In the US, The Tick cartoon had two releases: The Tick vs. Season One and The Tick vs. Season Two, but
- Season One is missing the episode "Tick vs. The Mole Men"
- Season Two is missing the episode "Alone Together", a Galactus spoof adapted from the comics
- Season Three was never released in the US.
According to Wikipedia, the entire unedited series with all episodes was released to the UK, so why were those two episodes missing from the American releases?
Regarding "Tick vs. The Mole Men", The Huffington Post says Disney released the following statement:
"Due to creative considerations episode 11 ('The Tick vs. The Mole Men') is not included."
Disney's statement does not further define the "creative considerations". Yahoo Answers speculates one or more of the following reasons:
- some rights to the episode are unavailable (what "rights" those are is never substantiated).
- there is a potential for lawsuit regarding an unflattering caricature of Cindy Crawford used in the episode (in reference to her mole).
- it was due to DVD space restrictions; Disney wanted to fit Season One on 2 DVDs and couldn't unless an episode was thrown out, and "Mole Men" drew the short straw.
There has never been an explanation as to why "Alone Together" isn't with the second season; it could not be due to the Galactus homage because other Marvel characters (for example: The Punisher) had been just as blatantly spoofed in other episodes collected to DVD. The Wikipedia article notes a 2006 blog entry by the writer of both omitted episodes, Christopher McCulloch (aka "Jackson Publick", co-creator of The Venture Brothers), stating even he has no idea why they are missing.
Regarding Season Three, I speculate it was never released due to low sales of the earlier seasons (I know I didn't buy the first two season sets due to the missing episodes), but considering the season was released in the UK, were there other reasons why it was never released in the US?
As noted, there should be definitive answers to the omitted episodes and a reason why there was no Season Three release.
Why were 2 episodes left off of the "The Tick" DVD releases, and why was Season 3 never released to the US?
