10 Biggest TV Show Blunders Ever
5. Team Rocket's Missing Pokéballs - Pokémon
Pokémon, the wildly popular anime series based on Tamagotchi virtual pets, is known for one of the most infamous and genuinely dangerous TV blunders of all time.
When the episode でんのうせんしポリゴン (which roughly translates to Cyber Soldier Porygon) aired in Japan, it contained flashing, multicoloured visual effects that induced photosensitive epileptic seizures in a substantial number of Japanese viewers. A whopping 685 viewers had to be taken to hospitals, and two remained hospitalized for more than two weeks. The episode was never broadcast again, and the incident became known as the ポケモンショック (which roughly translates to Pokémon Shock).
However, that's not what we're here to talk about. No, a much smaller but similarly troubling blunder caught our eye, and we just had to share it.
In the wonderfully titled episode So Near, Yet So Farfetch'd, Team Rocket's boat is capsized, and several of their Pokéballs are swept away by the current. Jessie is distressed, shouting "Arbok and Lickitung are floating away!"
However, at this point in the show, we've never seen Jessie catch a Lickitung. Lickitung doesn't appear until five episodes after this, begging the question: how many Lickitungs does Jessie own? How many excess Pokémon does Team Rocket have, that they can let them float away and replace them a few episodes later? And, most troubling of all, what's going to happen to the Arbok and Lickitung they lost? If a Pokéball sinks to the bottom of a lake, does the captured Pokémon drown, or is it simply trapped forever?