The pilot to the hit PBS cartoon Ready Jet Go! (premiered three years later) was shown to a test audience of children, but has yet to be released to the public.
A pilot is known to exist. [1]
A website that reads the statement about the pilot:
“There’s so much we learned from testing [the initial pilot] with kids,” said Lesli Rotenberg, general manager of PBS children’s media. “Even though this wasn’t geared to younger kids, we didn’t want to completely lose them, so the solution was to develop this character, Mindy, who represents younger kids and asks the questions a young child would ask about science and space.”
Wind Dancer Films, the company that produces Ready Jet Go! previously had a few clips of what appeared to the pilot in their old company reel. Jet, the main character, had a drastically different appearance, but similar to Stinky (a character in which Craig Barlett created). His hair was thinner, and he wore a yellow raglan with a grey alien on it, as opposed to the blue spacesuit that he wears in the final-cut show. The saucer also looked different; it was blue and orange instead of silver and blue.
However, Wind Dancer Films most likely took notice of this and updated their company reel to wipe away all of clips from the Ready Jet Go! pilot, and replaced them with clips from the final-cut show.[2]
More of that is known about the pilot:
- Jet had a different appearance, similar to Stinky.
- The saucer had a different design.
- It was animated with computers just like the final-cut show.
- It was geared towards older kids.
- It was initially titled Jet Propulsion
- In the lack of Mindy, Sean, Sydney, and Sunspot were in it.
- It was actually made in 2013.[3]
It is unknown if the theme song was the same, the voice actors were the same, or if all of minor characters were included such as Carrot, Celery, Face 9000, Beep and Boop, Dr. Rafferty, Dr. Bergs, Mitchell, and Lillian.
If anyone could somehow archive this link in the Wayback Machine so we can get access to the old Wind Dancer Films reel, that would be great! NeptuneID13 (talk) 21:53, April 14, 2019 (UTC)
UPDATE: Someone's resume was found, and it revealed that the pilot was created in 2013.
UPDATE 2: Using the wayback machine on Wind Dancer's website shows screencaps from the pilot circa 2014.
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3. https://web.archive.org/web/20160123035456/http://winddancer.com/tv/upcoming/ready-jet-go