Zara and Erika as the topic of lost media

Beginning in 2017, when the Rangeltoons series was released, the entire 2016 Zara and Erika series of shorts were deleted from YouTube, making them very hard to find. The only traces that seem to exist prior to February 10th, 2019 are reissued versions distributed by Archiplex Entertainment.

### **2017**

In February 2017, Archiplex Entertainment started re-releasing Zara and Erika shorts under the butchered title "The Dawson Gals". This was done due to a lower budget. Not only that, but new titles were created using a blue gradient background, red text, and images of Erika and Zara respectively. Because most of these early reissues are in a 4:3 format, the picture of the cartoons had to be stretched. This caused controversy amongst fans of the series.

Since the reissue in March 2017, "Double Trouble" has lost its original titles and was never resurfaced, though an image of the original title card can still be seen online.

Among the cartoons affected were "Babysitting Gals", "Erika's Choco Erikas" (though renamed here as "**Coco Erika's**"), "Garbage Day" and so forth. These reissues also lost the original titles and removed Rangel's name to avoid being hated. These reissues were the main basis for home video releases from 2017 to 2019.

### **2018**

On July 14th, 2018, most of the cartoons including "Erika and the Hobo", "Zara's the Coy" and the original film elements of 8 cartoons were said to be unavailable, as Edward Thomas, Jr.'s old files on his computer went missing. Eight days later, the shorts "Sweet Dreams", "A Day at the Beach", "The Shrinkray", "Erika Gets Sick", "The Clones" and "Trapped" were all re-discovered (though "Sweet Dreams" previously existed in a poor-quality video recorded through Screencast-O-Matic).

On August 25th, 2018, Kyle Rangel took action and rescued three shorts; "Seven More Crazy Moments", "The Broken Leg" and "Kidnapped!" (The former two of which suffered from poor quality visuals). He also possessed an original print of "Truth or Dare", which has not been seen in years.

"A Dawson Gals Christmas" has resurfaced the same month, with their original titles intact.

### **2019**

On February 1st, 2019, three additional cartoons known as "Erika the Jungle Girl", "Zara's Magic Tricks" and "Wrestling Erika" have been found.

Though previously found in an 11-second excerpt, "Zara's Midas Touch" was thought to be lost entirely. Only 7 seconds of footage were only featured on a trailer for the Rangeltoons Volume 2 DVD. The full cartoon has finally been found on February 9th, 2019, along with "Zara's Cousin", "Doggy Business", "Erika's Happy Birthday", "2 Girls vs. Caillou" and "Vacation Girls".

Many cartoons that were reissued have their original prints found on February 10th, 2019. This means that all their original titles have been rescued. By April 2019, all of the original title prints (except for "Double Trouble") have been uploaded to YouTube by Zara & Erika Archive. "Yellow Erika" and "The Golden Touch" are yet to be discovered.

A month later, on May 14th, 2019, Zara and Erika Archive went under a makeover as "Dingo Pictures Archive" and all 47 found episodes, both with original and reissue titles, are deleted from YouTube. The same episodes are currently available in Google Drive, which can be accessed to this link: (https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1Hg2DHcn0gyU9D37p5WCUVuZGdsVlt39y). On May 27th, 2019, the reissue prints of *Zara and Erika* 2016 were destroyed after copies of the *Zara & Erika: The Golden Collection* DVD with reissue titles were recalled.

There used to exist a Lost Media Wiki page for both "The Golden Touch" and "Yellow Erika". However, one of the wiki users have unfortunately deleted it. Check out the dead link: https://lostmediawiki.com/%22The\_Golden\_Touch%22\_%26\_%22Yellow\_Erika%22\_(lost\_Zara\_%26\_Erika\_shorts;\_2016)

At the same time, "The Last Resort" also became lost until it was found in both English and Spanish in 2019.

### **2020**

After a long 3-year search, "Yellow Erika" has its only screenshot revealed for the first time on the LDF Enterprises Wiki.

## Total count

* **2017-February 8th, 2019**: Most of them found in reissue prints, some of them had original titles rescued
* **February 9th, 2019-current**: 48 episodes found