The Legend of Calamity Jane (found English dub of animated series; 1997-1998)

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Calamity Jane title.jpg

Title card.

Status: Partially Lost

English dubbed episode one (part one of three), courtesy of rotarydialz.

Promotional clip for the show, featuring dialogue recorded by Jennifer Jason Leigh (0:22-0:23).

The Legend of Calamity Jane was a thirteen episode animated series created by French animation studio Contre Allée throughout late 1997 to mid 1998, during which time it was aired in several countries.

Plot

The series revolved around (a young, fictionalized version of) the infamous and historically renowned heroine Martha Jane Canary, commonly known as Calamity Jane. It was set in the Wild West and was a gritty and sometimes explicitly violent series (frequently showcasing gun violence), particularly for a cartoon whose target audience were kids and young adults. Despite its controversial content, the series has garnered somewhat of a cult following in recent years.

English Broadcast

The WB Television Network picked up the series in 1997, though only three episodes were broadcast (during the Kids' WB programming block) before the series was pulled entirely (assumingly due to the excessive violence; an official explanation has never been given), despite being heavily promoted in the weeks prior to its premiere. The series had at least one complete English airing, however, in Canada, during the show's production period (ie. 1997 to 1998); it has also been fully aired in several non-English speaking countries, such as France and Portugal (the latter of which aired the series in 2002).

That Dude In The Suede called the cartoon's intro one of his top 11 American Animé openings.

Resurfacing

For a long time, the show was practically impossible to track down, never having received any form of home video release. Eventually, foreign dubbed versions of the majority of the series began appearing online and, most recently, in 2010, VHS rips of all but two episodes were uploaded to YouTube in their original English dubs by user rotarydialz.[1] One of the remaining two episodes, "Protégé", has been uploaded in its Swedish dub, though the other, "Dead, or Alive", is still missing entirely.[2]

Alternate dubbing

Notably, there is one more (slightly related) aspect of this show that has never come to light; originally, actress Jennifer Jason Leigh was cast as Calamity Jane, though, just two weeks before the show's premiere, the part was recast (for reasons unknown) and the role subsequently given to Barbara Scaff. Due to the recasting occurring so late in production, the promotional footage that was used to advertise the then-upcoming show on The WB featured dialogue recorded by Leigh, indicating that at least one episode of the show was recorded with Leigh as Calamity Jane. Aside from a single short piece of dialogue, as heard in the aforementioned promotional clip (which has since shown up online), none of Leigh's recorded dialogue has ever been released to the public.

In March 2014, it has been discovered that a Serbian dub of "Dead, or Alive" was uploaded to YouTube.[3] While two episodes remain missing in their English dub, this is still an interesting development. Thanks to YouTuber SvetAnimacije for uploading the Serbian dubbed episode and to PoundPuppies10fan1 for making its presence known!

References