Pikachu made his debut performance in in the fall of 1929 in a rarely seen film entitled "Steamboat Pika", created and financed by the Matsuhiro Copper and Wire Concern, based out of Kyoto.

In the short, Pikachu pilots a steamboat down the Tonegawa river, constantly being harassed by his boss: a large, overweight Meowth named Peg Leg Yoshiteru. One reason the film is so rare has to do with its controversial ending: Pikachu and Yoshiteru's constant shenanigans cause their delivery of industrial grade metallic bonding solution to arrive late to its destination, bringing shame upon both of their houses. To regain their family honor, the duo engage in the ancient tradition of seppuku - an act which seemed horribly out of place in the otherwise lighthearted cartoon.

When Nintendo purchased the characters to reboot them into the now wildly popular Pokemon franchise in the mid-1990s, they sealed the original film away in their vaults, destroying the negatives and paying off officials to strike the episode from history textbooks. Despite their best efforts, a handful of copies of the original film somehow managed to make their way on to poor quality VHS tapes, which are now highly sought after collectors items.

(tl;dr: I drew an ol' timey pikachu :B)

Pikachu © Nintendo