Concept art for the show when Jake had green hair
American Dragon: Jake Long
What Could Have Been in this series.- Jake's mom Susan was planned to also have dragon powers, with his father Jonathan being aware of his wife's family being filled with dragons. Several episodes were written before it was decided that it would be more interesting if only the children had powers, and funnier if his dad was Locked Out of the Loop.
- Originally, the Aztec Skulls and Dark Dragon storylines were supposed to have their own seasons, with the plots being jammed into a single one upon the showrunners realizing a third season was unlikely.
- The finale of the second season would have involved Sun Park being thrown into a volcano, and also reveal that Jake's maternal grandmother was Chang, both ideas discarded for being "Too Jetix".
- Rose was supposed to stay in New York following the rewriting of the timeline, but Disney deemed it "too confusing" and sent her to Hong Kong.
- Fu Dog was originally going to be voiced by Jay Leno.
- Spud's name was originally Rob, and he was going to be voiced by Aaron Carter.
- The whereabouts of Rose's twin would've become a plot point had the show been allowed to go on for another season.
- According to one of the writers of the show on the Toonzone forums
, at one point there were plans to reveal that Jake's father was a werewolf. - According to the Channel Frederator video, "107 American Dragon: Jake Long Facts YOU Should Know!", at one point it was planned to reveal that the Dark Dragon was a Bad Future version of Jake, hence why their designs were so similar in Season 1. While the true reason as to why this idea was scrapped is unknown, it was probably due to not wanting to be accused of copying Danny Phantom.
- The show was originally going to be called "The Last Dragon", and there were various differences between the show's original idea, and what the show eventually became:
- Haley's original name was Brittany, and she was going to be only 5 years old instead of 7. She wasn't even going to be a Child Prodigy or have dragon powers either, just Supernatural Sensitivity. (Which would have inadvertently made it even more similar to Juniper Lee, where supernatural sensitivity is also the younger sibling's only ability.)
- Jake's friends were much different in the original draft of the series. They were a Big Guy named Jamal and a river nymph named Brook, who was actually going to be a possible Love Interest for Jake. At some point during production, they became Trixie and Spud instead.
- Jamal was eventually going to learn Jake's secret after performing a blood brother ritual with him, with the unexpected side effect of Jamal now being able to talk to birds.
- Jake was going to be able to shapeshift into the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac, not just a dragon.
- Lao Shi was originally supposed to be Jake's paternal grandfather instead of his maternal one.
- Jonathan was originally going to be named "Chen" (with "Charlie" as his nickname). And just like with Susan, the dragon powers would've skipped his generation—specifically, it would've been because he was born during the Year of the Rabbit, and people could be born with dragon powers if they were born during the Year of the Dragon.
- In addition, Susan's name was originally Sarah Meyer-Long, and she was going to be Jewish.
- According to John Fountain (storyboard artist who was brought on board to help develop the show's visual style), he not only helped develop some of the design aspects for the characters that made it to the final (for specifically Jake Long; ex: hairstyle, etc.) but also helped develop a pitch animatic using the concepts to get the Disney executives interested. Although the crew loved the animatic and helped pushed the show to continue production, the executives weren't fond of Fountain's designs and was subsequently dismissed from the project. One particular executive that had a huge distaste of Fountain's work even stated that they wanted the show's style to be more dialogue-driven to be in akin to Seinfeld. Fountain's initial concepts were also pushed more further on some of the characters' designs in the second season as well.
- Jake Long's dragon-form was initially skinny while a little less lanky than traditional Chinese dragons at the suggestion by the executives. Fountain believed that design made sense for a "half-Chinese" character.
- Jonathan's design was initally modeled after Michael Douglas' character William Foster from the film, Falling Down.
- Huntsman's design had a more futuristic supervillain-type look.
- Huntsgirl's design also had a similar look and went through numerous revisions since the executives didn't like them and thought they were either "too mean" or "too sweet".
