Have you ever come across something online seemingly by accident, but glad you did? I found this hidden gem while scrolling across various 4chan threads about the Rugrats “Incredible” storyboard jam. While I was on an unsuccessful attempt to find any new information on “Incredible”, I found something just as interesting. Within one of the many threads in /co/ (4chan’s cartoons and comics board), one thread had commenters gushing over a newly discovered book related to the Dragon Tales PBS show called “Draggin’ Our Tails: A Document Of Our Species”. I remember watching the show fondly when I was a kid, so this revelation definitely ignited some childhood memories in me. What wasn’t so nostalgic though were some of the-let’s just say-inappropriate images in the book. After reviewing the entire book, I can definitely say that I was entertained and even somewhat shocked by most of the drawings and sketches. According to the Internet Archive, the book itself was published on December 23, 1999. While this may or not be accurate, it does fall within the timespan of the Dragon Tales cartoon, which ran from September 6, 1999 until April 11, 2005 with reruns continuing until August 31, 2010 when it was taken off of PBS for the last time. By published, I believe the Internet Archive means when the book was first created by the animators of the series, since I’m under the impression that this book, like the similar SpongeBob SquarePants book “Behind Closed Doors”, was only meant for employees and not the general public, and was never officially released. However, I’m not sure if anyone outside of the Dragon Tales crew ever saw the book before it was uploaded online for the first time on August 11, 2025 of this year.
Below are two full episodes of Dragon Tales from the YouTube channel Throwback Toons. The episodes in question are “Emmy’s Dreamhouse” and “Dragon Sails”. Just imagine these same characters in the situations shown in “Draggin’ Our Tails”. You”ll probably both laugh and simultaneously be horrified!
So what exactly is “Draggin’ Our Tails”? It appears to be a book by the animators of Dragon Tales filled with unused and deleted concept art and gag drawings. While some may write it off as just “vent art” by frustrated artists, I believe it is more than that. The first section of the book actually showcases never before seen concept art of the show in the form of characters that have evolved to become the main characters of the show. An example of this is Uncle Tio, who would later become the large dragon Quetzal. Another interesting aspect of the book is that its sections are divided into four tv age rating sections, “G”, “PG”, “R” and a new one called “N” for “Nasty”. Each age rating section includes drawings and sketches that correspond in content with the section they are in; basically the “G” rated section has pretty tamed drawings but the “N” sketches have some of the most graphic depictions of the Dragon Tales characters ever produced by the official animators of the franchise. The purpose of the book is not yet known since it has just been revealed and not many people are talking about it online, if they ever will. But we can already guess that the book was created in house by the animators of Dragon Tales for several possible reasons: to develop the new characters for the show, to experiment with new ideas, to create gag drawings to amuse themselves and for shock value, and even possibly to create their own sort of “fan fiction” of the franchise. How or who uploaded the book in the first place is also a mystery, but only time will tell if we will ever find out. I have included a link to “Draggin’ Our Tails” below, but I will be showcasing several images as well. Without further ado, let’s check out “Draggin’ Our Tails”!
https://archive.org/details/draggin-our-tails/mode/2up
The cover page of the unreleased “Draggin’ Our Tales” book.
An example of not only the evolution of the characters in the franchise, such as the change of Uncle Tim into Quetzal, but also that not all of the drawings and sketches in “Draggin’ Our Tales” are “vent art” by frustrated artists. Some of them like this image shown here were created to showcase the evolution of the characters in Dragon Tales.
The first “Age Rating” section of the book. This image also includes a sketch of Queztal walking in a smooth and funny manner with what appears to be a stick or cigarette in his mouth. The words “Keep on Dragon, Baby!” are above him.
This is probably the goriest image in the entire book, and one of only two drawings in “Draggin’ Our Tails” that is fully colored.
Other notable mentions in “Draggin’ Our Tails” include the storyboard “Bad Day in Dragon Land” (different storyboard than the one directly above with the same name) where Quetzal accidentally smacks Max into a lit oven and thus inadvertently kills the boy, a couple of storyboards of Max shoving characters into his butt, and a particularly brutal section called “The Red Menace: A J.A.M.B. Production” which showcases crude sketches of the characters on yellow sticky notes being brutally murdered by guns and other objects with the blood being depicted by red ink or pencil.
What are your personal opinions about “Draggin’ Our Tails”? Does it make you look at the cartoon series any differently now? Do you think that the artists went too far or were they just having some fun with the series? Let me know as always in the comments section below!
Sources
(The original thread in the /co/ section of 4chan where I first found “Draggin’ Our Tails”) https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/149734025/#q149735526
The Hidden Vault 
Leave a comment