In the movie, the kids meet Alan when he gets out of the game after 26 years. In the animated series, which runs on Alternate Continuity, the kids get sucked into the game and meet Alan there, having been trapped for 23 years. But after three seasons, Alan is released for good. Thus, Alan gets out of the game, both in the movie and the series, after 26 years.
In the animated series episode "El Pollo Jumanji", the Barbaric Bully Rock has the time of his life in Jumanji, to the point that Alan speculates that the game is purposely playing dangers easy for him. When the Manjis capture Rock, they ask Peter if Rock is his friend. He tells them he isn't, and they proceed to cook him, forcing the trio to save him. The "easy pass" given to Rock earlier seems a deliberate move by Jumanji to feed Peter's jealousy and hate for him so he could sell him to the Manjis and either cause his death (if that's what Jumanji wants to do with its players), or teach Peter a life lesson about pardon and showing kindness to everyone including your enemies (if that's what Jumanji is actually about).
It has been heavily foreshadowed what Alan's clue was. The episode where Alan got bit by a centipede bite has Judy almost figured out what his clue was until she had no choice in order to save Alan. However unknowingly, Alan had already solved what he has to do and he didn't know it. He leaps into death to save a life.
Tribal Bob is at his most noble yet when he slips a clue to Peter to save Alan. Possibly since Peter became a Manji, Bob and the other Manjis may have been other players but tragically stuck here forever. However, what's touching is that Bob's rage against the villains may have been more than just being bullied but remembered a time when his own friends were killed by this game. He rallied his tribe to stop them from harming Judy and Peter in order for them to fulfill what they couldn't.
In the final episode Alan learns and solves his clue, then leaves the game as an adult. There's no rollback, like in the movie. That means Judy and Peter's parents are still dead, since they were living with their aunt in the series as well.
In the series, Jumanji seems to have a fondness towards Alan, Judy, and Peter as it subtly helps them to complete their clues or get them out of sticky situations. However, the other kids after Alan and before Judy and Peter weren't so lucky. Makes you wonder what did these kids do that would infuriate Jumanji so much that it willingly allowed its players to be mounted on Van Pelt's walls, eaten by Lions, etc.
In the series Van Pelt is supposedly killed and his killer slowly becomes more and more homicidal until they are the next Van Pelt. What if that is true of the Van Pelt we see? The man we see little more than a meat puppet for the Van Pelt persona simply passed from player to player for all eternity?
