Welcome to the seventh annual Scare Your Pants off month and this entire month of Halloween is everything spooky, horror and mysterious. I know I haven’t written in a long time so I’m going to make this up right now and focus on this month of Halloween before turning to focus on the year end month of review. 2023 has been a real struggle but for now let’s get into our first subject which is a Lost Media file on the first and last voyage of the HMS Albion.
How rare does a ship launch then go into immediate disaster? Not often but let’s turn the calendar back to 1896 where the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company on December 3rd released six battleships into the British navy and one of them is the HMS Albion. Their task was to guard British occupied territory within east Asia but would eventually see action within the first conflicts of the First World War. Let’s focus on 1898 the HMS Albion was ready and fully completed, as at the time she was the biggest battleship fully assembled. Many gathered to witness this launch including the Mary of Teck, the Duchess of York and the future King George V, even schoolchildren were able to witness this grand battleship be christened. Also alongside were four filmmakers E.P. Prestwick who owned the Prestwich Manufacturing Company, Phillip Wolf, Robert F. Paul and Birt Acres. All four men had separate film companies on ground to record with cameras now remember early filmmaking was still in its infancy, so they still had those old age cameras compared to now.
On June 21st, 1898 the ship was christened by the Duchess of York and would set sail from the Thames and guess what would happen next: did a) did the ship stop entirely working with no fuel, did b) did the ship cause a giant wave that broke a gangway that spectators watched when they were warned not to be on fell into the Thames or c) doing the hokey pokey? If you said B then yes. The gangway was suffering some stress, and the public was warned by police to not stand on because the ship caused massive waves to hit but also deteriorated the wood they stood on. Even they ignored the literal danger signs that it was not up to task to hold many people, so it was ignored and those fears were unsurprisingly came into horrifying fruition as when the wave hit the entire gangway collapsed sending what said to be 100 people falling into the river and what made it worse the sounds of the ship’s horn being heard were louder then the pleas of rescue and the among the people who fell it was women and children. Many people rushed to help as over 70 people were rescued. However up to 39 people drowned the oldest drowning victim was 64 years of age while the youngest was three months old. And to make it worse when women were being rescued it proved difficult when lifting women who wore heavy clothing and sadly succumbed.
An investigation was then started into what went wrong, was this poor safety of this gangway not up to task or the crowd massing the problem? Ultimately, I would say the public not noticing the warning signs is problematic because you think they would notice or know that could hold less than a few people at best. So, the finger pointed at the police and Ironworks workers not doing enough to prevent that many people to arrive. The four men who I mentioned whose had on camera people recording the whole thing including the people falling into the water was summoned to testify to the courts. Wolff’s footage was 120 minutes long of archival recordings, while Paul’s was split to two 40 minute recordings. While Wolff’s and Prestwich had little coverage, Paul got the largest eyes, however it was not what he expected. He released said footage under the title called “Disaster” and unsurprisingly this caused a uproar including Acres who hated it so he released his own footage but was with people rescuing the ones who fell within the water. While Paul’s footage didn’t show the entirely of the collapse of the gangway, it did reveal the idea of film reporting so think of this the earliest of what modern news networks would report on the news.
Now the main thing of our story and to lost media enthusiasts. Have they been found in some capacity? They have to an extent. Prestwich’s own footage has been shown and preserved currently within the National Film Archive, so was Paul’s the one was considered missing for years was Acres’ own footage of the incident even by the British Film Institute. And the one that was even considered obscure was Phillip Wolff’s own footage the most obscure and mostly lost. Prestwich and Paul’s own footage have been restored and then colorized and is available to watch on YouTube but what is the main takeaway for this entire story? Always pay attention to the danger signs no matter where you are.
And this covers the first week of Scare Your Pants Off month as next week, I look into the top 10 horror films and this will be interesting to see who would ontop and for November this time I truly intend to talk about John K’s Cans without Labels.
June has arrived so in this annual tradition which I have dug myself into way back in 2017: it’s time we deep dive back into lost and cancelled video games, and unlike E3 it won’t be canned unless I get bored with these so as tradition these are the 15 entries of lost or cancelled video games.
15. Panel de Pon (NES)
Let’s start off with a very obscure game title with a fascinating piece of history. “Panel de Pon” was a game set to be released on the Super Famicon in Japan and the Super Nintendo in 1995 with a different title called “Tetris Attack”. The interesting part of this game that no build was ever released nor any info not even a screenshot as its existence has been heavily debated for years. Some say it could be a tech demo for the future Nintendo 64 which could be a possibility.
