Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Keep Circulating The Tapes / Western Animation Rescued

Go To

Disney

Historically, Disney treated many of their animated television programs poorly when it came to home media releases, exactly the opposite of how they have treated their animated feature films. However, the series below have been rescued from limbo, many of which have been after the launch of Disney+:
  • 101 Dalmatians: The Series had one VHS release (101 Dalmatians Christmas, which also contained the episode "Coup DeVil") and one VideoCD release that has severe sound issues (Dalmatian Vacation) (and on video outside the US) back in the 1990s. That was it. The entire series has been uploaded to YouTube, but don't be surprised if Disney starts taking down episodes for copyright. The series is now available to purchase on iTunes, however it's missing "Alive 'N Chicken/Prima Doggy" (which was banned after the 9/11 attacks). The show has now been made available on Disney+ with the aforementioned episode included.
  • Bump in the Night, which got yanked when Disney took over ABC, got a DVD collection in July 2010.
  • Carlton Your Doorman, a 1980 animated special intended as a Poorly Disguised Pilot for an animated Rhoda spin-off, only had its first few minutes existing on YouTube for a long time. It was later released as a bonus feature on Shout! Factory's season 5 DVD set of Rhoda.
  • Disney released the vast majority of episodes for Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, and Goof Troop — as well as a couple of sets for Darkwing Duck and a single DVD for Adventures of the Gummi Bears — but have (or had) yet to offer the complete run of the shows on DVD by releasing further sets for these shows, which are all one box set away from being completely on DVD. Additionally, Quack Pack didn't even have any sort of proper DVD release at all — it got a three-episode "best-of" DVDnote . And that's not even getting into The Disney Afternoon shows that haven't yet made it to DVD in any way, shape, or form. For all that the Disney Afternoon did for the company in the 1990s, they sure don't seem eager to return the love. As of November 2019, Darkwing, Gummi Bears, and Rescue Rangers are available on Disney+, but there are still no plans for more DVD releases.
    • ...that is, until December 2021, when Disney confirmed that a Blu-ray set featuring the entire run of Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers was coming out. It was initially released as a timed exclusive for the Disney Movie Club on January 25, 2022, but also got a wide retail release on February 15, 2022.
  • Disney has started streaming some of The Disney Afternoon to iTunes, Amazon Video and Disney+. This makes it the first time certain shows have had all their episodes available, albeit with some censorship and Missing Episodes. Additionally, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers suffers from an aspect ratio problem: while iTunes has every episode in 4:3, the series is unfortunately cropped to widescreen on Disney+.
  • Disney+ ended up rescuing these and many other animated Disney TV shows. Among them being almost all of the Disney Afternoon programming (including notoriously elusive shows like Quack Pack, Bonkers, and Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series), Disney's Doug, and Recess. However, there are still some Disney shows that have yet to turn up on Disney+, including Raw Toonage.
    • Fish Hooks was added onto Disney+ on April 3, 2020. Previously, the series had been made available through Disney XD on demand, only to be removed later on.
    • PB&J Otter was added to Disney+ on October 19, 2022. Previously, the series had been made available for a time through the Disney Junior mobile service and on watchdisneyjunior.com, though later on most episodes were locked down to only those who signed in through their pay TV provider.
    • Pepper Ann was added to Disney+ in 2021, after nearly two decades of outright non-availability.
    • The Proud Family has the first 15 episodes available on iTunes, and its made-for-TV movie on DVD. Averted as of 2022, because the whole series (except for "Don't Leave Home Without It", which played a licensed Destiny's Child song over the Shopping Montage) was put up on demand for Xfinity and on the DisneyNow Service. Then in 2020, it was added to Disney+. Additionally, the series got a DVD set featuring the entire run (as well as the movie), quite appropriately on March 15, 2022, in honor of the show's revival.
    • Recess was also confirmed as a launch series. Beforehand, the series had a few DVD releases: Recess: School's Out, the direct-to-DVD movies (which also include episodes of the series as bonus features), and a Christmas DVD that's an episode compilation, with the series available on iTunes in Germany.
    • The Replacements was one of many series confirmed as day-one-launch series. Prior to this, the series hadn't been seen on American television since 2011, and all online copies were either from Canadian broadcasts on Family, or in the case of YouTube, full episodes being taken down. Sadly, however, only season 1 is available on Disney+, meaning that fans of the show will have to rely on iTunes in order to access the show’s remaining 31 episodes.
    • Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! had a few Season 1 episodes released on DVDs that came with the short-lived toy line, but these are now impossible to find. Besides those DVDs, two episodes were released for Game Boy Advance Video (which has long since been out of print). The show was added to Disney+ on July 17, 2020. Unfortunately, though, the series (which was produced in high definition widescreen) is presented on the service in pan-and-scan 4:3, matching the ratio of the show’s original broadcasts on ABC Family and Toon Disney (many other shows produced by Disney Television Animation in the 2000s were also victims of this aspect ratio situation during their original runs, but are in their proper 16:9 ratio on the service).
  • Doug's 1st Movie was released on video, but not on DVD despite the fact that Disney moved into that market in 1999 (ironically, it was originally intended as a Direct to Video title). There were VideoCD copies released in other countries, but those are long out of print. It was finally released on DVD in 2012, albeit as a Disney Movie Club exclusive. Strangely, however, the 2012 DVD release used the TV edit master, meaning that the only way to view the original theatrical presentation was the original VHS release until it was released digitally and on Disney+ at launch.
  • DuckTales (1987) finally got a Volume 4 release in 2018, eleven years after Volume 3 came out in 2007. For now, it is only a Disney Movie Club exclusive and is of the same caliber as the more recent Disney Afternoon sets.
  • Dungeons & Dragons (1983) was on-and-off with this. Thanks to complicated legal juggling (the series is owned by Disney, while the Dungeons & Dragons franchise is owned by Hasbro through Wizards of the Coast), VHS releases became obscure and a DVD release did not commence until 2005 in the UK, and 2006 in the US with the complete series released in the latter region. Even then, the US DVD release had a lot of the original music cut from episodes for licensing reasons, which made fans flip their lids, though the radio play for the unproduced final episode was included in the set. It was out of print in just two years thanks to BCI Eclipse (distributor of the DVD on behalf of Disney) shutting down. A deal was eventually struck between Disney and Mill Creek Entertainment to have the entire series released, and to much rejoicing, all of the original music was left intact (though the "Requiem" radio play was removed along with special features of the previous set, but not a huge loss).
  • Season 1 and the first half of Season 2 of Gargoyles were initially released on DVD. The other half of Season 2? Disney initially decided not to release it, allegedly due to "low sales"; it would take eight years before they finally reneged and brought it to DVD. Season 3 (aka "The Goliath Chronicles") has still yet to see a release, though few are complaining, given its dismal reception and even being considered non-canon by Greg Weisman. (Weisman has also been pretty vocal that he has also no plans to push for a DVD release). That season is on iTunes, however. And none at all was released outside North America. The complete run is also available on Disney+.
  • In 2013, Goof Troop, previously only with three episodes available on DVD, had 54 episodes available. Still not the full (79-episode) series, but much closer than it was. In 2017, the series was released in its entirety on iTunes, remastered to HD. It also became a launch title for Disney+, but disappointingly suffers from a 16:9 crop there (while iTunes has the remastered episodes in their original 4:3 aspect ratio).
