The Electric Piper (found Nickelodeon animated TV film; 2003)

The film's logo.

Status: Found

Date found: 09 Aug 2016

Found by: Anonymous, StewartIsMe (Movie), Synth Commando (Production Material)

The Electric Piper is an animated TV adaptation of The Pied Piper that aired on Nickelodeon in February 2003.^[1] The film was directed by Raymie Muzquiz and written by Bill Burnett, the creator of ChalkZone. The voice cast included Rodney Dangerfield, Rob Schneider, and George Segal.

Plot

Set in the late 1960s, the story centers around a guitarist named Sly (modelled after Jimi Hendrix) who uses his music to get rid of rats who are invading a suburban town called Hamlin. When the mayor doesn't give Sly his reward, a Harley Davidson motorcycle, he takes his revenge by convincing the children of the town to run away and join him on a mountain.

Availability

The movie hadn't been seen since its few initial airings on Nickelodeon, and it was never released on VHS or DVD. Only three clips of it had resurfaced onto the internet, one of which has since been taken down.

Legal Status

The film's director Raymie Muzquiz confirmed he has a copy of the film but that he hadn't been allowed to release it. He hoped to one day find a way to release it online but had confirmed that Nickelodeon's legal department decided that it did not have enough documentation on the music rights to re-release the movie safely. He also added that before the original movie aired, they had to re-record some of the music because Nickelodeon's legal department at the time thought the movie's songs were too close to the other songs that they were referencing.

Findings

On August 9th, 2016, an Anonymous user contacted someone who had worked on the movie and was given a VHS copy of the film to release. Later that month, on August 20th, 2016, Lost Media Wiki user "StewartIsMe" got ahold of a different copy of The Electric Piper sourced from an interlaced DVD master. This copy was then uploaded to Myspleen and then later uploaded to YouTube after the film was deinterlaced.

In December of 2019 user "Synth Commando" got in contact with Bill Burnett. Out of the conversation, Bill sent Synth Commando demos versions of almost the entire movie soundtrack, with the only exceptions being "Rat Town USA" and "London on the Moon." Bill Burnett also told Synth Commando the reason the movie only aired once, that being because "some of the songs sounded too similar to the songs they were parodying. The demos were later uploaded to YouTube on December 27th, 2019. Synth later did get his hands on the demo for "London on the Moon" and uploaded it to YouTube on February 21st, 2020.

On June 24th, 2020, Synth uploaded the original placeholder soundtrack to the movie. The soundtrack (made in 1998) was only temporary and was meant to be replaced. However, it does include a more finished version of the unused song "All dressed up."

On August 8th, 2020, "Synth Commando" uploaded the complete underscore to the film to his YouTube channel.

On May 22nd, 2021, Synth Commando received a VHS tape from director Raymie Muzquiz containing an early version of the movie without sound, and among the contents of the tape was the incomplete All Dressed Up Reprise deleted Scene.