Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by Vijay » Mon Nov 04, 2019 11:34 pm

Hellspawn28 wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 11:06 pm They needed something in order to stay behind the manga, and having the first Z movie villain return would draw in viewers. I still wish they did a original villain instead.
TOEI has never good with villains...just look at their movie villains (even with AT providing design whatnot). Plus it'll be damn near impossible to ever top Frieza's level. So TOEI chose safe route....and yeah...it was alright with me.

I wanted Frieza to die already...mfker dragging his death over 20 episodes...Garlic at least but the dust within 7-8 episodes lol...sweet guy😂😂😂

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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by Kataphrut » Mon Nov 18, 2019 7:40 am

Yuli Ban wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 10:59 pm
Cure Dragon 255 wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2019 4:09 am Thank god Takao Koyama never did a BROLY filler.
It could've happened.
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Oh my god, I only just saw this and my mind is blown.

And look, that's Toriyama behind him! Is he about to tap him on the shoulder and be like "Hey, how'd you like to be in a movie? Here's my card, give me a call in 20 years."

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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by ABED » Mon Nov 18, 2019 7:54 am

I have no knowledge of how JPN TV works, but is Toei's way of doing things - producing cheaply made weekly TV episodes for nearly the whole year? American network TV has long seasons, but they take breaks.
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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by MasenkoHA » Fri Nov 22, 2019 9:02 am

ABED wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2019 7:54 am I have no knowledge of how JPN TV works, but is Toei's way of doing things - producing cheaply made weekly TV episodes for nearly the whole year? American network TV has long seasons, but they take breaks.
To my knowledge most anime, at least kids television produced anime is made to air weekly with few breaks in between. And doesn’t have “seasons” the same way we think of in the US . Where the average network television season in America runs 22-episodes in about 9 months usually with a month long winter and spring hiatus and a couple week breaks in between and then a summer hiatus between seasons.

I have no idea how this works for say Japanese live action tv series aimed at adults works but Sentai also does the weekly thing and runs about 50 episodes in a year from February to February.


Dragon Ball ran 153 episodes from February 1986 to April 1989 and barely had any breaks in between. Dragon Ball Z even aired exactly a week later.

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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by ABED » Fri Nov 22, 2019 9:17 am

Whoops, that should read "Is Toei's way of doing things typical for Japanese scripted TV programs?"
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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by jjgp1112 » Fri Nov 22, 2019 10:46 am

I believe Astro Boy was the source of the format.but basically the philosophy it that anime for kids are mainly disposable merchandise vehicles so you can sacrifice the budget and animation quality to get it on TV every single week. Also the reason why moat of those shows were never given home video releases or had enough care given to their film archives.
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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by Dr. Casey » Fri Nov 22, 2019 3:53 pm

ABED wrote: Fri Nov 22, 2019 9:17 am Whoops, that should read "Is Toei's way of doing things typical for Japanese scripted TV programs?"
Not at all, or at least not during the 2000s and 2010s. Long runners like Dragon Ball Super, One Piece, Precure, and so on make up a very small, single-digit percentage of the overall anime landscape.

There's four seasons in the Japanese broadcasting year, with the overwhelming majority of present day anime being confined to a single season (otherwise known as a cour). The Winter season encompasses January 1st to March 31st, Spring is April through June, Summer is July through September, and Autumn is October through December. Two-cour series are relatively uncommon nowadays, with maybe 80-something percent of anime produced throughout the 2010s being a single cour.

The length of anime series has become much more truncated over time. During the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of TV series were 40+ episodes and shows which reached the triple digits weren't uncommon. During the 90s, two-cour series (24~26 episodes) were normal, with shows that ran for a year not being particularly noteworthy. The 2000s and 2010s have mostly been one-cour, with two-cour being more common during the previous decade than they were here in the present one.

As jjgp said, Astro Boy (which was the first full-length anime TV series and the second period) was the original long-running weekly anime. The very first anime TV series period was an edutainment series that started in 1961 called Instant History that aired in three minute vignettes.
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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by ABED » Fri Nov 22, 2019 3:58 pm

Dr. Casey wrote: Fri Nov 22, 2019 3:53 pm
ABED wrote: Fri Nov 22, 2019 9:17 am Whoops, that should read "Is Toei's way of doing things typical for Japanese scripted TV programs?"
Not at all, or at least not during the 2000s and 2010s. Long runners like Dragon Ball Super, One Piece, Precure, and so on make up a very small, single-digit percentage of the overall anime landscape.

