The 10 Most Amazing Unreleased Things Ever Made
Posted at 5:04 AM Aug 06, 2008
By Todd Ciolek
A dead dream is a tragic sight, and in the often-frivolous world of entertainment, a dead dream is best embodied by those unfortunate projects that never see the light of day. In a just and fair world, every finished movie, videogame, TV show, song or piece of potential art would be aired out and then praised, ignored, or soundly detested as the public saw fit.
And there are a lot of dead dreams out there, moldering in warehouses, vaults, and half-corrupted hard drives. Most of them probably wouldn’t have a chance at greatness, but a few are so intriguing that we can’t help but take up their causes. And that’s what we’ll do here, whether the cause is for an Orson Welles movie or a Nintendo game about a pro-wrestling ape.
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10) Crank the Weasel
Grand Theft Auto III made the gaming industry sit up and notice “sandbox” games, where it’s almost more fun to screw around with the environment than to push the game forward. Yet it was a cartoonish little 2003 action game called Crank the Weasel that embraced the idea the most—and paid the price for it.
A 3-D tribute to 1920s cartoons, Crank followed its weasel hero on a quest to cash in a ticket to the alluring Pleasure Island. To accomplish this, he wandered his hometown streets, stealing from his fellow cartoon characters, fencing his ill-gotten loot, and upholding the horrible sexist standards of the roaring ’20s by smacking women’s rears. Available power-ups included an Incredible Hulk transformation and a can of rabies that turned Weasel into a frothing loon that bit and infected other characters. The game even had a detailed design document for a strip club where the opening comedy act would die repeatedly while players did their best to button-mash Weasel into a manic, hooting lust machine worthy of Tex Avery.
It was this emphasis on free-roaming gameplay and side attractions that did in Crank the Weasel, as there simply wasn’t much of a traditional game to support it all. That was perhaps the point of the whole thing, but it didn’t stop Midway from canceling plans to release in on the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube.
Where It Is: In the hands of the people who worked on it, and the people who collect demos of dead games.
Why It’s Unreleased: Not enough space marines.
9) Lupin VIII
Lupin III is an anime icon in his native Japan, to the point where Tokyo Movie Shinsha gives him a new TV special every year. Yet he’s never quite taken off in America, where companies waited a bit too long to introduce his old ’70s TV series and classic films. Not that he doesn’t have fans (everyone likes Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle of Cagliostro Lupin flick, for example), but Lupin will never be as big a star in Western cartoon culture as he is in Japan.
Things might have been different if Lupin VIII had made it to TV back in the ’80s.
Produced by TMS and the French-American DiC Studios for an international audience, the TV show went centuries into the future, when Lupin III’s distant yet identical-looking descendant worked as a private detective in space colonies also with a supporting cast also identical to the old Lupin guard.
The project ran into trouble, both in the planning stages and in legal venues, as Lupin III’s creator, Monkey Punch, actually ripped off the character from French author Maurice Leblanc’s Arsene Lupin novels and has since tread on shaky ground. At least one episode was produced, but without any voice acting. Perhaps it wouldn’t have compared to Lupin’s better capers, though it’s hard to hate anything with Inspector Zenigata and gunman extraordinaire Jigen wearing their hats on top of their astronaut helmets.
Where it is: In the vaults at DIC or TMS. We hope. It also pops up online from time to time, though YouTube’s only current Lupin VIII material comes from someone’s homemade dub.
Why It’s Unreleased: Legal issues and general disinterest.
8) Broken: The Movie
Broken might be Trent Reznor’s best album. It’s a burst of angry, memorable noise that stands above the synthesized warbles of Pretty Hate Machine and the teen-atheist moaning of The Downward Spiral, and it marks that point in every Nine Inch Nails fan’s life when the industrial outrage seemed genuinely cool and disturbing.
That’s where the Broken movie comes in. It collects four music videos based on album tracks and bookends them with spliced-up scenes of torture and murder. Adding to the snuff-film notoriety of it all, the movie’s only available in bootlegged form, even though the individual music videos have seen multiple releases, including the banned-by-MTV delights of “Happiness in Slavery.”
Where It Is: With Trent Reznor and a few people who received the movie as a special gift. Each version given away was missing a different section of video, thus enabling Reznor to keep track of those who betrayed him.
