Invader Zim has a lot of storylines that were taken out.
An earlier, rounder design of Zim...with hair?
The Original Show
- According to the show's original pitch bible
, the show was intended to be in a format similar to Animaniacs, The Ren & Stimpy Show, and Rocky and Bullwinkle, with short interludes appearing in between episodes. - Wally Wingert was originally cast as Almighty Tallest Purple, but was recast as Red when Kevin McDonald became available.
- Before pitching the Zim idea, Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon toyed with adapting his comic Squee, but quickly decided that, while it starred a child, it was definitely not child-friendly. Jhonen was also reluctant to adapt his previous work, fearing it might ruin the comic's integrity if it turned out badly. Some aspects of the comic still appeared in the show, such as the aliens in "Abducted," Miss Bitters and the school being called "skool" (the gag of the children climbing out the windows once classes let out was also from the comic).
- The show's aesthetic was originally more of a 1950s B-movie spoof. It barely got to development before Vasquez realized that he hated doing something that predictable.
- Danielle Koenig's original script for "Vindicated" had Dwicky genuinely believing Dib. She refers to the change as Jhonen having "mangled" it, but she didn't sound as annoyed about it as her word choice might lead one to believe.
- Another commentary tidbit is that Iggins was originally slated to die at the end of "Game Slave 2," but Executive Meddling prevented that.
- In "Door To Door," the kids shoveling sausages into their mouths were originally going to be eating cockroaches, hence the sausages' bug-like design and coloring. Nick said it was too disgusting.
- In a blog post Jhonen noted the original script for "Gaz: Taster of Pork" simply ended with Dib defeating the Porklord and then sharing pizza with Gaz. Eric Trueheart came up with the ending we got instead.
- Mark Hamill was originally considered for the role of Zim, but was dismissed by Nickelodeon for sounding too old. Listen to his take on the character here.
- Skoodge's SIR unit would have appeared in a cancelled episode. Its name was CHIPZ.
- Tommy Pickles was going to be one of the Nhar-Gh'ok. Naturally, Nickelodeon did not approve.
- Being huge fans of Monty Python, the creators wanted to get Terry Jones and Eric Idle to voice the two aliens in "Abducted," but scheduling conflicts prevented it.
- Pipi the hamster from "Hamstergedon" was originally named Mr. Boodles, but Jhonen thought "Pipi" was funnier for obvious reasons.
- When GIR self-destructs in "Dib's Wonderful Life Of Doom," his exclamation of "FINALLY!" was originally supposed to be "SWEET RELEASE!" Nickelodeon asked that it be changed to something less suicidal-sounding.
- In 2010, Nicktoons spent a month heavily rerunning the show, even giving it a 24-hour marathon at one point. According to Jhonen Vazquez, this was Nickelodeon testing the waters to see if it was feasible to bring back the show for another season. Despite the reruns doing extremely well in ratings, it was ultimately decided that a revival would be too expensive. The network would continue to float the idea of a new season/series around for several years however, and regularly inquire about Vasquez's interest in returning. In addition, prior to deciding on doing a television movie, Jhonen proposed a six-episode miniseries before realizing that such a project would make him miserable.
- Mini-Moose is introduced as Zim's other sidekick, who'd been present all along. Subsequent episodes would have flashbacks with Mini-Moose crudely photoshopped into existing episodes as a gag, but the show's cancellation came before this could be realized.
- Ms. Bitters was supposed to have more random flashbacks, like the "fairy princess" or "hideous implosion" ones, but they kept being cut for time. Her comment about "having a Valentine once" was also apparently supposed to show a bunch of tentacles.
- "Tak: The Hideous New Girl" was originally planned to be an hour-long episode, but Nickelodeon asked the crew to keep it down to being a half-hour.
- According the show's post-production supervisor, 40 episodes were originally contracted, while only 27 were made. Most of the unproduced episodes were at least outlined by the time of cancellation, with some having already had the vocal track recorded. The cast and crew are pretty open about the contents of several of these episodes.
- One episode was scripted and voiced, but never animated, which would reveal the Irkens were just a host body and their actual sentient parts were their backpacks. The packs were controlled by the Control Brains, who were implied to have taken control of the Irken Empire, making the Tallest little more than figure heads. Other unfinished scripts and concept art also revealed plans to introduce and discuss previous Tallests Miyuki and Spork, with Miyuki still possibly being alive and controlling things from afar. An unwritten episode is also believed to have revealed the Almight Tallests Red and Purple were actually shorter than Zim and only appearing tall via robot bodies.
- An original idea of Vasquez would have been about Zim flying around space rather than being stationed on Earth.
- In this◊ early note, Zim species wasn't called the Irkens; instead, he was a Noyng. The design seen there also has a greater head-to-body ratio.
Tv Movie
Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus
- According to Richard Horvitz and Simon Rikkis (the voices of Zim and GIR), there was supposed to be a scene of Tak's Ship freeing Tak from the Moo-Ping 10 prison, but it was cut for time. Jhonen would later imply the event still happened off-screen, however.
Comic Book
Invader Zim (Oni)
- Issue 5 was originally going to be about Zim trapping Dib in a video game simulation, but Jhonen felt that it was too similar to "Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom". Issue 37 would ultimately use a similar idea, though.
