Beverly Hills Chihuahuas (found pilot of cancelled Disney Junior animated adaptation of film series; 2012)

Title card.

Status: Found

Date found: 25 Apr 2024

Found by: Anonymous

The Beverly Hills Chihuahua series is a trilogy of films made by Disney from 2008 to 2012. The series revolves around the main character Papi, a Chihuahua who goes on various adventures with his companions throughout the film series.

TV Series

After finishing Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva la Fiesta!, plans for an animated TV adaptation was in the works by Tad Stones with Taiwanese animation studio Hong Ying Animation and Bento Box Entertainment titled Beverly Hills Chihuahuas, with a pilot made to pitch to Disney Junior in 2012.^[1] The network ended up passing on the series due to poor timing.

The only information on the series that was available for a while was some concept art of the characters Papi, Rosario, and Esperanza that was posted on Genevieve Tsai's blog in 2014 where she discussed her involvement on the show.^[2]

Availability

On November 30th, 2020, YouTuber Noah S. discovered the first 4 minutes of the pilot on Hong Ying Animation's website and uploaded a minute-long clip of it onto his channel, only to upload the full first 4 minutes of the pilot a month later.

Four years later, on April 25th, 2024, a handful of pilots and animatics from shows by the Disney Television Animation Co. were anonymously posted online. Among the collection that was posted was the full 11-minute and 36-second animated pilot for Beverly Hills Chihuahuas, marking the entire pilot found.