History TroubledProduction / WesternAnimation

* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'': Revenge of the Island was originally to air in 2011 as evidenced by its original teaser. However, the 2011 earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster in Fukushima caused the production to be delayed to change and remove elements of the season that would've been seen as being in poor taste in light of the recent tragedy. According to Christian Potenza (Chris), the season was originally set to air in July 2011, then September before ultimately having its English premiere delayed until January 5th, 2012. The season still had its world premiere in December 2011, but in France and in French only.

** The project started back in the early 1990s. 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 ''WesternAnimation/SWATKats'', another HB show. 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 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. After he and the others were then laid off, Falk headed to Creator/WarnerBros to work on ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''.

*** 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 characters' 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]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'' : The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in crunch time to deliver the episodes on schedule, usually finishing only a week before airing.

* ''WesternAnimation/FillyFuntasia'' , among other issues, part way through production it lost both animation studios. This is one reason for the unpolished and often inconsistent CGI quality, as two new studios had to pick up what the others left behind. The second season seems to have this far less, and as a result the animation seems more polished, and it only took a year for it to be released.

*** 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'' ExecutiveMeddling.

* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' : Revenge of the Island was originally to air in 2011 as evidenced by its original teaser. However, the 2011 earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster in Fukushima caused the production to be delayed to change and remove elements of the season that would've been seen as being in poor taste in light of the recent tragedy. According to Christian Potenza (Chris), the season was originally set to air in July 2011, then September before ultimately having its English premiere delayed until January 5th, 2012. The season still had its world premiere in December 2011, but in France and in French only.

** [[AttentionDeficitCreatorDisorder Splitting focus]] also led to 2004 being described by Parker as "the year from hell," given by the time they worked on the latter part season 8 the duo was creatively and physically exhausted from having just wrapped ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice''. It is often highlighted in the DVD commentary for that season, with one episode being described as "a very special time in ''South Park'' history, because, this was the first time that we were officially... out of ideas."
** "[[Recap/SouthParkS10E5AMillionLittleFibers A Million Little Fibers]]" stands out in that the episode ended up being massively rewritten midway through production. Initially the plot revolved around the townspeople helping Towelie get over his drug habit, but Parker decided it wasn't working and scrapped everything (the opening scene with Towelie losing his job working at P.F. Chang's is the only footage to survive from the original version), and instead went with a storyline satirizing the then-recent controversy over ''Literature/AMillionLittlePieces'' turning out to be mostly fictional despite being promoted as autobiographical. Production of the final version was so rushed that much of the finished product noticeably consists of just static artwork while characters talk in voiceover.

** 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 done 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 that John K. was so obsessed with finding the right color for the present that 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).

** Following Creator/JustinRoiland's firing after Season 6 over felony assault and false imprisonment charges, it was [[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/justin-roiland-animation-empire-implosion-rick-and-morty-1235319366/ revealed]] in ''The Hollywood Reporter'' that tensions between Roiland and the rest of the writing staff had been fraught since Season 2, necessitating mediation between him and Harmon at one point. Roiland rarely came to the writers room, and when he did he either kept to himself with his toys or invited controversial figures like Music/KanyeWest and a high-profile porn star for impromptu tours. By the time of his firing, Roiland hadn't been on speaking terms with Harmon in years and hadn't corresponded with any of the writers, even over Zoom, since Season 3.

* ''WesternAnimation/HighGuardianSpice'' had a pretty hectic development, according to series' creator Raye Rodriguez in a [[https://twitter.com/dinoraye/status/1483551613503426565 Twitter thread]]. According to Rodriguez, the series was produced by a non-union studio, which resulted in the crew being forced to work with NoBudget and tight scheduling. A lot of the [[OffModel animation errors]] and writing flaws were because the crew had no time or money to go back and fix them. In fact, storyboarding for the first episode began before the script was even finished. Making matters worse was Website/{{Crunchyroll}}'s [[InvisibleAdvertising disastrous]] [[TaintedByThePreview marketing]] for the show, which the crew had no input on and were unable to do anything about once they found out. Production on the show took so long that a change in upper management occurred midway through the first season; the new executives balked at the original family-friendly premise, and demanded that the writers [[AvoidTheDreadedGRating include more "mature" content to appeal to Crunchyroll's usual audience of teenagers]]. Because this happened so late, the studio had no real choice but to slot in cursing, sex jokes, and blood "where appropriate." The rest of the show remained colorful and cutesy since there was no time or budget to rewrite the series with older viewers in mind, so this resulted in a heavily UncertainAudience.

