Keep Circulating the Tapes/Rescued

Anime & Manga

 * The English-language version of The Mysterious Cities of Gold was believed to have been lost after the dubbing studio went bankrupt. However, DVD editions of the entire collection were finally released in 2008, and the whole show is currently streamed on Netflix instant.
 * It was recently announced that the Revolutionary Girl Utena series will be released by The Right Stuf International - through Nozomi Entertainment - across three DVD sets (using the show's remastered Region 2 DVD release as the video base), as well as the movie.
 * In Australia, Madman Entertainment successfully licenced the Digimon Adventure dub and put out a pair of boxsets constituting the series' complete run. No word on whether they'll follow up on any of the other Digimon series currently lacking full dub releases, nor on any such thing for the rest of the world.
 * They're YTV's copies, featuring a logo on the openings. 'Sly', an executive at Madman, said this was the best quality one available to them. They don't seem to be missing any scenes, but what happened to the clean originals?
 * For the longest time, only half of Samurai Pizza Cats was available on a hard-to-find DVD box set. This box set had a good 26 episodes (most series only run that long), but the second season had some of the funniest episodes of the series. There was also almost no merchandise in the US. Cue frustrated fanbase. Until Discotek announced the license of both the dub and original version in two complete box sets . Cue happy fanbase. (Even moreso after since the below Power Rangers announcement came the same day.)

Comic Books

 * Flex Mentallo was originally introduced in an issue of Doom Patrol as a parody of the well-known "Insult That Made a Man out of Mac" bodybuilding ads by Charles Atlas. Later on, in 1996, he got a mini-series of his own, written by his creator Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely. Some time after the mini-series came out someone informed the Charles Atlas company about Flex, and they promptly sued DC (the publisher of Doom Patrol and Flex Mentallo) for trademark infringement. Since Flex, as an obvious parody, was legally considered to be a case of Fair Use, the lawsuit was settled in favour of DC. However, even though the creative team of Morrison and Quitely has later on released some critically praised and popular series (All-Star Superman being the best known of them), DC has never collected the Flex Mentallo mini. The origin story of Flex (where the Charles Atlas connection is much more obvious than in the mini-series) was actually collected in a 2006 Doom Patrol trade paperback, so clearly there is no legal obstacle for DC to reprint comics featuring Flex Mentallo, but it took until April 2012 for the mini-series to be collected.. Only 16 years after it originally came out.
 * In mid-2009, Mirage Studios released the "TMNT Collected Book Vol. 1": a large TPB with the first 15 issues of the original comics. The book quickly sold out and necessitated a second printing. Later that year, the entire Turtles franchise was sold to Viacom and the second printing never happened. In early 2011, Viacom granted IDW Publishing the TMNT comic license, which includes the reprinting of the Mirage comics for the summer that year.
 * In 2000, Marvel Comics finally released a volume of Essential Conan the Barbarian... which was never followed up, as Dark Horse Comics acquired the license soon after. Seven years later, Dark Horse started reprinting not only the original Conan ongoing, but also Savage Sword of Conan the Barbarian, King Conan, and all the other Comic Book Adaptation(s) of Robert E. Howard's works.
 * The Sam and Max comic collection, Surfin' The Highway, was printed in 1995 and went out of print. For years second hand copies were going for a substantial amount of money. However, in 2008, with the success of Telltale's Sam and Max games, the company was able to rerelease it. As Steve Purcell works for Telltale, the rerelease was greatly expanded.