  • Higglytown Heroes: At one point, only two DVDs existed, a majority of the episodes were available on Disney Junior On Demand, and episodes could be found on YouTube. The series has since been added to Disney+ (at least in the United States and Canada.)
  • Kim Possible had a couple of episode DVDs, but for years, Disney didn't seem to see the value in season box sets. DVD sets of the first two seasons finally became available in October 2010, but only through the Disney Movie Club. Now, fortunately, they have put up the entire series for streaming.
  • King of the Hill had its first six seasons released by Fox, but stopped when Fox realized that the sales weren't up to Simpsons or Family Guy levels. In 2014, Olive Films, under license from Fox, released the rest of the series from then on. In late 2018, the entire series was released on Hulu.
  • Lilo & Stitch: The Series has had three episodes released on DVD; two ("Mr. Stenchy" and "Clip") were released on Lilo & Stitch's Island of Adventures, a DVD game, and one ("Link") as an extra on the Leroy & Stitch DVD a month before it debuted as the show's last broadcast episode. Two other episodes ("Slushy" and "Poxy") were released on Game Boy Advance Video cartridges bundled with episodes of Kim Possible and (in the case of the latter episode) Brandy & Mr. Whiskers. The rest of The Series has not seen any home video or digital release in North America, though a DVD box set was released only in Japan. It was re-released for streaming on DisneyNow in the U.S. during the summer of 2018, only to be delisted months later. All four Lilo & Stitch films can be legally downloaded, and Disney also released twelve of the thirteen episodes of Chinese animated spin-off Stitch & Ai on DisneyNow for completely freenote  digital streaming from December 1, 2018, until it was delisted around June 2019. Today, Lilo & Stitch: The Series is now available on Disney+.
    • iTunes France and iTunes Germany both have the first season on their services, but they each come with their own caveats. iTunes France has the show in High Definition, but it only has the French dub. iTunes Germany has both the German dub and the English original, but only in 4:3 standard definition.
  • The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh had quite a few VHS releases in the 1990s (beginning in 1994, many were released under the Pooh "Playtime," "Learning" and "Friendship" video series.) Only a handful of episodes were released on DVD in a similar manner, under the "Growing Up With Winnie-the-Pooh" label, but they are all out of print. Since then, some episodes made their way onto 2009-2010 re-releases of some other Pooh DVDs, although at least one of those has also disappeared.note  The entire series would eventually be made available in its entirety, albeit cropped to 16:9, in HD on iTunes in 2017. In 2019, the show was released on Disney+, still remastered in HD, but now in its original 4:3 aspect ratio (an inverse of the Goof Troop example above).
    • For the Christmas Too special, the only way to watch it on DVD is through the Direct to Video movie, A Very Merry Pooh Year, which features the special edited into the movie as a flashback sequence. While the special is remastered for the film, a couple changes were made including changing Rabbit's fur to its normal yellow instead of the green-ish fur in the New Adventures series, while Christopher Robin's original voice track was dubbed over by the actor who portrayed him in the film's new sequences. So far, the 1994 VHS and 1995 Laserdisc releases are the only method of watching the special in its unaltered form, as Freeform's current broadcasts of it trims it down for commercial time (and, as of 2018, uses the re-dubbed voice track for Christopher Robin).
  • Pigs Next Door was a short-lived sitcom featuring the voices of John Goodman and Jamie Lee Curtis. The series supposed to air on Fox Family, but its North American broadcast was cancelled. However, the series aired in a few foreign countries.
    • In the 2010's, Pigs Next Door reappeared on Studio 100's YouTube channel, as well as on Amazon and Tubi in the USA.
    • The problem is that Studio 100 owns the distribution rights in Europe, China, Australia, New Zealand, and Quebec. It's still up to Disney for a legal home video release, though, as they still own part of the show's copyrights.
  • The PJs was in limbo for nearly a decade due to ownership spats (both Disney and Warner Bros. claimed ownership, the latter of which due to The WB un-canceling the series after a two-season run at FOX). Warner Bros. eventually agreed to sell its portion of the series to Disney, giving them full ownership of the PJs property, setting the stage for a DVD release in 2011.
  • Fox released the first 17 seasons of The Simpsons on DVD, then stopped, telling viewers to use the new Simpsons World website which streams all the episodes (no good if you're not in the US!) or watch them on the FXX channel. Simpsons World was discontinued in 2019 with the Disney acquisition and the series became a launch title for Disney+. However, due to popular demand, Seasons 18 & 19 were eventually released on DVD. Also, the entire series was eventually added to iTunes and Google Play, and continues to air new episodes on a weekly basis.
  • Spider-Man: The Animated Series only had about 24 of its 65 episodes available on DVD, and completely out-of-order (they were mostly collections of mini-arcs, such as the Venom Saga and the Daredevil cross-over). The complete series eventually made its way to iTunes, while at least the first season reached Xbox Live; this, while the United Kingdom got all five seasons on DVD. The entire series is currently on Disney+.
  • TaleSpin finally got a Volume 3 release in 2013, when Volume 2 came out in 2007. It was exclusive to the Disney Movie Club until 2014, and the DVDs themselves are bare in that the discs contain no artwork, save for the show's logo, and lack an episode list.
  • The Tick was added to Hulu in 2021. Prior to this, the series had been released on DVD, but only the first two seasons were released (both of which lacked an episode each).
  • Disney's The Weekenders was given a full DVD release as a Disney Movie Club Exclusive in February 2013, making it the very first show from One Saturday Morning to get a full DVD release.
  • The 1990s X-Men: The Animated Series cartoon subverted this: after years of having to wait for a DVD release, and feeling all hope was lost, the first 32 episodes were released on DVD (in two 16-episode sets) for the first time in 2009 (presumably to cash in on X-Men Origins: Wolverine), with three more sets later released completing the series. Every episode is streaming on Disney+ as well.
  • Seasons 1-3 of X-Men: Evolution have had DVD releases, but the fourth hasn't. iTunes has somewhat rectified this, as well as both the Marvel YouTube channel and Disney+ having EVERY episode available to watch.
  • Both seasons of Yin Yang Yo! are available on iTunes and most episodes of the series are pretty easy to find online (barring the fact they're international prints with pitched-up audio and cropping). Outside of that, the show's never gained any other sort of release.

Warner Bros.

  • Warner Home Video finally released a complete DVD set of The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan in June 2012. Notably, the series won a poll held by the Warner Archive, easily beating nine other shows in terms of demand.
  • After years of waiting, the fourth and final volume of Animaniacs was released in February 2013. The show also started airing on The Hub around that time, but similar to Transformers Animated was removed once the channel became Discovery Family.
  • Even though Beware the Batman was affected by the same write-off as Sym-Bionic Titan, it was able to get a release through the Warner Archive on both DVD and Blu-ray in the fall of 2014. Toonami was also able to air all of the episodes just before their license went up in flames.
  • With Warner Bros. Discovery's Boomerang streaming service, many series that weren't available on DVD at all finally received an easily accessible release.
  • Camp Lazlo was added to Boomerang's subscription video service a couple years after it stopped playing on the Boomerang channel. Before that, a very, very rare press kit has a DVD of two Season 1 episodes, but was only released in Region 4 and is region-locked. Two more episodes have also appeared on two Cartoon Cartoon compilation DVDs, plus another on a rare Cartoon Network Summer 2005 DVD sampler.
  • As of April 2018, all eight episodes of Cave Kids are available to purchase digitally. There's no word yet about a DVD, though. In April 2019, the series was released on the Boomerang streaming service.
