10 TV Show Episodes You Can No Longer Watch
These TV episodes have either been lost, buried, or binned off forever...
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00:00From iconic last-ever performances to deeply uncomfortable sequences that are likely better
00:05left untouched, these are just a few of the TV moments that are no longer officially available
00:10to watch anymore. The always watchable Gareth here though from WhatCulture.com, and here are
00:1510 TV show episodes you can no longer watch. Children's cartoons have a funny old habit of
00:22unleashing some rather jarring material into the world from time to time, and that was never more
00:27evident than during a season two episode of Cartoon Network's Cow and Chicken by the name of
00:31Buffalo Girls. Containing a great many insensitive jokes at the expense of lesbians throughout,
00:37the overall presentation of the titular cartoon ladies on show as dirty and excessively gross
00:42inevitably led to the show receiving a decent amount of backlash upon its initial airing in
00:46February 1998. Sure enough, this would mark the first and last time the controversial episode
00:51would ever air on TV, with the orthodontic police entry replacing it in subsequent time slots and
00:56streaming services going forward. When a show comes equipped with painfully unfunny visuals
01:01such as said Buffalo Girls eating carpets and enjoying their favourite pastime of softball,
01:06it's probably for the best that it never sees the light of day ever again.
01:099. The Beatles' Last Performance, Top of the Pops
01:12Still sitting in the hearts of many as the greatest band ever to warble a tune,
01:16it often feels as though just about every trailblazing moment of the Beatles' groundbreaking
01:20career has been captured and brought to a screen at some point or another over the years. Yet one
01:25specific moment of Beatlemania that still hasn't ever been re-released in its entirety actually
01:30just so happens to be the iconic band's last ever TV performance as a unit from way back in 1966.
01:36With the BBC unfortunately not keeping tapes around that time, the Top of the Pops performance
01:41of paperback writer from the Four Rock Stars was thought to have been completely lost forever up
01:46until a few years back. Then, on the back of a staggering 11 seconds of personally recorded
01:51footage of the foursome miming along in silence was dug up by a collector in Mexico, a further 92
01:56seconds of them doing their thing was sent to the television archive organisation Kaleidoscope by
02:01music enthusiast David Chandler. You still can't watch the entire performance from start to finish
02:06in its original quality mind, but these fans are simply refusing to let it be.
02:108. Rude Removal, Dexter's Laboratory
02:13Returning to Cartoon Network's late 90s penchant for producing content that was always destined
02:18to piss off some parents, Dexter's Laboratory's Rude Removal very nearly made its presence
02:23briefly known on the channel back in 1997. With the planned season 2 segment containing shots of
02:28Dexter and Sister Dee Dee's rude clones going on a mad one after the former invents a rude removal
02:34machine, the sight of the two characters swearing like troopers despite said curses being bleeped
02:38out was enough to convince those running the channel to keep it from airing on TV.
02:42However, the episode would ultimately find new life on the animation festival circuit for a time,
02:47and this would eventually lead to Adult Swim getting their paws on the profanity-packed
02:51entity later down the line. Then, after being uploaded to their official site in a censored
02:55capacity in January 2013, the episode was made private and taken down shortly after.
03:00Though unofficially re-uploaded and entirely uncensored versions of the chaotic ep
03:05may or may not have managed to wiggle onto YouTube in the end.
03:087. Flying Juke's Tailspin
03:10You've likely spotted a theme by now of those responsible for bringing the next generation
03:15their daily dose of seemingly harmless entertainment in the 90s, actually being
03:19at the centre of some of the most controversial content being put on television at the time.
03:23And it wasn't just those folks plying their trade under the Cartoon Network banner
03:27who let loose some rather unexpectedly shocking scenes during this period,
03:31with Disney's Tailspin series also producing a rather startling sequence of TV too.
03:36Coming during the series' final episode, entitled Flying Juke's,
03:40Baloo is tasked with delivering a package for the Thembrian High Marshal,
03:44only said item, unbeknownst to the bear, just so happened to be a bomb.
03:47No prizes for figuring out why this one ended up on the scrapheap then.
03:50With this sort of terrorist theme being very much present in the content,
03:54it came as little surprise to see the episode banned soon enough,
03:57outside of it seemingly being aired by mistake on Toon Disney at the end of the decade.
04:01And despite being released on DVD in 2013,
04:03it's also still unavailable on the likes of iTunes and Disney Plus to this day.
04:086. Smart and Smarterer, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
04:11Keeping with the House of Mouse now, and to those seemingly sweet little scamps
04:15occupying a swanky room in the Tipton Hotel for a couple of years in the mid-noughties.
04:19Only things weren't always as innocent as they
04:21seemed when it pertained to Zack and Cody's suite life in Boston.
04:25In fact, one episode under the title of Smart and Smarterer,
04:28yes, an apparent riff on that terrible Dumb and Dumber sequel,
04:31was deemed so damn offensive that it actually wound up being pulled from the air before long.
04:35With said showing depicting Zack faking having dyslexia in order to earn some
04:39extra time to finish off his tests, on the back of picking up some bad grades,
04:43the way the show frames the learning disability didn't go down too well with viewers,
04:47and it would only be shown on the Disney Channel twice.
