Ben 10 (partially found pitch pilot of Cartoon Network animated series; early-mid 2000s)

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Original Logo.png

The series' early logo.

Status: Partially Found

Ben 10, or Ben 10 Classic, is an American animated series created by Man of Action Entertainment, and produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The series was first shown on "Sneak Peek Week" on Cartoon Network in 2005, alongside other shows that were upcoming at the time. The show began its regular run on January 13, 2006, and ended on April 15, 2008. However, there were rumors about a pitch pilot of Ben 10 created the same year as the series, though they were debunked later on the search. Around 2020, after the Duncan Rouleau interview, in which he said that those screenshots were fan art, were believed until 2021 when footage of the pilot resurfaced.

The Rumors

The rumors started in 2018 by an anonymous Reddit user (that deleted his account after the post) claiming about a pitch pilot that was created the same year as the first episode of the series. The rumors started also with posts they shared some screenshots until the Duncan Rouleau interview.[1]

The Duncan Rouleau Interview

In August 2020 Man of Action co-founder Duncan Rouleau agreed to get an interview to help promote the 2016 reboot series' film Ben 10 Versus the Universe: The Movie. The interview happened by The Ink Tank doing the interview he was asked about the early development of Ben 10 later a member of The Ink Tank sawed to him that the screenshots he said were fan art until Dave Johnson revealed that the pilot was real.

Dave Johnson Steps In

After the interview Twitter user, Tron Trovlta asked if the pitch pilot was real or not but Dave responded by saying that Gwen's mushroom shirt was changed to a cat because Cartoon Network didn't want to promote any drugs. He also shared concept art of the characters in his portfolio until Roxy found footage of the pilot.[2]

Resurfaced Footage

In 2021, a user named Roxy, owner of a blog called "Ben 10: Lost and Found" was browsing archived versions of International Cartoon Network Websites on Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Within one of the files, Roxy found 14 seconds of animation from the test footage. On November 20th, 2021, The Ink Tank released a video discussing the new finding, featuring a brief appearance by Roxy (in the form of an alien species from the show) discussing how she found the clips.

The video would find its way to Nollan Obena, art director and background artist for the original series, who had the following to say:

"Ran into this post on my feed. Great detective work. Yep. It was a test for the overseas studios. We test the studios we want to use by having them animate a few scenes from the storyboards. Character interactions for acting and of course a transformation scene. I love that you also had pages from the zine we put together for ComicCon."

With this added context, it can be safely assumed that there are multiple takes of the test footage by different animation studios, namely Sunmin Pictures, Rough Draft Korea, and Lotto Animation, the latter who takes may be the version the footage is from, as Lotto is credited as the animation studio behind the episode, and part of their work is reused in the final release, during Four Arms' battle with the reanimated mammoth.

Gallery

Images

Footage

The resurfaced pitch pilot clips.

Videos

The Ink Tank's video on the found footage.

The Ink Tank's interview with Duncan claiming that the screenshots were fan-made.

See Also

Ben 10

Anthology and Short Series

Audio

Bumpers and Interstitials

Pilots

Live-Action

Other Cartoon Network Series

External Links

References