Cancelled Episode: The Angry Beavers - Goodbye Beavers

I was always a TV head back when I was a small lad. Cartoons, video games and school was the life I've had. I didn't have many friends not because I couldn't, but because I loved being alone to myself with a small handful of friends. I used to watch a lot of Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Kids WB ( which is now The CW channel ). I only watched Kids WB because of Pokémon, so I didn't spend a lot of time watching that channel. I've had my "mood swings" as to where I watched Cartoon Network for a month, then Nickelodeon the next month, I kept switching moods on how I felt about the channels because my young mind couldn't decide which was better. Therefore, I can never watch the both channels equally the same period of time.

The Angry Beavers was an underrated cartoon show in the late 90's that displayed sitcom like humor for all ages. The cartoon itself is about 2 beavers, Daggett and Norbert, who lives in a home, doing brother like things such as Norbert manipulating his younger brother, Daggett, weird adventures and going through crazy episodes together. I was only 9 years old when I watched the cartoon, and because the show itself having a lot of adult like humor, I didn't understand the humor much and wasn't that into the cartoon, but the unique animations and art style kept me interested. Oh, how my naïve, young childish mind can get brainwashed by the wonderful colors and catchy animations we call cartoons.

One Monday night, I was playing my games, of course forgetting about my homework, because I was too lazy finish it, I then get interrupted by a soft tone: "Michael, go to bed. Tomorrow is school." I nodded softly, and looked down with disappointment. Leaving the TV on, I went to channel 67, where Cartoon Network was once located. A couple of hours past and I was still sleepless. Adult Swim was on and I was reminded by my mother that I shouldn't watch that, so in slight nuisance, I changed the channel to Nickelodeon, even though I was in my "Cartoon Network phase" at the time. The channel was at Nick at night, I grunted and groan in disgust that they had no cartoons on. The credits rolled while I closed my eyes, getting ready for a new day, soft static noises rang trough my ears softly for a few seconds before hearing the announcer stating that The Angry Beavers are up next. I then slowly opened my eyes with slight confusion, excited but curious as to why are cartoons are going to be shown in the middle of the night. My Mother would kill me if she saw me up this late.

I was a rebellious child, so I got up, sat in front of the TV and began watching the colorful comedic Angry Beavers intro, with its jazzy like intro theme. When Daggett hit the huge TV and spun around to gain his balance, I heard a soft, yet dark, deep tone "goodbye" from Norbert, as the show's transition slowly go black, as it began to fade, I can see Daggett slowly looks up at Norbert with a dumbfounded yet worried look on his face, as Norbert looks down at him, with a faded, yet sinister smile coming back at him. It was clear to see, and I thought of it as unorthodox, for that transition have lasted about 10 seconds, maybe more. It then went to the title card saying: Goodbye Beavers. It had a white font and black background, something Adults Swim would do. The music was replaced with a slowed down piano version of the show's intro. They have never used any other kind of music besides their jazzy, up tone, traditional intro. So I thought: Is this goodbye for them...? At 1st I didn't know what that meant. When the piano stopped, an eerie wind from the TV stirred up before completely cutting to the episode within a frame, causing me to startled slightly.

The episode opens up with Daggett happily slurping and eating his oatmeal, while Norbert took the newspaper and reads it. Norbert, in shock says "great googly moogly, we're over!". Daggett suddenly chokes on his oatmeal, coughs, then repeated: "Nor, Norbert, Norby, Norbert." in a dark, robotic like tone, each sounding more unnatural on its own. My eyes widen in shock of what's going on. As Daggett regains his natural voice, Norbert rants about how they're over, gone, being out of the count and much more. Daggett couldn't comprehend what was going on, as for me, I may have had a clue. Norbert then explains how they're just cartoons, drawings made, real beavers don't even talk, Daggett replies to each statement he makes quietly. As I continue watch this episode, I've noticed that there was some frames being skipped, or cut out from the show, then eventually it became so noticeable, that the show's audio was ahead of the animation itself. Norbert then demonstrates "the ability of what a cartoon can do" and shows the audience a more realistic version of himself, with a change of his body, giving off a more defining feature of what a beaver would look like, although the picture is still in a cartoon fashion, the beaver he turned into was more of a figure of a real beaver. As Daggett was about to walk away, he then said "what the!?" at the zoomed in realistic picture of Norbert being zoomed out of the real, original cartoony Norbert holding a picture of a realistic picture of himself. He then says "Get the picture? We're pictures!" They soon discovered the limitless abilities of what they can do as "cartoons", breaking the 4th wall entirely. They then proceeded to quack like ducks, make funny noises and laugh like girls for about a minute or so. I looked at the show with a confused yet awkward feel... I questioned myself, what was I watching!? Even as a child I knew things were just off.

