To paraphrase the quote of a certain camel, HAPPY HUMP DAY! And that means a new post. Today I’ve decided to introduce a little something I like to call “The Good Die Young” which is an appropriate subject considering the looming holiday. In this segment I’ll be reviewing (and mourning) the loss of great works of entertainment that were killed off long before their time should have come. If you’re familiar with, for example, shows like Firefly, then you may have a good idea what I’m talking about. But honestly, Firefly was lucky. It got a full season. Most movies, TV shows, and books don’t even make it past the development stage. They just sit on a desk somewhere, neglected for years before finally being burned with the trash. Here we’ll be immortalizing those poor youngsters who died shortly after leaving the writer’s proverbial womb.
Keeping with the Halloween theme, the first wake is in honor of a dark animation aptly named Deadtime Stories. Originally conceived by screenwriter Michael Dougherty (X-Men 2, Superman Returns) with Breehn Burns, Deadtime Stroies was intended to be a horror anthology centered around a young girl named Ebola. Ebola is a strange, gothish girl who is constantly plagued with nightmares and visions of terrible monsters. As a result of her horrific ordeals, it is mentioned in the pilot that she was sent off to a mental hospital for treatment. This raises the constant question as to whether what she sees on a regular basis is real or just a figment of her twisted imagination.
Ebola’s parents are little help in her times of need, her mother rather cynical and disrespectful. She effectively bullies her daughter, using the fact that she’s been diagnosed as mentally unstable as a means of guilt tripping or pushing her into situations she doesn’t enjoy. Meanwhile, her father stays silent and keeps his distance by hiding behind his newspaper. Ebola is clearly trying to put on a strong front to hide a meekness that’s within her. Eventually, this is where another main character pops up: Smirk, a dark and creepy young boy who makes Damian from The Omen look pleasant and seems to have a connection to the protagonist. It appears as if he was originally meant to be a plot element to set up every story, evident with the rumors he tells Ebola. The spider he carried after his initial introduction reflected the outcome of the story, so could this be a clever attempt at foreshadowing or does Smirk have prior knowledge to the weird things that happen? Sadly we’ll never know.
The only person Ebola can turn to is herself, or more accurately, her reflection. Throughout the episode, her reflection speaks to her, guiding her and advising her on how to approach each situation and making sure she doesn’t get sent back to the “rubber room.” Ebola listens to her alter ego, albeit with reservation. It’s difficult to say if this imaginary guardian is real or just another hallucination, or further still, if she’s even an ally, but that only adds to the deepening plot.
The look of the cartoon works well with this type of storytelling. The animation is a tad jerky and amateurish, and the art style looks as if it was done with cutouts of a child’s doodles, but that’s probably the point. The title, after all, IS Deadtime Stories. The whole design gives the feel of being inside a children’s fairytale book, if that book was co-written by Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King. The soundtrack only adds further to the creepy adolescent nightmare. The echo effects and ambient sounds come off as being badly recorded onto an archive site and added in with careless abandon. It reminds me of early flash videos from the days when Youtube was still just a dream. Overall, it works. However, that doesn’t mean I didn’t grimace once or twice while watching the video.
It’s sad that Deadtime Stories didn’t make it beyond a seven minute pilot. Though it was to be expected. The project was drawn up by a team of Nickelodeon animators, but was meant to be a little too mature to appear on the family friendly television network. Dougherty and Burns intended to pitch it to MTV. That was a dead end from the start. MTV hasn’t seriously debuted a successful animated series since the early days of Mike Judge. It’s all about the pregnant teens and drunk idiots hurting themselves in stupid stunts. Personally, this would have been an improvement to their usual lineup, but, then again, it probably would have required more brain power than the normal MTV watcher was used to in order to wrap their heads around the rich plot and psychological subterfuge. They probably would have had more luck with Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, although I don’t think this is their cup of tea either.
All I can say is rest in piece Deadtime Stories. We hardly knew ye.
This has been you’re friendly neighborhood Gypsy Blair, signing off. You can let go of my leg now, Paco.
“No. The little girl scared me.”
*Sigh*
Pop Gypsy 