Creepypasta

[Cortez]

With the status update box having a sudden burst in creepypasta discussions I figured I may as well make a topic out of it so we can have some proper discussion about it.

Creepypasta doesn't normally scare me becaus so much of it is bullshit, but Dead Bart freaked me out to no end, not from the description but from the Image accompanying it:

You know how Fox has a weird way of counting Simpsons episodes? They refuse to count a couple of them, making the amount of episodes inconsistent. The reason for this is a lost episode from season 1.

Finding details about this missing episode is difficult, no one who was working on the show at the time likes to talk about it. From what has been pieced together, the lost episode was written entirely by Matt Groening. During production of the first season, Matt started to act strangely. He was very quiet, seemed nervous and morbid. Mentioning this to anyone who was present results in them getting very angry, and forbidding you to ever mention it to Matt. I first heard of it at an event where David Silverman was speaking. Someone in the crowd asked about the episode, and Silverman simply left the stage, ending the presentation hours early. The episode's production number was 7G06, the title was Dead Bart. The episode labeled 7G06, Moaning Lisa, was made later and given Dead Bart's production code to hide the latter's existence.

In addition to getting angry, asking anyone who was on the show about this will cause them to do everything they can to stop you from directly communicating with Matt Groening. At a fan event, I managed to follow him after he spoke to the crowd, and eventually had a chance to talk to him alone as he was leaving the building. He didn't seem upset that I had followed him, probably expected a typical encounter with an obsessive fan. When I mentioned the lost episode though, all color drained from his face and he started trembling. When I asked him if he could tell me any details, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and handed it to me. He begged me never to mention the episode again.

The piece of paper had a website address on it, I would rather not say what it was, for reasons you'll see in a second. I entered the address into my browser, and I came to a site that was completely black, except for a line of yellow text, a download link. I clicked on it, and a file started downloading. Once the file was downloaded, my computer went crazy, it was the worst virus I had ever seen. System restore didn't work, the entire computer had to be rebooted. Before doing this though, I copied the file onto a CD. I tried to open it on my now empty computer, and as I suspected, there was an episode of The Simpsons on it.

The episode started off like any other episode, but had very poor quality animation. If you've seen the original animation for Some Enchanted Evening, it was similar, but less stable. The first act was fairly normal, but the way the characters acted was a little off. Homer seemed angrier, Marge seemed depressed, Lisa seemed anxious, Bart seemed to have genuine anger and hatred for his parents.

The episode was about the Simpsons going on a plane trip, near the end of the first act, the plane was taking off. Bart was fooling around, as you'd expect. However, as the plane was about 50 feet off the ground, Bart broke a window on the plane and was sucked out.

At the beginning of the series, Matt had an idea that the animated ****of the Simpsons' world represented life, and that death turned things more realistic. This was used in this episode. The picture of Bart's corpse was barely recognizable, they took full advantage of it not having to move, and made an almost photo-realistic drawing of his dead body.

Act one ended with the shot of Bart's corpse. When act two started, Homer, Marge, and Lisa were sitting at their table, crying. The crying went on and on, it got more pained, and sounded more realistic, better acting than you would think possible. The animation started to decay even more as they cried, and you could hear murmuring in the background. The characters could barely be made out, they were stretching and blurring, they looked like deformed shadows with random bright colors thrown on them. There were faces looking in the window, flashing in and out so you were never sure what they looked like. This crying went on for all of act two.

Act three opened with a title card saying one year had passed. Homer, Marge, and Lisa were skeletally thin, and still sitting at the table. There was no sign of Maggie or the pets.

They decided to visit Bart's grave. Springfield was completely deserted, and as they walked to the cemetery the houses became more and more decrepit. They all looked abandoned. When they got to the grave, Bart's body was just lying in front of his tombstone, looking just like it did at the end of act one.

The family started crying again. Eventually they stopped, and just stared at Bart's body. The camera zoomed in on Homer's face. According to summaries, Homer tells a joke at this part, but it isn't audible in the version I saw, you can't tell what Homer is saying.

