Development Hell / Western Animation

• The three Code Lyoko OVAs. Reports conflict as to whether or not they were finally cancelled, but evidence points to the latter.
• Nelvana held the rights to produce an Animated Adaptation of the Little Critter books and at least a couple of scripts were written around 2000, but nothing further has been heard since and it was assumed development was dropped. In 2016, 9 Story Media Group picked up the rights, but it has still yet to materialize.
• Hasbro had planned two DVD releases based on the character TJ Bearytales and even released a music video featuring this character on a My Little Pony DVD. The DVDs were slated for release in either late 2007 or early 2008, but neither ever materialized.
• These two webpages (Wayback Machine archive) have information on a few Nickelodeon series that qualify:
  • A Rugrats spinoff called The Carmichaels, which was cancelled upon the uncancellation of Rugrats because kids would be confused that Suzie was living in two different places.
  • A Hey Arnold! spin-off called The Patakis, which was rejected for being too dark in tone compared to its parent series (to put it in perspective, many of the scripts were compared to Daria in tone).
  • Stewey the Dog Boy, scrapped once Disney premiered Teacher's Pet.
  • Constant Payne, dropped due to a studio strike.
  • Skeleton Key, dropped due to its Darker and Edgier tone.
  • Baxter and Bananas, originally aired as a 15-minute short in 2002 opposite Invader Zim.
  • Crash Nebula, a The Fairly Oddparents spinoff canned for being too similar to Sky High. It did get a Poorly Disguised Pilot, though.
  • Kung Fu Spy Troll, a Butch Hartman series about mutant animals.
  • What's Cooking?, about a boy and his grandparents running a deli as a secret CIA mission.
  • Nickelodeon was supposed to produce a show adapting AKIHABARA @ DEEP in the late 2000's as part of a partnership between NHK, which also included licensing for Domo TV and Deko Boko Friends. While the two shorts in question did air, AKIHABARA @ DEEP never got produced.
• An animated series based on the comic book series The 99 was announced to be one of the launch programs on The Hub, but no word about the series has been heard since its announcement in March 2010. Given it's been years since The Hub was rebranded as Discovery Family, this one can safely be confirmed as long dead.
• In the 2000’s, there was talks about a Crazy Frog cartoon and an animated film at that time. Nothing has been materialized.
• Robotech Shadow Rising is the proposed sequel to Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. Its fate is reportedly tied up with the schedule for the proposed live action movie on which no progress is known to have been made since its announcement in 2008. Shadow Rising has been put on hold in favor of another film project, Robotech: Love Live Alive, released on DVD with the special edition reissue of Shadow Chronicles in July 2013. Love Live Alive took the 50-minute OVA Genesis Climber MOSPEADA: Love Live Alive and added 40 minutes of new bridging material written and conceived by the late Carl Macek to create a full-length feature designed as a direct lead-in to Shadow Rising. Shadow Rising is still MIA, after an abortive 2014 crowdfunding attempt to produce a pilot called Robotech Academy came to naught.
• The Magic 7, which apparently was a fantasy TV special with environmental messages, begun production in 1990, was first announced for a release in 1997, but hasn't seen the light of day ever since. Two actors who had recorded lines (John Candy and Madeline Kahn) died ever since the project started.
• The second season of the ThunderCats remake, that was going to last 39 episodes, had not been renewed and remained on indefinite hiatus. It was eventually cancelled, ending the series on a cliffhanger, finishing only half of its planned run. There was a short-lived reboot, but that got cancelled after a single season.
• A series reboot of The Flintstones produced by Seth MacFarlane was announced in 2011. Problems with MacFarlane's schedule resulted in plans being put on hold, and it appears to have been cancelled, as FOX's rights expired and returned to Warner Bros., who opted to release two new projects for the property: The Flintstones: Stone Age SmackDown! and Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs.
• Fearless Photog was a character created for a 1986 He Man and the Masters of the Universe contest by then twelve year-old Nathan Bitner. Among other prizes the winning character was supposed to have entered into production. Unfortunately, the He-Man toys had stopped selling by then, so the entire line (including the Photog figure) was cancelled. It wasn't until 2012 and after a massive case of "whatever happened to...?" on the Internet that Mattel finally made Photog, selling him to adult fans on their MattyCollector.com website.
