Thought I'd try my hand at starting a thread (and one that isn't SB).
So Cuffed Together was one of 2 pilots allegedly produced for Beavers.
The first one is called "Snowbound" and was found on a bootleg DVD in 2013.
The second, "Cuffed Together", is only rumor to exist, with claims of airings on NicktoonsTV in Europe, Latin America, and in the US, before a movie called "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever".
These claims are heavily unverified, and no further proof of this pilot exists and it largely lives on in rumors, kinda similar to KaBlam Episode 29.
I've tried to contact the creator, but I can't find ANY social media accounts for him. I also tweeted both Beaver voice actors but they never responded, and I doubt they'd really know what I'm talking about since the pilot is from 1994.
So if anyone can confirm anything (with proof of course), or knows how to get in touch with the creator, this is the place to let us know.
well, i have no way to contact the creators nor do i have special intel, but if you want, i can help.
although i usually DO have information on lost media i'm attached to finding, i have little info because it's so obscure!
the thing is, "the best christmas pageant ever" was a television movie on ABC, which at the time aired in 1983. also, why the hell would nicktoons out of all places air it? and air the pilot if it was before it only once? nicktoons is made on reruns, it would be seen more often if it was ever seen in public. so if it didn't air before that movie, then the only spot left would be nicktoons in latin america.
a theory i have is that "cuffed together" is a rumor all together. snowbound has a copyright notice at the end, which means it was at least an unaired pilot, so why would they make another one? there's also no information on top of that to prove it was real, just some people making (most likely) false claims they've seen it before.
after all, i could be wrong as it is lost media. i just thought i would give you some of my thoughts and insight on the subject.
I was confused too when I read that Xmas Pageant was a TV movie, but it's very possible that a few movie theaters decided to run it as a promotion for the season. Plus, it seems like such a niche and specific movie, that using it as the base for a rumor like this seems too specific for there to be no truth behind it. At the same time though, yeah it's so specific and obscure it almost doesn't make sense to even mention it in a rumor about a Nick cartoon.
I'm not super familiar with Nicktoons, but I get the sense that international channels often don't have the same regularity of programming as the US, so I figure the idea of it airing internationally somewhat plausible. I've also read a claim that someone from Chile has seen it twice, so Nicktoons Latin America could have been the hotspot to see it.
I recall reading somewhere that the alleged reason for 2 pilots either involved the creator not liking the first one enough, or something about adapting both pilots into an episode. Right now I have beliefs that this could be real, because while someone could just flat out make the whole thing up, it's like why would they.
Take something like KaBlam Episode 29, that largely stemmed from a miscommunication of the series ending. But this? It seems too random for a misinterpretation, meaning either someone completely made it up for no reason, or there actually is some proof behind it. Because Snowbound was in the same place as Cuffed Together before it appeared on a bootleg DVD of all things, a bootleg.
So Latin Nick could have reached their hand into the vault and pulled out a random episode which happened to be a pilot. Not saying that is what happened, but....hm.....
you also bring up some points, latin nick could've just reached into the vault with a blindfold and aired it. i mean, latin america does have a tendency to air whatever they want (e.g. the unsold cartoon network big pick pilots) when it comes to TV. as for the xmas movie, i agree with you. it does seem too specific.
and yeah, i'm starting to realize why anyone would make this whole thing up. i mean they could, but like you said, why would they, anyway? i mean if snowbound was made there is a possibility they could've nick ordered another pilot. just something i realized right now, i kinda contradicted myself.
as for snowbound being in the same place as cuffed together, i think it's safe to say nobody knows if it was or where it is now. i mean sure, snowbound appeared on a bootleg, but why wasn't cuffed together on the bootleg? that's what i don't understand. and if whoever bootlegged it did find the pair, why was snowbound only on it? these are questions i think only time will answer.
i'm starting to gain a bit of interest on this. the point about snowbound being with cuffed together in the same place seems odd (at least if it is)... well, if that's not the case, interest is still here for it. i'll be sleuthing for more clues and try to get in contact with as many people as i can.
I actually retweeted Norbert's voice actor from Snowbound simplifying my question, and was also finally able to find contact to the creator, so I asked him straight up if the episode is real or not.
However, I doubt Norbert's voice actor will reply to me, and there's no guarantee that the creator will know what I'm talking about, or know how to get it (aside from even replying to me in the first place).
If he knowingly acknowledges it as fake, then I think the mystery is how the heck did this rumor start and spread with all the info around about it airing in Latin America and movie theaters.
And if he confirms it's real, we need to figure out how to get our hands on it if he doesn't have it. Since someone got their hands on Snowbound in arguably the same bootleg way (and I think Snowbound was sourced to a VHS tape), we'd have to do some serious hunting for this.
And if he ignores me, well dang. Trying to get in contact with more writers from back in the day would definitely be helpful too, but I haven't had any luck with that yet.
Though I could make an argument that unless he 100% knows exactly what I'm talking about (like Mark Marek when he would get tons of emails about Episode 29), for him to debunk it as fake simply from not remembering wouldn't close the possibility of it being real.
well, damn, lloyd. never thought you'd get in contact with the creator in a long time, the fact you got his contact info today fascinates me! let's wait and see if either one responds. i'm pretty darn excited to see. kudos to you!
So the first thing I noticed is that this post is from 2001. I have no idea at what time the Cuffed Together rumor started to gain momentum, (because I can't find any dates on the other websites that mention it, but I kinda doubt they were made before 2001), but factually I have no idea if this person wrote the fanfic because of hearing of the pilot beforehand, or if they were the origin of the title because looking through their old posts, they seem to be an obsessed Angry Beavers fan. So I think it could go either way.
