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    A 
  • Adventure Time:
    • The original short had crude animation and an even cruder art style (dubbed by creator Pen Ward as having a pre-school vibe), Finn was named Penn, Lady Rainicorn did not speak Korean but some sort of coo-ing language, and Jake somehow could connect his mind to the Internet. Aside from Jake and Abraham Lincoln, all characters have different voice actors in the series (Jeremy Shada's older brother, Zack, voices Finn/Pen, Paige Moss voices Princess Bubblegum, John Kassir of Tales from the Crypt fame voices Ice King, and Dee Bradley Baker, who would become a regular voice actor in the main series, voices Lady Rainicorn). Despite all of this, the episode "Sons of Mars", in which Lincoln recognizes Finn, implies that the pilot is still broadly canon to the show’s continuity.
    • In "Slumber Party Panic", Finn and Jake must keep the invasion of candy zombies secret because, according to Princess Bubblegum, the candy people explode if frightened. Not only is this fact never mentioned again, it has been disproved several times. Then it happens again in a Season 6 episode!
    • In general, early episodes, mostly the first season, runs on Negative Continuity: Finn discovers his fear for the ocean despite not showing the slightest fear in a previous episode where he was on the beach, Finn and Jake get wizard magic and learn ice ninja abilities but don’t retain them afterward, etc. However, the show would fall into Continuity Creep after the second season finale and gaining a more flowing narrative, with a number of these earlier moments (such as an episode ending with the heroes brainwashed by a giant worm) getting continuity nods and sequel episodes.
    • The first season also has Finn and Jake with practically opposite personalities and plot roles to their later development, with Finn as a well-intentioned but excessively-violent Blood Knight and Jake with a very parental elder-brother relationship towards him. It didn't take long for Finn to become much more morally-principled and level-headed, and Jake to turn into an irresponsible Manchild more in-line with his voice actor's usual roles.
    • There's also the show's title card appearing at the end of some early episodes.
  • American Dad!:
    • Steve started out as a snarker with a heavy dose of attitude instead of a dorky Butt-Monkey. For example, in "With Friends Like Steve's" he pretends to be excited about spending the day with his dad and then deadpans that he'd rather die, something that would just come across as cruel for Steve of the later seasons.
    • Roger frequently complained of being unable to leave the house. In later seasons it's established that Roger's had multiple disguised personae for decades, and one episode revolved around Roger leaving to take a break and the entirety of Langley Falls falling into anarchy as a result.
    • Hayley, too, was the Only Sane Man in the early episodes (if incredibly Rightly Self-Righteous about it), but now she's often as bonkers as the rest of the family.
    • Klaus was originally a perverted Jerkass, but became a mix of The Chew Toy and a Butt-Monkey when it was clear fans didn't like him. In contrast Roger was more introverted and actually somewhat sympathetic, a stark contrast to his self-obsessed Heroic Comedic Sociopath persona later on.
    • The show's political humor was much more blatant in the first seasons, with most of Stan's abrasive behavior provoked by his Right Wing extremism (similarly Hayley was more a hypocritical Left Wing extremist). A lot of this had to do with America's political context at the time; the first episode aired in 2005, just after George W. Bush's re-election, a time when attitudes on the war on terror and opinions on counter-terror espionage tactics were big partisan cleavages. As time passed the show evolved into a more traditional (if still over the top) family sitcom, with Stan acting more as a traditional Bumbling Dad Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist.
    • The pilot episode relied heavily on Family Guy's trademarked cutaway humor, which would fortunately be dropped very quickly. Also, Stan was much more overt in his paranoia towards Hayley, such as subjecting her to a full body pat-down when she enters the house, and Roger's "clockwork" discharge of protoplasm was rarely mentioned again.
    • Toshi's mom looks very different in an early episode than she would later on. His sister Akiko was first shown as being much younger than him, but was later redesigned to be around the same age.
  • Animaniacs had surprisingly little of this compared to other cartoons, but still some oddities here and there:
    • In the earliest episodes, Yakko, Wakko and Dot were often referred to collectively as "the Warner brothers" by other characters, instead of the more familiar and Dot-inclusive "the Warners" or "the Warner brothers and their sister Dot."
    • Skippy Squirrel's first few appearances portray him as a Genre Blind wide-eyed innocent, seemingly about six years old, as opposed to the competent, Genre Savvy, seemingly ten- or twelve-year-old sidekick to Slappy that he usually is in later episodes. He also seems just to visit Slappy instead of living with her.
  • Archer:
    • Early episodes implied that ISIS was a very large organization, with Malory making an offhand reference to fifty other agents who wanted Archer's job in the pilot, plus a large support staff who strike near the end of season one. In later episodes, it's just the main characters and occasionally a few people with desk jobs; when the team needs a replacement agent, Malory starts looking at Cyril rather than just bringing in someone new.
    • In the early episodes, it's somewhat startling to see Cheryl acting like a normal-ish person, if slightly browbeaten by Archer. She doesn't start acting too crazy until Conway shows up, and even then it's pretty tame compared to what would come later.
    • For the first half of the first season, Krieger is a non-speaking background character, while Ray doesn't appear at all. It takes until Season 2 for the show to settle on its eight main characters.
    • Archer is covered in scars whenever shown shirtless in season one, but they disappear in later seasons. He also freaks out on finding a dog in his apartment in the pilot, but brings a lemur home with two hookers just four episodes later and squees over Cheryl's pet ocelot in season two and an English Mastiff in season four.
  • Arthur has some major inconsistencies early on:
    • For example Francine was more of a Jerkass instead of her more mellow Jerk with a Heart of Gold personality from later episodes, Sue Ellen appears several times despite having transferred to the school in third grade, Francine celebrated Christmas despite later being shown to be Jewish and celebrating Hanukkah, etc.
    • Even Binky Barnes being a legitimately feared school bully instead of a close friend of the gang seems weird given how long it's been, although this is 100% a case of intentional Character Development as he becomes more sensitive, gets into music and ballet, and gradually teaches the other Tough Customers to follow suit.
    • Even Arthur himself was somewhat different in the first season with him having more Jerkass moments(particularly in "Arthur and the Crunch Cereal Contest")compared to the Nice Guy he usually is.
    • Due to a possible coloring error, nearly all the characters in the earlier first season episodes had extremely pale pink tongues. Muffy was also depicted with buck teeth like her book counterpart, but this was dropped quite quickly.
    • Interestingly, the characters were also shown to have rather exaggerated reactions when they got surprised or shocked, with some very fluid animation to match, in a manner not unlike The Busy World of Richard Scarry, another show Cookie Jar/CINAR was producing around the same time. This was toned down after the first two seasons, as the creators felt these were too cartoony.
    • D.W.'s friend Emily originally had very short hair and dressed in pink for the first few seasons before her design was altered to having shoulder-length hair and a blue dress.
    • Francine's cat Nemo had a much different design in his debut episode. As well as this, he was also named "Mimo" note  and didn't really have much of a personality until the episode "The Secret Life of Dogs and Babies", where he is depicted as a Jerkass with a touch of Deadpan Snarker when interacting with Pal and Kate. Pal was also friends with him, whereas in later episodes, they're rivals.
    • Almost every Furry Reminder comes from the first four seasons. Afterwards, the fact that the characters aren't human is almost never brought up (the most prominent of these is to hang lampshades on it), to the point that there are long debates on This Very Wiki about it.
    • The tone for the first few seasons or so was different compared to the rest of the series. The show has more of a tone that fits a Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network show, and was a bit more cartoony compared to the later seasons. While still an edutainment show, it does lean more on the entertainment aspect first, then the educational aspect second.
    • The earlier seasons have some mild undertones of Urban Fantasy (though usually for one-off gags), like underground societies of mutant mole people, real aliens, or Castle Manor being haunted by actual ghosts. Later seasons tend to limit outlandish moments like these to imagine spots and dream sequences. Imaginary friends like Nadine, however, are still shown to exist.
  • As Told by Ginger: Although it's more of What Could Have Been than this, the pilot was nothing but weirdness. Ginger has what only can be described as a pointy afro, her voice was slightly different, and her journal was pink rather than the cyan color that series adapted to afterwards. And it doesn't even end with the titular character. Dodie's pigtails started low on her head and arched up (and were very expressive), the whole main group of friends was treated as actual losers rather than the cooler characters they'd become. Courtney had an entirely different design, Blake looked completely different and acted wild, Darren's headgear gave an annoying squeak whenever he spoke, and, the icing on the cake, both Darren and Miranda were white. The intro also has Courtney intentionally splashing Ginger with her car, while in the actual series she avoids the usual Rich Bitch stereotypes, and actually likes Ginger.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • For a while, Appa was called a "Flying Bison" instead of the more prevalent "Sky Bison" that he became later.
    • In the earliest episodes, the fauna of the Avatar world was very alien and ran on Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit" (to wit, the above-mentioned Sky Bison). Eventually these creatures were replaced by a world full of more recognizable Mix-and-Match Critters, leaving creatures such as the Sky Bison as The Artifact, as the species from earlier episodes couldn't just disappear. Real life animals could also be seen from time to time in season 1. For example, in Bumi's introduction episode, a relatively normal-looking cat can also be seen (which is why the first video game uses cats as enemies).
    • The plot of "The Waterbending Scroll" is kicked off by Katara feeling jealous that Aang mastered several waterbending techniques much faster than she did, implying he's more adept at it or at least learns quicker. But later in the season when they're trained by Master Pakku, the exact opposite happens, with Katara becoming a master within only a couple episodes while Aang struggles and requires tutoring from her for the rest of the series, making this episode look rather strange in hindsight. Justified in a Technician vs. Performer sense with Aang as the latter and Katara as the former, averting Hard Work Hardly Works by surpassing him when he only trained when it was necessary, otherwise he was just goofing off in the snow.
    • In season one, when Aang pursues an angry spirit, he is put into a state of astral projection, separated from his body but still otherwise in the same world. This state is referred to as being "in the Spirit World". It wasn't until the first season finale that the Spirit World was established as a completely separate plane from the physical world, with its own geography. And after that episode (in which it's depicted as a swamp with giant trees), the rest of the series depicts the Spirit World as a Fluffy Cloud Heaven where Aang meets with the past Avatars. The depiction of the Spirit World didn't fully solidify until the second season of The Legend of Korra.
    • An episode in season two makes a big deal about Aang's affections for Katara conflicting with his ability to go into the Avatar State, implying Avatars were not allowed to have romantic relationships. This was abandoned and future works show Avatars in romances without issue.
    • Book 1 was looser when it came to background characters wearing clothing color-coded on the nation they were from. Kyoshi Island is part of the Earth Kingdom, yet most of its residents wear blue instead of the standard green, while the two tribes from "the Great Divide" dress almost nothing like the usual Earth Kingdom citizens seen later in the franchise.
  • The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes has no Cold Opens in the first five episodes produced. The first season also has a number of cosmetic differences for the crimefighters, compared to the second season. Iron Man's mask has an opening for his mouth. Thor has a sleeveless and more colorful costume. Nick Fury has black and grey hair and no beard, like in the mainstream Marvel comics. It should be noted, though, that even after Iron Man and Thor changed their costumes, Marvel continued to use the old ones in publicity materials. If a viewer started watching during season 2, he or she might find it jarring to go back to season 1 and find no Previously on… segments, a Thematic Theme Tune, and not a lot of guest spots by crimefighters associated with neither the Avengers nor S.H.I.E.L.D.

