Monster Jam (partially found European airings; 2006-2009)

Captain's Curse tumbles into the stands as seen in a European broadcast.

Status: Partially Found

The Monster Jam Lost European Airings are a series of episodes of the television show Monster Jam that were aired exclusively in European countries, but have not surfaced in full online. Some of these episodes have been partially found while others are completely lost with no footage available online at all.

Background

Monster Jam is a live motorsports show that began in 1992. The show revolved around monster trucks competing against each other in racing and freestyle competitions. Monster Jam was first televised in 2000 under the name Motor Madness before changing its name the following year in 2001. The series hosts events at various stadiums and arenas across the United States, most shows taking place between January and March each calendar year. All of the shows lead up to the Monster Jam World Finals in late March, the main championship event to decide the champions in the racing and freestyle competitions. The series then hosts the Summer Heat series in July, which revolves around speedway shows before hosting the European tour in September till the end of the year. Monster Jam was broadcast on TNN from 2000-2002 before switching over to the SPEED channel from 2003-2013. Currently, the shows are now broadcast on FOX Sports.

European Airings

The unique on-screen transitional graphic exclusively used in European broadcasts
The unique Finals on-screen graphics
The unique Freestyle on-screen graphics

As TNN and SPEED were only available in the United States, this meant that only American viewers were able to watch Monster Jam on television. All of these original episodes have since been uploaded to YouTube on the official Monster Jam YouTube channel, but require payment to watch. In 2006, Monster Jam began airing in Europe, the United Kingdom in particular having the episodes aired on the-then new channel Bravo 2. A commercial was specifically created for the UK to advertise this, entirely using clips of the Monster Jam World Finals 7 event that had taken place earlier that year and the most recent World Finals event at the time.^[1] The World Finals 7 event was the first official episode to be broadcast in Europe, though very oddly, the episode was aired in its original SPEED channel format, despite the UK not having access to the channel. The freestyle portion of the show was aired first while the racing portion was aired the next day in the early hours of the morning, when in actuality the racing portion always takes place first.^[2] Following these direct copies of the SPEED channel airings, the next episode aired, Montreal 2005, was instead broadcast in an entirely different and unique presenting style, using new on-screen graphics and having only the racing finals shown and the freestyle portion taking up almost all of the episodes run times. Scott Douglass, the main host and commentator for Monster Jam, provided pre-recorded commentary and was the sole presenter.^[3] The European broadcasts lasted up until 2009 and featured episodes that had also been aired on SPEED in the United States, such as Pontiac 2006, Orlando 2006, Detroit 2007 and St. Louis 2007, as well as shows from 2008 and 2009, in this unique style. However, within these European broadcasts lied exclusive airings of shows that were only partially televised or not televised at all in the United States. Some of the shows had previously been aired in the United States in segments called "Around the USHRA" which were featured as part of other shows. In particular in 2007, the SPEED channel aired a special episode recapping freestyle events that had happened throughout the year. Shows such as San Antonio 2007, San Francisco 2007 and Tampa 2007 where shown in this special episode and all three of these shows had been televised in Europe, using the same footage with added timer graphics. One show, Cardiff 2007, was aired in Europe and footage of this show in particular was never released in the US at all.^[4] European airings of shows from 2010 are not known to exist as Bravo 2 closed down in 2011 and Europe would often receive Monster Jam episodes months after the US had originally broadcast them.

Availability

As Monster Jam is not as popular in Europe as in the US, these European broadcasts have become extremely rare to find online and only a small amount of clips have been uploaded to YouTube. While it is unknown exactly how many episodes were televised in Europe, there are videos of certain shows available as well as information posted to online forums.

On 14 September 2009, user MonsterJamUnlimited uploaded a 7-minute video of the Monster Jam World Finals 10 event as it was broadcast in Europe. The airing is presumably from a Dutch channel as the video features Dutch subtitles. This particular airing gained notice as it famously featured the Captain's Curse truck driven by Alex Blackwell rolling over into the stands of Sam Boyd Stadium while racing against Tom Meents driving Maximum Destruction in the final round of racing to determine the champion. The crash was famously censored on the SPEED channel in the US as well as on the official DVD of the event that came out later in the year. The reason for the censoring was due to two separate incidents that occured in the monster truck industry earlier on in January that resulted in two people being killed, one was a 9-year old boy and the other was famous monster truck announcer George Eisenhart. While the Captain's Curse crash did not result in any injuries or deaths and only the stadium guard rails being damaged, the shocking footage could've put the monster truck scene in serious jeopardy. Had these two incidents not happened before hand, it's possible that the Captain's Curse crash would not have been censored, though this cannot be confirmed. It is not known why exactly the crash was shown in full in Europe, but as the airing came as late as September, it's possible that the controversies of earlier in the year had died down by that point. Despite this, during the CBS Sports recap of the event in the US, a brief shot of Captain's Curse rolling over was seen before the footage cut away from the truck flipping into the stands. The European broadcast of World Finals 10 is the only known footage of the Captain's Curse crash that has been officially released, with the exception of various camcorder footages shot by fans who were in attendence for the event.