There's four seasons in the Japanese broadcasting year, with the overwhelming majority of present day anime being confined to a single season (otherwise known as a cour). The Winter season encompasses January 1st to March 31st, Spring is April through June, Summer is July through September, and Autumn is October through December. Two-cour series are relatively uncommon nowadays, with maybe 80-something percent of anime produced throughout the 2010s being a single cour.

The length of anime series has become much more truncated over time. During the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of TV series were 40+ episodes and shows which reached the triple digits weren't uncommon. During the 90s, two-cour series (24~26 episodes) were normal, with shows that ran for a year not being particularly noteworthy. The 2000s and 2010s have mostly been one-cour, with two-cour being more common during the previous decade than they were here in the present one.

As jjgp said, Astro Boy (which was the first full-length anime TV series and the second period) was the original long-running weekly anime. The very first anime TV series period was an edutainment series that started in 1961 called Instant History that aired in three minute vignettes.
Fascinating. Thank you so much.
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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by ekrolo2 » Sat Nov 23, 2019 11:15 am

Garlic Jr. was made to save the production. Around the time Goku vs Freeza was animated, the staff realized they messed up and were only about a dozen chapters worth of material behind Toriyama. This lead to the atrocious pacing of the later Namek section. In an effort not to do the entire rest of the series with that pacing, a filler arc was made up to buy time and let Toriyama get far enough ahead with the manga.

Mike talks about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dbz/comments/d ... t/f0s3cee/
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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by JulieYBM » Sat Nov 23, 2019 1:49 pm

The arc is there mainly to buy time for the production to have enough chapters to adapt that they can actually plan things out a little bit better. The problem is, the period of not adapting chapters of the comic was too short. Whether it meant extending the Garlic Junior arc or simply doing another arc like it, the series needed more time to stay behind the run of chapters that Toriyama had finished.

I've become softer to the idea of abandoning the infinite cour model in recently years but I do still think that the Pocket Monster animated franchise is still a prime example of how to do things right. With Pocket Monster we see that finishing key animation for an episode five months before it airs--rather than one-to-three weeks if not the day before--is a much better production model. Long-running series can do a variety of episodes and scenarios where as single cour series cannot. Pocket Monster has such a good schedule and a push from its producer, Kato, to ensure that the production is high-quality, that it actually can pull of good stories and good animation for a long running series.

Personally, I want to see Dragon Ball take after Pocket Monster in having a proper production schedule. Actually finish episodes a few months before they're supposed to air! A stockpile of at least thirteen episodes--a full cour--is not too much to ask for!

I do think it would be interesting if Dragon Ball took after Boku no Hero Academia in simply doing six months on, six months off, six months on. Twenty-six episode seasons make it easier to craft a narrative for each season. If Dragon Ball Super had been properly planned from the start we probably could have gotten the Champa arc by Episode #14 instead of Episode #28!

Thinking about it now, I think it would've been hilarious if things had turned out this way:

Dragon Ball Super (Beers, Golden Freeza, Sixth Universe arcs): 26 episodes.
Dragon Ball Rosé (Future Trunks arc): 13~26 episodes.
Dragon Ball Power (Tournament of Power): 26 episodes.

One series per year like that with six months for breaks would have been nice. However, Toei Animation is much more about inundating the market with a constant stream of merchandise and exposure, so the infinite cour system makes a lot of sense for them.
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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by SupremeKai25 » Sat Nov 23, 2019 2:51 pm

JulieYBM wrote: Sat Nov 23, 2019 1:49 pm The arc is there mainly to buy time for the production to have enough chapters to adapt that they can actually plan things out a little bit better. The problem is, the period of not adapting chapters of the comic was too short. Whether it meant extending the Garlic Junior arc or simply doing another arc like it, the series needed more time to stay behind the run of chapters that Toriyama had finished.

I've become softer to the idea of abandoning the infinite cour model in recently years but I do still think that the Pocket Monster animated franchise is still a prime example of how to do things right. With Pocket Monster we see that finishing key animation for an episode five months before it airs--rather than one-to-three weeks if not the day before--is a much better production model. Long-running series can do a variety of episodes and scenarios where as single cour series cannot. Pocket Monster has such a good schedule and a push from its producer, Kato, to ensure that the production is high-quality, that it actually can pull of good stories and good animation for a long running series.

Personally, I want to see Dragon Ball take after Pocket Monster in having a proper production schedule. Actually finish episodes a few months before they're supposed to air! A stockpile of at least thirteen episodes--a full cour--is not too much to ask for!

