Never To Be Played Again...Part 1

As a culture, we have become obsessed with what we have lost.  And we've lost a lot.  Since the burning of Alexandria, we've been haunted by the stories that got away.  Tolkien became obsessed with the idea that the English had nothing more than hints of a great epic tradition left and wrote Lord of the Rings to get over it, thereby creating thousands of jobs in the sweatshop t-shirt industry and ensuring that a man called 'Viggo' would never be laughed at again. 

All of which would be all well and good if we only learned from our mistakes.  We don't.  Ever.  We keep losing things.  Since this is a televisual blog, you can guess where I'm going next.

See, TV shows were generally stored on tape.  TV companies run to tight budgets, and tape cost a lot, back in the day.   As a result, stuff got junked, wiped, thrown away in some cases.  You can find endless worthy websites about this cultural disaster - the loss of series one of Ace of Wands haunts me like a missing Da Vinci, I assure you - but gentle reader, you and I are not worthy people.  We are trash, you and me, as Brett once said, the big daft fop.  We care about the bad stuff.  Don't worry, there's only a little cultural rambling.  It gets creepy again in a bit.


So, we start from a position where some bits of, ahem, 'classic' television have been lost or destroyed.  Fair enough,  but how do we get to the spookshow stuff?  Well…once you get that the idea is out there, it's a straightforward progression of memes, really.  Now, we involve censorship.  I'm going to look at a lot of this stuff in detail in Part 2, but there are genuinely banned pieces of TV galore.  Alternative 3 was a documentary that convinced a lot of people that the world was ending and the CONSPIRACY, MAN was going to escape to a suspiciously twitchy planet Mars.  People believe this.  Still.  It aired in 1977.  Presumably, the power of Colonel Von Stromm off of 'allo 'allo (he played a sinister scientist) was just too convincing.

The face of the Conspiracy revealed. Tomorrow, Rene Artois killed Kennedy.

So Anglia TV decided they wouldn't show this again.  Same story with the BBC's Ghostwatch in 1992, (of which more in Part 2) though for considerably more tragic reasons.  Same story with some episodes of Pokemon that unwisely used strobe lighting and triggered an epilepsy wave in Japan (except this could just have been some kind of mass hysteria…or something much weirder).   Then there were the infamous 1940s Warner Brothers cartoons, lovingly filled with every racist stereotype you can imagine (and not just against Axis nations, which would at least be understandable).  Banned, quite rightly so.  We're getting close to the kind of unconscious consensus view that there's a big vault somewhere with DO NOT BROADCAST stamped on the front, like the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, only somewhere in Teddington Lock. 

Time for Japan again, and Ringu.  You've all seen it.  You haven't?  Go and watch it.  We'll wait for you.


Anyway, the famous cursed videotape has an origin story that kind of gets swept aside; it was recorded, so goes the narrative, by a young boy who, having gone on hols, taped a blank channel by mistake.  Should have been nothing but static.  Got some mad stuff instead, phone call, jaw comes off, woman with big hair, you know the story.  So now we can add this detail.  I despise extended cookery metaphors ("Take a pinch of satire and mix well with a dash of knowing pop cultural reference and bake in a hot FUCK OFF for half an hour") so here's my best description; you have an awareness of lost cultural artefacts, a belief that the powers that be are up to no good in general, the knowledge that there are SECRET FILMS locked away in the TV company vaults and, finally, the vague feeling of unease that comes from certain TV programmes.  Especially those associated with childhood, as we saw in my last post.

 And lo!  A new meme is born.  The Lost Episode.  Told you we'd get there.  Anyone still here? 

GLOBAL MEMETIC HORROR PANDEMIC

Yeah, always wanted a website that said that.  Anyway, just as people sent each other chain letters, they sent chain emails.  Beware, says the Islamic dude, on having his wallet returned, stay out of Meadowhall in October.   Don't go to the website called Red Room, people die when they visit there.  If you don't pass this message on, then Mary Worth will eat your face. 

