Monster Jam (partially found European airings; 2006-2009)

Captain's Curse tumbles into the stands as seen in a European broadcast.

Status: Partially Found

The Monster Jam lost European airings are a series of episodes of the television show Monster Jam that were aired exclusively in European countries, but have not surfaced in full online. Some of these episodes have been partially found while others are completely lost with no footage available online at all.

Background

Monster Jam is a live motorsports show that began in 1992. The show revolved around monster trucks competing against each other in racing and freestyle competitions. Monster Jam was first televised in 2000 under the name Motor Madness before changing its name the following year in 2001. The series hosts events at various stadiums and arenas across the United States, most shows taking place between January and March each calendar year. All of the shows lead up to the Monster Jam World Finals in late March, the main championship event to decide the champions in the racing and freestyle competitions. The series then hosts the Summer Heat series in July, which revolves around speedway shows before hosting the European tour in September till the end of the year. Monster Jam was broadcast on TNN from 2000-2002 before switching over to the SPEED channel from 2003-2013. Currently, the shows are now broadcast on FOX Sports.

European Airings

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  The unique on-screen transitional graphic exclusively used in European broadcasts

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  The unique Finals on-screen graphics

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  The unique Freestyle on-screen graphics

As TNN and SPEED were only available in the United States, this meant that only American viewers were able to watch Monster Jam on television. All of these original episodes have since been uploaded to YouTube on the official Monster Jam YouTube channel, but require a subscription to watch. In 2006, however Monster Jam began airing in Europe, the United Kingdom in particular having the episodes aired on the-then new channel Bravo 2, and Dutch TV channels JIM TV and RTL7 would eventually receive the same broadcasts. A commercial was specifically created for the UK to advertise this, entirely using clips of the Monster Jam World Finals 7 event that had taken place earlier that year. World Finals 7 was the first official episode to be broadcast on the network, though very oddly, the episode was aired in its original SPEED channel format, despite the UK not having access to the channel. The freestyle portion of the show was aired first while the racing portion was aired the next day in the early hours of the morning, despite the racing portion typically being aired first. Strangely, the next broadcast, Montreal 2005, was instead broadcast in an entirely different and unique presenting style, using new on-screen graphics and only showcasing the final race, with the freestyle portion taking up almost all of the episode's run time. Scott Douglass, the main host and commentator for Monster Jam, provided pre-recorded commentary and was the sole presenter. Europe has continued to have Monster Jam broadcasts until at least 2010 in this unique style. However, there were various events that were broadcast in full in Europe between 2006 and 2009 that were either partially televised or not televised at all in the United States. Some of the shows had previously been aired in the United States in segments called "Around the USHRA" which were featured as part of other shows. In particular, in 2007, the SPEED channel aired a special episode recapping freestyle events that had happened throughout the year. Shows such as San Antonio 2007, San Francisco 2007 and Tampa 2007 were shown in this special episode and all three of these shows had been televised in Europe, using the same footage with added timer graphics. One show, Cardiff 2007, was aired in Europe and footage of this show in particular was never released in the US at all. European airings of shows from 2010 are not known to exist, and Europe would often receive Monster Jam episodes months after the US had originally broadcast them.

Availability

As Monster Jam is not as popular in Europe as in the US, these European broadcasts have become extremely rare to find online and only a small amount of clips have been uploaded to YouTube. While it is unknown exactly how many episodes were televised in Europe, there are videos of certain shows available as well as information posted to online forums.

On 14 September 2009, user MonsterJamUnlimited uploaded a 7-minute video of the Monster Jam World Finals 10 event as it was broadcast in Europe. The airing came from Dutch TV channel rtl7. This particular airing gained notoriety on monster truck forums at the time, as it featured the Captain's Curse truck driven by Alex Blackwell rolling over into the stands of Sam Boyd Stadium while racing against Tom Meents driving Maximum Destruction in the final round of racing to determine the champion. The crash was famously censored on the SPEED channel in the US as well as on the official DVD of the event that came out later in the year. The reason for the censoring was due to two separate incidents that occurred in the monster truck industry earlier on in January that resulted in two people being killed, one was a 6-year old boy and the other was famous monster truck announcer George Eisenhart. While the Captain's Curse crash did not result in any injuries or deaths, the shocking footage could've put the monster truck scene in serious jeopardy. It is not known why exactly the crash was shown in full in Europe, but according to the user VVITch on the Monster Mayhem forum, it was shown because the European audience were unaware of the accidents that had happened that year. Despite this, during the CBS Sports recap of the event in the US, a brief shot of Captain's Curse rolling over was seen before the footage cut away from the truck flipping into the stands. The European broadcast of World Finals 10 is the only known footage of the Captain's Curse crash that has been officially released, with the exception of various camcorder footages shot by fans who were in attendance.

