For the discussion of lost media, and the searches for them. Banner by u/AgentPeggyCarter
I think mine was the Bugs Bunny cartoon Heckling Hare. If anyone remembers ToonHeads, it showed different cartoons while an announcer provided commentary/trivia in between each cartoon.
For Heckling Hare, it was said that the episode ended abruptly because the original ending was "cut and lost forever" according to the commentary. I don't think I understood what that meant at the time because I was probably around 10 years old when I saw this (I'm 37 now).
Eventually when I was older and discovered Wikipedia, I started finding all sorts of stuff on lost films and hope to find some of it some day but so far that hasn't happened.
In the case of Heckling Hare I personally don't believe it will ever be found simply because it's likely that what ever was cut ended up on the cutting room floor and was eventually disposed of which is probably the case for a lot of lost media especially for earlier times.
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Christine Chubbuck’s infamous case and the lost episode of Sesame Street with Margaret Hamilton
Margaret Hamilton Sesame Street is here https://youtu.be/21btSNc6tIU?feature=shared
I just came here to say it was probably one of the NSFL ones since those have a lot of notoriety.
In my case it would be Christine Chubbuck's recording or the Armin Meiwes tapes since I saw them long ago before any major lost media compilations were made. I saw them through horror youtubers.
A Day With SpongeBob SquarePants
this still plays around a small part in my mind
The 1910 16-minute adaptation of Frankenstein produced by Thomas Edison. I was always checking out books about horror movies from the library in elementary school (not even horror novels, just books recounting the plots and giving behind the scenes details of classics of the genre) and a few of them pointed to it as the first true horror film, that no surviving copies were known to exist, and of course featured the memorable image of the Creature as the only remaining image from the production.
In reality, there was a badly-preserved but still viewable copy that was discovered in the 1970s, and while it had only been screened a few times since then when I was reading those books, it would become commercially available in the 2000s and see various restorations over the last couple decades.
So not really lost media, not by the time I read those books anyway, but presented as such and planted the seed of fascination for the topic in my mind.
I remember that book, the crestwood monster serires (the orange ones) it had that classic picture of edisons monster..
I don't know if it counts, but Resident Evil 2 had a prototype build that fans have dubbed Resident Evil 1.5. Back when I first heard about it it had just become publicly available, and before that it was known to exist but held by private collectors. Before that though, I would say it classified as lost media.
Video games definitely count. The cool thing is that sometimes they actually get recovered and get officially released like Clockwork Aquario, Sky Skipper, Shantae GBA and Ultracore
The reason I question its validity is because Capcom likely had data on the game even after they scrapped the initial build, and there were several copies known to exist in the hands of Capcom employees. A bunch of images were unveiled in 1999 (development started in 1997, the final product released in 1998) from a Capcom employee who had a build of the game. That person hasn't been heard from since, so who knows what happened to them. But with copies known to exist, I don't know if that qualifies as "lost", but it definitely wasn't available to the public.
Educational cartoon about hookworm, produced by Walt Disney Company
I think it was the blameitonjorge video, I’ve been fascinated by lost media ever since
The missing Doctor Who episodes
Same
Clock man
Probably either the original full-length cut of The Land Before Time, or the full cut of Disney's Fantasia featuring Sunflower. I was a massive animation history nerd starting in my late teens.
You know how wacky people can be! On May 14th 2015 in Boke, Germany, 748 members of the Cologne Carnival Society dressed up in sunflower outfits. This is the largest gathering of people known to have dressed up as sunflowers.
You know what, that was completely unrelated but I enjoyed reading it! Good bot!
I know it’s been debunked now, but a day in the life with SpongeBob
Ready 'n' Steady.
Such a classic. It's a shame more people don't know about this one.
After the song finally premiered to the public, I remember there being some talk of releasing the rest of D.A. and the Dukes' recordings (3-4 other songs IIRC) in some shape or form. A shame that it apparently never happened IMO.
EDIT: Wait, no, someone actually uploaded them back in 2020! Apparently, the Crap From the Past radio show eventually got around to airing the rest of them. Cool! Did anyone ever notice?