  • Challenge of the GoBots: The cartoon was made by Hanna-Barbera, so it's now owned by Warner Bros. The toys were made by Bandai, who still owns the designs (and thus the look of the characters). The character names were devised by Tonka, which was bought by Hasbro, who therefore owns the names. Getting rival international toy companies to agree to cooperate was a significant hurdle—until April 2014, when Warner Archive announced a DVD release of the complete series. The Five-Episode Pilot was released in 2011.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door has no home video releases besides a DVD with the first few episodes made very early in the show's run (which is now out of print) and some episodes on compilation DVDs released over the years. Made odd by the fact that it was a borderline Cash-Cow Franchise for Cartoon Network during its run and is so continuity-driven in later seasons that a DVD release is necessary to enjoy the show.
    • Made especially painful by the fact that this show almost never gets rerun on CN or Boomerang, and only a handful of episodes air when it does.
      • As of June 2019, the entire series has been added to iTunes and on the Boomerang streaming service.
  • With the release of its fourth and final season on DVD in September 2016, Courage the Cowardly Dog can now join the ranks of the few Cartoon Network shows to have their entire series available on DVD. Considering Johnny Bravo and Dexter's Laboratory have yet to have anything past their 1st seasons released on DVD through Warner Home Video's "Cartoon Network Hall of Fame" DVD collection, only time will tell if they will follow in Courage's footsteps. It should also be noted that these shows have had their complete series, sans Courage's debut on the What a Cartoon! Show; Dexter's movie, Ego Trip, and a banned Dial M For Monkey short, added to the iTunes store.
  • Detention was only available through old Kids WB recordings, until in August 2018, Warner Archive released the entire series onto iTunes, and the following year as an on-demand DVD set.
  • Dexter's Laboratory was made available on HBO Max and digital download, having previously had no home video releases beyond the first season. The complete series did get released on DVD in Australia, though.
  • Eight years after finishing, and with only one episode ("The Green Loontern") released in the interim, Duck Dodgers got its first season released in full in February 2013. The series' second season followed suit five months later, and then the third season received a DVD release via Warner Archive in 2020.
  • In 2022, the entire series of Ed, Edd n Eddy was released on DVD, long after the first two seasons had gone out of print.
    • The final regular episodes of the sixth season were completed before Danny Antonucci decided to scrap the entirety of it for the series finale movie Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show. "May I Have This Ed? / Look Before You Ed" weren't available on any digital service until January 1st, 2021, when most of the series was added to HBO Max, including the episode in question. The aspect ratio of that episode, however, is stretched for unknown reasons.
  • Evil Con Carne was made available for purchase on iTunes in 2018, with it previously only seeing a physical release with a few episodes appearing on the Season 1 DVD for its sister show The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.
  • In 2022, the entire series of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was released on DVD, long after the first three seasons had gone out of print. On streaming services, the fifth and sixth seasons are the 4:3 versions (HBO Max has those seasons in their original aspect ratio), as opposed to the widescreen versions they were made in.
  • The Warner Archive Collection has resulted in a number of older Hanna-Barbera/Ruby-Spears cartoons finally being distributed. These include SWAT Kats; The Pirates of Dark Water; Jabberjaw; Thundarr the Barbarian; Inch High, Private Eye; Centurions; Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos; the animated series of Pac-Man; Dink, the Little Dinosaur; The Biskitts; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids; Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels; The Halloween Tree; The Hair Bear Bunch; The Roman Holidays; Shirt Tales; 2 Stupid Dogs, and Dragon's Lair, and all the Superstars 10 movies that weren't Scooby-Doo themed (since those were already openly released).
  • Histeria!, after years without any home media release of any kind, finally received a complete series DVD set in July 2016 through Warner Archive Collection.
  • The Huckleberry Hound Show only has the first season released on DVD. After that, Warner Bros. opted against releasing further seasons due to poor sales. This puts Yogi Bear fans in a conundrum, as all but thirteen of his segments (part of Huckleberry Hound's second season) are available on DVD, with those thirteen segments only being available on video-sharing sites via old Boomerang airings. Averted as of 2019, because the whole series was released on the Boomerang streaming service.
  • The Jetsons was among the first Hanna-Barbera series to receive a DVD boxset, but it contained only the original episodes, broadcast from 1962 to 1963. These also became the only episodes to air on Boomerang. The 1980s revival did not come to DVD, or air on Boomerang, until 2009. Even then, only half of Season 2 became available on DVD, as well as the theatrical 1990 movie. Now, fans can finally buy the second half of the season, the two concurrently produced TV movies, and the third season.
    • Originally, the second half of season 2 and the entirety of season 3 were only released through the Warner Archive, but on October 13, 2020, a traditionally-pressed DVD set containing the show's complete run was released, which finally brought all the 80s episodes of the series (plus the Jetsons Meet the Flintstones made-for-TV movie) to wide retail.
    • For a while, Jetsons: The Movie was only available on VHS and pay-TV airings due to split ownership issues (the film was distributed by Universal, who outright owned the movie while the Jetsons IP remained with Hanna-Barbera). It eventually got a DVD release in 2009.
  • Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures, which ran for a total of 52 episodes in two seasons during 1996-1997, had a few single-episode VHS tapes and Laserdisc releases during its run, but was all but forgotten after that, especially after the Time Warner merger. Most of the episodes can be found online, though, thanks to the shows' faithful fanbase. Finally in 2009, Warner released a DVD set of the first 13 episodes of season 1. The rest of Season 1 followed a few years later. Season 2 came in 2015.
  • The Life and Times of Juniper Lee was added to the Boomerang app in 2017, its only previous home release being a region-locked DVD of the first season in Australia, as well as one episode being on a Halloween compilation DVD and another being on a rare Cartoon Network DVD sampler for the Summer 2005 lineup.
  • Several of the late 1960s Looney Tunes shorts have yet to see the light of day; "Injun Trouble (1969)" (the 1969 Cool Cat cartoon, not the 1938 Porky Pig cartoon, also the final Warner Bros. cartoon during the golden era) is an infamous example. However, “Norman Normal” and “The Door” were released on DVD and Blu-Ray as of 2008, the Bunny & Clause duology was released in 2010, and every Cool Cat and Merlin short (with the exception of the ones with Native American stereotypes) as well as "Chimp & Zee" and "Rabbit Stew and Rabbits, Too!" are available on HBO Max as of 2020.
  • The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack: Only the first five episodes have ever been released on DVD. However, the entire series is available on iTunes, Hulu, and HBO Max, the last of which has every episode in HD and widescreen.
  • The Mask had a small number of VHS releases in the 90s, and the pilot episode saw a very limited DVD release when Son of the Mask was released. For a while, it seemed unlikely the series would ever get a proper DVD set due to Son effectively killing the franchise. That is, until 2018 when Warner Archive released season 1 on DVD. And as of 2019, the entire series is available on iTunes and Amazon Prime.
  • While a DVD release is unlikely due to Cartoon Network writing the show's production off as a tax loss (thus making it illegal to continue profiting from it), Megas XLR has had official releases for iTunes and Xbox Live Arcade, and it has been released on HBO Max in Latin America (though North America has yet to see a similar release).
  • ¡Mucha Lucha! was added to Amazon Prime in 2019. Before that, the series' sole home media release was that of the first six episodes.
  • In late January 2012, Warner Archive released the first season of Pac-Man as a manufacture-on-demand (MOD for short) DVD title. The second season was released in September in a package that includes the Pac-Man Christmas Special.
