’s saying and cuts him off. The bald guy says, "name something great you did in the last two months.”
Doug says, “uhhh, oh! I know. I made my grandma’s store trendy. But then I sorta drove her out of business.”
“Ever won the Heisman Trophy!?
"No.”
“Stanley Cup!?”
“No.”
“Peace Prize!?”
“Uhh…no?”
“Emmy!?”
“No.”
“Bravery!? Valor!?”
Doug starts to sort of cry as he says “no” to these and starts to walk away. They stop him and tell him he’s in the club. When he points out that he didn’t do any of those things, Guy points out that they flipped a coin and it came up heads.
Cult. Doug is excited and the bald guy reminds him that he can’t tell anyone.
In his journal, Doug smugly brags about how his new club makes him powerful and successful. He’s waiting outside the bus that’s going to take him to his first Power Trip. He greets Chalky, Beebe, and a stranger as if he’s someone important and all three of them walk past him like he’s not even there.
So successful and powerful. It’s already working.
Guy tells Doug to tell non-members that they’re the puppet club. I don’t know what they plan to do if an actual puppet enthusiast wants to join, but I imagine it rarely comes up. If I had to guess, I’d say Larry is the only one that would want to join the puppet club.
Skeeter asks Doug to come monster hunting with him. He’s got plenty of bologna. Doug says he can’t because he has the puppet club picnic.
In detention, Roger sees the puppet club picnic bus and gets an idea.
When the puppet club gets to their destination, Doug is amazed to see all the members from everywhere. They’re all boarding a yacht and being greeted by the great and wonderful Bill Bluff. He shakes their hands and they give him the secret sign, which is hardly secret as they’re all doing it out in the open.
Right after boarding, Doug receives a uniform. Mr. Bluff congratulates him and calls him Dave.
Nearby, Skeeter has hung several bologna sausages in the trees. He’s staked out with Mr. Dink, and Mr. Dink is delighted by the smell of bologna.
Also nearby, Roger has finally escaped detention.
Mr. Bone has been sufficiently fooled.
Unfortunately, the silhouettes get bold. A bird and Abraham Lincoln appear as silhouettes next to Roger and these seem reasonable to Mr. Bone. When a cute fluffy bunny appears, however, he realizes something is wrong.
“Ah ha! I knew there was no bunny in here!”
But the bird and Lincoln? Sure.
On the yacht, they finally reveal the secrets to Doug. There’s a trunk and he’s allowed to open it and discover the truth.
Doug points out that it’s full of old tests and research papers. The bald guy says that studying takes up valuable time they need to build their futures. Guy’s other friend asks Doug if he’d rather succeed or, pointing at Skeeter, be like “that goofus.”
Mr. Bluff says, “be glad you’re one of us, Dudley. A winner, not a slacker.”
Skeeter’s bologna trap finally has a bite. Mr. Dink is nowhere to be seen. Something emerges from the water.
Skeeter runs towards it, taking several pictures. He trips and falls into the water. The thing in the water keeps rising until it is clearly a small submarine. It is Mr. Bone’s sub.
Roger shrieks again and runs away. Mr. Bone chases him. Skeeter is hacking and coughing in the shallow water.
The members of the puppet club are just watching the spectacle. The bald guy laughs and Doug tells him he shouldn’t. He says, “Skeeter is just as good as you guys!”
Mr. Bluff does a spit take as the other guy tells Doug to take that back. Guy asks Doug if the phrase “walk the plank” means anything to him. Doug admits that Skeeter is not like them. He’s better.
“He doesn’t cheat, or laugh at anybody else, and he’s fun to be with. Not a big showoff!”
Mr. Bluff is so surprised, his teeth fall out. Doug is surprised that Mr. Bluff has no teeth. Someone reminds Doug what a waste of time brushing your teeth is. Mr. Bluff wants to know who recommended Dan for membership.
Guy tells Doug to apologize but he quits the club instead. He takes off the uniform and throws it down.
Apparently they actually make Doug and Guy walk a plank. Doug apologizes for getting Guy kicked out of the group. Roger runs past them shouting at the yacht, trying to get them to accept him so they can get him away from Mr. Bone.
