[Requesting Help] When were the Newcomers Revealed?

[Tetiro]

Hey Melee fans, I could use some help.

Me and my friend were discussing the frequency of which Smash characters get revealed on a month/bi-monthly basis. So we logged down every date a new character was revealed for Brawl, 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate. It wasn't difficult as the Smash Wiki and Nintendo Directs gave us specific dates. However when it came to Melee we couldn't find a single date. It was baffling as usually the Smash community never missed a thing.

So I thought I would request the aid of Smashboards in this. What we are trying to find are the exact date all the newcomers in Melee got announced. For example, Little Mac got his announcement on February 13th, 2014. The dates are really useful in our discussion.

Would anyone be able to help? Even just knowing the month and year would be enough for us to make a good discussion.

Many thanks to all who help!

 

[Pauer]

It's probably difficult finding sources for this online. I'm guessing the most reliable sources might be old Nintendo Magazines.
Unless there were announcements before the E3 in 2001, I'm guessing that technically almost all characters except for a few were "announced" latest in the original trailer. There's clearly ambiguity about which Pokémon would end up in the game and some characters like game and watch I couldn't find in the video at all. Maybe they're hidden somewhere, I never watched the intro too closely.
I can well imagine that the whole procedure of unveiling new characters is more of a modern concept, since back in the day it was much more expensive to spread that kind of information. But this is just speculation and I may be wrong of course.