The game however would be reworked to become the future Pokemon Puzzle Game released on the N64 in 2001 at the end of the life cycle for the system, now whatever happened with “Panel de Pon”? The game was said to have a prototype build that remained unrealeased for almost 30 years. In 2020 Youtuber Gamers Manual found a prototype cartridge that has the game then uploaded the footage to YouTube. The gameplay resembled a Nintendo GameCube exclusive game released in 2003 called “Nintendo Puzzle Collection” though the game has yet to be released online even though “Gamers” said he’ll release it soon.
14. ECW Anarchy Rulz (PS1)
I seem to have picked up wrestling games in this list haven’t I? Oh well here goes again.
“ECW Anarchy Rulz” was set to be released on the PlayStation and Dreamcast in mid-2000, Acclaim the game company has had a history of releasing WWE games in the past for the Super Nintendo, this was to the sequel to “ECW Homecoming Revolution” that was received positively selling for 600,000 copies. “Anarchy Rulz” for the PlayStation and Dreamcast had a least about of success mostly negative as this would be the last game ever released before the company folded in April of 2001.
There was a planned Nintendo 64 release which wouldn’t be a surprise. Nintendo Power from a 2000 April issue revealed the game was to be released on the N64 in September to co-align with the PlayStation and DreamCast releases though to confirm the rumor from the issue the heads of Acclaim would give no answer. In E3’s Acclaim presentation only the PlayStation version was released than the N64 with very little info. The game would go unreleased for the platform the only piece of evidence was this lone issue from the magazine which often would give it some eyes.
13. Epic Mickey 3 (Wii U)
Oh Epic Mickey, why aren’t you more well known.
The Epic Mickey franchise has had three well received titles, “Epic Mickey”, “Epic Mickey 2” both for the Nintendo WiiU and “Epic Mickey: Power of the Illusion” for the Nintendo 3DS as these games focused on the adventures of Mickey and using not so well known Disney characters into the limelight including well known for bringing back Oswald the Lucky Rabbit back into the fold for Disney after a exchange trade from Universal to the company for ESPN’s Al Michaels.
Warren Spector the creator of the game was very open for a trilogy and the second “Epic Mickey” game did leave off on a little tidbit from Pete planning something big for Mickey Mouse. In an interview Warren said:
“I don’t do anything that isn’t extensible. And I will certainly feel that I have not done my job if we can’t make other games in this world with these characters. In my head, I’ve got two more planned.”
Warren also mentioned that musical numbers would be a vocal point as the second game introduced them. Sadly this ambitious third game would be cancelled because of Disney shutting down Junction Point Studios the game developer for the games in January of 2013 as Warren in a 2015 interview would state:
“In Mickey 3 I wanted to really up the multiplayer action. What we did in Mickey 2 was pretty simple. I also wanted to make a truly interactive musical game. I have some weird ideas about how to use music and how to make music in the context of a game that no music-game has done yet.”
Such a shame this game was cancelled but I have seen better titles cancelled before reaching their climax. Still waiting on that Half-Life game Valve.
12. Dynamic Trial 7
Classic arcade games from the Mortal Kombat era goes unnoticed.
This arcade racing game was early planed by developer Toaplan in late 1993 and it was heavily promoted, though early testing of the game wasn’t received well as said by Twitter user @GoldWing1992 posted on a tweet so it seems whoever this person was part of Toaplan. He introduced this to Tomonobu Kagawa who was graphic designer for “Truxton II”.
The began the long trek of this game in question throughout the years starting in 2010 “Dynamic Trial 7” was playable in Japan however this game would disappear, then in 2016 an avid arcade collector acquired “Dynamic Trial 7” as he posted photos of it but unable to upload it online, then in 2018 another Twitter by the name of “7144GMI” upload a proper emulated version of the game. Then in 2022 a developer by the name of David “MameHaze” Haywood built a proper driver for “Dynamic Trial 7” ran on a special module of the hardware as it still unable to be released.
11. Madness: House of Fun (SEGA Genesis)
One of the games that would bump off Guitar Hero off its pedestal.
“Madness: House of Fun” was a title based of the band and off of their #1 hit from the 80’s “House of Fun” from their album “Change of Direction” though none of the band members appeared. The game starred a character named Mr. Smash who was based off one of the members of the group Carl Smyth to search inside a funhouse for goodies, but the entire place is overrun by specters and the only way of defense is throwing discs at the ghouls.
This game had 14 levels designed as it was going to be a remake of another game called “Harlequin” but was cancelled close to completion as by the 17th issues of “Mean Machines Sega” and “Mega Force”. In November of 2016 a source code was released by Piko Interactive founder Eleazar Galindo Navarro and in January of 2017 the game or a completed build was uploaded by Unseen 64. So even though it’s completely lost the game lives on by screenshots and footage we have.
10. Taxi Driver (XBOX 360)
Not going to lie alongside “Goodfellas” and the “Godfather” I never seen “Taxi Driver”. Guess that should be on my bucket list to watch.