  • Ozzy & Drix was added onto the iTunes store in 2022, after over a decade off the air.
  • The Phantom Tollbooth was set for a 2008 DVD release, but got delayed. It is now available to order off the Warner Bros. website.
  • After many years off the air and episodes becoming hard to find, the complete series of Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain got a DVD release in January 2014. Whether or not this is a good thing is up for debate.
  • Road Rovers didn't receive a DVD set until February 10, 2015, through the Warner Archive.
  • Rover Dangerfield was released December 2010.
  • Warner, in April 2015, released the first season of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo on DVD.
  • Static Shock is finally complete on DVD with the announcement of the final season for April 2018 via the Warner Archive.
  • Warner apparently releases seasons of Superfriends at random, and it seemed unlikely that the "lost" 1980s shorts and the fan UN-favorite Wendy & Marvin season would ever come to DVD. That is, until one set of the "lost" shorts made its way to DVD in August 2009, and the Wendy and Marvin episodes the following year.
  • The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries only had the first season released on DVD in 2008. However, reruns used to be on Boomerang. Averted as of 2019, since the whole series was added to the Boomerang streaming service and HBO Max at launch.
  • Taz-Mania only has its first season on DVD, but the entire series was added to the Boomerang streaming service and later to HBO Max.
  • The 1992 telefilm Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation was placed into circulating level for almost a decade after Warner Bros.' 75th-anniversary reprint of the 1996 re-release in 1998 went out of print several years later. By that time, the only way to watch that film was through either airings on Nicktoons Network (until 2005 to be exact), finding a used copy, or possibly bootlegs. These practices continued until a DVD release was announced in May 2012 and was officially taken off that level in August of that year.
  • Tom and Jerry: The Movie has rarely been seen on TV, and its last DVD release was in 2002. As of July 2020, HBO Max is streaming the film in HD, while one can also buy a digital copy from iTunes or Google Play.
  • Twice Upon a Time was a George Lucas-backed animated production in The '80s made by the risk-taking Ladd Company (Body Heat, Blade Runner, etc.). It popularized improvisation and adult themes in comedy voice-acting, launched the career of Henry Selick (who would go on to make The Nightmare Before Christmas), and fostered or influenced a number of Pixar people. It has all the traits of a classic of monumental cultural impact (and in an indirect way, it has), yet got a minor VHS and laserdisc release in the early 1990s and then aired twice on Cartoon Network in 1999. Due to disputes between its writers, it seemed unlikely it would ever get a public showing again (and the naughtier Bill Couterie cut only had a one-time showing on HBO before the aforementioned disputes occurred)...until February 2015, when Turner Classic Movies aired it as part of its TCM Underground block. The Warner Archive, after some delays, finally gave it a DVD release in September of that year.
  • After what has been over a decade after its initial VHS release, the Grand Finale to Animaniacs, Wakko's Wish, was finally released on DVD in October 2014.
  • Waynehead was last seen in reruns on Cartoon Network in the late 90's. In April 2021, the entire series was finally made available on iTunes, Amazon and Vudu.
  • Xiaolin Showdown, which had only released its first season on DVD, had both seasons two and three released on the format as of April 19, 2017.
  • The infamous Yo Yogi! series only had a few long out-of-print VHS releases until it arrived on the Boomerang streaming service in May 2019 with most of the other Yogi shows and specials.
    • On the subject of Yogi Bear, the '80s revival The New Yogi Bear Show got one VHS release as a six-episode compilation...in Australia. It was last seen in the United States on Boomerang years ago, so you had better start digging. As of 2019, the entire franchise (1960s series and 1988 revival) were added to the Boomerang streaming service.

Paramount Global

  • The Brady Kids only got a few episodes as part of the Brady Bunch Complete Series pack, but did not get a full release until 2016.
  • Daria was not commercially available from its finale in 2002 until the summer of 2010. Fans wanting the show either had to hunt down the Real Player versions of the series (which were taken from the original airings of the episodes/movies on MTV) or more mainstream AVI/MPEG video captures that were (unfortunately) taken from the show's run on Noggin, who butchered the episodes mercilessly, both for content and to make room for commercials. Now the show is finally on DVD and on TV (LOGO has the rights to it), though with the trade-off of having all of the music yanked and replaced with generic replacement tunes or no music at all. Even more annoying: While all 65 episodes of the series itself are uncut (new masters were made à la "The State" with the replacement music), "Is It College Yet?" is the same old butchered version that aired on MTV after its initial commercial-free airing, which was used for the original DVD release of said film.
  • Face's Music Party: Initially, each episode of the series only aired one time during the premiere, at a time when a lot of its target demographic are still in school. However, it has been announced that the show and its half-hour special episodes were finally released on Paramount+.
  • Fresh Beat Band of Spies only had one episode released on DVD ("Bunnies Go Bananas" on the Nick Jr. compilation DVD "Whiskers & Paws") and never got a standalone release. Reruns only aired sporadically on Nick Jr. until 2021. The show is available on Paramount+ however.
  • Any Garfield and Friends episode past Show 73 was this once CBS stopped airing the show. It got a full release when the live-action/CGI Garfield movie and its sequel came out. On said DVD release, the original "U.S. Acres" title cards were replaced by the "Orson's Farm" title cards because they were based on the international masters (This also caused some quickies to be omitted; see the main page for more details). The 4K restoration restores these title cards. However, two of the quickies ("The Worm Turns" and "Hogcules") were taken from international prints, and thus use "Orson's Farm Quickie"-style screens with the American name. The same is true of some of the quickies (for instance, episode 27 not using the Screaming with Binky segment about baseball).
  • After years of only having a hard-to-find mail-in VHS tape release, KaBlam! finally got an official series release on Paramount+.
  • In North America, the only place you can view Kappa Mikey's two full seasons, besides its practically non-existent presence on TV, is on iTunes. For some reason, Australia is the only country that legally distributes a full season DVD.
  • My Life as a Teenage Robot, after years without any form of DVD release since its cancellation, finally received just that for all three seasons exclusively through Amazon in 2011. It is currently streaming on Paramount+.
  • Most of the Nicktoons, again. For the longest time, the only Nickelodeon originals with full DVD sets were SpongeBob SquarePantsnote , The Ren & Stimpy Shownote , Invader Zimnote , and Avatar: The Last Airbendernote . In 2010, the floodgates finally opened, thanks to a licensing deal the company made with Shout! Factory. Releases from Shout! Factory include Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Hey Arnold!, Rocko's Modern Life, The Angry Beavers, CatDog, The Wild Thornberrys, Danny Phantom, and The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius. On the other hand, Doug and ChalkZone note  have been released exclusively by CreateSpace.
    • In 2018, Paramount replaced the Arnold and Rocko sets with their own, which are more or less identical to the Shout! releases with a few differences and additional features. (Paramount's Hey Arnold! set includes the theatrical movie and The Jungle Movie, both of which they had separately released.)
    • Upon Amazon shutting down the CreateSpace service in 2021, the rights for The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius were quickly picked up by Shout! Factory. As for other shows available through the service such as The Fairly Oddparents, their status is currently unknown. Thankfully, the show is on Paramount+. Rugrats also got a complete series release on DVD that same year (minus the unaired pilot episode "Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing").
    • Likewise, the live-action shows. Kenan & Kel became available on iTunes in 2011, and Hey Dude! got DVD sets starting in 2011.