In the last few years, the aim has been to spook and scare the reader; often, different formats and genres are used, to get away from the short story, with all the distance from the reader that can create, for example, the fake message board thread.  So here's my very favourite spookshow creepypasta of all:  Candle Cove.  Before you read on, check the link out, then shudder at the picture below:

Massive thanks to Nevvyland at Deviantart for permission to use this ace illustration.

Marvellous, isn't it?  Very cleverly done, wouldn't work well in any other medium.  The payoff is ace.  I love the way that it makes use of all those childhood images, slightly battered and sinister puppetry, misunderstood narrative, false memories and, my personal favourite, the way that cheap TV seems more frightening to kids.  Children spot all the small details.  They don't need to suspend disbelief, they're already there, in that world.  Sudden shifts in scenery or special effects are disturbing as hell when you're that age.

Candle Cove exploits that feeling of the uncanny we had as kids.  The idea that there was something not-quite-right about the shows we watched.  I had nightmares about so many programmes, but it never stopped me actually watching the damn things.  I suspect it comes from the anthropomorphic nature of puppetry; we can't see the puppeteer and it unnerves us.  The exaggerated features make us tense.  We look to those big teeth and wonder...

The Lost Episode meme rages on.  Sadly, nothing yet quite lives up to the screaming puppet horrors (and for god's sake, careful with that link; it's what it says it is), but there are a few and they follow a pattern.  Dead Bart is one example; it claims to be an account of some kind of haunted Simpsons episode.  Manages to be quite creepy, then loses it a little by going all Lovecraft apocalypse at the end. I find this quite amusing, as there's very little that Matt Groening hasn't done on TV anyway.  The most frightening thing about this particular example is the re-enactment on YouTube, by some people in full costume.  I think I'd rather deal with the demons, to be honest. 

So, here's our fascination; we can't believe that things were that innocent.  In Part 2, I'll talk about the fictitious sex and drug references in kids' TV; seems like this is a manifestation of the same need.  It can't have been innocent, we tell ourselves.  There must have been something sinister going on.  Surely, fantasy must have a purpose which is somehow...EVILLLLLLLL???

Good lord, I seem to have over-punctuated.  Silly me. 

In my view, it's about trying to recapture the fact that you really did once crap yourself at a ghost on Scooby Doo, or have nightmares for four years about Zippy from Rainbow.  Erm, that last one, please don't joke.  It's a sensitive subject.  So, those moments that freaked you as a child...well, let's upgrade the horror factor and see if we can get you back behind the settee again.  And if we mix a bit of ever- enticing secret history in there, so much the better.

There's a suicide inducing Mickey Mouse cartoon (Disney lawyers please note; it's not real).  A really nasty one about a cartoon apple.  And many, many others, most of which cross the boundaries of good taste, so be warned!  If you go looking for this stuff, be it on your own head.  Some people just don't get subtlety in horror...

EXTRA THRILL: Lost Episode Meme Generator!

Insert your favourite show and try your hand at spooking the gullible.

1) When I was younger, I:  a)got this job as an intern (b) bought a VHS cassette from a strange source (c) turned the TV on at an unusual time of day.

2) One day, I found a...forbidden vault?  Or tape in an old cupboard? An unknown TV station? 

3) I watched it and it seemed odd...(strange credits, animation more realistic than normal).

4) Towards the end...(characters begin to behave oddly.  Eyes look strange.  Violence level increases.  Non-sequiturs abound).

5) I was horrified...(beloved characters die.  Horribly.  Or kill each other.  Or just do weird things like scream a lot).

6) And I know because...I WAS THAT VIDEOTAPE!  Yeah, something nasty happens to the narrator.  Try giving them insomnia for life.  Or, if you aren't a very good writer, just pull their eyes out.  Same difference.

Try it.  And if you want a real scare, consider this; someone wrote one of these for The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.  Why not find the Lost Episode of Are You Being Served or Saved By The Bell? 

Cthulhu ftaghn, Captain Peacock.