Orrin Scott: Archiving Animation with Home Media - Nickelodeon Physical Home Media Releases

Besides the Avatar series, the late aughts was a time period where I got too busy to keep up with cable television broadcasts due to schooling and job hunting. As such, most of the shows from this era forward, I am only familiar with in passing. This project is proving to be a fascinating journey through 15 years of animation history I was not privy to and a couple of these shows look like a lot of fun! Hopefully they have home media releases. Let’s find out...

An Italian production by studio Rainbow S.p.A., Winx Club ran for four seasons before ViacomCBS purchased a 30% minority stake in the company. Winx Club would continue for an additional four seasons as a co-production between Nickelodeon and Rainbow.

Oddly, you’d think Nickelodeon (and by extension Viacom) would inundate the market with DVD releases of the show after spending so much money to acquire a 30% stake in Rainbow S.p.A., but, like me, you would be wrong. Like shows from the 80’s, it would seem the focus of the show for Viacom and Rainbow is to advertise the plethora of action figures and merchandise to the tune of $2.7 billion in revenue.

The first three Italian-produced seasons have had no media releases. The fourth season has had its first 14 episodes of 24 released on DVD.

The Nickelodeon co-produced seasons five and six have been released on DVD. Season seven and eight have not had any releases.

The four Winx Club specials, Winx Club: The Fate of Bloom, Winx Club: Revenge of the Trix, Winx Club: The Battle for Magix, and Winx Club: The Shadow Phoenix have not seen any media releases, either.

Lastly, the first two films, Winx Club: The Secret of the Lost Kingdom and Winx Club: Magical Adventure have had a DVD released (paired with episodes from the series), but the third film, Winx Club: The Mystery of the Abyss, has not been distributed on any home media format, instead, releasing on Netflix.

Sources

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nickelodeon-and-rainbow-spa-announce-global-partnership-for-winx-club-animated-series-102060828.html

https://variety.com/2011/tv/news/viacom-takes-stake-in-rainbow-1118031575/

https://nickelodeon.fandom.com/wiki/Winx_Club_videography

https://winx.fandom.com/wiki/Season_1_(Winx_Club)

https://variety.com/2011/tv/news/winx-creator-in-the-pink-1118032886/

Winx Club Logo

https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Winx_Club

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005) was planned to run for three seasons, with a definitive beginning, middle and end. Arguably, one of the many reasons why the show was so successful. Single disc DVD episode compilations were released in volumes, then combined into season sets from 2006 to 2008. A DVD collector’s edition series set with a bonus documentary was released in 2010. In 2018, a BluRay series set was released and re-released in 2020 with Steelbook casings. In addition, Avatar, and its sequel series, The Legend of Korra, was released as a two series set on DVD and BluRay.

In addition, there was also a 2010 live-action theatrical film that has been released on DVD and BluRay and most recently Netflix has been working on a live-action retelling, but the original creators have since been removed from the project.

Sources:

https://nickelodeon.fandom.com/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender_videography

https://observer.com/2020/09/netflix-viacom-cbs-avatar-the-last-airbender-legend-of-korra/

https://screenrant.com/avatar-last-airbender-original-plan-story-ending-bad/

Avatar: The Last Airbender Logo

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Avatar_The_Last_Airbender_logo.svg

Catscratch (2005) ran for a single season of 20 episodes, 40 shorts. It has only seen two of the shorts released on the Nicktoon compilation DVDs, Nick Picks Volume 3 and 5; “Bringing Down the Mouse” and “Love Cats”. No other home media has been released.

Sources:

https://catscratch.fandom.com/wiki/Catscratch_Lost_Media

Catscratch logo

https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Catscratch

The X’s (2005) also ran for a single season of 20 episodes, 40 shorts. Like Catscratch, it only had two episodes released on the Nicktoon compilation DVDs, Nick Picks Volume 4 and 5; “Photo Ops” and “Secret Agent Manual”.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X%27s

The X’s Logo

https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/The_X%27s

El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (2007) ran for a single season of 26 episodes, 42 shorts. Unlike the aforementioned series, El Tigre has been released on Amazon’s manufacture-on-demand service as a complete DVD series set (Though labeled as Season One).