Why It’s Unreleased: There’s not much point now. The film was originally stifled so it wouldn’t take attention away from the album, but it’s been bootlegged and bittorrented ad nauseam over the years, and the latest leaked version supposedly came from Reznor himself. How thoughtful of him.
7) The Pixies’ “Watch What You’re Doing”
The Pixies weren’t just influential alt-rock revolutionaries of the ‘80s. They were also a blessing to any early-1990s teenager who wanted something between They Might Be Giants and Nirvana, something that would still have indie cred and endure after they’d left high school and college. Part of the band’s appeal lay in the deliberately bizarre choice of subject matter, as their songs obliquely covered UFO, Biblical heroes, the antics of the homeless, middle-school sex fantasies, and reincarnation. Several are even about incest, though not the song that sounds like it’s clearly about incest. That one’s about masturbation.
Pixies fronters Kim “Mrs. John Murphy” Deal and Charles “Black Francis/Frank Black” Thompson were equally weird in their choice of covers, leaping from Neil Young to the beat from the NARC arcade game. Perhaps their most unexpected cover is one only heard by the people who put together the band’s early “purple tape,” which included a Pixies’ version of Christian singer Larry Norman’s “Watch What You’re Doing.” It’s a standard cautionary tune about the dangers of single motherhood and the evil that lurks in every atheist’s heart.
Thanks to YouTube users who can’t spell “you’re” properly, we can hear the version from Norman’s final U.S. concert in 2005, when Frank Black actually joined him on stage. It’s a nice tribute, but it’s not quite the same as it would’ve been when run through the half-screamed melodies and guitar whines of early Pixies.
Where it is: Sitting on record producer Gary’s Smith’s shelf.
Why It’s Unreleased: Smith supposedly found it in 2004, just when the Pixies’ greatest-hits album came out. So we’ll have to wait another few years for another cash-in to include “Watch What You’re Doing.”
6) Bounty Arms
The mid-1990s were a tough time for hand-drawn, two-dimensional videogames, which became neglected older children in the face of newly arrived 3-D industry darlings like Ridge Racer and Virtua Fighter. So no one really noticed in 1994 when a Japanese company called Data West announced a PlayStation game called Bounty Arms.
Bounty Arms resembles an old-fashioned overhead shooting game in the style of Commando or Ikari Warriors, albeit with tiny-nosed anime women in place of bare-chested Rambo knockoffs. There was more to Bounty Arms: instead of shooting enemies, heroines Rei Misazaki and Chris HerLastNameIsUntranslatableGibberish use telescoping robotic “Relic Arms” as whips, flamethrowers, and grappling hooks. While the game’s setting appeared to be a typical blend of robot-filled jungles and factories, the Relic Arm play mechanic made it unlike any other game on the market. Perhaps that’s why Data West canceled the whole thing in 1995.
Where it is: Possibly in a storeroom at Data West, though it’s likely that the company, which doesn’t even make games anymore, just deleted everything.
Why It’s Unreleased: Hunting down rare, unreleased videogames is hard in America. Hunting them down in Japan’s secretive world of collectors is nearly impossible.
Comments
Spot on about Broken bing NIN best album. I came across that video completely accidently 4 or 5 years ago. I was searching for music videos online and founds a site that had it up so I downloaded it. I can't really say I've been the same since. Pretty messed up video.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 08:27:21 AMI was hoping that "The Day the Clown Cried" would be on here, and there it was. This is a really fantastic list, well done.
Oddly enough, Harry Shearer is one of a select few who has actually seen the film. Derek Smalls gets around.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 09:44:44 AMI saw a clip earlier this week, I believe on Cinematical or /film for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer animated series that was presented to Fox and never greenlit. From the four minute clip, it seemed awesome, had the original voices of willow, Giles, and Xander, and deserves a spot on this list.
More proof that Fox hate happiness.
Though in all fairness, it was probably difficult to get an animated show about killing vampires for kids past the saturday-morning censors.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 10:05:45 AMExcellent list. Pixies, NIN and The Day The Clown Cried. Wow.
Broken starred my friend and fellow CF-er Bob Flanagan. RIP.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 10:22:50 AMExcellent list, one of your best yet!
