Care Bears: Journey To Joke-a-lot - Release

Release

Upon release, Journey to Joke-a-lot was the fourth film to feature the Care Bears, and their first one in over 15 years. It was also the first computer-animated installment in the franchise, and its first feature to go direct-to-video. Backed by an advertising campaign worth more than US$2 million, the film was released in North America by Artisan's successor, Lions Gate, on October 5, 2004; overseas rights were handled by Universal Studios soon after. In the U.S., the film's release coincided with the second annual National Care Week; it debuted at eighth place on Billboard's VHS sales chart in late October 2004, and sold more than 500,000 copies by April 2005. In January 2005, Journey to Joke-a-lot was a nominee in the "Animated DVD Premiere Movie" category at the fifth annual DVD Exclusive Awards. The film aired on cable television's Disney Channel in December 2004 and May 2005. In the midst of Joke-a-lot's success, Lions Gate Home Entertainment released another computer-animated film with the Care Bears, Big Wish Movie, on October 18, 2005.

The DVD contains seven deleted scenes: "Laugh If You Want To!", "Caring Is Serious Business", "Which Way to Funshine?", "I Wonder", "Packs-A-Magic!", "Unpacks-A-Magic!" and "The Great Escape!". In his introduction to those scenes, director Mike Fallows says to the audience, "Congratulations on finding your way this far." All of the scenes have partially completed animation except the last one, "The Great Escape!", which has finished animation.