    B 
  • Uniqua had a slight case of Elmuh Fudd Syndwome in early episodes. In "Pirate Treasure", she says "You can tell I'm a piwate because...", and in "The Heart of the Jungle", she calls herself "Professor Uniqua, the bwilliant scientist".
  • In some of the Season 1 episodes, the characters stood still while the background transformed around them. In one instance, the background changed before the transformation music started. In Season 2 onwards, the characters started running into the yard while the background transformed, and appeared in their fantasy clothes once the transformation was complete.
  • Austin's design was slightly different in Season 1. His hands were smaller in size and his face was slightly longer.
  • During Season 1, before they went in for snack time, the Backyardigans' dance moves at the end of each episode was very different from the remainder of the show.
  • Batman: The Animated Series:
    • The tone of early episodes were more like a typical kids action show and not nearly as dark as the show would famously get, with plots like Batman ending up in a kid's basement and a more cartoony design for Scarecrow. It wasn't until the show started experimenting more partway into the first season that it settled into its trademark style.
    • Alfred fell victim to this in the first six or so episodes, with Clive Revill giving him a much stuffier and less warm characterization before Efrem Zimbalist Jr. took over.
    • Harley Quinn makes her debut here and is considerably different than most future incarnations. Her insanity is entirely due to the Joker's manipulation, and she's mainly meant to be a tragic character. Many of her later versions are implied to have always been somewhat crazy, with the Joker just making it worse. More troublingly, her mental illness is often just treated as a cute personality quirk, rather than a disease she's suffering from. Finally, the modern comic version of her (as well as the DCEU version) seems to be quite a Blood Knight, and rather like's melee combat. The original Harley Quinn is actually rather shy, prefers guns, and usually only gets violent to gain the Joker's approval, not just "for fun".
    • In her first appearance Poison Ivy's trademark hyper immune system isn't displayed. She even requires an antidote for her own lipstick after using it. This is quite jarring because later episodes would refer to said immunity as if Ivy had always possessed such an ability.
  • In the Batman Beyond episode "Out of the Past", Bruce is shown looking through pictures of all the women he's been with in his life. Given that the episode came out before Justice League was even in production, Diana is completely absent, which is pretty weird in hindsight given the five seasons of Ship Tease they had.
  • Season 1 of The Batman is basically a stylized Kung-fu show in a whacked-out version of Gotham, with very unusual takes on characters and a number of canon foreigners. By the end of Season 2 all of the new characters had been written out and replaced with a more traditional Bat cast, and the Kung-fu aspect was pretty much gone to make room for meatier stories. For better or for worse though, the first season is what most people remember.
  • Beast Wars:
    • On the first two episodes, the transformations are treated with much more gravitas. With each member shouting his name and transformation code out loud, and being seen to transform by themselves. This is not limited to just the first transformation either, as almost all of them in the first two episodes are this way. Similarly, a big case is made out of Optimus' inexperience at commanding. This is never referred to again once the two parter is over.
    • One of the biggest changes between the two part pilot and the rest of the series is the personality of Rattrap. In the pilot, he's a completely selfish, even cowardly ("Eh, better you than me") Jerkass with no redeeming virtues whatsoever. In the first post-pilot episode, he risks his life to save Cheetor, grumbling and complaining all the way, establishing him as the Jerk with a Heart of Gold he'd be for the rest of the series.
  • Beavis and Butt-Head:
    • The show was almost completely different for the first two seasons. In addition to having even more primitive animation and artwork (the squishy cel physics and washed-out crayon style backgrounds) and voice acting (the two speak with Totally Radical Surfer Dude accents, sound closer to Judge's regular speaking voice, and Judge also voices nearly all the female characters), the series itself was initially about two stereotypical metalhead teenagers who were not very bright (as opposed to the Too Dumb to Live they later became), and focused on the duo's destructive antics and pranks with little consequence rather than outright mock their stupidity. Even by today's standards it's clear why the Moral Guardians were horrified at this show when watching the earlier episodes. And the music video portions of the first couple seasons are noticeably more minimalist than they would be later on. The original approach was akin to recreating what two dumb kids would say while watching a video in real-time, basically stock reactions to random sights and sounds. Later on, said segments would evolve into the more structured joke setups that would be considered among the series' highlights. Lastly, Butt-Head's attitude towards Beavis was also originally less casually malicious — it's somewhat shocking to re-watch those early episodes and hear him say "Huh huh, you're pretty cool, Beavis!"
    • In "Peace Love and Understanding" (the second pilot), Mr. Van Driessen is a musical guest at the truck rally the boys attend (and who they were unfamiliar with), and is gruesomely killed by one of the trucks. The series proper firmly establishes Van Driessen as Beavis and Butt-Head's teacher, and while he suffers because of the two, is never killed on-screen again.
  • The first several episodes of the Beetlejuice cartoon, and the pilot in particular, are quite different from the rest of the series in a number of small ways. Even the animation style is slightly different.
    • The pilot shows Lydia's room going through a rather bizarre transformation, bringing her to what looks like the interior of a castle to hang out with Beetlejuice. She's shown in that same location a few other times, and there's a door in one wall which leads out to the Neitherworld. The use of this door, and the entire castle location, is dropped early in the series; instead, Lydia's incantation brings her directly into the Neitherworld wherever Beetlejuice happens to be.
    • Beetlejuice's chronic terror of sandworms remains throughout the series, but it's never showcased to the same extent as in the early episodes.
    • The earlier episodes seem to imply that the lamp on Lydia's bedroom table is relevant to the incantation. It's also shown in the pilot that her spiderweb poncho is actually the gray tablecloth which covers the same table; she seems to use magic, which she's never able to do in any other episode, to change it to its signature red color.
    • While they're consistently described as being Beetlejuice's neighbors (and one later episode shows that they've actually been his friends since high school), the early episodes appear to suggest that Jacques and Ginger actually live in various parts of BJ's Roadhouse. This may in fact be true, but the later episodes don't indicate one way or the other.
  • Ben 10:
    • In early episodes of Ben 10: Omniverse, Khyber whistles with his lips instead of his neck-holes, Rook used contractions (despite the fact that in later episodes, it's shown Rook's people consider contractions akin to swearing and anytime he uses one it's an Out-of-Character Alert. But, he is still formal), and Pakmar isn't a Third-Person Person.
    • The first two episodes have slightly more in common with the two previous series, albeit lighter, is paced somewhat differently than most later episodes, and even seems slightly more moderated in its silliness. This likely has to do with the fact that the script was written by the late Dwayne McDuffie.
    • The first appearances of the Omnitrix gave it a lot more Body Horror Organic Technology aspects than later episodes and series would depict it with.
    • Ghostfreak originally could move his single eye along the black lines of his body, giving him a technical 360 degree vision. This was forgotten after a few episodes, and when his outer appearance is shown to be an outer skin, as shown when his true form Zs'Skayr ripped it off, the black lines aren't shown underneath, preventing his eye from moving. Later aliens in his species also have a much larger eye (which he himself gained when redesigned), making the eye moving less plausible.
  • Betty Boop was originally a weird, dog-like creature in her first cartoon! She was intended as a girlfriend for Bimbo the Dog, but this idea was later dropped as she turned into a real human female. Also, the early cartoons were more risque as they premiered before The Hays Code cracked down on content that was deemed too sexual for the general public (but probably wouldn't be out of place in a lot of movies and TV shows today) back in the 1930s.
  • Big City Greens:
    • The animation in the early episodes seem slightly Off-Model, especially with Cricket in a few scenes of "Space Chicken". Also in the first three episodes, whenever someone blinks, their eyelids are the same color as their skin, when in later episodes, they are a slightly darker shade.
    • In "Space Chicken", the chickens have different colors, while in the rest of the series, the chickens are all white. Dirtbag also appears red in "Critterball Crisis", and with red eyelids in his first two appearances.
    • When Gramma takes out her dentures for the first time in "Gramma's License", her mouth looks normal. Following the post-2018 Art Evolution, her mouth now sags when her dentures are out.
    • "Blood Moon", the show's first double-length episode, is oddly a Bottle Episode, taking place only on the Greens' home lane, particularly inside their house before escaping to the apartment building next door, going no place further. According to Chris Houghton, it was this because of production costs running low at the time the episode was made.
    • The first short series based on the show, "Country Kids in the City", is the only set of shorts that were not animated with Adobe Flash.
    • Tilly was surprisingly not that much of a talker in "Space Chicken", since it was posted back in 2014 as a pilot and the role of the Deuteragonist was originally meant for Remy. For the rest of the series, she transitioned to Cool Big Sis territory. Tilly was also shown to be a day sleeper, something she ditched for the rest of the series. Tilly also received the most distinctive changes to her character model post-2018.
    • When we first meet Kiki and Benny in "Swimming Fool", they were hanging around a jerky boy named Carlos; all later episodes replace him with the nicer, more laid-back Weezie.
    • The generic family that Bill meets in "Swimming Fool" has varying skin tones of red, yellow and orange; in all later appearances, their skin is either pink or purple. The wife's hairdo also looks more simplistic than her future models.
  • In Biker Mice from Mars, several aspects of the first episode "Rock and Ride" become rather odd in regards to the show's later episodes.
    • Throttle states that most of the Martian mice were wiped out. While he doesn't go into detail, his statement seems to imply that he, Vinnie, and Modo are the sole survivors of their race, which is contradicted by the subsequent appearances of other Martian mice like Throttle's girlfriend Carbine and Modo's nephew Rimfire.
    • Dr. Karbunkle is said to be responsible for Modo losing his arm, but it is suggested that Modo got his robotic prosthetic himself. This is eventually contradicted in a flashback shown in "Verminator" and the three-part episode "Once Upon a Time on Mars", where it is shown that Karbunkle actually made Modo's robotic arm himself.
    • Greasepit's voice sounds more gruff and less dim-witted than it does in later episodes.
    • Throttle, Vinnie, and Modo are shown flying in space with no apparent concern over the survival of their planet, when later episodes make it clear that in addition to stopping the Plutarkians from destroying Earth, they also wish to undo the destruction Mars suffered at the hands of the Plutarkians.
  • Blaze and the Monster Machines' first season was vastly different than later seasons of the show, as Blaze sometimes uses his Blazing Speed at the beginning of his adventure rather than near the end or somewhere in the middle. In addition, the first season was the only season where he uses it exclusively alone, as later seasons have him share it with a friend who joins him. The first season also didn't have a six-episode themed miniseries like later seasons do, and Crusher's subplots didn't happen as much (though Crusher himself still gets the last laugh by episode's end). In addition, the animation for the first season was more exaggerated and dulled in animation due to being animated by Nerd Corps Entertainment before it was acquired by DHX Media.
  • Bob's Burgers:
    • The early episodes showed the possibility of the series being another Animated Shock Comedy, with shades of comedy similar to Family Guy; Bob was a bit more of a jerk, the kids were a bit more willing to bully each other and there were some edgier jokes like Louise naming the burger of the day "The Child Molester" or a cooking school being called "Attempted Crepe." Later on, the focus shifts to the family's quirky but loving ways towards each other, taking a much more lighter comedy and more heartwarming episodes.
    • "Human Flesh" paints Hugo in a sympathetic light, showing that while he was acting petty, he was also suffering, even coming around in the end and getting Bob his restaurant back. Later episodes completely forget this characterization, turning Hugo into a Hate Sink who extends his vendetta even to the object of his affection, Linda, in an attempt to get the Belchers out of business.
    • The early episodes would less often make references out of their title episodes, while season 1 had only one, later episodes include various, even the majority episodes named after music, film, etc. Further more, the closing of the episodes would often be simply an animation of the kitchen in a normal day of work, later ones are all different and include references to the particular episode they appear in, including often each having their own song.
    • The first two seasons have slightly different intro music, most noticeable with the chord that plays with each re-opening banner. The first several episodes also had “Rat’s All Folks” as the exterminator before turning it into a Couch Gag.
    • "Weekend At Mort's" actually has Tina babysit her 2 younger siblings. All subsequent episodes have all 3 kids being babysat by Jen (this is because Tina apparently let Gene get into the cookies and throw up on Bob and Linda's bed).

    C 
  • The Five-Episode Pilot of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers portrayed villain Fat Cat as acting like a human when no one's looking, but like a normal house cat when he is with humans. From the second episode onwards, he always acts like a human. Justified in that he's owned by human criminal Aldrin Klorane in the pilot; after he's arrested, Fat Cat operates on his own.
  • The first season of Code Lyoko definitely fits the bill. For a start, Aelita is trapped on Lyoko and isn't seen on Earth at all until the season finale (compare to later seasons where she lives on Earth full-time). Furthermore, season 1 is also very formulaic, the pacing is noticeably slower than in later seasons and at this point Sector 5 isn't known to exist. Couple that with the English version using different terminology than later seasons (sectors are called "regions", Kankrelats are called "Roachsters" etc.), and very different 3D graphics, and it almost feels like a totally different show!
  • From the first to the mid-second season of Craig of the Creek, title cards would mimic kids' drawings to reflect the main plot. In "Craig and the Kids' Table" onwards, the title cards are now painted and drawn more vibrant as a result.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door:
    • Early on, Sector V was apparently the only KND unit in the world; there was only one episode late in the first season where we actually see any other operatives, and it's not until the second that any of them but Numbuh 274 is more than a Living Prop. Their specialties and specific personalities besides Numbuh 1 being the official leader had also not been established yet, Numbuh 5 was almost The Voiceless, Numbuh 4 didn't have his famous crush on Numbuh 3, and the show itself was far more of a comedy (with downright bizarre Grossout Show-style plots relying on Rule of Funny) than the action/comedy it became as the series progressed. Also, some of the early gadgets didn't have the acronym gags.
    • There was very little continuity in the beginning, to the point you can watch most of the early episodes out-of-order.
    • The pilot episode was called "No P in the OOL"— a Pun instead of the Fun with Acronyms titles for which the series is famous.
    • In the earlier seasons, "normal" prisons clearly existed—Count Spankulot is seen in one in at least two episodes ("S.P.A.N.K." note  and "L.O.C.K.D.O.W.N."). Later on, all of the KND villains were locked up at a special facility in Antarctica.
    • Teenagers were implied to be neutral instead of working on the adult's side the first episode they were mentioned in, though they go back and forth on this.
    • The KND were heavily implied to be Villain Protagonists, albeit sympathetic ones, usually harassing authority figures for petty reasons more akin to realistic rebellious kids, and coming off as rather incompetent (eg. "No P in the Ool" has them try to crash a swimming pool during adult swim, "Operation: P.I.A.N.O." has them try to destroy a supply of pianos just for how annoying they are; they fail miserably in both). Later episodes made them more unambiguously heroic, opposing adult villains with clear malicious intention (becoming more competent as a result).
    • In "Operation: C.A.K.E.D." (the first episode in production order), the Delightful Children call Numbuh 4 "Wallace" instead of Wallabee, and on the title card, the beeping sound used for the text cursor's blinking is a different beeping sound than the one used normally.
  • The third-season episode of Count Duckula "Unreal Estate" was in fact an early pilot that was initially unintended to be aired outside to test audiences. As such, there are noticeable abnormalities, punctuated by it being aired so late in the show's run:
    • Von Goosewing notices in his newspaper that Duckula is back from the dead, seemingly starting off his vendetta against him.
    • Duckula questions Igor more than usual about his vampiric attributes, though they were well established by this stage.
    • Some of the animation looks very off-model and bizarre and more akin to the somewhat uglier character designs that were rejected prior to season 1. The title sequence animation of Duckula playing his harmonica originates from this episode.
    • Dmitri and Sviatoslav have their voices, but not names, the other way round.
  • Courage the Cowardly Dog:
    • The pilot episode, "The Chicken from Outer Space", is completely silent, with no character dialogue outside grunts and a single line from Courage (in a Jackie Mason impression).
    • By contrast, in the first season, Courage openly spoke and had dialogue with a few other characters. For the rest of the series, he hardly ever spoke complete sentences, as per suggestions from the network.
    • Eustace and Muriel's disregard for Courage's warnings is usually chalked up to them not understanding his unintelligible mumblings, but some of the earlier episodes, such as "A Night at the Katz Motel" and "The Shadow of Courage" had Courage speak English in front of the Bagges and the Bagges replying in ways that vaguely indicated that they understood Courage.
    • The episode "Cajun Granny Stew" is almost like a Looney Tunes skit and is the only episode where Eustace doesn't appear.

