I've always loved Cartoon Network, when I was growing up it was my
favourite channel to watch. Even today it has some good shows, like
Adventure Time and Regular Show. One of the newest shows on the network,
The Amazing World of Gumball, is a cute and mildly entertaining show.
Not really my cup of tea, it's a little immature, but my little brother
seems to like it a lot.
One day, I was watching Adult Swim when I realized that I'd been up
so late that I hadn't even kept track of the time, it was already 4 AM. I
don't recall ever watching AS this late, so I stayed awake to see what
would happen when it ended. A little bumper showed up at the bottom of
the screen during a commercial break, it said that a special episode of
The Amazing World of Gumball was about to come on. I was a little
confused about an episode of a very popular, new show coming on this
early, but I was bored and decided I would watch it; thinking it might
come on later in the day so I could spoil it for my brother. Sort of
mean, I know.
The flashy and energetic intro theme played, although it was
played a little differently than I recall. The music was a little
different, and the show's logo wasn't animated, it's colours were done
rather sloppily as well, almost like something a little kid would do on a
Doodle Board or a Glow Board. I ignored it, assuming that it was done
just for this 'special' episode. The title of the episode was "The
Grieving", a sort of sad title, but I didn't really pay too much
attention.
It began with Gumball, the show's 12 year old protagonist,
standing alone facing a corner of his dimly-lit classroom. He looked
absolutely miserable, a far cry from the cheerful demeanor he usually
had. There was no one else in the room, not even his best friend and
adopted brother Darwin the goldfish, and the windows in the room clearly
showed the night sky outside. I was really starting to get confused,
why would he be at school at night, and why was he standing in the
corner all sad and alone?
After about what seemed like a minute of Gumball standing
somberly in the corner, the scene suddenly changed. We were in Gumball's
house, once again the scene is silent and a little disquieting.
Richard, Gumball's enormous rabbit father, walks in from the kitchen, he
looked even more miserable than Gumball had in the previous scene.
Richard isn't wearing his usual attire, he's dressed in a fancy black
suit, a little uncharacteristic of him, as he's usually a slob. He
sighs, and slumps down onto the sofa, and starts sobbing intensely,
sounding like someone who had just lost something important.
I was starting to get a little creeped out, where was the silly,
fun cartoon that I usually looked forward to watching with my younger
brother? This was something completely different. I was beginning to
think that this might have been something the creators did as an
experiment or something, a test of the animation or sound perhaps.
Though, it couldn't have been, aside from the opening theme, which was
still different from the final shows', the episode had been much quieter
than it usually was, only subtle sounds and very little music, and the
animation was not anything to write home about either. It was done a bit
like an amateur flash on Newgrounds, the character designs were
somewhat sloppy and rushed looking, and the real life backgrounds used
for the show looked different.
As confused and somewhat frightened as I was, for some reason, I
kept watching it. Poor Richard was still sobbing on the sofa, as the
front door opened suddenly, making me jump a bit at such a loud noise,
and Gumball's mother Nicole, a blue cat like him, stepped in. Like
Richard, she wasn't wearing her usual outfit, for some reason, she was
in a black dress and was wearing a pretty black hat to match. Nicole sat
down on the couch to comfort her husband, although she was looking a
bit saddened herself. By this point Richard's crying had began to get
more pained and miserable sounding, this wasn't the normal cartoon
crying on the show, this was realistic and almost depressing crying, I
almost felt like sobbing myself.
Finally,
after what seemed like hours, the sad scene at their home ended, as it
shifted back to the school. We weren't in Gumball's classroom this time,
we were in Principal Brown's office. Nicole and Richard were there, in
their usual clothes, looking more normal and happy than they had before,
but still slightly worried. Principal Brown however, looked extremely
sad. He quietly and somberly informed them that their children, Anais
and Darwin, were not present after lunch earlier that day. They hadn't
been seen at all the rest of the day. Nicole was instantly furious at
him, she began spouting various insults and calls at him that I don't
think would have made it on a more mature program like Regular Show. I
was laughing at this, because it seemed sort of funny for Nicole to flip
out in this manner and start swearing like a sailor in a G-rated
cartoon, but my outlook soon changed when Principal Brown told her
something else after she finally had quieted down.
His eyes began to tear up as he informed them that they eventually
were found, but they had not been found alive. He then went into graphic
and nearly nauseating detail describing how their bodies were found,
their parents sitting in utter shock. I could hardly believe what was
happening, how could such a cheery and fun kids show be taking such a
dark and twisted turn. I was considering turning the television off, but
I was too scared to be left in the dark by now, nearly frozen by fear
and disturbed intensely at the terrible things that he was saying.
Another flashback, the scene was earlier that day, and the animation in
this scene was even worse than earlier. I don't remember it very
clearly, but I think he began his recollection by saying that the school
had called the police department when they first turned up missing,
believing that the kids had simply ran off and decided to skip school.