  • A Dutch DVD of The Fairly OddParents! containing the final Season 2 episodes is extremely rare for some reason.

Nelvana

Much of Nelvana's back catalogue of shows has been Rereleased for Free on Tubi (primarily for American audiences) and on their YouTube channels (primarily for Canadian audiences). A good number of those shows were rescued from limbo, as many of the examples below can attest:
  • 6teen was screwed over by Cartoon Network after they aired the series finale in late June of 2010. While they still aired reruns every so often for a while afterwards, it was not to the extent of how it was prior to the series finale and was quietly taken off the schedule for good in early 2011. As of 2019, Nelvana posted the entire series on their Retro Rerun Channel on YouTube. It is also available on Tubi and Prime Video.
  • The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police hardly saw daylight after its initial 13-episode run. It wasn't until the popularity of Telltale Games' Sam and Max games that it was able to get a release through Shout! and many new fans were able to experience the show for the first time. All 13 episodes are also available on Tubi.
  • Beetlejuice originally only had 14 episodes from Season 1* released on VHS, and 3 episodes* were a special feature on the 20th Anniversary Edition of the movie, until finally all 109 episodes were released on a 12-disc set by Shout! Factory in 2013.
  • The 2003 run of The Berenstain Bears is available in its entirety on YouTube, courtesy of Treehouse TV, and also got season set releases from both KaBoom and PBS. Similarly, Treehouse Direct also released Seven Little Monsters and George and Martha in their entirety on YouTube, but the episodes can only be viewed in Canada (with the exception of the former, in which a majority of episodes were uploaded before the Treehouse release). Also, the entire series of the latter is available on iTunes.
  • Birdz, one of the last things on CBS' Saturday morning lineup in 1998. At first, STV (which co-produced the series) uploaded the whole series on YouTube, available only in the UK. As of 2019, all episodes are now legally available on Amazon Instant Video (individual purchase only), Popcornflix and Tubi (legal ad-supported streaming), as well as Retro Rerun.
  • Blaster's Universe was last seen on KidsCo through its Australian and British until they closed. While the series resurfaced in Canada on Bell Media's streaming service Crave, the U.S. has yet to see a similar release.
  • For a while, Blazing Dragons was not very easy to find after it left Toon Disney, with there only being one VHS release in the United States. The show is now streaming on both Tubi and Ameba.
  • Funimation released the first season of Braceface and then stopped because it didn't sell well. All three seasons have been uploaded to YouTube and are also available on Tubi, and the first season is on iTunes.
  • Cadillacs and Dinosaurs had only a small selection of its thirteen episodes released on VHS. It was available on Shomi until it shut down. The whole series was later uploaded to Nelvana's Retro Rerun channel and all 13 episodes are on Tubi.
  • Class of the Titans had a couple DVD releases before Nelvana's Retro Rerun uploaded the entire series.
  • Clone High nearly qualifies, with a full series collection that was released in incredibly limited numbers…and only in Canada. Since its short rerun cycle on MTV Classic in 2016, the "Clone High USA" version of the series is now available for download on various digital storefronts and streaming on Paramount+, courtesy of MTV. Nelvana also posted the entire series as a livestream on their Retro Rerun Channel on YouTube (though it's only available outside the US due to Viacom owning the American rights).
  • Dog City - The series was made only a couple of years after Jim Henson's death, so the Jim Henson Company never really took much notice of it, despite earning a following. Only seven episodes were released on three extremely rare tapes, and the JHC refused to let the rest be uploaded to YouTube (save for one episode in German). A petition started on the website Rostam Entertainment for a full DVD release and a crossover film with All Dogs Go to Heaven, but before they could get halfway (about 10 signatures out of 29), Rostam Entertainment was taken down and later rebooted as Cartoon Reviewer, and the petition became stuck in Development Hell. One can find the show on Nelvana's Retro Rerun channel, Tubi, Hoopla, and Prime Video.
  • Donkey Kong Country had a VHS release consisting of four episodes courtesy of Paramount, but only the first season made its way to the U.S. on DVD, while Australia saw both seasons on DVD and Japan had both seasons on VHS. The series can be viewed in its entirety on iTunes, Tubi, and Nelvana's Retro Rerun YouTube channel.
  • Elliot Moose last aired in 2010 on Qubo and has only received a few home video releases in Canada. Treehouse Direct later uploaded the whole series.
  • Flying Rhino Junior High, aside from having its first season available on YouTube in Scotland (via co-producer STV), hasn't been seen since it ended in 2000. Not helping matters are the series' rights being fractured between STV and Corus. The entire series is on Tubi and Nelvana has uploaded the show to their Keep It Weird channel.
  • Moville Mysteries only had a single DVD release with three episodes exclusive to Canada. It did get a stint on the Canadian streaming service Shomi until it shut down. The series is available to stream on Tubi in the U.S., with all 26 episodes on the service, and the entire French dub is also available on Oznoz.
  • Pelswick had its home video rights held by Funimation, but it was never released on DVD by them and hasn't aired on American television since Nickelodeon's syndication rights to it expired. While Nelvana's Retro Rerun channel has yet to upload any episodes of the series (though in the show's native Canada, reruns aired on [adult swim], likely to help the network fulfill Canadian content requirements), all 26 episodes are available in the U.S. on Tubi.
  • Pippi Longstocking's only home media release was a three-episode compilation movie released by HBO in 2000, but all 26 episodes are on Tubi and Nelvana started uploading episodes to their Treehouse Direct YouTube channel around the start of 2022.
  • In January 2019, six years after the show ended, the final 12 episodes of Scaredy Squirrel premiered in the USA on Starz Kids & Family (which had the last 26 episodes) and later Tubi (which has every episode in both English and Spanish). Before then, one could only buy the first 40 episodes on Amazon Instant Video and a few volumes on the iTunes Store, and some of these were on Netflix.
  • The one DVD release of Spliced, which is part of the Nelvana Golden Collection, is extremely rare and only has a few episodes. The series is also no longer available on iTunes, but all 26 episodes are available on Tubi.
  • Stickin' Around was originally going to get a DVD release, but the company never got around to doing so. It received several VHS prints, but those are rare and are no longer in print. In early 2020, Nelvana uploaded the entire series on its Retro Return channel and later Prime Video. Before that, AmebaTV released the entire series on their website, however, only one episode is free while the rest can be watchable through a premium account. Also, after years of not airing in the US, it aired on Qubo beginning in 2016.
  • Timothy Goes to School was first seen on PBS Kids' Bookworm Bunch block in 2000 then disappeared after the block ended. It later returned to television in 2006 on Discovery Kids and TLC's weekday morning block Ready Set Learn, but only for a year. The show also occasionally aired on Qubo. There's no doubt that DVDs are hard to find - good thing there's YouTube and Tubi.
  • Wayside only had its first season and the pilot movie released on DVD. Nelvana would later upload the series to their Keep It Weird channel, and the entire series is available on Tubi.
  • The animated adaptation of Jim Lee's Wild C.A.T.s (1994) only video release was an out-of-print DVD released by Funimation in 2005. The series' rights are owned by WarnerMedia, who owns the characters via DC Comics, but all 13 episodes are on Tubi and Retro Rerun.

WildBrain

This list includes the libraries of the former DiC, Cinar, Cookie Jar Entertainment, Studio B Productions, and DHX Media, the rights to all of which are now owned by WildBrain.
