People's obsession with the different skin colors

Quite frankly, it's an unmistakable sign that the person talking is an idiot.

I remember when I was a kid, I once made note of the characters having different, non-human skin colors, and a split second later I said to myself, "heh, I guess that's just the art style of the show." And then I moved on, because it was no big deal. Clearly, the creators did it intentionally.

Then when I got a little older and started frequenting the internet, I came across an FAQ thing for Doug where Jim Jinkins had stated that it was to show that race didn't matter. My response? "that's cool. *shrug*" Move on.

It's one thing to be a little curious about the inspiration for it, but I've come across so many idiots who actually bash the show because the characters have different skin colors. Or, that's all they have to say about it when they say they didn't like it. "Why were the characters different colors?????? Why, why, why????????"

Here's why - because it's a cartoon. Most cartoons throughout history featured talking animals (but no, "why does X animal talk???" there...no, they save those kinds of questions for Porkchop acting out human things, even though he can't talk), and many of these talking animals weren't colored natural colors for their species. Stimpy was a red cat, Huckleberry Hound a blue dog. Even an example of a human villain character, Snidely Whiplash, had green skin.

Then there's the other nonsense going around about how Skeeter is supposed to be black. I even saw one idiot complain in a blog/article that Skeeter was a "stereotypical black character." What in the...?

The stereotypical black character is a genius, now? Is obsessed with a rock group? Oh, but wait...he beat boxes.

Here's what people don't seem to realize - Skeeter's beat boxing was an attribute the character picked up from his portrayor, Fred Newman. Newman, a white man, grew up in the South and was heavily influenced by black story tellers. He's famous in the field of vocal sound effects, and beat boxing is something he loves to do. Any "black traits" Skeeter picked up were purely the byproduct of being voiced by Newman.

Newman also does a distinct older black female voice, which he used to portray numerous extras, as well as Grandma Opal in "Doug On the Wild Side." So I guess Doug has a black, motorcycle riding grandmother, too.

Meanwhile, they complain that Doug is "white"...but neglect to mention Doug's mom isn't, and Judy has a different shade of skin from Doug.

Besides which, Doug did have an undeniably black character make an appearance - Sky Davis ring any bells?