In regards to the whole European broadcast of World Finals 10, MonsterJamUnlimited put in the description of the video that the rest of the episode was going to uploaded, but this never happened and the whole show has not been found yet. The 7-minute upload can still be viewed on YouTube.

Six days later on 20 September 2009, mtcthor uploaded two separate compilation videos of the Toronto and San Antonio 2009 shows. Neither of these were televised in the United States in any capacity, making these broadcasts exclusive to Europe. Both of these shows have still not been released in full in any capacity, but the uploads from mtcthor are still available, albeit with music playing over the footage.

After 2009, three years would pass without any footage of the Monster Jam European episodes surfacing online. However, on 5 April 2013, user Square One uploaded a video titled "Monster Jam Greasing the Wheel", a compilation video featuring various Monster Jam crashes. The video included footage of Cardiff 2007 and Anaheim 2008, two shows that never received a broadcast in the United States. Blue Thunder's and Thor's crashes at Anaheim and Cardiff respectively were the clips in question. The full broadcasts of both shows were not known to be online at the time of the discovery and it was unknown where Square One acquired the clips.

The final known instances of European broadcasts being uploaded to YouTube was around 2014 when user pita888 uploaded the San Antonio 2007 episode in its entirety, albeit split up into parts. The airing did not have English commentary and all parts have since been removed due to a copyright claim by FELD Entertainment. However, pita888 uploaded another video titled "My Edited Video (MJ Freestyle Part 4)". Another compilation video, this upload featured clips of An Escalade's and Maximum Destruction's freestyle runs at San Francisco and Tampa respectively, both from 2007. Both of these shows were included in the recap episode on SPEED, but were shown in Europe, which were not known to be online in full.

Forum Discoveries

On 19 July 2021, fandom Wiki user PolarisWasTaken discovered old posts from the online forum, Monster Mayhem. One thread from 15 July 2009 detailed the European broadcast of World Finals 10 with the Captain's Curse crash. User uk_dan, an English monster truck fan, highlighted that the airing featured Nitro Circus and Grave Digger both landing on the side aprons at the side of the track, as well as the Maximum Destruction backflip at the end of the show. The Nitro Circus and Grave Digger rollovers where only shown through on-board footage in the US airing and DVD releases while the Maximum Destruction backflip was completely omitted from both those releases. uk_dan also previously posted on the forum two months before on 12 May 2009 about which shows were televised in the United Kingdom on Bravo 2. The shows he listed were the first 2009 Minneapolis show, Phoenix 2009, Tampa 2009 and Knoxville 2009. Knoxville was an arena show, of which those were rarely shown on TV apart from brief clips, thus making that airing the only known full broadcast of an arena show.

Monster Jam Membership

In July 2020, Monster Jam announced on their official YouTube channel that they would be offering a paid membership for fans and subscribers to watch all Monster Jam shows from 2000 to 2018. These shows were the original US broadcasts on TNN, SPEED and FOX Sports. All the original US airings have been officially released, but no European broadcasts were included on the membership.

First FELD Response

The email from FELD regarding the European airings

In August 2021, fandom Wiki user RobotManiac reached out to FELD via email to ask if the European episodes would be released as part of the membership. FELD responded on 18 August stating that they have discussed internally about releasing the episodes and consider it a good idea. However, as of 2022, no European broadcasts have been released on the membership.

Episodes Found

In late 2021, it was discovered that YouTube user orlenmonsterjamshow had uploaded part of the TV broadcast of the Chorzow, Poland Monster Jam show on August 11, 2009. The footage was uploaded into 4 separate videos, but the first part was taken down by FELD, which can be found here. The event was broadcast on Polish TV network Polsat and features both commentary from Monster Jam announcer Scott Douglass, along with dubbed commentary in the country's native language

In April 2022, it was discovered that a YouTube user by the name of MohawkMarkus had uploaded the 2009 Barcelona show in its entirety on June 22, 2011. The show was aired on the El 33 channel in Catalonia and featured commentary in the country's native language. This is the only known European Monster Jam airing that is available in full online.

