Slightly off-topic, but IIRC, you mentioned in another thread that the original series wasn't pulling in the numbers Nickelodeon was looking for at all. That's why it was sold to Disney.
How come? If you're familiar with the birth of Nicktoons, as discussed in the book Nickelodeon Nation: The History, Politics, and Economics of America's Only TV Channel For Kids, it says that of the 8 Nicktoons pilots, it was the Doug pilot that fared the best. Not even the other two pilots that were greenlit ("Big House Blues" for Ren & Stimpy and "Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing" for Rugrats) came this close. How could it have done so well as a pilot, but not as an actual series?
Just for fun; these were the eight pilots. The ones that were greenlit are bolded:
* Thunder Lizards (Based on Nickelodeon bumpers)
* Big Beast Quintet (Same thing as Thunder Lizards)
* Big House Blues (Ren & Stimpy pilot; based in Los Angeles)
* Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing (Rugrats pilot; based in Los Angeles)
* The Weasel Patrol (Comic adaptation based in New York City)
* Doug Can't Dance (Doug pilot; based in New York City)
* The Crowville Chronicles (British-based pilot)
* Trash (Same thing as The Crowville Chronicles, but stop-motion)
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jptf2
13 years ago
I can only speculate, but my guess would be the Sunday morning time slots weren't particularly good for ratings, despite the clever thought behind it. Doug skyrocketed in ratings once it was given the weekday evening slots to air reruns in 1994. It was the same with Rugrats. The Rugrats/Doug weekday evening reruns were the top 2 highest-rated shows on Nickelodeon, and oftentimes on basic cable, period.
Also remember, Ren and Stimpy was given a time slot on the original SNICK lineup in 1992.
So that would be my hunch. They did do 4 seasons of Doug, so it had to have been fairing at least decently even in the Sunday morning slots.
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