Looking at a bunch of half eaten bologna sausages hanging from the trees, Skeeter wonders what could have eaten them if it wasn’t the monster. I’m afraid I don’t follow his logic here. Yes, he thought he was seeing the monster just now and it turned out to be Mr. Bone in a small submarine. That doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a monster, or that what he thought he saw earlier was just Mr. Bone’s submarine. Anyway, it was Mr. Dink. Mr. Dink is eating the bologna.
Mayor Dink was likely correct when she blamed the shitty rotten dock for its own collapse. There is no monster. Mr. Dink just saw an opportunity for a lot of free bologna and went with it.
So finally, Doug and Skeeter get to enjoy each others’ company. Doug gets to waste his time fishing and Skeeter is still determined to get a picture of the monster.
Some creepy noises and air bubbles in the water near the boat force Doug and Skeeter to scramble for land. They’re convinced it’s the monster but it’s just a frog.
Or is that all it is? Again, this doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a monster. Why don’t they consider that the frog might also be running from the monster?
This episode should end right after Doug discovers that Guy is in a secret group. If Doug considered Guy to be a good friend, it could go on from there. Doug should have just said, “I don’t know how to say this without being offensive, but if you’re a member, Guy, the group isn’t worth joining. Good day!”
If only this episode had been about radioactive wieners…
This episode begins with Doug asking, “okay, so who’s driving me to Funky Town?” His parents look at each other briefly and return to their newspaper.
Neither wants to deal with him. They’re both being very adult here, buying multiple copies of the newspaper so they don’t have to share, coming up with lame excuses for why they can’t take him, completely ignoring their newborn baby as it wanders about the room. Fortunately, Judy offers to drive him.
I really hope this newspaper is free. I appreciate the headline joke, though.
Everyone is shocked. Theda tells Judy there’s no need to be sarcastic. She replies, “who’s sarcastic? You guys are busy. I’m not. I’ll drive him. Keys?”
Judy leaves the house. Doug shrugs at his useless parents, and follows her. Phil and Theda drop their papers, stand up, and hug.
“After 16 years of parenting!”
“It’s like a dream!”
Notice how they are still ignoring the newborn?
When Doug and Judy sit in the car, Doug asks her, “what’s the catch?”
She says she’s just doing him a favor. He accepts this and she immediately reveals that the catch is that she wants to make one quick stop first.
“It all started on a Friday afternoon…”
So now we’re going back two days to get the story about why Doug needs a ride to Funky Town. He really should just leave this part out.
Patti asks if anyone has any plans for the weekend. Skeeter says he’ll be doing the usual, which is comic books and dirt biking. Beebe is also doing the usual. For her, this means a little polo and a little hiking in the Bahamas. She yawns as she says this. Doug says, “hey, I know. What do you say we go to Funky Town?” Patti dismisses this idea because they went there last weekend. Enter Guy Graham.
“Listen. How would you guys like to have a blast this weekend? Kick out the jams!? Blow out the stops!? Really soup things up!? KNOW WHAT I MEAN!?”
His suggestion is that they go to Funky Town. Of course. Everyone is excited about this idea now, except Doug. Doug points out that he just suggested that and they shot him down. Patti says, “somehow the way Guy said it, it sounded like fun.” Doug has a fantasy.
He’s flying a plane past his friends and asks, “wanna come surfboard-skydiving through the eye of a hurricane?”
They are not enthused. Guy approaches them and asks, “how’s about staring into a corner and slobbering like a baboon?” This is an idea they can get behind.
Because Doug has a low opinion of Guy and also his friends apparently. He just doesn’t get it.
Walking home, Doug continues moaning about the situation. He has taken this one instance as the new rule. He thinks his friends think all of his suggestions sound boring. If Guy excitedly told them all to jump off a building, they’d do it.
Tired of trying to get Doug to understand, Patti walks away. Doug says he’s not even going to go to Funky Town.
On Saturday, Doug and Skeeter are at an arcade playing a game called Death Golfer.
Skeeter asks him what he plans to do tomorrow. Doug says he was thinking about getting some people together to play basketball. He reasons that not everyone will be at Funky Town. “I mean, I know Al and Moo will be around.”
Actually, they won’t. They climb out of the Death Golfer cabinet talking about the type of processor the game uses. One is sure the games at Funky Town use the same processor and the other is sure they don’t. They’re planning to find out tomorrow.
