Even with the internet's best efforts to archive everything, it seems like some pieces of media are just doomed to be lost to time. These pieces of media were presumed to be in such a situation, until internet archivists finally were able to dig them up. A quick warning, some of the links do lead to autoplay videos- please proceed with caution!
#1 Yes, everyone, Phil Lester was at one point on 'The Weakest Link.' In 2007, he took a chance at winning £10k. Many fans believed the video to be fake, until
Phil himself tweeted a screenshot, as well as other fans finding
an archived link to a local news site. Fans would have to wait another three years before they were able to watch
the full episode, in which Phil not only gets voted off incredibly quickly, but even gets mocked by the hostess for his hair.
#2 Even with all the risque humor allowed in 90s cartoons, nothing could have allowed "Rude Removal" to air on Cartoon Network. The plot was simple enough, and even used in some cartoons today- Dexter built a machine to remove DeeDee's rudeness, but a malfunction leads to it splitting them into two different versions, one polite and one rude. However, the episode took it entirely too far with a title card showing DeeDee flipping the bird, and both siblings spewing swears as they went about their day.
Adult Swim did, for a while, have the full episode featured on their site, but has now removed it. Luckily, the internet made quick work of archiving it this time around, and the full episode can still be watched
here.
#3 When Daft Punk gave Soma Records' co-founder a mixtape at a rave, they were accepted and released two singles (The New Wave and Da Funk). However, one song that was on the mixtape that never got released to the public was a song simply entitled 'Drive.' Fans went unaware of its existence for over ten years, until the song was finally released on a compilation CD in 2011. If you want to listen to it,
you can do so here..
#4 Unlike the other entries in this list, this one wasn't technically released due to the fact that the studio cut it off before it could even be animated. The original ending to the Regular Show Halloween special, entitled Terror Tales of the Park II, was significantly darker to the version that actually aired.
The storyboard, released two months after the episode actually aired, was much more graphic, showing the crew's dead bodies being covered by paramedics before the driver revealed himself as a rotting zombie, veering the van into hell.
While this ending was extremely dark, it's not like the released version was any better- the version that aired had the crew crash into the tree, emerge from the car accident as ghosts, and go to the party anyways (Rigby arguing that Benson couldn't fire him if he were dead).