    D 
  • The pilot of Danger Rangers calls Danger Alerts "Safety Alerts".
  • Dan Vs.: While the show has lots of Black Comedy and all the main characters get away with a number of serious crimes on a regular basis, the show usually stops just short of having them actually murder anyone. Not so in the first episode, "New Mexico", where Dan and Elise get revenge on the state of New Mexico by hijacking a UFO and disintegrating random citizens of the state.
  • Daria's early gimmick was that the title character could always use her cynical wit to outsmart all of the dumb sheeple whom she was forced to interact with. It didn't take long before "Daria Triumphant" gave way to a more introspective heroine, while the other characters also become more well-rounded; indeed, many later episodes seem like a Deconstruction of early Daria, questioning the degree to which her isolation may be self-inflicted and how healthy her coping mechanisms are.
    • In his first two appearances, Mr. O'Neill was always forgetting or mixing up his students' names; the first tie-in book also has a section where he tries to make mnemonics for them. They must have worked, because the gag was quickly dropped.
  • In the first few episodes of The Deputy Dawg Show, the sheriff had his face obscured and was only seen from the neck down. He started having his face clearly visible as the series went on. Also, Deputy Dawg was a light gray color, he had jowls and a thick southern accent. These were refined as the series progressed.
  • Dexter's Laboratory:
    • The first short had Dee-Dee act much differently, as it seemed that her dim-witted sister attitude hid something else as she was able to break into Dexter's bedroom with a credit card and flips out once she sees her doll hooked up on a bed.
    • Mandark's first appearance had him a genuine threat to Dexter and was only defeated because Dexter exploited Mandark's crush for Dee-Dee. Subsequent appearances (with the exception of Ego Trip) would never have Mandark reach this level again.
  • Dinosaur Train:
    • In the first few episodes of the show, Buddy would get dizzy when in the time tunnel. This was phased out later on.
    • Usually, the "point of fact" guy's role is to point out that dinosaurs didn't really do whatever human activities they did in the preceding episode. In his first appearance after "Tiny Loves Fish", however, he comes in to say that Pteranodon isn't a dinosaur, a fact that's frequently brought up in the episodes proper.
  • Season 1 episodes of Doc McStuffins have a segment played during the end credits segment in which Doc asks the viewers a question related to some sort of health tip that also serves as a preview for the next episode. This season is also the only one in the series without any sort of special episode.
  • The second episode of the original Nickelodeon version of Doug, "Doug Can't Dance", was the original pilot interspersed with new footage. As a result, the episode constantly jumped between art styles and showcased Roger with a different gang of thugs as well. Doug also refers to his journal as his "diary"; later in the series, people calling it a "diary" became a source of annoyance for him.
  • Comparing the depictions of the older Dora characters in Dora's Explorer Girls to them in the Dora episode "Dora's Christmas Carol Adventure" shows several differences. Dora's tweenage design is slightly different in the Dora the Explorer episode, she never moved to an urban environment, and she's still presented as an adventurer. Backpack never got her Girliness Upgrade either and Boots is a Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal. Comparing the Explorer Girls special to the Dora And Friends: In The City series shows differences as well. Pablo didn't exist in the special, the art style was originally more similar to the original Dora series, and it wasn't done in the same faux-interactive style of the original series.
  • The six-minute pilot of Downtown has some discrepancies from the series.
    • The central characters of the pilot are Fruity, Matt, Chaka, and Mecca, with Alex, Jen, and Goat nowhere in sight.
    • Fruity has a younger brother, when there's no indication he has any siblings in the series.
    • Chaka's surname is given as Zuberman instead of Hensen.
  • Drawn Together:
    • In the pilot, the other housemates clearly have no idea what Ling-Ling's "Japorean" phrases mean and just project their own subconscious views onto him. This joke was dropped after two episodes, and for the rest of the series he's just a typical Intelligible Unintelligible character.
    • A couple of gags linked to Toot Braunstein's status as an old-timey black and white toon character were removed after the first episode. She had grey blood and her voice had an effect like a scratchy gramophone recording, replaced by her having regular red blood and speaking in a normal tone.
  • The Dreamstone:
    • The first season had cruder animation due to a studio change. Many of the character designs and personalities were also altered slightly during the second season (the former is easily noticeable due to being used in the opening credits, which remain unaltered throughout the show's run). The pilot is noticeably darker (if still slapstick), Rufus and Amberley act more as the main protagonists with goofier personalities, with Urpgor (here only a minor character) and Sgt Blob's men actually getting shooed out in the second part, a stark contrast to their Villain Protagonist role afterwards.
    • While most of the series afterwards was a lite Villain Protagonist series, the earlier seasons were far less subtle about it. The heroes lacked even their occasional token side plots from later episodes, and in addition were far more hostile and sadistic in stopping in the Urpneys. Later episodes seemed to take more measures to ensure the heroes were at least moderately sympathetic and attached to the plot, and, in something as a subversion of the trope, started reverting more to their pilot characterizations. While most of Seasons One and Two were more simple, relaxed scenarios with the Urpneys just trying to sneak into the Land of Dreams, Seasons Three and Four utilized world travelling plots with Rufus and Amberley, allowing them to have new characters and realms involved in the feud.

    E 
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy:
    • The early episodes had more grotesque animation (looking almost like Danny Antonucci's work on MTVnote , only scaled back). Double D was more mellow and less uptight, Ed was only slightly dense and spoke more coherently, and Eddy was more of a Lovable Rogue. In addition, while still luckless, the trio occasionally got the odd karmic victory every odd episode; they actually succeed in getting jawbreakers in the pilot (only to chase after them when they rolled away). There were also noticeable differences in dialogue and plot structure.
    • Oddly, it didn't take more than a few episodes for Ed to lose his coherent way of speaking, only for him to return to his pilot episode speech pattern in Dawn of The Eds, which gets dropped back to his permanent oafish mannerisms. Thus, it's a rare case of early installment weirdness returning, albeit Dawn of the Eds was still an early season 1 episode and it was likely a necessity for the plot given that Ed was leading and narrating it.
    • Jawbreakers cost a nickel in the first episode. For the rest of the series, they would firmly be priced at twenty-five cents instead, the average amount Eddy tries to get from his "customers."

    F 
  • Family Guy:
    • The first few episodes are much different from the show as it's known today. The animation is much cruder, characters lack their distinctive voices (Meg even has a completely different voice actress for the first 10 or so episodes), and many of them lack their more notable character traitsnote . Notably, the setup is far more whimsical and tongue in cheek, more a light-hearted CrapSaccharine universe, with the Mood Whiplash of later seasons far less evident. A lot of non-cutaway gags also resemble those that The Simpsons is known for, which is why a lot of critics compared Family Guy to The Simpsons when it premiered.
    • A lot of the characters had noticeable "thin-line" eyebrows in the first two seasons, which disappeared completely by the third season, sans Stewie.
    • Chris originally wore earrings, which came from one of his earlier designs as a punk rocker, which also vanished after two seasons.
    • The episode "Peterotica" parodies the case of The Simpsons when Peter recalls the show starting out as sketches on The Tracey Ullman Show. During this Cutaway Gag, the art is more unrefined, the animation is more expressive, and the voices lack refinement (especially Stewie, who has a cockney accent).
    • An early episode sees the Griffin family (except Stewie) react with a look of complete horror after witnessing a random act of Domestic Abuse in an episode of Eight is Enough. Not only would later episodes have the characters watch TV with a calm smile on their face no matter how gruesome the parody is, but the aforementioned parody pales in comparison to the acts of violence and other family-unfriendly hijinks the Griffins themselves would get involved with over the years. On a related note, in the episode "Fifteen Minutes of Shame", when Brian and Stewie are watching the rest of the family on TV, they are shocked when Lois drops an F-bomb. In later episodes, the Griffin family, Brian and Stewie included, would become more potty-mouthed.
    • While the show has flip-flopped on whether or not the family can understand Stewie when he talks, early episodes leaned in favor of them being able to understand him, with Peter and Lois directly responding to Stewie on occasion (In the first episode, Stewie tells Lois to burn in hell and she punishes him by taking away his dessert. Stewie tells her to burn in hell again in "Mind Over Murder", and she uses it to lead into her next song. In "Brian in Love", Peter offers Stewie a beer and Stewie sarcastically asks if they can light up a doobie and watch porn, to which Peter replies "Y—yeah?") Later episodes seem to operate under the rule that Peter, Lois and Meg can't understand Stewie while Brian and Chris can, though there are exceptions to this.
    • The bond between Brian and Stewie is one of the most recognized aspects of the show. Yet for all intents and purposes, it did not exist during the first few seasons, where Stewie treating Brian with passive disinterest at best and outright malice at worst. One of the more jarring instances of this is "Brian: Portrait of a Dog", where he actively encourages Lois to run over Brian as he walks away and is later dismayed to learn he won't be sent to the pound.
  • Bill Cosby had produced a Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids cartoon special before the Saturday morning show that was a world away from the series — character design was realistic with a lot of sketchy line shading, animation was more sophisticated, and the backgrounds were real-life filmed cityscapes.
  • Felix the Cat:
    • Other than the cartoon gags and art style, one would be surprised to know that Feline Follies is the beginning of the Felix the Cat series. Felix is named Master Tom in the cartoon, and wouldn't get his definitive name until two shorts later in Adventures of Felix. He looks and walks like a normal housecat instead of a Funny Animal, and his womanizing persona is nothing like his jovial, altruistic personality from later cartoons. And Felix wasn't part of his own standalone series here—it was actually included with two other cartoons as part of the Paramount Screen Magazine program, which the cartoon was improvised for to fill in for a tardy animators work. There is no Magic Bag of Tricks (which would be introduced 40 years later in Joe Oriolo's made-for-TV series) or other major characters besides Kitty. And the ending has Felix killing himself!
    • In general, the silent era cartoons have virtually nothing in common with the more famous Felix introduced in the late 50's cartoons, which was an In Name Only adaptation of the character. Felix is the only major character most of the time, with the only recurring extras being Kitty Kat and Inky and Dinky, and even they show up sporadically—none of the TV era characters like Professor, Rock Bottom and Master Cylinder appear in the silent shorts. And the tone of the cartoons is much darker, with surrealistic gags and urban stories rather than the pure kids fantasy the series later turned into.
  • Fireman Sam went through several changes from the original picture books, to the stop-motion cartoon, to the CGI reboot:
    • In the first picture books, Fireman Cridlington has black eyes, and his first name was always put in quotation marks (as in "Fireman 'Elvis' Cridlington"), implying it was a nickname referencing his resemblance to the King of Rock and Roll. The first TV series changed his eye colour to blue, and dropped the quotations altogether, confirming that is his real first name.
    • Some early books show a church in Pontypandy, which was never referenced in the show.
    • Trevor Evans, usually the bus driver, was originally an auxiliary fireman. This was lessened over time, and eventually dropped altogether in Series 5.
    • In early episodes, Elvis had the habit of calling everyone "man". This disappeared after the first few episodes.
    • The fire service originally consisted of Sam, Elvis, Trevor, and Station Officer Steele; series mainstay Penny Morris didn't make her first appearance until Series 3 in 1990, but as of Series 5 it'd be hard to imagine the series without her.
    • The first few seasons had a Minimalist Cast consisting entirely of nine characters (later ten when Penny came along). Series 5 would expand the cast with the introduce of Tom Thomas and the Flood family, and the roster has steadily grown since then.
    • In the first books and TV series, Dilys Price was redheaded and always wore curlers and a handkerchief on her head. The CGI reboot overhauled her appearance and gave her shorter, darker hair, as well as glasses and heavy makeup.
    • Sarah and James were Free-Range Children in the early books and TV series, mainly either wandering around by themselves or hanging out with their uncle Sam. Series 6 would finally introduce their parents, Charlie and Bronwyn.
  • The Flintstones:
    • In his first appearance, Dino could speak. And not just fourth-wall breaking asides like the various animal-appliances. No, he carried on full-on conversations with the human characters. Which makes it all the stranger that the plot of his initial episode revolved around Fred and Barney hunting him for sport! In the end, they only let him live because he offers to do household chores for Fred. None of this is ever referenced in any later episodes, which portray him as a simple house pet.
    • The classic "Meet the Flintstones" theme song wasn't used until the third season. You could be excused for not knowing that, as all syndicated versions of the first two seasons retroactively added it. The original opening sequence was completely different, and had an instrumental theme song entitled "Rise and Shine".
  • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends originally had Bloo as a Nice Guy in the pilot, to a Jerk with a Heart of Gold or straight up Jerkass in the series proper, meaning either his original personality was dropped somewhere in the writing, or it was a deliberate case of Took a Level in Jerkass, even though the shift is never pointed out.
  • Futurama:
    • Compared to later seasons, the first season had somewhat different character proportions and a more saturated color palette, but what's really noticeable is the voices. In particular, Bender's speech is a bit more slurred, while the voices of Farnsworth and especially Hermes are markedly lower pitched. note  Hermes' accent was also a bit vague and inconsistent until it was finally settled upon as Jamaican while Farnsworth delivered his catchphrase in a less over-the-top manner. Fry’s voice in Season 1 is more nasally compared to the rest of the series and Zoidberg’s Yiddish accent was more pronounced. Leela and Amy’s voices are the only ones of the main crew that didn’t change much.
    • The pilot showed future society with several ridiculously dystopian aspects: Your career is dictated by computer, and you'll be executed if you don't work. Suicide is so commonplace and accepted that people line up on the streets for coin-operated "suicide booths". Several extras walk around wearing numbers meant to imply a Fantastic Caste System. Later episodes downplay or abandon these ideas, and life is generally shown as neither particularly better or worse than modern day.
    • A few other concepts in the pilot were prominently showcased and mostly faded thereafter, one of the biggest being that your career is partially determined by a microchip implanted in your arm. Later episodes tend to have characters changing jobs with no mention of career chips, though career chips are still occasionally brought up.
    • Most early episodes had a "the Planet Express crew visits another planet and gets into wacky hijinks" plot (eg: "Fear of a Bot Planet" and "My Three Suns"). Later episodes took place mostly on Earth and were more characterization-based.
    • Zoidberg was much less...Zoidberg in Season 1 than he would be in later seasons; jokes centered on him tended to focus primarily on his nonexistent grasp of human anatomy, rather than his status as the universe's chew toy. He was also drawn with human-like teeth.
    • Most jokes involving Amy in Season 1 had to do with her clumsiness, being the butt of slapstick humor. This was downplayed as the series progressed, tending to favor jokes about her being The Ditz along with her status as being spoiled rich.

