History Trivia / PokemonTheSeries

** After the announcement of ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'', the Unova arc was forced to be revamped to promote the new games. This is especially evident when looking at Ash's badge case from the earliest episodes, the final slot is clearly for the Legend Badge, meaning Ash would have fought Iris or (more likely) Drayden for his last badge. But in [=BW055=], ''Scraggy and the Demanding Gothita!'', which was aired in Japan November 10, 2011, around the time the anime staff would be notified in advance of the sequels, the badge slots were suddenly {{Retcon}}ned into generic circles, and right before the games' release, Roxie was indeed shoehorned in for the last badge instead of Iris/Drayden, among other things.

* TheOriginalDarrin: The original English voice of the Narrator, Rodger Parsons, left the show during the sixth season, being replaced by Creator/MikePollock. After 4Kids lost the license, he would narrate the series once more.

* TheOriginalDarrin: In the English dub:
** Nurse Joy's original voice actor Creator/MeganHollingshead left the show after season seven, moving to Los Angeles. However, she returned to her original role for ''Journeys'', thanks to the dubbing now being primarily done in Los Angeles.
** The original voice of the Narrator, Rodger Parsons, left the show during the sixth season, being replaced by Mike Pollock. After 4Kids lost the license, he would return as the narrator.
** Creator/TedLewis returned to voice Giovanni after being briefly replaced by Creator/CraigBlair.

** Giovanni's original Japanese voice actor, Creator/HirotakaSuzuoki, passed away towards the end of ''Advanced Generation'', requiring him to be recast as Creator/KentaMiyake.

** In the English dub, Creator/BillyKametz's roles of Goh's Inteleon, Ren, and Rotom Phone were taken over by Barrett Leddy, after the former succumbed to colon cancer in 2022.

** Many of the principal and secondary voice actors acted for two, or in some cases for three or four, at various times. Creator/MegumiHayashibara and Creator/ShinichiroMiki did it in many episodes, as they were the voices of Jessie and James, in addition to the minor/supporting characters they voiced (such as Hayashibara's Pidgeot and Miki's Charizard). Creator/UnshoIshizuka also voiced the Oaks and the narrator before his 2018 death.

*** In the first eight seasons, Veronica Taylor (Ash), Eric Stuart (Brock) and Rachael Lillis (Misty), the original English voice actors for Ash, Brock, and Misty initially voiced Delia Ketchum (Ash's mom) and May, James, and Jessie, in addition to providing some of the Pokémon vocal effects.

** In the first eight seasons, Veronica Taylor (Ash), Eric Stuart (Brock) and Rachael Lillis (Misty), the original English voice actors for Ash, Brock, and Misty initially voiced Delia Ketchum (Ash's mom) and May, James, and Jessie, in addition to providing some of the Pokémon vocal effects.

** Many of the show's principal and secondary performers acted for two, or in some cases for three or four, at various times. Creator/MegumiHayashibara and Creator/ShinichiroMiki did it in many episodes, as they were the voices of Jessie and James, in addition to the minor/supporting characters they voiced (such as Hayashibara's Pidgeot and Miki's Charizard). Creator/UnshoIshizuka also voiced the Oaks and the narrator before his 2018 death.
** Veronica Taylor, Eric Stuart and Rachael Lillis, the original English voice actors for Ash, Brock, and Misty also voice Delia Ketchum (Ash's mom) and May, James, and Jessie respectively.
** When [=TPCi=] took over the English dub, the voices of James and Meowth were taken over by Creator/JimmyZoppi (under different pseudonyms; Meowth is credited to Carter Cathcart), who originally voiced Gary Oak (and continued to do so).
** Dawn and Cynthia are both voiced by Creator/EmilyJenness in English.

** Many of the show's principal and secondary performers acted for two, or in some cases for three or four, at various times. For example, Creator/UnshoIshizuka voiced the Oaks, the narrator and various one-off characters, in addition to providing some of the Pokémon vocal effects until his death in 2018.

** Veronica Taylor, Eric Stuart and Rachael Lillis, the original voice actors for Ash, Brock, and Misty also voice Delia Ketchum (Ash's mom) and May, James, and Jessie respectively.

** A DVD release of the first three movies took place in the United States in Spring 2009--just after Noriko Sakai [[note]]who did the narration for "Pikachu and Pichu"[[/note]] was convicted of drug possession. Needless to say, the set, which included Pikachu and Pichu (which was taken out of circulation in Japan on Sakai's account), was soon pulled, and the international distributor ultimately lost the rights for good in part as a result of the set's failed release. Its foreign dubs are still clear for circulation, since Sakai's narration was dubbed over by different voice actors, with Rodger Parsons dubbing over Sakai's narration in the English version.

