Trivia / The Electric Piper

• Keep Circulating the Tapes: It never aired after 2003, so naturally it became extremely tough to come by, to the point that it got a page on the Lost Media Wiki. Thankfully, the whole movie has been found and uploaded to YouTube, with a higher quality copy on archive.org as well.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Probably what happened, as the Hendrix estate is notoriously airtight in licensing his music and image.
• Stillborn Franchise: The title screen shows the subtitle “A Pied Piper Adventure”, possibly foreshadowing sequels delving into other eras of music.
• What Could Have Been: According to Bill Burnett, Executive Meddling and Screwed by the Lawyers was the cause for the songs to be frequently re-written. When him and Moon initially made the early demos, the Nickelodeon execs wanted it to be closer to their inspirations. By the time they approved the new demos and animation/final voice recording was already in progress, the execs feared for issues with copyright so they requested additional revisions to make the tracks more lawyer-friendly while still honoring their inspirations. This didn't play in favor as the special never gave anymore reruns or any home releases after it's initial airings. The early demos were later released on YouTube since 2019, given by Burnett and Moon upon request by fans.
  • The characters had more realistic designs with Sly being the most different than his final design.
  • Two particular songs were cut from the final release; "Wild Mountain Ride", and "All Dressed Up".
    • According to Raymie Munquiz, "Wild Mountain Ride" in particular, while made it past final revisions didn't make past the animation stage per request by the oversea animators who wanted the sequence cut from the film for an unknown reason. The song was later repurposed for one of the Chalkzone music videos "We're in the Zone"
    • "All Dressed Up", which would've included a gospel dancing sequence with the characters in an Arctic setting dancing with penguins, was omitted entirely despite a portion of animation for that scene already completed.

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