History TroubledProduction / WesternAnimation

** In 2003, John K. relaunched the show as ''WesternAnimation/RenAndStimpyAdultPartyCartoon'', part of an adult animation block on Spike TV. The show once more suffered from ScheduleSlip, though the censorship fights at Nickelodeon were inverted at Spike TV - John K. maintains that Spike TV pressured him to turn ''up'' the adult content farther than he was willing to go. Just like the original series, episodes were submitted past the deadline, which caused the series to go on hiatus. By August 2004, when Spike TV cancelled all of its animated projects, only six episodes were fully completed, effectively ending the series.

* While the first season of ''WesternAnimation/{{Robotboy}}'' went well production-wise, the same can't be said for the second one. Alphanim (now Gaumont Animation) felt the stories needed better pacing, so they hired Bob Camp (of ''The Ren and Stimpy Show'', mentioned above) to work on the show [[MoneyDearBoy for money]], evident in how the season feels rather different from the first in style and tone. There were apparently clashes between several of the people at Alphanim, including the higher-ups, who didn't like Bob Camp's way of directing. Series creator Jan Van Rijusselberge had stated that he felt Bob "didn't get" the show during his time on it. Hewas ultimately fired from the series, likely near the end of production, while Heath Kenny tried to save what he could of the series.

* While the first season of ''WesternAnimation/{{Robotboy}}'' went well production-wise, the same can't be said for the second one. Gaumont Animation felt the stories needed better pacing, so they hired Bob Camp (of ''The Ren and Stimpy Show'', mentioned above) to work on the show. He only did it [[MoneyDearBoy for the money]], evident in how the season feels rather different from the first in style and tone.

** Nickelodeon green-lighting their first original show from a studio that had never produced animation (up until this time, Spumco had been an illustration company) turned out to be the blind leading the blind. According to Bob Camp, there was poor communication regarding creative control from then-network head Linda Simensky, who outright told the crew that they had carte blanche on content under the incorrect assumption that they shared a consensus of just how far "too far" was. The result was constant disagreement and confusion between both parties on an issue-to-issue basis. The executives also didn't understand the show's particular brand of absurdist filmmaking like jump cuts or {{gross up close up}}s when shown the storyboards, forcing the crew to over-explain most of the more bizarre gags (this [[DontExplainTheJoke obviously didn't help the network's faith]]). Because of John K.'s insistence that the show not use scripts, only storyboards, he had to fly to New York every time the network needed to approve stories. Each storyboard took two months to complete and be approved. Bob Camp admitted that the crew had too much of a "shitty 'fuck you' attitude" that the network wasn't prepared to deal with.

** Meanwhile, Doi and [[WesternAnimation/XMen Larry]] [[WesternAnimation/FantasticFour Houston]] would be in charge of a new batch of 26 episodes far closer to the 1960s show, with the Questworld gimmick largely phased out, all the voice actors replaced, and characterization and looks closer to the original. But both batches of episodes were mixed and matched at random when aired, created a disjointed, confusing show. (Both batches were retroactively labeled as "Season 1" and "Season 2" thereafter, though HB technically saw them as one season.)

** Eventually, Phil Roman and Don Oriolo found the "Cartoonist Driven" approach of the first season to be too taxing on them, and not even worth the trouble since, despite being one of the most expensive shows that Phil Roman's studio had made, the first season turned out to be a flop in the ratings, due in part to a terrible time slot - it was sandwiched right between sports shows and then-ratings giant ''WesternAnimation/XMen'', making it very hard to establish an audience for the show. On top of that, Don was just unhappy with the weird direction of Season 1 having almost nothing in common with Joe Oriolo's Felix, so the second season went through an extensive {{retool}} - while the first season was storyboarded while working from a basic outline, and was absurdly surreal in its premises and animation, the second season decided to take the series into a direction more in vogue with the Joe Oriolo Felix cartoons and shift production to make the show a more standard TV cartoon, with scripts replacing the all-storyboard approach (usually provided by the writer of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', Creator/MarkEvanier, [[OldShame who has remained silent on the series ever since]]), resulting in much more linear plotting and less surreal humor and more emphasis on wordplay and one-liners, as well as bringing back some of the Oriolo-era characters like Poindexter, Master Cylinder, and The Professor while forcing most of the new side characters to be scrapped in turn. This move was met with outright hostile reception from the shows staff, particularly the producer of the first season, who knew Don's meddling would only make things worse and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere bailed on the show]] just ''two weeks'' into the second season's production. They even tried to have the writers voice direct the actors instead of the directors, but after a couple weeks of trying that, the results were so disastrous that the studio was forced to drop that and hand voice direction back to the cartoon directors. The staff retaliated by [[WriterRevolt writing whole episodes that took jabs at the second season's toned-down retool]], such as "Attack of the Robot Rat" (which infuriated Don Oriolo for being a [[TakeThat ruthless parody]] of his dad's made-for-TV Felix the Cat cartoons), "Phoney Phelix", and "The Fuzzy Bunny Show". The first few scripts they received were followed closely, but the shows new producer finally fought for the artists to have more storytelling and creative control on the show, and they were able to completely scrap the scripts and write their own shows, ironically giving the crew ''more'' freedom than they had in the first season. Some episodes were tightly scripted and some were not. Unfortunately for them, the VP of Children's Programming, Judy Price, who wanted the show picked up in the first place, got fired, and Felix the Cat Inc. was so unhappy with the show in general that they refused to renew the license for Phil Roman to continue using Felix, guaranteeing a third season wouldn't happen. To make matters worse, the second season turned to be an [[GoneHorriblyWrong even]] ''[[GoneHorriblyWrong bigger]]'' [[GoneHorriblyWrong flop in the ratings]], and it ultimately got the show canned, with Season 2 [[CutShort ending after just 8 episodes.]] The second season was considered a disaster in the eyes of everyone involved in it (especially Don Oriolo, who is barely willing to acknowledge the existence of ''Twisted Tales'' these days) and the show's failure ultimately put the Felix the Cat cartoons on ice yet ''again'' (having already gone through it with [[WesternAnimation/FelixTheCatTheMovie the 1991 movie]], which was a box office bomb), with only low-key revivals coming of the series after the fact and the character's 100th birthday in 2019 passing by with little to no fanfare; the show itself didn't even see a full DVD release, forcing fans to KeepCirculatingTheTapes until it was added to streaming service Peacock upon it's launch in July 2020.

** ''The Toy That Saved Christmas'' also had a troubled production, due to being another ambitious episode and having a very set-in-stone deadline (since you can't ship a Christmas special late). Not only did the episode end up ChristmasRushed, the air conditioning broke at the headquarters just in the wake of a heat wave hitting Chicago. Phil Vischer was bed-ridden afterwards for almost two months as well due to bacteria in his heart. It was so close to the deadline once production of the show had wrapped that one of the employees had to be flown down to Dallas, TX with a copy of the show in-hand to give to the tape duplicator because (in Robert Ellis' own words) "[=FedEx=] wasn't fast enough!". This was one of the few cases where the team was unsatisfied with the episode's original end result, and the following year they went back and re-animated a lot of the scenes, creating a second version of the show that was overall much cleaner than the original. [[FanNickname Fans dub the two versions as the "old animation" and the "new animation".]]

* {{Downplayed|Trope}} with ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''. While the production had no more significant struggles than the average television animation production, the "troubled" aspect comes from creator Alex Hirsch's lack of experience in being a showrunner. By the time Season 1 wrapped, Hirsch was [[https://ohmy.disney.com/insider/2016/02/15/inside-the-decision-to-end-gravity-falls/ so burnt out from the experience that he wanted to end the series right there]] regardless of popularity, leaving it forever on a {{Cliffhanger}}. He credits the existence of the show's second season to both Creator/JonStewart and ''WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall'' creator Patrick [=McHale=], who were horrified at the notion and urged him to continue on (Stewart received a guest role in a season 2 episode as thanks. But even then, Hirsch would try (and fail) to argue for a shorter ten-episode order rather than a full season.

** In July 2003, DIC formed a joint-venture with Stan Lee's company POW Entertainment to create an animated series titled ''Stan Lee's Secret Super Six''. After a while, nothing else was heard from this partnership and the show never materialized until 2010, after
DIC co-founder Andy Heyward founded a new company called Creator/ASquaredEntertainment (now Creator/GeniusBrandsInternational), who would start production on the project under the new name of ''WesternAnimation/Mighty7''. Since then, a comic-book franchise and an animated TV movie have been made, but no TV show.

* The 1973 [[Creator/DePatieFrelengEnterprises DePatie-Freleng]] show ''Bailey's Comets'' was a production nightmare due to LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters. The show was a ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' ripoff featuring 15 rollerskating teams, each with six members. As everybody was rollerskating, this meant that literally dozens of characters had to be constantly moving, something that's hard to achieve with the tight TV animation schedule. [[note]](By contrast, ''Wacky Races'' was able to keep the animation costs down by having everybody inside a car, thus only having to animate the wheels, only animated the characters moving when the script called for it.)[[/note]] Even creating the stock animation of each team rollerskating was a headache on its own. In order to ensure they could finish the show in time, they had to hire a night crew (mostly people moonlighting from Hanna-Barbera and Filmation) to paint the cels. In the end, the show not only went overbudget, it got poor ratings, prompting CBS to move the show to Sunday mornings after a few months. One animator claimed the series nearly broke the studio.

