History Trivia / PokemonTheSeries

** [[http://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Masaaki_Iwane:_Pokémon_anime_originally_slated_for_18-month_run The anime was originally just supposed to last through Kanto]], with an assumed ending of Ash defeating Gary and winning the Pokémon League. Here's one to consider in light of that 18-month report: ''Videogame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' was originally scheduled for release in late 1997, but was delayed to be adapted for the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor. The first episode of the Anime aired on April 1, 1997, and because of the delay to ''Gold and Silver'', the Orange Island filler arc was created.

** There is currently no single hub through which every episode can be watched digitally, with the rights to various seasons being held by Netflix, Amazon and the BBC. The official Pokémon website used to have a section titled "Pokémon TV" which showed a rotating selection of series, but this was shut down for unknown reasons in February 2024.

* NoDubForYou: Inverted, as the series has never been officially released with Japanese audio and English subs. Most likely due to the fact that the licensor believes the TargetAudience wouldn't be interested in watching it in a language they don't understand, and likely not helped by Japanese home video releases being very incomplete, with a whopping ''four'' episodes of the ''Advanced Generation'' series getting a DVD release. Even when ''Pokémon Journeys'' was released as a Netflix original, English is the only language available, unlike practically every other anime Netflix has licensed (although previous seasons have multiple audio and subtitle languages). The first work to avert this was ''Anime/MewtwoStrikesBackEvolution'', which was released internationally on Netflix with Japanese audio and subtitle options among other languages.

** For similar reasons, the Finnish dub stopped including the Pokérap and "Who's That Pokémon?" segments beginning with ''[[Recap/PokemonS1E22AbraAndThePsychicShowdown Abra and the Psychic Showdown]]''. Some parents were less than happy with the MerchandiseDriven nature of the show and accused it of surreptitious advertising, with the Pokérap and its "gotta catch 'em all" message in particular being seen as blatantly telling children to collect all the toy versions of the monsters in the show. After the matter went so far as to warrant an inspection from the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority, the network [[OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope stopped showing the Pokérap and "Who's That Pokémon?" to be on the safe side.]]

** All of the English dub's voice directors (with the exception of Jason Bergenfeld) are known to have lent their voice to the series on at least one occasion:

*** Theresa Buchheister took over for the rest of the eighteenth season as well the first third of the nineteenth season, providing several human voices with her most prominent being Team Flare scientist Aliana.

* DelayedReleaseTieIn: The first season of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' features several episodes which lead into ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie''. However, due to the infamous [[Recap/PokemonS1E38ElectricSoldierPorygon "Electric Soldier Porygon"]] seizure incident, the show was taken off the air for a few months. The movie's release date did not move to compensate for the schedule delay, meaning the Mewtwo tie-in episodes ended up airing a few months ''after'' the movie had already come out. This was [[AvertedTrope averted]] in the American release, as the English episode package did not include "Electric Soldier Porygon" and it allowed the episodes to be broadcast before the movie's U.S. release.

** The GS Ball was originally going to contain a Celebi that was to star in a large portion of the Johto arc. After ''Anime/{{Pokemon 4Ever}}'' came out, it was decided that having a Celebi in the anime right after a movie featuring Celebi would be redundant, so the idea was shelved.
** ''Anime/{{Pokemon 3}}'' was [[http://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/movies/pm_lord_unknown_tower_entei/lord_unknown_tower_entei_mythical_third_movie.html originally set to address the question of "What happened to real-world animals in the Pokemon universe"]] and instead of Entei and the Unown (Gold and Silver had been delayed at this point of development and they were unsure about doing another movie debut Pokemon) the focal point would be the reanimated fossils of a ''Tyrannosaurus rex''.

* IKnewIt:
** During ''Diamond & Pearl'', the hints were pretty obvious that Ash and Dawn were eventually going to trade their respective Aipom and Buizel. It was always really questionable why Dawn was the one that captured Buizel when she already had Piplup as her team's Water-type, and Buizel being battle-hungry while Aipom enjoyed Contests just seemed like a better fit if their trainers were swapped.
** Kukui's 6th Pokemon being [[spoiler:Tapu Koko]] was something many fans called, even before the episode titles were released, due to it watching the battle between [[spoiler:Ash and Kukui]].

* CreatorsPest: Creator/AndrewRannells, the voice of Harley, doesn't like Team Rocket member James due to finding him to a bad representation of a gay man. He went into greater detail about his experience of playing said character in the show's musical ''Theatre/PokemonLive'' in his 2019 memoir, ''Too Much is Not Enough: A Memoir of Fumbling Toward Adulthood''.

** A DVD release of the first three movies took place in the United States in Spring 2009—just after Noriko Sakai [[note]]who did the narration for "Pikachu and Pichu"[[/note]] was convicted of drug possession. Needless to say, the set, which included Pikachu and Pichu (which was taken out of circulation in Japan on Sakai's account), was soon pulled, and the international distributor ultimately lost the rights for good in part as a result of the set's failed release.

* DiedDuringProduction: Some of the creative team and cast members involved in the series have since passed away, including Creator/TakeshiShudo, Creator/HirotakaSuzuoki, Creator/TomokoKawakami, Creator/UnshoIshizuka and Creator/KeijiFujiwara. Thus, Giovanni has been voiced by Creator/KentaMiyake since September 2006 and Professor Oak (along with Samson Oak) has been voiced by Creator/KenyuuHoriuchi since September 2018.

** The UK broadcast has also bounced around a fair bit - the show originally launched on Sky One and the Creator/{{ITV}} network in 1999, and it aired all seasons up to ''Advanced Challenge''. Cartoon Network then took over, airing ''Advanced Battle'' through to ''Diamond & Pearl'', as well as repeating the older seasons on its sister channel Toonami (Later Cartoon Network TOO). The show then hopped once again to Jetix, which started with ''Diamond & Pearl: Battle Dimension'', and it continued to air when the channel was rebranded as Disney XD, but it was pushed into a graveyard/early morning slot by the time that the ''XY'' season started airing, eventually vanishing from the lineup. Pop MAX (A kids TV channel formally known as Kix! that shows cartoons that used to air on other networks alongside newer seasons of Power Rangers) started showing episodes from ''Black & White'' onward since the start of 2018. On the terrestrial side of it all, it used to air on ITV's CITV kids block, but in its original run several episodes were awkwardly cut into two ten-minute segments. It aired on and off, originally only showing the first couple seasons and a small handful of ''Pokémon Advanced'' episodes. Around 2009/10, it started airing on the dedicated CITV free-to-air channel, where new episodes aired long in advance to those on satellite networks, with some episodes airing weeks ahead of their US broadcast. Whilst it focuses on showing the current season, they air older seasons from time to time, with ''Advanced'' getting a proper run back in 2015. As of today, the show currently airs on Pop.

** How some Pokemon captures went down in later seasons. Turtwig's capture for example, was seen as an exact copy of how Bulbasaur's capture went about where both grass-starters were trying to protect Pokemon from humans. Not to mention the Fire-type starters Ash has captured minus Cyndaquil all having [[TheWoobie rough backgrounds]].

* WordOfGod: Storyboarder Masamitsu Hidaka said that Ash's father is on his own Pokémon journey, and his character would be explored if it is necessary to further Ash's CharacterDevelopment.

** As of Journeys at the latest, the series is under a direction from the higher ups to depict the Pokemon World as the real world, but with Pokemon, a change from previous depictions of the setting where the world was depicted as being a lot more distinct from the real world.