* ''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.

* The 1973 [[Creator/DePatieFrelengEnterprises DePatie-Freleng]] show ''Bailey's Comets'' was a production nightmare due to the massive cast. The show was a ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' [[FollowTheLeader clone]] featuring 15 rollerskating teams, each with six members. Because everybody was rollerskating, this meant that ''dozens'' of characters had to be constantly moving, something hard to achieve with the tight television 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 and only animating 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, DePatie-Freleng 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, but received poor ratings, prompting Creator/{{CBS}} to move the show to Sunday mornings after a few months. One animator claimed that the series nearly broke the studio.

** [[AttentionDeficitCreatorDisorder Splitting focus]] also led to 2004 being described by Parker as "the year from hell," given by the time they worked on the latter part season 8 the duo was creatively and physically exhausted from having just wrapped ''Westernanimation/TeamAmericaWorldPolice''. It is often highlighted in the DVD commentary for that season, with one episode being described as "a very special time in ''South Park'' history, because, this was the first time that we were officially... out of ideas."

** Meanwhile, Doi and [[WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries 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 the characterization and style being closer to the original. But both batches of episodes were mixed and matched at random when aired, creating a disjointed, confusing continuity. (Both batches were retroactively labeled as "season 1" and "season 2" thereafter, although HB technically saw them as one season.)

* The 1973 [[Creator/DePatieFrelengEnterprises DePatie-Freleng]] show ''Bailey's Comets'' was a production nightmare due to the massive cast. The show was a ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' ripoff featuring 15 rollerskating teams, each with six members. Because everybody was rollerskating, this meant that literally dozens of characters had to be constantly moving, something hard to achieve with the tight television 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 and only animating 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, DePatie-Freleng 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, but received poor ratings, prompting Creator/{{CBS}} to move the show to Sunday mornings after a few months. One animator claimed that 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 Cookie Jar Entertainment:

* 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 Creator/HannaBarbera, the studio that made it, and althought he wasn't directly involved, he had a front-row seat to the whole debacle. ''Jokebook'' 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 that 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, 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}}''. The show performed so poorly that its second episode was [[MedalOfDishonor dead last in ratings among all shows 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, as 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''.

** Speaking of deadline, they only had four months to animate the special. It was such a tight deadline that there was no time to storyboard at all. Surprisingly, they were able to deliver the special to Creator/TheWB on time and on budget.

** 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 Spumco's consent. 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, and John K found it funny upon seeing it and decided to ThrowItIn. [[/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 still above it, making it seem like he now has two trunks. [[/note]] Carbunkle director Bob Jacques had to fight tooth and nail 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 [he's] 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.
** One of the biggest sources of friction was over censorship. Nickelodeon was always uneasy with the show's gross-out humor, and sent constant revisions for every single episode. "Nurse Stimpy" had a good chunk of footage axed before it got to air (specifically a gag involving a leech being used on Ren), and they even kept one finished episode, "Man's Best Friend", off the air due to its violent and scatological content. As a general rule, anything that had to do with religion, politics, alcohol, or tobacco was put under a microscope by Standards & Practices. In particular, 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", forcing Spumco to change a Liquor cameo in "Haunted House" into a parody of [[WesternAnimation/{{Doug}} Doug Funnie]] (which was edited out in reruns anyway) and rejecting an episode idea starring him (which prompted the crew to improvise the story for "Fire Dogs" in an afternoon). Meanwhile, "Powdered Toast Man", featuring the Pope, 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 was edited out after its initial airing, which ironically ruined the episode's satirical message of how easily authority and power are abused.

** In 2003, John K. relaunched the show as ''WesternAnimation/RenAndStimpyAdultPartyCartoon'', part of an adult animation block on Spike TV. 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, though other crew members have disputed this. At any rate, Spike TV made the mistake of giving John K. complete AuteurLicense and the result was a combination of the usual production delays and excessive spending that had gotten him fired from Nickelodeon back in the 90s and the newfound license to refuse criticism from anyone and everyone over just about anything to an even worse degree than before. By August 2004, when Spike TV cancelled all of its animated projects, only three episodes were fully completed, after which John K. had to literally beg people for money in order to finish the last three episodes.

* 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 Rijsselberge had stated that he felt Bob "didn't get" the show during his time on it. He was ultimately fired from the series, likely near the end of production, while Heath Kenny tried to save what he could of the series.