Lupin VIII... Woo boy.... It's probably worth noting that actual production cells of this show actually pop up on E-bay from time to time.
I was pretty surprised to see 'The Day the Clown Cried' on here, but in a good way. I've always been morbidly curious to see this film, just for the bizarre factor.
...And for what it's worth, I would've probably given Mardock Scramble a chance... I can't believe this was too weird, but Strike Witches got the go ahead >.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 11:37:28 AMThat digital press link isn't working.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 12:11:33 PMI'm with Schneid Remarks. I think a Buffy the vampire slayer cartoon would be awesome. It might be too violent for kids but there are a lot of cartoons today that are geared towards adults and this could be one of them.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 12:12:40 PMhm, I would think QRIO is one of the most amazing unreleased things ever made
Posted 08/06/2008 at 12:17:44 PMYou forgot the grey album : jay z and beatles mixed by danger mouse
Posted 08/06/2008 at 12:24:38 PMI know Top Ten lists are purely subjective... but how could you leave out the GLOBAL FREQUENCY TV pilot?
Posted 08/06/2008 at 01:31:52 PMNo Tattoo Assassins? The arcade game from 1994, written by Bob Gale (Back to the Future), created in like a week by pinball designers? It's too classic to pass up!
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=10039
Posted 08/06/2008 at 01:33:15 PM@cdear
Grey Album was released...hence it not being on the list for 'unreleased things'
Posted 08/06/2008 at 01:49:01 PMNo Nabokov's "The Original of Laura"?
Posted 08/06/2008 at 03:11:05 PMMostly broken toys that deserve to be swept away. I thought the only hidden treasure was the Weasel game, good to lead with your strongest point, it made me wade thru the rest of the crap. Things for future posts:
Tron - the musical - little known production made by Disney at the same time as the original, same plot, but way more singing and dancing. Strobelight Stacatto is said to be the killer number, that made and destroyed the film. Said to be languishing in Disney vaults next to Walt's private cartoon porn. (the infamous mickey/minnie/goofie menage a trois)
MTV's the state - a chilling behind the scenes' look at the secret government that controls the media and the things they broadcast. Hosted by Ollie North and Kurt Loder, featuring scenes of Loder being strapped to a wall and forced to listen to polka music at loud volumes while strobe lights danced and Ollie drank himself silly with cheap scotch and bad cigars. Loder acquiesces to demands for more "boy bands" from Ollie and the demise of the once proud MTV brand was begun. In one scene they actually show the technicians loading the "brain" into the Britney SPears Bot and attempting to program a dance number. This was the mid 80's and the technology was a bit rustic. Britney dances thru a plaster board wall and nearly castrates Ollie North before she is shut down. Classic tv viewing said to be in the National Archives in the "release only when the "real Kennedy assasination" files get released" crate.
Buckaroo Bonzai in the 8th Dimension - Peter Weller's foray into scifi/comix/satire/drama breaks all genre and features a star studded cast, the highpoint is difficult to pick but when John Lithgow as the alien leader John Bigbooty gives an inspiring speach to all the aliens trying to fix their ship so that they might leave the planet from New Jersey, sings I feel so broke up I wanta go home. Equally enthralling is Penny Pretty (ellen barking) who attempts to blow her brains out while Weller sings a beautiful rendition of "I only have eyes for you" - the original print - over 12 hours in length not including 7 intermissions has been reported to be in the hands of the KGB, dropped by an irate James Cameron from a mini-sub onto the wreck of the Titanic and hidden in the same place as Jimmy Hoffa. Will we ever learn the truth?
Posted 08/06/2008 at 03:14:33 PMBroken Movie? I must investigate
Posted 08/06/2008 at 03:17:51 PMAlthough Duke Nukem Forever is apparently back in production, I remember when I first saw screens from the development around 2000, I was absolutely amazed.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 03:24:11 PMI got a feeling these are just the tip of the ice berg.
JT
Posted 08/06/2008 at 03:29:28 PMwww.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
what about g-n-r Chinese Democracy?
