In the US, the first two seasons aired on ABC, and later after its first cancelation, reruns of the show aired on the syndicated "Power Block". Then finally when the show was renewed for a third season, the show re-aired on Cartoon Network's Toonami block.
The first season was co-financed by HIT Entertainment, who in exchange received international distribution rights. However, for unknown reason HIT didn't participy in production of the following episodes which were distributed by Alliance Atlantis instead. Because of this, the show changed networks in some countries, for example in Poland it shifted from TVP2 (the second channel of Polish Public Television which aired the first season in the country) to the local feed of Canal+ for Seasons 2 and 3.
The Danza: A unique example; the City of Adventure itself is named after the animation studio that created the show. In more straightforward examples, Mike the TV was voiced by Michael Donovan, and AndrAIa's original voice actress was Andrea Libman — different spelling, but pronounced the same way.
Dawson Casting: Averted. Young Enzo was played by a real kid and the production replaced the voice actor with another kid as their voice changed. One voice actor returned several years later to portray a different character.
In "The Medusa Bug", Phong explains that the extended period being Taken for Granite by the Medusa Bug will eventually decompile low-energy programs and up to high-energy programs, showing an evolutionary chart of sorts displaying the hierarchy (street lamps - binomes - sprites). On the chart is a step between humanoid sprites and binomes of more blocky-looking humanoid form, which was the intended appearance of the main characters before they had the graphical power at what the show was eventually produced at.
Enzo's design has some assets from Bob's earlier incarnation such as his shoulder pads and red robotic-like shoes.
Development Hell: The show's concept was conceived in the early 80s but due to the underdeveloped CGI and limited technology at the time the show was only seen in concept until the early-90s when the show began development as the desired graphical look and episode-producing speed became possible.
A proper continuation of the series after the midpoint cliffhanger of season 4 has been in development since 2001 and has yet to reach a proper conclusion aside from webcomics and the Re-Imagining in 2018
Preceding the Pixar revolution, the series was created as part of an untested medium. There were no animation or special FX studios at the time that could handle the rigors of a completely CGI series. Mainframe Entertainment was created for ReBoot, there was no Pilot episode because the cost of equipment and other things required either a full season or nothing.
During late production of season 2, Michael Benyaer who voiced Bob, moved to L.A. to pursue his movie career. That didn't stop him from returning to Vancouver to record his lines, with all the expenses coming out of his own pocket.
Edited for Syndication: "Season 4" originally comprised of two Made-for-TV Movies: Daemon Rising and My Two Bobs. Both of these movies were cut into four-episode arcs for re-airing. The original 2001 DVD release features the original movie format, while the 2011 complete series set uses the syndicated version.
Executive Meddling: Many aspects of the show had to be changed due to censorship issues from the Broadcast Standards and Practices department at ABC. The creators understood at least some of the changes, even if they did not agree with themnote Bob not being allowed to jump through sheet glass made sense somewhat as it is possible to imagine a child imitating that and getting severely injured from it. However, some of the requirements were downright ridiculous. When celebrating Enzo's birthday, Dot (his sister) was not allowed to kiss him on the cheek since it was thought to be too incestuous. Ian Pearson, one of the creators, stated that he found the reasoning behind that decision "...one of the sickest things I've heard."
It should be mentioned that the scene in "Talent Night" that would have had Dot kiss Enzo on the cheek did feature her, dressed as a vampy night-club singer, singing a breathy torch song to her little brother. Throughout the scene, Enzo and Bob stare at her like they've never seen a girl before. It's almost as if, not being allowed to have Dot simply give Enzo a sisterly kiss on the cheek, they wanted to see how far thy could push things so long as she didn't kiss him.
Dot was not allowed to have two distinct breasts, forcing the team to create a single continuous bulge across her chest they dubbed the "monoboob".
The show frequently lampshaded and lampooned the ABC censors and their decisions, with explicit references to the BS&P. There was even a song about it, set to the tune of YMCA by The Village People with lyrics that represented the writers' rants about Executive Meddling.
Also lampshaded in the note above. Instead of trying to figure out how to get Bob through the sheet glass, they have the glass open around him by having Bob say "Glitch, BS&P."
When ABC dropped the show (it was picked up by other networks for the third season), they reference it in the Season Two finale during the Web War.
Binome #1: The ABC's have turned on us! Binome #2: Traitorous dogs!
Enzo's existence was due to an executive mandate requiring a child character be added as an Audience Surrogate (his name apparently came from one exec saying "Put a little Enzo in there"). Creators Ian Pearson and Gavin Blair hated the child sidekick trope, so focused on having Enzo to hype up how cool Bob is while being a Butt-Monkey himself. They found themselves getting attached to the character and missed him after a Plot-Relevant Age-Up, so they brought him back as a copy in the third season finale.
Executive Veto: The making-of episode revealed that Enzo was originally planned to age into a teenager so that they could keep Enzo's original voice actor. ABC's executives vetoed the idea, but a similar idea was later used for season 3 when Enzo goes through a Plot-Relevant Age-Up.
