Kevin Spencer (partially lost miscellaneous media related to Canadian animated TV series; 1998-2005)
Title card for the original shorts.
Status: Partially Lost
Kevin Spencer was a Canadian animated series that was created by comedian Greg Lawrence and aired on The Comedy Network (now CTV Comedy Channel) for a total of eight seasons and 112 episodes between 1998 and 2005. It remains The Comedy Channel's longest running animated program and Canada's longest lived animated series that wasn't co-produced outside of the nation.
While all 112 episodes are archived as of 2022, there remains more media related to the series that has been lost to time, owing to the series' obscurity.
Mondo Media Shorts
- Status: Found
In December 2022, YouTuber 12ozApologizer would recover all 12 of the original shorts from the original SWF files, which can be viewed on Internet Archive. At the same time, all 12 original files were converted to MP4 files for upload to YouTube, all of which can be viewed below.[1]
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Burly Bear Network Shorts
- Status: Partially Lost
In January 2021, YouTuber Okie Grown released seven shorts to their channel. Before this, one short (confirmed to be "Drama Class") was uploaded to YouTube in September 2006 via a Catalan dub recorded from Canal 33. Six shorts remain unavailable.
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Exclusive DVD Content
- Status: Partially Found
2001 saw the release of Straightening Things Out, the series' sole home media release. The DVD version in particular features exclusive extras, such as audio commentary for the episodes (those being "Good Will Spencer," "The Tomb" and "Dreamland"), a music video, and an early version of the Burly Bear short "Birthday."
While the music video and short have been archived, the commentary videos were taken down by AuxiliaryMode Affiliates, along with a number of other videos related to Kevin Spencer.
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"Fire Starter" (missing first season episode)
- Status: Found (Castilian Spanish dub), Lost (English dub)
Current releases of season one, such as Tubi and the official uploads by Upstream Flix, show that it only has twelve episodes. What many don't know, however, was that there was an entirely banned episode of the series. The episode in question, "Fire Starter", was confirmed to exist, thanks to a report filed by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council in August 1999[2] as well as the Spanish Wikipedia article of the series, as well as a post on the now defunct IMDb message board of the series, which is quoted as follows from a post on the No Homers Club:
"The first year is missing many episodes such as "Magic Roy" and the one where Kevin got a job at a vet clinic, and he killed the kittens by running them over with a stolen car so he could sell the drugs to addicts. There are also others that are missing, including the pilot cartoon."[3]
The episode in question was found by 12ozApologizer on January 4, 2023. The episode currently only exists in its Castilian Spanish dub; since its banning in 1999, the original English version has ceased to exist. It is currently unknown if the master copy of the English version is in the hands of CTV (who broadcasted the series) or Greg Lawrence (the creator).
Interestingly, a clip from the episode appears in the first season intro, and the same clip appears in the season seven intro.
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Images
The first portion of the report.
The second portion of the report.
A clip from "Fire Starter" appears in the first season intro.
The same clip from the first season intro appearing in the seventh season intro.
Missing Episodes of Spanish Dub
- Status: Partially Found
During the series original run, LUK Internacional S.A. acquired the license to dub the series for Spanish audiences. This dub aired on the channel Cuatro. While all 112 episodes were on YouTube at some point, the majority of episodes were taken down by AuxiliaryMode Affiliates. Including the found dub of "Fire Starter", eleven episodes still remain available for viewing.
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External Links
- Wikipedia article on Kevin Spencer (Spanish).
- Archive.org upload of all 12 of the show's original shorts.
- YouTube playlist of all the found shorts.
References
- ↑ No Homers Club forum post on uploading all the found shorts. Retrieved 22 Dec '22
- ↑ Canadian Broadcast Standards Council report on a missing episode of the series. Retrieved 22 Dec '22
- ↑ No Homers Club forum post revealing more missing first season episodes. Retrieved 22 Dec '22