Although Doug is one of the more light-hearted of the Nicktoons/Disney cartoons, it still had plenty of examples of some pretty scary stuff.
- Many of Doug's imagine spots qualified as this. It showcased how wild of an imagination that he possessed and that he was far more pessimistic and afraid of life than he let on:
- His infamous "You broke my grill" fantasy. In it, he imagines telling Mr. Dink that he had broken his grill, which leads to the latter getting so angry with him, he immediately transforms into a cross between the Wolfman and the Hulk, while growling at his neighbor and, at least in Doug's mind, probably intent on hurting him.
"YOU BROKE MY GRILL?!"- Doug's fantasy of Mrs. Wingo, drawn as a doodle, appearing at his door step in "Doug's Doodle" is pretty disturbing to say the least.
- So is his fantasy of a live fish being served to him begging for its life in tears, when his Grandmother takes him to a sushi restaurant and explains to him what is in "Doug on the Wild Side".
- All of the imagine spots from "Doug's Nightmare on Jumbo Street". To wit, Doug and friends had recently viewed a monster movie, The Abnormal, and while all of his friends were freaked out by the movie and the havoc that the monster itself wreaked, Doug never viewed it, closing his eyes at the last moment, which gave him recurring nightmares. Among the moments including one where his and Skeeter's bikes became sentient and the latter's bike threw him off a cliff and to his death while Doug helplessly watched, the garage itself came alive and ate Doug, and one where Porkchop was Jack Torrance and transformed into the monster, taunting him with, "You don’t even know what I look like! Look at me! LOOK AT MEEEE!!!" Granted, it all was soon Nightmare Retardant when we finally saw the monster, who was so cheap looking you could see the zipper for the costume he was in from the back (and which is comparable to the actual image on the Nightmare Retardant page), but still...
- The one where the Abnormal was disguised as Porkchop is especially creepy due to the fact that the dream never explains what happened to the real Porkchop.
- The time Doug had a fantasy about what Mr. Bone, who was in the hospital, was in for: he actually believed that he was there to literally get eyes in the back of his head.
- One episode had Doug finding a lost purse full of money, and wrestling with if he should return it or not. Upon seeing the news report about the purse's owner being distressed over losing it, he has a bad dream where the woman was now so poor that she not only was wearing a barrel for clothing, but the "bolts" holding her head on were also repossessed and it proceeded to fall off, while she flailed her arms uncontrollably and wailed out "Oh-NOOOO!!"
- The episode in which Doug wishes "everyone to be just like him", only for him to have a nightmare where everyone he knows and loves morphs into a clone of himself. By the end, Doug is on the verge of being swarmed by them before snapping out of his fantasy.
- The episode where Doug was suspected of cheating on Chalky's test and he trying in vain to confront him on it had him imagining his classmate walking by Patti and Mrs. Wingo who praise him for being so perfect, only for him to hide behind a tree, take off his "human" skin to reveal himself as a giant rat and cackle fiendishly.
- The camping episode featured a creepy, surreal imaginary sequence of monsters lurking in the woods.
- Judy and her Dancing Cats from "Doug Goes Hollywood". Aside from implying that Judy has lost her mind due to him being offered a role in a commercial instead of her the actress, this is Doug fantasizing about what he thinks his sister may someday end up. Worse, he imagines himself a Michael Jackson-esque famous big shot who just in case he ever runs into her on the street, instead of helping her in any meaningful way, he'll just give her whatever change is in his pocket.
- The episode where Doug and Skeeter are going to an out-of-town Beets concert has them accidentally missing their bus and leaving them stranded at a truck stop diner. Then the former gets an idea of them stealing one of the many big rig trucks at the diner and driving to the concert, which leads to an fantasy of what will happen once behind the wheel. Problem is, they're only in junior high and have no idea how to drive a truck, let alone any vehicle, which leads to them losing control of the vehicle and plunging off of the highway.note
- "Doug's Got No Gift" has Doug wishing to buy a great gift for Patti's birthday, but he accidentally spends all of his money at the video arcade. After he gets help from Mr. Dink to make her a gift instead, he initially dreams about building her her own plane and flying in it with her (seriously), but after building something more practical and that he's less proud of, a towel rack that ends up being useful to the plot, he has another dream where they're "flying" on that, but soon fall to their deaths into a lake.
- In "Doug's Fan Club", Doug gets a call from the mother of Todd Bentley, a boy who greatly admired Doug and attempted to mimic him. She called to inform Doug she lost him at the Honker Burger after he told the kid and his baby brother to leave him alone after they wouldn't stop annoying him. This has him imagine that he told Todd to get away from him during a dark and stormy night. Todd runs out of the Honker Burger wailing and crying during a horrible storm into the woods right before a semi-truck almost hits him!