I do think it would be interesting if Dragon Ball took after Boku no Hero Academia in simply doing six months on, six months off, six months on. Twenty-six episode seasons make it easier to craft a narrative for each season. If Dragon Ball Super had been properly planned from the start we probably could have gotten the Champa arc by Episode #14 instead of Episode #28!

Thinking about it now, I think it would've been hilarious if things had turned out this way:

Dragon Ball Super (Beers, Golden Freeza, Sixth Universe arcs): 26 episodes.
Dragon Ball Rosé (Future Trunks arc): 13~26 episodes.
Dragon Ball Power (Tournament of Power): 26 episodes.

One series per year like that with six months for breaks would have been nice. However, Toei Animation is much more about inundating the market with a constant stream of merchandise and exposure, so the infinite cour system makes a lot of sense for them.
Yes, that would have been much better, especially for the Future Trunks arc. What dragged it down was the rushed ending and the inconsistent animation (just compare episode 66 and 67...), so having 26 episodes for the Future Trunks arc would have allowed the writers to better explain all the crazy things that happened towards the end of the arc (Super Saiyan Rage, the weird Spirit Sword, Zamasu becoming the universe, etc.) and at the same time give the proper spotlight that certain fights deserved (like Zamasu vs. Vegito).

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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by JulieYBM » Sat Nov 23, 2019 3:16 pm

SupremeKai25 wrote: Sat Nov 23, 2019 2:51 pmYes, that would have been much better, especially for the Future Trunks arc. What dragged it down was the rushed ending and the inconsistent animation (just compare episode 66 and 67...), so having 26 episodes for the Future Trunks arc would have allowed the writers to better explain all the crazy things that happened towards the end of the arc (Super Saiyan Rage, the weird Spirit Sword, Zamasu becoming the universe, etc.) and at the same time give the proper spotlight that certain fights deserved (like Zamasu vs. Vegito).
Eeh, I think it was too long as it was. There's really only enough material for maybe eight or nine episodes. Twenty-six episodes just fits the usual two cour system that it might fall under.
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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by MasenkoHA » Sat Nov 23, 2019 8:36 pm

JulieYBM wrote:
I've become softer to the idea of abandoning the infinite cour model in recently years but I do still think that the Pocket Monster animated franchise is still a prime example of how to do things right. With Pocket Monster we see that finishing key animation for an episode five months before it airs--rather than one-to-three weeks if not the day before--is a much better production model. Long-running series can do a variety of episodes and scenarios where as single cour series cannot. Pocket Monster has such a good schedule and a push from its producer, Kato, to ensure that the production is high-quality, that it actually can pull of good stories and good animation for a long running series.
It’s been years since I’ve watched Pokemon. Like 2002 ish? But last I was aware Pokemon didn’t have a manga to adapt and was mostly episodic fluff since it just adapted whatever set of games was currently out until it was time to advertise the next games. And there certainly was pacing problems from when it was on when I was a kid as I remember being put off on how nothing seemed to happen during the Johto years.

Dragon Ball is a lot more serialized where Pokemon has a more “Pokemon of the week” formula with a vague tournament arc as the overarching thread.

Personally, I want to see Dragon Ball take after Pocket Monster in having a proper production schedule. Actually finish episodes a few months before they're supposed to air! A stockpile of at least thirteen episodes--a full cour--is not too much to ask for!
I do think it would be interesting if Dragon Ball took after Boku no Hero Academia in simply doing six months on, six months off, six months on. Twenty-six episode seasons make it easier to craft a narrative for each season. If Dragon Ball Super had been properly planned from the start we probably could have gotten the Champa arc by Episode #14 instead of Episode #28!
Hopefully we’re just done with Dragon Ball.

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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by JulieYBM » Sat Nov 23, 2019 10:14 pm