The view zoomed out as the episode came to a close. The tombstones in the background had the names of every Simpsons guest star on them. Some that no one had heard of in 1989, some that haven't been on the show yet. All of them had death dates on them. For guests who died since, like Michael Jackson and George Harrison, the dates were when they would die. The credits were completely silent, and seemed handwritten. The final image was the Simpson family on their couch, like in the intros, but all drawn in the hyper realistic, lifeless style of Bart's corpse.

A thought occurred to me after seeing the episode for the first time, you could try to use the tombstones to predict the death of living Simpsons guest stars, but there's something odd about most of the ones who haven't died yet. All of their deaths are listed as the same date.

Yeah, not so creepy, but this image is, ffs don't open this spoiler if you're easily scared

Good luck sleeping tonight guyz ;D

[Sean]

I actually am having a very difficult time imagining what discussion could possibly come out of a 4chan-esque thread.

I'll put off taking any action for now, but if I come back later and see this full of retarded c/p posts, then consider this locked.

[Indigo Rush]

There was something like this with Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, actually...

http://thecolligere.com/entertainment/television/adventures-of-sonic-the-hedgehog-episode-66

Can anyone help me out here? I’m looking for a lost episode of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

I’m sure some of you remember, if you’re from the northern part of Virginia, and watched The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog you may have seen this. Some back story first, I saw this when I was eight when I first recall seeing this episode, the number of the said episode is 66 of season one (there was only one season) and was only aired in northern Virginia as the broadcasting station had ignored the notice not to play the final episode of the bundle due to its extreme adult content. This was the stations choice as it had purchased the syndication rights in its area but was later sued by concerned parents after several children were diagnosed of light neural hemorrhaging causing severe nightmares and vomiting. Nobody was killed by viewing this episode and older viewers seemed immune to the effects of whatever caused the bleeding, but needless to say a freeze was put on the production of the series and was hushed up on the news, the show was replaced by the series named simply Sonic the Hedgehog.

I started my search for the episode after the nightmares from watching watching the show returned after 16 years. The nightmare was vivid, it contained vision of people in a long line all of them clutching their faces in despair. The people in this line spread the full length of the street and had seemingly abandoned their cars (leaving the doors open) to join the others waiting. Everyone was deathly thin, naked and when they spoke they did so in what sounded like reverse tongues but not much was said in between the helpless sobs. Everything had a dark red tone to it, like the sun was burning out at sunset but never fully went down. Those that where not in the line littered the street, dead. I can’t recall much from the dream other than that, some other details hinted at looting, things like a line of dead riot police and smashed windows, upturned cars and even a collapsed skysc%#*!r in the distance but those in the line payed no attention to this, they simply sobbed as the line shifted forward. The nightmare ends with one of the members of the line looking directly at me, he says nothing but shifts to an unnatural pose, his arms bent at 45 degree angles and his legs spread into a box over the ground, his mouth agape as he did this the rest of the people in the line did the same, striking a slightly different twisted pose all looking at me. I then awoke with tears in my eyes.

My first logical step to finding this lost episode was the station which originally aired it. There is nothing odd about the station, it’s old management has long since moved on, committed suicide as the new manager pointed out to me. Over a cup of coffee me and the new manager discussed the stations past I intentionally eased into the subject lost episode and as it turned out i was right to do so. When I brought up the subject John (is he will now be known), the manager literally spilled his coffee on his lap.

He told me that this subject was a personal one to him and as it turns out John was the original owners son. He was kind enough to explain to me that the legal fees he was receiving in conjunction with the mail he was receiving from children and parents alike had pushed him too far and he hung himself in the family kitchen. I was a little taken back by this news so I figured maybe I was digging too deep and decided to drop this madness and just call it a day, but before I could exit John’s office he told me that he would send me the mail, his reasoning… That he wanted me to know what happened, his curiosity was almost as deep as mine, not surprising considering this episode killed his father. So I told him I’ll take a look deeper into the subject and get back to him on anything I dig up.