    G 
  • The two earliest Garfield specials, Here Comes Garfield and Garfield on the Town are a time capsule of the nascent years of the Garfield franchise.
    • Garfield is drawn in his early-80's style for both specials – he rarely walks upright and doesn't have big feet when he does. The production of Here Comes Garfield is actually the reason why Garfield's design would change in the comics and later specials — Jim Davis wanted to open with Garfield dancing but the animators struggled because Garfield had been designed with small, cat-like feet. The next special, Garfield on the Town, still used the four-footed art style but notably Garfield is able to stand on two humanoid feet now when necessary.
    • The first two specials were animated by Mendelson/Melendez, who created the Peanuts specials, but directed by Phil Roman. Due to the demands of the studio also working on the Peanuts specials in the same window, it was decided that Phil Roman would form his own studio, Film Roman, to take on the work for future Garfield specials and later the Garfield and Friends TV show. While a lot of the same people worked on the rest of the animated series, there are noticeable changes in the presentation and style of the later specials that make them more in keeping with the look and feel of Garfield and Friends, not the least of which was Garfield's character design shifting to the extremely recognizable look he has to this day.
    • Here Comes Garfield is the only cartoon where Jon isn't voiced by Thom Huge, instead being provided by longtime television actor Sandy Kenyon.
    • The soundtrack is also significantly different — later specials and Garfield & Friends would use combination of synth-classical and synthpop. Here Comes has a swing jazz soundtrack with several songs performed by Lou Rawls. While later specials would always include a Lou Rawls song to open the proceedings, Here Comes Garfield featured multiple songs performed by Rawls. Notably, all of the specials and Garfield and Friends featured the same music team of Desirée Goyette (who performed the film vocals and many of the female voices in the franchise) and Ed Bogas (who was only missing for the last special).
    • A number of the other specials, and G&F, featured unique storylines that didn't overlap with the comic itself, which went on to become its own beast. Here Comes is largely sourced from a number of strips during the early 80s era of Garfield, stitched together to make one story.
    • Additionally, the third act of Here Comes is a lot more melancholy than many other Garfield works, and focuses around the idea that Odie is going to be put down by the City Pound for want of an identified owner (as Jon has no idea how much trouble they're in) and features Garfield reflecting on how they met and comforting Odie while he's cold. The scene feels a bit ridiculous today — obviously Odie isn't getting put under — but in 1982 Odie's Plot Armor wasn't guaranteed and so the sequence worked better. On the Town deals with the bittersweet reunion of Garfield with his family and learning that he doesn't fit in, but it's comparatively much lower stakes than the idea of one of the main cast dying.
    • Garfield himself is not nearly as much of a pun-master as he'd become in later shows, instead being much more of a Straight Man to the goofiness happening around him; there's also more of an emphasis placed, especially by the soundtrack, on him being a "cool cat".
    • For some even earlier installment weirdness, technically Garfield was first animated for a mostly live action special called The Fantastic Funnies in 1980 produced by Mendelson/Melendez, which highlighted several contemporary strips and would briefly display examples of their humor in animated form. In addition to Garfield having a rounder design and Jon having a rounder head and different colored clothing, Garfield is voiced by Scott Beach who gives a very different performance to the rotund feline than Lorenzo Music would bring. Ironically, this was the first time Thom Huge would voice Jon Arbuckle.
  • Garfield and Friends:
    • In the first few seasons' U.S. Acres shorts, they would sing a song related to the episode's moral. After "The Legal Eagle", this was dropped like a hot potato after concerns from Jim Davis that it was taking up too much time in the program. note  Three post-"The Legal Eagle" episodes use songs, but they aren't moral-based: "Flights Of Fantasy" has Roy sing a parody of "The Farmer In The Dell" at the beginning, "A Little Time Off" has Wade sing Wild Blue Yonder for no reason at all, and "Kiddie Korner" was a Musical Episode where they did nursery rhymes.
    • "Temp Trouble" is this for the later Aloysius Pig episodes: Aloysius has a slightly different color scheme (his glasses seem to be entirely green rather than green and yellow), his glasses tend to "bounce" a bit as if he were blinking and he doesn't appear in every scene in the episode like the later Aloysius-centric ones.
  • G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero:
    • In the first mini series (The MASS Device), Cobra Commander and Destro had a bickering but slightly more cooperative relationship.
    • Cobra Commander still had the hissing voice but it was deeper and he wasn't the cartoonish butt monkey that he would later become.
    • Not everyone was firing red or blue lasers—machine gun fire was heard and Rock and Roll was shown firing an M60 machine gun as opposed to the typical laser gun that all the Joes later carried.
  • The first two episodes of the unaired Garbage Pail Kids Cartoon had the five protagonist Garbage Pail Kids depicted as normal kids who become deformed when they go on missions and Trash Can Ken serving as their Mr. Exposition. The rest of the series had the Kids permanently in their Garbage Pail forms and had no mention made of Trash Can Ken.
  • Get Ed:
    • The show's lighting was darker in earlier episodes, before becoming brighter and more richer in colour.
    • Fizz was slightly slimmer and taller in early episodes. Also regarding early lighting issues, her mask was a darker shade of purple.
    • Fizz and Deets lack a sister dynamic in the early episodes.
    • Burn was a bit more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in the first three episodes. From Episode 4 onwards he was given a more complex and rounded personality.
  • Gravity Falls:
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy:
    • The early episodes were much darker and more morbid in tone than the wacky, nonsensical show that it later became. They also had different episode title card music.
    • Despite what the Gainax Ending of "My Fair Mandy" suggests, early episodes of the show had Mandy smile with no consequences on reality. Of course, these smiles were usually of the malicious kind (she's also smiled in the Christmas special with no disaster, but that's another story).
    • In "Trepanation of the Skull and You", the original short film starring Billy and Mandy that creator Maxwell Atoms made in college, the two characters are far different from how they ended up in the series. Billy is at least somewhat less of an idiot, Mandy is much more cheerful and extremely different from her final design, and both of them are taller and thinner.
    • "Billy & Mandy Begins" pokes fun at this: most of the episode consists of Billy and Grim telling clearly false versions of how Grim met and became friends with the kids, which Mandy eventually gets fed up with and sets the record straight with a condensed recap of the pilot short "Meet the Reaper". Grim immediately scoffs at this, saying "that didn't even look like us!"

    H 
  • The first billed Heckle and Jeckle cartoon, "The Talking Magpies", was actually a Farmer Al Falfa cartoon. The magpies in question were a married couple whose quarreling over a nest disturbs Al Falfa and his dog (an early version of Dimwit). Heckle and Jeckle took their more familiar designs in the next cartoon, but their voices were not the Brooklyn-esque and British accent they were more noted for. Syd Raymond voiced them at the time, with Jeckle sounding more like Curly Howard.
  • Hey Arnold!:
    • The original Stop Motion shorts are nothing like the main series. Aside from being in a different animation medium, the shorts focus not on solving real-life problems, but on drifting off into Arnold's imagination. In addition, Arnold himself is a cross between Mr. Imagination and a Cloud Cuckoo Lander, his fascination with dinosaurs is much more apparent, and the sequences themselves are bizarre in comparison to the main series.
    • The first season is a lot different from the other seasons. The animation is of much lower quality, with lots of Off-Model scenes, there were fewer episodes centered on Helga (and she lacked any redeeming qualities for a while, with the abuse and neglect she suffered being used as a straight-up Hilariously Abusive Childhood), Arnold has a crush on Ruth, who is nowhere to be found after season 1, there is a heavier focus on bizarre one-shot characters as opposed to Arnold’s classmates, and on top of all that, Arnold is FAR more child-like and immature compared to the later seasons.
  • Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi:
    • The seven-minute pilot has, among other differences from the rest of the series, a noticeable absence of Ami and Yumi's manager Kaz.
    • The first season used more conventional Episode Title Cards, while seasons two and three would instead have brief live-action segments that featured a card depicting the episode's title lying around somewhere or being held by the real Ami and/or the real Yumi.
  • For its first season, Home Movies was animated using the infamous "Squigglevision" method, but switched to more traditional Flash animation from the second season onward. In a case of The Danza, Brendan's mother Paula was voiced for the first five episodes by a different actress — namely, comedienne and Squigglevision veteran Paula Poundstone. Also, fan-favorite character Coach McGuirk was a washed-up Jerkass rather than the laidback lovable loser he eventually became.

    I 
  • Infinity Train: The pilot had a more "mundane" design for the Train, with it appearing smaller and more closely resembling a train from the real world. Some cars are seen with windows, the doors look ordinary, and seemingly standard equipment like a stage light appeared in the part of the Corgi Car that was "under construction." Tulip was also drawn in a slightly more detailed style with a more angular face and larger glasses. In the proper series, the Train got a more science fiction-y overhaul. Its cars are massive and more alien-like, none of them have windows showing the outside, the doors connecting them are red with a gold curve symbol that needs to be twisted to be opened, and the cars' mechanisms are controlled by more futuristic-looking glowing orbs. While Atticus, One-One, and the Steward's designs were unchanged, Tulip (and the other humans) switched to a simpler style overall.
  • Invader Zim:
    • Musically, the original 1999 pilot had what creator Jhonen Vasquez referred to as a more stock "traditional kids cartoon" sound. Come the 2001 series, the soundtrack would come to consist of heavy techno and industrial beats. Compare Michael Tavera's proposed theme song to the final rendition by Kevin Manthei, for example.
    • Early episodes have Gaz occasionally seen smiling, as well as also being far less violent and sadistic towards her brother Dib, in contrast to never even giving a smirk later on and regularly beating him up for perceived slights. Vasquez would later regret that the character became so cruel, so come the comic book revival of the property over a decade later, the character would return to smirking on occasion (with even the occasional grin), and ease up on physically injuring Dib (though not ceasing completely).

    J 
  • Jelly Jamm: The title card of the series premiere, "The Instant Gardener", has the text "Jelly Jamm Presents" over the episode's name. This is the only episode featuring this text, and in all episodes following it the title card shows only the episode title.
  • Jem:
    • The intro presents The Misfits in an unusual manner. Roxy is the one in the middle instead of Pizzazz, the lead singer. Also in the actual theme itself you can barely even hear Pizzazz, instead Stormer seems to be the main singer. Stormer herself looks meaner than usual though that could just be the animation quality, however we also know originally Stormer wasn't the Token Good Teammate at one point in development.
    • The series was originally mini-episodes before being expanded into a full series. These episodes are notoriously ugly and feature different designs for several characters. There are also some oddities, like how The Misfits and Eric attempt to outright murder The Holograms several times and how the there are almost no transitions between the dialogue and the songs.
  • Johnny Test: Season 1 is a foreign planet compared to the rest of the show. It was the only season to be traditionally animated, the infamous whipcrack sound effect is nowhere to be heard, the voice acting and background music are a lot more relaxed, and the theme song is completely different.
    • It was also the only season to be produced in-house at Warner Bros. Animation.
    • Throughout the first season, Janet Nelson Jr. was portrayed as Johnny's love interest. Her role was then replaced with Sissy afterwards.
  • Jonny Quest. In two early episodes, "Mystery of the Lizard Men" and "Riddle of the Gold", an agent of the Intelligence One organization named Corbin asked Dr. Quest to go on a mission. This was dropped after the second episode. In all subsequent episodes, the Quest team either helped local organizations and governments or were on their own.

    K 
  • The first season of KaBlam! has some early installment weirdness to it compared to the rest of the series:
    • The Henry and June wraparounds had much cruder animation and character designs than the rest of the show. Henry also played the role of Straight Man while June was The Ditz. As the show went on, Henry got a lot more narcissistic and became the show's punching bag (as well as taking a level in dumbass in the final season) while June got snarkier and a lot more intelligent, becoming the only sane girl by the end of the series. The wraparounds were also a lot more "zany" and off-the-wall (while it was always a pretty crazy show, season 1 was a lot denser and wackier).
    • The Sniz and Fondue shorts from season 1 were done by a different animation house (The Ink Tank instead of Funbag Animation Studios), were done in traditional ink and paint as opposed to the digitally colored episodes in the second and third seasons, and used stock music cues from Associated Production Music (which Nickelodeon uses a lot for their shows, including several KaBlam! segments) along with the original music (season 2 ditched the APM cues for the short).
    • The Action League Now! shorts "Where Pigeons Dare" and "Sinkhole Of Doom" were closer to the original two shorts made for All That in its first season in both quality and writing. At times there was also a lot more stop-motion going on compared to later shorts (possibly to save time and money). The Action League themselves were also more competent than in later shorts (but not by much).
    • The Life With Loopy pilot "Goldfish Heaven" (which aired during the seventh episode of the show) had a lot of early installment weirdness. As the short was using earlier versions of the stop-motion puppets, a few of the characters received some changes. Loopy's hair beads were constructed as part of her head instead of separate, while Larry wore a different outfit, had a longer neck, and was able to move his head separately from his neck (which none of the puppets would be able to do for the rest of the series). He also had a different voice actor. The sets were also smaller and less detailed than later on.
    • The first few shorts for The Off-Beats didn't air on the show, but during commercial breaks on Nickelodeon from late 1995 until KaBlam premiered. In the original shorts, Repunzil's dress was purple instead of teal, and the very first short was entitled The Misfits (presumably this was changed as it shared a name with a real band).
  • Kaeloo has a few instances of this:
    • The Pilot suffered from this tremendously: the animation is nowhere near that of the rest of the series, and the character designs are a little off. Mr. Cat refers to the rest of the cast as "study kids", implying that he thinks that they're annoying because they're nerdy, whereas in the actual show, Mr. Cat is a highly intelligent Child Prodigy who's well-versed in science, math, psychology and engineering. Most shockingly, Stumpy wins the game, whereas the actual show has a Running Gag where Stumpy loses at everything.
    • In the first episode, "Let's Play Prison-Ball", Stumpy refuses to be on Mr. Cat's team because Cats Are Mean. Episodes which come a little later in the series have him willingly team up with Mr. Cat to pull off some antagonistic deed, and idolize him.
    • In "Red Light Green Light", Kaeloo says that chainsaws are for cutting trees, though future episodes portray her as a tree-hugging Nature Lover and one of the comics had her vehemently oppose the idea of even mowing the lawn because it hurts plants.
    • In the earlier episodes, Kaeloo had to translate for Quack Quack, who can only speak in quacks. In later episodes though, everyone else starts to understand him as well.
    • Season 1 episodes would occasionally refer to Mr. Cat as being ugly, as part of a joke. From season 2 onwards this is absent, with every character noting that Mr. Cat is quite attractive in-universe instead.
    • In season 1 Kaeloo was rarely a jerk to Stumpy and mostly treated him well, but after that she became one of the characters to mistreat Stumpy the most out of anyone in the cast.
  • Kim Possible:
    • In the first two seasons the series seemed more toned down and less comedic. Dr. Drakken was also a serious villain early on, and Shego was a mook who was only occasionally sarcastic. The art is also quite different in the first season.
    • Kim was originally weirdly hostile toward Rufus, calling him a naked freak among other things, and had something of an ego. Later episodes quickly made her much nicer, if somewhat less believable. Most of these changes can be attributed to the departure of the original director and producer, Chris Bailey, who allegedly clashed with co-creators Schooley and McCorkle on the show's creative direction. The second season had a number of rotating directors before Steve Loter was installed as the permanent director for the third season.
    • "Tick, Tick, Tick" had Steve Barkin with blond hair, and all future appearances had brown hair. Kim's hair dryer grapple gun was also purple instead of blue.
    • Ron had a deeper, more adult voice in early episodes. Basically, it was Will Friedle using his normal voice. Later episodes had Ron with a slightly higher, more nasally voice except during moments where Ron and Kim got some one-on-one Ship Tease.
  • King of the Hill:
    • It was originally a more traditional family sitcom. Just like most shows that run for 10-plus seasons, the characters started off as more muted and simplistic versions of themselves. But the overall tone of the show changed as well: Whereas early on, Hank (as well as his friends and Peggy to a lesser extent) served as the Only Sane Man in plots about the encroachment of progressivism into the good-ole-boy community of Arlen, later seasons tended to focus more on the main characters' shortcomings as a whole. Hank had to learn to change and adapt with the times, Peggy was confronted with her unrealistic image of herself (which does explain why her Spanish comprehension faltered in later episodes and why she became a Small Name, Big Ego), et cetera. Luanne was also somewhat smarter and had more of a spine in the earliest episodes, not to mention her voice was slightly deeper, in contrast to the naïve ditz with a higher-pitched voice that viewers knew her as for most of the show's run.
    • Early seasons would occasionally have overtly supernatural storylines. Probably the most bizarre example is King of the Ant Hill, which involves Bobby getting mind controlled by a fire ant queen. The most the series would ever have later are some instances of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane, and even those were spread pretty far apart from each other on the show's lifespan.
    • The first season had much rougher and more frequently off-model animation than the rest of the show, as well as some backgrounds and characters having slightly different designs. Most notably, Peggy stopped wearing her socks and switched from a gray shirt to a green one starting in Season 2, but the lines on Hank's face also have a slightly different layout.