This in-game movie tie in to one of the most acclaimed films of Martin Scorsese was planned to be a video game and it was highly anticipated. The game’s plot loosely followed on the same events on the film as the developing studios of the game Mejesco and Papaya were looking for a Grand Theft Auto type of game and they approached Robert De Niro to be involved with the game as then on E3 of 2005 the game was hyped up and it was given positive press. So how did this game not get released?
Simple: Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader was at odds also adding on Majesco had some financial issues were at a point that the planned innovated game was cancelled and Papaya sued Majesco for a lawsuit they would eventually win alongside the rights to this game. Such a shame this game had some promise, but money and differences are always the deciding factor. There are many videos to this game that show the development like a trailer and several screenshots of “Taxi Driver”.
9. Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kirathi (Super NES)
Not much is known from this space title other than screenshots from a magazine issue.
“Wing Commander 2” was a sequel planned to be released on the Super NES by studio Origin Systems. Unlike the first game was released in something called MS-DOS and Amiga both for the PC, this Nintendo version would be a arcade-like gameplay elements within the cockpit of better view so its sounds like that one second level of the StarFox and a different script for the game’s plot. The game was finished and presented at the Electronics Game Monthly and GamePro issues would reveal the screenshots of the game however what made this game unreleased and cancelled was financial issues. Again. Isn’t that nice that money issues often the bad indicator of games that dooms it in the end?
8. Sukiya (PC)
Translating this to English means: “House contains a tearoom”. Neat.
This point and click game was made by developer: Lankhor studios a French gaming company, the main designer Jerome Lange also created two other point and click titles like “Mortville Manor” and “Maupiti Island” as Mortville Manor was innovative for the first ever speech synthesis which is like the first ever game of speech with voice overs. Unfortunately, poor sales of one title called “Black Sect” would hinder the development of “Sukiya” saw it as an indicator to not make anymore click and point adventures games. Which is disappointing because outside of King’s Quest as a notable PC game none has been made. “Sukiya” was later cancelled as Lankhor shut down in 2001. Outside of screenshots it is unknown if this was ever released or how much was completed.
7. The Venture Bros: Shop and Destroy (Flash)
So, nobody thought that Venture Bros had a game eh?
I’m not going to beat around this bush to say what is the Venture Bros. Muscle bound venturer with two teens and a very wimpy villain. I think were clear on that. The game was planned to be released on the Adult Swim website as the plot was to be based of the first season episode “Tag Sale – You’re It!” which the plot is Thaddeus Venture is having a tag sale but it doesn’t go well as villains and heroes want his items so does his archrival The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend.
Judging by the screenshot of the gameplay because that’s as far of better info there is, the game was to be a collect ‘em all flash game, however this game would disappear due to Adobe Flash Player’s discontinued in 2021. Andre Moore’s blog has posted artwork of this game and screenshots was eventually released online. I guess the yard sale wasn’t the only thing that was cleaned up.
6. Star Wars Battlefront III
One of the most famous titles all of gaming Pandemic’s Star Wars Battlefront has held a great reputation as an innovated shooter title. This was before of EA’s version of the game and say what you will of EA’s Battlefront at least in the second Battlefront installment after the microtrans and lootbox controversies the game finally became what players wanted it to be with different maps, modes and heroes and villains to play. Also RIP to the 500 credit lootbox. Yes!
Now, as to Battlefront III the game was developed not by Pandemic but by Free Radical Design the makers of famous titles like Timesplitters and some of the people involved were former Rare employees. Now this game is too long in itself but here’s the short version. Battlefront III has sadly garnered a reputation that was in development hell and Free Radical Design was crunched due to pressure and their parent company Ubisoft wanting some of their own games finished not to mention our good friend: financial issues. Though Crytek would jump in to acquire the floundering company others would be let go on Christmas. Ouch. The game was cancelled altogether but the only piece of evidence was a screenshot of a video recording in 2008 to show gameplay like different planets and spaceship flying in Coruscant. If you guys want to know further there is a documentary of the doomed game here in this video.
5. StarBlade: Operation Blue Planet (Arcade)
Oh, hi Namco. Nice to see you here.
“Starblade” was to be a passion project for Higashiyama Asahi ever since the original Starblade was released in 1991 made by Namco. This long-awaited sequel was aiming for a 2002 release to respond to the declining Arcade market because home consoles were more exclusive than ever. The game was presented in the 2001 Amusement Machine Show and was the highlight as it was given high praise for the game. Unfortunately, the game was never fully tested and another reason of issues was the lack of coin operation arcade machines, putting cease of the game and then cancellation. Bandai would upload a complete gameplay video online in November of 2007. Judging by the gameplay of this one it did have some improvements and quality. No full ROM was ever leaked as of 2023.