They said it was very uncharacteristic of both Darwin and Anais to go
skipping school like delinquents, Darwin was a little naive and a bit
ditzy, but he was a good kid and wouldn't have even dreamed of doing
something like that, and Anais was even less likely to run away, she was
a straight-A student, despite being only four, which also troubled the
police, seeing as a defenseless four year old little girl was missing as
well as an older boy.
The school had been thoroughly checked, so the police started to
search the heavily wooded area outside of the school. It took little
time for the police to discover the horrifying fate of Anais. In a small
clearing outside of the school, Anais's head was found in a small box,
you likely would have expected something like that to be shown in the
show's cutesy art style, but it was nothing like that at all. Realistic
blood covered the box, inside and out, while Anais's head was done in
the normal style, but was drenched in blood and some other fluids, not
all of them hers apparently. There was a note in the box, seemingly
written in her blood. It was never stated during the episode what
exactly was written on the note, but it apparently lead to the rest of
her remains and Darwin's heavily mutilated corpse.
What I remember most about this scene was how out of place it
seemed. All the blood and gore from Darwin and Anais's slaughtered and
dismembered remains was done in a very realistic and disturbing way. It
looked like the scene had been taken from a crime scene photograph done
by a professional, not something from a cartoon. The way this scene was
animated was different from most of the show as well, you may know that
the characters from this series are done in vastly differing animation
styles, from Flash animation, to CGI, and I think that there's even a
character done by someone putting their chin upside-down to make a face.
This particular scene wasn't like anything I had ever seen on the show
before, every little detail on Darwin's face was clearly illustrated, he
looked a little like a zombie, his face was very pale and his eyes had
been gouged out by someone. Anais fared no better, or, what was left of
her anyway. She was naked and her stomach had been slit open, her
intestines were strewn around the trees and bushes in the woods, done
once again in a very morbid and realistic style.
I was feeling very ill by the time this incredibly disturbing
flashback had come to an end, so I quickly ran to the bathroom to vomit.
I was feeling better after upchucking, so I had realized that I had
good timing and had ran to the bathroom during a commercial. It was then
I noticed that the show had been running twice as long, it usually ran
for eleven minutes, but this episode was running for about thirty. By
then I was wondering if there was any information on "The Grieving" on
IMDB or something, so while the commercials were still playing I looked
up some information about this episode on Google. Nothing came up, no
information remotely similar to the plot or name of this episode existed
anywhere.
Now incredibly scared and wondering if anyone else was watching, I
quickly dialed my brother Larry and asked him to turn on Cartoon
Network and see if he was seeing the same shit that I was. He was pretty
mad that I woke him up at this hour, but he's a nice guy and told me he
would see for me. I thanked him and stayed on the line as the show came
back from commercial break. The scene had thankfully panned away from
the horrific sight of the children mutilated and was back to the
principal's office. I asked Larry if he saw some cartoon animals talking
or crying, since that was what they were doing on my TV. To my
surprise, he said that he saw nothing like that, instead it was a rerun
of an old Looney Tunes short. In utter shock, I dropped the phone and
ran over to the TV to turn it off and as hard as I pressed the buttons
it would not shut off at all, I tried every single button and none of
them did a thing. I tried unplugging the whole thing as well, but
nothing worked, the TV stayed on no matter what.
Larry had hung up, assuming that I was playing a joke or
something, I guess, and I was alone once again. My door was locked from
the outside somehow, and the door to my bathroom was now locked as well.
It seemed that I had no choice but to call the police, since my other
family members were gone that night, it was the reason I could stay up
so late to watch Adult Swim in the first place. When I hurriedly dialed
the number, I accidentally dropped my cell phone into my cup of Pepsi. I
was very scared, and had no choice but to finish the episode, I turned
on all the lights in my room and got under the covers, hiding like my
little brother does when I make him watch scary movies with me.
I had apparently missed a little bit, but Gumball's parents were
still talking to Principal Brown, so not that much. Nicole was asking
him if Gumball was alright, apparently since she hadn't remembered him
when Principal Brown told her what had happened to Darwin and Anais. He
looked slightly confused and shocked for a moment, and explained to her
that he thought Gumball was out sick today and he had spent the day at
home by himself with the stomach bug. Nicole screamed and wailed, while
Richard quietly told him, in a very out of character voice, that they
thought Gumball had got on the bus this morning, but it didn't seem that
way.
The police were called once again, to search the building and the
small forest outside of Elmore Junior High. They had found him in Miss
Simian's classroom, hanging by a noose, with a blood covered knife
behind him and blood covering his clothing. The episode ended with the
shot of Gumball's dead body hanging there in the corner fading to black.
The credits rolled silently, not like the usual way Cartoon Network
annoyingly airs a promo that squishes half the screen, these credits
rolled unusually slow and they weren't that fun to watch either, a
little creepy, just plain white text scrolling on a black background.