** Of all shows, ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndScrappyDoo'' ran into many production problems early on. Scrappy co-creator Creator/MarkEvanier [[http://www.newsfromme.com/writings/scrappy-days/ even wrote a very lengthy essay on its troubled history]].

*** 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 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 Messick became Scrappy's permanent voice afterward.

** "[[Recap/SouthParkS10E5AMillionLittleFibers A Million Little Fibers]]" stands out in that the episode ended up being almost totally scrapped and rewritten midway through production. Initially the plot revolved around the townspeople helping Towelie get over his drug habit, but Parker decided it wasn't working and scrapped everything (the opening scene with Towelie losing his job working at P.F. Chang's is the only footage to survive from the original version), and instead went with a storyline satirizing the then-recent controversy over ''Literature/AMillionLittlePieces'' turning out to be mostly fictional despite being promoted as autobiographical. Production of the final version was so rushed that much of the finished product noticeably consists of just static artwork while characters talk in voiceover.

** 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/HighGuardianSpice'' had a pretty hectic development, according to series' creator Raye Rodriguez in a [[https://twitter.com/dinoraye/status/1483551613503426565 Twitter thread]]. According to Rodriguez, the series was produced by a non-union studio, which resulted in the crew being forced to work with NoBudget and tight scheduling. A lot of the [[OffModel animation errors]] and writing flaws were because the crew had no time or money to go back and fix them. In fact, storyboarding for the first episode began before the script was even finished. Making matters worse was Website/{{Crunchyroll}}'s [[InvisibleAdvertising disastrous]] [[TaintedByThePreview marketing]] for the show, which the crew had no input on and were unable to do anything about once they found out. Production on the show took so long that a change in upper management occurred midway through the first season; the new executives balked at the original family-friendly premise, and demanded that the writers [[AvoidTheDreadedGRating include more "mature" content to appeal to Crunchyroll's usual audience of teenagers]]. Because this happened so late, the studio had no real choice but to slot in cursing, sex jokes, and blood "where appropriate." Because the rest of the show remained colorful and cutesy, this resulted in a heavily UncertainAudience.

* ''WesternAnimation/HighGuardianSpice'' had a pretty hectic development, according to series' creator Raye Rodriguez in a [[https://twitter.com/dinoraye/status/1483551613503426565 Twitter thread]]. According to Rodriguez, the series was produced by a non-union studio, which resulted in the crew being forced to work with NoBudget and tight scheduling. A lot of the [[OffModel animation errors]] and writing flaws were because the crew had no time or money to go back and fix them. In fact, storyboarding for the first episode began before the script was even finished. Making matters worse was Website/{{Crunchyroll}}'s [[InvisibleAdvertising disastrous]] [[TaintedByThePreview marketing]] for the show, which the crew had no input on and were unable to do anything about once they found out. Crunchyroll also balked at the original family-friendly premise midway through production of the first season, and demanded that the writers [[AvoidTheDreadedGRating include more "mature" content to appeal to the platform's usual audience of teenagers]]. Because this happened so late, the studio had no real choice but to slot in cursing, sex jokes, and blood "where appropriate"; the rest of the show remained colorful and cutesy, so this resulted in a heavily UncertainAudience.

* ''WesternAnimation/HighGuardianSpice'' had a pretty hectic development, according to series' creator Raye Rodriguez in a [[https://twitter.com/dinoraye/status/1483551613503426565 Twitter thread]]. According to Rodriguez, the series was produced by a non-union studio, which resulted in the crew being forced to work with NoBudget and tight scheduling. A lot of the [[OffModel animation errors]] and writing flaws were because the crew had no time or money to go back and fix them. In fact, storyboarding for the first episode began before the script was even finished. Making matters worse was Website/{{Crunchyroll}}'s [[InvisibleAdvertising disastrous]] [[TaintedByThePreview marketing]] for the show, which the crew had no input on and were unable to do anything about once they found out. Crunchyroll also balked at the original family-friendly premise midway through production of the first season, and demanded that the writers [[AvoidTheDreadedGRating include more "mature" content to appeal to the platform's usual audience of teenagers]]. Because this happened so late in production, the studio had no real choice but to slot in cursing, sex jokes, and blood "where appropriate"; the rest of the show remained colorful and cutesy, so this resulted in a heavily UncertainAudience.