*** Giovanni was initially voiced by Creator/TonyFuochi, with Creator/RiccardoRovatti and Creator/OlivieroCorbetta briefly replacing him for an episode each. Fuochi kept the role until the early part of the ''Ruby and Sapphire'' seasons, then he retired from voice acting. Giovanni was then briefly recast with Sergio Romanò for a single appearance, and later Federico Danti took the role for the ''Diamond and Pearl'' series. In the ''Black and White'' series he was recast with {{Creator/Giovanni|Battezzato}} [[TheDanza Battezzato]], but halfway through first he was briefly replaced with Pietro Ubaldi (who also voiced the character in the redub of the first season) for a single episode and then Danti came back. Battezzato then took the role again in the second half of the ''X and Y'' series and remained on the character until his death, with Danti taking the role again after that.

** One of the most famous examples in modern anime, with male character Ash voiced by women in Japanese, English, European Portuguese, Dutch, Finnish, Russian, Greek, and Catalan. Averted in Spanish, French, Italian, Danish, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, Hungarian, Czech, Turkish and Hebrew.
** Originally played straight in German with Caroline Comrinck (Seasons 1-3, 12-19) and the late Veronika Neugebauer (Seasons 4-11). Averted as of ''Sun & Moon'', where Ash is voiced by Felix Mayer.
** Zigzagged in Polish where Ash was voiced by Hanna Kinder-Kiss for the first six seasons of the show. Seasons 7-9 were never aired in Poland. In Season 10, Ash was replaced by a male voice actor, Grzegorz Drojewski. However, in Season 11, Hanna Kinder-Kiss returned to voice Ash and has since continued to voice him up until the present.
** Meowth is voiced by Inuko Inuyama in Japan but averted elsewhere though it's a subversion in the English dub during the TurnOfTheMillennium as the character was voiced by Maddie Blaustein, who was transgender but his original and later voice actors are male.

* DawsonCasting: In the Swedish dub, eternally 10-year old Ash [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpSd-0ZWBeU&t=1m15s is voiced by]] Creator/DickEriksson, who is 62 years old as of December 30th, 2022.

* DelayedReleaseTieIn: The first season of ''Anime/PokemonTheOriginalSeries'' features several episodes which lead into ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie''. However, due to the infamous [[Recap/PokemonS1E38ElectricSoldierPorygon "Electric Soldier Porygon"]] seizure incident, the show was taken off the air for a few months. The movie's release date did not move to compensate for the schedule delay, meaning the Mewtwo tie-in episodes ended up airing a few months ''after'' the movie had already come out. This was [[AvertedTrope averted]] in the American release, as the English episode package did not include "Electric Soldier Porygon" and it allowed the episodes to be broadcast before the movie's U.S. release.
* DiedDuringProduction:
** Some of the creative team and cast members involved in the series have since passed away, including Creator/TakeshiShudo, Creator/HirotakaSuzuoki, Creator/TomokoKawakami, Creator/UnshoIshizuka and Creator/KeijiFujiwara. Thus, Giovanni has been voiced by Creator/KentaMiyake since September 2006 and Professor Oak (along with Samson Oak) has been voiced by Creator/KenyuuHoriuchi since September 2018.
** On the English dub's side, Creator/BillyKametz died from Colon Cancer in 2022. His roles of Goh's Inteleon, Ren, and Rotom Phone would end up being taken over by Barrett Leddy.

** Executive Meddling also removed most Japanese culture elements and text from the show so Creator/FourKidsEntertainment wouldn't have to edit them out themselves ([[ShaggyDogStory they ended up removing the made-up text they replaced it with as well]]). Some of the anime's staff did not appreciate this. This "culturally neutral" rule is still mostly present today, even though [=4Kids=] have long lost their rights to the series.

* IAmNotSpock: Creator/VeronicaTaylor seems to have encountered this sort of problem herself as the original voice of Ash Ketchum. Yet, she ''did'' enjoy her time as Ash, anyway, so...

* NoDubForYou: Inverted, as the series has never been officially released with Japanese audio and English subs. Most likely due to the fact that the licensor believes the TargetAudience wouldn't be interested in watching it in a language they don't understand, and likely not helped by Japanese home video releases being very incomplete, with a whopping ''four'' episodes of the ''Advanced Generation'' series getting a DVD release. Even when ''Pokémon Journeys'' was released as a Netflix original, English is the only language available, unlike practically every other anime Netflix has licensed (although previous seasons have multiple audio and subtitle languages). The first work to avert this was ''Anime/MewtwoStrikesBackEvolution'', which was released internationally on Netflix with Japanese audio and subtitle options among other languages. However, when ''Anime/PokemonHorizonsTheSeries'' was released on Netflix, it was once again lacking a Japanese language option.