* Creator/DiCEntertainment have been known for doing this to many projects of theirs, but arguably these two were more impacted than others, due to being produced just as DIC was being bought out and rebranded as part of Cookie Jar Entertainment:

* {{Downplayed|Trope}} with ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''. While the production had no more significant struggles than the average television animation production, the "troubled" aspect comes from creator Alex Hirsch's lack of experience in being a showrunner. By the time Season 1 wrapped, Hirsch was [[https://ohmy.disney.com/insider/2016/02/15/inside-the-decision-to-end-gravity-falls/ so burnt out from the experience that he wanted to end the series right there]] regardless of popularity, leaving it forever on a {{Cliffhanger}}. He credits the existence of the show's second season to both Creator/JonStewart and ''WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall'' creator Patrick [=McHale=], who were horrified at the notion and urged him to continue on. But even then, Hirsch would try (and fail) to argue for a shorter ten-episode order rather than a full season.
** The show's erratic scheduling during its final season was partly the result of Disney executives wanting to stretch the show out longer, in hopes that Hirsch would eventually change his mind about ending their most popular animated series.

* The 1973 [[Creator/DePatieFrelengEnterprises DePatie-Freleng]] show ''Bailey's Comets'' was a production nightmare due to LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters. The show was a ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' ripoff featuring 15 rollerskating teams, each with six members. As everybody was rollerskating, this meant that literally dozens of characters had to be constantly moving, something that's hard to achieve with the tight TV animation schedule. [[note]](By contrast, ''Wacky Races'' was able to keep the animation costs down by having everybody inside a car, thus only having to animate the wheels, though it still animated the characters when the script called for it.)[[/note]] Even creating the stock animation of each team rollerskating was a headache on its own. In order to ensure they could finish the show in time, they had to hire a night crew (mostly people moonlighting from Hanna-Barbera and Filmation) to paint the cels. In the end, the show not only went overbudget, it got poor ratings, prompting CBS to move the show to Sunday mornings after a few months. One animator claimed the series nearly broke the studio.

* Creator/DiCEntertainment have been known for doing this to many projects of theirs.
** In July 2003, DIC formed a joint-venture with Stan Lee's company POW Entertainment to create an animated series titled ''Stan Lee's Secret Super Six''. After a while, nothing else was heard from this partnership and the show never materialized until 2010, after DIC was purchased by Cookie Jar Entertainment in 2008 and Andy Heyward founded a new company called Creator/ASquaredEntertainment (now Creator/GeniusBrandsInternational), who would start production on the project under the new name of ''WesternAnimation/Mighty7''. Since then, a comic-book franchise and an animated TV movie have been made, but no TV show.
** In February 2006, DIC announced a Direct-to-Video series featuring Warren Buffet titled ''The Secret Millionaires Club''. The series was meant to be released in Fall 2006, but nothing else materialized until after Andy Heyward founded A-Squared, where the idea was turned into a TV series that aired on Creator/TheHub as simply ''WesternAnimation/SecretMillionairesClub''.

** The project started way back in the early 90s, and Lance Falk approached the showrunners, Peter Lawrence and Takashi, to work on the show, but left when he realized that [[CreativeDifferences the duo was bent on making their own, "reimagined" version as opposed to a closer-to-the-original project]], and went to work on another HB show, ''SWAT Kats''. While there, he heard rumors that the Lawrence/Takashi project was in trouble and recruited a bunch of other classic ''JQ'' fans to assist him in making a pitch to HB exec Buzz Potamkin, promising that they could get the show done. But [[ExecutiveMeddling Potamkin promptly stonewalled them for some reason]], with then-studio head Fred Siebert never hearing of Falk's pitch; he and the others were then laid off, with Lance heading to Creator/WarnerBros to work on ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''.

* Pre-production on ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuestTheRealAdventures'' was... ''[[http://questfan.com/Page/Lance_Falk_Dialogue.html turbulent]]'', to say the least. The project started way back in the early 90s, and Lance Falk approached the showrunners, Peter Lawrence and Takashi, to work on the show, but left when he realized that [[CreativeDifferences the duo was bent on making their own, "reimagined" version as opposed to a closer-to-the-original project]], and went to work on another HB show, ''SWAT Kats''. While there, he heard rumors that the Lawrence/Takashi project was in trouble, and recruited a bunch of other classic ''JQ'' fans to assist him in making a pitch to HB exec Buzz Potamkin, promising that they could get the show done. But [[ExecutiveMeddling Potamkin promptly stonewalled them for some reason]], with then-studio head Fred Siebert never hearing of Falk's pitch; he and the others were then laid off, with Lance heading to Creator/WarnerBros to work on ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. Fast forward a while, and the Lawrence/Takashi team had sunk ''$11 million over 2-and-a-half years'' and there ''weren't '''any episodes ready''' to air yet''. Compound that with [[MerchandiseDriven the Galoob toys (based around Questworld) being ready to go]] and Cartoon Network setting airdates, it was clear that the show was sinking fast. Davis Doi (another veteran of ''SWAT Kats'') was recruited to help bring the project back in line and hopefully make something airable out of the chaos. As a result, ''four'' different crews were going to work on the show; Cos Anziolatti and John Eng would handle the task of trying to make sense of the scraps that Lawrence and Takashi had managed to make and turn those into episodes (huge amounts of stuff had to be trashed, re-written, and animated ''just to make some kind of sense''). Meanwhile, Doi and [[WesternAnimation/XMen Larry]] [[WesternAnimation/FantasticFour Houston]] would be in charge of a new batch of 26 episodes far closer to the 1960s show, with the Questworld gimmick largely phased out, all the voice actors replaced, and characterization and looks closer to the original. But both batches of episodes were mixed and matched at random when aired, created a disjointed, confusing show. (Both batches were retroactively labeled as "Season 1" and "Season 2" thereafter, though HB technically saw them as one season.) As a result of the chaos, 13 episodes were cut from the original order and the financial state resulted in the show not getting renewed.

* There’s a highly obscure New Zealand cartoon called ''The Adventures of Voopa the Goolash'' that, if the Lost Media Wiki's article is any indication, had this in '''spades'''.
** The show was under the control of Jeff Taylor, the same man who contributed to the success of ''Series/{{Teletubbies}}''. However, disputes between him and the original investors meant the master tapes were held by the studio, who refused to let them go. The show's creator had this to say about it:
--->'''Craig Whyte:''' This was way back in 2007. It created a shitstorm that was hard to grab onto. Before I knew it it was in the hands of Jeff Taylor who put the ''Teletubbies'' on the map for BBC Worldwide. And a few other avaricious bloodsuckers from the children's entertainment business. Sadly it ended up in a cataclysmic bunfight between the original investors and Jeff Taylor and his cronies. The big swinging dicks did their swinging and although there were 13 episodes in the can it never went to market as the studio withheld the masters at the time of broadcast due to a spat over monies due from the NZ film commision. It was an utter tragedy and ended up with me darn near taking my life. For real. It really was my way of putting back something to the world for all the blessings I had enjoyed despite my unbridled rampage through life - and I was crushed that it never got out to the little people!

* Tom Ruegger of ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' fame [[http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com/2012/05/failure-that-really-was.html described]] Creator/{{NBC}}'s obscure ''WesternAnimation/{{Jokebook}}'' as "an unmitigated disaster"; at the time, he was working at the studio that made it, Creator/HannaBarbera, and while not directly involved, he had a front-row seat to witness the whole debacle. It was an animated SketchComedy conceived by a close friend of HB co-founder Joe Barbera, and described by the network as "a seven-part series featuring animated humor". Problem was, this man, Harry Love, was a humorless old creep who lacked much experience or talent in stories. He rejected his peers' ideas for sketches, feeling that his own jokes were good enough, and flaunted his connections to Barbera. Additionally, the animation was originally so awful (even by the standards of [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation that era]]) that NBC wouldn't touch it, but once much of the animation was fixed it became clear that Love's DirtyOldMan tendencies crept into the gags, which Ruegger described as "wheezy, lame and ancient one-panel sex jokes rejected by Magazine/{{Playboy}} and other publications at least a decade before". NBC found many of them far too crass and inappropriate for broadcast, and HB had to fill the gaps left by the rejected sketches with student and independent animated films (among them being a [[{{Bowdlerise}} bowdlerized]] version of Ted Petok's Academy Award winner ''WesternAnimation/TheCrunchBird''). At any rate, NBC had lost all faith in the project by this point, and dumped it in the FridayNightDeathSlot right in the middle of the 1981-82 season against ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' and ''Series/{{Benson}}'', where it did so poorly that its second episode was [[MedalOfDishonor ''dead last'' in the ratings among all shows aired '''that week''']], prompting NBC to pull the plug after just three of the planned seven episodes. Ruegger doubts that it would've lasted much longer even with better ratings, because so much of the original content was removed that it was hard for HB to find enough outside material for the ''three'' broadcast episodes, let alone seven.