  • For a few years, a majority of the episodes of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin were missing for what seemed like forever because Hi-Tops and YES! Entertainment only decided to release a certain number of episodes, the most notable missing ones being story-building episodes like the finale. Enter Mill Creek Entertainment, who released the complete series circa 2005. Once those went out of print, the series was released in a box set with all 65 episodes by Image Entertainment in June 2012. And after that set went out of print, the entire series showed up on Amazon Prime in the fall of 2019.
  • As of October 2013, the Beverly Hills Teens series are now available from Mill Creek Entertainment.
  • A Bunch of Munsch was once upon a time very hard to find on home video, having only been released on extremely rare VHS tapes by Golden Book Video and Sony Wonder. All 13 episodes were eventually released on DVD by Mill Creek in August 2015.
  • ALF: The Animated Series and its sibling ALF Tales were both unavailable outside of their single-disc out-of-print DVD releases from Lionsgate (who also owned the home media rights to their parent series) as well as an episode each as bonus features on the second season set, due to low sales, and both disappeared from Hulu and Amazon in 2012. Alongside Shout! Factory's rescue of the original, unedited versions of their parent series, they became available through digital services in 2022, and both are set to receive complete series DVD releases in the future.
  • Dennis the Menace had very few episodes, often broken down into individual segments, released on VHS and DVD with every release now out of print. In 2014, the entire first season from 1986 had a DVD release courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment. With the second season having been released in September 2016, the entire series is now available.
  • The Get Along Gang. S'More Entertainment did announce a complete DVD series in 2007, but American Greetings (owner of the franchise), pulled the plug on it, though it could be due to the (later shelved) revival of the characters going on at the time. The original pilot and a few episodes were released on VHS and can be found online. However, a small "best-of" DVD release was announced by Mill Creek Entertainment and released in April 2011; it includes 20 out of the 26 individual episodes (or 10 of 13 half-hour episodes). The following year, the remaining six episodes were released as bonus material of other Mill Creek DVD releases, taking the series officially outside this trope. However, the original pilot is unlikely to be released on DVD due to royalty issues with Nelvana and John Sebastian's singing on the episode.
  • Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats had limited VHS and DVD releases of its episodes, all of which are now out of print. Shout! Factory released 24 episodes from the first season but lost the rights to the series due to poor sales. The entire first season was released by Mill Creek Entertainment, one half in 2012 and the other in 2013. In August 2016, Mill Creek released the entire series on DVD.
  • After the first season DVD set from Shout! Factory fell flat due to low sales, and the compilation DVDs became rarities, Inspector Gadget finally got a complete series release in both volumes and a complete series box set courtesy of New Video Group.
  • Shout! Factory has started to release Madeline on DVD, in random compilations. All the episodes can be found on Paramount+, which doesn't help much to those living outside the United States or Germany... Fortunately, they were eventually released on DVD.
  • Mummies Alive! had a small number of VHS and DVD releases, for both Regions 1 and 2, containing only some episodes. In 2016, German distributor Pidax Film released two volume sets containing 14 episodes each in German and English, completing the series with the third set in 2017, although that volume is out-of-print.
  • Poppetstown: Luckily, Amazon now has the entire series after one episode survived in the hands of Neptuno Films. Later, on December 8, 2022, the show got its own YouTube channel, but it got terminated by late 2023.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) was caught in this state for over a decade until, finally, a worthy DVD set was released. Same goes for Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Underground—the former most likely due to its usage in YouTube Poop. In the case of Adventures, the show had individual DVD compilations prior to the DVD sets, and even those compilations didn't include "Mass Transit Trouble," which had been banned after the September 11th attacks for its terrorism-related storyline. Thus, prior to the release of the second box set, one had to go online just to catch it. Even worse, most copies that showed up online were the pre-9/11 Toon Disney broadcasts, which were Bowdlerized for questionable content.
  • The 2003–2007 Strawberry Shortcake series appeared to be in limbo when the series was dropped off Kewlopolis before the 2007 Season 4 episodes could air, and rights for the series went from Playmates to Hasbro (and animation rights went from DiC to Moonscoop). DVD releases of the series became slow and erratic, and many fans initially believed in 2009 that the releases would grind to a halt and the last eight episodes would not see the light of day upon hearing the news back then. However, stopping releases is one thing that did not happen, and the last DVD of the series came out in March 2012.
  • For a while, Street Sharks had a couple of VHS releases of the first few episodes, meaning that the later episodes were all but lost after the reruns ended. Netflix aired the episodes out of order for some time, but the show also finally got a DVD release of all 40 episodes.
  • Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? had some Compilation Movies released by Lions Gate and Sterling Entertainment, and the first season released by Shout! Factory, then five years passed without any other releases. Thanks to Mill Creek Entertainment, a DVD of the complete series came in February 2012.

Other cartoons

  • It took nearly 22 years, three distribution companies, and a very dogged fanbase to get Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers on DVD in the United States. Cue massive Squee when Koch finally released a two-part set. Sadly, said DVD set would later go out of print after Koch was sold.
  • While it may have only gotten VHS releases, the series "The Adventures Of T-Rex", a Japanese-American co-pro, has all 52 episodes available online thanks to torrents.
  • One of the most egregious examples of this trope was The '80s incarnation of Alvin and the Chipmunks, considering that musical numbers were their entire shtick. But, with the success of the movies, several compilations of the show and associated specials have been released.
  • The Animals of Farthing Wood was once only available in poor-quality online bootlegs, but as of February 2012, the entire series has been released on DVD in Germany, with both German and English audio available on the discs. The UK had to wait until 2016 when the show finally came on DVD with the UK DVD release distributed by Network Distributing.
  • The animated TV movie Animalympics. Though it has had a few VHS releases, most of those were a while ago, and its only DVD releases were in Europe. This all changed in April 2018 when Hen's Tooth Video finally gave the film an official U.S. DVD release and Tubi offers it for streaming free-with-ads as of 2021.
  • The 1980s version of The Berenstain Bears only had limited VHS and DVD releases and 21 episodes were not released at all. Episodes have popped up every now and then on YouTube but the series has never had a complete release until mid-2017 as Mike Berenstain and his team went above and beyond in getting the rights to the animated series back, and then going through the trouble of recovering any copy of the episodes they could get their hands on, and finally hiring companies to digitize the media (some of them only available in extremely obscure formats) and put them on YouTube. Say what you will about the man taking his parents' series in a religious direction, at least he still knows what older fans want.
  • Disney sold the rights to Bobby's World to series creator and star Howie Mandel in 2004, several years after Disney acquired the rights as part of the Saban Entertainment package. As a result, there were a couple of individual DVD compilations before Mandel licensed the series to Moonscoop, who promptly got to work on making an Amazon Exclusive DVD release of the whole series that finally commenced in 2012. Surprising treatment for a Fox Kids program that isn't Power Rangers.
  • The Brothers Flub (not to be confused with The Brothers Grunt) got 2 4-episode VHS releases and that was it. Thanks to TV critics generally hating it and the theme "song" being considered annoying, the show got low ratings and became so obscure that a Wikipedia article wasn't written for it until 2008; for the longest time, the only trace of it online was a low-quality rip of the intro from RetroJunk. The entire show was also on a video website called Kidobi (yes, really), which subsequently removed the episodes. The first eight episodes came to iTunes in 2014, and the whole series was uploaded to YouTube two years later.
