The Secret Show (partially lost miscellaneous media from British animated TV show; 2006-2008)

The Secret Show platformer.

Status: Partially Lost

The Secret Show was a BAFTA-winnng, independently-produced animation series made for the BBC, by Collingwood/O'Hare. It was about the semi-secret organisation U.Z.Z. and their top agents Victor Volt and Anita Knight, dealing with the dastardly machinations of Doctor Doctor's T.H.E.M. syndicate every second Tuesday, as well as saving the planet several times over from other villains such as The Impostors, Reptogators, and Prince Spong of the Floaty Heads. First devised in 2004, it premiered on CBBC in 2006 (in the UK) and on Nicktoons in 2007 (in the US).

Although the series itself is readily available for viewing, a considerable amount of media related to it is currently unavailable.

Found/Partially Found Media

The Nicktoons American dub (Partially found)

Upload of "Booger Ball" showcasing major differences from the original.

Paired with "Wedgie Attack" in the second of the double-billed episodes in Nicktoons broadcasts, the episode "Bogie Ball" had every use of the word "bogie" redubbed into "booger" for all voice lines, and the title-card was changed accordingly. Edited portions of it were uploaded by YouTube User TheSecretShow4You from their own camrip, although in very low quality.

Additionally, the episode "The Z-Ray Goggle Of Power" was redubbed to say "ZEE-Ray Goggles" instead of "ZED-Ray Goggles" when aired on Nicktoons.

It is unknown how many additional episodes were redubbed as only 1 of the 26 Nicktoons double-bills has surfaced.

The Martian Dub of "Super-Vic" (Found)

One of the most famous pieces of lost media from the show, this was exclusive to the Australian release of the Volume 2 DVD - although TV listings suggest it may have briefly aired on Nicktoons. It was a self-satirical in-character commentary on the episode "Super-Vic", showing the main cast supposedly "redubbing the episode into Martian for the benefit of those watching on Mars", seemingly on their first take. Naturally the "Martian" is nonsense and the redub devolves into everyone arguing over what the Martian language supposedly is, and what actually happened during the episode's events. Remaining elusive for many years, it was found and uploaded onto Google Drive and shared on Tumblr in its entirety in late 2016.

The 2004 'Lucky Leo' pilot (Partially Found)

The original number on Leo's plane in the trailer.

Leo's plane as it appears in the final episode.

Before the series was picked up by the BBC, a pilot episode called "Lucky Leo" was fully made in 2004 and later recycled into the series 2 premiere episode of the same name in 2007. As Tony Collingwood explains:

"I wrote Lucky Leo as the pilot episode, and we made it at our own expense to pitch the series. ... Lucky Leo went out as episode 27, with very minor changes. I think we just re-timed the gag at the end when all the meteorites miss the “lucky” Earth. Apart from that – the episode is exactly the same as the pilot. We held the episode back in case we fell behind in production, and could throw that one in to catch up! So we used it half way through to give the crew a breather!"

A few short shots of the original version appear in the 2005 trailer for the show. The only noticeable difference is the number on the bi-plane Leo steals, being "11" in the pilot as opposed to "0207" in the final version, otherwise the found footage does indeed look identical to the final cut.

Lost Media

Commentary on "Flick The Switch!"

Previously completely unheard of, this redub was meant to have been released on the cancelled Volume 3 DVD, which never made it to market despite reportedly being complete. It was uploaded by an anonymous affiliate of Tony Collingwood to YouTube in late 2016 but was immediately blocked by the Content ID system, leaving it inaccessible before it caught any public attention.

According to Mr Collingwood himself, “I enjoyed writing [The Martian Dub] – and we had a blast recording it with the actors. We did another episode like that as a DVD extra, where Changed Daily held a post mission briefing, with the entire cast commenting on how they did during the episode. Not sure if that ever made it out into the world?”

The 3rd Behind-The-Scenes featurette

The only proof of the 3rd short's existence, the thumbnail of the blocked video.

Following the production of "Actors Playing U.Z.Z." and "Artists Drawing U.Z.Z.", a further making-of short, of yet unknown title, was made for the ill-fated Volume 3 DVD. Having been previously unheard of, it was uploaded to YouTube with the "Flick The Switch!" commentary and befell exactly the same fate. As such, all that is known is that the Farmer From Devon re-appears, as he is visible in the thumbnail.

There may have been a 4th BTS film made, as evidenced by this quote from Tony Collingwood: "We made a lot of bloopers and four mini mock documentaries. One for each DVD." However, it is unknown if this is referring to the BTS featurettes or the Professor Professor Lectures which also seemed slated to have one on each volume.

The CBBC Platformer

Gameplay demonstration.

The first truly interactive media made for the show, this game was available on the CBBC website between roughly 2006 and 2009. Predating the TheSecretShow.com website, it was the first game made by Complete Control for Collingwood/O'Hare. A video showcasing parts of it was uploaded to the developer's Dailymotion channel. The game's original filename was "framework.swf" in the "spies" directory on the site.

Screencap of the single capture the Wayback has of the platformer's homepage on the CBBC site.