• After the success of the Robot Chicken Star Wars episodes, Lucasfilm tapped Stoopid Monkey to produce Star Wars Detours, a CGI cartoon featuring various side stories, with a planned 2013 airdate. The series was apparently well in production, with footage being released online, before the Disney acquisition forced Lucasfilm to allocate its resources towards the sequel trilogy. 39 episodes were reportedly completed.
• Rugrats Preschool Daze, a Rugrats spin-off focusing on Suzie and Angelica at school, was put on hold after the success of the All Grown Up!, one shot special, led to a series. Only four shorts were produced (making up two full episodes) and put on the Rugrats "Tales from the Crib" DVDs. At this point, it's safe to say it's cancelled.
• In 2011, Mike Judge was supposed to be the producer of a new series for MTV Animation called Worst Friends Forever, about three unpopular high school girls. Nothing more is known about it, since it was immediately canned.
• In 2006, Disney announced two Winnie the Pooh installments for their Learning Adventures series: Good Day, Good Night and Time to Rhyme. Trailers popped up in various Disney DVDs at the time, featuring fully animated footage. Sadly, neither of them were released making this a rather baffling example.
• Similarly, Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams was intended to be followed up by more DVD releases featuring Mulan, Cinderella, Belle and another Aurora story. The Belle/Aurora DVD was titled A Kingdom of Kindness and trailers were sent out on Disney home media releases featuring fully animated footage. The songs from the Cinderella/Mulan DVD were also featured on previews, but with Stock Footage, indicating animation had not been completed. Unfortunately, John Lasseter axed any and all future DTV sequels from Disneytoon Studios.
• Lauren Faust doesn't really care for a Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls series, but for years she's been trying to pitch it as she knows toy companies prefer when toys have Merchandise-Driven cartoons. There's still no sign of a series or even an animated special after some 10+ years of trying. She tried to pitch Milky Way once and ended up creating My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic instead (and it shows, with several of the ponies being similar to Milky Way characters). She's mentioned wanting to redesign the characters but nothing has come of that yet. The series website went offline and the project is seemingly put on the backburner for now.
• There have been talks of an Animated Adaptation of the book series Rainbow Magic for years, pretty much since the series started (the franchise was bought by HiT Entertainment presumably for this very reason). All that's come out of it was a one-off movie/OVA released around 2010, and nothing else seems planned.
• There were apparently plans for an animated series of Barbie back in the late 80's, but all that materialized were 2 specials based on the short-lived Barbie and The Rockers line. Apparently DIC decided to make Maxie's World and/or Beverly Hills Teens instead.
• A Johnny Test film was announced around 2013, but the near-universal hatred of the franchise and the show's cancellation have apparently put the plans on ice. It might have a chance to be saved since Netflix picked the show up for two more seasons, but it remains to be seen.
• The Canadian/Australian co-produced cartoon SheZow's production has stalled since mid 2013 and is most likely cancelled. The creator and some staff members have been trying to get it started up again as a graphic novel, but even that is going slowly (the comic book itself ended after only one issue, indirectly confirming that the franchise is dead).
• The creator of Codename: Kids Next Door has been trying to get a sequel/spinoff series about Numbuh One's adventures in the Galactic Kids Next Door picked up for a while now, but its future doesn't look too bright.
• Atomic Betty Redux was in the works for several years before its cancellation was announced in 2019. It was to follow Betty as a teenager. The idea was scrapped and they simply made more episodes of the main series.
• Halfway through its seventh episode, Polly and the ZhuZhu Pets was put on hiatus and went through a supposed name change to The ZhuZhus, along with the main character's name, Polly, being changed to Frankie.
• A Captain America cartoon was scheduled to premiere on Fox Kids in the fall of 1998, but the bankruptcy of Marvel Comics meant it was not to be.
• The planned Garbage Pail Kids Saturday-Morning Cartoon, 13 episodes of which were actually made, was cancelled by CBS before it premiered in 1987.
• Fox ordered Murder Police for 2013-2014, before abruptly cancelling it in October 2013.
• In 2015, it was revealed that another adaptation of Astro Boy was being made, this time co-produced by a French studio. All that's been revealed since then is some concept art, along with a few tweets confirming that the show is still in development and hasn't been cancelled. Updates on the series wouldn't get known until June 16, 2022 when Tezuka Productions announced Thomas Astruc (Miraculous Ladybug creator) as the show's director. The June 2022 update also revealed that the new Astro Boy series has shifted from 2D to CGI with Method Animation working on the show's animation and aiming for 52 half-hour episodes.
