32 years after a failed pilot for a cartoon adaptation of NES classic Battletoads meant to rival TMNT, somebody's trying to sell the animation cels for $35,000
Oct. 29, 2024One of the show’s producers reckons the show barely cost that much to animate in the first place
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32 years after the ill-fated pilot for a cartoon adaptation of Rare’s NES classic Battletoads, somebody is on eBay trying to sell the original animation cels for $35,000. Nobody’s bitten on that price just yet.
A collection of thousands of these animation cells were given to Texas collectables store Space Cadets Collection Collection by “a former video game executive,” according to theeBay listing. The collection has been listed since at least the middle of October, and while it’s got a fair number of watchers, nobody’s taken the plunge on that $35,000 asking price.
My eye was turned to this listing thanks to atweetfrom Brian A. Miller, a former Cartoon Network executive who was at DIC Entertainment at the time of the Battletoads production. “The funny thing is, I don’t think we paid much more than that for the animation on the pilot,” he jokes.
Miller also notes that, when the pilot was produced, “the hope was that it would take off the way TMNT did.” Obviously, given the fact that Battletoads never became a series, that hope didn’t quite pan out. The pilot aired on television exactly once - Thanksgiving 1992 - and was released on VHS, but it never went further than that. If you want to watch it yourself, though, current rightsholder WildBrain uploaded the whole thing toYouTubemany years back.
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