The Grieving (Retold)

One of my closest friends was Ben Bocquelet, and I worked at Cartoon Network Studios. Due to confidentiality concerns, I won't discuss what we're doing over there.

You might have guessed that one of the shows we produced was The Amazing World of Gumball, a show about a 12-year-old blue cat and his brother Darwin getting into trouble. Being a part of this show is an honor.

Furthermore, you may be wondering when we started working on this show. We began producing our episode in 2001, and the show aired in 2011. The title of this episode is The Grieving, but it works.

Is there anything else we should add, Ben? That's what I asked.

Ben said, "We should add crying" and "principal Brown informing the parents about Darwin and Anais’ disappearances in graphic detail."

Self-explanatory. I said.

We started making the episode, but during production, I was told why we were making it.

"Listen, I'm making this episode because there's a worker here who's crying, and we need to make this to make fun of him." Ben said.

Are you crazy? He lost his son to a killer. I said.

"No, I'm not," he said. "I'm just continuing to make this; we’re not airing it to the world; it's only for us to see."

Ah, ok, I said.

Production started, and the episode finished. Here are the details: Nicole and Richard are crying, and they eventually calm down, but then principal Brown tells them about the disappearance of the children, causing them to start crying again. Here is some detail on the murder.

Darwin was dead with his eyes gouged out, his organs spread around the bushes and trees, and Anais’ head was decapitated inside a box with other fluid. Of course, again, we didn't draw that stuff in the episode; it's just described.

Here's what Principal Brown told them:

"I hate to inform you that Anais and Darwin were found dead. I recently had a call with the police, and they told me, " Nicole interrupted him by cursing him out. I'm not going to describe the swearing since I don't like swearing myself, but that's what Ben added—he told me to go home for the day, and so I did that.

When I walked out, I noticed Ben running out of the studio and burying the episode we made in an open field, no questions asked. I kept going, and I fell asleep until tomorrow. I had a few nightmares about the episode, but nothing too bad.

It was tomorrow, so I arrived at the Cartoon Network studio. To satisfy my curiosity, I came to the open field and tried digging the episode out of the ground; it was gone. I looked everywhere, except for footprints, but didn't follow them since God knows where they lead. I walked back to the studio until I noticed a hole in the window.

Someone might have broken in; there’s a possibility.

Nobody was even there at the studio, so I decided to investigate what happened to the grieving. I was intrigued and slightly scared. Update: I found the episode in 2023 and took it home; here's my description of it. The episode started like any other episode.

It started with Gumball in his classroom; he was forlorn, and he was sobbing for what seemed like 30 minutes until it cuts to Richard crying, who is way more miserable than Gumball. Someone kicked the door open, and Nicole is also sobbing her eyes out.

At this moment, I noticed the mix-mash of scenes going on. Be patient; I will show them in a minute. The rest of the episode was like how we worked on it until it reached the part where the principal describes the murders. As described, the images of the dead children are shown with blood and gore, but the blood and corpses were done in the normal style, surprisingly.

The police return to the school after principal Brown requests it.

They discovered gumball hanging from a noose, with a blood-covered knife behind him and blood soaking his clothes; the screen faded to black, and the credits appeared; the date was correct, but I don't recall this being broadcast on a Cartoon Network station in 2001. Ben and I made this there in 2001, yes, but we didn't include gore and blood in it.

After the credits, three clips played, one of them based on a video. I had seen it on the internet before.

There was a man in a 14th-century plague doctor outfit for some reason. Why? I believe this is a medieval image; people did not care about human rights at the time, and one was a video playing over and over of a woman wearing high heels stomping on a kitten in the eye. I have seen it in the darkest parts of the Internet. The woman in the video is a nurse named Wang Jue, who said she was sad over a failed marriage and allowed herself to be converted into crushing the animal to death on camera. What she did makes me angry.

Enough of being off-topic.

The next video showed a little boy being shot by a man; the boy and the man were never identified, and the police are still investigating due to the nature of the video. The episode then ended. This episode is lying to you; it started with Gumball, Darwin, and Anais playing, and Gumball loses them by accident.

Darwin and Anais go into the forest of doom, and suddenly, Anais gets attacked by a creature. She runs into a box and hides; the creature tears off her body, decapitating her, and Darwin gets killed. Was the creature "Penny"? Gumball’s girlfriend? They both had antlers, so it's hard to tell.

After the wendigo creature killed Darwin and Anais, the creature was gone, and it surely didn’t look like any of the individuals of Elmore; the creature just existed. However, Gumball is gone, and the principal informs the parents about it.

Gumball goes to Elmore Jr. High and stays; he is lonely, and then he begins cutting himself with the knife, and he hangs himself by a noose after a short time; the parents go home crying, having lost not two but three of their children. This is what came to mind. I was planning to tell Ben about it, but I didn’t know how. Someone watched the thing; Sarah watched it, and her brother went missing, and I asked Ben to write an email to her and apologize to her.

This is what Ben wrote her:

"One thing: how in the heck did you find that? I never, ever, ever thought I would think about that old shame again. Don't tell anyone this, Sarah, but The Amazing World of Gumball goes back further than you know. I used to have a really boring job as a teen, and I sketched little drawings of the Wattersons and friends. The episode you saw was never supposed to be seen by anyone but me and a few friends of mine. It was a very, very awful thing to do, but we made the episode as a joke. A guy from my old job, who everyone hated, had lost a child to a crazed serial killer, who is apparently still out there somewhere. Anyway, we made it so we could make fun of how he usually comes into work crying like a fool, which is why you saw Mr. and Mrs. Watterson cry so much in the episode. I know I am deeply sorry for what I did, which is why I tried to bury that stupid thing years ago. Literally, I went out into the countryside with my friends and dug a hole and buried it.

What I don't get, though, is how you described the blood and guts and stuff. We didn't have any scenes with Darwin and Anais' bodies being found; all that happens in the episode is that the parents are informed of the kids being found dead and they cry like crazy. We didn't even draw anything in the episode like that at all. Not only that, but we're not that sick.

Now, this is my theory: the lunatic who killed the man's child found the tape we buried, watched it, and heavily edited it. Then, somehow, he hijacked the local TV station near you and got the episode to air on your local Cartoon Network station. Now, why your brother couldn't see it, I have no idea; why it seems you're the only one who saw it, I have no idea either. Sorry, but I just don't know.

Now, for the explanation you have been waiting for—the clips at the end. I don't know. I DON'T. Furthermore, I'm deeply sorry, from the bottom of my heart, but I don't know why those clips were aired; I just don't. I am sorry, I really am, but my friends and I are just the ones who made those scenes with Richard and Nicole crying; that's it. I'm so sorry, Sarah. I'm so deeply sorry.

"Best wishes, Ben Bocquelet and everyone involved with 'The Grieving'."

A family-friendly version was aired afterward; however, I know what the original episode was.