Footage Discovered of Unreleased Crash Bandicoot Cartoon

A YouTube video has emerged from David Siller, who worked as lead designer for Universal Interactive Studios during the time of Crash Bandicoot’s development. The footage shows the introduction to a Crash Bandicoot cartoon and features a rather unusual soundtrack. Notable lyrics include, “play our game and tell your friends so we make lots of loot” which is humorous whilst being fairly cringeworthy. It does have a certain charm though and I cannot get the theme out of my head!

Siller provided information on the video’s provenance and why the cartoon was never fully pursued,

“This video (above) is test animation that was done for Crash Bandicoot,”

“Produced by Universal Animation early in the development of the game. It was based on ideas for where we were going with this IP at that time.”

“It was probably too ambitious in nature and was also trying to be humorous. It was never used or even embedded in the game as a hidden ‘easter egg’ treat.”

“Once UIS licensed the game to Sony for publication, Sony did not want it utilised since they were heavily pushing the ‘3D’ agenda.”

“There are many close to the development of the original game that do not even know that this material even existed.”

“The discussion at Universal at that time was if the game was successful (before Sony came a knockin’) then this animation was a somewhat prototype to further flesh out ideas for a possible cartoon series and inclusion into the game. This animation was influenced by Animaniacs and even a few others popular at that time. A Crash Bandicoot attraction was also discussed as our offices were right next door to where Universal Theme parks maintained a creative office to plan new park attractions. UIS even did some consulting for them.”

The Crash Bandicoot franchise holds a lot of nostalgic memories for me and I consider them to be an integral part of my childhood. It’s also fascinating to see projects which never came to fruition and whilst the cartoon has a cheesy, quirky feel, it looks pretty awful.

What do you think of the Crash Bandicoot cartoon?

Thank you DigitalSpy for providing us with this information.