** Subverted now that VIZ Media has re-released all three of the Johto seasons in full season box sets. It took until the mid-2010s, when VIZ re-release their earlier "Indigo League" and "Orange Island" sets (albeit with [[BannedEpisode the three episodes featuring Jynx in its original design]] removed) that they began to release more Complete Collections. With this, two previously-unavailable "Johto Journeys" episodes finally hit disc.

** Australia never received releases for the sixth or seventh movies, even though all others have been or are still available. This was finally averted in November of 2016 with the Region 4 release of the aforementioned movies, over 10 years after their releases in other western counties.

* TheOriginalDarrin:
** Nurse Joy's original voice actor Creator/MeganHollingshead left the show after season seven, moving to California. However, she returned to her original role for ''Journeys'', thanks to the dubbing now being primary done in Los Angeles.
** The original voice of the Narrator, Rodger Parsons, left the show during the sixth season, being replaced by Mike Pollock. After 4kids lost the license, he would return as the narrator.

** Giovanni's original Japanese voice actor, Creator/HirotakaSuzuoki, passed away towards the end of ''Advanced Generation'', requiring him to be recast as Creator/KentaMiyake. Reversed in a less tragic way for the English dub. After the switch in studios, Creator/CraigBlair replaced Creator/TedLewis. Blair quit shortly afterwards, by which time Lewis had returned to the show and reclaimed the role.

** [[http://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Masaaki_Iwane:_Pokémon_anime_originally_slated_for_18-month_run The anime was originally just supposed to last through Kanto]], with an assumed ending of Ash defeating Gary and winning the Pokémon League. Here's one to consider in light of that 18-month report: ''Videogame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' was originally scheduled for release in late 1997, but was delayed to be adapted for the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor. The first episode of the Anime aired on April 1, 1997, and because of the delay to ''Gold and Silver'', the Orange Island filler arc was created.

** There is currently no single hub through which every episode can be watched digitally, with the rights to various seasons being held by Netflix, Amazon and the BBC. The official Pokémon website used to have a section titled "Pokémon TV" which showed a rotating selection of series, but this was shut down for unknown reasons in February 2024.

* NoDubForYou: Inverted, as the series has never been officially released with Japanese audio and English subs. Most likely due to the fact that the licensor believes the TargetAudience wouldn't be interested in watching it in a language they don't understand, and likely not helped by Japanese home video releases being very incomplete, with a whopping ''four'' episodes of the ''Advanced Generation'' series getting a DVD release. Even when ''Pokémon Journeys'' was released as a Netflix original, English is the only language available, unlike practically every other anime Netflix has licensed (although previous seasons have multiple audio and subtitle languages). The first work to avert this was ''Anime/MewtwoStrikesBackEvolution'', which was released internationally on Netflix with Japanese audio and subtitle options among other languages.

** For similar reasons, the Finnish dub stopped including the Pokérap and "Who's That Pokémon?" segments beginning with ''[[Recap/PokemonS1E22AbraAndThePsychicShowdown Abra and the Psychic Showdown]]''. Some parents were less than happy with the MerchandiseDriven nature of the show and accused it of surreptitious advertising, with the Pokérap and its "gotta catch 'em all" message in particular being seen as blatantly telling children to collect all the toy versions of the monsters in the show. After the matter went so far as to warrant an inspection from the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority, the network [[OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope stopped showing the Pokérap and "Who's That Pokémon?" to be on the safe side.]]

** All of the English dub's voice directors (with the exception of Jason Bergenfeld) are known to have lent their voice to the series on at least one occasion:

*** Theresa Buchheister took over for the rest of the eighteenth season as well the first third of the nineteenth season, providing several human voices with her most prominent being Team Flare scientist Aliana.

* DelayedReleaseTieIn: The first season of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' features several episodes which lead into ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie''. However, due to the infamous [[Recap/PokemonS1E38ElectricSoldierPorygon "Electric Soldier Porygon"]] seizure incident, the show was taken off the air for a few months. The movie's release date did not move to compensate for the schedule delay, meaning the Mewtwo tie-in episodes ended up airing a few months ''after'' the movie had already come out. This was [[AvertedTrope averted]] in the American release, as the English episode package did not include "Electric Soldier Porygon" and it allowed the episodes to be broadcast before the movie's U.S. release.

