Mugman: The Unaired Pilot

This episode was based on then-decade-old artwork of a fake "1998 Mugman pilot," made as a parody of how pilot episodes usually looked different from the final series. These drawings can be seen in the credits. Ever since I saw them for the first time back in 2016, I wanted them to become a real episode.

Two shots in this episode were based on said drawings, more specifically one of the intro shots and the "Strategies!" scene.

This episode was recorded on VHS by Alex Parr, and this was the last thing he recorded before his equipment started malfunctioning.

Alex Parr here; for clarification, I was using a modded Xbox 360 Slim to play back the raw video files and record them to a VHS tape through a VCR. Whoever modded it originally did a real crummy job though, as one day it just randomly powered off and wouldn't turn back on after that. Guess that's what I get for going for the cheapest possible option!

This episode was coincidentally made during a time in which four real pilots got found, those being Family Guy, Phineas and Ferb, Dora the Explorer, and the elusive Me and My Friends.

This episode was originally just going to be a one-off, as I hadn't considered making my own Mugman reboot at the time. During development though, people have told me that I'd be very fit to make a Mugman reboot, what with my ability to replicate the style almost perfectly, so I did. So technically speaking, this episode is the pilot of my reboot.

Mugman and Dementa (the pilot version of Pementa) are in a proper relationship here, unlike in the series, where it's pretty much one-sided.

All the music in this episode is pure MIDI; no soundfonts used. This is to make the episode seem more 90s.

This episode is based on the 2015 episode, "Hook, Line & Saucer".

Saltine's cameo in the beginning was added in at the last minute, but only because I just couldn't resist.

Mugman was originally going to comment about how he found his Titanic saucer next to a tree; this was dropped because it made the mentions of the Wedgwood Flea Market redundant.

Onion O'Reilly is named "Nappa Onion" here, as a reference to NAPA Auto Parts. I wanted his name to be a reference to an auto parts company since there's one named "O'Reilly Auto Parts," so IDK, I thought it made sense.

Nappa was originally going to be voiced by Johnny Mills (better known as AngryBirdman03), and there's even early footage with his voice. He left the project because he didn't want to be involved in a project like this, understandably so. At first I wanted to fill in for him, but my Onion O'Reilly voice isn't very good. In the end, Dylan R. was given the role.

Instead of being tough and athletic, Tina (the pilot version of Teanna) is more of a bookworm here.

The scene with Dementa and the scene where Tina steals the backpack were both real deleted scenes from the official Hook Line & Saucer episode, the only difference being the latter never actually left the script.

Instead of drawing a picture, Dementa is just chilling and listening to music here. I thought it'd be a neat little nod to how Pementa was a music lover in one episode (which is something I want to bring back in my reboot.)

Dementa was voiced by my girlfriend Mary (better known as Minty Leaf) instead of Cami Ost here. This is a nod to how Pementa had three voice actresses in the series, and originally I wanted her to sound like Manami Treadwell, but Mary ended up doing her own thing (tbf I never really specified what she had to do), and I thought it sounded cute so I just rolled with it.

The name on the backpack that Mugman grabs is "Wilson Cooper," a major character from my flagship series, Crazy Compositions.

The ending in this episode is different to the official one. In the official, Mugman gets turned into a frog by the Free Wizard, allowing him to swim and grab it himself. Here, he successfully uses Johnny's grabber instead. This is because I didn't know what the Free Wizard's design should've looked like and I didn't wanna resort to using his series design.