Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (found animated TV series based on comedy film starring Jim Carrey; 1995-2000)

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Ace Venture Cartoon Title.jpg

Title screen from the animated series.

Status: Found

Date found: Unknown

Found by: Unknown

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is an animated television series based on the 1994 film of the same name. The series was produced by Morgan Creek Productions and Nelvana for Warner Bros. Television. It aired for two seasons from 1995 to 1997 on CBS. A third season and reruns of the previous episodes aired on Nickelodeon from 1999 to 2000.

Design

Following the two original Ace Ventura movies, the titular character, voiced by Canadian actor Michael Daingerfield (credited as Michael Hall), is a goofy private investigator with a predilection for animals of all species.

Many of the characters from the original movie were retained, though not voiced by their original actors. While the original movies already had a strongly cartoonish comedic aesthetic, they were eclipsed by the slapstick and garish humor of the cartoon. Seth MacFarlane was among the writers over the course of the show's run.

The show was rife with toilet humor and anachronisms (one episode centered around the Egyptian Mau, claiming it to be an extinct breed of cat, when, in fact, they are not), displaying similar humor to his later series.

Original Airing

The show ran on CBS for two seasons, with the third season airing on Nickelodeon when that channel acquired the show to broadcast reruns.

Despite running in a time slot after The Mask (another popular cartoon based on a Jim Carrey film) and a crossover with that show (in that series' finale, "The Aceman Cometh"), the series failed to gain a large audience.

Ultimately, both The Mask and Ace Ventura were canceled And a new and completely different season of the series ran on Nickelodeon.

Availability

There are 7 VHS volumes released encompassing the entire first season. A three-episode DVD of the animated series was bundled with the two original Ace Ventura movies. These episodes included The Rein-Deer Hunter, Natural Born Koalas, and Dragon Guy. Dragon guy is the only commercially available official english release of an episode outside of season 1. This was also the only DVD release of this show.


Episode List

Season # Release Date Episode Title Status
01 01 December 9, 1995 The Reindeer Hunter Found
01 02 January 20, 1996 Bowling for Bear Found
01 03 January 27, 1996 Pet Food Found
01 04 February 3, 1996 The Parrot Who Knew Too Much Found
01 05 February 10, 1996 French Dip Found
01 06 February 17, 1996 Natural Born Koalas Found
01 07 February 24, 1996 The Hounds of D'Urbervilles Found
01 08 March 2, 1996 Remembrance of Trunks Past Found
01 09 March 9, 1996 Night of the Gorilla Found
01 10 March 30, 1996 Day of the Groundhog Found
01 11 April 6, 1996 The Big Stink Found
01 12 April 20, 1996 The Gator Gal Found
01 13 April 27, 1996 The Bull Market Found

Missing Episodes Recovered

Season 2's 10th episode "Robo West" is confirmed to be in the Getty images archives from a 1997 BBC recording. [1]

Season 1's 11th episode "The Big Stink" was discovered to be on Myspleen on April 16th, 2016 by Reddit user Newclearfallout. A LMW contributor by the name of "THGhost" has uploaded it to YouTube.[2]

On May 24th, 2018, a man by the name of Dan Vzare emailed The Lost Cartoons Archive with 2 additional episodes from season 3 that he'd found on his hard drive; "Circus Ace" and "The Cat Who Paints". Much like "Robo West", there was previously zero trace of these episodes online. Not even on Wikipedia's list of episodes for the show until Dan added them himself. He found the episodes years ago from a now-defunct torrent site. The two episodes can also be watched on The Lost Cartoons Archive's YouTube channel.[3][4]

On April 9th 2019, LMW user, "Book333" found the episode "Robo West" on the 16th page of a Google search. On May 7th 2019, a Snahp.it user by the name of "StarkSkywalker" shared some German downloads of the entire series from Amazon, including "Robo West". This appears to be the same copy that Book333 found. StarkSkywalker soon contacted an associate of The Lost Cartoons Archive and it has been uploaded HERE.

References