Realizing the futility of putting together a basketball game, Doug has a fantasy about all the fun things he could do alone on a Sunday afternoon. Sitting on the couch, he turns on the television.
A news pundit says some things that are political and vaguely boring until his speech turns into “blah blah blah” and Doug falls asleep.
Doug has a dream about all the fun his friends are having. Guy and Patti run off a ride laughing. Guy suggests they stuff cotton candy down their shorts, pour ketchup in their hair, and run around squawking like chickens.
The dream within the fantasy ends, and then I guess, so does the fantasy. Doug is making this harder to write than it has to be….
On Sunday morning, Doug finally stumbled on the solution to his problem. He jumps out of bed shouting, “YES!”
He says he decided to change his mind. He gets dressed and runs downstairs and, well, we’ve already seen what happens there.
Finally, we get to see where Judy needed to stop. Why did she need to drive Doug to Funky Town? What was it she needed that apparently couldn’t be explained to the parents? Was it drugs? No. It was Snord Gruppen.
Basically what we have here is Ikea. Judy needs a new bookshelf. Doug knows what’s up though. He points out the incomparable size of Snord Gruppen and she dismisses his concerns.
Why didn’t she just drop him off first? Doug doesn’t ask this. He asks why can’t she do her shopping some other time. She says, “you know mom and dad never give me the car to go shopping.” A reasonable answer to a reasonable question that completely ignores the fact that “after you drop Doug off” is included in the phrase “some other time.”
Judy approaches something that doesn’t look like a bookshelf and says that it looks like a good bookshelf. She says, “what I love about this stuff is it’s all interlocking and stackable.” She spins a piece of the not-a-bookshelf and water pours on her from something that looks like a shower head.
A salesman approaches them and asks if they need help. Judy says, “this bookshelf spat on me!”
“This is sink, madam. You’re in kitchens. Living room is that way.”
That is a pretty shitty sink. They find something that looks a little more like a bookshelf. Doug points out that this extra stop is taking longer than she said it would. She pulls a knob on the presumed bookshelf and it turns into a car.
Another Snord Gruppen employee tells them bookshelves are on the second floor. Doug continues complaining, and after failing to find something else to mistake for a bookshelf, Judy asks a group of Snord Gruppen employees about bookshelves. They don’t know what she’s talking about. She says, “a bunch of flat, interlockable, stackable surfaces on which to place BOOKS!” They are still confused, so she pulls a book from her bag to show them. They laugh.
They says there’s nothing like that here. All of their books are interlocking and stackable, so they have no need for bookshelves.
Big fucking waste of time. In the car, Doug says he has 20 minutes to get to Funky Town. She says they’ll make it, but first they have to go back home. Incredulous, Doug asks why. She says she doesn’t know the way to Funky Town from Snord Gruppen. She only knows how to get there if she leaves from the house. Judy is the worst.
Doug checks a map and gives her very simple directions for the fastest route. She follows his directions until they get to the exit they need to take. She makes no effort to slow down and just zips right past it.
Next, she drives through a roundabout, pointlessly driving around it a couple times.
They drive through an industrial area and Judy starts yelling about how they’re lost. When they find a tollbooth onto the interstate, Doug insists they aren’t lost. They’re almost there.
He says Funky Town is just on the other side of the tollbooth. Unfortunately, it’s actually the border crossing into another country. This guy wants to see their passports.
Meanwhile, Patti and Skeeter are having a blast and wondering why Doug isn’t there yet.
Back in the car, Judy is berating Doug for his navigational incompetence. Because apparently it’s his fault she didn’t listen to him when he told her to take that exit. And it’s his fault she doesn’t know how to get to a place unless she leaves from their house. Anyway, now she has to make another stop. Doug begins to protest but it’s a rest stop and she says she has to stop. For some bizarre reason that I’m just going to blame on their parents, neither of them wants to say “bathroom.” She doesn’t say, “I have to use the bathroom.” He doesn’t say, “oh, you have to poop? Okay, yeah. Better you drop poops in a toilet than in your pants.” They’re both embarrassed.
While waiting for Judy, Doug turns on the radio and pulls out the map. A news story on the radio freaks Doug out a little.
“The couple was found stranded on a deserted island in the middle of Lake Aukamaga. They said they had gotten lost on the interstate and had been kidnapped by a gang of bikers. The bikers are still at large and dangerous.”