** The GS Ball was originally going to contain a Celebi that was to star in a large portion of the Johto arc. After ''Anime/{{Pokemon 4Ever}}'' came out, it was decided that having a Celebi in the anime right after a movie featuring Celebi would be redundant, so the idea was shelved.
** ''Anime/{{Pokemon 3}}'' was [[http://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/movies/pm_lord_unknown_tower_entei/lord_unknown_tower_entei_mythical_third_movie.html originally set to address the question of "What happened to real-world animals in the Pokemon universe"]] and instead of Entei and the Unown (Gold and Silver had been delayed at this point of development and they were unsure about doing another movie debut Pokemon) the focal point would be the reanimated fossils of a ''Tyrannosaurus rex''.

* IKnewIt:
** During ''Diamond & Pearl'', the hints were pretty obvious that Ash and Dawn were eventually going to trade their respective Aipom and Buizel. It was always really questionable why Dawn was the one that captured Buizel when she already had Piplup as her team's Water-type, and Buizel being battle-hungry while Aipom enjoyed Contests just seemed like a better fit if their trainers were swapped.
** Kukui's 6th Pokemon being [[spoiler:Tapu Koko]] was something many fans called, even before the episode titles were released, due to it watching the battle between [[spoiler:Ash and Kukui]].

* CreatorsPest: Creator/AndrewRannells, the voice of Harley, doesn't like Team Rocket member James due to finding him to a bad representation of a gay man. He went into greater detail about his experience of playing said character in the show's musical ''Theatre/PokemonLive'' in his 2019 memoir, ''Too Much is Not Enough: A Memoir of Fumbling Toward Adulthood''.

** A DVD release of the first three movies took place in the United States in Spring 2009—just after Noriko Sakai [[note]]who did the narration for "Pikachu and Pichu"[[/note]] was convicted of drug possession. Needless to say, the set, which included Pikachu and Pichu (which was taken out of circulation in Japan on Sakai's account), was soon pulled, and the international distributor ultimately lost the rights for good in part as a result of the set's failed release.

* DiedDuringProduction: Some of the creative team and cast members involved in the series have since passed away, including Creator/TakeshiShudo, Creator/HirotakaSuzuoki, Creator/TomokoKawakami, Creator/UnshoIshizuka and Creator/KeijiFujiwara. Thus, Giovanni has been voiced by Creator/KentaMiyake since September 2006 and Professor Oak (along with Samson Oak) has been voiced by Creator/KenyuuHoriuchi since September 2018.

** The UK broadcast has also bounced around a fair bit - the show originally launched on Sky One and the Creator/{{ITV}} network in 1999, and it aired all seasons up to ''Advanced Challenge''. Cartoon Network then took over, airing ''Advanced Battle'' through to ''Diamond & Pearl'', as well as repeating the older seasons on its sister channel Toonami (Later Cartoon Network TOO). The show then hopped once again to Jetix, which started with ''Diamond & Pearl: Battle Dimension'', and it continued to air when the channel was rebranded as Disney XD, but it was pushed into a graveyard/early morning slot by the time that the ''XY'' season started airing, eventually vanishing from the lineup. Pop MAX (A kids TV channel formally known as Kix! that shows cartoons that used to air on other networks alongside newer seasons of Power Rangers) started showing episodes from ''Black & White'' onward since the start of 2018. On the terrestrial side of it all, it used to air on ITV's CITV kids block, but in its original run several episodes were awkwardly cut into two ten-minute segments. It aired on and off, originally only showing the first couple seasons and a small handful of ''Pokémon Advanced'' episodes. Around 2009/10, it started airing on the dedicated CITV free-to-air channel, where new episodes aired long in advance to those on satellite networks, with some episodes airing weeks ahead of their US broadcast. Whilst it focuses on showing the current season, they air older seasons from time to time, with ''Advanced'' getting a proper run back in 2015. As of today, the show currently airs on Pop.

** How some Pokemon captures went down in later seasons. Turtwig's capture for example, was seen as an exact copy of how Bulbasaur's capture went about where both grass-starters were trying to protect Pokemon from humans. Not to mention the Fire-type starters Ash has captured minus Cyndaquil all having [[TheWoobie rough backgrounds]].

* WordOfGod: Storyboarder Masamitsu Hidaka said that Ash's father is on his own Pokémon journey, and his character would be explored if it is necessary to further Ash's CharacterDevelopment.

** As of Journeys at the latest, the series is under a direction from the higher ups to depict the Pokemon World as the real world, but with Pokemon, a change from previous depictions of the setting where the world was depicted as being a lot more distinct from the real world.