Posted 08/06/2008 at 03:43:47 PMThis list is incomplete without mentioning Juliana Hatfield's unreleased album God's Foot.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 03:46:20 PMWow, Jerry Lewis was right six million times
Posted 08/06/2008 at 04:27:27 PMOf course, there's also always Star Trek: Secret of Vulcan Fury.....
Posted 08/06/2008 at 05:04:16 PMMan nice list but you should watch more movies and listen to more music outside of the 90's scene, there's a lot more of legendary unreleased STUFF, here's some in order of importance:
1-Alejandro Jodorowsky's "Dune" complete storyboards (Star Wars, Alien and Blade Runner were based on this) .
2-Walt Disney's "The Story Of Menstruation" cartoon (belive it or not).
3-Roger Corman's "Fantastic Four" adaptation.
4-Sam Raimi's Evil Dead prototype short-film "Within The Woods".
5-"Psycho" with the lost original footage.
6-"Love God" Frank Grow surreal film masterpiece.
7-"Back To The Future" starring Eric Stoltz, oh yeah, they shoot it without Michael J. Fox first!
8-Prince's "Crystal Ball" album (the basis for the infamous obscure Black Album).
9-"Chinese Democracy" legendary Guns n' Roses album.
10-"Arrebato" Spain first cult film, a mix of "Liquid sky" and "Videodrome" made in 1980!!!!!!!
NIN Broken movie it's not hard to find, you can get it at any Horror Convention or Comic Covention for a sheap price, i saw it at the San Francisco Amoeba for $3 dlls.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 06:02:21 PMMan nice list but you should watch more movies and listen to more music outside of the 90's scene, there's a lot more of legendary unreleased STUFF, here's some in order of importance:
1-Alejandro Jodorowsky's "Dune" complete storyboards (Star Wars, Alien and Blade Runner were based on this) .
2-Walt Disney's "The Story Of Menstruation" cartoon (belive it or not).
3-Roger Corman's "Fantastic Four" adaptation.
4-Sam Raimi's Evil Dead prototype short-film "Within The Woods".
5-"Psycho" with the lost original footage.
6-"Love God" Frank Grow surreal film masterpiece.
7-"Back To The Future" starring Eric Stoltz, oh yeah, they shoot it without Michael J. Fox first!
8-Prince's "Crystal Ball" album (the basis for the infamous obscure Black Album).
9-"Chinese Democracy" legendary Guns n' Roses album.
10-"Arrebato" Spain first cult film, a mix of "Liquid sky" and "Videodrome" made in 1980!!!!!!!
11-John Carpenter "Halloween in space" script (that's right, Michael Myers goes to Mars)
NIN Broken movie it's not hard to find, you can get it at any Horror Convention or Comic Covention for a sheap price, i saw it at the San Francisco Amoeba for $3 dlls.
Posted 08/06/2008 at 06:05:48 PMGood call on Bounty Arms, I was huge into the import game scene of the early to mid 90's and I remember being very excited about this game, since it was from Data West, the makers of the quite excellent Rayxanber series of shooting games (which were mercilessly difficult, well the first two were in any case).
Posted 08/06/2008 at 08:28:42 PMThe first Star Trek pilot "The Cage" which had Jeffrey Hunter as Capt Christopher Pike instead of William Shatner as Kirk, never aired on TV as a complete episode. Segments would later be incorporated in the two-part episode "Menagerie."
Posted 08/07/2008 at 01:07:00 AMOne other unreleased movie...
"Frankenstein and the Wolfman" from ILM and Universal. Would have been ILM's first all digitally animated movie and would have been released around the time of the first Shrek movie if Universal hadn't screwed it up.
Posted 08/07/2008 at 02:37:34 AMChinese Democracy is not on here because it's not "finished". It's supposedly being mixed right now.
Posted 08/07/2008 at 08:14:24 AMWhat? No Chinese Democracy! Your list is incomplete.
Posted 08/07/2008 at 10:45:45 AMActually, there is a full DVD iso image of the broken movie floating around the net, and although quite graphic really fits the anger and energy of the album. Although broken was one of the better NIN albums, I still think The Downward Spiral was better. (but hey, thats just opinion, there isn't really a NIN album I don't like)
Posted 10/22/2008 at 07:13:42 PMI'd completely blocked out "The Day the Clown Cried". When I was a boy the preacher at my church invited all the kids over for snow mobile riding and food and he showed that movie on one of those old reel projectors. I think I was seven years old. I watched about 6 minutes of it and said "what the hell is this crap?!?!"