4. Shin Nihon Wrestling Gekitou Densetsu (Virtual Boy)
It has been six years since I covered the Virtual Boy as this cancelled game is a fascinating one and yes wrestling creeps its away into the limelight again.
This cancelled Virtual Boy title with the long absurd name, was to feature eight New Japan superstars as one of them would feature future WWE Hall of Famer Jushin “Thunder” Liger, the game in development was to feature title match mode alongside another mode called Time Attack. Another interesting addition was to be the G1 Climax which is a tournament that has 10 competitors in two separate blocks for a title shot. This game was cancelled due to the poor sales of the Virtual Boy’s sales being poor because Nintendo hasn’t fully utilized 3D or what the PlayStation Vita or Oculus Rift would fully utilize years later. Some say that someone has bought the prototype of the game, but whoever that is remains unknown.
3. Saints Row: Part Four (XBOX 360/PS3)
I never played the reboot of Saints Row and judging by it, I rather not with so many bugs and bad glitches.
“Saints Row 4” was under development after the sequel of “Saints Row 3” that featured Hulk Hogan, Rob Van Dam. For some reason. Although the game would be released, this would feature a different plot as the original idea would feature Johnny Gat who died in the third game brought back to life as a clone alongside bringing back most infamous people of history: Genghis Khan, Cleopatra and Joseph Stalin? Cleopatra in this feels out of place given her history of a very upstanding ruler of Ancient Egypt.
Now why this game never went further? THQ the parent developer was under say it with me financial issues that would they eventually shut their doors years later, they wanted a game that would keep them alive. The actual Saints Row would prove somewhat successful; however, the cancelled game would be recycled later.
2. Mini Poocha (Nokia Series)
A Phone game not from an IPhone? What is this world coming through.
“Mimi Poocha” was a game planned to be released as a mobile phone title for the Nokia, kind of like how the one Kingdom Hearts game for the Nokia phone. The developers were 5th Cell Media behind Scribblenauts and Drawn to Life, as the focus of the game was Tetris. So, you know same colors in their place the stuff. The Nokia Series phone would be discontinued. Emulating the game would give the person a blank screen past the title card. Thanks for nothing Nokia.
1. Sabreman Stampede (XBOX/XBOX 360)
Time to close this out with a title that has some extensive history and a Microsoft buyout.
This game was originally to be a sequel to “Diddy Kong Racing Adventure” as it was almost fully completed, however a snag would play into the role. Microsoft acquired Rare and all its library titles in September of 2002 cancelling several games including “Diddy Kong Racing Adventure.” So now with this game in the can, what was Rare to do? Simple, from a Rare magazine in 2002, Sabre Wulf revealed a future in development title for the original XBOX that would become known as “Sabreman Stampede”.
It seems while in development the “Diddy Kong” sequel was repurposed and reworked into “Sabreman Stampede” as the idea gameplay was to be Grand Theft Auto with animals. In 2005 and 2006 Rare featured some interesting titles like “Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts” and “Viva Pinata” for the future so where was “Sabreaman?” Simple, it was cancelled due to lack of progress. It is a shame because the game in development had great promise and here we close out another month and year of cancelled titles and video games.
And that concludes this entry of the top 15 Lost and Cancelled video games as for the sixth anniversary I’ll rather keep that as a surprise at the moment, so I won’t tell you what it is because it is something I wanted to talk about more with a certain Can with Label. Oh yeah, I’m going to cover that and a certain controversial animator.
Welcome to the closing May edition of the Lost Media Files and in this subject, I will cover one of the most infamous Tornadoes with a haunting image that has plagued people and questioned where it came from: this is the Jarrell, Texas Tornado.
On May 27th of 1997 in the city of Jarrell Texas which is northeast of Waco and north of San Antonio the area of central Texas alone would witness one of the most devastating Tornadoes in the state’s history while it is one of few that would be deadly this one would plague the minds of Texans until today. How this Tornado formed was a surprise to many scientists. The winds were surprisingly weak but even the weakest it didn’t mean it was packing a punch. The atmosphere alone was primed for a serious storm and winds from the Gulf of Mexico would even add into the intensifying winds.
At around 12:30 PM a cold front overlapped Waco, Texas while another would over take and merge with a dry line and then a tornado one of 20 would emerge and while this storm is on the level of more powerful storms as to that of Joplin, Missouri in 2011 this storm produced a 7.6 mile long and 0.75 mile wide as this tornado would head southwest as at first was extra long and snake like before churning into a more powerful storm and throughout the afternoon would become a devastating F5 Tornado with the death toll climbing up to 27 and 12 people injured and the damage was so devastating it left not a trace of anything even human or animal remains which is terrifying to think about a storm on this scale.
