Time for a few words about one of the best kept secrets in Hollywood. Buffy: The Animated Series, a TV series that this TVWriter™ minion for one, is furious about never having gotten to see.
by Caroline Preece
A demon driver’s ed teacher, a shrunken Buffy, and a pre-teen Dawn.
No, these aren’t Buffy Season 8 comic stories, but rather ideas for the much-discussed but never actually made Buffy: The Animated Series. In development hell since the days when Buffy the Vampire Slayer was still on the air, the show would have featured episodes written by faves like Jane Espenson, Steve DeKnight, Drew Greenberg and Doug Petrie, as well as creator Joss Whedon himself.
After the idea was conceived by Whedon and Jeff Loeb in 2001, a four-minute presentation (which you can now watch here) was written and drawn in 2004 with voice work completed by principle cast including Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendan, and Anthony Head (but not Sarah Michelle Gellar, who turned down the chance to return). But by 2005, Whedon declared the show to be dead. So what happened?
It wouldn’t have been a straight spin-off or sequel, but rather it would have taken place during the parent series’ first season – specifically after episode seven, Angel. This would presumably allow the show to take place at a time when the Scoobies know about Angel’s little vampirism problem, allowing him to be more than the creepy guy who brings Buffy missions.
Another interesting wrinkle is that Dawn would be a character which, as those familiar with the original show know, didn’t become the case until season five. This retroactive insertion of Buffy’s kid sister (Dawn would have been just 11 or 12 during the first season) would certainly have been an interesting way of generating fresh stories and not being handcuffed to canon.
But as we know, the idea never came to fruition, and it seems that it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Despite the initial plan for the show to air on Fox Kids, it was left homeless after the channel’s closure. From there, Whedon and Loeb had an uphill battle to sell it somewhere else….
While you’re at it, have a gander at this too: