Ash and Misty

Electric Soldier Porygon: "Dennō Senshi Porygon" (でんのうせんしポリゴン ,Dennō Senshi Porigon?, literally "Computer Soldier Porygon", although most commonly translated as "Electric Soldier Porygon") is the thirty-eighth episode of the Pokémon anime's first season. It was first broadcast in Japan on December 16, 1997, and has since not aired anywhere else. In the episode, Ash and his friends find at the local Pokémon Center that there is something wrong with the Poké Ball transmitting device. To find out what's wrong, they must go inside the machine.

The episode is infamous...

Contrary to popular belief, the Pokemon TV series isn't how the craze was started. It was actually started with the Game Boy game called "Pocket Monsters" in Japan in 1995. It was an instant hit and it eventually got it's own TV series of the same name in April of 1997.

The TV series itself was a huge hit in Japan, at least.....until the infamous December 16, 1997 incident which left about 700 some people sick and forcing the cancellation of the series until the following April (1998). It has continued onward with no further incident.

Also in 1998, 4Kids Entertainment, with Summit Media Group...