Disney, for instance, has The Shnookums and Meant Funny Cartoon Show but has not released it or aired it since 2007.
Cartoon Network, similarly, has the same situation with The Moxy [Pirate] [and Flea] Show, though it is even more drastic as it has not aired since 2000.
Do not even get me started on Teletoon.
My point is: if such companies are alive and well, why has nobody obtained the lost episodes from them and/or have they not released it online or on home media? (I know that it varies from country to country, but such shows mentioned above surely must not have seen the light of day since their last cases of airing.) People clearly want them, and considering that some have a better reputation than things like Disney cheapquels, you would think that the companies would pay a little gratitude in releasing the media.
Some might be legal issues (the channels don't have permission from the creator of the show or media to release it) or just out of mere embarassment.
I know that one of the episodes of Kablam (I don't remember the exact epsiode) only aired once, and the creator doesn't have intentions to release it again, because they thought it was so terrible.
Upon looking up teletoon, it looks pretty interesting. I'm going to delve further into that.
I get shows like Kablam! but am unsure if it applies to lost shows of Disney or Cartoon Network. (I also wonder why they never bothered to officially release shows on home media).
This might be more of a question involving Teletoon (Blaster's Universe, SPLAT!, Untalkative Bunny, etc.) and other companies like Xilam (Rintindumb, Mr Baby).
Talking about "lost" media that is sitting in the production company's vault and not actual "no one involved with this has a surviving copy" lost media, there's usually six options:
1. Those involved do not believe it's profitable to re-release the thing in question. 2. There are legal issues (clearance, ownership, unpaid royalties, expired distribution rights, etc.) that are too difficult and costly to overcome. 3. It could be damaging to an individual/company's image to re-release it (Song of the South, etc.). 4. The costs to transfer the media to a new format in a proper release would be astronomical (think MMOs that have had their servers turned off, or really old films/TV shows that need a complete restoration). 5. Through company acquisitions/mergers and employee turnover, those currently running the company are unaware of what's in their library. Or you know, they forgot about it. 6. The thing is genuinely lost media where the materials are completely gone.
I think we're on the cusp of a huge boom in "lost" media across all mediums (movies/TV shows, games, music, and books). There has never been as much English-language produced material as there is now. There are hundreds of TV channels across the world creating original content each year. Thousands of films. Probably tens of thousands of apps/games and books. Tens of thousands of online videos. The barrier to entry to creating content has never been lower, but who is documenting this? Who is ensuring their continued availability? As physical media declines in favour of digital releases, we're running the risk of losing a lot of things. We're no longer buying a copy of something that will last as long as the physical item can. We're buying licenses/viewing windows that can be removed at any time. We've already seen countless video games have their online components shutdown and countless others get removed from digital storefronts. We've seen straight to Netflix/iTunes productions vanish. We've seen digital ventures run by huge companies fail and everything produced for it goes away with it. This happens all the time without notice.
That's not even dealing with the behemoth that is amateur-produced content on Youtube, Soundcloud, Amazon Kindle, etc. where 5 years from now the service they uploaded their stuff on has been shutdown and they have no backups, or the sole owner passed away and their digital storefront has to be removed since a dead person can't do website upkeep or collect a cheque.
The worst part is that we're living in the worst age of copyright protection, where companies have ignored fair use and have tried their hardest to prevent things from falling into public domain. These big businesses have shown time and time again they're uninterested and incapable of making their libraries available to current audiences, so it's up to historians and pirates. A Youtube user may have uploaded the only known footage of a show from personal VHS recordings. Then that channel to get taken down by copyright strikes so that "found" media becomes "lost" all over again.
I remember how much of a pain in the a.. it was to get an official release for MTVs Daria. When MTV had produced the show they had used pop music in lots of episodes, but only acquired the rights for broadcasting the show with these songs, not for home media releases. Back in those days home media releases of TV shows weren't as big as they were today, when almost every new show gets a DVD release, so MTV simply didn't bother. What made the relase possible in the end was that a lot of people wanted it, and MTV knew that (through online petitions for example). So MTV negotiated with the copyright owners of the music they used (mostly as background music), and when they couldn't they used completely different background music.
I can imagine that more shows have this problem and because the fanbase is quite small, they won't be released because it is simply too expensive to create entirely new music or pay the license fees to the copyright owners.
My biggest issue is not so much the media not being released at all (for the reason outlined by other posters), but I do get really annoyed at companies that release only in certain regions. Disney is one of the worst at this. I have 3 TV series from the 00s (so quality of the original should not be an issue) that I love and this is the availability of them on iTunes is as follow:
Dave the Barbarian - Not Available, Fillmore - Germany, Kim Possible - USA, Germany and Great Britain
This is random and extremely annoying as I have no legal way to buy content that others can.
Last Edit: Mar 15, 2017 8:38:32 GMT by Amdillae: typo
I remember how much of a pain in the a.. it was to get an official release for MTVs Daria. When MTV had produced the show they had used pop music in lots of episodes, but only acquired the rights for broadcasting the show with these songs, not for home media releases. Back in those days home media releases of TV shows weren't as big as they were today, when almost every new show gets a DVD release, so MTV simply didn't bother. What made the relase possible in the end was that a lot of people wanted it, and MTV knew that (through online petitions for example). So MTV negotiated with the copyright owners of the music they used (mostly as background music), and when they couldn't they used completely different background music.
I can imagine that more shows have this problem and because the fanbase is quite small, they won't be released because it is simply too expensive to create entirely new music or pay the license fees to the copyright owners.
Look at Cold Case, Murphy Brown, Head of the Class, Drew Carey Show, Bernie Mac Show, Chicago Hope, New York Undercover, Clueless, American Dreams, Ed, & Malcolm in the Middle, they're all suffering from this curse, too. 😔
Until the day either Shout! Factory or StarVista/TimeLife clears all the copyrighted music and licences the DVD rights to all these shows I mentioned on top, these shows will remain locked up deep in the vaults of their respetcive studios.