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: Partially Lost

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 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 cancelled. A new and completely different season of the series ran on Nickelodeon.

Availability

A three-episode DVD of the animated series was bundled with the two original Ace Ventura movies. This was also the only DVD release of this show. It is currently unknown if all of the episodes will ever be released.

Every episode of this show can be found online (all recorded off VHS/TV), with the exception of just one episode.

Missing episode

Season 2's 10th episode Robo West cannot be found anywhere. Streaming site flixianity may have the episode, but this cannot be confirmed until someone creates an account for the website to download it.

Season 1's 11th episode "The Big Stink" was also lost until April 16th, 2016. It was found by Reddit user Newclearfallout on the file sharing site MySpleen. A contributor by the name of "THGhost" has uploaded it to YouTube and it can be watched here.