I would have dug deeper and really read between the lines on everything they said (they even mentioned having an image from the Snowbound pilot they got from Mitch?) but this guy seems to have been really internet savvy with multiple accounts on different sites. So I'm going to see if I can find an email address and contact him to see what he says. If he says he made it up, I would strongly believe that Cuffed Together evolved from this guy's fanfic. Though of course, getting confirmation from Mitch or Norbert's voice would seal the deal.
I wish I knew more about the series because it's interesting to think that people claimed to actually see this episode when they might have been confusing it with another episode.
Thanks for posting this, I'll see what I can uncover.
EDIT:
I searched around for some kind of contact info for this guy, but couldn't find anything in his 3 or 4 abandoned accounts on different sites.
I'm actually starting to doubt this episode's existence now. Because even if the rumor of the episode did start prior to 2001, what's the chance that this guy's fanfiction just happens to match up completely with the episode's plot. And it wouldn't be a fanfiction if he just copied the plot of an episode that was already known to exist, which, it sounds like Snowbound WAS known about back in 2001- whereas in the past few years it was doubted to exist. And while the fanfiction doesn't mention anything about "escaping while cuffed together", that part could have easily been adapted into the description over the years it's been mentioned online.
I think we need official confirmation and nothing except that will prove it one way or another, unless someone gets it online.
Last Edit: Mar 18, 2016 22:00:03 GMT by LSuperSonicQ
I checked out the episode you mentioned, and you'll never guess when it originally aired.
February 17, 2001
This is 4 months before the Cuffed Together fanfic from the Toonzone thread.
So based on everything we've gathered in the past couple days, this is what I believe could have happened.
-The episode phorm39 mentioned,"The Posei-dam Adventure" airs on TV in 2001
-That guy from the Toonzone forums sees the episode and creatively makes it more dramatic and calls it "Cuffed Together" 4 months later.
-Many years later (like no earlier than late 2000s), Snowbound is rumored to exist as a pilot to the show, but people only vaguely remember the plot since this was lost and unconfirmed to exist until 2013.
-This sparks people to falsely remember the Cuffed Together fan-fiction combined with the plot of Posei-Dam Adventure, and you get people writing into episode guide sites with claims that there's another lost/rare/unseen pilot out there.
And there you have it. That's likely what happened with Cuffed Together.
The only thing I cannot prove for sure, is when the rumor for Cuffed Together originally started.
Like I said above, it could have (and probably did) start in the mid/late 2000s when episode guides started to make mention of it. Combine that with the fact that the same guy from Toonzone made mention of Snowbound existing in 2001 (probably 10 years before it was forgotten about and turned into a rumor), that likely means Cuffed Together did not exist because he would have mentioned it along with Snowbound, and he wouldn't have made a fanfiction about it.
At the same time though, I'm curious how on earth a random fanfiction from 2001 with no replies ended up sparking such a massive rumor, because heck, I overlooked it when I was doing the early research. And that's the only shred of "Cuffed Together" on the internet aside from episode guides talking about it, and the articles from this site. I'm also completely lost on how the Xmas Pageant movie got brought into the rumor at all. Plus, something that wasn't in the fanfiction was an "escape" from the police, though that could have been added into the plot over the years.
Finally, and as I've said before, this person couldn't have called their fanfiction a fanfiction if they knew about Cuffed Together at the time (which they probably would have), and it's very, very unlikely that it happened to be a coincidence their story lined up exactly with an unknown/unaired pilot in 2001.
We have yet to hear back from Norbert's voice actor or Mitch himself, but I think at this point we can be 99% sure the pilot doesn't exist. We probably could have come to that conclusion just by seeing that there's a fanfiction called Cuffed Together, but I wanted to absolutely be sure.
I'll let you guys know if there are any more developments.
We could also try and ask Richard Horvitz, Daggett's voice actor. Being the overly-obsessed Angry Beavers fan I am, I don't know if Nick Bakay would even know that much about Cuffed Together or any of the pilot(s), because he didn't voice Norbert in the pilots, but Richard Horvitz did voice Daggett in the pilot(s).
I've thought about that before, but ultimately decided against it because he'd be less likely to remember an episode from 20 years ago after voicing the whole series.
Aaaaaaaaaand just when we thought it was over....there's a twist.
Today, someone on my Cuffed Together YouTube video commented saying that The Splat flashed trivia at the bottom of the screen during an Angry Beavers episode that mentioned both pilots (Snowbound and Cuffed).
I don't watch The Splat, but can anyone confirm this? Is this something The Splat typically does or have they seen that trivia slide themselves???
I asked him for a screenshot so I assume I'll be in touch with him to determine whether or not he's lying.
Aaaaaaaaaand just when we thought it was over....there's a twist.
Today, someone on my Cuffed Together YouTube video commented saying that The Splat flashed trivia at the bottom of the screen during an Angry Beavers episode that mentioned both pilots (Snowbound and Cuffed).
I don't watch The Splat, but can anyone confirm this? Is this something The Splat typically does or have they seen that trivia slide themselves???
I asked him for a screenshot so I assume I'll be in touch with him to determine whether or not he's lying.
So that guy finally replied, and he said that the episode with the trivia about Cuffed Together aired the same night he posted his original comment on my video- so that was around April 18th.
Anyone who is interested in Cuffed Together I suggest looking for this before too long passes. I feel like the fact that this happened recently is in our favor to confirming it or not.
He also claimed that the trivia is what prompted him to look for videos about it in the first place (which is how he found mine), but while that makes a lot of sense, I remain skeptical.
Edit:
So I've done a bit of digging around and we are looking for "Splat Facts" from the Angry Beavers airing on Tuesday April 12th.
Last Edit: Apr 25, 2016 16:11:40 GMT by LSuperSonicQ