Another fun fact: the swimsuit episode from that first season actually aired a whopping once. I should know, I was there. It aired on Kids WB in 2000 and they billed it as a lost episode, which is kind of funny in retrospect because it had only been around for a couple of years at that point and it's now been twelve years and it's never re-aired, nor has it been put on any official releases.
Also, according to the American canon in which the Dratini/Tauros episode never aired due to the inclusion of a gun, Ash's herd of Tauros literally happened completely offscreen.
Yep, I remember them billing the "Lost Episode" all those years ago and I sat intently hoping that it would be either the Dratini or Porygon episode, and instead it ended up being the bikini contest episode. Although according to the VA's, 4Kids DID dub the Dratini and Porygon episodes but Kids WB refused to air them.
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