Lost episode
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The term lost episode is something of a misnomer used to describe an episode of a television series that for any number of reasons was not aired in its original chronological place and later publicly released. It can also refer to episodes that, after their original airing, could not be re-run for various reasons, or episodes that were not, strictly speaking, part of the series.
The most famous lost episodes are those of The Honeymooners, specifically kinescopes of "Honeymooners" skits performed as part of Jackie Gleason's variety show, which had been sitting idle in Gleason's own archives for years.
Get Smart had lost episodes of a different sort: a dispute over copyright ownership of much of the final season of the series (after it was cancelled by NBC and picked up by CBS) was resolved by restricting the syndication licensing of most of the season, limiting them to no more than three airings per station, and imposing reporting requirements on those airings. With most stations either using up their allotment of airings early, or simply refusing to air the affected episodes, they went unseen for many years. In addition, the black-and-white pilot, which was of odd length, and differed significantly from the format of the actual series, was almost never aired.
One episode of the 1990s sketch-comedy series Mr. Show parodied the concept by working on the pretense that the episode would be aired and then intentionally lost in order to foster future nostalgia.
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