  • Casper the Friendly Ghost's theatrical shorts (albeit without their original titles) and The New Casper Cartoon Show were released on the Casper The Friendly Ghost: The Complete Collection 1945-1963 DVD set in 2011. Casper's Scare School is available on Amazon Prime.
  • Code Lyoko only got Season 1 and five episodes of Season 2 to DVD before Funimation quietly dropped the title. It was thought that the rest of the series would never see an official release unless one lived in its home country of France until Taffy Entertainment began distributing the seasons on iTunes in November 2010, with XANA Awakens available free, and the first six episodes available free on their YouTube account. As of January 2011, all four seasons have been released.
  • Airing irregularly in Canada and France for years, Cybersix never got released on DVD after its only season was finished. Fortunately, Discotek Media picked the show up and released it on DVD in 2014. It's also available on Amazon Prime as of 2020. TMS also now has all 13 episodes on their official YouTube channel, though the sound quality is somewhat questionable.
  • Several of De Patie Freleng Enterprises theatrical and television shorts (The Texas/Tijuana Toads, Hoot Kloot, Misterjaw, etc.) were only released on DVD and BluRay sets by Kino Lorber in the late 2010s. Initially, the original 1960s-1970s The Pink Panther shorts were given a dedicated release via the multi-disc The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection. Certain companion shorts (Roland and Rattfink, The Inspector, and The Ant and the Aardvark) were included alongside the Pink Panther collection.
  • Dink, the Little Dinosaur first aired in 1989-1990 and it finally got a DVD compilation release of all the episodes in 2017.
  • Dragon, a stop-motion show based on books by Dav Pilkey, did get 3 compilation DVDs as it aired like other Treehouse TV shows, but they were never released outside Canada, leaving the United States, where it aired on qubo, without any official release. And those DVDs did not cover the entire run of the series, meaning that TV airings were the only way to catch the rest of the episodes. That was until Kids Central, a bilingual children's channelnote , started airing reruns of the show and offering it through an on-demand service in 2017 that was exclusive to North American hotel rooms, of all places. That all changed when in late 2018, WikoKiko began to upload episodes of the series periodically.
  • The British cartoon The Dreamstone only saw the first six of its 52-episode series released onto DVD, and even on VHS, only the first season (bar "Megattack") and a handful of Season Two episodes saw release. The United States fared even worse, only getting one VHS as proof of existence there. Come 2014, Monster Entertainment announced plans to release the entire series online and remastered, though only six random episodes were released on YouTube. They did grant usage of their masters to German distributor PIDAX however, who released all four seasons on DVD sets within a short time frame in 2018. Since the DVDs also have an English track, there is at least an option for those who can import. Shortly after this, Monster returned to their YouTube service and uploaded the entire series on its own official channel.
  • Fat Dog Mendoza, a German/American cartoon about a superhero boy named Little Costume Buddy and his fat dog, Fat Dog, having random wacky adventures in their hometown of Neighborhood X, never even aired in the United States, and only one VHS was released. The entire series is officially available on YouTube.
  • The Filmation cartoon Fraidy Cat was first shown on VHS in 1985, an entire decade after the show’s launch. Numerous other tapes contained nine episodes but not the full 12-episode collection. In fact, the only way you could get the episodes was only in PAL regions, so no luck for American collectors. These episodes were in limbo but thankfully, in 2006, BCI released the full show on a compilation DVD with The Groovie Goolies and Filmation's Ghostbusters.
  • Frosty the Snowman originally had June Foray voicing Karen (and all the other children) when it aired in 1969. However, for some unknown reason, in 1970 all of Foray's lines (except for her singing parts, bizarrely) were dubbed over by an unknown child actress, and after that the Foray version was quietly pushed under the rug. A reconstruction of the entire Foray version of the special has been uploaded to YouTube in December 2016, using Rhino's audio CD as a source.
  • Godzilla: The Series was released on DVD before, but said releases only contained a few episodes, and have gone out of print by now. Fortunately, Mill Creek Entertainment released a DVD release of the full series (which includes two episodes that were never aired on television) to coincide with Godzilla (2014), similar to the Garfield example above.
  • Izzy's Quest for Olympic Gold was a TNT animated special that aired in 1995 as part of the hype surrounding the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. It only aired a few times until the Games ended and had no signs of a home release. Then in December 2020, someone found a VHS recording and uploaded it to YouTube.
  • Jem — Rhino Video released seasons 1-2 and part of 3 on DVD. The rest? Left in limbo. To make matters worse, the first two sets of DVDs went out of print and cost a pretty penny to buy a secondhand copy. Shout! Factory has decided to release a complete series DVD box set, including the long-unavailable season 3 episodes—mostly due to the release of the live-action movie.
  • Ketchup: Cats Who Cook and The Toothbrush Family only had one VHS release each by Just For Kids in the late '90s. Being that these two tapes were some of the last released by the company, they were very hard to find. The YouTube channel Puddle Jumper rescued both series in 2017.
  • The Legend of Calamity Jane, a 13-episode series, had no official VHS or DVD release for the longest time. However, it was later rescued when Discotek Media announced that they were making a Blu-ray for it in 2023.
  • The 30-minute animated Little Engine that Could feature from The '90s only existed in the VHS tapes that remain and an upload on YouTube every now and then. As of 2022, it can be streamed from Peacock.
  • The ADV Films release of the Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) cartoon has gone out of print. However, Discotek Media licensed the show for a DVD release.
  • Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was caught in this trap, but then the entire series came out on DVD in 2010, with the picture digitally remastered from the original film negatives and bonus features. Quite a big treatment for a show that hadn't aired in years.
  • My Little Pony Tales was only able to be found on DVDs released in Europe and Australia. The entire series later came to Kidoodle TV, which seemed like one step closer to a DVD release. Shout! Factory finally released a North American DVD set of the complete series in April 2015.
  • Most of Noddy's Toyland Adventures was released on VHS, but only "Noddy Lends A Hand", "Noddy Meets Some Silly Hens" and "Noddy and His Unhappy Car" were released on DVD, but the catch was that said DVD was actually one for The Noddy Shop, which split the episodes in half to accommodate live-action segments. Starting in 2017, the official Noddy YouTube began to upload episodes in a random order, beginning with "Noddy Meets Some Silly Hens".
    • In July 2020, Peacock added Noddy's Toyland Adventures to their streaming service.
  • On the Lost Media Wiki, there was a long search for a short cartoon titled "Clock Man", as a member of the bungie.net forum recalled part of the plot details, most notably a bearded man emerging from a clock, and he believed that it aired on Nickelodeon's Pinwheel. The short turned out to be a Czech short named O Parádivé Sally, which was uploaded onto YouTube in September 2017, and its identity was confirmed in December.
  • The launch of Peacock saw the rescues of several off-the-air animated series:
  • Punky Brewster did see the entire series released to DVD as extras on the Punky Brewster season sets, but one episode, "The Shoe Must Go On", was skipped because it used "Axel F". The entire show was added to Peacock in 2020.
  • The Raccoons was caught in this trap for years. Some scattered box sets here and there, but nothing close to a full release, with much of the series available through YouTube and torrents through recorded copies of repeats on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) and the now-defunct Teletoon Retro channel. But it all changed in mid-2020, this was all remedied when Kevin Gillis himself announced via a Facebook interview that to celebrate the franchise's 40th anniversary, the entire series, specials included, would be remastered and released on DVD and Blu-Ray!note  Furthermore, the original series became available to watch for free in its entirety on Run With Us Productions’ official YouTube channel. Needless to say, after years of using less-than-legal methods to watch the entire series in English, the fans went NUTS.
