Neighbours "Episode 3896" (partially found episode of Australian soap opera; 2001)

The show's logo.

Status: Partially Found

Neighbours is an Australian soap opera that first premiered on the Seven Network on March 18th, 1985 before moving to Channel 10 for the rest of it's run until July 29th, 2022, with the show being set to resume on Amazon Freevee in late 2023. The show follows the lives of the The Ramsays, the Robinsons and the Clarkes, who live and work in Erinsborough, a fictional suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, with their wacky adventures making them want to move out to the south.^[1]

The show has had a large variety of guest appearances from other huge named celebrities like Lily Allen, Chris Lowe, Emma Bunton and Paula Abdul. As part of episode 3896, the Australian children's group The Wiggles made their appearance on the show and unlike other episodes with celebrity cameos, this one has not resurfaced in full.

Plot

The episode would follow Lou as he is getting ready to go to court, supported by Susan and Drew, who takes Lolly to see The Wiggles at the community festival. Tad and Paul throw a party and upon realizing that they don't know half of the attendants, Flick suggests they call the cops by pretending to be an annoyed neighbor. The Wiggles then appear at the door to the sound of loud music and Emily and Flick invite them and surprise the attendants.^[2]

Availability

This episode is known to have aired three times, the first time on November 12, 2001 on Channel 10 in Australia, the second on BBC One on January 11, 2002 in the United Kingdom, and for the final time also in the United Kingdom on March 15, 2006 on UKGold. Since that final airdate, the episode has not been seen since. A digital copy of the episode later made its way to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia but other details surrounding this archival are unknown.^[3]

During one of Greg Page's "Remembers Or Tries To" Q&A videos, he said that the script for episode 3896 was at the Powerhouse Museum, meaning that it was at the now defunct The Wiggles Exhibition. He also mentions that he has the episode but he can't share it for copyright reasons. On October 15, 2020, the show's official UK Facebook page posted several snippets from the episode.^[4] This and various production photos and screenshots are all that can be found of the episode today.