I Watched The "Lost" Live-Action 'Dilbert' Pilot Episode, And It's Clear Why It Didn't Get Picked Up
.... It seems true that no footage of the actual show is to be found on the internet. But in my research, I discovered that the Library of Congress holds a copy in their collection. All hope was not lost. I decided to see if I could finagle my way into viewing it, partly because Adams's death had left me feeling introspective about the whole Dilbert zeitgeist.....
....I can fortunately affirm that the pilot isn't truly lost. The Library of Congress indeed owns a tape copy, which was deposited in 1997 to register the copyright. They've even digitized it. On a whim one morning about a week after Adams died, I took a train to the LOC, just across the street from the Supreme Court, picked up my newly minted library card, and asked to see the video. The helpful staff immediately knew what I was asking for. It was obvious that I wasn't the first to ask for it.
There's a catch: Since the pilot is still under copyright protection, the digitized version can only be viewed on-site. Because 20th Century Fox (and now by extension Disney) owns the copyright, there really isn't any prospect of the pilot being legally disseminated any time soon. There's no way for you to see it except at the Library of Congress itself, in their media repository and viewing room. So I sat down in the '70s-era upholstered chair, slipped on a library-issue pair of headphones, and buckled in...
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