>>111367678Of the original three Nicktoons (Rugrats, Doug, Ren and Stimpy), Doug was the bastard stepchild. No one really liked it and even though it got aired a lot, it never really took off with viewers and network suits.
Hence them giving the rights to the creator, who shopped it to Disney and where it finally found an audience.
Ironically, this pissed Nickelodeon/Viacom off HUGE and had a massive chilling effect. It's why they sat on Invader Zim (Cartoon Network/Adult Swim DESPERATELY wanted to buy the rights to it) and why shows like Daria or The Max and other MTV cartoons only air on Viacom owned channels and never Adult Swim. Doug going to Disney and Disney making money off of it instituted a huge ban on letting creators take their shows to other network conglomerates.
As for George Liquor/John K; Nickelodeon executives banned the episode featuring him from airing during the first run of the show on Nickelodeon and basically told John K he could keep ownership of Liquor due to them wanting nothing to do with such a character. This was also around the time that they let Doug slip away from them as well, but in general they hated George Liquor and the episode he appeared in and really didn't think long term that John K would actually make good on his attempts to create new material based off of him.