• There were a couple attempts to make an animated adaptation of The Blues Brothers, but none of them were ultimately made. The first one, as The Lost Media Wiki states, was to be aired on UPN in 1997. 8 of 13 episodes were reportedly completed, but the series was cancelled, and nothing outside of a couple of animatic promos has ever surfaced. The other one was announced in 2016 and was going to be made by Bento Box Studios (the studio behind Bob's Burgers), but their website doesn't make any mentions of it, and outside of mentions made on every major animation and film site at the time, and this Twitter profile, there's absolutely no info about it whatsoever.
• The band cartoon Chloe and the Stars is stuck in development hell. It started out as sketches back in the early 2000s but in 2014 there was an attempt to crowdfund a pilot. It didn't reach its goal and the pilot was never animated. The plot was supposed be about Chloe and the other girls going to an intergalactic Battle of the Bands.
• The third season of Toad Patrol has been in development hell for almost 15 years now. A show sponsor page said that another 13 episodes were in development circa 2005, but nothing ever came of it. One of the reasons might be due to some of the production companies involved in the previous seasons going out of business or much of the voice actors either retiring or, in the case of Long John Baldry (Mistle Toad) and Michael O'Reilly (Earth Star), passing away.
• A FreakAngels adaptation was set to be released via the Crunchyroll Originals branding with previews of animation shown as part of Crunchyroll's February 2020 sizzle reel as well as a listing in the SAG AFTRA database with 2020 listed as the release window. However, after series creator Warren Ellis was accused by over sixty women and non-binary individuals of sexual harassment and coercion, Crunchyroll dropped all mention of the series, and as of April 2021, it has no set release date.
• Powerhouse Animation announced an original production called Heaven's Forest with Warren Ellis as its main writer and Adi Shankar as producer. Hiring for roles related to the series was occurring as recently as March of 2020. However, all mention of the series has ceased since the sexual harassment allegations against Ellis came to light.
• Attempts at making Super Best Friends Forever fell through. Several years later, it was retooled into the TV reboot of DC Super Hero Girls (with Wonder Girl swapped out for Wonder Woman, but using the same voice actress and characterization).
• A Strawberry Shortcake reboot was announced in spring 2017 for a 2018 release. Due to the internet backlash to the redesigns, this version never materialized. In 2021, a web-series called Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City premiered as a replacement to the scrapped 2017 reboot, and was much better-received.
• 9 Story Media Group was planning a Angelina Ballerina remake with HiT Entertainment. However, it has yet to materialize, likely due to HiT being merged into Mattel Creations and Mattel's general financial woes in the latter half of The New '10s.
• In the early 2010s, Cartoon Network announced a series called I Heart Tuesdays. Despite the interest in the concept about a cursed bloodline, the series was cancelled around 2013 or so, possibly because of issues regarding the show's creator's inexperience with animation.
• An animated series based on UglyDolls was slated to be released on Hulu around the time the film debuted on the platform (November 2019), but never materialized despite someone who worked on the show claiming that it was in production. In June 2020, it was revealed that Kelly Asbury, another person who worked on that particular incarnation of the franchise, had lost his battle with stage 4 stomach cancer, so Asbury's passing could have played a role in its delay.
• The animated series Gen Zed was slated for a 2016 release. Despite some buzz for its usage of a transgender actress in the lead role, the trailer was poorly-received with viewers seeing the show's humor as offensive, and nothing has been heard of the project since.
• Craig Bartlett and fellow Hey Arnold! writer Joe Purdy pitched an animated adult comedy to Spike TV called Hellville, set in Heaven and Hell. Spike rejected the show, but Bartlett sent the script out so he wouldn't be pigeonholed as a children's animator.
• According to a Reddit post, the TV Movie Furby Island was a pilot for an animated series that never got off the ground. Only three episodes were written before a change in presidents at Nickelodeon resulted in the show being canned.
• DiC Entertainment have had a lot of projects that got cancelled or delayed without any formal announcements.
  • In November 1992, the company announced an Inspector Gadget spin-off called Gadget Girl. Fast forward to a 1995 print ad, the series is still shown to be in development. A year later in April 1996, through a MIP interview about Gadget Boy & Heather, DIC staff members confirm the idea didn't work as they hoped to and so Gadget Girl was never made.