In a nuisance, I was going to call it a night and turn off the TV after 2 minutes of annoying quack noises and laughter, but then, things started to get dark when Norbert introduced Daggett "the secret room" I paused and sat back down, relieved the annoyance stopped and curious about the secret room. A big sign in front of the door says "Destructive Testing". Norbert then recalls all the things that happened to them in the past events, episodes of them being electrocuted, drink toxic, things landed on their heads and much more. Daggett, excited about all the flashbacks of them going through those events says: "That was nuts!" Norbert, quickly interrupts by saying: "Nuts!? This is what really happens, when stuff like this happen to real people!" Without warning, the scene then cuts to a series of highly expletive, extremely gory pictures of actual humans dying in different ways, all in that order of which Norbert explained.

The 1st picture was a middle aged black haired woman being electrocuted, her skin was wrinkled and burned like a raisin, her eyes were widen as if she saw her worst fear, her mouth was kept opened like she was screaming and smoke surrounded the burnt body. The 2nd picture was of an obese man, or so I thought laying on the ground, his stomach was blown right open like a volcano, organs were spewing out as his face was given the same expression as the previous picture. The 3rd picture was a man in white, seemingly sitting on a chair, the background shows a table with plenty of chemical tubes and liquids. As for his face, his eyes oozed out crimson red and black substance, the area where his mouth was is covered in holes, same colored substance pouring out of them, as well as his mouth, same as the throat, too. The black liquid itself looks like it was smoking, like the other pictures, his face looked like he saw his most terrifying fate ever, but his eyes, they looked like they were dried up and small, was it the effects of the liquid? 4th picture was a kid laying on the ground covered in blood, next to him was a broken air conditioner, part of his head was either dented, or missing, hard to tell due to the distance the picture was taken. Unlike the other pictures, you couldn't see the facial expression as he died, because the body was turned the other way. The 5th and final picture was of a shirtless man, seemingly military, in a aerial view, part of his head was blown apart as you can see brain matter splatter in a direction the explosion seemed to be angled to. Part of his arm was missing, his skin and meat were missing from his body as well, and the most defining feature was his stomach and part of his chest blown away. His organs were blown everywhere, burnt and chunks missing, like a confetti, or piñata being hit really hard. The pictures shown each one by one within each gasp Daggett took.

I started breathing heavily. I ran back to the bed, taking the sheets as I covered my face, I could have screamed and alarmed my Mom, but then I reminded myself the limitless possibilities of how my mom can punish me. I looked at my gaming systems and said to myself: "No, not worth it..." The slideshow of the gory pictures ended as we are shown Daggett crying in tears, begging to turn off those pictures. Norbert laughs at the sight of him crying. Then a jump cut of Norbert reminding Daggett that they're only cartoons. As he explains that fact, a 3rd voice came out of nowhere and starts laughing in the background, laughing in a way where you thought that person was crazy. At one point, he even coughed a lot, then laughed again. I then started to feel a presences lurking around me, a chill down my spine comes as I hesitate to turn around, eventually I did and was at 1st greeted with shining blackish eyes of an unknown creature, then turns out it was my Pikachu, the eyes shine was reflected by the only source of light, my TV. My mind was truly playing tricks on me, I said to myself. I sighed in relief as I continue on, still feeling that unknown chill around my body.