MasenkoHA wrote: Sat Nov 23, 2019 8:36 pm
JulieYBM wrote:
I've become softer to the idea of abandoning the infinite cour model in recently years but I do still think that the Pocket Monster animated franchise is still a prime example of how to do things right. With Pocket Monster we see that finishing key animation for an episode five months before it airs--rather than one-to-three weeks if not the day before--is a much better production model. Long-running series can do a variety of episodes and scenarios where as single cour series cannot. Pocket Monster has such a good schedule and a push from its producer, Kato, to ensure that the production is high-quality, that it actually can pull of good stories and good animation for a long running series.
It’s been years since I’ve watched Pokemon. Like 2002 ish? But last I was aware Pokemon didn’t have a manga to adapt and was mostly episodic fluff since it just adapted whatever set of games was currently out until it was time to advertise the next games. And there certainly was pacing problems from when it was on when I was a kid as I remember being put off on how nothing seemed to happen during the Johto years.
Pokemon has had a heavier mix of story-heavy arcs since 2006, as well as a clear emphasis on improving the quality of the overall production. Starting with Diamond & Pearl in 2006 the production schedule began to be worked so that important episodes were always handled by Team Iwane or Team Tamagawa. This in in contrast to the first two series, where Iwane Masa'aki and Tamagawa Akihiro would be given random one-offs while a weak team would be given an episode battle. The Kantou, Orange, Jouto, and Hou'en Leagues all sucked because of this.

Scheduling became so meticulous that Iwane was allowed to solo animate five of the last twenty episodes of Diamond & Pearl in 2010 (Solos: #172, #177, #187-188, #191...the final episode!) this while doing action animation for other episodes in the rotation. #187-188 are the last two episodes of the three-episode long rematch between Satoshi and his rival for the series, Shinji. All of their battles set new standards for the franchise and really showed off just how much Head Writer Tomioka Atsuhiro had taken ownership of the Pokemon franchise after the head writer position was left vacant since #158 of the first series). Iwane had also been tasked with being animation supervisor for Episode #132, the second half of Satoshi and Shinji's third battle. Satoshi and Shinji's third and fourth battles are fucking insane and if I highly recommend people watch Diamond & Pearl Episodes #131-132 and #186-188 just to get a feel for how fucking amazing Tomioka Atsuhiro is as a writer.

Production slipped a bit during Best Wishes and nobody bent over backwards so that Iwane could do consecutive episodes like he did at the end of Diamond & Pearl but this changed again during XY. With Best Wishes #56 (24 November 2011) and onward Iwane has stopped working with other key animators on the episodes that he is the animation supervisor for and now does solo key animation episodes every 5-6 episodes. Between his episodes Iwane will still work on episodes for other teams as well as other projects for OLM.

The cool thing about XY is that every team on the series was given a boost of 20-30% more drawings to work with over the previous few series. Iwane asked OLM to let him work alone on his episodes instead of training new key animators because he hated having to explain why his cuts deserved more drawings over theirs. This didn't slow Iwane down any and through the last twenty episodes/six months of Diamond & Pearl and slowly through Best Wishes Iwane's skill, quantity and variety started to explode. Iwane was mixing in more Kanada-style movement--something he was already familiar with being an alumni from Studio Cockpit--with rougher line variations.

Anyway, back to XY. With more drawings to work with on XY Iwane--who was already a master of using Kanada-style to make the best use of very few drawings--started producing longer battle scenes. Iwane was also granted the time to do the Mega Evolution specials, four episodes centered on Alan--Satoshi's future rival during the third year of XY. Iwane is normally given only one and half months to animate his regular episodes for Pokemon. For the Mega Evolution specials Iwane was given two months per episode and more drawings than normal. Hiro'oka Toshihito's designs for Pocket Monster XY have too many lines and awkward necks and heads so there's some rough spots--especially with Alan's complex clothing--but Iwane just kept churning those episodes out like a motherfucker.

XY is also when Iwane finally stopped being the only good animator on the series. Iwane's mentor Tamagawa became increasingly sporadic on the television series over the years and eventually stopped working on it all together due to illness back in 2013. This left Iwane--aided by the best storyboard artist and episode director of the series, Asada Yuuji--as the only good animator on the series. This slowly changed during XY's second year and finally in it's third year. Oohashi Aito, Nishiya Yasushi, Akiyama Yasuhiko, Nanba Isao and more started joining the rotation. This meant that now Iwane didn't have to take on too much extra work himself, especially during the much awaited Kalos League. Oohashi and Nishiya's episodes on both his sides gave Iwane time to make his Kalos League episode--Satoshi versus Alan Part 1--his best of the series to that point.

Iwane was also allowed to do both parts of the eighth Kalos gym battle by himself, #124 and #126. Iwane also did key animation for #125, the episode where he prepared for his rematch in #126. Previously, Iwane did #96-97, both action-heavy episodes, the seventh gym battle and a Mega Evolution episode.