  • Razzberry Jazzberry Jam is an obscure Canadian Preschool Show that aired on CBC from 2008 to 2012 and starred a bunch of talking musical instruments. It was lost for a long time; there were only four DVD releases and the only footage of it online was short clips, a trailer and CBC's YouTube upload of the episode "Phantom of the Jam", the latter of which is only viewable in Canada. However, the whole series was made available on Common Sense Media's Sensical platform sometime in 2022.
  • Nine years after A Boy Named Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Come Home were released on DVD, Paramount finally released Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown on February 10, 2015, and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown was released on DVD on October 6 of that year, both in anticipation of The Peanuts Movie.
  • ReBoot. ADV Films never released Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD, only four episodes from Season 1 ever came out on VHS. Seasons 3 and 4 came out on DVD but went out of print. Fortunately, Shout! Factory eventually released DVDs of the complete series. Season 3 also formerly aired on Teletoon Retro in Canada.
  • RoboCop: Alpha Commando resurfaced through The Roku Channel in 2022. Before that, the show was re-aired on Hulu, and later KidsClick in the summer of 2017.
  • Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat suffered through this fate for a long time. In the States, only 11 and a half episodes (24 stories) out of forty (79 stories), which is about 1/4 of the entire series, were ever released on DVD. After close to a decade with no further releases on home media or streaming in the US aside from a few DVD and VHS releases of selected episodes, in 2021-22 Common Sense Media's Sensical streaming service added the first 16 episodes in their original PBS Kids formats, making 26 and a half (53 stories) out of the forty (79 stories) finally available for legal streaming.
  • Several episodes from The Smurfs were released on YouTube on a special branded channel, courtesy of IMPS, ODMedia, and Expoza. Also, the entire series has been released on DVD in Australia.
    • However, it doesn't help that the new YouTube channel uses the international 90s remaster editions from said Australian DVDs (and thus, presented in PAL format) and crops the episodes into a widescreen format. Additionally, some of the international remastered versions of certain episodes use the chopped-up edited versions from the syndicated "Smurfs Adventures" series. Said international remaster also uses a re-modified version of the 1st season intro and credits for seasons 1-8, along with two different alternate foreign theme songs, instead of using the updated intro sequences for later seasons.
    • In the United States, the only episodes released on DVD as of now are the complete season 1, selected episodes from season 2, and the Christmas specials. Most of the series is also available on iTunes. (Luckily, these editions include the original respective intro sequences for each season as well) and Boomerang currently airs the show during overnight hours (albeit the "Smurfs Adventures" version).
    • Thankfully, the original USA masters of the first four seasons have been restored and released for HBO Max. (Especially the original intro sequence for season 4, which had not seen its light of day since it was last seen on VHS releases.)
  • The infamous Street Fighter cartoon, initially released by ADV Films on DVD, was sort of rescued when it was included on a single Blu-Ray disc as part of the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary set. It was then definitely rescued when Discotek Media announced that they licensed the show for a DVD rerelease.
  • Tales of the Gold Monkey was released in mid-2010.
  • Both the French and English dubs of "T'choupi et Doudou" ("Charley and Mimmo") are available online for free streaming as of now.
  • While clips of Toon Makers’ Sailor Moon have been floating around for at least 20 years, most information known about it was through interviews and a music video featuring clips from the pilot, as well as a screen recording of some footage shown at a con. In 2022, courtesy of the Library of Congress, a fully restored music video and pilot were released as part of Raven Simone's documentary The Western World of Sailor Moon.
  • Total Drama - Despite being the show that debatably saved Teletoon's American equivalent, Cartoon Network (with the season 1 finale being the most viewed broadcast in CN's history according to some sources), only the first season has been released on DVD in the United States by Cartoon Network. As was done for the broadcast versions, the episodes on the DVD set were cropped from its 16:9 picture to fit 4:3 screens, the dialogue is censored, and no Spanish or French language versions are included. It also doesn't come with that season's special, Total Drama Drama Drama Drama Island, despite being advertised to have it. The entire series was released on DVD in Australia, though, and can be streamed on Netflix (including its spin-off Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race, listed as season 7 and, oddly enough, featuring the PAL versions).
  • After years of being only available via limited VHS release and off-air recordings, Toxic Crusaders got a complete series DVD set in 2008 from Troma, who created the characters featured within the show and now owns the rights to the show.
  • The third season of Transformers: Animated was only released on DVD in Japan (with it being the Japanese dub, obviously), Hasbro has stated they have no plans to release it, and Cartoon Network dropped reruns of the show from their lineup fairly soon after it ended. However, in 2012, The Hub picked up the rights to show reruns, saving it at least temporarily. This also had the side effect of increasing the quality of the circulated tapes, as the show was made in HD but only shown in cropped standard definition before then. Unfortunately, the show vanished from TV yet again after the Hub became Discovery Family, but Shout! Factory has announced that it will be releasing a DVD set of the unreleased third season and a complete series set.
  • After years with only three DVD releases existing for the series, the entire series of Tutenstein was made available on Yippee TV. There's also a DVD release slated for January 2021.
  • Concerning Universal Animation series:
    • Their first production, Back to the Future, was released on DVD on October 20, 2015- one day behind the date Marty traveled to in the second film.
    • The Earthworm Jim two-season cartoon series had originally seen only a partial VHS release of eight (out of 13) season 1 episodes, presented in random order. Word of God was that it would never be released on DVD, due to the creator hating it as he thought they were coerced into creating to support the games. It finally got a U.S. release in its entirety.
  • Only one copy of the holdiay special Up on the Housetop was known to circulate, courtesy of Peter Paltridge. It was eventually released by GoodTimes.
  • At one time, full episodes of Wapos Bay: The Series and its movie, Long Goodbyes were hard to find, despite the movie winning a Kidscreen award and beating the Heart Catch Pretty Cure movie and Zhu Zhu Pets: Quest for Zhu. The entire series can be found on Ameba TV.
  • The World of David the Gnome was this but got DVD releases in the United Kingdom in 2006, in Spain and Italy by 2011, and in the United States by Oasis DVD in 2012. Most episodes are also available on DVD in Germany and the Netherlands.
  • The first two Robbie the Reindeer shorts, "Hooves of Fire" and "Legend of the Lost Tribe" suffered this for a while in the United States.
    • The original UK version of "Hooves of Fire" aired on Fox Kids in 2000 and 2001 (albeit with a few scenes cut for time). Then in 2002, CBS bought the rights to the short and "Legend of the Lost Tribe", dubbed them over with American stars, and besides the 2003 DVD (which includes both the UK and US dubs of the film, though with the US dub as the default audio track), this was the only way to view the "Robbie the Reindeer" shorts on TV for a few years. After airing on Nicktoons in 2006 and 2007, the specials disappeared from American TV completely before CBS brought the dubbed versions back in 2016.
    • The third short, "Close Encounters of the Herd Kind", aired exactly once on BBC, is only available on the UK-exclusive "Whole Herd" DVD and nowhere else. Never aired in the United States, impossible to find/watch outside the aforementioned UK DVD release, though given the quality of the short in comparison to its predecessors, probably for good reason.
  • For years, the VeggieTales episode "Jonah Sing-Along Songs and More!" only existed on VHS, despite DVDs existing at the time of release. It later showed up on the 2022 DVD and Blu-Ray releases of Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie as a bonus feature.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top