  • In November 1999, DIC announced a co-production with Arles Animation in France titled GI Gadget featuring Inspector Gadget joining an elite army commando unit, and would have had a TV movie to begin the series. It was supposed to air in 2000, but nothing else was said after this announcement, and the production most likely was scrapped after Arles was purchased in June of that year by BKN. DIC would instead team up with SIP Animation in December 2000 and create Gadget and the Gadgetinis, which came right on time for a Fall 2002 release despite the purchase of Saban Entertainment by DIC's former owner Disney. However, a planned American airing on Fox Family was silently cancelled after the purchase because of it's rebranding to ABC Family and reducing its children's programming.
  • In November 1999, DIC announced three co-productions with Korean company Ameko Entertainment who would distribute them in South Korea. The only one completed and announced was the infamous Super Duper Sumos.
  • In November 2000, after DIC became re-independent from The Walt Disney Company, the studio announced several projects, including a Sabrina: The Animated Series spin-off titled Salem, featuring the titular cat. 52 22-minute episodes were planned, but ultimately the series was never heard of again after this announcement. It was very likely that Sabrinas Secret Life replaced this.
  • A similar fate also occurred with an animated Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? spin-off titled The Adventures of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? - The Animated Series, which would follow a concept similar to fellow DIC show Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?. It was announced as a DIC-Celador co-production in October 2001, but was never heard from again after this initial announcement.
• In 2018, fresh off the success of Castlevania, producer Adi Shankar announced he had purchased the rights to Devil May Cry to make an animated series, and to prevent Hollywood from making a live-action version. There has been no news since that time, but if nothing else, with the rights to the series, Shankar succeeded in preventing a live action version from being made.
• The Jim Henson Company announced a reboot of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin that featured younger versions of the characters in 2019, but nothing came of it save for a pitch pilot.
• Spawn: The Animation, a reboot of Spawn following the HBO animated series, has been teased by Todd Mc Farlane since 2007 with occasional model sheet releases and claims that an entire season of dialogue has been recorded. However, at no point has animation been shown or anything resembling a release date or distributor been announced.
• In 2008, around the time The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack premiered, Disney was working on a similar series called Poopdeck. Production was stalled indefinitely once Cartoon Network got wind of it and ordered a stop to it.
• When the PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch block was announced, a series based on Junior Kroll and Company was said to be part of the initial lineup. By the time the block debuted in fall 2000, the show was not included. It didn't show up for the block's second season, either, so it's likely that the production was cancelled.
• Silverwing had a second season announced in 2003, but it never aired. It's likely plans for more episodes were cancelled.
• A planned reboot of SWAT Kats from Tremblay Brothers studio has been in development since roughly 2016 when a Kickstarter campaign began. However, the last update from the Kickstarter confirmed they were turned down by every major streaming service the series was pitched to. While they temporarily paused pitching the series to avoid negative correlation with Cats (something cited in the Kickstarter update as a legitimate concern for the series), the Tremblay Brothers allege its eventual pickup and release is a matter of when, not if. In 2022, it finally got picked up by Indian company Toonz Media Group.
• Celebrity Deathmatch's Wikipedia page mentions that MTV Studios announced twice a reboot/"reimagining", but nothing came of it. In 2016, series creator Eric Fogel tweeted that the reboot's production was stopped without stating the reasons, then in 2018 he stated that he was in talks with Ice Cube and his Cube Vision production company to reinvent the series, but nothing has ever surfaced since then.
• In 2013; Bill Cosby posted on his Facebook page that he was planning a revival of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Smart money is on that, with the avalanche of sexual assault allegations against Cosby that broke the following year and climaxed in a 2018 conviction and prison time, there's no chance of that series seeing the light of day.
• Hellbenders was a Web Animation series by Zach Hadel (known online as "psychicpebbles") and Chris O'Neill (known as OneyNG), with three episodes released in 2012 before it was picked up by [adult swim]. However, both the online series and TV pilot proceeded to tumble into limbo, Hadel confirming in 2016 that he and O'Neill had completed their share of the work, but it was up to Adult Swim to produce the rest of it (in 2017, a rough edit of the pilot was leaked and verified by Hadel). It appears that the project has since been completely scrapped, though Hadel would eventually get a full Adult Swim series in the form of Smiling Friends.