04:50And though the rest of the show is available on Disney Plus at this current moment,
04:53you will not find Smart and Smarterer on the streaming service,
04:56and Disney would likely prefer you forget this Dylan and Cole Sprouse
05:00entry ever saw the light of day in the first place.
05:025. Hot Spells, Darkwing Duck
05:05Rounding off the Disney section of this collection of episodes long since stripped
05:09away from their house of mouse, here's that time Darkwing Duck's Halloween 1992 offering
05:14stirred up a little controversy upon initially tricking and not treating some of its audience.
05:18As seen in the Hot Spells episode, the titular leading light and gosling take
05:23a trip to Morgana's old magic school. Only to bump into a devilish character
05:27by the name of Beaslepub, who most definitely rubbed parents up the wrong way out of the gates.
05:32With the character very much playing the role of devil-like being in the ep,
05:35and tempting the protagonist to use forbidden spells throughout,
05:38the dark religious undertones within the showing were deemed unsuitable for kids,
05:43to the point of pulling the episode off the air.
05:45In more modern times, this Satan's Stuff series entry is still unavailable to purchase from the
05:49likes of iTunes and Google TV, or stream on Disney Plus, despite Beaslebub still very much being
05:55present in the first season's dead duck episode that is actually watchable via any of those
05:59services. How strange. 4. The Feast of Stephen, Doctor Who
06:04Returning to the anything but reliable BBC archives, the British Broadcasting Corporation's
06:09frustrating policy of wiping footage to make way for newer content back in the day,
06:14ultimately led to a decent amount of old-school Doctor Who episodes being lost forever. Among
06:18these many discarded tapings was none other than the show's first ever Christmas special,
06:23something that would become a beloved hallmark of the series over the years.
06:27Going by the name of The Feast of Stephen, this Christmas Day 1965 programme acted as a comic
06:32detour away from the epic tale being told coming into the episode, with the first Doctor William
06:38Hartnell even taking a sonic screwdriver to the fourth wall in the final scene, and bizarrely
06:42telling folks at home, incidentally, a happy Christmas to all of you at home. Outside of the
06:47odd photograph being preserved of the showing in question, though, this surreal holiday treat
06:51appears to have pretty much been erased forever. 3. Topless Showgirls, Dance Moms
06:56It's not exactly difficult to see why this one has long since been buried by lifetime based on
07:00the title of the episode alone, but that still didn't stop the network from running with said
07:05Topless Showgirls moniker, and the content in general when the time came to air the dodgy
07:10season 2 episode back in 2012. And unsurprisingly, the sight of 8-13 year old girls being taught a
07:16showgirls routine, whilst wearing body suits that made it look as though they were nude,
07:20on the reality TV show did not go down well with the masses. On top of changing the episode name
07:24to costume drama, and that is one way of putting it, the show was pulled from future airings of
07:29Dance Moms on Lifetime, and ended up not being made available on various digital or streaming
07:33service platforms later down the line. It's also worth noting that despite eventually backtracking
07:38due to the backlash, Lifetime did actually boast about the episode's impressive ratings of 2.7
07:43million viewers not long after its initial airing, though they likely won't be in too much of a rush
07:47to talk about their deeply uncomfortable episode nowadays. 2. Unstoppable, Law & Order SVU
07:53After initially being filmed and scheduled for release back in October 12th, 2016, Law & Order
07:58SVU's episode by the name of Unstoppable found itself being regularly delayed and pushed back
08:03until NBC eventually made the call to leave the episode out of the series altogether in the end.
08:08Why was this very much stoppable slice of police procedural never given the chance to make its
08:13presence known on our screens, I hear you ask? Well, the episode centred around a figure who
08:17very much resembled a certain future president of the United States, Donald Trump, and said
08:21character would eventually be accused of rape during the episode as he attempted to run for
08:25president. With Trump himself being accused of sexual harassment and assault around the time
08:30of the elections that would be going down as the Unstoppable episode was set to air,
08:34this real-life development alongside his surprise victory resulted in the entry
08:38being swiftly brushed under the carpet despite word of a tentative 2017 release.
08:42Despite all this, though, you can actually still find a promo for the scrapped episode on YouTube,
08:46so there's that.
08:48Episode 847, Sesame Street
08:51Send you home now with one last entirely creepy slice of apparently kid-friendly television.
08:56Sesame Street's 1976 attempt to use the Wizard of Oz's terrifying Wicked Witch of the West
09:01as a way of teaching children the value of facing their fears went down about as well as you'd
09:05have imagined. Not long after episode 847, depicting the witch losing her broom and going
09:10on a tear through the street, sweeped into the nightmares of youngsters the world over,
09:14PBS were inundated with mail and calls from parents scolding them for frightening their
09:19tanks. Some of which now refused to switch back on the show out of fear of Margaret Hamilton once
09:24again showing up to spook the life out of them 37 years on from her first wicked showing.
09:29With this level of fuss being made about the cackling villain's appearance, the banning of
09:33the episode became inevitable, and it's still yet to be made officially available on the likes of
09:37Hulu or HBO Max, with only those using the footage for research being permitted to take in the
09:42chilling content via the American Archive of Public Broadcasting in certain locations.
09:47Simply put, even nearly four decades on, Hamilton had not lost an unsettling step.
10:12Thank you very much as always for clicking on this video today,
10:15I hope to see you very very soon but in the meantime,
10:18look after yourselves and I will see you soon, bye!