Editing Rejected (section)

===Exhibition history===
''Rejected'' world-premiered at the [[San Diego Comic Convention]] in 2000. Between hundreds of film festival appearances, ''Rejected'' also toured North American theaters in 2000, 2001, and 2002 with [[Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation]]; in 2001 and 2002 again with a retrospective touring program of Hertzfeldt's and animator [[Bill Plympton]]'s films called "The Don and Bill Show"; and returned to theaters once again in 2003 and 2004 with Hertzfeldt's own [[the Animation Show]] tour.<ref name="Bitter Films' Rejected page" />

Released nationwide in theaters through the [[Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation]] in 2000, the short won 27 film festival awards and was nominated for an Oscar for [[Best Animated Short Film]] the following year.

In the early 2000s, pirated copies of ''Rejected'' turned the film into a viral sensation online, where it has been credited with shaping the surreal sense of humor of the early Internet.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.filmsfatale.com/blog/2020/12/21/rejected-20-years-later | title=Rejected 20 Years Later}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/don-hertzfeldts-famous-cartoon-rejected-is-in-hd.html | title=The Cartoon That Invented Internet Culture Gets a High-Definition Rerelease| date=November 2018}}</ref>

In 2003, two of the "Fluffy Guy" characters reappeared in three Hertzfeldt cartoons created to introduce and book-end the first year of [[the Animation Show]]: ''Welcome to the Show'', ''Intermission in the Third Dimension'', and ''the End of the Show''.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.bitterfilms.com/trilogy.html | title=Animation Show Cartoons | work=bitterfilms.com | access-date=25 January 2016}}</ref>

''Rejected'' was scheduled to air on [[Adult Swim]] in 2001 but was delayed for unknown reasons—it was rescheduled to air on November 3, 2002 "uncut and commercial free",<ref>{{cite web |title=Rejected Original Adult Swim Premiere Timeslot |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/florence-morning-news-rejected-original/146080032/ |website=Florence Morning News |access-date=26 April 2024 |pages=23 |date=3 November 2002}}</ref> and was heavily promoted on the network that week. However, the short was pulled from the schedule at the last minute, for unknown reasons. Rumors about the reasons behind this highly unusual action have included: the film's brief use of the phrase "Sweet Jesus" ("Jesus" being a word allegedly not allowed on a [[Turner Broadcasting System|Turner Network]] back then), and an anonymous high-ranking network executive simply not finding the short to be funny. ''Rejected'' has since aired without incident on the [[Cartoon Network]] in other countries as well as on other international television networks, but has to date never been broadcast on American television.<ref name="Bitter Films' Rejected page" /> However, a brief clip from the film has since aired on the Adult Swim anthology series ''[[Off the Air (TV series)|Off the Air]]'', 14 years later, in the episode "Holes". The scene mentioned in the episode is the scene with the "fluffy guys" in which one announces that his "anus is bleeding."<ref name="Off the Air">{{cite episode | title=Holes  | series=[[Off the Air (TV series)|Off the Air]] | network=[[Adult Swim]] | date=23 November 2015}}</ref>

In 2020, for the film's twentieth anniversary, Hertzfeldt appeared at the [[Austin Film Society]] for a rare 35mm screening and discussed the making of the cartoon and its impact.<ref name="AFS">{{cite web | url=https://www.austinfilm.org/films/don-hertzfeldt-rejected-at-20/ | title=Don Hertzfeldt: Rejected at 20 |publisher=Austin Film Society}}</ref>