This TikTok exposes how there’s a lost old version of Flushed Away with deleted characters!?
There’s a DVD circulating of the bootleg version and we need to FIND IT
Remember Flushed Away? I was obsessed with Flushed Away. The story of a posh house rat pet who gets, ahem, flushed away – and finds himself in the London sewer rat metropolis and gets caught up in all kinds of chaos as he fights to get back home to his boujie owners. It was a blast, and a film I thought I knew everything about – but it turns out that there is a secret original cut of the film that featured characters that never made it into the final edit and some physical copies of it might be flying around!? This TikTok has explained how the original cut of Flushed Away came to be and it’s gone viral as we all obsess over what might have been!
The OG TikTok
@veganluke Let’s talk about the original cut of ‘Flushed Away’ #FlushedAway #Aardman #OriginalCut #History #Animation
A TikTok posted by @veganluke explains the lore behind the original cut of Flushed Away, and how he’s attempting to get his hands on it. “When Dreamworks released the film Over The Hedge on DVD, this had a trailer for Flushed Away on it. A trailer to show that it was coming out in cinemas soon. But this trailer had footage in it that wasn’t in the actual movie.”
Luke then acknowledges that this is something a lot of films do, but how this is different. “This was something big. This trailer showed Roddy having two hamster butlers: Gilbert and Sullivan. A big section of the trailer was him doing activities with them. When Sid first breaks into the house, it was Gilbert and Sullivan coming to the kitchen with Roddy to see about Sid.
Most Read
“When it came to the film actually being released, Gilbert and Sullivan were cut. There were no longer these hamster butlers and it turns out that Aardman [Animations] had done about 20 minutes of the film with Gilbert and Sullivan in it. There was even test footage of when Roddy is down in the sewers, he phones the house and one of the butlers answers first and then Sid pushes them away. So they were still quite a big part of the film.
“The reason they were cut from the film is because they wanted the story to be more that Roddy was alone in this house, that he doesn’t have anyone helping him. Which is why he’s so confused in the sewers.” I completely agree there – and think it definitely added to the film to keep Roddy’s life up there isolated.
But there is MORE
Luke goes on to explain how the original cut did actually get leaked, and was put “on a bootleg DVD.” He says “I’m not sure if I’ve found that bootleg DVD on Vinted. But there is this DVD, written on the back ‘Complete with two hamster butlers named Gilbert and Sullivan'”.
He also says Gilbert and Sullivan existed in the tie in video games for the PS2 and the Nintendo DS.
@veganluke Do I have the original cut of ‘Flushed Away’?! #FlushedAway #Aardman #OriginalCut #History #Animation @Luke Poulton
Luke then bought two pirate copies of Flushed Away to see if he could find the Gilbert and Sullivan bootleg cut, but one was a Russian rip of the released version and the other wasn’t the original cut either. Sad times.
Heading to Reddit
@veganluke Deep diving more into the original cut of ‘Flushed Away’ #FlushedAway #OriginalCut #Animation #History #Aardman #Dreamworks @Luke Poulton
Now, Reddit lost media and Luke are on a hunt for the bootleg cut of Flushed Away. Reddit Lost Media subreddit is reaching out far and wide to get this sorted. I am on the edge of my seat. I have never known such a need to see something I previously never even thought I cared about.
Luke then messaged one of the directors to just straight up ask directly, and David Bowers replied saying there is no original cut so to speak, but he is confident there is a tape somewhere in the Dreamworks archive of before the hamsters were cut. He wished Luke good luck in the search too, which is sweet.
For more like this plus all the latest news, drops, quizzes and memes, like The Tab on Facebook.
Related stories recommended by this writer:
• Actually, Shrek is a timeless masterpiece and you can’t tell me otherwise
• Get out of my swamp and find out which Shrek character is your uni
• Eduroam ban another Bristol student for illegally downloading Shrek