Tubular Times
Hello. My name is Bradley Measen, and I will tell you about a show I recently discovered called Tubular Times. I found out about this lost show when my cousin, who worked for ABC Family back in the day, told me about it. He just casually brought it up during a conversation.
"I used to work on this show called Tubular Times," He said.
"When I worked at ABC. It was basically just your normal, generic family sitcom. Well, almost." I asked him if he had any VHS tapes or DVDs or anything.
"One," he said. "One VHS tape from long ago. Why, do you want it? I don't care, you can take it!" "Sure," I said. A day later a package came in the mail from my cousin.
It was simply labelled "Tubular Times" and had some illegible scrawl underneath it. Ignoring it I opened up the package. Inside was a dusty VHS tape. Very dusty. It had a thick layer of gray, powdery dust and only a couple fingerprints.
Must've been from when my cousin was putting this tape into the box. I sat on the couch and inserted the VHS tape into my VCR. (That's right, I still had a VCR.) The screen was just solid blue for about 1 minute. I practically fell asleep until incredibly loud honky-tonk music started playing and a flashy, seizure-inducing title card popped up saying "Tubular Times".
It faded out to show an '80s looking boy sitting at a desk writing something and an '80s looking girl throwing a volleyball to another '80s looking girl. The show was silent for 30 seconds except for the noise of the ball landing in the girls' hands.
Then the boy said, "You really shouldn't be doing that in the house." Then a caption appeared at the bottom saying "Pilot" in quotation marks. I assumed this was the pilot episode, obviously. Then an '80s looking mom walks in with tears on her face, and boldly announces, "Your father is dead!" The kids just looked at each other, then started crying.
They cried and cried and cried and then huddled with their mom and cried and cried and cried. Then the mom spoke up. "He was found dead, his body in his car, his car crashed into a tree." I found this a little morbid for a 'family' show.
The next scene was the family walking down a road, crying and crying and crying. The crying sounded strikingly realistic, as if they were actually feeling emotional pain. "There's the body!" The older of the 2 girls said. The next shot was incredibly morbid. It showed the rubble of a car. Not even a whole car, just the wreck. How would a car crash destroy the car into rubble, yet leave the tree fine? Sitting on top of the rubble was a terrible sight. A bloodied man.
A bloodied and gory body, extremely injured. It made me want to puke. It was terrible. I couldn't see how this could be fake. It couldn't have been make-up or special effects. It just looked too real. The family cried again. Cried and cried and cried and cried. When you thought it was done, they started crying again. Their cries seriously sounded like they were emotionally scarred. Quiet organ music started playing in the background. Then I realized their cries were TOO realistic.
Heck, if this predicament happened to ME I wouldn't cry this terrible-sounding. They didn't sound like they were sad by what happened - they sounded like they were going insane. They sounded like you'd hear those cries in an insane asylum. Then the mom stopped crying.
The organ music got louder and louder as it zoomed into her face. She slowly turned her head towards the camera. Her eyes were red. No, her eyes were pink. It were the PUPILS that were red. I jumped so high when she suddenly jerked her head to the camera. She was wearing an insane smile. A creepy smile, creepy beyond belief. The camera continued to zoom in. I put my hands over my eyes and didn't let go until the organ music stopped.
What I saw when I opened my eyes was a single title card. Then another. Then another. I figured these were the credits. I sighed and slumped back in my seat. My heart beating rapidly. What kind of family show was that? What kind of family 'sitcom' was that?
It wasn't near a sitcom! It wasn't near a family show! It was a HORROR show! Now, the only name I remember from the credits was "Tach Venhik". That was his name. "Tach Venhik". It sounded like some foreign name, from a country I don't even know. I needed to do more research on this show and on Tach Venhik. I looked up "Tubular Times" and nothing came up.
Nothing about the show, at least. I looked up "Tach Venhik" and nothing came up. I went on Youtube. "Tubular Times". Nothing about the show. I went on Facebook. "Tach Venhik". Nothing about him. I figured - oh, no - was Tach Venhik perhaps my cousin?
He shares the initials with him after all. (By the way, my cousin's name is Thomas Victor.) Nah, I dismissed that thought. If he were to use a pseudonym, he would probably choose a better one than Tach Venhik.
I called up my cousin to ask him if this was a practical joke or something. His wife answered. "Hello?"
"Hi. Is this Mrs. Victor?"
"Yeeeees?"
"I'm Bradley, I'm Thomas' cousin."
"Hello Bradley. What do you want?"
"I just wanted to speak with Thomas about a VHS tape he gave me earlier today."
"Oh, sorry. He went on a camping trip an hour ago."
"What? Why? Why didn't he take you?"
"He said he was going to meet up with some friends. Sorry I can't assist you at this moment."