* ''WesternAnimation/HighGuardianSpice'' had a pretty hectic development, according to series' creator Raye Rodriguez in a [[https://twitter.com/dinoraye/status/1483551613503426565 Twitter thread]]. According to Rodriguez, the series was produced by a non-union studio, which resulted in the crew being forced to work with NoBudget and tight scheduling. A lot of the [[OffModel animation errors]] and writing flaws were because the crew had no time or money to go back and fix them. In fact, storyboarding for the first episode began before the script was even finished. Making matters worse was Website/{{Crunchyroll}}'s [[InvisibleAdvertising disastrous]] [[TaintedByThePreview marketing]] for the show, which the crew had no input on and were unable to do anything about once they found out. Crunchyroll also balked at the original family-friendly premise midway through production of the first season, and demanded that the writers [[AvoidTheDreadedGRating include more "mature" content to appeal to their usual audience of teenagers]]. Because this happened so late in production, the studio had no real choice but to slot in cursing, sex jokes, and blood "where appropriate"; the rest of the show remained colorful and cutesy, so this resulted in a heavily UncertainAudience.

* ''WesternAnimation/HighGuardianSpice'' had a pretty hectic development, according to series' creator Raye Rodriguez in a [[https://twitter.com/dinoraye/status/1483551613503426565 Twitter thread]]. According to Rodriguez, the series was produced by a non-union studio, which resulted in the crew being forced to work with NoBudget and tight scheduling. A lot of the [[OffModel animation errors]] and writing flaws were because the crew had no time or money to go back and fix them. In fact, storyboarding for the first episode began before the script was even finished. Making matters worse was Website/{{Crunchyroll}}'s [[InvisibleAdvertising disastrous]] [[TaintedByThePreview marketing]] for the show, which the crew had no input on and were unable to do anything about once they found out.

** 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!
* The 1973 [[Creator/DePatieFrelengEnterprises DePatie-Freleng]] show ''Bailey's Comets'' was a production nightmare due to the massive cast. 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 animating 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.
* ''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 concept 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.
* The first ever TV series based on ''Literature/CuriousGeorge'', a series of 104 four-minute shorts, had a very shaky production, as detailed in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OCuknAddCs this video]] (starting at 14:02):

** It was at this point that things began to fall apart. Once they started working together, it quickly turned out that Margaret and Shalleck did not get along well at all. Still reeling from her husband's passing, Margaret was ''very'' particular about how Shalleck and the crew wrote about her and H.A.'s curious little monkey, which quickly got on Shalleck's nerves and resulted in many heated arguments between the two to the point that Shalleck at one point publicly referred to Margaret as a "spoiled little child". The creative disagreements and constant bickering between Margaret and Shalleck gummed up production, and by 1979, the studio had run out of money with only 34 out of the planned 104 shorts completed. The crew came crawling back to Lafferty, Harwood, and Partners to ask for more funding, which only agreed to foot the bill if they could completely take over production. Milktrain Productions was dissolved and only LHP's name was on the credits of the end product. Luckily, from this point on production on the shorts went much smoother and the shorts premiered on the then-new Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} as part of ''Series/{{Pinwheel}}'' in 1984, later being given an early-morning half-hour slot after production on ''Pinwheel'' ended. ''Curious George'' would call this spot on Nick home until 1989, when the shorts {{Channel Hop}}ped to Creator/DisneyChannel and aired on its anthology program ''Lunchbox'', later airing as an interstitial either by itself or as one of several short series featured on the channel's interstitial program ''Circle Time'' up until the early 2000s.

* 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:
** 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.
** 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 Heyward founded A-Squared, where the idea was turned into a TV series that aired on Creator/TheHub as simply ''WesternAnimation/SecretMillionairesClub''.
* Video game-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 in to 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 1 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 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.
** 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, and reports have since come out that Disney had meddled with the show more than thought; in particular, it was reported that Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland were revealed as gay in the finale as a personal decision by Hirsch ''solely'' out of spite towards Disney not approving such a move earlier.
* ''WesternAnimation/HighGuardianSpice'' was revealed to have had a pretty hectic development according to series' creator Raye Rodriguez in a [[https://twitter.com/dinoraye/status/1483551613503426565 Twitter thread]]. According to Rodriguez, the series was produced by a non-union studio which resulted in the crew being forced to work with NoBudget and tight scheduling. A lot of the [[OffModel animation errors]] and writing flaws were because the crew had no time or money to go back and fix them. In fact, storyboarding for the first episode began before the script was even finished. Making matters worse was Website/{{Crunchyroll}}'s [[InvisibleAdvertising disastrous]] [[TaintedByThePreview marketing]] for the show, which the crew had no input on and were unable to do anything about once they found out.
* ''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 Season 2 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/IronManTheAnimatedSeries'' was also a mess behind the scenes, with Marvel viewing it [[MerchandiseDriven as an afterthought whose sole purpose was to sell toys]]. Season 2 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 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.