    L 
  • Little Einsteins:
    • During the first season, the art and music weren't said by their name until the end of the episode and only referred to the art's artist and the music's composer.
    • Annie wore a green shirt and blue overalls for the first season.
    • "Curtain Call" wasn't given lyrics until Season 2.
    • The Pat sequence was longer during Season 1.
  • Little Princess: Initially, the art style was much sketchier and more similar to the style used in the books, the gardener was white, and the episodes were shorter and had much more simplistic plots. Also, in "I Want My Potty", the offscreen voice is a woman, and she's a narrator rather than simply a voice who asks the Princess questions.
  • Littlest Pet Shop (2012):
    • Early episodes had the titular pet shop as having a full staff, such as Raul, the groomer, albeit none were seen onscreen except Mrs. Twombly and Blythe. Several episodes in, however, all of them were quietly removed with no explanation, leaving just those two. In addition, pets were dropped off for reasons other than the day camp, such as the aforementioned grooming, but as the rest of the staff was removed out the series, people would drop off their pets solely for the day camp.
    • The first season is the only season that does not end with the second part of a two-part episode. Instead, the season ends with the first part ("Summertime Blues") and the second season opens with the second part ("Missing Blythe"). This two-parter is also the only one to not have a "(title) - Part 1" and "(same title) - Part 2" naming scheme, and the only one to not have a To Be Continued segment (though it did have a Previously on… segment).
  • The early Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts are almost unrecognizable from the latter-day productions during the 1940s and '50s:
    • They were no different from the other cartoon series running at the time—mildly amusing musicals with bland characters (with the more well-known characters like Bugs and Daffy being nowhere in sight), derivative of Disney's more polished Silly Symphonies (note the similarities in name), not to mention that the early cartoons were in black-and-white and drawn in a completely different style that actually looks more cartoony than the later shorts. It wasn't until 1935 when Tex Avery was promoted to director and Friz Freleng created Porky Pig that Looney Tunes began living up to the first part of their name.
    • Merrie Melodies originally ended with a character from the featured short yelling "So long, Folks!" to the audience. "That's All, Folks!" became the standard Merrie Melodies ending phrase beginning with "Those Beautiful Dames" (1934). "Flowers for Madame" (1935) was the first short to end with the "That's all, Folks!" script writing itself which would become the standard ending until 1964. After six years of Bosko, Buddy or Beans signing off with "That's all, Folks!", Looney Tunes changed to the script ending. In 1937, this changed again to Porky Pig shouting "Th-th-th-th-that's all, Folks!" from a drum. The "That's all, Folks!" script was brought back in 1946.
    • Character designs were drastically different. Porky was much more fat and hung out with Beans the Cat. Petunia, Porky's girlfriend, appeared more frequently in the early shorts. Bugs and Daffy were shorter and less anthropomorphic. Bugs had a "screwball rabbit" character design. Daffy, instead of being sarcastic, was simply off his rocker, making frequent whooping noises. Tweety was far more sarcastic and less cute in his early appearances, acting like a Dirty Old Man.
    • Even after the Loonification of the cartoons, some still come off as incredibly weird. Bugs Bunny (or his prototype) in particular started off more like Daffy Duck wearing a rabbit suit. Watch "Hare-Um Scare-Um" sometime and see Bugs openly refer to himself as crazy, jump around chuckling to himself, and even sing a Daffy-esque song about how insane he is. The "Bugs Bunny" from this cartoon was later retconned into a separate character named Happy Rabbit.
    • In some of the early cartoons, Bugs actually loses sometimes. Granted, he lost in a few later shorts as well, but these were often played for shock value.
    • In "Elmer's Pet Rabbit," Bugs was more of a Jerkass, had a deeper voice, and actually hated carrots. This was Bugs' second official appearance, so it seems they were still trying to figure his character out, considering he was closer to his Karmic Trickster personality in his first appearance.
    • Daffy was more of a Bugs Bunny-style comic protagonist. Only in later toons did Daffy become a Butt-Monkey who is eternally jealous of Bugs.
    • Sylvester the Cat and Tweety Bird:
      • Tweety Bird was featherless in his debut cartoon, "A Tale of Two Kitties". Warners executives then forced the animators to give him yellow feathers, because they thought the bird was "naked". He was also a wild bird instead of Granny's pet and faced off against Babbit and Catstello (feline parodies of Abbott and Costello) instead of Sylvester.
      • When Sylvester and Tweety are first paired together in "Tweetie Pie", Sylvester is called "Thomas", and he doesn't talk.
      • Sylvester was nameless in his debut cartoon, "Life with Feathers", though he otherwise averted this trope as his voice, personality, and design were fully realized. It wasn't until 1948's "Scaredy Cat" that his name was Sylvester.
    • Marvin the Martian had a less nasal voice in his debut cartoon. His voice sounds more like a bad impression of Droopy.
    • It took a few cartoons for the Pepe Le Pew series to gel - the first short (Odor-able Kitty from 1945) ended with his wife showing up, and he drops the French accent, addressing her in a meek, nervous Midwestern voice! "Odor of the Day" is a particularly glaring case, since Pepe isn't even romantic in it, instead fighting with a dog for shelter (it should be noted that "Odor of the Day" was not directed by Chuck Jones, but instead Art Davis).
    • Some early Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons have the Roadrunner be more openly antagonistic, teasing, and defiant towards the Coyote and actively working to foil his schemes, similar to a classic Karmic Trickster. Later on, the Roadrunner's character would be codified as more The Fool who does nothing but run along while Coyote's schemes backfire.
    • In the first Goofy Gophers cartoon, Mac and Tosh were gray instead of brown.
    • Elmer Fudd wasn't a hunter in his debut cartoon, instead trying to take photos of wildlife.
  • The Looney Tunes Show has a unique example in the episode "Casa De Calma". The episode was actually the pilot for Laff Riot, an attempt at a new Looney Tunes series that would invoke the more slapstick tone of the classic theatrical shorts. Network executives hated it though, and the concept was retooled into a sitcom. "Casa De Calma" would still air as the seventh episode of the new show's first season, however.

    M 
  • In the Mumfie's Quest episodes of Magic Adventures of Mumfie do not decide on which way to draw Bristle and use a squeaking noise for Mumfie's sneezes and falls rather than that noise which sounds like he farted.
  • Martha Speaks: In "Martha's Pickle", T.D. is too scared to watch a B-movie and becomes afraid that its villains (who are sentient pickles) are attacking. Later episodes would have him being fearless and enjoying creepy things.
  • Masters of the Universe:
    • While the premise of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) was pretty consistent throughout its run, the material that came out before the cartoon is another story. The earliest mini-comics depicted He-Man as a Barbarian Hero, the greatest warrior of an uncivilized jungle tribe, whose great strength comes from that harness he wears; there was no Prince Adam or "By the Power of Grayskull!", no Orko providing comic relief, etc. He didn't even use the Sword of Power, preferring the axe his toy also came with. While this He-Man went on to be retconned into being a different individual from Adam known as Oo-Larr who was Adam's direct predecessor, when DC started making comics about the series, they added a lot of that material (except for Orko, who was created for the cartoon). However, DC's comics characterized Prince Adam as a womanizing party animal and troublemaker — a far cry from the Adam seen in the TV series. The dialogue in the DC comics was also archaic, almost Shakespearian (think Marvel Comics' Asgard prior to 2006 or so), whereas the cartoon and the comics that came after it featured modern English diction.
    • In the 1983 cartoon and related comics, Cringer/Battle Cat, Adam's pet tiger, could talk. He hasn't been depicted as speech-capable since the 2002 series, so anyone more familiar with more recent He-Man material is certain to find that a little hard to adjust to. However starting from Masters of the Universe: Revelation his portrayal as a talkative animal has returned in full force.
    • Very early versions of the comic held that Skeletor came from another world where he lived with "Others of his kind" and his ultimate goal was to open a portal so they could come in and conquer Eternia. While Skeletor's origin varies a bit between incarnations, all series afterwards almost universally agree that he's a native of Eternia more specificllay Keldor, half-brother of King Randor and Adam's long-lost uncle. Even the toyline bios went on to retcon that "origin" as him being under a delusion induced by Hordak forcefully merging Keldor with an actual interdimensional demon and his belief of there being others of his kind in another dimension being a cover for Hordak to be freed from Despondos.
  • Mega Man (Ruby-Spears):
    • Very early episodes depict Mega Man as having a weird Stay in the Kitchen attitude towards Roll, who was desperate to get out in the field with him. After about two or three episodes this plot thread was quietly dropped.
    • Early episodes also had Eddie as a somewhat important supporting character. He was increasingly phased out from then on, to the point that he only appears once in season 2.
    • The unaired pilot also had animation and designs that were much more accurate to the trademark art style of the Mega Man games. The show proper has a more Americanized style to it.
  • The original Mickey Mouse was a far more mischievous character. As he become an iconic hero, parental pressure made him less mean-spirited and more of a Nice Guy. He also wore no gloves in his earliest cartoons. Those were given to him later to make sure that you still see his hands even if he held them across his black belly. A particularly bizarre early moment was When the Cat's Away, a Mickey Mouse short released in 1929. In this short, Mickey and Minnie are depicted as being more like real mice, interacting with human-sized objects. To date, this is the only occasion where Mickey is the size of a real mouse.
    • When Pluto was introduced in "The Chain Gang" in 1930, he belonged to Minnie and was named Rover.
  • Mickey Mouse Clubhouse:
    • The first season called the Dance Party Ending the "Mouskedance". Later seasons rename it the "Hot Dog Dance".
    • In the first season during the Wrap-Up Song, Mickey does a recap of the Mousketools used in the episode; since Season 2, the protagonist of the episode would thank the viewer.
    • The first season also used a slightly different Mouskedoer sequence, with Toodles being explained by Mickey in a spoken verse rather than as part of the song.
    • The first two episodes have slightly different animation than the rest of the season. Specifically the clubhouse grass is present when the clubhouse appears and disappears at the end, the topiaries Mickey walks by are different in the opening scene, and when the title card is shown, Toodles stays in view of the camera, when in the rest of the series, he does a Body Wipe before the title card appears.
    • In the first three episodes, used Mousketools are slightly shadowed. From "Donald's Big Balloon Race" and onward, used Mousketools are now greyscale.
    • The question mark used to represent the Mystery Mousketool has a more cartoonish design in the first episode, while all later episodes give it a more traditional design.
    • Toodles has more floating circles on his screen in the first two episodes than later appearances.
  • Mike, Lu & Og: The pilot short from What A Cartoon! Show is very different from the series proper. Citing a few examples, Lu and Og are a little more naked (Lu's bra is not connected from the back and Og only has one loincloth in front, exposing his rear) and the animation was a more choppy and simple (while Pilot Studio in Russia was always involved with the show, the pilot (along with "The Good Ship Bad", "Jujubombs" and "High Camp") was actually animated there, whereas the show itself was animated by Nic & Sae Hahn Productions in Korea).
  • In the Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends pilot movie Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids, Miss Spider is regularly referred to by her first name of Flora by those who aren't her children. In the television series, she is always "Miss Spider." Also, Dragon's eyes are a much darker blue. Holly is also more cowardly in the pilot movie than he is in the tv series.
  • The first Mr. Magoo cartoons were different from his later appearances. While he was still nearsighted, Magoo had a slightly more detailed appearance and had the qualities of a Grumpy Old Man (In fact, his debut short The Ragtime Bear ended with him trying to shoot Waldo!). His later cartoons dropped those qualities and made him the happy-go-lucky, lovable geezer.

    O 
  • OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes:
    • The original pilot looks almost totally different from the series proper; the art style is much more angular and detailed, the opening is an Expository Theme Tune, a lot of characters have different designs, and most of the supporting cast is either missing or just sitting in the background.
    • The early parts of the first season have some jarringly different characterization. K.O. is kind of trigger happy and less naive, Enid is proactive instead of lazy, Mr. Gar is even angrier, Red Action acts like a bit of an Alpha Bitch, Darrell and Shannon are hatefully envious of Raymond, and Ernesto is The Generic Guy who never takes part in attacks on the Plaza. And again, a lot of the supporting cast are either nonexistent or treated as background crowd fillers; some of them, like Sparko, don’t even speak until the second season.
  • Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: In the very early Oswald cartoons, Oswald's girlfriend was another rabbit named Fanny. Beginning in 1928, she was replaced with a cat named Ortensia, who stayed well into his Winkler and Universal years.
  • Over the Garden Wall's pilot episode, "Tome of the Unknown", bears several differences from the series:
    • Rather than being lost in the woods and trying to find their way home, Wirt and Greg are on a quest to find the titular Tome of the Unknown.
    • In the series, a major part of Wirt's Character Development is seeing Greg as something other than an annoyance and to stop treating him so callously. Here their relationship seems much better from the start, with Wirt even finding some of Greg's antics funny.
    • The Beast and the Woodsman, both important characters in Over the Garden Wall, are not seen nor mentioned.
    • The show only has narration at the beginning and end, but here it's spread all throughout the episode.