The letters where as you would expect, angry mothers asking what kind of station would air this filth, legal fees ranging in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (enough to send any station broke in the 90’s) and of course drawing from children depicting scenes from the episode. Distinct things like the blood and the unusually dull colors that persisted throughout the episode. Horrible things, things like Robotnik vomiting blood and tails crying over the corpse of feathered headless bird. But one letter caught my attention specifically, it was a letter from the studio which produced the series:

“Thank you for purchasing the rights to air Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog © Sega 1993-1994 all rights reserved, enclosed is the series list, episode descriptions, Episodes 1-66 the entirety of season 1 and legal information regarding ratings and air times.”

In poor hand writing, at the bottom of the page a scrawled note was placed with the words “Episode 66 is not to be aired! This is a database error and contains corrupted material”. The initials JS followed. I set out to find this episode, but to no avail. My second plan was to ask the people who sent the angry letters about the episode about their take on it. Those who had not moved away since then gave me canned “I don’t know” or “Not this again” responses but I did chance upon one man, around my age who remembers and taped the episode he invited me in and showed me his VHS copy of the episode, it was badly decayed from years of neglect in his garage though and the only bits I could make out was Tails screaming at Sonic, with tears in his eyes

“How could you Sonic? What have you done!?”and the rest of the episode on the tape was just static, the occasional scream and twisted figures, not animals or people but figures staring at viewer, their circular mouths and open black eyes emitting a slight screech. The tape sent chills up out spine and I asked if I could take the tape for research I was doing into the episode he agreed quite readily and I promised to keep him updated, as well as John.

I took the tape back to John and we watched it up to about 15 minutes where John just jumped back in his seat. He told me he saw the figure with black eyes, but it spoke for brief moment, John claimed he its lips moved, mouthing the word he though was “eternity” we watched that same one second flash for what must have been thirty times and each time we both attempted to freeze the frame on the figure only to have it disappear when we did so. I called it a day there, we needed a better copy of this episode if we where to find out why this episode ended the entire series and caused me nightmares for much of my childhood.

Short of traveling to France and talking to the animation studio, I gave them a call. The bluntly told me that there was no episode 66 and that 65 was the full season. Knowing this dead end I called again for another phone and asked for the contact information of the voice actors. All of the information was out of date it seemed, the actors for Robotnik, Scratch, Grounder and sonic all giving me “Number not in service” errors however I did manage to contact Christopher Evan Welch (The voice of tails) and hook him for a fake interview about his roles in 90’s Television. Chris turned up as you would expect, casual clothing smile on his face, your average guy in his late 20’s. As he sat down I asked about some of his roles in bands and television and worked my way to Sonic. When I did get there however he got really quite, and evasive. I asked him specifically about episode 66 and halfway through taking a breath he just stopped. His pupils almost retracted into nothing and he looked at me and told me that the episodes only go up to 65. Of course I knew better and asked him about his script talking to sonic and what he had done. He grabbed his face, not in frustration but to wipe back his eyes which were begging to well up. He took a deep breath and told me the episode was written by Jeffrey Scott, he told me the usual that he was always a nice man and was very patient with him as he read the script (Being 11 at the time) but as the first season drew to a close Jeffrey had become very angry with everyone, including 11 year old Chris. The voice actor for Robotnik and Sonic threatened to quit over his behavior but the executive producer paid them both large sums of cash in hand right there to read from the script Jeffrey had written. Apparently Jeffrey had an order from high up, the top of Sega or as far as Chris knew at the time to produce this episode, listed as a business priority.

Chris explained to me how as they read the script he felt great sorrow and terror, as if they had lost a close friend of family member or had seen them die before them, he told me of the scarring to his vocal chords from the screaming that was invoked by reading the script he told me of the blood that leaked from the mouths of the actors of Robotnik and Sonic. The session ended with the security pulling the actors from the studio before they died in the process of recording from blood loss. His mother pulled him from the show the next day, fearing for his safety. I stopped the interview there, I asked for a copy of the episode but a copy was never sent back to the actors.