• The 70s Hungarian show The Rabbit with the Checkered Ears was set for a revival in 2018, with 15 new episodes ordered but only one made. The then still living original creators were dissatisfied with the revival's changes, such as putting less focus on the Rabbit, making the other characters more stereotypical and allegedly introducing a new girl character. Without any official statements, it seems creative differences had put a stop to production. The sole completed episode only aired on TV a couple times and has since become lost. Another episode almost entered production but only a still frame and a plot summary survive of it.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: The Movie!, the Grand Finale movie to the Cartoon Network show The Amazing World of Gumball was planned since 2019, got 2 updates in 2021 confirming it and revealing its plot and seems to have entirely disappeared from the TV channel's future plans. None of the companies behind it have given any info on what happened to the film and a plan for the show's creator and the film's staff to give movie updates on Discord fell through for some reason.
  • As it is a Sequel Series to both The Movie and the original show, The Series falls under the exact same situation as it's not going to come out until after The Movie releases.
• There have been multiple attempts to revive the Betty Boop brand over the decades, most of them petering out without any fanfare. The latest is a Betty Boop cartoon series that was announced in 2016 and was set to air 2018 before being pushed back to 2020 and has received no major updates since. There is also a stage show which also has had no updates about its status aside from its existence.
• Felix the Cat has had a few revivals that never made it past the planning stages.
  • Don Oriolo had planned at least three direct-to-DVD holiday specials for the Felix series, including a Valentine's Day and Halloween special, but only one of them, Felix the Cat Saves Christmas, saw the light of day.
  • A CGI-Flash reboot was planned in 2013 but never made it past early development.
  • Another shot at a revival was planned for Netflix by DHX Media scheduled for the summer of 2019 but nothing came from it.
• In 2019, a reboot of The Boondocks was announced and was supposed to release on HBO Max. It was supposed to come out in 2020 before getting pushed back to 2022. Eventually in February 2022, the reboot was cancelled, although Sony is reported to be looking at alternative options.
• A Garfield animated series was announced for Nickelodeon back in August 2019 when Paramount Global acquired the franchise, but as of 2022, nothing from that series has been revealed.
• In 2020, Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart was renewed for a second season which was announced at San Diego Comic Con. Neither Parker Simmons nor Cartoon Network have said anything on the matter since then. Following the show's removal from HBO Max (alongside a number of other shows) and Cartoon Network purging its social media pages of any mentions of the series, most assume it's been Quietly Cancelled.
• One particularly unfortunate Cartoon Network would-have-been series was cancelled before it was even announced, meaning the show's crew can't even mention the show by name and its contents are unknown. This was another result of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
• Due to the unexpected success of Ready Jet Go!, Wind Dancer Films announced the development of several other shows aimed at children, such as an animated adaptation of Not a Box. None of these have seen the light of day since 2017, and Ready Jet Go! remains the only kids' show produced by Wind Dancer Films as of 2022.
• In the early 2000s, Disney had plans for a movie called The Search for Mickey Mouse that was meant to celebrate Mickey's 75th anniversary. The writers couldn't find a way to make the idea of having Disney characters making cameos every few minutes work, so they instead opted to make Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers. The plot would have been about Mickey getting "mouse-napped," so Minnie hires Basil to get him back.
• In early 2021, an animated series based on the long running children's nature magazine Ranger Rick was announced to air in spring 2022. Nothing has been heard about it since.
• In 2020, Beach House Pictures and JumpStart Games announced plans to produce an animated series based off Neopets, with a planned launch date of fall 2021. Nothing has been heard about the project since.
• In 2020 there were plans to make a reboot of the 90s Spanish series The Triplets, set two decades after the original story.
• According to Wikipedia, the Oscar-winning short The ChubbChubbs! was going to spawn both a full-length animated film and a television series in 2003, but nothing came of it.
• In 2020, the Barcelona FC channel released a trailer for an animated series called "Talent Explorers", which would focus on three talent scouts looking for the next generation of soccer superstars. After its announcement, the series was never acknowledged again as of 2023.
• In 2016, Monica's Gang announced a few animated projects, one of which being "Bem Vindo ao Bairro do Limoeiro" ^note Welcome to Lemon Tree Street, a brand new Monica's Gang TV show that featured the characters using their designs from the 70's comics and an implied more story-focus narrative. The show had a release date of 2018, but that year has come and gone and since then, the trailer has been unlisted from their channel (but not the Voice Actors trailer, for some reason), the tie-in juice boxes with the characters were replaced with generic ones, and besides the character designs used in the show being featured in merchandise, we have yet to see hide or hair of the show, to the point that it's being speculated that it was Quietly Cancelled.

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