Man, I haven't watched CN for so long... I'm wayyyy out of the loop... (could have let me watch it on their Toonami Jetstream, but noooooo, it never worked when I tried it).

It does sound like it, though.  They DID make the whole not-Ash series(which I kind of liked...when I could watch it), but in reality those episodes were right in with the rest of the anime in their normal slots, but either CN or 4Kids took it out because it had nothing to do with Ash, or they really did count on making a secondary series.  (I liked it anyway...I was glad to see how they went through 'life' normally without having to be on a constant adventure.)

But yeah, that sounds kinda hokey...I mean it's nice to have episodes you haven't seen yet, IF they haven't been shown yet, but it still sounds fishy, especially voiced with the old voice actors.

Then again, it could just be 'New for this time of the day!' sort of thing... *shrug*