Now let’s talk about where this photo came from. Where did this infamous photo appear or who took it? We don’t know. Now I’d end it off there but there is some evidence on this one with countless tornado videos that is online including one from a documentary that aired on TLC. It freezes on a walking set of legs of Tornado and in true native American legends that if this tornado appears, your dead. Now there are countless forum posts that explained where did this come from but one led to a interesting discovery it led to a TIME magazine article dating back to June 9th of 1997 in a article of the very photo and the person who took the photograph a man named Scott Beckwith that was submitted to publish.
Now footage of this Tornado is close to nothing which is interesting because there is countless Tornado footages on this date online like Angel Escobales Jr. a channel that was taking the time piecing together the information of videos as this was the perfect time to capture videos. Now these Dead Man Walking Tornadoes you’d be shocked to hear that it is more common then you think: like the Joplin Tornado of 2011 or the El Rino Tornado that I covered years ago about the tragedy of the Twistex Tornado or the infamous Xenia Tornado. In the future I do plan on covering the more fascinating Tornados so while this case is technically closed the footage is something that should be seen.
So that covers this edition of the Lost Media Files, its June and you know what that means as a staple tradition: video games. AT least this will stick around unlike E3. So top 15 cancelled and lost video games next week.
Welcome to the finale of the Revenge of the Lost Media as last week I covered a Shin Megami Tenzai series of a spinoff from a video game, now for the finale (and hopefully I don’t have to bring this back again) the finale will be about another anime but a well known series that I never seen but seem to have a following: this is the “Rose of the Versailles”.
The “Rose of Versailles” is a anime that takes place at a time for France that is going through another revolution the same revolution that would ascend Napoleon Bonaparte into status as famous general of history and if you know your French history: its not going to go well for a certain French figure: Marie Antoinette but this shows main focus is a woman named Oscar Francois de Jarjayes who was raised to be a boy and succeed her father to be a royal guard of the Palace of the Versailles, but this show is not about the violent revolution but a complex love story between her and her servant: Andre Grandier. I never seen the anime but this show has developed a grown underground cult following by anime fans and the setting in France serves as a great detail in this conflicted love story during a prolific event in French history, surprised this never had a crossover with Les Misérables (unless it did I don’t know, I never saw the series in full). It debuted on September of 1979 till September of 1980 as the animation studio behind was TMS to add to their long list of resume. Now what is this all about for this show?
During its runtime the show had its own issues like sudden cancellations because of multiple broadcasting conflicts an episode called “Portrait of a Burning Rose” that was aired frequently but never aired again nor in any public syndication or any home media release and streaming. Multiple blog posts dedicated to the series had many questions for this lost episode that was suddenly pulled from airing. Some say that was old drawings from previous episodes reused but that was widely disproven. What was the main plot for this mysterious episode, it was a about a necklace stolen which was a retelling of the Diamond Necklace that belonged to the Queen of France which long story short some say that she defrauded the crown jewelers that she refused to pay for but then her own signature was forged that continued the downward spiral of the French monarchy that lasted since the middle ages ended. But this episode would jump skip four years later as Andre would confess his live to Oscar. Now this sounds like a very interesting episode but some call into question if this one existed. Unlike my long previous entry about a lost Japanese commercial “Hitogata” this did have some evidence to support its airing. In August of 2020, Twitter user “@nakky16” uploaded screenshots of this lost episode like scenes like a young girl being pushed with a burning ‘V’ shaped iron, yikes. Or a scene of the confession of Oscar and Andre after a brief battle of the father of Oscar and last month of this year in March more screenshots of this episode surfaced. Now with this said you think someone would air the episode in full online. Your answer is Japan, they have a very strict and grounded prohibiting any airings whatsoever just look what happened with Suede and his Pokemon videos for an indicator that was taken down in full and threats of lawsuit. Fair used be damned. So, its very unlikely that an episode would air elsewhere, but we do know that it exists so its not a total loss.
(from user @Nakky16 the VHS tape that contains the Rose of the Versailles episode)
And that covers the entire Revenge of the Lost Media for this month, let’s pray I don’t do this again and in May we will get back into the saddle of regular lost media schedule and talk about a one of America’s well-known Tornadoes, a ominous photo and a lost documentary. The walking man has arrived in Texas.
Welcome to another edition of the Revenge of the Lost Media: last time I covered a very short brief entry on a Adult Swim spinoff called “Soul Quest Overdrive” as for this week I’ll cover anime series that some may or may not have heard from a obscure video game series: Shin Megami Tenzai.