* Tom Ruegger of ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' fame [[http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com/2012/05/failure-that-really-was.html described]] Creator/{{NBC}}'s obscure ''WesternAnimation/{{Jokebook}}'' as "an unmitigated disaster"; at the time, he was working at the studio that made it, Creator/HannaBarbera, and while not directly involved, he had a front-row seat to witness the whole debacle. It was an animated SketchComedy conceived by a close friend of HB co-founder Joe Barbera, and described by the network as "a seven-part series featuring animated humor". Problem was, this man, Harry Love, was a humorless old creep who lacked much experience or talent in stories. He rejected his peers' ideas for sketches, feeling that his own jokes were good enough, and flaunted his connections to Barbera. Additionally, the animation was originally so awful (even by the standards of [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation that era]]) that NBC wouldn't touch it, but once much of the animation was fixed it became clear that Love's DirtyOldMan tendencies crept into the gags, which Ruegger described as "wheezy, lame and ancient one-panel sex jokes rejected by Magazine/{{Playboy}} and other publications at least a decade before". NBC found many of them far too crass and inappropriate for broadcast, and HB had to fill the gaps left by the rejected sketches with student and independent animated films (among them being a [[{{Bowdlerise}} bowdlerized]] version of Ted Petok's Academy Award winner ''WesternAnimation/TheCrunchBird''). At any rate, NBC had lost all faith in the project by this point, and dumped it in the FridayNightDeathSlot right in the middle of the 1981-82 season against ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' and ''Series/{{Benson}}'', where it did so poorly that its second episode was [[MedalOfDishonor dead last in the ratings among all shows aired that week]], prompting NBC to pull the plug after just three of the planned seven episodes. Ruegger doubts that it would've lasted much longer even with better ratings, because so much of the original content was removed that it was hard for HB to find enough outside material for the three broadcast episodes, let alone seven.
* Pre-production on ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuestTheRealAdventures'' was... ''[[http://questfan.com/Page/Lance_Falk_Dialogue.html turbulent]]'', to say the least. The project started way back in the early 90s, and Lance Falk approached the showrunners, Peter Lawrence and Takashi, to work on the show, but left when he realized that [[CreativeDifferences the duo was bent on making their own, "reimagined" version as opposed to a closer-to-the-original project]], and went to work on another HB show, ''SWAT Kats''. While there, he heard rumors that the Lawrence/Takashi project was in trouble, and recruited a bunch of other classic ''JQ'' fans to assist him in making a pitch to HB exec Buzz Potamkin, promising that they could get the show done. But [[ExecutiveMeddling Potamkin promptly stonewalled them for some reason]], with then-studio head Fred Siebert never hearing of Falk's pitch; he and the others were then laid off, with Lance heading to Creator/WarnerBros to work on ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. Fast forward a while, and the Lawrence/Takashi team had sunk ''$11 million over 2-and-a-half years'' and there ''weren't any episodes ready to air yet''. Compound that with [[MerchandiseDriven the Galoob toys (based around Questworld) being ready to go]] and Cartoon Network setting airdates, it was clear that the show was sinking fast. Davis Doi (another veteran of ''SWAT Kats'') was recruited to help bring the project back in line and hopefully make something airable out of the chaos. As a result, ''four'' different crews were going to work on the show; Cos Anziolatti and John Eng would handle the task of trying to make sense of the scraps that Lawrence and Takashi had managed to make and turn those into episodes (huge amounts of stuff had to be trashed, re-written, and animated ''just to make some kind of sense''). Meanwhile, Doi and [[WesternAnimation/XMen Larry]] [[WesternAnimation/FantasticFour Houston]] would be in charge of a new batch of 26 episodes far closer to the 1960s show, with the Questworld gimmick largely phased out, all the voice actors replaced, and characterization and looks closer to the original. But both batches of episodes were mixed and matched at random when aired, created a disjointed, confusing show. (Both batches were retroactively labeled as "Season 1" and "Season 2" thereafter, though HB technically saw them as one season.) As a result of the chaos, 13 episodes were cut from the original order and the financial state resulted in the show not getting renewed.

** The software used, 3D Choreographer, was never meant for film and television production. Described by the developers as "an animation program designed for non-artists", it was a way to create simple animation using pre-designed models for use in [=PowerPoint=] presentations and late-1990s internet. Because of this, the software's functions proved to be ''very'' limited. The animators found out that it doesn't let you model new character designs, forcing the studio to send the concept art to the software developers so they could create custom models specifically for the special's production. The animators were horrified when the resulting models came back.

** Many of the season 1 episodes were massacred by bad outsourcing, due in part to work from Creator/FilCartoons, a literal sweatshop studio in the Philippines with poor working conditions and such dismal pay that employees were forced to sleep there. The studio handled ink-and-paint work for the entire first season, and more often than not heavily ruined many scenes due to their all-around cheap Xeroxing, ugly colors and even "reworking" drawings or whole scenes of animation without the consent of Spumco; there were even some unintentional (rather than purposeful) OffModel moments, such as Stimpy's eyes inexplicably turning black in the "Stimpy's Breakfast Tips" [[note]] It was supposed to be a placeholder for a separate level of animation photographed in front of it, specifically of Stimpy's actual eyes, but that bit of animation was thrown out [[/note]] and Ren accidentally having two elephant trunks on him instead of one in "Black Hole". [[note]] specifically, Ren's trunk is supposed to shift off to the side when he looks at his watch, but a mistake left the animated part of his trunk moving, but with a top drawing of his trunk kept static above it, making it seem like he now has two trunks [[/note]]. Carbunkle director Bob Jacques had to fight tooth and claw to get the studio to turn in acceptable work for episodes like "Stimpy's Invention" (and even then the sporadic error slipped in, such as Stimpy's eyes floating off his face when he's showing Ren his new socks), and described the experience of working with them as "all damage control" and called them "the cheapest shithole studio I've ever had the displeasure to work at." The second season switched to digital ink and paint, presumably to avoid further problems like this, which came with its own set of problems, being such a new and still very rudimentary form of technology.

** In addition to his general unprofessionalism, John K.'s perfectionism was out of control. Spumco was largely understaffed, due to his refusal to hire anyone who didn't meet the standards of the studio's founders (himself, Camp and Naylor). Not only did this mean that the show had to be created by an incredibly small crew, but what few staff members ''were'' hired regularly had their drawings torn up if they didn't meet John K.'s exact expectations, despite his directions often being vague. One scene of Stimpy shaking his butt in ''Stimpy's Invention'' was re-animated '''sixteen''' times until it met John K.'s approval. Historian Jerry Beck distinctly remembers visiting the studio and finding out John K. was so obsessed with finding the right color for the present Stimpy hands Ren that the walls were lined with over ''50'' different cels of the same present in different colors, likening it to a scene out of ''Film/TheShining'' (ironically, John K. ended up working with one of the initial color choices).
** Through a combination of the crew's perfectionism and the constant battles over what was acceptable to air, the show suffered from severe ScheduleSlip almost from the start. Nickelodeon only ordered six episodes when the show was green-lit and they still had to rerun the pilot episode in order to have something to show in what would've been the second episode's time slot; this helped the show build an audience but killed any hope for syndication. The second season was planned to have twenty episodes before getting cut down to thirteen. Only eleven were completed, with two held over for season three.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Stripperella}}'': Stan Lee never brought it up until a month before its premiere on Spike TV.

** There is a notorious story surrounding the first time the staff saw "Some Enchanted Evening". In one scene, Bart and Lisa watch a Happy Little Elves cartoon. For some reason, Butterworth had decided to have a bear tear off one of the elves' heads and drink its blood. Needless to say, this did ''not'' go over well with the production crew.

** Several early-run episodes, specifically "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E38StrangeTalesOfWeirdScience Strange Tales of Weird Science]]", "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E42LooniversityDaze Lonniversity Daze]]", and "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E44HeroHamton Hero Hamton]]", were outsourced to a domestic animation studio based in Nevada called Creator/EncoreCartoons. However, Encore turned in results that were ''far'' below the standards the crew was looking for, with sloppy character designs, continuity errors (one of the most infamous ones was in "Looniversity Daze" wherein Plucky was inserted into a classroom scene when he was supposed to be sitting just outside the classroom, resulting in the duplicate Plucky being colored purple with a blue tank top instead of green with a white tank top in the final product to hide this as the production crew was out of time), and extremely LimitedAnimation out the wazoo ("Strange Tales" features points where the characters' mouths barely even move as they speak). When the crew sent for retakes, they ended up with results that were just as bad if not even worse. The crew eventually ran out of time to get better animation (by which point the episodes, meant to be the third, sixth, and tenth episodes of the season respectively, had ended up being pushed back to the middle of the season) and had no choice but to either use the best Encore takes in the final episodes or have other studios such as Creator/KennedyCartoons or [[Creator/JonMcClenahan Startoons]] replace some of the worst animation. Even with the best takes, these three episodes still ended up with some of the worst animation and OffModel moments of the entire series. The episodes' troubled production was lampshaded numerously in "Strange Tales" (via self-deprecating dialogue that was added in during its production and the obligatory CreditsGag: "Number of Retakes: Don't Ask"), which also notably had AlanSmithee credits for two of the included shorts. Needless to say, the crew never worked with Encore again after the disastrous production of these three episodes.

