No Export for You/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Arthur episodes past Season 4 is this to Malaysians. Those living in south Malaysia could still get Arthur from Singaporean TV. Those living further north are just plain screwed.
  • Winx Club was in danger of this in America with season four ownard and the two movies once 4Kids lost the license. However, Nickelodeon has reportedly picked up the rights to everything.
    • Even in Singapore, the first movie got a cinema release (almost a whole year behind Italy, and with a few minor snips at that), but one year on, it's yet to be released on DVD there.
  • Samurai Jack still hasn't seen a DVD release in pretty much half the world.
  • Despite starting all the way back in 2006, Ruby Gloom still hasn't aired in the United States, despite having been aired and even dubbed pretty much everywhere else. What makes this especially odd is the Ruby Gloom franchise is owned by Mighty Fine, an American company. Mighty Fine's Web site even has a link to the TV series' website on its Ruby Gloom page.
  • The Chimpokomon episode of South Park has never been shown in Japan, and not even released on DVD sets, so the episode is the only South Park episode ever to be banned in a noticeable place, where banishment is usually never done. (Heck, would an English release of it in Japan cause a fit?)
    • Actually, the "Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?"/"Probably" two-parter, "A Ladder to Heaven", and "Krazy Kripples" were also banned in Japan, though the last one was later dubbed later in their final season (7). Heaven was banned most likely due to the derogatory references about the Japanese, while the Hell two-parter is said to have been reportedly banned for conflicting with Japanese religious beliefs. WOWOW never dubbed season 8 or on, so one can only wonder what might have happened with "Good Times with Weapons".
    • The UK had to wait nearly SEVEN YEARS between DVD releases of the fourth and fifth seasons of South Park. The first four seasons were all released in a relatively timely fashion, with the fourth being released near the start of 2001. Then the series descended into a licensing mess between Channel 4, who were the original UK broadcasters of the show, and Comedy Central, who started broadcasting it on their UK channel in late 2002. Basically, someone screwed up the UK release negotiations in 1997, giving Channel 4 a five year contract for the TV rights, but a ten year deal on the VHS and DVD rights. This left Comedy Central completely unable to release any of their own South Park DVDs, and they had to wait until the deal expired... in October 2007. Since then though the DVD releases have been very timely, generally only a couple of months behind the US releases.
    • "201" has also never been shown outside of it's initial airing. By that, I mean when the episode was first shown on American TV. Thankfully, it's more of a subversion, as the episode is available on DVD. Even if it's still edited to shit.
  • Similar to the EEnE example, the Code Lyoko novels, produced in Italian, will have been around for a year and a half before being licensed in French- the show's mother language. English? Well, uh...
  • The fifth and final season of Totally Spies! still has yet to be aired in the US, due to being Screwed by the Network, and will probably never be.
    • Unscrewed by the network [dead link] much? Cartoon Network US has just relicensed the spies (and licensed their Spiritual Successor to boot).
      • That spiritual successor was pulled from Cartoon Network US in July 2010, leaving sixteen episodes of season two unaired. Seeing those episodes start to pop up on video sites in Spanish and French is a painful tease for English-speaking viewers.
  • Daria is finally on DVD, but only in region 1, and Amazon refuse to export more than one copy per customer.
    • Not to mention that what people who live in region 1 DO get has generic replacement music.
    • It recently came out in region 4. No word on region 2 yet.
  • The sudden disappearance of Stoked from the Cartoon Network schedule four episodes away from the end of the first season has left American fans out in the cold. Unless someone from Canada decides to share, the final four episodes of the show's first season and the entirety of subsequent seasons may never be seen in the United States.
    • It appears as if iTunes will carry the final four episodes of season one, which leaves the upcoming season two in limbo as far as American fans are concerned.
      • Cartoon Network decided to stream episodes 23-25 on their online video site, only to stop right before airing the season finale.
  • In the UK, the relaunched version of Futurama is in a similar situation to what Battlestar Galactica: The Plan experienced (see above), thanks to the Sky network holding an exclusivity agreement on the first release of the show in the UK, and being convinced that no-one's really into Futurama anymore.
    • Good news, everyone! This has been averted, as of July 22 2011 - Sky have started showing the post-Into The Green Yonder episodes!
  • The DVD boxset of The Simpsons season 20 was not released in the UK, despite being released in Australia and it's native USA.
    • Then again, it's going to be released eventually, it's just that there's several seasons before that one that need to be released on DVD first.
  • The latest Strawberry Shortcake All CGI Cartoon is this to the one third of the world who can't get Boomerang, who apparently is the sole broadcaster of the show outside of the US. In fact, this is true for all Hasbro properties, which Boomerang has somehow obtained the rights.
  • The studio at least tried to get the first season of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles released in the UK, but were blocked by the censors, who point blank refused to even consider allowing it to be shown on TV, or any VHS release with a certificate below a "15." The studio eventually had to settle for releasing a compilation video featuring a Clip Show from the third season which recapped the Turtles' origins, together with a bunch of footage from second season episodes in an attempt to build some sort of storyline. Years later, the first season finally got a DVD release.
  • Possibly unknown to most people in the United States, Inspector Gadget actually had a sequel/spinoff series from 2001-2003 called Gadget and the Gadgetinis, which was produced by the series' original creators and carried over many aspects of the original show, with more modern animation and 52 episodes. However, the series has only aired in South America, Canada and Europe, and for some reason never made its way into the States.
  • Batman of the Future has been repeatedly denied a UK DVD release.
  • Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi is an unusual variant. The American cartoon starring Japanese pop stars was Screwed by the Network and only got a couple of compilation DVDs in its home country. But in Japan, where Puffy are much, much more famous, the complete series is out in season sets, with both the English and Japanese dub track.
  • While the regular episodes of Madeline are being released onto DVDs from time to time, the specials are currently only available as a digital download from a few online stores, which screws over anyone that's not in the US.
  • All televised episodes of the Where's Wally? animated series were aired in the UK, but the direct-to-video episodes didn't get there.
  • In the UK, Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes' first seven episodes came to DVD sans the unimportant episode detailing the origin, accomplishments, and disappearance of Captain America (comics). The omission of the episode also causes viewers to miss Kang the Conqueror declaring he will do anything to save his vanishing timeline, even if it includes conquering 21st Century Earth (which he attempts to do in episodes 16-18).
  • Season 3 of Transformers Animated have been not released in Italy. Also Italy never had "The Rebirth", following Japanese continuity instead.
  • While Recess got a few episodes on DVD and video in the early 2000s, the entire series is on iTunes in Germany. When it's coming to the U.S. is unknown.
    • There was also a video game of the series released in 1999, but it was only availible in the U.K. and Japan.
  • Many of Marvel Comics animation output of the 1980s and 1990s have never seen complete box set releases in the U.S (with the exception of XMEN, Iron Man and Fantastic Four), but Region Two territories have enjoyed complete series of all of the Incredible Hulk animated series, the rare Spider Man 5000, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, and the Silver Surfer cartoon.
  • The Mickey Mouse cartoon "The Barnyard Battle" was banned from Germany in the early 30s due to an army of cats wearing helmets similar to German army helmets from WWI.
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