Jg Quintel revives Regular Show with May 11 Lost Tapes premiere
Jg Quintel is bringing Regular Show back as The Lost Tapes, and the first half-hour special arrives May 11. He said the revival will answer “everybody’s questions,” with the new run built around the same offbeat logic that made the original series work.
Quintel’s return to Mordecai
Quintel, who created the series and voices Mordecai, looked back on the original run by asking, “When I think back on those days, I’m like, ‘How did they greenlight it?’” He also said, “Some of the stuff we were doing was so weird, but it was making us laugh.” That instinct is still the core asset here: the revival is not a reboot built on nostalgia alone, but a return to the exact creative engine that turned a strange pilot into a long-running franchise.
The pilot debuted on Sept. 6, 2010, with Mordecai and Rigby stealing a magical synthesizer from a wizard while he was peeing in a bush. They called it The Power, tried to use it through an improvised song and dance routine, and accidentally sent Skips to the moon when the lyrics fell apart. That mix of absurdity and consequence is the show’s original blueprint, and it is the version Quintel is restoring.
Cartoon Network’s 244-episode run
Regular Show ran for 244 episodes across eight seasons from 2010 to 2017, picked up six Emmy nominations, and won outstanding short-format animated program in 2012. Those numbers matter because they show the series was not a small cult title; it was a durable Cartoon Network property with enough reach to justify bringing it back in a structured rollout rather than a one-off special.
Quintel has said Cartoon Network was one of the more creative studios he worked with, able to take “bigger swings and bigger risks,” and that it had all creator-driven shows. He also worked on Camp Lazlo and later moved on to The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack after meeting Thurop van Orman in a CalArts screenwriting class. That path explains why this return feels aligned with his earlier work instead of a generic franchise revival.
May 11 launch plan
The Lost Tapes premieres May 11 with a half-hour special, and the first 10 episodes will air on Cartoon Network before becoming available to stream on HBO Max in June. Another 30 episodes are scheduled for later release, giving the project a 40-episode shape that is far larger than a nostalgia callback.
William Salyers, Sam Marin, Mark Hamill, Minty Lewis and Janie Haddad Tompkins are set to return, which gives the revival continuity across the voices that defined the original run. For viewers, the practical takeaway is simple: the first new installment lands May 11, the initial 10 episodes follow on linear TV, and the streaming window opens in June.