** Eventually, Phil Roman and Don Oriolo found the "Cartoonist Driven" approach of the first season to be too taxing on them, and not even worth the trouble since, despite being one of the most expensive shows that Phil Roman's studio had made, the first season turned out to be a flop in the ratings, due in part to a terrible time slot - it was sandwiched right between sports shows and then-ratings giant ''WesternAnimation/XMen'', making it very hard to establish an audience for the show. On top of that, Don was just unhappy with the weird direction of Season 1 having almost nothing in common with Joe Oriolo's Felix, so the second season went through an extensive {{retool}} - while the first season was storyboarded while working from a basic outline, and was absurdly surreal in its premises and animation, the second season decided to take the series into a direction more in vogue with the Joe Oriolo Felix cartoons and shift production to make the show a more standard TV cartoon, with scripts replacing the all-storyboard approach (usually provided by the writer of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', Creator/MarkEvanier, [[OldShame who has remained silent on the series ever since]]), resulting in much more linear plotting and less surreal humor and more emphasis on wordplay and one-liners, as well as bringing back some of the Oriolo-era characters like Poindexter, Master Cylinder, and The Professor while forcing most of the new side characters to be scrapped in turn. This move was met with outright hostile reception from the shows staff, particularly the producer of the first season, who knew Don's meddling would only make things worse and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere bailed on the show]] just ''two weeks'' into the second season's production. They even tried to have the writers voice direct the actors instead of the directors, but after a couple weeks of trying that, the results were so disastrous that the studio was forced to drop that and hand voice direction back to the cartoon directors. The staff retaliated by [[WriterRevolt writing whole episodes that took jabs at the second season's toned-down retool]], such as "Attack of the Robot Rat" (which infuriated Don Oriolo for being a [[TakeThat ruthless parody]] of his dad's made-for-TV Felix the Cat cartoons), "Phoney Phelix", and "The Fuzzy Bunny Show". The first few scripts they received were followed closely, but the shows new producer finally fought for the artists to have more storytelling and creative control on the show, and they were able to completely scrap the scripts and write their own shows, ironically giving the crew ''more'' freedom than they had in the first season. Some episodes were tightly scripted and some were not. Unfortunately for them, the VP of Children's Programming, Judy Price, who wanted the show picked up in the first place, got fired, and Felix the Cat Inc. was so unhappy with the show in general that they refused to renew the license for Phil Roman to continue using Felix, guaranteeing a third season wouldn't happen. To make matters worse, the second season turned to be an [[GoneHorriblyWrong even]] ''[[GoneHorriblyWrong bigger]]'' [[GoneHorriblyWrong flop in the ratings]], and it ultimately got the show canned, with Season 2 [[CutShort ending after just 8 episodes.]] The second season was considered a disaster in the eyes of everyone involved in it (especially Don Oriolo, who is barely willing to acknowledge the existence of ''Twisted Tales'' these days) and the show's failure ultimately put the Felix the Cat cartoons on ice yet ''again'' (having already gone through it with [[WesternAnimation/FelixTheCatTheMovie the 1991 movie]], which was a box office bomb), with only low-key revivals coming of the series after the fact and the character's 100th birthday in 2019 passing by with little to no fanfare.

** So Williams tried again during his time in college. After pitching some other shows to MTV that didn't make it, he ended up befriending a producer working for the [[Creator/SyFy Sci Fi Channel]], who accepted his newly-animated pitch for ''The Click''. The show looked to be heading forward... only for Williams to realize that MTV still owned the rights to the show's characters, meaning that if he were to get the show made, it would have to be through MTV. This resulted in him having to create ''yet another'' low-budget pilot. Thankfully, the pilot was accepted, and the show was finally going to get made. But since there was already a game show called ''Click'', it had to be renamed to ''Undergrads'', which finally started airing in April 2001.

** In addition to his general unprofessionalism (see HostilityOnTheSet for more details), John K.'s perfectionism was out of control. Spumco was largely understaffed, due to his refusal to hire anyone who didn't meet the standards of the studio's founders (himself, Camp and Naylor). Not only did this mean that the show had to be created by an incredibly small crew, but what few staff members ''were'' hired regularly had their drawings torn up if they didn't meet John K.'s exact expectations, despite his directions often being vague. One scene of Stimpy shaking his butt in ''Stimpy's Invention'' was re-animated '''sixteen''' times until it met John K.'s approval. Historian Jerry Beck distinctly remembers visiting the studio and finding out John K. was so obsessed with finding the right color for the present Stimpy hands Ren that the walls were lined with over ''50'' different cels of the same present in different colors, likening it to a scene out of ''Film/TheShining'' (ironically, John K. ended up working with one of the initial color choices).

** In addition to his general unprofessionalism (see above), John K.'s perfectionism was out of control. Spumco was largely understaffed, due to his refusal to hire anyone who didn't meet the standards of the studio's founders (himself, Camp and Naylor). Not only did this mean that the show had to be created by an incredibly small crew, but what few staff members ''were'' hired regularly had their drawings torn up if they didn't meet John K.'s exact expectations, despite his directions often being vague. One scene of Stimpy shaking his butt in ''Stimpy's Invention'' was re-animated '''sixteen''' times until it met John K.'s approval. Historian Jerry Beck distinctly remembers visiting the studio and finding out John K. was so obsessed with finding the right color for the present Stimpy hands Ren that the walls were lined with over ''50'' different cels of the same present in different colors, likening it to a scene out of ''Film/TheShining'' (ironically, John K. ended up working with one of the initial color choices).

** In addition to his general unprofessionalism (see above), John K.'s perfectionism was out of control. Spumco was largely understaffed, due to his refusal to hire anyone who didn't meet the standards of the studio's founders (himself, Camp and Naylor). Not only did this mean that the show had to be created by an incredibly small crew, but what few staff members ''were'' hired regularly had their drawings torn up if they didn't meet Kricfalusi's exact expectations, despite his directions often being vague. One scene of Stimpy shaking his butt in ''Stimpy's Invention'' was re-animated '''sixteen''' times until it met John's approval. Historian Jerry Beck distinctly remembers visiting the studio and finding out John was so obsessed with finding the right color for the present Stimpy hands Ren that the walls were lined with over ''50'' different cels of the same present in different colors, likening it to a scene out of ''Film/TheShining'' (ironically, John ended up working with one of the initial color choices).

** Feuding between John K. and Nickelodeon over how long and expensive the production of each episode was reached its apex September '92, in the middle of the second season, when John K. told them point blank that episodes would "cost what they cost and take as long as they needed." Having had enough, Niceklodeon fired him and his studio from the series and continued it through their new in-house production facility Games Animation (John K. continues to insist that content was the deciding factor, specifically that in "Man's Best Friend," but nearly all sources say otherwise).