Film

 * The delay of the DVD release of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension is one of the strangest stories in the industry. Producer David Begelman made a shady career for himself as an executive at several major Hollywood studios, including Columbia Pictures and MGM. During this period, he was the target of multiple lawsuits and criminal prosecutions for embezzlement and fraud (including a notorious check-forging scandal that exploded after actor Cliff Robertson discovered that fake checks had been made out in his name, which eventually led to Begelman's being fired from United Artists), and successfully blackmailed Judy Garland with illicitly obtained medical photos. After being fired from those studios, he founded his own production companies, Sherwood Productions and Gladden Entertainment, where he produced several moderately-successful films, including Buckaroo Banzai. Due to some legal chicanery, he ended up the sole owner of the rights to the film, and because of a falling-out with the writer and director over financial issues, refused to allow any further use of the property. This included blocking a planned television series, a sequel film, and the later DVD release. During this time, Laserdisc copies of the film were selling for well over $100. It took Begelman's bankruptcy and subsequent suicide for the rights to devolve to his largest creditor, Crédit Lyonnais bank, and then to Polygram Entertainment where executive Steve Gelber (a Banzai fan) pushed for a DVD release; it was finally released in 2002 under MGM's distribution. Begelman's obfuscatory and legally-questionable bookkeeping practices continue to prevent any further development of the Banzai property — such as the long-awaited sequel, or a soundtrack album — as no one is really sure who owns the various rights involved.
 * Tron lapsed into this after its 20th anniversary DVD release went out-of print several years ago. In 2010, when the sequel Tron: Legacy hit theaters, the film was reaching prices of up to $215 on Amazon, and even Netflix was having availability problems (the lack of re-release at such a propicious time was questioned, raised theories, and boosted piracy). But at least it got a re-release, on both DVD and Blu-Ray, when Legacy hit shelves in 2011.
 * Due to rights problems (including song copyrights), Hellzapoppin has never been released on VHS or DVD in America. It did get a UK DVD release in 2007, though.
 * For nearly 20 years, a copy of Johnny Got His Gun was fairly difficult to acquire. Why? Well, Metallica wanted to use footage from the movie for their video of "One" back in 1988, and found it simpler to just purchase all the rights to the movie...and then do nothing with it. Only in 2009 was a DVD release made.
 * Nosferatu was like this for a long time due to claims from the Stoker Estate. Both are now in the public domain, ending the dispute.
 * It's worth noting that because of the dispute, all copies of the film were ordered to be destroyed; were it not for those dedicated bootleggers, the film would not have survived at all. To those collectors and reprinters, wherever you may be — the fans and historians of the world salute you.
 * Michael Jackson's Moonwalker didn't get a Region 1 re-release for a long time, for obvious reasons. It was finally released internationally on Blu-Ray in 2010, albeit with some of the violence in the "Smooth Criminal" segment trimmed.
 * The underrated 1981 made-for-TV thriller Dark Night of the Scarecrow, having only been released on VHS in the mid-1980s, was finally released on DVD in September of 2010.
 * Rodgers and Hammerstein fans received DVDs containing the movie versions of The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, Carousel, State Fair, South Pacific and The King and I from 1999-2000, but Flower Drum Song did not receive a DVD release at this time. It ultimately did so in 2006, partly to celebrate the movie's 45th anniversary, and partly because Universal wanted to cash in on 20th Century Fox releasing remastered DVDs of seven R&H movies.
 * Similarly, the widely panned 1962 remake of State Fair just barely beat Flower Drum Song to DVD. It did not receive a release until 2005, when its predecessor turned 60.
 * The 1995 teen comedy Angus was a title demanded by fans to be released on DVD since the format's inception. It was finally released as a launch title for the Warner Archive in 2009.
 * The 1980 PBS made-for-TV adaption of The Lathe of Heaven was unavailable after the rights expired in 1988. A DVD was finally released in 2000, albeit with a cover version of the Beatles song used in the original.
 * The Legend of Billie Jean spent years in release limbo with no shot of ever getting a DVD release, despite massive fan demand. It was finally released in November 2011 through Sony Classics On Demand with an audio commentary.
 * Static, the first feature-length film by One Hour Photo writer/director Mark Romanek, saw its theatrical debut in 1985. Was not made available on DVD despite a fairly strong cult following; and the existence of VHS and Laserdisc versions; both becoming increasingly difficult to find in good condition. Word of God was that, while Romanek didn't view it as an Old Shame, he considered it an inferior sophomore effort (if he acknowledged it at all), and therefore not worth re-releasing. Romanek eventually relented, and it was officially released on DVD by Telavista in 2007.
 * The Telavista release is actually a bootleg so technically it's still a case of Keep Circulating the Tapes.
 * The 1927 classic, Wings was announced for release in 2011 on DVD and Blu-Ray by Paramount. Before this announcement, it had been the only film that has won best picture at the Oscars that hadn't been released on DVD.
 * The original widescreen version of West Side Story inexplicably disappeared from DVD shelves in the mid-2000s. All the DVDs produced during the remainder of the decade presented the movie in Pan and Scan, although movie boxsets contained the uncropped version. Widescreen DVDs finally became available again in 2011, in honor of the movie's 50th anniversary.
 * The African Queen only got a DVD release in 2010, as both the rights to the film jumped from hand to hand and the original negatives for restoration were hard to find.

Literature

 * For a long time Sir Terry Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was out of print and almost impossible to find second hand due to a tiny original print run. However, eventually his publishers got so fed up of having to tell people there was no demand for it that it was reissued. Technically, it was reissued as a new Author's Cut, since Pratchett wanted to fix a lot about the novel. So you can read the special edition, but good luck finding the original.