** 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, ''WesternAnimation/SWATKats''. 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/XMenTheAnimatedSeries 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.
* According to WordOfGod from ''WesternAnimation/{{Foofur}}'' creator and ''WesternAnimation/StarStreetTheAdventuresOfTheStarKids'' producer Phil Mendez, his most notable work ''WesternAnimation/{{Kissyfur}}'' was plagued with ExecutiveMeddling for its Saturday morning show. [=NBC=] wanted to call the show ''Paddlecab County'' but Mendez refused, wanting to name the show after its titular character since his son accidentally came up with due to "Kissyfur" being how his son Christopher said his name when he had a tooth missing.
* According to accounts by artists and voice actor Creator/BobBergen, the Larry Doyle-produced ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' shorts greenlit as a tie-in to ''Film/LooneyTunesBackInAction'' went through a lot of trouble for what ultimately amounted to nothing. Production on the shorts was marked by in-fighting between the writers and artists, and Doyle's insistence on pitching up voices like the old days led to issues with voice actors (including Bergen, who was planning on quitting out of frustration, only to learn he was being fired anyway; the role of Porky Pig went to a voice-pitched Creator/BillyWest). When Warner Bros. executives saw what was being produced, they were appalled at what was being made, especially with the overbearing amount of blatant DemographicallyInappropriateHumor in the shorts. They fired Doyle, re-edited the six finished shorts, and shelved everything else, leaving most of them unreleased after the commercial failure of ''Looney Tunes: Back in Action''. When they finally did get released to the public ([[ShortRunInPeru with Australia getting most of them long before the rest of the world]]), critics and fans took them to task for, among other things, [[{{Flanderization}} simplifying the characters to a fault]] and relying too much on slapstick violence, including some of the [[FamilyUnfriendlyViolence family-unfriendly]] variety, and those who worked on them don't like talking about the experience.

** For starters, when the company got the license from Andre Franquin, its future with original IP was far from certain despite the recent success of ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'', so it seemed like a beneficial deal for both parties.
** 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 released 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.

* Not as bad as some, but according to an ASIFA interview with Kurt Anderson (one of two directors on the series), ''WesternAnimation/QuackPack'' was a stressful show to work on. Part of the reason was they were too many cooks in the kitchen, so things took longer than they should have on a TV production schedule (the show was in production as early as 1993, which explains why a brief clip appears in an early episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}''). As this was Kurt's first directorial job, it was definitely a learning experience.
* ''WesternAnimation/RapsittieStreetKidsBelieveInSanta'', regarded as one of the worst animated Christmas specials of all time, turned out the way it did thanks to a horrific production that made animating the thing the opposite of easy. [[https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/24/22196527/rapsittie-street-kids-believe-in-santa-cast-crew-making-of Highlights from the Polygon article]] on the special's making include:
** 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.
** Another setback with the software was its pre-programmed animation trajectory, which could not be changed or altered. This is why there are strange edits and scene continuity errors throughout; it was the only way they could cut out the unwanted parts of the animation.

** 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, 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
* ''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. Years later, Bob Camp summed up the show as "the best of times, the worst of times" and that "the whole thing was fucked from the beginning."
** 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 Creator/JohnKricfalusi'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.
** 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, then John K, upon seeing it, found it funny and decided to ThrowItIn [[/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.
** One of the biggest sources of friction was over censorship. Nickelodeon was always uneasy with the gross-out nature of the show's humor, and sent constant revisions to every single episode; "Nurse Stimpy" had a good chunk of footage axed before it got to air (specifically a gag involving a leech being used on Ren) and they even kept one finished episode, "Man's Best Friend", off the air due to its violent and scatological content. As a general rule, anything that had to do with religion, politics, alcohol, and tobacco was put under a microscope by 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", forcing Spumco to change a Liquor cameo in "Haunted House" into a parody of Doug Funnie (a scene that got edited out in reruns anyway) and rejecting an episode idea starring him (which prompted the crew to improvise the story for "Fire Dogs" in an afternoon), while "Powdered Toast Man", featuring The Pope, 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.
** 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).

* ''WesternAnimation/IronMan'' was also a mess behind the scenes, with Marvel viewing it [[MerchandiseDriven as an afterthought whose sole purpose was to sell toys]]. Season 2 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.

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

* 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 animating 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.