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32 years after the ill-fated pilot for a cartoon adaptation of Rare's NES classic Battletoads, somebody is on eBay trying to sell the original animation cels for $35,000. Nobody's bitten on that price just yet.
A collection of thousands of these animation cells were given to Texas collectables store Space Cadets Collection Collection by "a former video game executive," according to the eBay listing. The collection has been listed since at least the middle of October, and while it's got a fair number of watchers, nobody's taken the plunge on that $35,000 asking price.
My eye was turned to this listing thanks to a tweet from Brian A. Miller, a former Cartoon Network executive who was at DIC Entertainment at the time of the Battletoads production. "The funny thing is, I don’t think we paid much more than that for the animation on the pilot," he jokes.
In 1992 we did a pilot at DIC called BATTLETOADS, based on the video game. The hope was that it would take off the way TMNT did. It was no secret that multiple studios turned Turtles down in the initial pitch. A lot of regrets when the series became the phenomenon it did. Toads… pic.twitter.com/eklM2oR8W2October 28, 2024
Miller also notes that, when the pilot was produced, "the hope was that it would take off the way TMNT did." Obviously, given the fact that Battletoads never became a series, that hope didn't quite pan out. The pilot aired on television exactly once - Thanksgiving 1992 - and was released on VHS, but it never went further than that. If you want to watch it yourself, though, current rightsholder WildBrain uploaded the whole thing to YouTube many years back.
While the NES Battletoads game is the only part of the series that's particularly well-remembered today, it spawned portable spin-offs, a SNES sequel, a crossover with Double Dragon, and an arcade beat-em-up. The franchise was revived with a 2020 PC and Xbox One game simply titled Battletoads, but it got mixed reviews and never made much of an impression. But hey, if historical curiosities are your jam today marks an excellent way to relieve yourself of 35 grand.