Live-Action TV

 * The Adventures of Pete and Pete got around this by replacing any protested music cues with clips from their house band Polaris on the DVDs. Unfortunately, the "Nick Rewind" DVD series was discontinued (after it was designed, but) before the last season set was released.
 * However, the fact that most of the music was independently owned and the musicians involved enjoyed working on the show makes it so that the number of replaced music cues can be counted on one hand.
 * The show will return to TV this Fall as part of Teen Nick's 'The 90s are All That' block.
 * American Gothic was one of the most campaigned-for shows for a while, until it was finally released on DVD in 2005 (R1) and 2006 (R2).
 * Ally McBeal fans in the United States either had to trade tapes, import the British DVD series set from the UK, or be content with a five-episode "Best Of Season 1" compilation for many years because of a flop of a syndication deal where FX took a nearly $2 Million bath every time they aired an episode (they stopped after two years and nobody else dared to air it again), and the sheer fact that all the music rights used on the show were not negotiated at all before the rise of TV on DVD, not to mention that Vonda Shepard would be looking at quite the sweet DVD royalty check for being the house singer on the show. Thankfully, the long wait was worth it — in October 2009, Fox released the full series in a Region 1 box set with no music cuts whatsoever.
 * Bill Nye the Science Guy is now available on a number of DVDs! At $25 or $30 for one thirty-minute episode.
 * Boy Meets World's third season sold worse than expected on DVD, leading Buena Vista to indefinitely delay later seasons. Fortunately, Lionsgate acquired DVD rights, and managed to release the whole series.
 * The Belgian TV show Buiten De Zone was finally released on DVD in 2010, after the last of the music negotiations (over the music from Twin Peaks) had concluded. The show, which ran for 2 seasons starting in 1994, still has a huge fan following and has achieved a cult status in Flanders. Bart de Pauw, one of the creators, was a soundtrack buff and used music from hundreds of films like James Bond, '*Aladdin, Indiana Jones, and even Robin Hood: Men in Tights''. Acquiring all 380 (!) music licenses while keeping the price at a reasonable level was a huge undertaking.
 * 1987 - Present British BBC kids show Chucklevision suffered this as due to a bad schedule episodes over 20 minutes were not shown after 2004, but recently Barry Elliot anounced the BBC picked it up for a DVD release.
 * Crime Story has been released, but with knock-off tunes in place of the original early-1960s pop numbers underscoring the action. It just isn't the same.
 * The Equalizer was just that, until recently Universal released Season 1 on DVD. And, the funny part with "Complete Season 1" DVD set? It's a rare case of "Better Export For Them".
 * The civil rights documentary miniseries Eyes on the Prize was once unavailable on DVD because it includes a lot of music and film footage that was licensed only for a limited time. The license was renewed in 2006, thanks to additional funding from the Ford Foundation. The funding to remaster and rebroadcast the series for PBS came with the stipulation that the DVD release be available for purchase only to schools and libraries, not individuals. However, as of 2010, it is now available to the general public for purchase on the PBS website.
 * Averted Trope with Freaks and Geeks, which got a DVD despite having a soundtrack that included Styx, The Grateful Dead, Cream, and two episodes that used only songs by The Who and Billy Joel respectively. One time when Too Good to Last helped the DVD release.
 * Family Matters qualified for this for almost a decade until they finally released the first season on DVD. A second season was released in February 2012, more than two years after the first season was issued, giving hope to fans that the remaining seven seasons will eventually be released.
 * Fresh Prince of Bel Air got Seasons 1-4 (of six) out on DVD, then got stalled...by music rights for the last two seasons. When it originally got made, the amount of licensed songs used was relatively small, but increased during the course of its run. As Warner cleared music rights, fans ended up having to wait six years for a fifth season DVD, and 11 more months for the last season.
 * Ghostwriter wasn't available until Shout Factory announced a DVD release of the first season.
 * Fans of The Glass House had to make do with the DVD that only contained the 2002 best-of episode and the six "Double Glazed" specials and the (very) early morning reruns of Seasons 8 and 9 in 2009-10, as the ABC did not have the rights to replay earlier episodes and did not say if full seasons would ever be released. It's now slowly being released on the iTunes Store from the very beginning and is currently up to Season 4 (as of May 2011).
 * FX the Series skipped the VHS format altogether and finally landed on DVD after 15 years, much to the relief of fans who pleaded with its production company to release the two seasons of the show.
 * Happy Days: Slowly but surely for the first four seasons. The first season was issued in 2004, and it was nearly three years before Season 2 was released. Seasons 3 and 4 were issued during the next 18 months, but nothing since December 2008. Music licensing, slow sales ... no official word has been given as to what the hold up is for the remaining seven years.