At the mention of bikers, Doug looks up from the map to see a group of cyclists stopping to sit at a picnic table.
A stereotypical biker pulls up next to Doug and asks if he needs directions. Doug turns blue and declines the help.
Then he has a fantasy about all the fun his friends are having. Al and Moo get on a ride while Skeeter makes two comments about how much fun they’re having or how much fun Doug is missing. Beebe is riding bumper cars and telling her chauffeur who to hit. Patti wonders out loud where Doug is and Guy tells her to forget about him.
“Hey, let’s take a boat through Suck Face Tunnel!”
“Suck Face Tunnel? What’s that?”
“I don’t know. Doug made it up.”
His fantasies are having dreams and becoming more self-aware.
After the fantasy, Doug is fuming about Suck Face Tunnel and asks Judy if she can go faster. She says no and she needs another rest stop.
If you were wondering if Doug was the only Funnie kid with apparent bouts of crippling social anxiety, well, apparently Judy couldn’t find the fucking bathroom and didn’t want to ask somebody where it was because then they’d all stare at her. Doug points out that everyone is at the rest stop for the same reason. Growing more impatient, he tells her to just stop at a gas station. She says it looks disgusting, but pulls over just the same. She says, “I don’t see one. Do you see one?”
“One what, Judy? SAY THE WORD!”
“Forget! Let’s go!”
Doug asks these two assholes if they have a bathroom because his sister needs to go. They laugh and Judy blushes.
When they’re back on the road, Judy is so furious, she threatens to tell Patti that Doug is in love with her. They get to their exit only to find it is closed due to construction.
The workers, especially the asshole working one of the bigger machines, are terrible.
Judy asks if there’s a detour to Funky Town and the guy goes on and on about how much he loves the place until the tractor operating asshole drops a huge slab of concrete right next to the car. Doug and Judy are scared for their safety, and should probably call OSHA. Instead, they reiterate their need for directions to Funky Town.
Unfortunately, another worker starts using a jackhammer right next to their car at the same moment they are getting directions.
Immediately after finishing the directions, the guy tries to ask Judy out. They hastily drive away without proper directions, because old man construction worker couldn’t just be helpful to the 16 year old. Naturally, they become more lost.
Doug is trying to navigate with the map, and I’m starting to wonder if he can actually read a map.
Lots of nonsense occurs.
Some cows get involved.
Finally, they’re just arguing. Doug takes the whole trip as good reason why their parents never let her drive. She says, “well maybe YOU’D like to drive then!?”
He says he would and reaches for the keys. She grabs them and hangs them out the window, threatening to throw them into the woods.
After she throws the keys, they both realize how fucking stupid that was and scream. Doug says that all they have to do is walk straight into the woods until they find the keys, then walk straight back.
After about 10 steps, Doug trips and despair takes over. He clutches at grass and dirt and says, “it’s no use! They’re gone! We’re gonna miss Funky Town! We’re gonna starve to death! We’re gonna be stuck here together for the rest of our lives!”
If you were wondering if it was worth your child’s time to join the Bluffscouts, it is not. They will be prepared for nothing. Anyway, Judy finds the keys. They were on the ground at her feet, a few feet in front of where Doug gave up.
They somehow become lost on their way back to the car. Some wildlife freaks them out and they start running. They run until they find a mysterious village. The citizens are dressed mostly like Pilgrims and they have weird accents.
Doug asks this guy if there’s a phone they can use. He doesn’t know what a phone is, so Doug describes it as a box you use to talk to people. The guy tells him, “leave off your foolery, ye young rapscallion.” This is apparently Pilgrim for “fuck off, shithead.”
Doug asks if it’s possible they drove through a hole in the time space continuum. Judy tells him to not be ridiculous. She grabs another person and asks for the date. The Pilgrim girl says it is June 14, 1683.
Doug and Judy gasp, but then Judy realizes she knows the girl. The girl panics and runs away. They chase. They’re too busy chasing her to notice the other people dressed in modern clothes and taking pictures.
When Judy finally catches the girl, Doug realizes they accidentally wandered into an area next to or part of Funky Town. Judy’s friend warns her that they have to pretend it’s the 17th century. Judy catches on and takes up the accent and speech patterns while Doug asks for instructions to the entrance of Funky Town.
