Are You Happy Now?

Well, it has been a couple of years since the "Squidward's Suicide" incident that took place at Nickelodeon studios. Andrew Skinner hasn't really been animating anymore, well, not that I know of. For those of you who don't know who Andrew Skinner is; he's known for creating "Squidward's Suicide". He was born in Scotland in the small town of [REDACTED], and ever since his adolescent years, he has been charged with multiple counts of murder and arson. He was finally caught and arrested in 2006, but after only serving a two year sentence, he disappeared from our radar, and we have yet to track him down. "How do you know so much?" you may ask yourself. For starters, I was on the "special" team that was called to investigate the occurrences in 2005. I wasn't really fazed by the whole event as I've seen worse, but for some reason, it hasn't really left my mind.

Now it's 2012 and I'm sitting in my office, looking at some paperwork I had to sort out, when I received a package from an unknown sender. The package was in pretty bad shape, might have been the mailman, but I think I'm jumping to conclusions. Anyways, I threw it in my drawer and got back to work since that's more important, even though I was rather curious, but I have to resist the urge. A couple of hours later, I'm bored as heck, and the only thing that could come to mind was that package. I slowly opened my drawer and pulled it out. The box appeared to be dropped multiple times and some parts of it were damp. I tore into the box and to my surprise it was a DVD. I picked up the disc and inspected it, the backside had some scratches on it, but it should be able to play. I walked out of my office to the meeting room. I turned on my trusty Dynex™ television and my Pioneer™ DVD Player and I stuck the disc in the player and watched the "Pioneer" screen disappear. "Are ya ready kids?!?!" the speakers shouted. "A SpongeBob episode?" I was seriously puzzled, but what can you expect? After the theme song finished, the title card came on screen; "Are You Happy Now?", but it was very different from the actual title card. The letters were in a glossy red color and the background was a saddening gray, but the strangest of all were the Squidward faces. The faces were sad, as opposed to happy. I figured I would bring the crew in because I knew, for a fact, it was another one of Skinner's cartoons. The crew rushed in with paper and pencils in hand to take note, everyone seemed comfortable, so I continued with the footage. The title card began to glitch out as the bubble transition screen came up.

The episode starts as I remember it (since it premiered 5 days ago), The camera pans horizontally as the French narrator narrates, we see Patrick eating a leftover Krabby Patty in the dumpster. The camera continues to pan it as it stops on the porthole window of the back door of the Krusty Krab. SpongeBob is standing at the grill. Squidward tells SpongeBob the order, but he gets annoyed as SpongeBob is laughing at the contents of a book. After more laughing and sighing, Squidward snatches the book from SpongeBob and he asks him, "What's so great about this?" SpongeBob tells him it's all his happy memories from the Krusty Krab. Squidward then slams the book on the grill and it burns up. It suddenly skips over to when SpongeBob asks what Squidward's happiest memory is. Squidward's thoughts show static, but for a split second, it shows a vague frame of Squidward on his bed, with his tentacles covering his eyes. A quiet, barely audible scream is heard. He sighs as the thought bubble disappears and then says, "I guess I don't have a happiest memory. Oh well." The sound suddenly cuts out when Squidward and SpongeBob discuss about not having a happiest memory. The sound then returns when Squidward and SpongeBob start crying and hugging each other. The sound was louder than normal. They stopped crying and the sound returned to a normal volume. SpongeBob tells Squidward that they'll make a happiest memory.

The bubble transition comes up and SpongeBob and Squidward are at the concert, but the music that normally plays seems kind of off. It sounded like a clarinet solo from a "Theme from Scheherazade", but there were no clarinets in sight. The scene continues until the violin playing fish gets his bow stuck on the strings, similar to a bow and arrow, the bow flies and penetrates Squidward's eye. Then it freezes on that frame, but the sound continues, up until the sound of the bubble transition. Then silence once again. This continues for a few seconds and then it cuts back to the episode. The other scenes play out normally, except they were in slightly darker hue. We continue watching and taking notes on the episode. Squidward tells SpongeBob he'll never have a happiest memory and then he proceeds to go into his house, the scene continues to play out normally. The disc then freezes on the frame of Squidward lying on his bed. The sound continues playing, but the screen is still frozen on this specific frame.

A title card comes up and it says, "Two weeks later", the quality of the animation starts to deteriorate. The camera then shows an outside view of their houses, but the sky was pitch black, but you can still see the colorful flowers in the sky. SpongeBob tells Gary that he's worried about Squidward. He proceeds to go to Squidward's house to check on him. The sound also starts to deteriorate in quality. SpongeBob looks inside of Squidward's mail slot and the inside of his home looks decrepit. The scene continues to play out normally with the exception of the pitch black sky and the poor audio quality. The screen freezes once again on Squidward as he hangs a rope on a beam. The sound abruptly cuts to silence. The screen unfreezes after a couple of seconds and it shows Squidward tying a noose around his neck. "I can't seem to get happy..." he says with a more depressing voice, "Maybe...this'll help..." He kicks the ladder from underneath him and he jolts up and down. He starts to squirm as the noose seems to get tighter around his neck. He starts to choke. His face starts turning pale and his eyes become even more bloodshot as he continues to struggle. He abruptly stops squirming and he goes limp...Squidward was dead. The camera slowly pans out the porthole window as Squidward's lifeless silhouette sway back and forth slowly. The camera stops when Squidward's house is in full frame. Screaming, crying, and the sounds of the swaying rope slowly fade in. Then the darkness slowly consumes Squidward's house, the sounds slowly cease, as the episode ends.

The episode ends with regular credits, but a strange video abruptly cuts the credits. The video shows a person, in a first person view, walking down a path in what appeared to be a forest. The video was bad quality. He continues to walk until he approaches a small desolate cabin. He goes inside and there is an old, dusty computer and some loose papers scattered across the floor. He sets the camera down, but the glitchiness of the video sort of censors his face. The man then scurries towards a wooden crate and he looks around for something. He grabs what appears to be some a large chain. He grabs the camera and rushes outside. He sets down the camera on the floor and he proceeds to tie the chain to a sturdy tree branch. He rushes off screen and he grabs a ladder. He ties the chain around his neck. In a similar fashion as Squidward, he kicks the ladder away and he starts squirming and gasping for air. He then goes limp, the video cuts to a black screen. We took the video to the tech experts but they couldn't identify the person in the video, but they found out the date the video was made, April 5, 2012. The person committed suicide on the same date I received the disc. We tried to find the location of the cabin and the investigation led nowhere. We were all frustrated, I was filled with the most anger, I wanted to find where Skinner was so I could kill him like he killed his many victims. Maybe, with more analysis, and some hope, we can find Skinner... wherever he is.

Comments • 2

Loading comments...