And then...Sun & Moon, my sweet, sweet child. Sun & Moon gave us simpler designs and let all of the younger animators slowly working with the stiff designs of XY go all out. Nakano Satoshi and Yasuda Shuuhei's character designs for Sun & Moon were so, so good. Oh my g*sh, it still blows my mind when I think about it. The character animation took center stage for Sun & Moon and nearly every episode was packed with exciting movement and drawings. The younger animators focused on short bursts of lively animation while Iwane started added in longer and longer sequences.

If you go through the Sun & Moon section of Sakugabooru you'll notice that the series used a variety of styles for its comedic scenes and even had 90-180 second long scenes from the same animator.

My favorite episode of Sun & Moon is Episode #59: "Mao and Suiren, the Bittersweet Memories!". It's absolutely packed to the brim with long scenes of dense character animation. The drama and emotion of the characters Mao and Suiren is perfectly expressed and as a Dragon Ball fan I am constantly jealous of this episode. Just imagine an episode that looked like this for Dragon Ball:

Episode # 59 has thirteen uploads and I definitely suggest checking them all out. Ugh, that's some good shit.


Wait, this is a Dragon Ball forum?
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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by Cure Dragon 255 » Sun Nov 24, 2019 4:15 am

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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by JulieYBM » Sun Nov 24, 2019 12:01 pm

Cure Dragon 255 wrote: Sun Nov 24, 2019 4:15 am GOD I LOVE JULIE..

...'s posts! ESPECIALLY about Sakuga and art overcoming limitations!!!
Admittedly, this one is actually hastily written. I know I should actually write a high-quality post I can just copy and paste someday but I'm busy enough as it is just writing my first novel (a trans romance novel between a woman and her cishet male boss).

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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by Neon Z » Sun Nov 24, 2019 6:43 pm

As far as going with a movie villain goes it seems like the anime staff was experimenting with a stronger mix of movie and tv at the time. Note that they also bring over the dragon introduced in movie 3 around the same time (which actually makes very little sense since that movie is completely incompatible with the anime's timeline). They seemed to give up on all that shortly afterwards though.

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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by KBABZ » Mon Nov 25, 2019 12:20 am

Neon Z wrote: Sun Nov 24, 2019 6:43 pm As far as going with a movie villain goes it seems like the anime staff was experimenting with a stronger mix of movie and tv at the time. Note that they also bring over the dragon introduced in movie 3 around the same time (which actually makes very little sense since that movie is completely incompatible with the anime's timeline). They seemed to give up on all that shortly afterwards though.
Seems logical for them to, in a pinch, mine a pre-existing character who has history with the current Earth-bound characters. Him being a movie villain also means a 2% probability of it contradicting anything Toriyama may write in the next arc.

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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by ABED » Mon Nov 25, 2019 7:45 am

Dr. Casey wrote: Fri Nov 22, 2019 3:53 pm
ABED wrote: Fri Nov 22, 2019 9:17 am Whoops, that should read "Is Toei's way of doing things typical for Japanese scripted TV programs?"
Not at all, or at least not during the 2000s and 2010s. Long runners like Dragon Ball Super, One Piece, Precure, and so on make up a very small, single-digit percentage of the overall anime landscape.

There's four seasons in the Japanese broadcasting year, with the overwhelming majority of present day anime being confined to a single season (otherwise known as a cour). The Winter season encompasses January 1st to March 31st, Spring is April through June, Summer is July through September, and Autumn is October through December. Two-cour series are relatively uncommon nowadays, with maybe 80-something percent of anime produced throughout the 2010s being a single cour.

The length of anime series has become much more truncated over time. During the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of TV series were 40+ episodes and shows which reached the triple digits weren't uncommon. During the 90s, two-cour series (24~26 episodes) were normal, with shows that ran for a year not being particularly noteworthy. The 2000s and 2010s have mostly been one-cour, with two-cour being more common during the previous decade than they were here in the present one.

As jjgp said, Astro Boy (which was the first full-length anime TV series and the second period) was the original long-running weekly anime. The very first anime TV series period was an edutainment series that started in 1961 called Instant History that aired in three minute vignettes.
I found the Wikipedia entry on "television in Japan", but are there any other resources you could point me towards?
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Re: Why does the Garlic Jr. filler arc exist?

Post by Dr. Casey » Mon Nov 25, 2019 10:20 am

For anime specifically, anidb is a great resource. That's a link to the Spring 1961 anime season, filtered so that only TV series are displayed (you can of course edit the Filter to show movies, OVAs, etc if you'd like). From there you can toggle through the seasons, which display the series that aired along with how many episodes there were. Things are pretty barren up until Winter 1963, beyond which point almost every season up to the present day Fall 2019 has some new series to be had.
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