The asshole Doug asked about the phone points them out to the parson as witches. So they have to be punished.
It makes no sense. They aren’t employees of this shitty place. If they’re putting all their apparent customers in the stocks for blasphemy or witchcraft or whatever, how are they still a business? They received this punishment because Doug asked for a phone during a minor emergency. How many emergencies have these employees ignored for the sake of their fake authenticity? You’ve had a stroke? What is this phone thing you speak of? Uh huh, and ambulance? What sort of spell is that? Are you the devil?
Doug takes this moment to reflect on all the times Judy has embarrassed him. The first example he thinks about is when she redesigned his soccer team’s uniforms.
She cast him as Ear Wax in her hygiene play.
After the recollections, a woman tells her son to stand by the witches in the stocks so they can get a picture. This doesn’t make sense. I hate how much this doesn’t make sense.
I don’t want to transcribe their whole fight, but basically Doug blames Judy and vice versa. Obviously. When Judy says Doug was too eager to meet up with “that little chicken leg blonde,” he blushes and pretends he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She points at Patti who has just arrived with Doug’s friends, and Doug says, “Chicken! I mean, Patti! Am I glad to see you!”
Doug’s friends let them out of the stocks. Patti asks where they’ve been and he tells her to forget it. Right after he suggests they go on some rides, a man announces that Funky Town is now closed.
So Doug tells them the story of their ridiculous day and realizes it’s actually pretty funny. They all think it’s very funny that Doug thought he actually traveled back in time. Al and Moo are laughing so hard they’re crying.
Doug asks about all the fun they had with a somewhat accusatory tone.
Skeeter points out that all the rides are the same so, y'know…
Guy creeps up on Patti, putting his hands on her shoulders, and says, “I don’t know, guys. Patti and I had a fantabulous time! It was kickin’! It was slammin’! It wa…”
“Hey, Guy, cut the hype.”
After shoving him away, she says, “can’t you admit it was just a little dull? You always make such a production out of everything.”
In the parking lot, Judy is the first to realize they left the car out in the middle of nowhere. Doug’s friends and Guy help them look.
Doug asks Patti what Guy meant when he said they had a fantabulous time. She says, “nothing.”
He asks, “never heard of Suck Face Tunnel?”
“Doug, what are you talking about?”
“Nothing.”
I don’t know why Doug made up a ride called Suck Face Tunnel. It doesn’t make sense. He’s been to Funky Town before. According to the beginning of the episode, he was there last week. If it’s a place where middle school kids hang out, there’s almost certainly a part of it where they are sucking each others’ faces. Doug apparently doesn’t know about this area, and so made up his own idea of what it would be. It’s a shitty Tunnel of Love with a shittier name.
I currently have no theories on the apparent widespread shame the citizens of Bluffington apparently feel when they have to use the bathroom.
Thu, 19 May 2016 12:43:37Neither wants to deal with him. They’re both being very adult here, buying multiple copies of the newspaper so they don’t have to share, coming up with lame excuses for why they can’t take him, completely ignoring their newborn baby as it wanders about the room. Fortunately, Judy offers to drive him.
I really hope this newspaper is free. I appreciate the headline joke, though.
Everyone is shocked. Theda tells Judy there’s no need to be sarcastic. She replies, “who’s sarcastic? You guys are busy. I’m not. I’ll drive him. Keys?”
Judy leaves the house. Doug shrugs at his useless parents, and follows her. Phil and Theda drop their papers, stand up, and hug.
“After 16 years of parenting!”
“It’s like a dream!”
Notice how they are still ignoring the newborn?
When Doug and Judy sit in the car, Doug asks her, “what’s the catch?”
She says she’s just doing him a favor. He accepts this and she immediately reveals that the catch is that she wants to make one quick stop first.
“It all started on a Friday afternoon…”
So now we’re going back two days to get the story about why Doug needs a ride to Funky Town. He really should just leave this part out.
Patti asks if anyone has any plans for the weekend. Skeeter says he’ll be doing the usual, which is comic books and dirt biking. Beebe is also doing the usual. For her, this means a little polo and a little hiking in the Bahamas. She yawns as she says this. Doug says, “hey, I know. What do you say we go to Funky Town?” Patti dismisses this idea because they went there last weekend. Enter Guy Graham.