    P 
  • Season 1 episodes of PAW Patrol end with Ryder singing a Wrap-Up Song called "Good Pups". Later episodes use an instrumental version of this song. It is also the only season not to feature Everest.
  • Pet Alien:
    • The first season had a different theme song detailing the aliens' first meeting with Tommy, which alternated between an Instrumental Theme Tune and one with opera-style vocals. The second season would instead go with a jazzy Expository Theme Tune explaining the aliens' personalities and why they're living with Tommy, which would later be used for episodes from the first season.
    • The animation was much rougher, with brighter, inconsistent lighting and choppier animation. The aliens also frequently showed their teeth whenever they opened their mouths. This element of their designs was quickly done away with, and they're toothless in later episodes unless an expression specifically requires them to show teeth.
    • "It Came From the Closet" has a couple moments that don't align with the rest of the show:
      • Granville lacks his dog statue, Admiral Puff. He instead has a red bird statue called Duchess.
      • It's implied either Melba or Gabby has a dog, as Dinko mentions making a drink out of "dog potatoes" found around the house of the "Next Door Neighbor of Tommy of Earth". Neither character is shown to have a dog in subsequent episodes, though Melba briefly mentions getting rid of her dog in "Unleashed Beast of Fury".
    • In general, Tommy's mom plays a much larger role in the first few episodes before mostly being phased out altogether. In season 2, she's only heard in one episode.
    • Several episodes in the first season show that Gumpers' tooth is alive. This was quietly dropped in Season 2.
  • The first Phineas and Ferb episode, "Rollercoaster", lacks many of the show's mainstays and in general is very different from the episodes to follow it. A lot of these differences are lampshaded when the episode was given a musical remake in the Season 2 episode "Rollercoaster: The Musical!," which involved the characters doing an In-Universe recreation of the events;
    • Phineas has a high-pitched voice, is sarcastic, and acts a little more antagonistic towards his sister Candace. After that, he's just upbeat about his projects and bears no ill-will to her or anyone, even going out of his way to help Candace on numerous occasions.
    • There is no musical number during the episode, nobody is Genre Savvy, and there isn't any Lampshade Hanging.
    • Dr. Doofenshmirtz's Evil Plans were often much grander in scope than his usual focus on "taking over the entire Tri-State Area" in early episodes: In the aforementioned "Rollercoaster", he's trying to reverse the Earth's rotation (and the key device in his plan is not an "-inator", no less), in the episode "Ready For The Bettys", Doof comes up with a scheme that Major Monogram implies could outright destroy the world, and even as late as "What Do It Do?" it's implied that Doof is simply working his way up to taking over the world by starting small with the Tri-State Area. In most later episodes, Doof's schemes only affect (or are at least intended to only affect) the Tri-State Area, he's overall much more harmless, and taking over or destroying the entire world is something that he actively draws the line at and never deliberately sets out to do.
    • Buford and Baljeet aren't present in the first few episodes, and even after they appear they don't become part of Phineas and Ferb's gang until a little later. Buford's first appearance in "Raging Bully" also has him purely as an antagonist until he becomes a friend in the end of the episode, with no sign of him and Baljeet being Vitriolic Best Buds.
    • The animation was a bit choppy and exaggerated in Season 1, especially with Candace's mouth movements.
    • A few Season 1 episodes has Candace often bring her dad to show the Big Idea along with her mom. For almost the entire show after Candace only wants to bring Mom to see it, and Dad happens to approve of the Big Ideas and participates in some of them. It's implied she almost never gets Dad to see it because the busting power is likely from Mom, while Dad is more of a Manchild.
    • In a handful of early episodes, Dr. Doof easily recognized Perry without his hat, when in later episodes his inability to recognize Perry without his hat on or wearing a (paper-thin) disguise on was one of the Agent P plots' main Running Gags (to the point of being a major plot point in some episodes).
    • There were very few traces of Perry and Doofenshmirtz's signature Friendly Enemy character dynamic in early episodes. In some episodes Perry would even abandon Doof to whatever fate befell him once his schemes inevitably backfired on him, which would be unheard of in later episodes wherein Perry will almost always go out of his way to rescue Doof if Doof ends up in really big trouble.
  • Season 1 of Polly Pocket is the only one to be a Half-Arc Season instead of episodic, the only one with a recurring antagonist, and the only one to use full-length 22-minute episodes instead of 11-minute shorts.
  • In the first Popeye short, Olive Oyl's voice sounded nothing like her more cartoonish, signature voice. Additionally, since it was a Poorly Disguised Pilot as a Betty Boop short (Betty herself got Demoted to Extra for this one), it featured Popeye, Olive, and Bluto interacting with Funny Animal and dogfaced characters, while the later shorts only featured human characters and any animal characters appearing (sans Eugene the Jeep) lacked human traits. In the earlier shorts there's also no Theme Music Power-Up that plays when Popeye eats his spinach.
  • The pilot to the 1980's Pound Puppies cartoon has some noticeable differences from the actual series.
    • Aside from his trademark howling, Howler does not speak, when the series has him Suddenly Speaking. He also doesn't wear a vest.
    • Bright Eyes appears to be older in the pilot than she was in the series.
    • Nose Marie is instead named "The Nose".
    • The pound is run by a man named Mr. Bigelow instead of a girl named Holly. He is also Catgut's owner instead of Katrina Stoneheart.
    • Catgut himself had a more cartoonish and blob-like design.
  • The Powerpuff Girls had this with its pilots:
    • Craig McCracken's first short (created under the title Whoopass Stew) features the Amoeba Boys as genuinely competent criminals. Also, the girls have no individual personalities, and defeat the Amoeba Boys by flying them to extremely close contact with the sun, causing them to melt. Also, Professor Utonium looked like Dexter.
    • In "Meat Fuzzy Lumpkins", Fuzzy was a Southern-Fried Genius who built a gun that turned people into meat, and while he was angered by losing the jam-making contest, it was a far more restrained anger than the typical Berserker Rage he would fly into in the show proper.
  • In the first season of Puppy Dog Pals, Bingo and Rolly do not wear regular collars at all when they're not on missions unlike later episodes where they do. It is also the only season to not feature Keia or Lollie as they weren't introduced until later.
  • The first episode of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, the title card is a static picture of Scooby-Doo instead of the usual picture of Scooby dragging Shaggy. As well, the gang react to Velma speaking, suggesting that she was meant to be The Silent Bob, not just finding an important clue.

    R 
  • The Raccoons:
  • Ready Jet Go!: The earlier episodes of the show are very strange to watch in comparison to the later ones. There's the wonky CGI, voices being higher or lower-pitched than normal, the show having a very small cast of only eight characters, episodes following the same format, and weird one-off jokes such as Mindy taking jiu-jitsu lessons and the frozen star system of Marzipan. However, they're still entertaining to watch and the show eventually starts to improve in quality.
  • ReBoot:
    • This show was very different in its first season, almost as if it feels like a different cartoon:
      • It was a lot wackier, as episodes were adventure-of-the-day one-shots. It wasn't until Episode 18: Painted Windows that the show began to change. Following Hexadecimal's recovery after the trauma of having her mask face ripped off, Mike the TV accidentally broke her dimensional mirror, releasing a tentacle web monster, which then lead to the proceeded events that followed from then on.
      • Much of the main cast were stereotypes, and were rather one note. As the tone of the show got darker, the main cast became more well-rounded, with Megabyte and Hexadecimal becoming more sinister.
      • Lastly, there was heavy-usage of Hanna-Barbera sound effects. The wackier stuff was reserved mostly for the game-cube-drops and the comic-relief characters, who now only appeared occasionally.
    • The Super Virus, Daemon, has an odd early introduction. You don't see her but hear about her in Season 3. What's said implies that she's a tyrant, unlike what we see later when she appears as a gentle, rarely-violent psychopath with a Jesus complex who thinks she's the Net's savior. Her minions, the infected Guardians, were originally vicious and brutal as opposed to religious preachers that would sacrifice themselves in Season 4.
  • Recess: Season 1 was very different from the rest of the show:
    • The show was more fast-paced, exaggerated, and cartoonish, T.J. was more sarcasticnote , Vince was more of a Sour Supporter, Miss Finster and Principal Prickly were more sadistic (Miss Finster especially in "The Box"), Miss Grotke was less sympathetic and appeared less often, King Bob was more of an antagonist, the animation was more off-model, and Lawson didn't appear at all.
    • In some of the early episodes, such as "The Break-In", "The Great Jungle Gym Standoff", "To Finster with Love", and "My Fair Gretchen", Miss Finster doesn't sound as sinister as she usually does in the show.
    • In "The Experiment," Gretchen is less of a child prodigy than she would become in later episodes, since she's just as dumbfounded as the others by the idea that older boys and girls enjoy kissing each other.
    • In "To Finster With Love," Miss Finster is shown grading papers in a classroom, implying that she's a regular teacher as well as the playground monitor. Later episodes make it clear that she's just the playground monitor, though she eventually becomes the fifth grade teacher in the direct-to-video movie Taking the Fifth Grade.
    • The very first episode did not feature Gus, who transferred to the school in the next episode.
    • In "Big Brother Chad", Chucko Kowalski is described as the meanest fifth grader in school. In later episodes, Gelmen and Lawson emerge as much meaner fifth graders and Chucko is Demoted to Extra.
    • In the original pilot version of the first episode, "The Break-In", T.J. and the gang (barring Mikey) had very different character designs. For example, here's T.J., and here's the rest of the gang. T.J. had the same voice actor, though.
  • Regular Show had some noticeable traits of this:
    • Seasons 1 and 2 were mainly centered on Mordecai and Rigby, usually about their job. Starting with season 3, the others characters get more focus, with the duo sometimes barely appearing.
    • The characters' personalities were different. Mordecai and Rigby were more immature and would regularly slack off, Benson was an unsympathetic Mean Boss who regularly abused his authority and threatened to fire Mordecai and Rigby over petty reasons, Pops was even more of a Cloudcuckoolander, and Skips was only used for assistance. Also, Margaret was used as a love interest for Mordecai (mainly in the first four seasons) and in her earlier appearances, she would usually gets a new boyfriend, much to Mordecai's disappointment. Eileen, meanwhile, was a very minor character lacking sclera.
    • Muscle Man wasn't a main character in season 1. He was often limited to small roles, before getting more involved with the plots in the second season. Also, Hi Five Ghost was The Quiet One, almost not speaking at all. This was explained away in-Universe as him having been jinxed that entire time.
    • The animation and art were also noticeably different. It's easy to watch both the pilot and its updated version "First Day" to notice this. Including the earlier seasons, the animation flows better than it does in the later seasons, and the art style started to get less cartoony as it goes on.
  • Rick and Morty:
    • The first episode featured the main characters in a more negative way than in later episodes. Rick acted more like a neglectful and criminally insane sociopath rather than a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Summer was a one-dimensional and spoiled brat, Jerry was obsessed with actively committing Rick to a retirement home and Morty was said to have a mental limitation which never was brought up again. Their behavior changed either because of character development, or because the writers came to the conclusion that it wouldn't work as a constantly recurring plot formula. The Reset Button would often get hit a lot in that same season. Once the 2nd season rolled around, continuity began to creep in. The pilot also had no Stinger.
    • The first few seasons presented Jerry as the resident Butt-Monkey who no one respected and deserved what he got. From season 4 onwards, Rick is much nicer and more tolerant towards him, and he gets opportunities to prove his competence at activities such as puppetry, bee-keeping, and camping - all of which get appreciated by someone in the episode. Even in the Season 5 premiere, he expresses confusion upon seeing that Rick's nemesis is a "strange horny ocean man", when he has seen him do weirder things.
    • Similarly, early episodes have shown Morty as a somewhat incompetent and cowardly sidekick to Rick. He is more than able to hold his own in later episodes. Things that would have otherwise terrified him don't bother him as much, though much of this can be put down to Character Development.
    • Rick is an utter jerk in the first three and a half seasons, who could do anything and get away with it with zero consequences. Rick in later episodes is somewhat nicer (especially to Jerry) and is less of a Karma Houdini.
    • Summer barely got involved in adventures, only joining Rick on one adventure in Season 1 (when Morty was unavailable). Future seasons had her join the titular duo in way more episodes. Even Rick is more willing to involve her in his shenanigans.
    • Rick originally had extremely pale skin in the first few episodes rather than the greyish-tinted skin tone he has today.
    • "Lawnmower Dog", "Anatomy Park", "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!", "Meeseeks and Destroy", and "Rick Potion #9" are the only episodes not to feature cold openings.
    • The first Season Finale is a rather low stakes episode about Rick and Summer making a party taking advantage of Jerry and Beth's absence. There's some conflict around Morty starting to get tired of Rick's treatment but besides that not much in importance happens. Compare it with the following Season Finales which are either Wham Episodes, Cliffhangers or adventures with important changes in the Status Quo and this episode seems like a rather odd way to conclude the season. It's also the only season finale not to feature a Mr. Poopybutthole post-credit scene, having one last scene with Abradolph Lincoler instead.
  • In the first season of Rocko's Modern Life not only was the theme song different, but Rocko was more paranoid and easily angered, Filburt was not a regular character, but when he did show up he was nerdier than in later seasons, Bev Bighead in all her season 1 appearances was more flirtatious and liked to party, and the style was cruder, and there was more gross out humor and innuendo than later on, and most plotlines involved Rocko trying to make it through everyday situations gone wrong more than in later seasons.
  • Rocky and Bullwinkle first several episodes bears several differences in the first season:
    • The first several episodes have a laugh track, along with severely low-key narration by William Conrad and Off-Model animation, which got better as the show went on since they outsourced to a Mexican animation studio which had been set up expressly for the show.
    • In the first few episodes, Boris had red eyes.
    • Some of the early episodes ended with only one title for the next episode, rather than two.
    • The first two episodes of Peabody's Improbable History did not have any puns at the end.