I only recognized Ben Bocquelet's name, as he was the creator of
the show, the rest were people I'd never heard of. The copyright notice
at the end said © Cartoon Network Studios, 2001. Which was incredibly
odd, seeing as the show was new for 2011. After all that was over, the
screen went to static for a split second, during which some incredibly
creepy and shocking video clips were shown between static intervals. I
can still remember them all very clearly. The first was a picture of a
person in a Plague Doctor outfit, those always scared me for some
reason, and the way the person in the suit was filmed was just as bad, a
red light, something that freaks me out incredibly was shone over the
clip. The next was what seemed like a video being played very quickly,
over and over of a kitten's face being squished by a woman wearing high
heels, which was strange because a so called "friend" of mine sent me a
picture yesterday of a cat being stepped on and killed, similar to the
kitten in the video. The last one was the one that disturbed me the most
and made me want to both cry and vomit my guts out, it was my little
brother or at least a small child who looked very similar to him being
shot in the face by a person who looked like my father. You could
clearly see the child's brains and blood splatter on the wall. I began
to sob uncontrollably after that traumatizing clip, so much so that I
passed out.
When I woke up, my door was unlocked, and my television was
turned off. I went to call the police on the home phone in my kitchen
and report that I had seen some very disturbing things on TV and that my
doors had been locked. When they arrived, they could find nothing like
what I remembered from early this morning. My internet history was even
cleared, they were angry at me, and just assumed that I had had a bad
nightmare, when I was sure I hadn't. Thankfully, one of the officers
felt bad for me and took me out to a small diner so I could recollect my
thoughts.
At the diner, I remembered that my family was out visiting my
aunt, and they were supposed to be back by noon or so. It was already
eleven, so the officer and I drove back only to find a whole squad of
police cars and even some government agents at my house. They explained
to me that my little brother was missing and that my mother and father
were major suspects. I was freaking out, and trying to tell them about
the disturbing clip of the boy who looked like my brother being shot in
the head, but they wouldn't listen. I stayed with my older brother,
Larry, who wouldn't believe me either, still insisting that all he saw
was an old Looney Tunes cartoon, and nothing at all creepy or weird. The
cops eventually told me that they would contact Turner Broadcasting and
tell them about the incident.
A representative of Turner Broadcasting came to my cousin's house
to talk to me in private about what I had seen and experienced that
night. He was very kind, but it all seemed a little like some sort of
front. After I could tell him all I remembered, he agreed to playback
that day's programming from when the incident with the disturbing
Gumball episode had occurred. To my shock, all that was airing at that
time was an old Looney Tunes short, nothing more, nothing less. I
hysterically sobbed and moaned that what I had experienced and seen was
completely real, but no one listened. Eventually, I discovered that Ben
Bocquelet had a Twitter account, so I sent a message about the episode
and this was the reply I got:
"One thing, how in the heck did you find that? I never, ever,
EVER, thought I would think about that old shame again. Don't tell
anyone this Sarah, (Yes, that's my name), but The Amazing World of
Gumball goes back further than you know. I used to have a really boring
job as a teen, and I sketched little drawings of The Wattersons and
friends. The episode you saw was never supposed to be seen by anyone but
me and a few friends of mine. It was a very, very awful thing to do,
but we made the episode as a joke. A guy from my old job, who everyone
hated, had lost a child to a crazed serial killer, who is apparently
still out there somewhere. Anyway, we made it so we could make fun of
how he came into work usually, crying like a fool, which is why you saw
Mr. and Mrs. Watterson cry so much in the episode. I know, I am deeply
sorry for what I did, which is why I tried to bury that stupid thing
years ago. Literally, I went out into the countryside with my mates and
dug a hole and buried it.
What I don't get though, is how you described the blood and guts
and stuff. We didn't have any scene with Darwin and Anais's bodies being
found, all that happens in the episode is the parents are informed of
the kids being found dead and them crying like crazy. We didn't even
draw anything in the episode like that, at all. We're not that sick.
Now, this is my theory, the lunatic who killed the man's child
found the tape we buried, watched it, and heavily edited it. Then, he
hijacked the local TV station near Vallejo somehow, and got
the episode to air on your local Cartoon Network station. Now, why your
brother couldn't see it, I have no idea, why it seems you're the only
one who saw it, I have no idea either. Sorry, but I just don't know.
Now, for the explanation you have been waiting for, the clips at
the end. I DON'T KNOW. I DON'T. I'm deeply sorry, from the bottom of my
heart, but I don't know why those clips were aired, I just don't. I am
sorry, I really am, but me and my mates are just the ones who made those
scenes with Richard and Nicole crying, that's it. I'm so sorry Sarah,
I'm so deeply sorry. -Best wishes, Ben Bocquelet and everyone involved
with, 'The Grieving'."
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