The Write-off

The Write-off is Exactly What It Says- a tax write-off, basically done as a last effort if previous attempts to save money (cancelling production, for example) add to the losses. The fear of everyone involved after the show gets cancelled.

Written-off shows and movies are completely obscure by default unless they're made available in *some* legal form. Sometimes, not even DVDs are released, most likely due to filing for bankruptcy on the home video distributor's side.

And another note- this is not related to a writing contest. And so as to not bloat the list to the limit, fictional examples and video media only please. Shows and movies being written-off in the middle of production do not count- that's known as a turnaround.

Now has a page to play with the trope.

## Examples

### Fictional

* In *The Simpsons*, Ned Flanders, when doing his taxes, contemplates this; he says cash register ink would be a "business expense", but then realizes he enjoys the smell of it.
* In the Tobuscus song "Diamond Sword", Tobuscus hits the floorboard of his *Minecraft* house and had it repaired. "And it was expensive, but it was a writeoff!"

### Video media writeoffs

* Cartoon Network is *terrible* at exploiting this trope:
	+ Their first victim, *Megas XLR*, was cancelled and subsequently written-off. When the revived Toonami tried to get it, CN's response basically ignored it altogether.
	+ Two shows were even written-off at once:
		- First was *Sym-Bionic Titan*- the only one of Genndy Tartakovsky's shows to be written off. Toonami abruptly canned it since they knew CN already aired the produced episodes in full.
		- Next was *Beware the Batman*. The Toonami staff knew that if they aired their regular schedule around that time, the full series would never be released in America. So they burned it off in a last-minute marathon.
	+ *IGPX*. Not helping was that its home video distributor ended up going bust in 2012. Toonami later exploited a loophole that allowed the write-off to be nullified and a few years later, Discotek Media got the home video license.
	+ In 2022, following a merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery, Adult Swim (reluctantly) went so far as to write *Final Space* off completely, ensuring they can't make *any* money off of it again (not even ad-supported streaming).
	+ This *almost* happened to shows such as *Infinity Train*, *Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart*, and *OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes*. Then fans of those shows brought them up to popular status for at least a week on iTunes (it also helps *OK K.O.!* was also available on Hulu), leading WBD to decide *not* to write them off, but rather just sell home media of the show (digital and physical).
	+ With the exception of *FLCL* sequels, it seems that any anime Toonami co-produces is written-off (even if just partially). *Fena: Pirate Princess*, *Shenmue: The Animation*, the aforementioned *IGPX*...
* As of 2022, it's not just Cartoon Network but rather the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery. Case in point: a movie adaptation of *Batgirl* was written-off *right before it was going to be released*. In most cases it would be a turnaround, but the movie was basically finished at this point (on top of DC Comics, who own the rights to Batgirl, being owned by WBD); the only reason it was allowed to be completed was to allow the crew to see their contributions to the film before putting it in the vault.
* In 2023, not only did AMC Networks axe the animated series *Pantheon*, but they also pulled it from every single streaming service they owned. Yes, even HiDive despite their catalog being mostly unaffected by cutbacks over at AMC. Time will tell whether it'll be shopped around or flat-out written-off.
* In February 2023, Paramount removed several TV series from both Paramount+ and Showtime, in order to merge the two services.
* In May 2023, Disney announced that they would remove dozens of underperforming films and series from Disney+ and Hulu, as both services are expected to merge. The company took a $1.5 billion write-off from the removed content.

TBA.