I have never played a Shin Megami Tenzai game. So first of all, going in what was the franchise plot? Think of it as another Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest game. Final Fantasy seems like a innovator, anyway the main game plot from the first is high school students battling the devil summoned by a programmer. As for its gameplay mechanic it is your table top RPG game standard. Now for this anime series where did this take place? Let’s time travel back to 2002.
In 2002 of this year an anime adaptation of Shin Megemi Tenzai would be announced as for the plot as three children because yes it’s a kids a show all then another child shows up and show her to do a devil worship and summons said demon, that child tells the two other kids they are the “Devil Children” and decide the world by their hands. Now if this was 2020, I’d be like “Alright whatever” couldn’t get any worse what we got; as the main antagonist in this series was a character named Imperius to prevent his plan for taking over the world. Now as plots go this is interesting especially in an anime series in a scale like this sounds intriguing and this was based off the spinoff game called “Shin Megemi Tenzai: Devil Children” released to the Game Boy Color two years prior. As for this one is from what I gather based from another spinoff title called “Light and Dark” which sounds similar to Megaman’s Light and Dark movie for the NT Warrior series.
This anime never had a full home media release after its initial airing, the only piece of footage there is was two separate anime intros of this series and I highly doubt a dub was made. I don’t want this gutted for 4Kids standards like most was these days. Eventually the series was found uploaded to the internet archive including its sequel series however the episodes to this sequel series has twelve episodes missing out of 38 episodes not fully found. As for the franchise it sounds too Final Fantasy like however it sounds like it has its own identity formed to separate then the others to which I applaud.
And that covers this entry as for the finale for this coming Friday will be about another anime franchise but this time a lost episode from one of anime’s hit series from France.
This will be a two-parter entry today I’ll be covering the lost spinoff to one of Adult Swim’s highly rated and successful shows and tomorrow will be an entry I will reveal later so let’s get on with today’s entry about Soul Quest Overdrive.
I don’t need to even make an introduction to “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” do I? Misadventures with Master Shake, Frylock, Meatwad and Carl and both encountering villains along the way and other locations, but I would like to talk about four characters who had a minor introduction as they appeared in the season five finale “Bible Fruit” the characters were Bert a talking Bowling Pin voiced by David Cross, Mortimer a talking baseball glove voiced by H. Jon Benjamin, Tammy a talking basketball voiced by Kirsten Schaal and Mick a soccer ball. I want to name the actor here, but I don’t want to. You’ll have to look him up, he’s not worth the mention nor credit here but back to the main topic, they appeared as friends of Frylock as they are invited to join him to party though it ends by them being blown up as the house explodes after Master Shake dies by accidental beheading by Bert.
So after this initial episode, there was plans for a spinoff between these characters, which in 2010 more fuel to the fire would be stoked as during an interview with Collider.com Hunter Daniels interviewed to the creators of Aqua Teen about the spinoff rumor and acknowledged plus six episodes were made for it. One of their episodes was revealed called “Meals and Wheels” as in this episode as Bert runs over a man while he is on a wild car chase and was uploaded for a online contest hosted by Adult Swim, though this show lost out to another pilot from another show made by the Aqua Teen crew which was “Cheyanne Cinamon” the show would eventually air in 2011 in a block part of Adult Swim called “DVR Theatre” on May 4th as four of the six episodes would air on the block. As for the other two episodes remained unaired. Maybe being placed on a 4:00 AM block didn’t help matters for this show to be quietly cancelled. As for “Cheyanne Cinnamon” that never got picked up for a series either. But Aqua Teen will go down as one of the best original programming of Adult Swim.
Now you’re wondering if this was too short? Don’t worry I made up for that as for tomorrow the next entry for this two parter will be about a lost anime about one of Nintendo’s oldest anime series.
Hmmm… I missed it again alright time for something I’ve always wanted to do presenting for this month of April the Revenge of Lost Media. In these four weeks I will cover four fascinating pieces of lost media before going back to business on May. So starting off these entries is this one from January which is covering the missing Brazilian artwork and cargo of flight Varig 967.
Throughout history there has been infamous disappearances of aircraft vanishing without a trace most notably Amelia Earhart or Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 however another airlines flight holds a mysterious disappearance. On January 30th, 1979 a Boeing 707-323C was flying from Tokyo Japan heading to Rio De Janeiro with a planned stop to Los Angeles, California and Peru. The crew contained six seasoned pilots and the cargo on this plane was famous pieces of artwork from Japanese-Brazilian painter Manabu Mabe that was in a previous Tokyo art exhibition and each worth up to $1.24 million dollars at estimate.
On leaving Tokyo both the aircraft were exchanging radio contact with Narita control tower in Tokyo Airport while at 8:45 PM local and away from the coast as this would be among several that the airliner made. The next one was scheduled to take place at 9:23 PM just several minutes later but little did air control knew that the 8:45 call would be the last. After attempts to make contact with the plane failed a rescue mission would be declared to find this missing plane, its pilots and crew members, but nothing would come about of this search, and they would be declared dead six months later and the valuable paintings would be considered also lost leaving a mystery several decades later still unanswered on what happened to this crew.
