Zara & Erika: The Dawson Gals

Zara & Erika: The Dawson Gals (sometimes referred to by fans as Zara & Erika 2016) is an American animated series of shorts originally created by Kyle Rangel, released by LDF Enterprises, and then re-released by Funlight Entertainment. However, Kenzie Backlin Productions more recently reissued this series.

History
The earliest known prototype of Zara & Erika: The Dawson Gals came in 2014, when Rangel made an unreleased short entitled "The Dawson Gals". "Bath Buddies" was released a year later.

In 2016, Michael Mason was too busy making an episode of Zara and Erika: 1st Generation, which would become "Field Trip". Rangel had created "Double Trouble" in an attempt to keep his series going.

Rangel's series went through additional makeovers before it was finished at the end of 2016.

Zara & Erika: The Dawson Gals had a massive cult following over the years and since 2018, it has become the weirdest incarnation of the series with lots more inappropriate jokes and the appearances of Caillou and Boris.

List of shorts
See also: List of Zara and Erika: The Dawson Gals episodes

Only 50 shorts were made for the series, with only one actually being a compilation short.

Copyright lapse
The series was notorious for entering the public domain in several countries. In the USA & Canada, Latin America and Australia, fifteen cartoons are known to fall in the public domain such as Zara, Erika and the Wonker and The Wizard. These have been printed on bootleg tapes consisting of other works like the Noveltoons, Bugs Bunny cartoons and the Fleischer Superman shorts.

Unsurprisingly, Europe and Japan are two exceptions for these cases. All 49 cartoons from this series entered the public domain since May 1st, 2019, allowing viewers from these regions to be free to use the series for remixing and artistic purposes.

On October 3rd, 2019, Funlight Entertainment had announced that the copyright for all 50 shorts (excluding The Last Resort) will finally lapse into the public domain on December 20th, 2019 in the US, Canada and other places that are affected by the copyright issues. On October 21st, 2019, all the pre-2019 LDF cartoons including the entire 2016 Zara & Erika series have entered the public domain in Southeast Asia.

On December 20th, 2019, the copyrights for all 49 Zara & Erika cartoons have lapsed into the public domain in the United States and Canada.