** Despite getting screen credit for directing, Slater was very hands-off during the production, to the point that the animators didn't get any direction at all. Making it worse was that, aside from the very basic instructions, he was not an expert on how the animation software worked, forcing the animators to figure it out themselves as there was no one they could ask for help. As an inside joke, when the "Directed by Colin Slater" card came up in the closing credits, they animated a snowman winking in response.
* Pre-production on ''WesternAnimation/TheRealAdventuresOfJonnyQuest'' was... ''[[http://questfan.com/Page/Lance_Falk_Dialogue.html turbulent]]'', to say the least. The project started way back in the early 90s, and Lance Falk approached the showrunners, Peter Lawrence and Takashi, to work on the show, but left when he realized that [[CreativeDifferences the duo was bent on making their own, "reimagined" version as opposed to a closer-to-the-original project]], and went to work on another HB show, ''SWAT Kats''. While there, he heard rumors that the Lawrence/Takashi project was in trouble, and recruited a bunch of other classic ''JQ'' fans to assist him in making a pitch to HB exec Buzz Potamkin, promising that they could get the show done. But [[ExecutiveMeddling Potamkin promptly stonewalled them for some reason]], with then-studio head Fred Siebert never hearing of Falk's pitch; he and the others were then laid off, with Lance heading to Creator/WarnerBros to work on ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. Fast forward a while, and the Lawrence/Takashi team had sunk ''$11 million over 2-and-a-half years'' and there ''weren't any episodes ready to air yet''. Compound that with [[MerchandiseDriven the Galoob toys (based around Questworld) being ready to go]] and Cartoon Network setting airdates, it was clear that the show was sinking fast. Davis Doi (another veteran of ''SWAT Kats'') was recruited to help bring the project back in line and hopefully make something airable out of the chaos. As a result, ''four'' different crews were going to work on the show; Cos Anziolatti and John Eng would handle the task of trying to make sense of the scraps that Lawrence and Takashi had managed to make and turn those into episodes (huge amounts of stuff had to be trashed, re-written, and animated ''just to make some kind of sense''). Meanwhile, Doi and [[WesternAnimation/XMen Larry]] [[WesternAnimation/FantasticFour Houston]] would be in charge of a new batch of 26 episodes far closer to the 1960s show, with the Questworld gimmick largely phased out, all the voice actors replaced, and characterization and looks closer to the original. But both batches of episodes were mixed and matched at random when aired, created a disjointed, confusing show. (Both batches were retroactively labeled as "Season 1" and "Season 2" thereafter, though HB technically saw them as one season.) As a result of the chaos, 13 episodes were cut from the original order and the financial state resulted in the show not getting renewed.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' was, in its original run, one of the most talked-about shows on television and one of the biggest hits for the then-fledgling Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} network, and is now counted alongside ''The Simpsons'', ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'', and ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' as a revolution in TV cartoons and one of the key shows of UsefulNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation. However, right from the start, it was fraught with production troubles that ultimately destroyed the show:
** Many of the Season 1 episodes were massacred by bad outsourcing, due in part to work from the cheapskate, sweatshop conditions of Creator/FilCartoons, who handled ink-and-paint work for the entire first season, and more often than not heavily ruined many scenes due to their all-around cheap Xeroxing, ugly colors, and even "reworking" drawings or whole scenes of animation; there were even some unintentional (rather than purposeful) off-model moments, such as Stimpy's eyes inexplicably turning black in "Stimpy's Breakfast Tips" [[note]](it was supposed to be a placeholder for a separate level of animation photographed in front of it, specifically of Stimpy's actual eyes, but that bit of animation was thrown out. They had the option of doing a retake, but John K. was so amused by the error that he decided to [[ThrowItIn leave it in]]) [[/note]] and Ren accidentally having two elephant trunks on him instead of one in "Black Hole" [[note]](specifically, Ren's trunk is supposed to shift off to the side when he looks at his watch, but a mistake left the animated part of his trunk moving, but with a top drawing of his trunk kept static above it, making it seem like he now has two trunks)[[/note]]. Carbunkle director Bob Jacques had to fight tooth and claw to get the studio to turn in acceptable work for episodes like "Stimpy's Invention" (and even then the sporadic error slipped in, such as Stimpy's eyes floating off his face when he's showing Ren his new socks), and described the experience of working with them as "all damage control".
** One of the biggest sources of friction was over censorship. Nickelodeon was always uneasy with the [[GrossoutShow gross-out nature of the show's humor]], and [[MissingEpisode shelved]] one episode, "Man's Best Friend", due to its violent and scatological content. As a general rule, anything that had to do with religion, [[BanOnPolitics politics]], alcohol, and tobacco was put under a microscope by [[MediaWatchdog Standards & Practices]]; the character George Liquor had his last name removed from one episode and made only sporadic appearances due to opposition from the network, right down to axing an entire scene with him from "Rubber Nipple Salesman" and forcing Spumco to change a Liquor cameo in "Haunted House" into a parody of [[WesternAnimation/{{Doug}} Doug Funnie]] (a scene that got edited out in reruns anyway), while "Powdered Toast Man", featuring UsefulNotes/ThePope, removed a cross from his hat and credited the character simply as "The Man with the Pointy Hat", and the ending scene of Toast Man carelessly using the Constitution and Bill of Rights as kindling for a fire got edited out after its initial airing, which ironically ruined the episode's satirical message of how easily authority and power are abused.
** The show suffered from severe ScheduleSlip almost from the start, the result of, depending on who you ask, Creator/JohnKricfalusi's perfectionism or the constant battles over what was acceptable to air. Nickelodeon had to rerun the pilot episode in order to have something to show in what would've been the second episode's time slot; this helped the show build an audience but killed any hope for UsefulNotes/{{Syndication}}. This became a trend; the first season had only six episodes air between August 1991 and February 1992.
** Feuding between John K. and Nickelodeon over ScheduleSlip and censorship came to a head in September '92, in the middle of Season 2, when Nickelodeon fired John K. and took over production themselves via the in-house studio Games Animation. The exact circumstances of John K.'s firing are hotly debated to this day; John K. cites his refusal to censor "Man's Best Friend" as the final straw for Nick, while others blame the ScheduleSlip. A good chunk of the staff left in protest at John K.'s firing. ''Ren & Stimpy'' finished its second season and ran for three more before it was canceled at the end of 1995 (though one last episode aired on Creator/{{MTV}} the following year).

* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': If this [[https://decider.com/2021/07/13/rick-and-morty-season-5-episode-4-disgusting-and-tasteless/ article]] from ''Decider'' is anything to go by, the writing process for the highly polarizing Season 5 episode "[[Recap/RickAndMortyS5E4RickdependenceSpray Rickdependence Spray]]" was very hectic and unfocused, with Creator/DanHarmon admitting that he wrote the episode because "I wanted to see like the sort of old-school ''Film/{{Jumanji}}'' sequence where people had to ride sperm", with [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants no thought or care being put into the rest of the story]]. This resulted in numerous rewrites; the CHUDs didn't even exist in the script's first draft.

** Another problem was that in addition to having a month to storyboard, design, and do layout work on each short, they could not learn from their mistakes, because by the time film began to come in, the season had been just about wrapped up. Some directors could handle writing and boarding a good cartoon, while some couldn't. The artists had no say on retakes in animation either, which was left to Phil Roman to decide--and unfortunately, the overseas animation on the show tended to be rather sluggish. This only got worse for Season 2, with Korean company [[Creator/PlusOneAnimation Plus One]] having to rush episodes through, resulting in sloppy artwork and very bad animation timing (with "Nightmare on Oak Street" being one of the worst examples in the second season). On top of that, they were behind schedule, so they couldn't order retakes to correct any mistakes.

* The 1973 [[Creator/DePatieFrelengEnterprises [=DePatie=]-Freleng]] show ''Bailey's Comets'' was a production nightmare due to LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters. The show was a ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' ripoff featuring 15 rollerskating teams, each with six members. As everybody was rollerskating, this meant that literally dozens of characters had to be constantly moving, something that's hard to achieve with the tight TV animation schedule.[[note]]By contrast, ''Wacky Races'' was able to keep the animation costs down by having everybody inside a car, thus only having to animate the wheels, though it still animated the characters when the script called for it.[[/note]] Even creating the stock animation of each team rollerskating was a headache on its own. In order to ensure they could finish the show in time, they had to hire a night crew (mostly people moonlighting from Hanna-Barbera and Filmation) to paint the cels. In the end, the show not only went overbudget, it got poor ratings, prompting CBS to move the show to Sunday mornings after a few months. One animator claimed the series nearly broke the studio.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Bonkers}}'': While not too much is known about the particulars of the show's production, it is known that Disney was unhappy with the original conception of the show, which resulted in a complete ReTool of the show mid-production, changing the producer, Bonkers' partner, the supporting cast and the art style. An episode had to be produced to bridge the two radically different versions of the show for the purposes of a complete syndication package.

** In July 2003, DIC formed a joint-venture with Stan Lee's company POW Entertainment to create an animated series titled ''Stan Lee's Secret Super Six''. After a while, nothing else was heard from this partnership and the show never materialized until 2010 after DIC was purchased by Cookie Jar Entertainment in 2008 and Andy Heyward founded a new company called Creator/ASquaredEntertainment (now Creator/GeniusBrandsInternational), who would start production on the project under the new name of ''WesternAnimation/Mighty7''. Since then, a comic-book franchise and an animated TV movie have been made, but no TV show.