Now let’s go with many theories.
Theory #1: Depressurization. This theory was proposed by a college of one of the pilots: Oswald prophet. He thinks the plane between the hours of 20:45 (8:45) to 21:23 (9:23) PM the plane may have suffered some depressurization and the pilots would been unconscious leaving the airline flight to run on auto pilot however the plane would eventually run low of fuel then crash into the sea carrying its plane and contents aboard.
Theory #2: Foul Play in hand. One suggestion that says the plane contained paintings that maybe cost $1.24 million so the plane could’ve been hijacked and between the hours of maintenance and having to contact the airport control maybe the hijackers had enough time for a lengthy escape however with this theory is a snag: between the years since then none of the artwork has shown up in any black-market site. Another theory suggests foul play that the plane could’ve been shot down or forced to land. This did take place during the heighted tensions between the Soviet Union and the U.S. where nuclear war could break any moment. The theory of the plan shot down could be likely tie into the Soviet supersonic missile: the Miyokan-Gurevich MiG-25 supersonic missile as it was highly advanced to use for the Soviet government so maybe this happened shooting the plane down and also previously a Soviet Union jet pilot would switch sides to the west. However, It was proven to be too big to even guide a missile as both nations not sure how to even operate and even if the Soviets and Japan had past tensions it would be an idiotic move to pull.
Theory #3: the most outlandish of all – Aliens. I sense a disturbance a Shane Medea as shuddering of the suggestions of aliens. It’s possible, I mean the flight going missing, its crew members gone, maybe aliens have an interest in artwork. But without concreate evidence the paintings, aircraft and pilots have remained missing. What is my personal opinion on which theory could be possible: I’d say theory #1 depressurization, something might have happened between these hours of no communication between the two so something like this could be possible. The only thing we could get evidence is the black box that contained the audio but that has remained missing ever since. So we may never know what happened to this doomed flight but all I can say is: be careful on flights, you may never know that trouble could brew in or out.
That concludes our first lost media entry for this week: tune in next week as we look into what could’ve been February is a animated series that featured a one-off set of characters that appeared on one of Adult Swim’s hit shows. See ya next time.
Welcome to the sixth anniversary of the Scare Your Pants Off month, starting five weeks of October I will do entrees celebrating the spooky month and kicking off is the Lost Media Files a look into lost pieces of media and for this one is about a famous Creepypasta with a haunted image with more questions than answers. This is Jeff the Killer.
One day a local newspaper reports of an incident that tool place the previous night, a little boy retells one night during sleep he felt being watched so he opened his eyes and see a haunted figure stare above him behind the covers with a long smile all he said was “Go to Sleep!” The boy screamed in terror as his father tried to subdue the intruder, but he would flee the area the minute the police made their presence known, the boy forever haunted by this person he is still at large and considered dangerous.
This is the origin story of Jeff the Killer a Creepypasta that is one of many famous internet horror stories that dominated the internet a decade ago, including but not limited to: Slender-Man, Smile Dog, Creepy Cove, and others too big to include. So, what makes this story famous: the story? Not really there are a lot of plot holes like the bullies being stereotyped villains, the absurd ways that Jeff would attack and the nonchalant attitude of the mother and father of the story. Is it the countless bad rip-off murder clones like Jane the Killer? No, but what makes this story fascinating is the image. Where did this one come from, who made it? When was it made? That’s what were here to find out.
Clue 1: Katy Robinson.
In a 4Chan thread on early 2008 a woman claiming to be Katy Robinson posted on 4Chan’s random board an image of herself that user’s took advantage to ridicule her to create the creepypasta monster. Sometime passed and someone claiming to be her sister said she was found crying that made fun of her being fat then later stated she committed suicide. Now that is horrifying to create a serial killer after a bullied girl. In 2015 this was pressed further by returning YouTuber ScareTheatre who interviewed Sesseur and asked about this however he would say that this rumor was made by a 4Chan troll who wanted attention. Further one he would say the image in question was made by white latex mask with big plastic eyes and rubber substance that simulated blinking and a black ring that covered the red eyelid being exposed. That’s some Tom Savini levels of creativity. As for the bullied girl that was debunked in 2019 when person claiming to be Katy which was Heather White who said her photo was stolen from MySpace to create the image for a prank. So mystery solved right?
