Did you know that the same people who made Rugrats and As Told By Ginger made a 6 episode cartoon about Ronald McDonald? Maybe you even happened upon on of these in your happy meal in the early 2000s. They released each episode on VHS that you could purchase only at McDonald's restaurants. You can now find 5 of these episodes on Youtube. But wait, I said there were 6. Why isn't that one on Youtube? The reason for that is...the 6th episode is lost.
We live in an age where people can find an in-box version of Super Hornio Brothers, it'll turn up eventually.
They honestly might not have a copy. Promotional stuff, especially from a company like mcdonald's that does a SHIT ton of promotional stuff, gets thrown out pretty regularly. Unless some guy who worked on it held onto a copy or the design materials, they all might be in one landfill or another.
A copy of some crappy VHS-mailaway-only fast food promotional cartoon from over a decade ago is apparently hard to find, and that SCARES you? You must be a riot on Halloween. Maybe if more that three people on the planet cared enough to try to dig one up, it would be found. This is not some masterwork of animation loved by millions, it's a worthless commercial that very few knew about and nearly no one bought. There's no reason for it to be found, other than the fact that no one can. If I find one at a garage sale tomorrow knowing what I know about it now - I STILL wouldn't care. I'm supposed to buy it, transfer it over to digital at my own expense, and upload it to the internet? Actually I take that back - I would buy it and onto eBay it would go.
It was not just a commercial, it was a full-fledged 22 minute cartoon. Watch the other 5 on Youtube, there was effort put into it. This isn't some crappy flash animation of Ronald saying "Eat more Happy Meals!", this is actual 2D animation on celluloid that likely took almost a year to make. All that effort is now gone, without any rational explanation. How does that not bother you? If it were made in the 1960s or 1970s, then I could understand it being missing. But this was barely a decade ago.
I knew about Ronald McDonald Land, Shit, My sisters and I somehow ended up with one of the episodes. It was the haunted house episode. It felt odd watching what amounted to a thirty-minute long fast-food advertisement animated by Klasky-Csupo (The animators behind Rugrats, All Grown Up, As told by Ginger, The Wild Thornberrys and Rocket Power) starring what was then the McDonald's mascots (Ronald, Grimace, Birdie, The Fry Kids, The Hamburgler). Now that I look back on it, I'm kinda glad McDonald's dropped the Clasky-Csupo designs... Ronald kinda looked like a Juggalo.
Probably because I could not care less about a fast food cartoon commercial that was sold in a happy meal a decade ago.
I think you're failing to see the bigger picture here. A 22-minute animated feature that was to be released to the public is gone, and for some reason wasn't distributed as widely as the 5 animated features before it, if at all. Why? What unknown factor caused this oversight to happen? If Dexter's Rude Removal can be found, why can't this?
...nobody cared so nobody bought it. You had to buy the last episode online, it says so right in the article. There's no mystery here.
I think you fail to see the bigger picture that besides you, no one really seems to give a fuck about this lost treasure.
I looked thru the Lost Media wiki, and there are scores of things I'd rather see found, finished, aired, or un-canceled... Just a few: Ren & Stimpy "Life Sucks" (Unfinished Episode) - Lost Media Wiki Gremlins Cartoon Pilot (Possibly Mid-to-Late 1980s) - Lost Media Wiki Ura Zelda (2000 64DD Add-On for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) - Lost Media Wiki
