Spongybobchum
Active Member
I know Nickelodeon France never treated Postman Pat very good and ultimately axed it in 2012. But this story will make it look like Pat was to the French feed what SpongeBob is to the American one by comparison:
(All info comes from Jetix.nl on the Wayback Machine or from Krantenbank Zeeland)
In August 2006, the Canadian animated series Atomic Betty premiered in the Netherlands and Flanders on the channel Jetix, nearly two years after first airing in Canada. It was treated pretty well for about a year, but around August 2007 they began screwing it over. The show was randomly removed from the schedule for a week on August 12, but returned on August 20... in a 12:10 pm timeslot when the kids would be at school. Later, in October, the show left the weekend schedule, and after November 30, it had been removed from Jetix entirely. As you can see, it only aired for 15 months. Several shows that had premiered much earlier (some examples i can think of are Jacob Two-Two, The Triplets, Gadget and the Gadgetinis, and of course the local Dutch creation "Ernst, Bobbie en de Rest"), and that also had already finished airing episodes by 2007, would still be aired on Jetix Netherlands at least once before it was shut down, but Betty never returned after November 2007 despite season 3 needing to be aired. Just... why? Like, what was the reason behind this? They couldn't have lost the rights to the series already after only 15 months, right? To make matters worse, the Dutch-dubbed version was also exclusive to Jetix, since Cartoon Network HQ (which still aired it until 2009, i think) showed it in English without subtitles, meaning that when Jetix screwed over and eventually dumped the series entirely, the Dutch dub ended simultaneously with the show's removal from Jetix. I also think season 2 never aired on Dutch television again after November 2007, since most Cartoon Network feeds that carried the show only aired season 1. And the aftermath is no better. Unlike other shows that were aired on Jetix Netherlands (most of which would be rerun on RTL Telekids years after Jetix's closure, including "Ernst, Bobbie"), the Dutch dub of Atomic Betty has never reran on any channel or released on streaming in the 18 years that have passed since Jetix axed it after suddenly treating it like trash for a few months, and has basically become lost media, save for these five episodes plus the one-hour Christmas special "The No-L Nine":
Recovered episodes of the Dutch dub.
I do not think i have ever seen a show getting worse treatment by any feed of Fox Kids/Jetix in the world, or ever seen a show getting treated worse by any channel in the Netherlands (the worst thing i can think of is how Nickelodeon effectively froze the Dutch dub of Thomas & Friends in time with the same constant reruns of the HiT era from 2009 until they finally lost the rights to air Thomas in 2015, despite the CGI series specials still being aired). I hope the justice for this dub can come one day and that it gets released on RTL Videoland with reruns on the RTL Telekids channel, but given how the show likely has faded into obscurity in the Netherlands thanks to it's abysmal treatment from Jetix, i do not see that happening anytime soon. Such a shame that my country treated this beloved cartoon so poorly.
(All info comes from Jetix.nl on the Wayback Machine or from Krantenbank Zeeland)
In August 2006, the Canadian animated series Atomic Betty premiered in the Netherlands and Flanders on the channel Jetix, nearly two years after first airing in Canada. It was treated pretty well for about a year, but around August 2007 they began screwing it over. The show was randomly removed from the schedule for a week on August 12, but returned on August 20... in a 12:10 pm timeslot when the kids would be at school. Later, in October, the show left the weekend schedule, and after November 30, it had been removed from Jetix entirely. As you can see, it only aired for 15 months. Several shows that had premiered much earlier (some examples i can think of are Jacob Two-Two, The Triplets, Gadget and the Gadgetinis, and of course the local Dutch creation "Ernst, Bobbie en de Rest"), and that also had already finished airing episodes by 2007, would still be aired on Jetix Netherlands at least once before it was shut down, but Betty never returned after November 2007 despite season 3 needing to be aired. Just... why? Like, what was the reason behind this? They couldn't have lost the rights to the series already after only 15 months, right? To make matters worse, the Dutch-dubbed version was also exclusive to Jetix, since Cartoon Network HQ (which still aired it until 2009, i think) showed it in English without subtitles, meaning that when Jetix screwed over and eventually dumped the series entirely, the Dutch dub ended simultaneously with the show's removal from Jetix. I also think season 2 never aired on Dutch television again after November 2007, since most Cartoon Network feeds that carried the show only aired season 1. And the aftermath is no better. Unlike other shows that were aired on Jetix Netherlands (most of which would be rerun on RTL Telekids years after Jetix's closure, including "Ernst, Bobbie"), the Dutch dub of Atomic Betty has never reran on any channel or released on streaming in the 18 years that have passed since Jetix axed it after suddenly treating it like trash for a few months, and has basically become lost media, save for these five episodes plus the one-hour Christmas special "The No-L Nine":
Recovered episodes of the Dutch dub.
I do not think i have ever seen a show getting worse treatment by any feed of Fox Kids/Jetix in the world, or ever seen a show getting treated worse by any channel in the Netherlands (the worst thing i can think of is how Nickelodeon effectively froze the Dutch dub of Thomas & Friends in time with the same constant reruns of the HiT era from 2009 until they finally lost the rights to air Thomas in 2015, despite the CGI series specials still being aired). I hope the justice for this dub can come one day and that it gets released on RTL Videoland with reruns on the RTL Telekids channel, but given how the show likely has faded into obscurity in the Netherlands thanks to it's abysmal treatment from Jetix, i do not see that happening anytime soon. Such a shame that my country treated this beloved cartoon so poorly.
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