* Videogame-themed action-comedy ''WesternAnimation/GlitchTechs'' was announced in 2018 for Nickelodeon and set to premiere in mid-to-late 2019. However, on January 9, 2019, the crew for the show walked into work only to discover that [[https://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/nickelodeon-froze-production-laid-off-significant-crew-on-its-upcoming-series-glitch-techs-169049.html production had been "frozen" on the series]] in the middle of producing a ten-episode second season due to executives wanting to cut as many non-money-making productions as possible, and that anyone not required for post-production on the original 20-episode season one order was being immediately laid off. The series eventually premiered on Netflix in February 2020 as part of a deal between Viacom and Netflix.
* {{Downplayed|Trope}} with ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''. While the production had no more significant struggles than the average television animation production, the "troubled" aspect comes from creator Alex Hirsch's lack of experience in being a showrunner. By the time the first season wrapped, Hirsch was [[https://ohmy.disney.com/insider/2016/02/15/inside-the-decision-to-end-gravity-falls/ so burnt out from the experience that he wanted to end the series right there]], regardless of popularity, leaving it forever on a {{Cliffhanger}}. He credits the existence of the show's second season to both Creator/JonStewart and ''WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall'' creator Patrick [=McHale=], who were horrified at the notion and urged him to continue on. But even then, Hirsch would try (and fail) to argue for a shorter ten-episode order rather than a full season. The show's erratic scheduling during its final season was partly the result of Disney executives wanting to stretch the show out longer, in hopes that Hirsch would eventually change his mind about ending their most popular animated series.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibleHulk1996'' was this [[http://marvel.toonzone.net/hulk/interviews/sebast/ according to the original producer.]] Specifically, UPN replaced most of the creative staff for the show's second season and {{ReTool}}ed the series to make it LighterAndSofter. They also demanded that ComicBook/SheHulk be [[AscendedExtra bumped up to co-lead status]] to better entice young girls who might otherwise be uninterested in the Hulk.
* ''WesternAnimation/IronMan'' was also a mess behind the scenes, with Marvel viewing it [[MerchandiseDriven as an afterthought whose sole purpose was to sell toys]]. The second season had no producer until three months into production, which resulted in 24-hour work days with no weekends off. The staff also had little say in things about plots and character designs, which were largely dictated by Marvel and Toy Biz.
* Tom Ruegger of ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' fame [[http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com/2012/05/failure-that-really-was.html described]] Creator/{{NBC}}'s obscure ''WesternAnimation/{{Jokebook}}'' as "an unmitigated disaster"; at the time, he was working at the studio that made it, Creator/HannaBarbera, and while not directly involved, he had a front row seat to witness the whole debacle. It was an animated SketchComedy conceived by a close friend of HB co-founder Joe Barbera, and described by the network as "a seven-part series featuring animated humor". Problem was, this man, Harry Love, was a humorless old creep who lacked much experience or talent in stories. He rejected his peers' ideas for sketches, feeling that his own jokes were good enough, and flaunted his connections to Joe Barbera. Additionally, the animation was originally so awful (even by the standards of [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation that era]]) that NBC wouldn't touch it, but once much of the animation was fixed, it became clear that Love's DirtyOldMan tendencies crept into the gags, which Ruegger described as "wheezy, lame and ancient one-panel sex jokes rejected by Magazine/{{Playboy}} and other publications at least a decade before". NBC found many of them far too crass and inappropriate for broadcast, and HB had to fill the gaps left by the rejected sketches with student and independent animated films (among them being a [[{{Bowdlerise}} bowdlerized]] version of Ted Petok's Academy Award winner ''WesternAnimation/TheCrunchBird''). At any rate, NBC had lost all faith in the project by this point, and dumped it in the FridayNightDeathSlot right in the middle of the 1981-1982 season against ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'' and ''Series/{{Benson}}'', where it did so poorly that its second episode was [[MedalOfDishonor dead last in the ratings among all shows aired that week]], prompting NBC to pull the plug after just three of the planned seven episodes. Of course, Ruegger doubts that it would've lasted much longer even with better ratings, because so much of the original content was removed that it was hard for HB to find enough outside material for the three broadcast episodes, let alone seven.

** However, Disney committed numerous acts of LoopholeAbuse regarding the contract, such as convincing Franquin to accept a "roll-out strategy" that consisted of making shorts for ''WesternAnimation/RawToonage'' (which also included the aforementioned ''Bonkers''), then debuting a half-hour series the following year, itself made up of both old and new ''Marsupilami'' shorts, with a middle segment alternating between shorts starring ''The Little Mermaid'' character Sebastian and [[WesternAnimation/EekTheCat Bill Kopp's]] ''[[WesternAnimation/TheShnookumsAndMeatFunnyCartoonShow Shnookums and Meat]]''. Problem was, the contract demanded a series with full half-hour stories, a demand this series clearly didn't meet. To say nothing of the fact that Disney's version [[InNameOnly barely qualified as an adaptation, using only a heavily modified version of the title character and nothing else]].
** What's worse, by the time production started, the Disney Renaissance was in full swing, and lucrative homegrown properties like ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'' made the idea of promoting an outside property seem redundant to Disney. Marketing responsibility was handed over to lower-rung executives, who screwed it up to the point that [[InvisibleAdvertising the only merchandise that came out for the property]] came out between the end of ''Raw Toonage'' and the beginning of the standalone ''Marsupilami'' series, a decision even one of Disney's own experts thought was insane. On top of that, the show had to air on a network (meaning that ''WesternAnimation/TheDisneyAfternoon'', successful as it was at the time, wouldn't suffice) - and Disney never even so much as attempted to sell half-hour ''Marsupilami'' episodes to networks, only airing the shorts series on Creator/{{CBS}} as a replacement for ''Raw Toonage'', which Disney cancelled after 12 episodes.
** The series ended after 13 episodes, and Disney had the contract nullified - without the necessary 180-day notice. This was the final straw, and Franquin successfully sued Disney over their mishandling of the property. From there, the series faded into obscurity, with the only thing coming out of it post-cancellation being a spin-off of the ''Shnookums and Meat'' segments into its own, similarly short-lived series for ''The Disney Afternoon''.

** The software used, 3D Choreographer, was never meant for film and television production. Described by the developers as “an animation program designed for non-artists,” it was a way to create simple animation using pre-designed models for use in [=PowerPoint=] presentations and late-1990s internet. Because of this, the software's functions proved to be ''very'' limited. The animators found out that it doesn't let you model new character designs, forcing the studio to send the concept art to the software developers so they could create custom models specifically for the special's production. The animators were horrified when the resulting models came back.

** One of the animators grew increasingly frustrated with the poor graphics and the limited functions with the software, to the point that he told the investors who financially backed the special that they were being ripped off (up to this point they haven't seen a single footage of the special). When Colin Slater found out he promptly fired him, forcing the remaining animators to work overtime as the deadline was just days away.
** Speaking of deadline, they only had four months to animate the special. It was such a tight deadline there was no time to storyboard at all. Surprisingly, they were able to deliver the special on-time and on-budget.
** Despite getting screen credit for directing Colin Slater was very hands off during the production, to the point that the animators didn't get any direction at all. Making it worse was that, aside from the very basic instructions, he was not an expert on how the animation software worked, forcing the animators to figure it out themselves as there was no one they could ask for help. As an inside joke, when the "Directed by Colin Slater" card came up in the closing credits they animated a snowman winking in response.
* Pre-production on ''WesternAnimation/TheRealAdventuresOfJonnyQuest'' was... ''[[http://questfan.com/Page/Lance_Falk_Dialogue.html turbulent]]'', to say the least. The project started way back in the early 90s, and Lance Falk approached the showrunners, Peter Lawrence and Takashi, to work on the show, but left when he realized that [[CreativeDifferences the duo was bent on making their own, "reimagined" version as opposed to a closer-to-the-original project]], and went to work on another H-B show, ''SWAT Kats''. While there, he heard rumors that the Lawrence/Takashi project was in trouble, and recruited a bunch of other classic ''JQ'' fans to assist him in making a pitch to H-B exec Buzz Potamkin, promising that they could get the show done. But [[ExecutiveMeddling Potamkin promptly stonewalled them for some reason]], with then studio head Fred Siebert never hearing of Falk's pitch; he and the others were then laid off, with Lance heading to Creator/WarnerBros to work on ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. Fast forward a while, and the Lawrence/Takashi team had sunk ''$11 million over 2-and-a-half years'' and there ''weren't any episodes ready to air yet''. Compound that with [[MerchandiseDriven the Galoob toys {based around Questworld} being ready to go]] and Cartoon Network setting airdates, it was clear that the show was sinking fast. Davis Doi (another veteran of ''SWAT Kats'') was recruited to help bring the project back in line and hopefully make something airable out of the chaos. As a result, ''four'' different crews were going to work on the show; Cos Anziolatti and John Eng would handle the task of trying to make sense of the scraps that Lawrence and Takashi had managed to make and turn those into episodes (huge amounts of stuff had to be trashed, re-written and animated ''just to make some kind of sense''). Meanwhile, Doi and [[WesternAnimation/XMen Larry]] [[WesternAnimation/FantasticFour Houston]] would be in charge of a new batch of 26 episodes far closer to the 1960s show, with the Questworld gimmick largely phased out, all the voice-actors replaced, and characterization and looks closer to the original. But both batches of episodes were mixed and matched at random when aired, created a disjointed, confusing show. (Both batches were retroactively labeled as "Season 1" and "Season 2" thereafter, though H-B technically saw them as one season.) As a result of the chaos, 13 episodes were cut from the original order and the financial state resulted in the show not getting a third season.

** Many of the Season 1 episodes were massacred by bad outsourcing, due in part to work from the cheapskate, sweatshop conditions of Creator/FilCartoons, who handled ink-and-paint work for the entire first season, and more often than not heavily ruined many scenes due to their all-around cheap Xeroxing, ugly colors and even "reworking" drawings or whole scenes of animation; there were even some unintentional (rather than purposeful) off-model moments, such as Stimpy's eyes inexplicably turning black in the "Stimpy's Breakfast Tips," [[note]]It was supposed to be a placeholder for a separate level of animation photographed in front of it, specifically of Stimpy's actual eyes, but that bit of animation was thrown out. They had the option of doing a retake, but John K. was so amused by the error that he decided to [[ThrowItIn leave it in.]] [[/note]] and Ren accidentally having two elephant trunks on him instead of one in "Black Hole". [[note]]specifically, Ren's trunk is supposed to shift off to the side when he looks at his watch, but a mistake left the animated part of his trunk moving, but with a top drawing of his trunk kept static above it, making it seem like he now has two trunks [[/note]]. Carbunkle director Bob Jacques had to fight tooth and claw to get the studio to turn in acceptable work for episodes like "Stimpy's Invention" (and even then the sporadic error slipped in, such as Stimpy's eyes floating off his face when he's showing Ren his new socks), and described the experience of working with them as "all damage control".