- Arguably one of Doug's most disturbing imagine spots/dreams comes from "Doug's Movie Madness": In this episode, Doug is disallowed from seeing a new action movie that is extremely controversial among his and his classmates' parents due to its excessive graphic violence. Believing he is mature enough to handle such a thing, he and Skeeter go to see the movie anyway. This results in Doug having a nightmare where he is eating dinner with Judy and his parents, only for their heads to suddenly detach from their bodies and start swirling around the room and Doug like deflating balloons while the tomato soup they were eating begins splashing around everywhere to the sound of their distorted voices, machine gunfire, and "Psycho" Strings. Doug wakes up screaming and is forced to confess to seeing the movie.Doug: (to journal) It was awful. Heads were rolling everywhere just like in the movie.
- "Doug's Derby Dilemma" has a disturbing moment of tension near the end. Bebe and Chalky are at the lead in their car, which Bebe had a team of mechanics make for them. Assuming victory is theirs, Chalky tries to turn on what he assumes is the radio, but is instead the emergency airbag. The problem is, the airbags work too well; they won't stop inflating, and leave both Bebe and Chalky in serious danger of getting smothered as they yell muffled cries for help. If Doug, Skeeter, Patti and Connie didn't stop to help them, who knows what'd happen to them. On top of that, when they are pulled out, the airbag keeps inflating to the point it lifts the whole car into the air like a hot-air balloon. Had the kids been too late, even if Bebe and Chalky managed to get breathing room, they'd probably be stuck who-knows-how long in the sky.
- The first Christmas Special was surprisingly dark for the show. It all started with Porkchop being sent to the pound for biting and injuring Beebee while they were playing hockey on a frozen pond. Turns out, it wasn't his intent to injure her, but to keep her away from the thin ice she was on. Regardless, he was almost put down over a simple misunderstanding. Also, you had Doug fantasizing about standing at his dog's grave as he tries to find a way to rescue him and clear his name. Worse, during the trial where they went back to the pond to explain what occurred, Beebee actually did fall through the ice, but Porkchop was able to rescue her and save the day.
- The Cold Open for "Doug's a Genius" quickly takes an unexpected turn: on the white intro screen, the animate pencil line which Doug usually employs to various uses suddenly draws glasses on his face. He rubs them off, and backs into an area of the screen which is smeared with alarmingly messy lines. The one by which Doug stands turns out to be a ledge, from which he suddenly falls through several abstract paintings, and into a sea of violently smeared streaks of green, brown and black paint. Trapped in the lurid mire, he cries out in despair...
- Percy Femur, Mr. Bone's nephew from "Doug Saves Roger". His cruelty and Hair-Trigger Temper is shown early on by beginning to bully Roger (and his style of bullying involved physical harm instead of just annoying pranks and obnoxiousness like with the latter), who spent the majority of the episode terrified for his life and even the opening sequence showed him desperate to escape/hide from the offscreen presence that was threatening him. Plus, the guy is shown to be a wolf in sheep's clothing whenever his Uncle is around, pretending to be the "innocent" student. As if Percy wasn't bad enough, he then decides to beat up Doug after school simply because he asked him (and rather politely) to back off of the former. Fortunately, this also doubles as a Moment of Awesome as right before Percy even manages to take a swing, Mr. Bone stops him, has him expelled and even calls him "the bad seed". Roger had told him what was happening and not only did the vice principal believe him, but he put a stop to everything instead of looking the other way because that was a family member.
- Also of note, this is probably the only episode where Doug doesn't have a single Imagine Spot or fantasy. The concerning and fearful atmosphere of it was so palpably real that even Doug couldn't escape it. The one exception is the Cold Opening where Roger is sobbing and pleading desperately for a conflicted Doug to save him from an offscreen presence getting closer and closer.
- The Halloween episode of the Nick series, which has Doug, Skeeter and Roger get trapped in a Haunted Mansion-style theme park ride called Bloodstone Manor after it closes on Halloween night.
- The eating-disorder episode from the Disney series, particularly after Patti goes off the deep end.
- Special mention goes to her nightmare. She's on the running track and just starts getting fatter and fatter out of nowhere. Everybody either jeering at her. Doug forgetting her name and calling her Fatti instead of Patti. Growing heavier and heavier until she trips and falls, where she explodes offscreen like a water balloon full of lard.
- "Doug's Bad Trip" had the tensions of the Funnie family at an all-time high. While Phil just wanted to take his family to see a place called The Painted Gorge, Doug and Judy kept falling for tourist traps out of boredom that held up their schedule. So by the end of the night, all of the family members are angry and sniping at one another, the two siblings argument has devolved into a screaming match (with Doug even yelling at her, "You don't even know what you're talking about! Ah, shut up!" when she blames him for the trouble they're in) and when Phil turns around to scold him, they almost collide head-on with a big rig. Not helping matters is during this intense confrontation is the soundtrack, which is the blaring "action" music heard during a big argument or a tense adventurous moment.