 * The Greatest American Hero, released but with music rights problems.
 * It's Garry Shandling's Show: All four seasons were released on DVD in Fall 2009.
 * And Shandling's follow-up, The Larry Sanders Show, had all its seasons released in Fall 2010 after its post-Season 1 run was in release limbo due to a dispute between Shandling and Brad Grey, his former manger and producer of the program.
 * From Sweden is the show Kenny Starfighter, a big cult classic over here. There was a VHS release in 1997 when it came out, but had major rights problems. It wasn't until 2006, before the movie came out, that the show did eventually see a DVD release.
 * La Femme Nikita: Season 2 was released and then unreleased, pulled from store shelves, when one of the featured bands demanded more money for the use of their song. Instead, the song was replaced, the DVDs rereleased and they got nothing.
 * Little Muppet Monsters was like this for over 20 years. Beyond the first episode, Muppet fans had no way to gain copies of the three aired episodes. In 2008, a Muppet fan came forward saying he had all three episodes that aired on CBS. He made copies for the Muppet fan community and are now very easy to find.
 * All seasons and episodes of Malcolm in the Middle have been recovered on Netflix. However, there have still been no DVD releases of the show except for Season 1.
 * Married... with Children was released on DVD, albeit with Frank Sinatra's Love and Marriage song replaced with more generic music due to rights issues.
 * The Mary Tyler Moore Show had Season 1 put on DVD in 2002. Thanks to disappointing sales of that set, it took three years for Season 2 to be released, and it ultimately took eight years to get all seven seasons on DVD.
 * Max Headroom suffered this in part. Although the original TV movie was released on DVD, the subsequent two-season series had not been, and was only partially available in edited form on VHS and Japanese Laserdisc releases. Despite the existence of a substantial online market in bootleg compilations, a DVD release was not available until Shout! Factory released the full series in 2010.
 * Music rights are also the reason it took forever for Miami Vice to get a video release (the DVDs were first — it never got analog video releases), and why there were lengthy delays between each season's box set. Still, the episodes were completely unabridged...well, save for a sequence cut from the Season 4 episode "By Hooker, By Crook" because it was deemed to be excessively disturbing. It showed a prostitute being tied up and murdered while Crockett has sex with another woman.
 * In an interesting case, however, while you can now find most episodes online (completely legally, through Hulu and Netflix), there are one or two episodes that are withheld from the internet for apparent rights issues.
 * A slightly different issue arose for My So-Called Life: It wasn't that there wasn't a DVD released for it; it was that it was so rare that the cost to buy it was prohibitive (there were sets for $200 on eBay). Luckily, a new DVD release came out, which dropped the price from prohibitive to merely expensive.
 * Under Disney, Power Rangers got screwed over with only some episodes (usually from the start of the season) ever getting DVD releases and just about every season, bar the Re Cut of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, pulled out of airing. After Saban reclaimed the franchise from the Mouse House, MMPR was streamed in its original form one episode a day on the official website in early 2011 as a lead-up to Power Rangers Samurai and the entire franchise is available on Netflix starting June 15, 2011, alongside related Saban shows Big Bad Beetleborgs and VR Troopers.
 * And now, in March of 2012, Saban inked a deal with Shout! Factory to release all 700 episodes from Mighty Morphin all the way to RPM on DVD.
 * Before Anchor Bay released the eight episodes of Profit onto DVD--four of which hadn't even seen broadcast in the USA--the show's creator circulated the tapes/DVDs himself!
 * Red Dwarf took so long to appear on DVD that Buffy the Vampire Slayer made jokes about it (although a two-series-a-year blast from 2002 resolved that one eventually).
 * It took until 2010 for The Red Green Show to get a DVD release. Before then, the only consolation was a 48-episode Stuffed & Mounted set with scattered episodes from the first ten seasons (except 2). Keep in mind the show ran from 1991 to 2006.
 * The full run of Remington Steele has been released, albeit with many edits to the soundtrack, most noticeably in the episodes "Steele Trying" (in which the entire soundtrack of Tony Bennett songs has been replaced) and "Steele on the Air" (in which Laura Holt is seen driving and singing along to the radio; Laura is singing "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", but the radio is playing something else).
 * She Wolf of London ... finally released after many years in February 2010 (Region 1), according to Amazon.
 * Small Wonder: Shout! Factory released Season 1 to retail stores on Region 1 DVD in February 2010. Season 2 was released directly to fans in June 2010.
 * Reruns of Soul Train started in November 2009 on BET's rebranded Centric network, with DVD sets available from Time-Life. Selected segments are also available through Comcast On-Demand.
