Editing Colonel Bleep (section)

==Legacy==
Unlike contemporary animated television shorts of the era, which were mostly preserved, practically no original material from the production of ''Colonel Bleep'' is known to exist today.

The show aired as late as 1971.<ref name="BridgeportPost">{{cite news |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/bridgeport-post-sep-10-1971-p-23/ |title=TV Listings |work=Bridgeport Post |date=1971-09-10 |accessdate=2020-01-11 }}</ref> The copyrights of the show's episodes lapsed, without being renewed, in 1985.<ref>{{cite book|author= David Pierce|title=Motion Picture Copyrights & Renewals, 1950–1959|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GaUqAAAAYAAJ&q=%22colonel+bleep%22|date=1989|publisher=Milestone|isbn=978-0927347020|page=63}}</ref> Two [[videocassettes]] from the series were released by [[Streamline Pictures]] in 1991, containing most episodes still known to exist at the time (reportedly discovered in the film storage vault of a southwestern U.S. TV station which had formerly aired the show during a bankruptcy proceeding).<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Cohen |first=Karl |date=1993-12-08 |title=The Legacy of Jack Schleh Colonel Bleep TV's First Animated Space Age |url=https://archive.org/details/wck_2/page/6/mode/2up |magazine=[[Wild Cartoon Kingdom]] |publisher=Wild Cartoon Kingdom |access-date=2023-04-20}}</ref> Apart from "The Treacherous Pirate", no more episodes were released until August 23, 2005, when [[Alpha Video]] released a [[DVD]] entitled ''Colonel Bleep Volume 1''. The DVD contains 23 episodes, about 20 of which do not appear on earlier video releases. Among the known episodes are the [[series premiere]] ("Col. Bleep's Arrival on Earth") and a [[clip show]] believed to be the [[series finale]] ("Test of Friendship").

Eight previously lost episodes were uploaded to YouTube on September 12, 2019, procured from [[sepia tone|sepia-toned]] black-and-white prints. A ninth lost episode ("Winner Take All") was also discovered and uploaded to YouTube on October 19, 2019; all nine of the rediscovered episodes were in the personal archives of Ron Kurer and his website Toon Tracker. In September 2018, animation historian Jerry Beck located black-and-white wraparounds, including the show's original title sequence, in the archives of Mark Kausler, and posted the film on [[YouTube]].<ref name=beck_colonelbleepshow/> A higher-quality version of the wraparounds was uploaded to YouTube on February 18, 2024. In October 2019, YouTube user D Fan (Los Angeles radio personality Jhani Kaye) uploaded a kinescope of an episode of the [[Local children's television|Local children's show]] ''[[Bill Stulla|Cartoon Express with Engineer Bill]]'' which included a title card for the lost episode ''Squeak and the Black Knight''; Kaye had previously included the ''Colonel Bleep'' snippet in a 2017 video posted on a previous account, but noted in a comment that the lost episode had already been cut from the film by the time he received it.

In March 2023, a lost episode "The Malicious Mailman" was discovered by film archivist Sarah Smith. The episode, a sequel to the existing episode "The Lunar Luger," <!-- as noted in an explanation from 1:24 to 1:38 on the posted video -->was restored at Multicom Entertainment Group.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sarah-victoria-smith-094b5145_colonelbleep-lostfilms-television-activity-7038918292589199361-JidF | title=Sarah Smith on LinkedIn: #colonelbleep #lostfilms #television #filmhistory #televisionhistory… }}</ref> and released on the streaming service The Archive on August 23, 2023.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Colonel Bleep: The Malicious Mailman {{!}} The Archive |url=https://www.thearchive.tv/feature/colonel-bleep-malicious-mailman |access-date=2024-06-23 |website=www.thearchive.tv |language=en}}</ref>

One episode, "The Treacherous Pirate", can be seen as part of ''The [[Speed Racer]] Show'', an anthology film released by Streamline Pictures in 1993; it was released on VHS, [[LaserDisc]] and DVD by [[Family Home Entertainment]] as ''Speed Racer: the Movie''. The episode occurs between ''Speed Racer'' episodes ("The Car Hater" and "Race Against the Mammoth Car, Part 1"). Production notes for ''[[The Ren & Stimpy Show]]'' cite ''Colonel Bleep'' as an inspiration to the show's animators, and the episode "''[[Space Madness (Ren & Stimpy episode)|Space Madness]]''" includes a recreation of ''Colonel Bleep's'' title sequence.<ref>{{cite news |last=Rea |first=Steven |url=http://articles.philly.com/1993-07-23/entertainment/25977825_1_tatsuo-yoshida-chim-chim-cartoons |title=A Fleet Of '60s 'Speed Racer' Cartoons |work=The Philadelphia Inquirer |date=1993-07-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220183728/http://articles.philly.com/1993-07-23/entertainment/25977825_1_tatsuo-yoshida-chim-chim-cartoons |accessdate=2014-12-11 |archive-date=2014-12-20 }}</ref>

A clip from the ''Colonel Bleep'' episode "The Killer Whale" was seen in the ''[[Severance (TV series)|Severance]]'' season two episode "[[The After Hours (Severance)|The After Hours]]".<ref>{{cite web|first=Joshua M.|last=Patton|url=https://www.cbr.com/severance-the-twilight-zone-the-after-hours-reference/|title=Severance Just Made the Most Obvious Twilight Zone Reference (& Most People Missed It)|date=March 18, 2025|access-date=April 8, 2025}}</ref>