“Listen. How would you guys like to have a blast this weekend? Kick out the jams!? Blow out the stops!? Really soup things up!? KNOW WHAT I MEAN!?”
His suggestion is that they go to Funky Town. Of course. Everyone is excited about this idea now, except Doug. Doug points out that he just suggested that and they shot him down. Patti says, “somehow the way Guy said it, it sounded like fun.” Doug has a fantasy.
He’s flying a plane past his friends and asks, “wanna come surfboard-skydiving through the eye of a hurricane?”
They are not enthused. Guy approaches them and asks, “how’s about staring into a corner and slobbering like a baboon?” This is an idea they can get behind.
Because Doug has a low opinion of Guy and also his friends apparently. He just doesn’t get it.
Walking home, Doug continues moaning about the situation. He has taken this one instance as the new rule. He thinks his friends think all of his suggestions sound boring. If Guy excitedly told them all to jump off a building, they’d do it.
Tired of trying to get Doug to understand, Patti walks away. Doug says he’s not even going to go to Funky Town.
On Saturday, Doug and Skeeter are at an arcade playing a game called Death Golfer.
Skeeter asks him what he plans to do tomorrow. Doug says he was thinking about getting some people together to play basketball. He reasons that not everyone will be at Funky Town. “I mean, I know Al and Moo will be around.”
Actually, they won’t. They climb out of the Death Golfer cabinet talking about the type of processor the game uses. One is sure the games at Funky Town use the same processor and the other is sure they don’t. They’re planning to find out tomorrow.
Realizing the futility of putting together a basketball game, Doug has a fantasy about all the fun things he could do alone on a Sunday afternoon. Sitting on the couch, he turns on the television.
A news pundit says some things that are political and vaguely boring until his speech turns into “blah blah blah” and Doug falls asleep.
Doug has a dream about all the fun his friends are having. Guy and Patti run off a ride laughing. Guy suggests they stuff cotton candy down their shorts, pour ketchup in their hair, and run around squawking like chickens.
The dream within the fantasy ends, and then I guess, so does the fantasy. Doug is making this harder to write than it has to be….
On Sunday morning, Doug finally stumbled on the solution to his problem. He jumps out of bed shouting, “YES!”
He says he decided to change his mind. He gets dressed and runs downstairs and, well, we’ve already seen what happens there.
Finally, we get to see where Judy needed to stop. Why did she need to drive Doug to Funky Town? What was it she needed that apparently couldn’t be explained to the parents? Was it drugs? No. It was Snord Gruppen.
Basically what we have here is Ikea. Judy needs a new bookshelf. Doug knows what’s up though. He points out the incomparable size of Snord Gruppen and she dismisses his concerns.
Why didn’t she just drop him off first? Doug doesn’t ask this. He asks why can’t she do her shopping some other time. She says, “you know mom and dad never give me the car to go shopping.” A reasonable answer to a reasonable question that completely ignores the fact that “after you drop Doug off” is included in the phrase “some other time.”
Judy approaches something that doesn’t look like a bookshelf and says that it looks like a good bookshelf. She says, “what I love about this stuff is it’s all interlocking and stackable.” She spins a piece of the not-a-bookshelf and water pours on her from something that looks like a shower head.
A salesman approaches them and asks if they need help. Judy says, “this bookshelf spat on me!”
“This is sink, madam. You’re in kitchens. Living room is that way.”
That is a pretty shitty sink. They find something that looks a little more like a bookshelf. Doug points out that this extra stop is taking longer than she said it would. She pulls a knob on the presumed bookshelf and it turns into a car.
Another Snord Gruppen employee tells them bookshelves are on the second floor. Doug continues complaining, and after failing to find something else to mistake for a bookshelf, Judy asks a group of Snord Gruppen employees about bookshelves. They don’t know what she’s talking about. She says, “a bunch of flat, interlockable, stackable surfaces on which to place BOOKS!” They are still confused, so she pulls a book from her bag to show them. They laugh.
They says there’s nothing like that here. All of their books are interlocking and stackable, so they have no need for bookshelves.
Big fucking waste of time. In the car, Doug says he has 20 minutes to get to Funky Town. She says they’ll make it, but first they have to go back home. Incredulous, Doug asks why. She says she doesn’t know the way to Funky Town from Snord Gruppen. She only knows how to get there if she leaves from the house. Judy is the worst.