That is as far as I have come in the Search for episode 66 I’ve heard that there may be a copy in the studio in France but I no way of getting their on my budget. But I know it exists and I know many more out there must have a VHS copy, so this is why I ask the Internet. Help me in my search.

Naturally, I saw this and was pretty darn curious. Sounded bogus to me, but it was interesting enough for me to contact the head honcho himself, Milton Knight... here's the email conversation:

Mr Milton Knight

I am a longstanding Sonic the Hedgehog fan (as well as a fan of the show you produced with DiC) and have come across a rather interesting and rather unbelievable piece of information regarding a missing episode of The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Knowing that you represent the animation team (at least in my view) I'd be appreciative if you were able to shed some light on the claim.

The article in question claims that there was an unaired episode of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog which was apparently released only in a specific area of Northern Virginia for unknown reason. The article refers to it as episode 66, which I always believed to be the Christmas special.

http://thecolligere.com/entertainment/television/adventures-of-sonic-the-hedgehog-episode-66

To be quite frank, this article seems outright bogus, considering the claims, but I was still intrigued with what you might have to say about it.

To end on a less former note, I really did enjoy those cartoons early in my childhood. They really inspired me to draw and cartoon my own style, so naturally I have respect for you.

Please get back to me whenever you'd like!

Warm regards,

Alexander

(yes, this is my real name)

And here's his response...

Hi, Alexander;

Thanks for writing. I'm afraid I know nothing about this Northern Virginia claim. Sounds bogus to me, too.

Glad you enjoyed Sonic!

Best Wishes,

Milt

So yeah, for the most part things like these are complete tripe, just fabricated to mess with your brain.

[Patticus]

After I first read that Dead Bart article last night, even knowing that it's all a great big fake, I was creeped out, even scared to go to bed lest the nightmares haunt my sleeping hours. And then I came across this alleged sound recording of the episode from somebody claiming to be in possession of the episode (who, surprise surprise, can't get the file to upload/convert/work/whatever):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPBGnjz9xUI

This Dead Bart thing, rather like Slender Man actually, really has shat me up. Fake though it may be, there's something so wrong about it.

[Flyboy Fox]

Eh. I'm easily creeped out, but... this kind of thing doesn't bother me at all because it's so overdone and ridiculous. Dead Bart, Suicide Mouse, AoStH Ep. 66... SO darn many 'missing episodes', and always the same formula. Always the same description. The characters are always warped and fuzzy, out-of-character, extended crying/wailing scenes. Always that the creators refuse to talk about it (I wonder why? Maybe because it doesn't exist?), and usually that being confronted by it brings them to tears or makes them go pale and run off... it's... it's really too ridiculous for words. I don't want to sound condescending, because I really am a wuss about freaky shit. But this kind of thing just makes me laugh for how formulaic and predictable it is.

[Cortez]

Yeah the whole lost episodes thing is so incredibly overdone that it's just predictable now, Suicide Mouse made me lol at how pointless it was. I can imagine Walt producing a fucked up Disney cartoon, but not one that makes people top themselves.

I do find it interesting how things like this can genuinely really freak people out, Dead Bart wouldn't have scared me if it weren't for that fucking image, that's some seriously messed up stuff D=.

I actually am having a very difficult time imagining what discussion could possibly come out of a 4chan-esque thread.

I'll put off taking any action for now, but if I come back later and see this full of retarded c/p posts, then consider this locked.

I wasn't trying to make a 4chan esque thread where everybody posts utter shit, more a discussion of scary Internet stories thread.

[Detective Shadzter]

It all sounds a bit too crazy to me, it must be fake. That Bart pic in the OP is creepier than that realistic Homer pic that was doing the rounds a year or 2 ago

[Flyboy Fox]

The picture didn't scare me, but then again I've seen so many hyper-realistic cartoon character images (Mario especially for some reason) that it just doesn't freak me.