    S 
  • Samurai Jack: Mainly found in the pilot movie, as it's the first episode:
    • Jack's character model is not only inconsistiant, but his voice sounds awfully American.
    • Aku is set up as the serious, sinister threat he is, with none of his trademark humor which would later subvert this.
    • The Emperor describes Aku as an Evil Sorcerer with shapeshifting powers rather than as a demonic force of pure evil.
    • Since Jack hasn't been sent into the future yet, this episode has none of the series' scifi elements and thus amounts to twenty four minutes of straight-up Wuxia.
    • When Jack's sword strikes Aku, it just leaves simple cuts. Later episodes establish that Holy Burns Evil, meaning any contact with the sword will cause Aku's essence to burn away.
    • The forms Aku takes when he fights Jack can only vaguely be animalistic, and in later confrontations Aku is much more like an animal in these forms. Compare the fight to the one in "Jack and the Zombies" and you’ll see the difference.
  • Sanjay and Craig:
    • The series started off derivative of some of the other Nicktoons at the same time as it and often placed an annoyingly large emphasis on gross-out humor. The later seasons saw the gross-out content being toned down considerably in favor of more generally wacky antics and more straightforward storytelling, something that greatly benefited the show in the end. Most outside the show's target demographic had already written it off by that point, however. Occasionally, they would make a few jabs at Season 1's gross-out slapstick in a few Season 2 and 3 episodes like "2 Tuff 2 Watch" and "Songjay".
    • Gross-out slapstick wasn't the only oddity that the early episodes suffered from. The animation is quite different compare to later episodes of the series, with more cartoonish movements and differently drawn characters. Hector's voice was very high-pitched in some of his earliest appearances (Most likely to make him sound more like a kid), Sanjay's skin was more yellow-ish, Vijay talked a little faster, Craig's voice is more nasally and louder, Tufflip's voice was deeper, the Dicksons' house had a completely different interior, and Chicken Chuck was only a background character who had very little involvement in the storylines. The pacing was pretty slow and some of the jokes can be pretty forgettable compared to Seasons 2 and 3.
  • The first two episodes of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! had a different opening, with an extended version of the title card music playing while Shaggy yells the title.
  • Shimmer and Shine started out as your typical preschool show with a Strictly Formula setup; the titular genies-in-training visiting Leah on Earth to attain to her problem of the day with their Three Wishes. Starting in Season 2, the series shifts to Zahramay Falls, where the genies live, and it becomes more action-based and Slice of Life. Also, the show went from a full half-hour to Two Shorts, and the animation changed from Flash to CGI. Season 1 was also the only season to lack Samira, Zeta & Kaz, but considering the season took place in the human world, this is justified.
  • Despite its short run, Sit Down, Shut Up had a lot of them.
    • Most of the characters' self-proclaimed catchprases from the first episode were dropped after the first couple episodes.
    • Happy originally spoke Arabic, which would be overdubbed with an English translator, but after the first few episodes, he just speaks broken English.
    • Miracle was originally more of a ditzy hippie who lived by her strong beliefs, before eventually becoming a flat-out bimbo.
    • Helen was originally just flat-out angry all of the time, but her later character later shifted to be misunderstood, under-appreciated, and depressed.
  • The Smurfs (1981): The show's first season was different than what would come in later seasons. It felt more like a typical slapstick cartoon that just happened to have "morals", especially the parts where they adapted the comic stories for television. It even had more art and animation errors, as Hanna-Barbera were learning to draw in Peyo's style at the time. Plus, the Smurfs' personalities resembled more or less to their early comic portrayals. While some episodes could have a clever story here and there ("The Smurfette", "Foul Weather Smurf", etc.), most of the original stories ranged from being outlandish and weird ("Paradise Smurfed", "The Baby Smurf", etc.) to just boring and slow ("Sideshow Smurfs", "Sir Hefty", etc.).
    • A number of main Smurfs also had different voices during early production of the series, such as Farmer (voiced by Frank Welker in "All That Glitters Isn't Smurf"), Painter (voiced by Michael Bell in "The Hundreth Smurf"), Harmony (also voiced by Michael Bell in "The Abominable Snowbeast"), Dreamy (voiced by Ronnie Schell in "The Astro Smurf" and "Dreamy's Nightmare"), Hefty (in early episodes, ranging from a deep voice with a lisp to a high pitched voice (similar to Peewit)) and even Jokey (also voiced by Ronnie Schell in a few of the first episodes before being voiced by June Foray, who is more commonly associated with the character).
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM):
    • "Heads or Tails", the pilot episode, is markedly Lighter and Softer than the rest of the series, with the episode ending with a squadron of evil robots being repelled with water balloons. Other changes:
      • Sally is seen in her pink fur/black hair look from the early comics and NICOLE is a desktop computer pushed around on wheels.
      • Tails is portrayed as 4 1/2 like in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, sneaks into Sonic's backpack and even complains about needing to go to the bathroom.
      • SWATBots are in their gray and white color scheme from the comics and have their personality, chuckling at Snively when he gets into a mishap.
    • The first season went through a few inconsistencies before season 2 set things in stone, especially since it was made by several writers rather than one, and the decision to have an arcing plot wasn't in place yet. Some episodes such as "Sonic Boom" also caused continuity errors with the backstory established in Season 2.
  • Space Ghost Coast to Coast: Early episodes have Space Ghost speak in a dull monotone instead of his more upbeat, cheery tone. Zorak is repeatedly referred to as a locust instead of a mantis. He can blast Zorak (and Moltar), but they don't have the still shot of his charred remains yet. Sometimes the camera tries to show the guest's perspective of Space Ghost talking to them.
  • The first few episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks didn't set things in stone with the characters right away.
    • Mariner's Establishing Character Moment is drunkingly injuring Boimler with a bat'leth, cutting a chunk of his leg partially off. Later episodes show that she's a rule-breaker, but she would never harm her friends and cares deeply for them.
    • Boimler is shown to have interest in the warp engine, a trait that would later be given to the more engineering-focused Rutherford while Boimler focuses more on Command.
    • In the first episode, Rutherford is shown to be unconcerned about a zombie outbreak on the Cerritos. Later episodes would show he would take everything seriously.
    • Dr. T'Ana would act more human than feline.
    • The senior staff of the Cerritos would be shown to be more dismissive or even cruel to the Lower Deckers at times. For instance, in the first episode, Captain Freeman proudly boasts that Dr. T'Ana had been the one to discover the cure for the zombie outbreak, when it was Mariner and Boimler who did so.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
    • The season 1 two-parter "Downfall of a Droid" and "Duel of the Droids" was the first set of episodes produced after the pilot movie (despite airing as episodes 6 and 7). As a result, the episodes contain several elements not present in the rest of the series. Aside from the noticeable lack of polish in the animation, the music has several techno and electronica tracks that are wildly out of place in Star Wars. Rex is very stiff and has little personality. Rex calls Ahsoka by her first name even though as a Jedi Padawan she is a superior officer; he would address her as "commander" for the rest of the series. Ahsoka herself is at her snippiest in these episodes, referring to almost every central character by a nickname. She also mostly sides with Obi-Wan regarding R2's expendability; later episodes would show she has as much affection for the astromech as Anakin does.
  • Star Wars Rebels: "Spark of Rebellion" has some discrepancies with the rest of the show:
    • When Ezra escapes into the Ghost's ventilation system, he's able to move around the ship in a way that is inconsistent with its layout as established in the rest of the show. This is best demonstrated when he somehow falls out of the vent and into the nose gun turret... something that's impossible as the nose gunner's position is directly below the cockpit and open to it such that it's possible to slide under the pilot or co-pilot's controls and into the turret.
    • There are two discrepancies between Agent Kallus' behaviour and backstory established in later episodes:
      • Kallus doesn't pay any particular heed to Zeb. This is despite the fact that Kallus participated in the genocide of Zeb's homeworld, and thus there are very few Lasat running around the galaxy.
      • Kallus, during the Cleansing of Lasan, acquired as a Battle Trophy a unique Lasat weapon called a bo-rifle from a Lasat Honour Guardsman he defeated in combat. He doesn't use it in "Spark of Rebellion", despite using it considerably in later combat scenes up to season 3. In fact, he can even be seen carrying it on his back in the scene before he boards the transport ship, making its omission even more puzzling.
  • Static Shock was originally intended to be separate from the DC Animated Universe, and the early episodes make references to Superman and other heroes as fictional, along with their alter egos. The show's first season also has a cruder animation style and more focus on problems that would afflict urban youth whereas the Lighter and Softer later seasons would shy away from this and make the conflict more about fantastic superhero problems.
  • Super Friends:
    • 1973–74 season. The first episode "The Power Pirate" has a number of things that don't match later episodes.
      • Wendy and Marvin talk like 1960s hippies, using phrases like "groovy", "cool", "right on" and "far out". They never speak like this again.
      • Marvin is able to levitate himself into the air, indicating that he is developing super powers. This is never brought up again.
      • Wonder Woman controls her transparent plane by beaming mental thought waves at the control panel. In all later episodes, she controls the plane with a standard control yoke.
      • Wonder Woman can fly through the air, which she never does in any of the later episodes.
    • Green Lantern's debut in The All-New Super Friends Hour segment "Flood of Diamonds" features a flagrantly inaccurate depiction of his powers where he travels by using his ring to create a jet (ignoring that his ring in the comics enabled him to fly) and had every construct he made using the ring except for the aforementioned jet and some support beams being a color other than green. The error of Green Lantern's ring creating non-green constructs was corrected by Green Lantern's second appearance in the segment "Rampage", with his appearances on Challenge of the Superfriends correcting the mistake of having him rely on a jet construct to travel by having his ring enable him to fly like in the comics.
  • The Superjail! pilot "Bunny Love" depicts the Warden as being well aware of the Twins and their trouble-making, while Jared suggests that he "suspend their privileges". The Twins are also later shown to fear the possibility of dying from the outcome of the chaos, and rather than teleport away, they fly off on rocket-powered stair climbing machines. In the series itself, the Warden and Twins never really meet face to face and he either seems to be unaware of the chaos they make or doesn't acknowledge it. Other than a reference to them being inmates in a tie-in comic in Playboy magazine, the Twins are also later treated as a separate division of characters from the staff and inmate population.
    • The colors in the pilot are a little less saturated, particularly visible in the Warden's outfit (which is a brighter or darker purple in later episodes).
    • A few of the characters had different vocal delivery in both the pilot and season 1: Jared was less shrill and seemed to have a bit of a lisp, while Alice had a deep voice but wasn't as guttural.
    • The pilot uses the song "Rubber Bullets" by 10cc. Starting with "Superbar", the theme was changed to "Coming Home" by The Cheeseburgers, as the licensing fee to use the former song was too expensive.
    • The ending credits to the pilot are also a little more comprehensive and accurate with the voice actors for the show. For some reason or another, the voice acting credits in season 1 only ever credited Chris McCulloch, David Wain, Teddy Cohn, and Richard Mather, and never changed or updated by episode. Seasons 2 and 3 fix this mistake, save for a few occasional slip-ups (such as Sally Donovan being uncredited in "Oedipus Mess").
  • The Superman Theatrical Cartoons seem to be aired Out of Order as one of them contains Superman leaping instead of flying. Afterwards he is presented as flying as jumping around looks awkward in animation. The shorts are the earliest examples of Superman flying instead of leaping. The series also presents some weirdness for Superman in general. His parents are nonexistent, instead he was raised in an orphanage, and most of the villains are rather generic because the shorts came out before the modern concept of "comic book villains" and "super villains" was made concrete.
  • The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! had many elements in its first run that would not return in the other series:
    • The first cartoon made use of skits with live actors and celebrities. The later cartoons would stick with just the cartoons themselves.
    • King Koopa's minions were based on enemies that appeared in Super Mario Bros. 2 due to that game and the first one being the only Mario games that were out at the time. The more known Koopalings that appeared in Super Mairo Bros 3 would replace King Koopa's minions in the next cartoon and become mainstays (albeit with different names).
    • Many story elements used in the first cartoon were parodies of popular stories and mythologies, complete with King Koopa dressing up to match the theme of the day. This would be dropped in favor of making the stories more based on elements from the games.
  • In the first eight episodes of Super Why!, the viewers would say "super letters!" whenever the letters for the super story answer would appear. Beginning with the ninth episode "The Ugly Duckling", only the sound when the letters appear plays.