Doug checks a map and gives her very simple directions for the fastest route. She follows his directions until they get to the exit they need to take. She makes no effort to slow down and just zips right past it.
Next, she drives through a roundabout, pointlessly driving around it a couple times.
They drive through an industrial area and Judy starts yelling about how they’re lost. When they find a tollbooth onto the interstate, Doug insists they aren’t lost. They’re almost there.
He says Funky Town is just on the other side of the tollbooth. Unfortunately, it’s actually the border crossing into another country. This guy wants to see their passports.
Meanwhile, Patti and Skeeter are having a blast and wondering why Doug isn’t there yet.
Back in the car, Judy is berating Doug for his navigational incompetence. Because apparently it’s his fault she didn’t listen to him when he told her to take that exit. And it’s his fault she doesn’t know how to get to a place unless she leaves from their house. Anyway, now she has to make another stop. Doug begins to protest but it’s a rest stop and she says she has to stop. For some bizarre reason that I’m just going to blame on their parents, neither of them wants to say “bathroom.” She doesn’t say, “I have to use the bathroom.” He doesn’t say, “oh, you have to poop? Okay, yeah. Better you drop poops in a toilet than in your pants.” They’re both embarrassed.
While waiting for Judy, Doug turns on the radio and pulls out the map. A news story on the radio freaks Doug out a little.
“The couple was found stranded on a deserted island in the middle of Lake Aukamaga. They said they had gotten lost on the interstate and had been kidnapped by a gang of bikers. The bikers are still at large and dangerous.”
At the mention of bikers, Doug looks up from the map to see a group of cyclists stopping to sit at a picnic table.
A stereotypical biker pulls up next to Doug and asks if he needs directions. Doug turns blue and declines the help.
Then he has a fantasy about all the fun his friends are having. Al and Moo get on a ride while Skeeter makes two comments about how much fun they’re having or how much fun Doug is missing. Beebe is riding bumper cars and telling her chauffeur who to hit. Patti wonders out loud where Doug is and Guy tells her to forget about him.
“Hey, let’s take a boat through Suck Face Tunnel!”
“Suck Face Tunnel? What’s that?”
“I don’t know. Doug made it up.”
His fantasies are having dreams and becoming more self-aware.
After the fantasy, Doug is fuming about Suck Face Tunnel and asks Judy if she can go faster. She says no and she needs another rest stop.
If you were wondering if Doug was the only Funnie kid with apparent bouts of crippling social anxiety, well, apparently Judy couldn’t find the fucking bathroom and didn’t want to ask somebody where it was because then they’d all stare at her. Doug points out that everyone is at the rest stop for the same reason. Growing more impatient, he tells her to just stop at a gas station. She says it looks disgusting, but pulls over just the same. She says, “I don’t see one. Do you see one?”
“One what, Judy? SAY THE WORD!”
“Forget! Let’s go!”
Doug asks these two assholes if they have a bathroom because his sister needs to go. They laugh and Judy blushes.
When they’re back on the road, Judy is so furious, she threatens to tell Patti that Doug is in love with her. They get to their exit only to find it is closed due to construction.
The workers, especially the asshole working one of the bigger machines, are terrible.
Judy asks if there’s a detour to Funky Town and the guy goes on and on about how much he loves the place until the tractor operating asshole drops a huge slab of concrete right next to the car. Doug and Judy are scared for their safety, and should probably call OSHA. Instead, they reiterate their need for directions to Funky Town.
Unfortunately, another worker starts using a jackhammer right next to their car at the same moment they are getting directions.
Immediately after finishing the directions, the guy tries to ask Judy out. They hastily drive away without proper directions, because old man construction worker couldn’t just be helpful to the 16 year old. Naturally, they become more lost.
Doug is trying to navigate with the map, and I’m starting to wonder if he can actually read a map.
Lots of nonsense occurs.
Some cows get involved.
Finally, they’re just arguing. Doug takes the whole trip as good reason why their parents never let her drive. She says, “well maybe YOU’D like to drive then!?”
He says he would and reaches for the keys. She grabs them and hangs them out the window, threatening to throw them into the woods.
After she throws the keys, they both realize how fucking stupid that was and scream. Doug says that all they have to do is walk straight into the woods until they find the keys, then walk straight back.