The audio track thing - I could do all those effects on Adobe Audition very easily. The sound quality is done in such a way to mask the fact that the VAs are probably just college students with too much time. As for the lack of video because it wouldn't upload? Camcorder the screen. Or at least take some photos.

So fake it's laughable and I really dunno why anyone takes this stuff seriously =P

[Patticus]

Bunch of bloody spoilsports. Can't you suspend your sense of disbelief at all? You must be awesome at Halloween. =/

[Flyboy Fox]

We are pretty awesome at Hallowe'en actually (;

I don't mind suspending my belief. I just can't do that when the premise is ridiculous, repetitive, overdone and so easy to pick apart. The moment they start talking about artists/creators breaking down in tears, or tapes that accurately predicted celebrity deaths, I can't help but roll my eyes and look for something with a little more thought put into it.

Thing is, this has been done SO many times before, and it's always EXACTLY the same. Kinda loses its fear factor when it's like a mad-lib just with different character names.

[Patticus]

How are we to know how many times it has been done before? Not all of us are as 'up' on Internet folklore like you, and even though it is fake, we can't help but be creeped out. I certainly found Dead Bart to be really damn disturbing even knowing full well how not real it is.

[SuperLink]

Ooh ooh I wanna be a spoilsport too!

The AoSTH thing is made even more bogus by the fact there is an episode 66 (the 1996 Christmas Special) in which absolutely none of the voice actors express any vocal signs of stress at being made to record another episode of this series that apparently scarred them so badly, and Tails' VA left because his voice dropped.

Spoiler:

Yes I do suck at Halloween.

That said they were kinda creepy. I'm really not a big fan of scary things though, I'm probably easily freaked out.

I chose not to look at the realistic picture of creepy Bart for that reason (even though I didn't find the HD realistic pictures of Mario or Homer that creepy, a realistic corpse-like-Bart picture doesn't sound fun to me)

Edited May 11, 2010 by SuperLink

[Detective Shadzter]

Ooh ooh I wanna be a spoilsport too!

The AoSTH thing is made even more bogus by the fact there is an episode 66 (the 1996 Christmas Special) in which absolutely none of the voice actors express any vocal signs of stress at being made to record another episode of this series that apparently scarred them so badly, and Tails' VA left because his voice dropped.

Spoiler:

Yes I do suck at Halloween.

That said they were kinda creepy. I'm really not a big fan of scary things though, I'm probably easily freaked out.

I chose not to look at the realistic picture of creepy Bart for that reason (even though I didn't find the HD realistic pictures of Mario or Homer that creepy, a realistic corpse-like-Bart picture doesn't sound fun to me)

The creepy pic of Bart isn't corpse Bart like in the article it's just a normal realistic pic like the Homer one, just looks a little creepier cuz of the realistic spikey hair. Pic has nothing to do with the episode.

[SuperLink]

The creepy pic of Bart isn't corpse Bart like in the article it's just a normal realistic pic like the Homer one, just looks a little creepier cuz of the spikey hair. Pic has nothing to do with the episode.

Oh... right....

One click later and I actually laughed out loud. Thanks for making me worry about nothing Prof >:

To be completely honest it just looks like something out of The Muppets, just a little more CGI'd

[Detective Shadzter]

I'm easily creeped out, got a weak stomache. I won't watch a single horror movie where as my wife is hooked on them but for some reason I can watch all 4 Final Destination films fine

[Swiss]

I do like reading these to a certain extent (e.g, the main 3 only, even if they are all practically the same) probably because, although I know full well that they're not real, I like imagining what these cartoons might look like if they had been real.

Talking about the "episodes" themselves though, I didn't think too much of The Simpsons and Suicide Mouse ones, but the AoStH one had the most screwed-up imagery to me.

And that Bart picture was bloody horrible. Still strangely funny though...

[Flyboy Fox]

How are we to know how many times it has been done before? Not all of us are as 'up' on Internet folklore like you, and even though it is fake, we can't help but be creeped out. I certainly found Dead Bart to be really damn disturbing even knowing full well how not real it is.

