…it originally aired on Fox Kids as a five-part miniseries simply titled Dark Water. The show aired as a five episode weekday miniseries. Here’s the original intro…
…compared to the ABC rework.
As a sort of mini “My Favorite Intros” review the original has more flavor to it. Having Ioz’s voice actor do it just sounds like Ioz out of character telling the show’s plot.
The Fox Kids version also had a different voice as Niddler the monkey bird.
Yes, that is Roddy McDowall as Niddler. No offense to Frank Welker but…
…the bird-like voice he went with didn’t match other monkey birds and I like McDowall’s version better. Dark Water is basically the first five episodes of what most of you know as The Pirates Of Dark Water and I was kind of disappointed in the full series. The one who got it worse was Tula. They softened her up too much when they made her an “ecomancer”, someone who could control the elements, like ABC couldn’t handle a swashbuckling woman thief. It’s still a good show but not as good as it could have been.
Sadly there’s no clear version of the original version. It’s almost been lost to time and if you find it the footage comes from an old VCR recording. If they ever put the full series out on home video again I wish they’d add the original recording cleaned up as bonus footage.
BW Media Spotlight 
I honestly thought I had a Mandela effect moment. I could have sworn the first five episodes (I was 11 when they aired) were grittier, and the the intro and Niddler’s voice was different. I wish there was a way to watch the original five again without the ABC facelift.
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I wonder why Fox Kids only aired the miniseries and passed on the full series. I’m guessing the changes were ABC’s idea. I have a recording of the Fox Kids airing but it’s in such poor shape that I can’t really share it, but I’d love to see that again as well.
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