After about 10 steps, Doug trips and despair takes over. He clutches at grass and dirt and says, “it’s no use! They’re gone! We’re gonna miss Funky Town! We’re gonna starve to death! We’re gonna be stuck here together for the rest of our lives!”
If you were wondering if it was worth your child’s time to join the Bluffscouts, it is not. They will be prepared for nothing. Anyway, Judy finds the keys. They were on the ground at her feet, a few feet in front of where Doug gave up.
They somehow become lost on their way back to the car. Some wildlife freaks them out and they start running. They run until they find a mysterious village. The citizens are dressed mostly like Pilgrims and they have weird accents.
Doug asks this guy if there’s a phone they can use. He doesn’t know what a phone is, so Doug describes it as a box you use to talk to people. The guy tells him, “leave off your foolery, ye young rapscallion.” This is apparently Pilgrim for “fuck off, shithead.”
Doug asks if it’s possible they drove through a hole in the time space continuum. Judy tells him to not be ridiculous. She grabs another person and asks for the date. The Pilgrim girl says it is June 14, 1683.
Doug and Judy gasp, but then Judy realizes she knows the girl. The girl panics and runs away. They chase. They’re too busy chasing her to notice the other people dressed in modern clothes and taking pictures.
When Judy finally catches the girl, Doug realizes they accidentally wandered into an area next to or part of Funky Town. Judy’s friend warns her that they have to pretend it’s the 17th century. Judy catches on and takes up the accent and speech patterns while Doug asks for instructions to the entrance of Funky Town.
The asshole Doug asked about the phone points them out to the parson as witches. So they have to be punished.
It makes no sense. They aren’t employees of this shitty place. If they’re putting all their apparent customers in the stocks for blasphemy or witchcraft or whatever, how are they still a business? They received this punishment because Doug asked for a phone during a minor emergency. How many emergencies have these employees ignored for the sake of their fake authenticity? You’ve had a stroke? What is this phone thing you speak of? Uh huh, and ambulance? What sort of spell is that? Are you the devil?
Doug takes this moment to reflect on all the times Judy has embarrassed him. The first example he thinks about is when she redesigned his soccer team’s uniforms.
She cast him as Ear Wax in her hygiene play.
After the recollections, a woman tells her son to stand by the witches in the stocks so they can get a picture. This doesn’t make sense. I hate how much this doesn’t make sense.
I don’t want to transcribe their whole fight, but basically Doug blames Judy and vice versa. Obviously. When Judy says Doug was too eager to meet up with “that little chicken leg blonde,” he blushes and pretends he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She points at Patti who has just arrived with Doug’s friends, and Doug says, “Chicken! I mean, Patti! Am I glad to see you!”
Doug’s friends let them out of the stocks. Patti asks where they’ve been and he tells her to forget it. Right after he suggests they go on some rides, a man announces that Funky Town is now closed.
So Doug tells them the story of their ridiculous day and realizes it’s actually pretty funny. They all think it’s very funny that Doug thought he actually traveled back in time. Al and Moo are laughing so hard they’re crying.
Doug asks about all the fun they had with a somewhat accusatory tone.
Skeeter points out that all the rides are the same so, y'know…
Guy creeps up on Patti, putting his hands on her shoulders, and says, “I don’t know, guys. Patti and I had a fantabulous time! It was kickin’! It was slammin’! It wa…”
“Hey, Guy, cut the hype.”
After shoving him away, she says, “can’t you admit it was just a little dull? You always make such a production out of everything.”
In the parking lot, Judy is the first to realize they left the car out in the middle of nowhere. Doug’s friends and Guy help them look.
Doug asks Patti what Guy meant when he said they had a fantabulous time. She says, “nothing.”
He asks, “never heard of Suck Face Tunnel?”
“Doug, what are you talking about?”
“Nothing.”
I don’t know why Doug made up a ride called Suck Face Tunnel. It doesn’t make sense. He’s been to Funky Town before. According to the beginning of the episode, he was there last week. If it’s a place where middle school kids hang out, there’s almost certainly a part of it where they are sucking each others’ faces. Doug apparently doesn’t know about this area, and so made up his own idea of what it would be. It’s a shitty Tunnel of Love with a shittier name.
I currently have no theories on the apparent widespread shame the citizens of Bluffington apparently feel when they have to use the bathroom.