** The show suffered from severe ScheduleSlip almost from the start, the result of, depending on who you ask, Creator/JohnKricfalusi's perfectionism or the constant battles over what was acceptable to air. Nickelodeon had to rerun the pilot episode in order to have something to show in what would've been the second episode's time slot; this helped the show build an audience but killed any hope for UsefulNotes/{{syndication}}. This became a trend; the first season had only six episodes air between August 1991 and February 1992.
** Feuding between John K. and Nickelodeon over ScheduleSlip and censorship came to a head in September '92, in the middle of the second season, when Nickelodeon fired John K. and took over production themselves via the in-house studio Games Animation. The exact circumstances of John K.'s firing are hotly debated to this day; John K. cites his refusal to censor "Man's Best Friend" as the final straw for Nick, while others blame the ScheduleSlip. A good chunk of the staff left in protest at John K.'s firing. ''Ren & Stimpy'' finished its second season and ran for a total of three more before it was canceled at the end of 1995 (though one last episode aired on Creator/{{MTV}} the following year).
** Later on, in 2003, John K. relaunched the show as ''WesternAnimation/RenAndStimpyAdultPartyCartoon'', part of an adult animation block on Spike TV. The show once more suffered from ScheduleSlip, though the censorship fights at Nickelodeon were inverted at Spike TV; John K. maintains that Spike TV pressured him to turn ''up'' the adult content farther than he was willing to go. Just like the former series, episodes were submitted past the deadline, which caused the series to go on hiatus. By August 2004, when Spike TV cancelled all of its animated projects, only six episodes were fully completed, effectively ending the series.

*** By 1979, ''WesternAnimation/TheScoobyDooShow'' was on the verge of cancelation by ABC, and Joe Barbera came up with the new character to help save it. None of the on-staff writers at Creator/HannaBarbera could write a satisfactory pilot script, and Evanier, the editor of their comic book division, was chosen. Barbera and Evanier worked together to finalize the character, and Evanier eventually turned in a satisfactory pilot script, and the show was picked up for a full season and made it on the air following endless salary and billing disputes, conflicts with Standards & Practices, and much ''much'' ExecutiveMeddling.
*** Casting the character's voice was difficult in its own right, and the entire pilot was recorded at least five different times. Creator/MelBlanc was Barbara's first choice to voice Scrappy, but he turned the role down over salary disagreements. Then Creator/FrankWelker was considered before Creator/DonMessick was cast, and the pilot script recorded with the entire cast. Then ABC decided they didn't like Don's version, so Creator/DawsButler was cast and the entire script re-recorded. Then they didn't like his version, and Marilyn Schreffler was cast and the script re-recorded once again before Welker was cast, and the entire script recorded a fourth time. Then Paul Winchell and Dick Beals were cast at different points, though production was halted while Barbera once again attempted to strike a deal with Mel Blanc. Ultimately, Lennie Weinrib was cast in the role simply because he was the first choice the network wouldn't veto. Even he would end up leaving the role at the end of the season over a salary dispute, along with a personality dispute with the voice director, and Don Messick became Scrappy's permanent voice afterward.

*** The executives seemingly didn't know what kind of show they wanted to see: a subversive self-parody of the ''Scooby-Doo'' franchise with the character's personalities exaggerated or something more traditional for the series. They ended up forcing the first several episodes to be rewritten from scratch over even the slightest of issues they had with the characters, delaying the show's premiere date and wasting several hundred thousand dollars in the process. The execs then [[NeverMyFault blamed their losses on the writers]].
*** The execs arbitrarily replaced the show creator and the main writer with an inexperienced writer in the middle of the second season and gave the former two no credit for what they actually did during the said season. The show creator eventually gave up and left the show due to how nasty things were getting behind the scenes and how the execs were treating him.
* The pilot episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E13SomeEnchantedEvening Some Enchanted Evening]]" went so badly wrong that it nearly killed the show before it even began. The big problem was that the key members of the production team didn't appear to be talking to each other. Creator/MattGroening and Creator/JamesLBrooks imagined a show with unique designs and color schemes, but characters who were animated in a realistic way. Animation director Kent Butterworth (and apparently the people at Klasky-Csupo) on the other hand thought it should be animated in a whacked-out, over the top style with little regard paid to keeping the characters on model. And nobody appeared to have told the Korean animators anything at all, meaning they were let loose on the episode with wildly inconsistent results. The end product, while sometimes defended by animation enthusiasts as how the show ''should'' have been animated, wasn't what the producers or Fox wanted at all, and the plug nearly got pulled on the series. Fortunately the second episode, "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E2BartTheGenius Bart the Genius]]" did fit what the producers were looking for, and so they reshuffled the episode order and kicked off the series with "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E1SimpsonsRoastingOnAnOpenFire Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire]]", while "Some Enchanted Evening" got substantially re-animated and booted to the end of the season.
** There is a notorious story surrounding the first time the staff saw "Some Enchanted Evening". In one scene, Bart and Lisa watch a Happy Little Elves cartoon. For some reason yet to be determined, Butterworth had decided to have a bear tear off one of the elves' heads and drink its blood. Needless to say, this did ''not'' go over well with the production crew.