They then explain how they don't need Nickelodeon anymore and start going through the "five stages of grief" As they do, Norbert started addressing Daggett as "Richard" and Norbert as "Nick", as they compliment each other as artists. At this point, I felt that this wasn't even a real episode anymore, the ties of reality and cartoon started blending together in one bowl. Something we called, the 4th wall. The 4th wall was blown away as well as my once simple mind. They soon reached the 2nd phase of the 5 stages of grief. They started making angry noises as they wave their hands, doing all sorts of animations. Each minute the animations become choppier, to the point where the animations skipped so that the animations can catch up with the audio of the show. What was once known as Norbert and Daggett are now known as Nick and Richard. They then quickly hit stage 3, bargaining. Daggett (Richard), started pleading all his stuff to the company, hoping they would still stay on air, Norbert (Nick), then reminded him that his stuff aren't real and that they are only cartoon stuff, how anyone can easily create them, use them at any time, further breaking the 4th wall. Richard then refused to admit he was bargaining and more simply bribing, but to no avail he admits to his bargaining.

Finally, Richard reaches the 4th stage as Nick notifies Richard of his actions, explaining the loss and depression of their soon ended series. Then finally, Richard accepted his fate of being "over". They hugged each other as they celebrate, they then turn around to see a bright light, Richard then questions what happens when they're "over". Nick then explains with a good vibe how cartoons can sometimes be picked as shows that can rerun in different networks, gaining financial belongings. Richard then asks if that money is shared, Nick replied with a very harsh laugh. He then says that they will always be rerunning no matter what with no cost. That will later become things like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and much more.

As the light brightens up, they say their final farewells, they then saw the final flash card, they mentioned that they wanted to say one final thing. Together they inhaled and say proudly: APRI- Nick, hits Richard with a bat, knocking him out followed by a loud static noise shouted within the TV as the show cuts out and shows the credits. When the credits ended, I saw an unsettling picture of Daggett with black eyes a worried expression, he appeared to be fading with a static like effect. Behind him was a man smiling with an evil grin, the picture itself had an all red silhouette like color and over them is a message saying "Save us", on the bottom it says "Goodbye Beavers". At this point, after seeing the gruesome pictures, the 4th wall, and the final farewell picture, I decided to power walk out my room, hoping to wake up no one, as I did I felt a dark presence chasing me! The all dark hallways were too dark for me to see, I used my muscle memory and walls to figure out the way to my mothers room. Faster and faster I walked towards my Mom's door open it and rushed in, although there was truly no one there after me, my mind had a strong imagination of something being there, almost touching me... I lay with my Mom, safely next to her.

Since that day, plenty of things changed about me, nothing dramatic, but a loss of innocence, a lesson of passing on, moving on and just accepting life itself, even though it's farfetched. That one episode made me grow up faster than most, as I witness such a strange and unforgettable event. And ever since then, that show didn't air on the original Nickelodeon channel, although they were brought back for a short while in Teen nick's 90's flash backs cartoons, but that episode was never shown ever again.

Years Past by and I was living my life, a big thread in the internet came about called Creepypastas. They are like internet version of campfire stories, and they come in many forms. I discovered a form of Creepypastas called "lost episodes". That instantly reminded the strange events I had years ago. So I soon used the internet to find out about the lost episode I watched years ago about The Angry Beavers. I discovered that they had the full audio clip of that one episode that was never seen again. And in the end, when they got to say their final words: APRIL FOOLS!, followed by a happy laugh... That didn't happen to me, for that last line was cut off entirely. Other than that, the whole audio tape of the episode was just like I remembered, except the intro, title card and last line. Lastly, the names "Richard" and "Nick" are actually voice actors of the 2 main characters, Daggett and Norbert. Richard Steven Horvitz, who voiced as Daggett and Nick Bakay voiced Norbert.

I wonder about those pictures, why would they show them? To show kids what reality was like? And that final picture, I can only assume that the red man was a vague picture of Richard himself, since Daggett was in front of him... As for the animations of the video, it was long gone from the face of the internet, I tried every corner of the internet, but my curiosity died out and I gave up. At least the audio was still proof that the episode is real. I wonder, was I the only person who watched it, there had to be kids out there back then just like me who saw it too. I can only wonder...