In regards to the whole European broadcast of World Finals 10, MonsterJamUnlimited put in the description of the video that the rest of the episode was going to uploaded, but this never happened and the whole show has not been found yet. The 7-minute upload can still be viewed on YouTube.^[5]

Six days later on 20 September 2009, mtcthor uploaded two separate compilation videos of the Toronto and San Antonio 2009 shows. Neither of these were televised in the United States in any capacity, not even in recap shows, making these exclusive to Europe. Both of these shows have still not been released in full in any capacity, but the uploads from mtcthor are still available.^[6]^[7]

After 2009, three years would pass without any footage of the Monster Jam European episodes surfacing online. However, on 5 April 2013, user Square One uploaded a video titled "Monster Jam Greasing the Wheel", a compilation video of various Monster Jam shows. The video included footage of Cardiff 2007 and Anaheim 2008, two shows that never received a broadcast in the United States. Blue Thunder's and Thor's crashes at Anaheim and Cardiff respectively were the clips in question. The full broadcasts of both shows are not known to be online and it is unknown where Square One acquired the clips.^[8]

The final known instances of European broadcasts being uploaded to YouTube was around 2014 when user pita888 uploaded the San Antonio 2007 episode in its entirety, albeit split up into parts. The airing did not have English commentary and all parts have since been removed due to a copyright claim by FELD Entertainment. However, pita888 uploaded another video titled "My Edited Video (MJ Freestyle Part 4)". Another compilation video, this upload featured clips of An Escalade's and Maximum Destruction's freestyle runs at San Francisco and Tampa respectively, both from 2007. Both of these shows were included in the recap episode on SPEED, but were shown in Europe, which are not known to be online in full.^[9]

Forum Discoveries

On 19 July 2021, fandom Wiki user PolarisWasTaken discovered old posts from an online forum, Monster Mayhem. One thread from 15 July 2009 detailed the European broadcast of World Finals 10 with the Captain's Curse crash. User uk_dan, an English monster truck fan, highlighted that the airing featured Nitro Circus and Grave Digger both landing on the side aprons at the side of the track, as well the Maximum Destruction backflip at the end of the show. The Nitro Circus and Grave Digger rollovers where only shown through on-board footage in the US airing and DVD releases while the Maximum Destruction backflip was completely omitted from both those releases.^[10] uk_dan also previously posted on the forum two months before on 12 May 2009 about which shows were televised in the United Kingdom on Bravo 2. The shows he listed were the first 2009 Minneapolis show, Phoenix 2009, Tampa 2009 and Knoxville 2009. Knoxville was an arena show, of which those were rarely shown on TV apart from brief clips, thus making that airing the only known full broadcast of an arena show.^[11]

Monster Jam Membership

In July 2020, Monster Jam announced on their official YouTube channel that they would be offering a paid membership for fans and subscribers to watch all Monster Jam shows from 2000 to 2018.^[12] These shows were the original US broadcasts on TNN, SPEED and FOX Sports. All the original US airings have been officially released, but no European broadcasts were included on the membership.

FELD Response

The email from FELD regarding the European airings

In August 2021, fandom Wiki user RobotManiac reached out to FELD via email to ask if the European episodes would be released as part of the membership. FELD responded on 18 August stating that they have discusses internally about releasing the episodes and consider it a good idea. However, as of February 2022, no European broadcasts have been released on the membership.

Known Episodes List

Episode Title	Status
San Antonio 2006	Lost
San Diego 2006	Lost
Indianapolis 2006	Lost
Minneapolis 2006	Lost
San Francisco 2007	Partially Found
Anaheim 2007	Lost
San Antonio 2007	Partially Found
Tampa 2007	Partially Found
Cardiff 2007	Partially Found
Anaheim 2008	Partially Found
Indianapolis 2008	Partially Found
Minneapolis 2009 (Show 1)	Lost
Houston 2009 (Show 3)	Lost
Tampa 2009	Lost
Phoenix 2009	Lost
Knoxville 2009	Lost
San Antonio 2009	Partially Found
Toronto 2009	Partially Found
World Finals X (Euro Airing)	Partially Found

Images

An Escalade at San Francisco 2007 with the driver info box graphics used in the European airings
An Escalade at San Francisco 2007 with the timer graphic used in the European airings
Maximum Destruction at Tampa 2007 with the timer graphic used in the European airings
El Matador at San Antonio 2007, never seen in any US broadcast
Blue Thunder at Anaheim 2008, never seen in any US broadcast
Team Suzuki at Anaheim 2008, never seen in any US broadcast
Avenger at Indianapolis 2008, never seen in any US broadcast
Thor at Cardiff 2007, never seen in any US broadcast
Thor at Cardiff 2007, note the different timer graphic used for this episode only