I went back outside and tried to hotwire the snow mobile.
Posted 10/25/2008 at 03:17:04 PMWhere is Duke Nukem Forever? Clearly that was the epitome of awesome that never happened.
Posted 10/30/2008 at 05:03:28 PMKinda surprised that the Gen 13 PG13 animated movie didn't make it on this list. Mark Hamill was in it!
Posted 10/31/2008 at 07:09:23 AMAlso, I forgot to mention:
Rob Liefeld's Youngblood cartoon.
Posted 10/31/2008 at 07:17:21 AMI know I'm late on this, but I checked out the thread for that Bio Force Ape...
Great Find!!
Posted 11/20/2008 at 09:27:39 PMI bumped the Bio Force Ape thread for the hell of it. Let's watch insanity ensue...
Posted 12/14/2008 at 12:28:13 AMI think you should make a list of the 10 best playable unreleased video games like Star Fox 2 for SNES, Half-Life Gold, and Propeller Arena for Dreamcast. While Half-Life Gold has a few issues, I suggest anyone who can go check 'em out.
Posted 03/14/2009 at 01:23:52 AMNightbreed: the director's cut. Assuming that Clive Barker isn't covering his ass, 20th century Fox has fully 20 minutes of additional footage smoldering in their bunker somewhere. Chances are nothing is gained in coherence, intelligence, or artistry in the extended cut, but that is never the point in these nerd grail quests. Of course, it all smacks of embarrassment and apology- rather than owning up to the platter of glorious, George Lucas on a bender with Ken Russell tripe, Barker wants to blindside his fans with what could have been. If the footage exists, I'm game.
Posted 04/27/2009 at 07:13:36 PMAlso, Messiah for the playstation was by all appearances in the proto-sandbox. Has it popped up online anywhere? There is no saving a world that forgets Messiah and keeps Thrill Kill flush in its peer to peer undeath.
RPG Maker! Every 12 year old god in training put their lot in with this shelved project before they discovered civilization 2.
To those of you saying that Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy is missing from the list...
http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Democracy-Guns-N-Roses/dp/B001LZXT9W/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1241039714&sr=8-7
It was released late last year, and doesn't need to be on the list.
Posted 04/29/2009 at 02:17:12 PMTo those of you saying that Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy is missing from the list...
http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Democracy-Guns-N-Roses/dp/B001LZXT9W/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1241039714&sr=8-7
It was released late last year, and doesn't need to be on the list.
Posted 04/29/2009 at 02:18:00 PMI must respectfully disagree:
THESE are the most amazing images from Bio Force Ape
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c216/paulB812/de44798f.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c216/paulB812/b585dbeb.jpg
Posted 05/15/2009 at 10:18:54 PMHow about the Walt Disney/Salvador Dali collaboration "Destino"? Languishing in the vaults since the 1940's, though it has been screened at art shows on occasion (and was even inexplicably nominated for an academy award in 2003). I want this AND "Song of the South" on DVD!
Posted 06/03/2009 at 09:59:27 AMIf ANYONE sees this. Through a wild change in the plot line of Bio Force Ape. Paulb (the mastermind behind that whole thing) sent "Programming Ace" (a member of DV) the NES cart, a tub of butter, and a note saying "Check the EPROMS". It turned out to be a prototype of Bio fucking Force fucking Ape. It either wasn't a hoax, or it's a homebrew. Either way, it kicks ass. That is all.
Posted 06/19/2009 at 01:41:20 PMI wanted to watch Mardock Scramble from the first pic and info of it I saw (a magazine, I think). I die a little inside each time I'm reminded it will never come to pass. I call this my "Fear Effect 3 response". The fact that Le Chevalier D'Eon was completed and ran while Mardock wasn't makes me positively sick.
Posted 06/20/2009 at 11:44:41 AMGreat list, although the clip of Larry Norman has been removed from YouTube.
Posted 06/24/2009 at 12:44:41 PMWhat about the great XBox title BC? I bought an XBox in anticipation of that freakin game.
Posted 07/02/2009 at 11:05:58 AM