** Whereas UsefulNotes/BarackObama's two elections were considered safe enough that the show was able to reference the results in the next episode without any trouble,[[note]](For Obama's first election in 2008 it was obvious to most people by the week of election that rival candidate John [=McCain=] didn't have a prayer of winning, and while 2012 rival Mitt Romney's chances were considered better enough that they did at least storyboard an alternate ending in case he won, by election week they were confident enough in an Obama victory that they never bothered animating it)[[/note]] Season 20's intended story arc was derailed by UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump unexpectedly defeating UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton. Ironically, the episode scheduled for the following day was the one ''least'' affected, since Parker and Stone had at least taken the possibility of a Trump victory seriously enough that the episode was written in such a way that it could be quickly retooled in just such an event. However, since the remaining episodes of the season were written under the assumption of a Clinton victory, they had to be largely scrapped and rewritten from scratch.
* The Franchise/TransformersAlignedUniverse [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Aligned#Clashing_visions is a]] [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Binder_of_Revelation clusterfuck]], between ''WesternAnimation/TransformersRescueBots'' being forced into it, the ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' crew's decision to try to ignore the [[SeriesBible Binder of Revelation]] and [[http://sunnybutte.tumblr.com/post/131367083128/that-explains-a-lot-of-the-mess-that-was its own]] [[http://sunnybutte.tumblr.com/post/131368170623/and-if-you-were-wondering-why-beast-hunters-was behind the scenes drama]], and IDW 's inability to shift to help the universe out more.
* The first season of ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'', while still acclaimed overall, had a hectic production schedule that was hampered by animation studios turning in less than stellar results:
** Several early-run episodes, specifically "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E38StrangeTalesOfWeirdScience Strange Tales of Weird Science]]", "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E42LooniversityDaze Lonniversity Daze]]", and "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E44HeroHamton Hero Hamton]]", were outsourced to a domestic animation studio based in Nevada called Creator/EncoreCartoons. However, Encore turned in results that were ''far'' below the standards the crew was looking for, with sloppy character designs, continuity errors (one of the most infamous ones was one in "Looniversity Daze" wherein Plucky was inserted into a classroom scene when he was supposed to be sitting just outside the classroom, resulting in the duplicate Plucky being colored purple with a blue tank top instead of green with a white tank top in the final product to hide this as the production crew was out of time), and extremely LimitedAnimation out the wazoo ("Strange Tales" features points where the characters' mouths barely even move as they speak). When the crew sent for retakes, they ended up with results that were just as bad if not even worse. The crew eventually ran out of time to get better animation (by which point the episodes, meant to be the third, sixth, and tenth episodes of the season respectively, had ended up being pushed back to the middle of the season) and had no choice but to either use the best Encore takes in the final episodes or have other studios such as Creator/KennedyCartoons or [[Creator/JonMcClenahan Startoons]] replace some of the worst animation. Even with the best takes, these three episodes still ended up with some of the worst animation and OffModel moments of the entire series. The episodes' troubled production was lampshaded numerously in "Strange Tales" (via self-deprecating dialogue that was added in during its production and the obligatory CreditsGag: "Number of Retakes: Don't Ask"), which also notably had AlanSmithee credits for two of the included shorts. Needless to say, the crew never worked with Encore again after the disastrous production of these three episodes.
** The aforementioned Kennedy Cartoons itself had very inconsistent animation quality (going from fluid and energetic animation to horrendously sloppy OffModel animation and character designs at the drop of a hat) and the company didn't always concern themselves with emulating the classic ''Looney Tunes'' style that Steven Spielberg (whom company founder Glen Kennedy reportedly argued with over the vision for the series' animation) and the show's crew were aiming for, instead emulating the type of animation they used in shows such as ''WesternAnimation/APupNamedScoobyDoo''. The inconsistent animation and squabbles between Steven and Glen resulted in a few episodes being held up in production[[labelnote:notably...]]"[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E18HareTodayGoneTomorrow Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow]], which was the first episode in production order (but became the 18th episode) and also threw shade at itself in its CreditsGag ("Moral of the Story: We Need More Animators") and "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E65HighToon High Toon]]", which ended up being held up until more than a month after the intended season finale "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E64KACMETV K-ACME TV]]"[[/labelnote]] and/or having the worse animation being filled in by Jon [=McClenahan=][='s=] crew, much like with Encore, and, also like Encore, Kennedy Cartoons was shown the door at the season's end.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheTwistedTalesOfFelixTheCat'' cartoon, an attempt to revive the WesternAnimation/FelixTheCat cartoons for the mid 90's, went through this, [[http://web.archive.org/web/20111219032547/http://classiccartoonreviews.blogspot.com/2011/03/twisted-tale-of-twisted-tales-of-felix.html according to animator Milton Knight]], who worked on the first season. He recalled the experience was fun, but not exactly ideal; other staffers have pitched in on the internet over time that the show's production was rather turbulent.
** One major problem during production was that they couldn't make up their mind what kind of cartoon this was supposed to be--studio head Phil Roman was most comfortable with the plot-and-dialogue-driven approach used in his commercial successes ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', and had given this series what seemed like a guarded blessing--there was one group who wanted a Felix like the Creator/OttoMessmer shorts, one group who wanted Creator/MaxAndDaveFleischer surreality, Don Oriolo, the current owner of Felix, wanting it to be like his dad's made-for-TV Felix cartoons (which most of the staff working on the show were against--they ultimately, but begrudgingly, added certain elements from it into ''Twisted Tales'', like the Magic Bag), one group who wanted the show to be ''WesternAnimation/RenAndStimpy''-esque (understandable, since some of the artists on the show were former ''WesternAnimation/RenAndStimpy'' artists), and one director who wanted a ''Creator/RobertCrumb'' influence! With so many cooks in the kitchen, the direction of the show tended to be all over the place, with Felix himself often getting swamped in importance by a large cast of supporting characters and his chaotic world. On top of that, per word of Mark Evanier, the studio had a terrible time finding a voice for Felix, saying they may have set a new industry record for most actors auditioned for one role (to where even staff of the studio were trying to audition for the role), and they wound up recording the show with a "scratch" (temporary) voice and animating to that. The final voice was only selected a few weeks before an episode aired and was dubbed in.
** Another problem was that in addition to having a month to storyboard, design and do layout work on each short, they could not learn from their mistakes, because by the time film began to come in, the season had been just about wrapped up. Some directors could handle writing and boarding a good cartoon, while some couldn't. The artists had no say on retakes in animation either, which was left to Phil Roman to decide--and unfortunately, the overseas animation on the show tended to be rather sluggish. This only got worse with the second season, with Korean company [[Creator/PlusOneAnimation Plus One]] having to rush episodes through, resulting in sloppy artwork and very bad animation timing (with "Nightmare on Oak Street" being one of the worst examples in the second season). On top of that, they were behind schedule, so they couldn't order retakes to correct any mistakes.
** Eventually, Phil Roman and Don Oriolo found the "Cartoonist Driven" approach of the first season to be too taxing on them, and not even worth the trouble since, despite being one of the most expensive shows that Phil Roman's studio had made, the first season turned out to be a flop in ratings, due in part to a terrible time slot--it was sandwiched right between sports shows and then-ratings giant WesternAnimation/XMen, making it very hard to establish an audience for the show. On top of that, Don was just unhappy with the weird direction of season 1 having almost nothing in common with Joe Oriolo's Felix, so the second season went through an extensive {{retool}}--while the first season was storyboarded while working from a basic outline, and was absurdly surreal in its premises and animation, the second season decided to take the series into a direction more in vogue with the Joe Oriolo Felix cartoons and shift production to make the show a more standard TV cartoon, with scripts replacing the all-storyboard approach (usually provided by the writer of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', Creator/MarkEvanier, [[OldShame who has remained silent on the series ever since]]), resulting in much more linear plotting and less surreal humor and more emphasis on wordplay and one liners, as well as bringing back some of the Oriolo era characters like Poindexter, Master Cylinder and The Professor while forcing most of the new side characters to be scrapped in turn. This move was met with outright hostile reception from the shows staff, particularly the producer of the first season, who knew Don's meddling would only make things worse and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere bailed on the show]] just ''two weeks'' into the second seasons production. They even tried to have the writers voice direct the actors instead of the directors, but after a couple weeks of trying that, the results were so disastrous that the studio was forced to drop that and hand over voice direction back to the cartoon directors. The staff retaliated by [[WriterRevolt writing whole episodes that took jabs at the second seasons toned down retool]], such as "Attack of the Robot Rat" (which infuriated Don Oriolo for being a [[TakeThat ruthless parody]] of his dads made for TV Felix the Cat cartoons), "Phoney Felix" and "The Fuzzy Bunny Show". The first few scripts they received were followed closely, but the shows new producer finally fought for the artists to have more storytelling and creative control on the show, and they were able to completely scrap the scripts and write their own shows, ironically giving the crew ''more'' freedom than they had in the first season. Some episodes were tightly scripted and some were not. Unfortunately for them, the VP of Children's Programming, Judy Price, who wanted the show picked up in the first place, got fired, and Felix the Cat Inc. was so unhappy with the show in general that they refused to renew the license for Phil Roman to continue using Felix, guaranteeing a third season wouldn't happen. To make matters worse, the second season turned to be an [[GoneHorriblyWrong even]] ''[[GoneHorriblyWrong bigger]]'' [[GoneHorriblyWrong flop in the ratings]], and it ultimately got the show canned, with season 2 [[CutShort ending after just 8 episodes.]] The second season was considered a disaster in the eyes of everyone involved in it (especially Don Oriolo, who is barely willing to acknowledge the existence of ''Twisted Tales'' these days) and the show's failure ultimately put the Felix the Cat cartoons on ice yet ''again'' (having already gone through it with [[WesternAnimation/FelixTheCatTheMovie the 1991 movie]], which was a box office bomb), with only low key revivals coming of the series after the fact and the character's 100th birthday in 2019 passing by with little to no fanfare.

** The show was created via an animated pitch by Williams for a contest held by Creator/{{MTV}}... of which he won only because he was one of fifteen competitors who entered, [[DisqualificationInducedVictory and the only one who followed the instructions]]. The show, at that time titled ''The Click'', was stuck in years of focus testing, with Williams working for MTV during the meantime. Williams created a low budget pilot for ''The Click'' three years after the contest, but it did so poorly with the focus group that it killed any chance of the show getting greenlit. Williams hated the pilot so much, he refused to show it in its entirety.
** So Williams tried again during his time in college. After pitching some other shows to MTV that didn't make it, he ended up befriending a producer working for the [[Creator/SyFy Sci Fi Channel]], who accepted his newly animated pitch for ''The Click''. The show looked to be heading forward... only for Williams to realize that MTV still owned the rights to the show's characters, meaning that if he were to get the show made, it would have to be through MTV. This resulted in him having to create ''yet another'' low budget pilot. Thankfully, the pilot was accepted, and the show was finally going to get made. But since there was already a gameshow called ''Click'', it had to be renamed to ''Undergrads'', which finally saw airing in April of 2001.

* There’s a highly obscure New Zealand cartoon called ''The Adventures of Voopa the Goolash'' that, if the Lost Media Wiki’s article is any indication, had this in '''spades'''.
** The show was under control of Jeff Taylor, the same man who contributed to the success of ''Series/{{Teletubbies}}''. However, disputes between him and the original investors meant the master tapes were held by the studio, who refused to let them go. The show’s creator had this to say about it:

* {{Downplayed|Trope}} with ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''. While the production had no more significant struggles than the average television animation production, the "troubled" aspect comes from creator Alex Hirsch's lack of experience in being a showrunner. By the time the first season wrapped, Hirsch was so burnt out from the experience that he wanted to end the series right there, regardless of popularity, leaving it forever on a {{Cliffhanger}}. He credited the existence of the show's second season to Creator/JonStewart, a fan who was horrified at the idea and convinced him to press on. Even then, Hirsch would cut the planned three-season MythArc down to two and try (and fail) to argue for a shorter season order. The show's erratic scheduling during its final season was partly the result of Disney executives wanting to stretch the show out longer, in hopes that Hirsch would eventually change his mind about ending their most popular animated series.
** Hirsch, however, has complained since the show's cancellation that Disney [[ExecutiveMeddling censored or overruled a number of his ideas]], particularly in the second season. One particular sore point for Hirsch was the episode "The Love God," which included a throwaway gag featuring a same-sex couple. Studio executives objected vociferously to this for fear that it would offend MoralGuardians among the audience; despite Hirsch's protests, he eventually changed the scene. In the series finale, Hirsch confirmed two of the show's recurring characters, Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland, as a gay couple [[TakeThat largely out of spite towards Disney]].