Doug's Bad Trip is the second part of the thirteenth episode of the fourth season of Nickelodeon's Doug. It is also the series finale of the Nickelodeon version of the show.
Synopsis[]
As the summer begins, the Funnies plan to drive across the country to visit the Great Painted Gorge. Phil is committed to keeping to a schedule, but Doug and Judy convince him to stop at several tourist traps along the way. The family isn't having any fun on the trip, until they finally reach the stop that makes it all worthwhile.
Recap[]
Intro[]
During a stormy family road trip, Doug and Judy are angrily arguing with each other and Theda and Phil furiously argue about the directions of the road trip. Soon, they encounter a truck driven by a hippie which is about to crash into them.
Main Episode[]
At the Funnie house during the summer, Phil implements a family meeting in the living room telling them that they are not going to Grandma Funnie for summer. Instead, They are going on a family road trip to the Great Painted Gorge, promising it'll bring them closer together and will be the most amazing thing they've ever seen. Doug and Judy are both excited for such a vacation. Phil makes a long list of things to do during the vacation: watch the sunrise over the Great Painted Gorge at 7:00 AM, watch the rattling rocks at 10:00 AM, see the Old Reliable geyser, have lunch at Picnic Creek at noon, watch the whistling cactus patch at 4:00 PM, have dinner at 6:00 PM, watch the sunset, and gaze at the stars in the sky during the night, for the first day.
The family begins packing the next day (including Judy bringing a big heavy trunk of her books) and ride off, singing road tunes on the way. After the hours elapse, the initial enthusiasm drains away and they are completely bored. Doug looks through the window and spots a billboard that says "It," which is 125 miles away.
Doug's imagination: In a cave, Doug and his family navigate through it and come across a wall. Phil notices the wall is moving and it is revealed that the wall is really It, a giant crimson creature, whose eyes have red irises, pink pupils, and chartreuse sclerae, and with whom Doug later gets a picture.
Doug cajoles his father to stop to see It. Phil is hesitant to take such a detour as he wishes to keep on schedule, but Theda suggests the stop could be educational, which Phil reluctantly capitulates to. As the Funnie family get there, however, it turns out that It was just a funny-shaped potato, much to the family's disappointment. Phil crosses out the first two plans on his list, and the Funnies continue their trip on the road. Doug, promises to not fall for something like that again, but then, he reads a billboard of a Bug Ranch which is 75 miles away.
Doug's imagination: Doug, dressed in cowboy attire, is seen riding on a giant beetle like a horse as he ties up another beetle with his rope as his family cheers for him.
Again, Doug asks his father if the family can visit the Bug Ranch, justifying the detour as they have a better idea of where they're going. However, they find that it is only a small (about 3¼ cubic feet) terrarium containing a mini-barn and some live insects of various sorts. Again, Phil crosses out the other plans on his list.
When the family goes back on the road, Judy teases Doug about his lame spots and sarcastically asks where their next stop will be. Doug reads a billboard that says "Visit the Poetic Blythe Field" (300 miles away) which Judy is quick to beg the parents to go to. Phil is desperate to just keep going and not make another long detour, but is reminded that, per Doug's requests, they went to It and Bug Ranch, so he is forced to agree and he continues to cross out the other plans on his list.
When they get there, it turns out to be nothing more that a desert with the words "Blythe Field" written on the sign and Judy finds Gloria's Rock, on which the poet wrote a poem titled "O Gloria with Hair like Granite". When Doug maligns the place, he and Judy get into an argument and it begins to rain hard. Phil insists that they have to get going, as the continued delays and detours have lost them hope of even spending one day at the painted gorge.
The family get back inside the car and Phil, determined to at least see the gorge, speeds through the storm, telling them that they're not stopping for any reason. Soon the intro scene is shown again; however, the car luckily rides past the truck. Phil asks everyone if they are okay, which they say yes to.
Unfortunately, the car is stuck to the mud and Phil stops it, saying that this is the end of the family trip. Both Doug and Judy apologize for selfishly spoiling it with their detours. Phil starts to walk away to search for a tow truck station, but Doug stops him. After some struggle, the family successfully free their car from the mud, with Porkchop running the engine.
Shortly after, the family realizes they have made it to Great Painted Gorge as the sun finally rises from the sky, and finally get the great view of the gorge they had hoped for. Doug's voice-over states that his dad was right; not only was it truly the most amazing thing they had seen, but it did indeed bring his family closer than they had ever been before.
Quotes[]
•Phil (after Judy has expressed her desire to visit Blythe Field): It's 300 miles out of our way, dear.
Judy: But we saw all those lame, stupid, uninteresting things Doug wanted to see!
•Doug (to Judy, while the Funnies are at Blythe Field): You thought Bug Ranch was bad?! At least Bug Ranch had T-shirts! This place is Lame-O Central!
Characters[]
Trivia[]
- This episode has the following last aspects of the series:
- It is the last episode of the Nickelodeon version, as it would be moved to Disney two years later.
- It is the last episode to be co-produced by Ellipse Programme.
- It is the last episode to be 11 minutes long.
- It is the last episode where Doug was voiced by Billy West (though he would voice the character again in the commercial for Nicktoon Fruit Roll-Ups in 1995).
- The P.A. voice talking about It is an imitation of the late horror actor Vincent Price.
- Judy mentions that the "sheriff" insect in the Bug Ranch terrarium is a water bug. Giant water bugs are true "bugs"; many other insects, such as the cockroaches and katydids whom she also mentions, are not.** Also, the "water bug sheriff" is a remarkable sight. He appears to be about 6½ inches long and 2½ inches wide--about the size of the largest insect in real life, the Titan beetle of South America,* and much larger than giant water bugs are in real life. The other insects in the terrarium are also quite large; they appear to be about 3-4 inches long.
- At Bug Ranch, and later at Blythe Field, the rock formations of the Painted Gorge can be seen in the background, which means that each of these detours had, inadvertently, provided a shortcut to the Painted Gorge. Going to Bug Ranch wouldn't have been a complete waste of time if the Funnies had noticed the rock formations.
- The Funnies appear to be traveling, on average, about 30 MPH while they are on the road. The signs for the tourist traps say that the tourist traps are 125, 75, and 300 miles away, which are obviously severe overestimates. This means that just going to them and getting back on the road would take more than a day altogether. It's not even dark by the time that they reach Blythe Field, and Phil says, while they're at "It", that the time is 2:37 PM. Each detour must have been approximately a 15-minute drive (about 7½ miles) each way. He himself greatly overestimates the distance to the Painted Gorge. After several hours of driving, he says that it is still 1,500 miles away. However, the entire trip, even with the three detours, appears to take about 23 hours. They reach the gorge by sunrise, at 7 AM., and it was 8 AM the previous day when they'd finished getting ready and departed. Including the detours, the entire distance from their house to the Painted Gorge is more likely about 690 miles. Therefore, when Doug asked how much further (correct grammar: "farther") they had to go, a more appropriate response from Phil might have been, "...only 500 more miles...".
*Bouchard, Patrice (editor). "The beetles". The Book of Beetles: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred of Nature's Gems, edited by Tom Kitch et al., The University of Chicago Press, 2014, page 545.
**Burnie, David, and Don E. Wilson (editors-in-chief). "Invertebrates". Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide, 2001. 5th edition. 2022, page 558.