Phong's voice actor also isn't Asian- though in that case, the creators did try to get an Asian voice actor initially, but found that the voice actors they auditioned didn't do a "stereotypical" enough voice, causing Phong's Asianness to not be readily apparent.
The Star Trek-inspired episode "Where No Sprite Has Gone Before" was written franchise regular by D.C. Fontana.
The X-Files inspired episode "Trust No One" features binome-parodies of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, named Fax Modem and Data Nully. Data Nully is voiced by no less than Agent Scully herself, Gillian Anderson, who was reputedly a big fan of the show and at the time was married to an executive at Mainframe Entertainment Inc.
Ian James Corlett takes over voicing Bob in Season 3, after Michael Benyaer left the role due to relocating in-between seasons, and Bob briefly being Put on a Bus.
As a child, Enzo has been voiced by no less than five different actors. This was done because the creators wanted to have a child voice Enzo, so he had to keep getting re-cast. The fifth voice actor was used exclusively for the very young Enzo seen in flashbacks during season four.
Phillip Hayes voiced Hack in Season 1 and for most of Season 2. Scott McNeil took over from there and for the rest of the series.
Production Nickname: According to The Art of ReBoot, Daemon was known as "Joan of Arc" internally, and Welman Matrix's null body was known as "Jelly Welly".
The third season seems to have a thing for DC Comics writers, with Dan DiDio, Marv Wolfman, and Len Wein all writing multiple episodes.
Creators Gavin Blair and Ian Pearson and executive producer Steve Barron had previously worked with each other on Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing" and Def Leppard's "Let's get Rocked"* as confirmed in the 1993 promotional video for the series.
Recycled Script: The episode "Bad Bobs" Shares striking similarities to the hit 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road This episode does center around an extended chase inside of a Mad Max Parody Game with the characters chasing down a truck with a massive energy source down a long single road. The producer of the show Brendan McCarthy is the same writer for the film after all.
In the UK, many episodes were pulled from ITV's CITV block due to complaints from viewers about content during a children's TV slot, before the series finally got dropped completely. Many fans were outraged and started a letter-writing campaign to convince ITV to air the remaining episodes, but they flat-out refused. It's never aired on British TV since then.
The show being set within a computer is an example of this, explaining why everything was so pristine and polygonal.
Why there are rarely any other sprite-based characters in earlier seasons is due to the cost and animation time to make more atomically correct characters although some can be seen in some areas and backgrounds of earlier episodes mainly being recycled models from Bob and Dot. This is the main reason why the Binomes were made given their simplistic design.
The reason why you rarely see the sprite-based characters (Especially Enzo and Frisket) walking and usually use vehicles like hoverboarding in the earlier seasons is due to walk cycles being notoriously difficult to animate at the time. This is why the characters like Phong and Hack and Slash have rollerballs for feet.
Hexadecimal constant mask changing was the result of this to give her more menacing expressions that CGI at the time could not do so easily.
Enzo's upgrade in the episode "Talent Night" was due to his original character model being difficult to animate.
The episode "Infected" Aside from being a transition from season 1 to season 2 was also a transition for the studio using different software and computers.
Megabyte crushing Glitch at the end of Season 2 later provided the writers the chance to give an in-universe explanation of the Darrin-ing of Bob's voice actor when Micheal Benyaer returned in Season 4, while still respecting Ian James Corlett's time as Bob's voice actor.
Un-Canceled: After the Grand Finale at the end of season three the show was on hiatus for three years, when it was suddenly brought back for season four.
Unfinished Episode: There were some episodes and movies that were planned but either changed, scrapped, or never aired;
A film called TeraByte Rising was planned after the Season 2 finale but was scrapped when the 3rd season was greenlit.
The episode "Talent Night" was drastically different mainly for budget reasons, it took place in Dot's Diner on Enzo's birthday on a rainy day.
There was a making-of episode that never aired, but it can be found online and on the 2011 DVD set.
The Art of Reboot features concept art for a scrapped episode that would feature a Wizard of Oz parody, with Hexadecimal as the Wicked Witch.
Word of God: While not explained in the show until the fourth season, it was revealed by Gavin Blair after the second season episode "Gigabyte" that Megabyte and Hexadecimal were originally one supremely powerful virus, split into two more manageable forms. It makes the events of that episode a little more understandable.
Writer Revolt: Snippy comments about the Executive Meddling can be found throughout the show, specifically the "Broadcast Standards and Practices" acronym BSNP will pop up when they are forced to change something dangerous or violent into something less so (Bob uses a BSNP command on Glitch to phase through a stain glass window rather than crash through it, Enzo finds a BFG but it fires a rubber raft with a BSNP label). Towards the end of Season 2 the show began to become more serialized and less concerned with censorship rules, according to Gavin Blair this was because the writers knew ABC was intending to drop the show so they felt they had no reason to play by the network's rules anymore.
by HIT Entertainment, who in exchange received international distribution rights. However, for unknown reason HIT didn't participy in production of the following episodes which were distributed by Alliance Atlantis instead. Because of this, the show changed networks in some countries, for example in Poland it shifted from TVP2 (the second channel of Polish Public Television which aired the first season in the country) to the local feed of Canal+ for Seasons 2 and 3.