 * The State had been released on iTunes, but all of the music had to be pulled for rights issues. Most of it was replaced with just close enough soundalikes, but on at least one sketch all of the audio had to be completely redone due to the lack of original masters, using looped actors' dialogue, fake Marvin Gaye music, and canned laughter.
 * (Eventually) averted. Viacom finally got all the rights to every episode settled (mostly by replacing the original music)... and then decided not to release it on DVD anyway. Thankfully, campaigning by the show's stars managed to convince them otherwise, and a complete series box set is now available. Only one short segment had to be cut because characters were singing a Pearl Jam song that could not be cleared. Still, at least it got here before Daria.
 * The Starlost (1973), based on a story by Harlan Ellison (and later Screwed by the Network), finally got a full-series Region 1 DVD release in 2008.
 * T-Bag seasons 5-9. Seasons 1 is available on DVD with seasons 2-4 to be released later on DVD in 2011.
 * Thirtysomething was this for about two decades.
 * After years of being forgotten in its (small) fanbase's memory, Vanpires of all series actually got a DVD release in 2007.
 * The first season of the 80's War of the Worlds TV series was only released on DVD after 15 years of waiting and pleading by its small fanbase. It took another five years to get the second (and final season) on the format as well. Talk about a long wait!
 * Witchblade, released but with music rights problems.
 * My Mother the Car has no DVD release but is legally available on Youtube and Hulu.
 * Does The Very Best of WCW Monday Nitro count?
 * In February 2011, The Paley Center for Media in New York, NY announced that it had received a verified copy of the CBS broadcast of Super Bowl I, donated to the Center in exchange for having it restored and archived. It was thought that there were no existing copies of either the CBS or NBC broadcast . The owner reportedly offered the tape directly to the NFL: they first tried to assert its exclusive copyright to claim the tape, then offered $30,000 for the tape (most experts say the tape is worth at least $1 million). It's assumed it is only a matter of time before the tape (which is missing a chunck of the third quarter and the entire halftime) is broadcast publicly.
 * Until the end of 2007, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was a perfect example of this trope. About 40 episodes had been released during the 1990's on VHS, but promised DVD release kept getting put off for various reasons (one of the most cogent being that it was difficult to nearly impossible to find high-quality master tapes for the first season, and another being the long-running legal ruckus surrounding the Harlan Ellison-penned third-season episode "The Pieces of Fate Affair"). Anchor Bay announced plans to release the series on DVD, which fell through, and it was finally left to Time-Life, under license from Warner Brothers (which, convolutedly, had acquired the license from MGM) to release the series in an acclaimed box-set version in late 2007.
 * Barney Miller: After the Season 1 DVD set came out, it took four years for Season 2 to be released, then another year for Season 3. Finally, Shout Factory issued a deluxe complete-series box set for the show in October 2011.
 * The Alien Nation TV series aired from 1989 to 1990, and ended on a heart-wrenching cliffhanger. It was quickly released on VHS. The cliffhanger, and numerous unresolved sub-plots, were eventually resolved in made-for-tv movies that aired from 1994-1997. Only the first two were ever released on VHS; leaving more hanging plot threads with no resolution for fans who hadn't managed to see the movies when they originally aired. The series was given a full DVD box-set release in 2006; but it took another two years for the movies to be released, finally giving fans the entire story. However, the parody advertisements that were part of the original series airing have yet to be released in any format.
 * Parker Lewis Can't Lose took its sweet time to move onto DVD, mostly due to music licensing issues,but it's out now.
 * In Britain companies like Network DVD are a godsend for people looking for rare archive shows, sometimes even going so far as to track down missing videotapes. A couple of examples:
 * The Arthur Haynes Show: Haynes was a huge star in the 50s and 60s, with a popular sketch show written by Johnny Speight, yet after his untimely death in 1966 he was almost forgotten about until surviving episodes from his shows began to be released in 2011.
 * The Strange World of Gurney Slade was a surreal 1960 series starring singer/actor Anthony Newley. It seems to have been too surreal for mass appeal, and it wasn't until 2011 that modern audiences got a chance to view it on DVD and judge for themselves.
 * Tutti Frutti, a 1987 six-part comedy-drama about an ageing Scottish rock band starring Robbie Coltraine, Emma Thompson and Richard Wilson, was unavailable to purchase for more than twenty years, allegedly due to copyright issues over a slightly reworded version of the title song (Coltraine sings "here's the rub, she makes me sleep in a tub"). These were finally settled and the DVD was released in 2009.