Well a bunch of them were posted in the status bar plus in this topic. But even without that, I really don't get what's so creepy about it. The voice-effects are obvious and the lack of video makes it so obvious that it's fake that I can't even TRY to suspend my belief ^^;

What is it about Dead Bart that you find disturbing, exactly?

[Patticus]

Everything. The idea that Bart dies and doesn't come back, this concept of the show looking more realistic when deaths occur, the implications that Maggie and the pets die or are murdered, Lisa's lack of a face. Reading through it, I could picture in my mind's eye every scene described, it felt strange and dark, filled with a sense of dread and the feeling that Groening wasn't as mentally stable as he always seemed. It just feels wrong, and I can still picture it. The audio recording, while also obviously fake, made it feel that much creepier and somehow more real. I didn't get that either from Suicide Mouse or that Sonic one.

[Detective Shadzter]

Never heard of the Sonic one either, anyone got a link plz?

[Badnik Zero]

Sorry guys I don't get it. And I can't even tell if pretending to be scared is part of the meme or if you guys are really scared.

It just seems like an elaborate version of the Youtube "In 1988 a young girl was stabbed... blah blah... copy and paste or get stabbed" kind of thing.

Indigo getting a response on one of these from Milton Knight himself is awesome though. I'm surprised he wouldn't take it as a massive troll.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy-4wUhIocA

Okay, but this video is a little bit freaky. Regarding Dead Bart stuff. But really, I can't bring myself to be seriously creeped out.

Edited May 11, 2010 by Badnikstan

[Flyboy Fox]

Hmm. I thought the description of Groening's reactions seemed daft and extremely over-the-top and unbelievable, myself. As for the episode itself, the formula was pretty basic, preying on things like our need to see full faces or how we interpret certain sounds. It felt to me like something a psychology student would put together using all the right tropes rather than the product of a genuinely disturbed mind. Also, wouldn't the whole (or at least part of the) team need to be involved if it was actually animated? So many things that just shout 'fake' to me, despite their best efforts. Perhaps they tried TOO hard to make it seem real.

But then, other things freak me out that other people think are silly, so I guess it's all personal perception.

[Sean]

My favorite "disturbing video" (and the only one I like, really) is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mbo5vHy8dw, which in turn is one of the very few horror movies I like. Not referring to the American version, by the way, which is absolute garbage (and so are the Japanese counterpart's sequels, Ring 2 and Ring 0: Birthday).

[SuperLink]

The only part I actually found particularly disturbing about any of these was the idea of Bart's realistic looking corpse (especially him just lying in front of the tombstone), and then the realistic corpses of the other family members at the end of the "episode".

I think it would have been much creepier if the idea wasn't so ridiculous. When losing a family member, you're not exactly going to cry inhumane amounts almost to the point of dying yourselves. Bart breaking an aeroplane window and falling out actually sounds like typical Treehouse of Horror style Horror/Comedy.

As for the Sonic one I didn't find it nearly as creepy overall. By the time I got to "eternity" the phrase "trying too hard" just kept getting in the way of my thought process and wouldn't go away D:

EDIT: In conclusion the creepiest thing in this thread is Prof J's avatar.

Edited May 11, 2010 by SuperLink

[Pelly <3's U]

This Dead Bart thing, rather like Slender Man actually, really has shat me up. Fake though it may be, there's something so wrong about it.

Daaaamn do you have to bring Slender Man into this, I've already lost sleep for like 2 weeks over that D; (XP)

I'm rather easily spooked so I usually try to stay away from things I know will freak the fuck out of me.............but then again I have an awful morbid curiosity that usually gets the best of me ;___;

[Patticus]

Daaaamn do you have to bring Slender Man into this, I've already lost sleep for like 2 weeks over that D; (XP)

It's still going, you know. Have you seen the latest entries? It got a bit shit, then the last episode pulled one hell of a shocker and was genuinely quite frightening.