    T 
  • Combined with Characterization Marches On, this can be seen in a lot of the first season episodes of Teen Titans; over time, the cast underwent a kind of reverse Flanderization, thanks to Character Development. In early episodes, several characters resemble stereotypes of themselves more than their selves from the later seasons—Raven's gothiness, Starfire's ditziness, Beast Boy's immaturity, and Slade's Card Carrying Villainy are all really played up, and the overall tone is more of a very lighthearted kid's action show, as compared to the somewhat schizophrenic later seasons, which tended to bounce back and forth between utter random goofiness and surprisingly intense darkness. It's generally considered that Robin's "Not So Different" Remark Story Arc with Slade is where the show really Growing the Beard and started acting like itself.
  • The comedy of the early seasons of Teen Titans Go! was darker. The titans died in every episode, mistreated each other frequently, and their antics often led to the city's destruction. The later seasons are as zany as ever but there's less focus on Black Comedy and more focus on parodying superhero tropes.
    • In the first season, Raven was more like her original self. She spoke in a monotone voice, was more reserved, and acted as the Straight Man of the group. Since the second season, she's as wacky and weird as the other Titans.
    • Another weird thing about season one has to do with one of the recurring features of the show. Most of the time, celebrities only voice characters in the show if they happen to have children or grandkids. However, the show's very first guest star, Ricky Jay, did not have any grandkids or children. On a related note, Bob Uecker, whose children and grandkids were not in the target demographic of the show, note  was also slated for a first season appearance, but wound up appearing in Season 5 instead.
  • The first syndicated season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) cemented the familiar look and sound of the series, which stayed largely consistent until the show was retooled in 1994. As a result, reruns of the 1988 season and especially the 1987 miniseries always seemed like strange anomalies. The animation style was different, the Channel 6 building was different, and some of the voices were different (although the actors were the same). One of the most obvious shifts was Krang. He seemed more alien in the early episodes, with slow, labored speech, pulsating flesh, and constantly twitching tentacles.
  • The first season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) had a lot to live up to, being the second animated TMNT show to air in the United States after the iconic '87 show that had the effect of being an Audience-Coloring Adaptation on a general audience when it came to Ninja Turtles. As a result, there were parts of the first season which felt like the writers weren't a hundred percent comfortable with what they were doing. Fight scenes tended to be less intricate and developed than later seasons. Also, the Turtles tended to be a lot more chatty and joked around more in battle like their '87 counterparts. Some of the humor also came off as a bit flat, as if the writers were trying too hard to make the show funny and witty. There was also a ninja instrumental theme that played whenever the Turtles went into battle but was no longer used after the first season. By the second season, a lot of those elements were done away with and the show established itself more as its own unique Ninja Turtles incarnation.
  • The original seasons of Thomas & Friends were not only produced using models compared to the CGI animation of today, but were fairly low budget and prone to errors compared to the later points. Also the depiction was incredibly different due to being based very closely on The Railway Series novels, the tone was darker, the functions of the railway were more realistic (drivers talked and had a more pivotal role, and there were often life like accidents and collisions that were made as spectacular as possible) and some of the characters played more as Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists (Thomas in particular was far more self absorbed and rude in the first two seasons, a fairly lengthy number of seasons developing him into the altruistic Cloud Cuckoo Lander he is in the CGI episodes). The series started to become more like it is today when Moral Guardians started to complain about both the amount of violent crashes, and the lack of female characters, leading directly to the creation of Emily.
  • In the ThunderCats (1985) pilot it's debatable whether the Wilykittens were cubs or simply small cats, as they're treated less like children than they are later on. There's also ambiguity in their relationship as Wilykit tells Wilykat "Gosh, you're beautiful when you snarl" without a lick of sarcasm or familial affection. Also, the characters spent their time before they got to Third Earth naked, their modesty protected by Barbie Doll Anatomy. After they got their outfits, they spent the rest of the series in them.
  • In the first Thundercats episode, Panthero has invisibility powers instead of Tigra.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures:
    • Furrball usually talks in cat noises or not at all, but in the early-produced (if not aired) episodes "Cinemaniacs!" and "Buster and the Wolverine", he speaks normally. In the former episode, he even has a different voice actor than normal (Rob Paulsen instead of Frank Welker).
    • Montana Max for most of the show is a quintessential Rich Bastard, but in a few early episodes his background and social standing seem to vary depending on the needs of the plot, much like Yosemite Sam. In "Crime Busters" he's a White Gang Banger. In "Cinemaniacs!", he works as an usher of all things.
    • The sixth produced episode "Hero Hamton" actually had Calamity Coyote in an antagonistic role toward Buster and the others (collaborating with Monty, no less) when most later episodes would have him as one of their good friends. For that matter, Plucky was far more of a Jerkass in said episode than in most of his later appearances. (Which, by Plucky's standards, says a lot, really.)
  • Tom and Jerry was a little different, too:
    • The early Tom & Jerry cartoons are much slower paced than the later ones. In their first cartoon Jerry has no name and Tom is called "Jasper". Also, Tom looks and acts more like a real cat by walking on all fours and meowing whenever he's in pain instead of his later more infamous human yell.
    • An early short has a scene where Tom is listening to the radio, which has a face, and both smiles and laughs. This is especially unsettling if you've never seen anything from the Inkblot Cartoon Style era, where this sort of anthropomorphism was common.
  • Toot & Puddle: I'll Be Home for Christmas was a special commissioned before the series was made for TV. As such there are some notable differences between it and the TV series, including a different animation style and art design, different voice actors, and a different feel of pacing that includes an unusual frequency of scene changes.
  • Total Drama Island, the first season of Total Drama, has some differences in tone to later seasons:
    • The first episode depicts Chris as more subdued and kinder. As a result, the contestants are a lot more chummier with him. Also, when the contestants are faced with the first of many ridiculous challenges, DJ, of all people yells "Oh shit", which is largely out of character.
    • The first episode's marshmallow ceremony has the contestants come up to get their marshmallows and put them on sticks to roast. The sticks were abandoned early in the season, and most elimination ceremonies going forward have the contestants remain seated as Chris just throws them the immunity tokens.
    • Geoff and DJ would join Duncan in tormenting Harold. Later on in the first season, Geoff and DJ are established as nice guys.
    • The prize money was only $100,000 as opposed to the full-on million every season afterwards has.
  • The very early episodes of Total DramaRama had Chef in a very different light. He was more like himself in the original Total Drama series and was much tougher on the kids, very quick to anger, was very no-nonsense and always made sure the kids always faced the consequences of their actions. But very quickly, Chef became more of a childish, manipulable pushover which the kids frequently take advantage of, who couldn't really care less about his job or the kids' well-being.
  • The Transformers:
    • In the first episode of the original cartoon, the Autobots could fly just like the Decepticons. This ability faded over the course of the first two seasons.
    • In the pilot mini-series, Hound is the Kid-Appeal Character and Spike's best friend among the Autobots. The series' proper debut, Roll For It, paired Spike with Bumblebee instead and the rest is history.
    • The initial wave of characters were often given Stock Superpowers: Skywarp can teleport, Hound can create illusions, Windcharger can control magnetism, Trailbreaker can project a forcefield, and so on, all with no particular origin given. This pretty much vanished afterwards.
    • There's no suggestion whatsoever of the wider cosmology that the franchise would go on to develop. Origin episodes of the series, revealed in the third season, suggest that Cybertronians were robotic creations of an alien race that Turned Against Their Masters, rather than later series almost always giving them some kind of supernatural or semi-divine origin. There is no such thing as Primus, who debuted years later in the comics, and Unicron was the creation of a scientist rather than the God of Evil that he tends to be treated as.
    • Energon, the food and fuel source of Cybertronians, was initially treated as a Decepticon invention that they'd convert other energy sources into. Later on in the series, it's shown to be used by both sides, and not long after that, it became a naturally-occurring resource. Also, in the pilot miniseries, it looks entirely different from what it would look like later on: more like rainbow-colored pancakes that need to be "squashed" as part of the process of creation than the later magenta cubes.
    • Transformation itself was explained as some kind of innovation or technological advancement that had been conceived of during a war. Later shows have it as being a part of their inherent biology.
    • Sparks, a Cybertronian organ treated as something between a heart and a soul, are not present, having debuted in Beast Wars. Early scripts for the movie featured a prototype of the concept, called "life-sparks", but this didn't make it into the final product. Other typical ideas and terms, such as protoforms, also aren't brought up. Some episodes suggest that Cybertronians can simply be built, which would be difficult to imagine in a modern series, where it tends to require some manner of special circumstance to create a Spark—an early version of that concept pops up with Vector Sigma.
    • Later shows tend to feature reasonably strong continuity, often favoring a Half-Arc Season. Meanwhile, while the first season has at least a semblance of a story arc, the series from the second season onward tends to be almost entirely episodic (the only real consistency being the introduction of new characters), and Negative Continuity is frequently in play. This is most evident with the Constructicons, who appear to have multiple contradictory origins.
    • The show features an incredibly large cast, with the pilot alone introducing well over two dozen named Autobots and Decepticons, and that number would more than double as time went on, with characters often showing up in batches. It was also quite common for characters to simply show up with no clear origin. Most shows in the future would feature considerably fewer characters on either side, and treat the introduction of new characters as at least spotlight episode-worthy. This is due largely to the show being 2D-animated rather than the 3D animation of many future shows, as well as having a significantly more expansive toyline (owing to have originated as an import of a number of lines that had been going for a few years).
    • Several Transformers can inexplicably change size when they transform (Megatron turning into a handgun and Soundwave turning into a tape player, for example), something that would rarely come up in later fiction.
  • Transformers: Animated:
    • The human supervillains the Autobots face are phased out after the first season as the Decepticons begin to take a more prominent role as series antagonists. Only one appears in all of season 3.
  • Transformers: Prime:
    • The series had a characters popping guns out of hidden panels in their vehicle modes in the pilot. This effect was dropped for all characters except those whose vehicle modes had visible weaponry (Starscream, Megatron, Shockwave, and Vehicons with jets as their altmode), which was surprising given that there was a line of toys featuring hidden weapon gimmicks for the different characters in vehicle mode.
    • The Decepticon mooks, Vehicons, are much more effective in the pilot, probably because the only named Decepticons were Megatron, Starscream, and Soundwave. Five of them successfully capture Cliffjumper, and two of them actually come close to defeating Bumblebee and Arcee - the pair are saved by Bulkhead's appearance and the cons escape unarmed. Never again do the Vehicons display such competence; each Autobots plow through dozens of them with little to no effort.

    U 
  • The first season of Ultimate Spider-Man was a lot more reliant on Peter Parker addressing the audience and making Cutaway Gags. These were toned down by the following season, which also bumped up the focus of Spidey teaming up with other heroes in the Marvel universe.
  • The first Underdog cartoon has little in common with the others. He has a noticeably different voice. The narrator doesn't speak until midway through the episode. There's no Sweet Polly (it remains the only cartoon she's not in), no villain, no Cliffhanger, and Underdog is a completely moronic, bumbling idiot Jerkass who demolishes two banks to rescue a boy trapped in a bank vault (at first, Underdog goes to the wrong bank by mistake). The rest of the series portrays Underdog as much more competent. The first few cartoons are also completely self-contained. The four-part episodic structure wouldn't begin until the fifth cartoon ("Go Snow").

    V 
  • The first three installments of VeggieTales used a Two Shorts format (which would eventually return from time to time) instead of being single half-hour episodes, and were named after their primary theme instead of the actual stories. "Where's God When I'm S-Scared?" opened with an actual child reading the letter instead of Bob or Larry paraphrasing it, the second short had a nameless female narrator instead of Bob or Larry, and Larry's voice was radically different. "God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?", the second installment, didn't even have a "Silly Songs" segment; instead, it bumpered its shorts with a commercial for the "Forgive-O-Matic".
  • The Venture Bros.:
    • "The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay", the pilot, has quite a few differences from the regular show.
      • It's the only episode animated using Adobe Flash, giving it a distinctive look.
      • The episode sticks far more closely to a "Parody of Jonny Quest" format than the series does. The twins own a pet dog, Scamp, to better match Jonny Quest (Scamp only shows up in the series in season 3, having died some time after the pilot). Dr. Venture is regarded as a brilliant scientist with a good reputation, while later episodes portray him as a no-talent laughing stock. He's also completely genre-blind to the military use of his invention, while in the series proper, he's is eager to produce inventions for whatever application will give him the most money, including the military.
      • Brock is far less of a father figure for the boys, in fact seeming quite happy to ditch them. His character design is also different. He sometimes looks like he has a unibrow, and his skinny legs are more exaggerated.
      • The Monarch's design is different. He has a larger crown and a furry collar rather than the black cowl, smaller crown and chestplate. Dr. Girlfriend also has different facial features.
    • The first season employed differing styles of choppy and limited animation.
    • The tone of the dialogue changes noticeably after the first season, as well, and it stands out on rewatches. For example, in the first episode ("Dia de los Dangerous") where Doc and the boys are in Tijuana, Hank's first line is "This place it tits! Divvy this, we got these boss Mexican hats." and in "The Incredible Mister Brisby", he is happy to point out an elephant's penis and accuse his father of being "on the rag". Even though he says some pretty outlandish things, it's hard to imagine Season 3 or 4 Hank talking this way.
    • In the first few seasons Dr. Venture's relationship with his father was more positive. While it was clear that his childhood adventures and living in his father's shadow was the source of Rusty's problems, Jonas Venture Sr. was seen to be caring and supportive. Rusty even had fond memories of his boy adventurer days. This is opposed to later seasons where Jonas and the rest of Team Venture are shown to be abusive and manipulative bullies who constantly traumatized Rusty by making him come along with them on their dangerous adventures.
    • In the title sequence, Hank has a Girly Run with his hands flapping around at his sides, while Dean has an exaggerated sprinter's gait. By Season 2, it's explicitly stated that Hank is "more athletic" than Dean.

    W 
  • The first three videos of The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald (Scared Silly, The Legend of Grimace Island and The Visitors from Outer Space) had the live-action Framing Device consist of Ronald interacting with Sundae (represented by Verne Troyer in an animatronic suit and dubbed over by Dee Bradley Baker) before they both go down a pole into a ball pit to transition to the animated portion of the video and end the video with one more live-action segment. The last three videos (Birthday World, Have Time, Will Travel and The Monster O'McDonaldland Loch) discard the live-action puppet of Sundae (with his voice only being heard from off-screen in the ending segments of Birthday World and The Monster O'McDonaldland Loch) and change the live-action part to being of Ronald directly speaking to the audience at all times as opposed to waiting until the end to say he hopes to see them live and in person at McDonald's and already having gone through his adventure before starting a projector to show the animated portion to the audience.
  • The first Wallace & Gromit short, A Grand Day Out, is far stranger than the shorts that would come after it. The short has a relaxed, low-key, slightly eerie tone, with very little dialogue throughout, dim lighting (with heavy usage of shadows), and choppier animation. The plot is also more minimalist and surreal than later W&G shorts, with a far stronger emphasis on atmosphere than the comical contraption chaos W&G would later become known for.
  • We Bare Bears:
    • The unaired pilot episode features slightly rougher animation. The bears are taller and slimmer, they have larger eyes and larger and lightly colored noses, Grizzly's fur is lighter, and the colors are much less saturated.
    • The original comics feature swearing and are slightly more surreal. Ice Bear is also more talkative and quirky, and the trio is generally a lot less nicer, having among other things attacked a talking cactus with knives and rejected potential adoptees.
  • Wonder Pets!: The two shorts made before the main series didn't have the theme tune, or any dialogue, and did not feature Ming-Ming or Tuck. They focused on Linny having surreal adventures in outer space and under the sea and did not have her rescuing anybody or driving the "fly boat".
  • The earliest Woody Woodpecker shorts directed by Walter Lantz and Alex Lovy are quite different from the eventual Jerkass he became later. Woody was adorned with an ugly, ghoulish design, and was a shameless ripoff of the early screwball Daffy Duck (Mel Blanc was even the first voice of Woody). Even the stories and gags were very derivative of Warner Bros.–type comedy (although this is probably because Lantz had one of their former writers, Ben Hardaway, working with him).

    X 
  • Xiaolin Showdown:
    • In the first season, Raimundo wore a different outfit outside the temple. Kimiko used to change her hair colour along with her hairstyle, but in seasons 2 and 3 she always keeps it black.
    • In some early episodes, the Xiaolin monks keep their casual outfits instead of changing in their uniforms. This becomes a plot point in "Tangled Web" where the monks have to wear traditional clothing to enter the emperor's palace, and Kimiko's clothing restricts her movement.
  • X-Men: The Animated Series: Cable is introduced as a present-day mercenary who used to work for the new dictator of Genosha, meaning all the stuff about him being a time-traveling freedom fighter from the future wouldn't be established until later episodes. He also inexplicably has two arms in his first appearance, and doesn't sport his trademark cyborg prosthesis until subsequent episodes.

    Y 
  • Yogi Bear: In the earliest shorts created for The Huckleberry Hound Show, it's clear that the standard Yogi formula hadn't yet been established. Not every short had Yogi living in Jellystone Park, nor did Boo Boo always appear alongside him, and the similarities between Yogi and Ed Norton were far more pronounced. It wasn't until Season 2 of Huckleberry Hound, when writer Warren Foster joined the staff, that Yogi's affinity for "pic-a-nic baskets" emerged (not that some Season 1 episodes didn't utilize it as a plot point beforehand).
    • Yogi's catchphrase "Smarter than the average bear!" originally didn't necessitate the bear part. In the earliest shorts created for Huckleberry Hound, the "bear" part of the catchphrase would be related to the episode's plot (e.g."Smarter than the average ranger!"). It wasn't until the last episode of The Huckleberry Hound Show's first season (the 22nd Yogi Bear short) that "bear" would finally be the word of choice used for the catchphrase.


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