Infinity Train, Summer Camp Island, and other shows wiped from HBO Max

HBO Max has removed 36 shows and movies from its platform, including a lot of kids and family content such as Sesame Street spinoff The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo, beloved Cartoon Network show OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes, and teen drama Generation. One of the most frustrating eliminations is the highly acclaimed and also frankly amazing Infinity Train — which had already been removed from airing on Cartoon Network, punted to streaming-only with little fanfare, and canceled after just four seasons.

The creators behind these shows were blindsided by this decision, and justifiably upset. Julia Pott, creator of fantasy slice-of-life series Summer Camp Island, tweeted about the removal.

“We worked for 5 years to make 100 episodes of animation,” wrote Pott. “We worked late into the night, we let ourselves go, we were a family of hard working artists who wanted to make something beautiful, and HBO MAX just pulled them all like we were nothing. Animation is not nothing!”

Not only have these shows been removed, but the turnaround from the announcement to the actual removal was so quick that many fans barely had time to react. It’s all part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s latest move to turn a profit, following laying off 14% of the HBO Max staff and canceling the upcoming Batgirl movie. Yet for the creators behind the shows and for the fans who loved them, it feels particularly cruel.

Wait, so these shows are just gone?

Image: HBO Max

So, technically, full seasons and episodes of many of these shows are still available to purchase on Amazon, Google Play, and iTunes, but no one knows exactly for how long. And some of the shows, like Summer Camp Island and Victor and Valentino, both of which have unaired new episodes, will air on Cartoon Network.

But as of today, they are nowhere to be found on HBO Max — and, in the case of Infinity Train and Mao Mao: Heroes Pure of Heart, all official videos on the Cartoon Network YouTube and any tweets mentioning the shows have been removed. Additionally, the Infinity Train soundtrack has vanished from music streaming services, and official Amazon listings of the DVDs have been taken down.

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon phenomenon in the world of entertainment media. For years, Disney locked up physical versions of its movies in “the Disney vault,” so that it could rerelease them every so often in limited-time runs. Old shows and movies that weren’t popular sometimes never got physical releases and then just faded out of existence (looking at you, WITCH, my beloved).

But in this case, it’s a little weirder. Many of the titles on the list are just a few years old and also loved by critics. It’s not a matter of an old forgotten thing just getting left behind, but a very…