Pokemon has been around for 25 years and has delivered quite the amount of trivia across those years.
Not everything in Pokemon is straightforward. There are plenty of mysteries that fans ponder about or have uncovered in the last decade and a half. There are also plenty of behind-the-scenes tidbits that fans may or may not know.
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Like Star Wars, The Walking Dead, Mario, and other important pieces of pop culture over the years, Pokemon is full of trivia. With eight Generations and counting, hundreds of creatures, and countless adventures, Pokemon trivia is simply wonderful.
Top 3 pieces of interesting Pokemon trivia
#3 - Clefairy the Franchise Mascot
It is hard to think of Pokemon without Pikachu at the forefront. The little yellow electric mouse has been the face of the franchise since the start of the anime series. Before that was set in stone however, another cute and tiny Pokemon was set to be the franchise mascot.
Clefairy, one of the first Pokemon ever designed, was nearly destined to be the Pokemon on backpacks, in its own game, or in a feature film. The anime's original pilot saw Ash receive a Clefairy, before it was changed to Pikachu.
In the original Pokemon manga, Clefairy was actually the protagonist's Pokemon. It could talk and was a bit crass. Imagine a Pokemon Pink version where the player character is forced to partner up with a crude little Clefairy?
#2 - Legendary Pokemon Arcanine
All signs point to Arcanine originally being dubbed a Legendary Pokemon. The anime series even provides some truth to this piece of trivia. In the second episode, Ash comes across a stone tablet with the three Legendary Birds of Kanto on it.
A fourth Pokemon appears on the tablet though. It strongly resembles an Arcanine. Arcanine's Pokemon category in the Pokedex even reads "Legendary Pokemon." It is the only species to have this category. At some point, the developers of Pokemon decided to add in Growlithe.
That gave what could have been a Legendary Pokemon, a common pre-evolution, removing any chance of rarity, like the Legendaries fans have come to know and love. Perhaps, the concept of Entei was put together much earlier, turning this Legendary beast into a normal Fire-type.
#1 - Highest-Grossing Media Franchise
Pokemon is the highest-grossing media franchise of all time. Its total revenue is estimated to be over $100 billion as of 2021. The original media form was video games, eventually branching into television, movies, trading cards, books, comics, and several other licensed pieces of merchandise.
It even has "jet aircraft sales" of $3 million listed as one of its forms of revenue. That is in reference to the Pokemon Jet, a number of aircrafts used by Japanese airline All Nippon Airways. The jets were all painted on the exterior with incredible Pokemon artwork.
The franchise clearly shows no signs of slowing down and will probably hold this title for the rest of most fans' lives. It is so successful that it has earned more than the likes of Star Wars, Hello Kitty, and even the entirety of Disney Princess sales.
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