In Doug Unplugs, Doug is a robot boy who lives in a programmed world. When he meets Emma, a human girl with boundless energy for life, she teaches him about concepts like play and fun. This theme—the exploration of a healthy balance between technology and reality—is what drew Storyboard Artist Emily Jourdan to the show and kept her enthused throughout the first two seasons.
What appealed to you about working on Doug Unplugs?
It was all about merging today’s technology with how kids are raised. It was never about technology’s bad, we’ve got to stay away from it. It was about, no, you should use technology and figure out something that you want to learn about—but then you should go out and explore and really experience it firsthand.
You can say all day long, I don’t think kids should play with iPads. I don’t think they should be on phones. But they are. That’s just the reality of living in this modern age. So I did appreciate that [Doug Unplugs is] about balance, [and] I do think it’s message about technology is huge. It’s not something that many shows have touched on yet.
Tell us about the visual look of the show.
The characters and all of the designs were just so cute, so colorful, really appealing. It was all about approaching an episode from a kid’s point of view. Really low camera angles—make sure it felt like you were part of Doug and Emma’s [perspective]. And taking situations that you may have experienced or may even consider mundane and then reimagining them through the eyes of somebody who’s never seen it or done it before.
What were some of the challenges of storyboarding Doug Unplugs?
Usually an episode is split up [with] two or three artists, but for this show it was unique that we each got our own 11-minute episode, which is great. That also meant you were responsible for the entire episode, so if there was a section that was a little harder … Every episode always has a song where Doug plugs in and learns about something new—that was a different style, for sure. And keeping within the production limitations was sometimes a challenge. But it did force us to be more creative because [as a 3D show] we had a limited library of what we could pull from for assets. We had to learn what we did have and what we could do [with it]. Sometimes that led to some very fun decisions.
How did the show’s look differentiate the robot and human worlds?
The big differences between the robot world and the human world are reflected in Doug and Emma personally. Doug is a little more reserved, definitely very curious, but there’s a system that he lives within and he’s comfortable with that. But Emma pushes him to do more, to see more, explore more. She’s very energetic. She’s got lots of fun animated posing, [and] her voice actor is the best. She’s so excited and gives a great performance that we all had a lot of fun boarding to. [As for the backgrounds], the sets provide a stage where they can go on all these adventures and find something different. But [the show] really is about Emma teaching Doug to be a little boy instead of just a robot.
Is there anything that Doug teaches Emma?
I’ll give you an example of one of my favorite episodes, “Where No Bot Has Gone Before.” It’s about Doug and his Aunt Rover, who’s a lunar rover. We learn that Emma’s very into space, so she gets to figure out the job of a lunar rover. They go to a planetarium and learn all about space and space travel and being on the moon. That is something we get to have [as a] first experience for Emma, because she was really excited about: What is it like to travel through space? The robots actually got to lead her on that adventure.
Along with a message about technology, what else does the show offer young children?
It’s got a lot of seeing things for the first time through new eyes. The episode I boarded for season two, “Brushin’ Bots,” is about going to the dentist for the first time. It’s something that could be really scary, and a lot of kids already know what the dentist is, but Doug’s never been before. It’s all about, ooh, what does this do? He says hello to the X-ray machine! It’s all this stuff that maybe the kids haven’t thought about before, [and] through Doug’s eyes maybe they can learn to see it in a new way. I would really like to encourage parents of younger kids to give it a shot. It’s a great show that people should seek out and watch because it’s got a lot of great comedy and heart.
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