She then hung up. Why would he go on a camping trip, let alone shortly after he gives me a peculiar VHS tape, and then not tell me? It had to be planned if he was going to meet up with some friends. I still had to do my research on this "Tubular Times" thing, so I posted on a forum about it. Here is the now deleted post:
"Hey, does anyone know of this show from ABC called Tubular Times? About a family who, as far as I know, loses their father? I recently received a VHS tape from the Pilot episode. It was so - um - 'interesting' that I want to find out more about it. Please let me know if you find out anything about it."
No less than 3 days after I posted it, a user replied. He didn't tag a video, which kind of disappointed me, put I read on anyway.
"Tubular Times? I used to work at ABC and I swear I worked on a show called Tubular Times. Could never be certain though. I do remember a plot something like what you described. I'll look into this."
That certainly didn't help much. I hoped he would get back with more information. I waited for days. Soon weeks. Soon months. 3 months later, and no information. I actually forgot about Tubular Times during those months. My memory was refreshed when I was cleaning around the house and I found it. It was even dustier. I could barely make out "Tubular Times". I decided I should take another glance at that forum post. There was a reply.
It was from the same guy who originally replied. It read:
"After researching some stuff, I finally remembered it. Tubular Times. Working title "Family Fun". It was the 3 of us - me, a man named Tach Venhik and a woman named Lisa Janison. We were planning to make a sitcom about a family - two girls, a boy, a mom and pop. We had everything planned out. We began writing a script for the pilot episode when suddenly we were informed that Lisa went insane.
"We heard that Lisa recently was involved in a freak accident that turned her into a mental, insane lady. One day while me and Tach were writing more of the script - assuming Lisa was no longer part of our group - Lisa just walked in. She said we should burn the script we were writing or we would be murdered. Tach boldly said "NO!" and I whispered, "Are you crazy?" Lisa took the script, crumpled it into a ball and ate it. Swallowed it. She said the show would have to be made her way or we'd both be dead.
"She wrote her own script and asked us to review it. I read all of it - I thought it was terrible. I'm pretty sure Tach did too. 'Terrible,' I said. 'This would be terrible for a family to watch!' I said. 'What he said' Tach replied. 'This wouldn't hit the air, let alone be intended for families.' Lisa threatened to kill us yet again if we didn't make the episode.
This is how she wrote the 5 other episodes - simply saying she would murder us if we didn't obey. I'm not sure what happened to the 5 other episodes or what happened to Lisa."
I was freaked out by now. To know that the show had such a terrible background. But now it made sense - the episode was written by a mentally insane person. I had to hunt down those 5 other episodes. Believe it or not, I found the 2nd episode pretty quickly.
I did an extended series of Internet searches and found a website called "VideoValley" or something like that. It's motto (I think) was "The TV show episode vault" or something like that. Basically it had a bunch of episodes from almost every show known to man. I figured Tubular Times would be there. Surprisingly, it was. The first and second episodes. I had already seen the first so I clicked the second, called "The Family Adapts".
It showed the family walking into a building with suits on. Inside was what looked like a funeral ceremony. I realized it must've been for the dad. The ceremony began, with some guy saying some unintelligible stuff. Seriously, they purposely blocked it out with "blah blah blah blah" to make sure you hear the family crying. Wow, this must be one emotional family.
They cried just like they did in the last episode. You could hear a woman maniacally laughing in the background. A thought that sent a chill up my spine was maybe that laughter was emitted from Lisa Janison. Then the funeral ended (What a short funeral!" and the family left the building. Except for the mother. She had the same red pupils and same maniac grin.
The camera zoomed in gradually and the same exact organ music started playing. Slightly clear video clips flashed on screen in front of her face. I assumed these were flash-backs. From what I could make up they showed the mom and dad holding hands. Another clip showed them drinking from a milkshake with two straws.
The third clip was extremely out of place. It showed the mom brutally beating the dad with a hammer, his eye falling out, his head bursting with blood. I wanted to puke again. Surely that couldn't have actually happened. The dad died in a car crash, not a murder. Maybe that was what the mom wanted to do. What happened next horrified me. She let out a loud scream and blood started rolling out of her eyes. Her eyes were pouring a waterfall of blood. Then her eyes rolled over and soon her eyes were only white. The camera started shaking and then the episode abruptly ended.
But wait - a thought came into my mind. I didn't have time to notify how terrible that episode was. My thought was - if that guy on the forum said it was only 3 people who worked on the show, then how could my cousin work on the show?
Maybe he was the guy on the forum? Maybe - my cousin really WAS Tach Venhik? Maybe my cousin just worked the cameras or did the lighting. I don't know. To this day the show is unexplained, and I haven't found the other 4 episodes. Also, my cousin hasn't returned from his so called "camping trip". Perhaps I will post a sequel if I find more evidence.
Credited to RickLander
Click here for part two.
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