Music

 * Negativland's single U2, where both tracks were essentially Voice Clip Songs featuring Casey Kasem having obscene temper tantrums between takes of an episode of American Top 40 set to instrumental covers of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". It was quickly pulled from record stores due to a lawsuit by Island Records (both for unlicensed samples and the fact that the cover misleadingly had "U2" in much bigger letters than the band name). It then continued to stay out-of-print due to Casey Kasem, who understandably was embarrassed by his ranting. Averted in that the band themselves put both sides of the single up for free download on their website, and later started distributing a bootleg album containing 11 different versions of the song, which is surprisingly still available.
 * Bob Dylan once performed a rather...famous concert at the Royal Albert Hall in the UK. For many years, a near-perfect recording of that concert circulated in one form or another, until it was officially released as part of the "bootleg" series of CDs.
 * Cult band The Enid's first two albums In the Region of the Summer Stars and Aerie Faerie Nonsense (1976-7) had to be be remixed and partly re-recorded in 1984 when the original record company wouldn't return the 2-track masters to the band. Because of this the original mixes were only available on vinyl until 2010 (and only given an official release because somebody had bootlegged the vinyl versions).
 * For years, Garth Brooks' TV concert specials were either hard or impossible to find. "This Is Garth Brooks" (1992) and "Garth Live From Central Park" (1997) were released on VHS in 1992 & 1998 respectively, but both went out-of-print relatively quick, while "This Is Garth Brooks II" (1994) saw its planned VHS release canceled, and "Garth Brooks Ireland & Back" (1998) was long forgotten after its initial NBC airing (save for a rare CMT rerun in 2002). All four specials were finally released on DVD in a box set in 2006, albeit with several edits made to all of them (and "Ireland & Back" being retitled "Garth Brooks Live From Dublin")
 * In December 1987, Prince asked Warner Brothers, his record label at the time, to scrap the release of The Black Album a week before its release date. However, by this time over 500k were pressed on vinyl and preview copies had gone out. Most copies were destroyed, with the few remaining being the source for "the most bootlegged album of all time". In 1991, Warner planned a greatest hits package which would have included the album as a bonus disc. However, it was scrapped when Prince delivered Diamonds and Pearls to the company. Finally in 1994, during Prince's feud with the same label, the album was legitimately released. Prince was payed around $1 million for its release. Ironically, it's now out of print.
 * For the longest time, a Jeff Buckley documentary titled Amazing Grace was completely unavailable to fans. The documentary had won numerous awards and was one of the most accurate documentaries about Buckley's life. Due to copyrights issues rumors of it being released on a DVD spiked up and then soon fizzled out. Then, in 2009, it was officially released on a special edition of Grace Around The World. However, these special editions are quickly running out and odds are the documentary will fade back into this trope.

Video Games

 * "Greatest Hits"-type releases are made to combat this phenomenon. However; these were actually based off how well the game sold initially, regardless of critical and/or fan reception. There are exceptions; such as Final Fantasy Tactics which was re-released due to fan demand.
 * Bethseda has The Elder Scrolls: Arena and Daggerfall for download on their site to combat this. However; you have to download a DOS emulator to use and they assume you know this already.
 * Some people decide to watch a Let's Play for this reason.
 * Star Control 2 is long out of print, and was unlikely to ever see rerelease as the sequel (which did not involve the series creators) proved to be a Franchise Killer. Fortunately, SC's creators were nice enough to make the game Open Source in 2002, and a lovingly made fan version called The Ur-Quan Masters (the title "Star Control" is still under trademark) is freely downloadable.
 * And then Atari re-released it on GOG.com along with the original.
 * The Wii compilation Data East Arcade Classics was a bit of a surprise, since Data East had been defunct for almost a decade by the time of its release. (Data East's assets are handled by a company called G-Mode, who pretty much solely exist to archive their old game library.)
 * Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together: The SNES version of this classic game never made it to the west due to it releasing around the same time the Playstation came into existence, and the PS 1 re-release (which did get localized) was super-rare even at launch. 16 years later, Square Enix releases an enhanced remake of the game, overjoying fans and enraging speculators the world over.
 * The first game in the Fire Emblem series has been released overseas, which means Marth finally gets a proper debut.
 * Sierra released Vanilla Edition Compilation Rereleases of Space Quest, King's Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry in 2006. The Quest for Glory series, on the other hand, wouldn't see daylight until it was finally released on GoG. The compilations themselves are lacking, though. Besides lacking the original versions of their first games (using just their remakes):
 * King's Quest: King's Quest Mask of Eternity (which did eventually get on GoG) wasn't in the compilation, perhaps owing to the game's dubious standing among the series fans, making it a case of Canon Discontinuity.
 * Leisure Suit Larry: Since the collection shipped on just one CD, they had to use the floppy version of Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out instead of the talkie CD version, and Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail is missing entirely, so as far as Al Lowe is concerned, the definitive Leisure Suit Larry compilation is still the Ultimate Pleasure Pack, which includes the talkie version of Larry 6, as well as Love for Sail and Larry's Casino.

Web Original

 * That Dude in the Suede's AMV The Advent Children Picture Show (Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children And Don't Dream It, Be It) was originally uploaded to YouTube, and was taken down by Square Enix, with no file to download out of its Anime Music Videos page. Suede showed a clip as an inbetweener on his Top 11 Anime Villains list. It was finally rereleased, used as Padding on his review of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children to make the video reach a full half hour. It's the only way of watching this AMV.
 * The Homestar Runner shorts "Marshmallow's Last Stand" and "A Jumping Jack Contest" were removed from the site for unknown reasons, but they have been recovered on numerous other websites, and on the Homestar Runner: Everything Else Vol. 2 DVD.