Further Discoveries

On April 27, 2022, pita888, now under a new channel name called Vale, revealed himself in the comments section on one of RobotManiac's videos (under his YouTube channel name Taz91) detailing where he had found the episodes. Vale, a Hungarian member, stated that an unknown YouTube user whose channel is now deleted, uploaded various 2007-2008 European airings and he had downloaded them to make videos of his own. He posted a link to one of his videos on the Hungarian video site, Inda Video, showing one of his uploads that featured King Krunch's San Antonio 2007 freestyle.

In the same comment, Vale revealed where Square One had acquired the clips from Cardiff 2007 and Anaheim 2008 for his videos. He stated that some "mysterious" videos titled simply "Monster Jam 1/9" and "Monster Jam 2/9" contained the clips from the shows split up into parts, which Vale had watched sometime in 2015 before revealing that these videos have likely been deleted as well. Vale continued by stating that he remembered watching the European episodes in Hungary on the Viasat6 channel. Viasat6 showed Monster Jam until 2012. Vale also provided a link to a music video titled "Monster Jam - If Today was your Last Day", uploaded on 17 March 2010 by the user RomBomj2, which heavily featured clips from European broadcasts. Finally, Vale provided another link to a Dutch site called UTIZending that contained more European airings uploaded as early as 2008. The World Finals 10 airing is shown on the site (likely where it had been originally before being uploaded to YouTube), as well as various other European exclusive broadcasts and rebroadcasts of events that had been aired in the United States using the European graphics. Unfortunately, while the thumbnails of the videos are still up, the videos themselves are gone. Vale concluded his comment by stating that he will still keep looking for European airings and will inform the Monster Jam community about it if he does by providing links in a video that he will plan to upload.

On April 30, 2022, Vale spent most of the day trying to access his old pita888 account in order to try and salvage the European episodes he had downloaded to no avail. However, he would provide a screenshot of a thumbnail of one of his unuploaded video titled "My Edited Video (MJ Freestyle Part 3)". The thumbnail featured The Patriot's San Francisco 2007 freestyle with the driver profile box graphic. Vale states that the 9 minute 40 second video could possibly contain only clips of European episodes.

Second FELD Response

Following these unsuccessful attempts at trying to archive the videos, Vale would email FELD himself in late May 2022, due to there being no progress from FELD regarding the European airings from the first email by Taz back in August 2021. FELD's response to Vale would throw a spanner of confusion into the works as despite the previous statement saying they had discussed releasing the airings, FELD stated that they did not have a current timeframe of when the airings would be released and that "anything that can become available will make its way to the YouTube membership channel". Judging from this statement, it seems likely that FELD do still have plans to release the European episodes but are unsure when. The status of the airings still remains in the unknown.

Known Episodes List

Episode Title	Status
San Antonio 2006	Lost
San Diego 2006	Lost
Indianapolis 2006	Lost
Minneapolis 2006	Lost
San Francisco 2007	Partially Found
Anaheim 2007	Lost
Indianapolis 2007	Lost
San Antonio 2007	Partially Found
Tampa 2007	Partially Found
Cardiff 2007	Partially Found
Anaheim 2008	Partially Found
Indianapolis 2008	Partially Found
San Antonio 2009	Partially Found
Minneapolis 2009 (Show 1)	Lost
Toronto 2009	Partially Found
Phoenix 2009	Lost
Houston 2009 (Show 3)	Lost
Knoxville 2009	Lost
Tampa 2009	Lost
World Finals 10 (Euro Airing)	Partially Found
Chorzow 2009	Partially Found
Barcelona 2009	Found

Images

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  An Escalade at San Francisco 2007 with the driver info box graphics used in the European airings

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  An Escalade at San Francisco 2007 with the timer graphic used in the European airings

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  Maximum Destruction at Tampa 2007 with the timer graphic used in the European airings

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  El Matador at San Antonio 2007, never seen in any US broadcast

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  Blue Thunder at Anaheim 2008, never seen in any US broadcast

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  Team Suzuki at Anaheim 2008, never seen in any US broadcast

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  Avenger at Indianapolis 2008, never seen in any US broadcast

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  Thor at Cardiff 2007, never seen in any US broadcast

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  Thor at Cardiff 2007, note the different timer graphic used for this episode only

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  Slingshot at Cardiff 2007, never seen in any US broadcast

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  An Escalade at Cardiff 2007, never seen in any US broadcast

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  King Krunch at San Antonio 2007 with the timer graphic used in the European airings

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  The Patriot at San Francisco 2007 with the driver info box graphics used in the European airings. This screenshot comes from one of Vale's (pita888) unuploaded videos

See Also

• Monster Jam World Finals 1 (lost footage of freestyle runs; 2000)
• Monster Jam: The Movie (lost motorsports film; 2004)