The theme from Nickelodeon’s Doug has no real instruments at its heart. It is almost entirely one man’s voice: Fred Newman scat-singing “doo-doo” and “na-na” lines that build into a stack of harmonies, the sound a generation of kids still hums on cue.
The series turned 35 this August, and the story of how those tunes were made is stranger than most cartoon soundtracks.
A tuna can instead of a guitar
Newman was a voice actor on the series as well as its composer. He voiced Doug’s dog Porkchop, best friend Skeeter Valentine and neighbor Mr. Dink, and he built the score largely from scat singing and mouth noises. Creator Jim Jinkins later recalled how Newman showed him that a tuna can filled with water, thumped with a finger, could stand in for a guitar.
That homemade approach was deliberate. Newman set out to break from the frantic style that had defined cartoon music since the classic studio era, which he felt did not suit a slower, gentler show about an 11-year-old writing in his journal. Jinkins treated the music as part of the storytelling rather than decoration.
The opening sequence was the hardest piece of all. Unusually, it was recorded before the animation was made, rather than composed afterward to fit finished pictures.
The Beets, Quailman and trash-can percussion
The music also lives inside the stories. Doug’s favorite band, The Beets, is a play on the Beatles, with members drawn to look like caricatures of Ringo Starr and Robert Plant, and a habit of endless reunion tours borrowed from the Who. In the episode “Doug’s Garage Band,” the idea of making something good out of nothing pays off when Doug performs “Bangin’ on a Trashcan.”
Even the end credits had a musical gag. In season one, Porkchop puts on headphones in the last stretch of the credits and drowns out the background music with a cue from the episode’s first story, annoying Doug until he chases the dog off screen.
A quick guide to Doug for newcomers
- Premiere: August 11, 1991, on Nickelodeon, the first of the original three Nicktoons, airing just before Rugrats and The Ren & Stimpy Show.
- Nickelodeon run: 52 episodes over four seasons, ending January 2, 1994.
- Disney era: Disney bought producer Jumbo Pictures in February 1996, and 65 more episodes aired on ABC from 1996 to 1999.
- Total: 117 episodes, plus the 1999 feature Doug’s 1st Movie and a stage show at Walt Disney World.
Do the math and the Nickelodeon years, the ones fans tend to remember for Newman’s music, account for 52 of the 117 episodes, or about 44%. Jinkins himself has said he mostly agrees with fans who rate the original Nickelodeon stories as the best.
The show’s town of Bluffington was loosely modeled on Richmond, Virginia, where Jinkins grew up, and nearly every character was based on someone he knew. Patti Mayonnaise took her name from two girls from his childhood.
Kids’ TV with staying power is a recurring theme here; Badiyaa recently looked at how Sesame Street survived three near-collapses on its way to Netflix. More from the world of film and TV is on our Entertainment page.
All 52 Nickelodeon episodes are sold on digital stores such as iTunes and Amazon Prime Video, while the Disney episodes and the movie stream on Disney+.
Further reading
Image: Alan Kotok from Arlington, VA, USA, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.