Clue 2: The NNN Special Broadcast video
In 2007 a video posted to YouTube called “NNN Special Message” was uploaded and in the four-minute mark the Jeff the Killer image appeared. Now this is fascinating because it predates the Sesseur story by a year. Now how did this video come to be? Now this is based on a urban legend where allegedly someone was watching TV just finding static then TV bars appeared then a imagic of a factory with schrolling names then text at the end stating “these are tomorrow victims” then the video ends. This video was a recreation of this urban legend which stranger things have appeared late in night look at the mysterious image a missing woman named Joanna Lopez that emerged from a NBC Chicago affiliated station late one night. The Jeff the Killer image was made on Photoshop in the 2000’s some based off the slit faced woman in Japanese urban legend but no.
Clue 3: several claims
There were various claims of existence of this image that was found later even prior to 2004 and 2005 in Japanese forums on 4Chan and 2Chan. A blog stated that they say the image where a woman with rough hair, teeth and threads spread around then a user by name Mr. Mullonda claimed to find the image where a woman in Japan appeared in white and coming across on camera, but he only saw it once and can’t find it again.
Recently in 2022 there was a small claim to that image was found but it nothing has come from it yet. So where does this image come from? If I have to guess it was probably made in Japan, but its origins remain unknown kind of like the Cameraheads story I talked about before being on the Creepypasta Wiki then vanishing without a trace just a video. I guess that’s where we end off but like most stories: things have a way to emerge from the dark.
That ends this edition of the Lost Media Files as for next month to close 2022 is I will cover is the final testimony of a letter from an actual murderer of a grisly crime.
Welcome to another Lost Media Files mini, previously we covered the lost Image Comic: The Huntsman as this time we are covering another comic this time it’s an established character from DC: Nightwing.
Time for some backstory to this character: Nightwing was created in 1963 for Superman issue #158 in January of 1963 as an ally but not before in later issues would associate with Batman from the likes of Dick Grayson to Jason Todd and he has his own set of issues that started with Nightwing #1 in 1995 then towards into the 2010’s with a rebooted issue in 2011. In 2014 is was stated that the series would end with issue #30 and the plot would be as follows “The Bat Family is forced to face the brutal aftermath of FOREVER EVIL, but after everything they’ve been through, can they stand together?”
However, the comic would go through several delays with a different plot in mind that would focus on the upcoming “Grayson” series and different writers in involved replacing Tim Seely and Tom King along with artist Meghan Hetrick. The scrapped plot was to have the Bat Family including Supermam, Starfire and Roy Harper in it mourning of Dick Grayson however that was a rouse for him to go undercover. The final issue went into ink and written before it was changed, as after being let go Meghan would sell her completed issues that was in ink through her art agent website. James Tynion would post the inked issues in 2017 on Twitter, however the issues with dialogue hasn’t been seen since and remains missing to this day.
Nightwing would prosper in future issues and have different incarnations in animation and DC related movies, let’s hope that it won’t get purged by the HBO Max situation. My year end review can’t come any sooner, and that covers this edition of the Lost Media Files mini. October is the return of the “Scare Your Pants Off” entrees and kicking off will be another infamous character through Creepypasta lore with a wild goose chase of an infamous internet image: go to sleep!
Hello time for a Lost Media Files Mini as this was the feature, I was to cover last month as mini’s goes these will be like the usual main Lost Media Files segments that I have covered over the years but will be very brief, so for this first: one this is about the lost Dark Image comic book: “The Huntsman”.
In 1992 Former Marvel comic writers that included Chris Claremont, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee and others were thinking to create their own comic this is where Image Comics was formed and their first comic under this new management and recently formed company was about a story an assassin wielding swords and firearms but also have a copy ability of his opponents so think Kirby in Ninja form. Now you think that is a glorious idea to make unfortunately it didn’t go that way.
They ultimately proposed to Whilce Portacio and after thinking about he would shoot it down in favor of his own created comic: “Wetworks”. During an interview in April of that year he had his own idea which was by said description was based of the hit movie Predator that was out in 1987 with Dutch’s character from the first movie played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and leading a team looking for a cause. Portacio would focus on his own comic and not do “Huntsman”, Clairmont would try to seek a backup plan, but everyone was too busy so with defeat he would leave the company and later join DC Comics to create a 36-issue graphic comic called “Sovereign Run”. While nothing exists of his first issue of “The Huntsman” no artwork, no comic book, zippo! He would return to Image Comics, he wrote for issues called Marc Silvestri’s comic book “Cyberforce” and Jim Lee’s “WildCATs” to which he would introduce the Huntsman character as an antagonist. So not all was lost.
That’s the end of my first mini of the Lost Media Files, the second will be Friday and it again it covers another comic about Batman’s first Robin forming his own alter ego: “Nightwing” and it the end I will reveal the first entry of the Scare Your Pants off entries that will kick off next month on Friday. Stay tuned.
The Maurice Bear Times 