Not any specific thing, but the fact that TV shows used to broadcast live and there were no recordings made. I don't know if that counts, because the same thing could be said of various plays and musicals, but the idea that there were TV shows that can never be shown again blew my young mind.
Or that they did record the shows, but it was standard procedure to record over the tapes after a certain period of time.
London after midnight, I watched phantom of the opera back in the early 80s and whilst looking for more Lon Chaney, found out about this lost legend.
1st time i actualy paid attention to the term lost media was about london after midnight .. i bought the book "lost film" thats about it
This is the one for me too. Struck me as so strange that mainstream films would just completely disappear like that.
Iirc correctly, the last known copy was destroyed in a stockroom fire
There's been a rumour that there's one in Australia, but that unfulfilled dream has been going about for years, if not decades; we will just have to wait and hope
Saved by the Bell Cast Hosts "Who Shrunk Saturday Mornings Special" (1989)
Watched it when it aired and i never saw or heard about it again till someone put it on Youtube years ago.
The original cut of Erich von Stroheim's Greed.
This, the original cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, and the Theda Bara Cleopatra are my Holy Grails of film.
Must have been Rude Removal, or something along the lines of that. I think my interest in lost media first began from my interest in animation and by extension, animation censorship.
the Blameitonjorge lost / banned episodes of kids shows + too 20 lost kids films videos
Same for me. I think he was one of the first to popularize lost media as we know it today (there were probably others but I remember his video being big for the time)
The cut Bolt 45 sketch from In Living Color.
FoodFight or mentions of silent films that no longer exist.
What was lost about food fight? I went to see it when i was a child
Edit. So apparently i didnt i guess i was thinking of a different movie but i think i definitely have seen the dvd release when i was in school or something
There was an original version of the movie was already animated but it was believed to have been deleted after years of being stolen.
The Day the Clown Cried
This one supposedly exists. Jerry Lewis had the only existing copy and refused to screen it for anyone. Would be interesting to know what has become of it after his death and if it will ever see the light of day.
Just looked it up to refresh my memory. Apparently he donated a copy to the US Library of Congress in 2015 with a stipulation that it would not be aired until at least June 2024.
Jeff The Killer's original image
pink morning cartoon. still so upset it was never found 😭
Everyone Knows That ( Lost Wave) im way more active on there because thats my favorite subgenre of lost media, i love music aswell im not good at finding things, im good at popularising things, less known lost wave.
Got some good news
Yeah it got found ik 😜
The lost episodes of Doctor Who, I believe.
The first piece of something being lost that I heard of was probably the lost episodes of Dad’s Army season two, including the ones that eventually were found. I rarely see Dad’s Army spoken about in lost media coverage. A shame, it’s a brilliant series, one of the BBC’s best in my opinion.
Encarnacion Bechaves. I loved the ominous feeling of lost media and the eerie vibe from that lost commerical. Just from the fan made concepts it feels so cool that I wanted more and now It got me into lost media and lostwave.
Pretty sure it was a creepypasta, but it was framed as a lost video on YouTube of Squidward getting so fed up with everything that he.. yeaaaaah.
If I'm thinking of the same one, I believe that's a creepypasta called Red Mist or Squidward's Suicide. It did get a pretty brief nod in one episode of SpongeBob, though.
Yeah, that was kind of surprising. The Amazing World of Gumball did something similar as well at one point.
Eh? When was that?
Season 4, Episode 38 - The Compilation back in 2016. It riffs on the creepypasta The Grieving.
Quirino Cristiani’s animated films. It was from Animat’s series chronicling the history of stop motion, and he brought up the oldest surviving animated films.
unfortunately, considering how icky he turned out to be, it was nick robinson's video about the mcdonalds DS training game. it led me down a rabbithole about other lost mcdonalds x nintendo DS collaborations, which is still a topic of lost media that im passionate about today
I am unable to find any info on what Nick did to make him seem iccky so could you please share it
if you google "nick robinson polygon" a handful of different articles and reddit threads come up, but the tl;dr is that he has a long history of sexually harassing women
holy fuck that is icky
Basically asked women on Twitter, including industry correspondents, to send him nudes.
holy fuck
The porygon episode of Pokemon.