Western Animation

 * The Animals of Farthing Wood was once only available in poor-quality online bootlegs, but the first and second season were released in Germany in 2009 and 2011, with the possibility to set the spoken language to German or English.
 * Daria was not commercially available from its finale in 2002 until the summer of 2010. Fans wanting the show either had to hunt down the Real Player versions of the series (which were taken from the original airings of the episodes/movies on MTV) or more mainstream AVI/MPEG video captures that were (unfortunately) taken from the show's run on Noggin, who butchered the episodes mercilessly, both for content and to make room for more advertisements. Now the show is finally on DVD and on TV (LOGO has the rights to it), though with the trade-off of having all of the music yanked and replaced with generic replacement tunes.
 * Even more annoying: While all 65 episodes of the series itself are uncut (new masters were made à la "The State" with the replacement music), "Is It College Yet?" is the same old butchered version that aired on MTV after its initial commercial-free airing, which was used for the original DVD release of said film.
 * Thanks to Warner Home Video's "Cartoon Network Hall Of Fame" DVD collection, the first seasons of Courage the Cowardly Dog and Johnny Bravo now have DVD releases as of Summer 2010, with Dexter's Laboratory coming the following October.
 * Also, those shows have had their complete series added to the iTunes store.
 * While still no signs of the DVD, Megas XLR has had official releases for iTunes and Xbox Live Arcade.
 * Seasons 1-3 of X-Men: Evolution have had DVD releases, but the fourth hasn't. iTunes has somewhat rectified this, as well as the Marvel YouTube channel having EVERY episode available to watch.
 * Bump in the Night, which got yanked when Disney took over ABC, got a DVD collection in July 2010.
 * Sonic the Hedgehog was caught in this state for over a decade until, finally, a worthy DVD set was released. Same goes for Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Underground.
 * Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures was caught in this trap, but then the entire series came out on DVD in 2010, with the picture digitally remastered from the original film negatives AND bonus features. Quite a big treatment for a show that hadn't aired in years.
 * The 1990s X-Men cartoon subverted this: after years of having to wait for a DVD release, and feeling all hope was lost, the first 32 episodes were released on DVD (in two 16-episode sets) for the first time in 2009 (presumably to cash in on X-Men Origins: Wolverine), with three more sets later released completing the series.
 * Every episode is freely available to stream on Marvel.com as well.
 * Interestingly, Disney seems a little more willing to sell comprehensive DVDs of Marvel cartoons than for cartoons they made themselves. The 1967 Animated Adaptation of Spider-Man had a complete series DVD in 2004 (which went out of print a few years later) to cash in on Spider-Man 2, and The Marvel Action Hour also has DVD boxsets. (The Fantastic Four segments became available shortly after the release of the 2005 movie, while Iron Man came around the same time as Iron Man 2.)
 * The Pirates of Dark Water became available at WarnerArchive.com on August 31, 2010 with a complete series box set.
 * Warner apparently releases seasons of Superfriends at random, and it seemed unlikely that the "lost" 1980s shorts and the fan UN-favorite Wendy & Marvin season would ever come to DVD. That is, until one set of the "lost" shorts made its way to DVD in August 2009, and the Wendy and Marvin episodes the following year.
 * It took damn near 22 years, three distribution companies, and a very dogged fanbase to get Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers on DVD in the United States. Cue massive Squee when Koch finally released a two-part set.
 * In North America, the only place you can view Kappa Mikey's two full seasons, besides on its practically non-existent presence on TV, is on iTunes. For some reason, Australia is the only country that legally distributes a full season DVD.
 * The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, which ran for a total of 52 episodes in two seasons during 1996-1997, had a few single-episode VHS tapes and laserdisc releases during its run, but was all but forgotten after that, especially after the Time Warner merger. Most of the episodes can be found online, though, thanks to the shows' faithful fanbase. Finally in 2009, Turner released a DVD set of the first 13 episodes of season 1, including director/producer commentary and "making of" mini-features. There have been no announcements about releases for the rest of the series as of yet, but the fans remain eager... hopefully it won't take another 13 years this time around.
 * Kim Possible had a couple of episode DVDs, but for years, Disney didn't seem to see the value in season box sets. DVD sets of the first two seasons finally became available in October 2010, but only through the Disney Movie Club.
 * Shout Factory has started to release Madeline on DVD, in random compilations.
 * All the episodes (though none of the specials or the direct-to-video movie) can be found on Hulu, which doesn't help much to those living outside the US or Germany...
 * Swat Kats: Despite many people asking for it, a DVD set had yet to happen for over a decade. The Warner Archive started selling complete series DVDs on December 14, 2010.
 * Code Lyoko only got Season 1 and five episodes of Season 2 to DVD before Funimation quietly dropped the title. It was thought that the rest of the series would never see an official release unless one lived in France until Taffy Entertainment began distributing the seasons on iTunes in November 2010, with XANA Awakens available free, and the first six episodes available free on their YouTube account. As of January 2011, all four seasons have been released.