Ekt
Rude Removal, of course. Pretty weird one for me to start out with.
Shrek test animation
I think it's Like the Wind but idk
London After Midnight (Movie is almost gone completely) The Hilarious House of Frightenstein (70’s Canadian produced kids horror show starring Vincent Price). There are missing episodes and segments.
A day in the life of SpongeBob I believe it’s called
Still haven’t see anything from it
It's fake
The old demos of Hollywood undead
Does Creepypasta count? Cuz those aren’t real. I remember the one about someone finding a tape of Barney & Friends to play for their kids but it was a Barney.exe type of video where Barney turns evil, and eats the kids & all that.
But back to reality. The first piece of lost media I remember was that clip of Steve Irwin’s death. There was a fake one put up on YouTube (that I believed for years) but apparently the family had the master tape & either destroyed it or kept it for themselves.
Savox opened my eyes to lost media. Love that guy.
Creepypastas wouldn't count in this sense unless the story itself is actually lost, like that one Russian /x/ story that was missing for some odd years until it was recovered.
Mine was the brittle bones episode from Double Dare
you were right lol
A Weird Al album called Me, Myself, and I. Apparently, because I had not thought about it until now, it was a fake album for a mockumentry about Al that was released in the early 80s but as a kid in the late 80s/early 90s we all believed it was real and just lost to the world.
The Electric Piper
I remember going to rabbit holes on Wikipedia for every cartoon I liked, when I went to the list of episodes of Dexter Laboratory, the episode Rude Removal was listed as lost and only being showed at conventions in the 90's.
I was so interested after that and weeks later I remember adult swim asking on social media if we wanted to watch the episode on YouTube, it was awesome seeing being real
Depending on how far you want to stretch it, possibly the lost and missing content from The Wizard of Oz back when I was a kid. The featurette documentary is probably up on YouTube now, but I don't remember how they referred to the content in question or how much is still unaccounted for.
If not this, erm, possibly the lost horror films video James Rolfe made a long time ago. That was probably where I got super into looking for weird odds and ends titles for some old horror mutuals.
Either TMMS or the original JTK image
that one jorge video on that Sesame Street cracks short
Clockman
Possibly either A Day With SpongeBob or Clockman.
Technically the first piece of lost media I had ever heard of was the Batman Brave and the Bold lost episodes and scenes because Blame it on Jorge introduced me to the idea of lost media overall. But the 1st one I was invested in was A Day With SpongeBob and that hot mess lol.
House of 1000 Corpses directors cut and Event Horizons missing footage
It was either the weird McDonald’s show the creator of Rugrats made or the Johnny quasar demo.
I loved the Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald when I was little. My favorite one was the outer space one.
It was in a video by Super Varo Blog talking about the lost Latin Spanish dub of Mirmo Zibang, pretty good video of a really good obscure Youtuber. I recommend you give it a watch if you speak Spanish. That’s where i learned lost media exists, and a pretty weird piece of it
He made a follow up video a few years ago
Not really specific but Blameitonjorge’s video “Top 20 lost or banned episodes of kids shows” was the first that introduced me to the concept of lost media when I watched it around 2015/2016
Other than that, some early ones that come to mind are Blue Prints, lost Double Dare episodes, rude removal, Sesame Street wicked witch, Angry Beavers Finale, and Kablam episode 29
Probably SpongeBob SquarePants Saves the Krusty Krab 3D. Granted, it wasn't "lost" yet when I played it on Nick.com way back when, but hey, it kinda counts! Otherwise, it'd probably be either Sonic X-Treme or The Missing Coach IIRC.
I believe the Sesame Street Wicked Witch episode, glad it got found
Learning about studio fires destroying London After Midnight
I know it’s more of a creepypasta and has been debunked but Candle Cove was my first exposure to “lost media” a really long time ago
it was the song "One Chance" which has now been found, it was a combo between "Yummy Yummy" by Europa and "Mandalay" by Vital Sines