 * Tales of the Gold Monkey was released in mid-2010.
 * Rover Dangerfield was released December 2010.
 * The Phantom Tollbooth was set for a 2008 DVD release but got delayed. It is now available to order off the Warner Bros website.
 * Most of the Nicktoons, again. For the longest time, the only Nickelodeon originals with full DVD sets were SpongeBob SquarePants (Cash Cow Franchise extreme), The Ren and Stimpy Show (John K. got the rights back), Invader Zim (titanic fan demand, though it was released by Media Blasters, who usually deal in anime), and Avatar: The Last Airbender. In 2010, DVDs of Doug (minus two episodes), Aaahh Real Monsters, and Hey Arnold have hit Amazon, and season 1 of Rocko's Modern Life was be released in June 2011.
 * Netflix has quite a few Nicktoons available for streaming.
 * And they'll be released for retail chains starting 2011, with The Wild Thornberrys and Rocko's Modern Life being the first. And it's not just the Nicktoons, but the old sitcoms as well. Hey Arnold, Aaahh Real Monsters, The Angry Beavers, Hey, Dude!, and Cat Dog were announced. This may be the time Ka Blam! may see the light of day on home media.
 * Gargoyles season 1 was released on DVD in 2004, and the first half of season 2 in 2005, but Disney canceled the release of the last half of season 2 because they didn't feel that the first half sold well enough. Season 3 has no plans for being released.
 * Goof Troop and Quack Pack have had a few individual episodes released on DVD, but never entire seasons.
 * The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police hardly saw daylight after its initial 13-episode run until the popularity of Telltale's Sam and Max games that it was able to get a release through Shout! and many new fans were able to experience the show for the first time.
 * Several Marvel Comics cartoons that never received comprehensive DVD releases will become available to stream on Netflix, such as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, and The Marvel Superheroes.
 * And of course, as mentioned before, Marvel themselves do have a online video section on their site where one can catch most episodes of the older Marvel cartoon and TV series (including Japanese Spider-Man), with no region-blocking whatsoever in place.
 * Heavy Metal was theatrically released in 1981, but only got to VHS after 15 years - with a DVD one year later - due to copyright issues (the film has much, much licensed music). The Agony Booth recap even says the movie got much of its Cult Classic status for its rarity than for actual quality.
 * Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? had some Compilation Movies released by Lionsgate and the first season released by Shout! Factory, then five years passed without any other releases. Thanks to Mill Creek Entertainment, a DVD of the complete series will come in February 2012.
 * Jem — Rhino Video released seasons 1-2 and part of 3 on DVD. The rest? Left in limbo. To make matters worse, the first two sets of DVDs went out of print and cost a pretty penny to buy a second-hand copy. Shout Factory has decided to release a complete series DVD boxset, including the long-unavailable season 3 episodes.
 * One of the most Egregious examples of this trope was Alvin and The Chipmunks, considering musical numbers were their entire shtick. But, with the success of the movies, some compilations of the show have been released.
 * Re Boot. ADV Films never released Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD, only four episodes from Season 1 ever came out on VHS. Seasons 3-4 came out on DVD, but went out of print. Fortunately, Shout Factory eventually released DVDs of the complete series.
 * Season 3 also airs on Teletoon Retro...IN CANADA! (Well, it was made in Canada...)
 * The 1980 animated feature adaptation of Gnomes languished in copyright limbo after the production company wound up. However, CCV of Norway announced that a DVD release would come in December 2011.
 * In late January 2012, Warner Archive released the first season of Pac-Man as a manufacture-on-demand DVD title.
 * The Jetsons was among the first Hanna-Barbera series to receive a DVD boxset, but it contained only the original episodes, broadcast from 1962 to 1963. These also became the only episodes to air on Boomerang. The 1980s revival did not come to DVD, or air on Boomerang, until 2009. Even then, only half of season 2 became available on DVD, as well as the theatrical 1990 movie. Fans have to buy the second half of the season, the two concurrently produced TV movies, and (eventually) the third season through the Warner Archive.
 * The 2003–2007 Strawberry Shortcake series appeared to be in limbo when the series was dropped off Kewlopolis before the 2007 season 4 episodes could air, and rights for the series went from Playmates to Hasbro (and the animation rights went from Di C to Moonscoop). DVD releases of the series became slow and erratic, and many fans initially believed in 2009 that the releases would grind to a halt and the last eight episodes would not see the light of day upon hearing the news back then. However, stopping of releases is one thing that did not happen, and the last DVD of the series came out in March 2012.
 * Recess is now availible on iTunes in Germany. (An iTunes release in the U.S. is unknown, but Recess: School's Out and Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade is available)
 * Godzilla: The Series still does not have a full DVD set (nine episodes released on DVD, two VHS tapes and the Monster Wars trilogy on both formats), but the full series is now streaming on Netflix.
 * The Swan Princess and The Swan Princess III: The Mystery of the Enchanted Treasure came to DVD in 2004, but The Swan Princess: Escape from Castle Mountain did not. People wanting to complete the trilogy had to wait five years, when the second movie came, retitled The Swan Princess: The Secret of the Castle.