Spongebob: Are You Happy Now?

Well, it has been a couple of years since the “Squidward’s Suicide” incident that occurred in 2005 in the production studio of Nickelodeon. Andrew Skinner hasn’t really been animating anymore, not that I know of. For those of you who don’t know who Andrew Skinner is; he is infamously known for the “Squidward’s Suicide”/”Red Mist” tapes and other devilish animated cartoons he has worked on. 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 strange occurrences of the incident in 2004. 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 throw the package in my drawer and focus on my work since that’s more important that the package, even though I’m rather curious about what’s in the package, 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 the weird 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 and taped on the front of it was a note, it read: “To my best friend, [redacted], from… The name was smudged and I could barely make out any letters. I picked up the disc and inspected it, the back had some scratches on it, but it should be able to play. I walked out of my room to the meeting suite. I turned on my trusty Dynex™ television and my Pioneer™ DVD Player and I stuck the disc in the player and watch the “pioneer” screen disappear. “Are ya ready kids?!?!” the speakers shouted. “A SpongeBob episode?” I was seriously puzzled, but what can you expect from a weird package. After the theme song finished, the title card came on screen; “Are You Happy Now?”, but it was very different from the “real” title card that I remember. The letters were in a glossy red color and the background was a saddening gray, but the strangest of all were the faces. The faces were...sad, as opposed to happy. I figured I would pause it to bring the crew in because it might be another edited episode (I figured, it might be another Skinner tape, since he’s so predictable-ish). 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 it began.

The episode starts as I remember it (since it premiered 5 days ago), The camera pans 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 cuts to when SpongeBob asks what’s Squidward’s happiest memory. Squidward’s thoughts show static, but for for a split second, it shows Squidward on his bed, with his tentacles covering his eyes. A quiet, barely audible scream is heard. He sighs 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 starts crying and hugging each other. The sound was ear piercing loud, we all covered our ears. They stopped crying and the sound returned to normal. SpongeBob tells Squidward that they will make a happiest memory.

The bubble transition comes up and SpongeBob and Squidward re at the concert, but the music that normal plays seems kind of...off. It sounded like Squidward’s awful clarinet music, but there were no clarinets were in sight. The scene continued 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. The disc then freezes on the frame, but the sound continued, up until the sound of the bubble transition. It then reverts to silence once again. This continues for a few seconds and they it returns 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 in his house, the scene continues to play normally. The disc then freezes on the frame of Squidward lying on his bed. It the sound continues playing, but the screen is still frozen on this specific frame.

The narrator’s voice comes up as he says, “Two weeks later”, and the quality of the animation starts to deteriorate. The camera then shows the outside of their houses, but the sky was pitch black, but you can still see the 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 the rope around his neck. “I can’t seem to get happy…” he says with a more depressing voice (the poor audio made it sound very unnerving). He kicks the ladder from underneath him and he jolts up and down. He starts to squirm as the rope seems to get tighter around his neck. He starts to make loud choking noises, which sounded horrifying. 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 faded in. Then the darkness slowly consumed Squidward’s house, the sounds slowly ceased, as the episode ended.

The episode ends with regular credits, but a video then abruptly cuts the credits. There was a person recording themselves walking down a path in what appeared to be a forest. The video was in horrible quality. He continues to walk until he approaches a small dirty cabin. He goes inside and there is an old computer and some loose papers scattered across the floor. He sets the camera down, but the glitchiness of the video sort of censored his face and none of us could identify who it was. The man then scurried towards a wooden crate and he looked around for something. He grabbed what appeared to be some rope or a chain. He grabbed the camera and rushed outside. He set down the camera on the floor and he proceeded to tie the rope/chain to a tree. He rushed off screen and he grabbed a ladder. He tied the rope/chain around his neck. In a similar fashion as Squidward, he kicked the ladder away and he started squirming and gasping for air. He then went limp, the video cuts to static.

We took the video to the tech experts and they couldn’t identify the person in the video at the end, but they found out the date the video was made, April 5, 2012. The animation was created on the same date as I received it. We tried to find the location of the cabin and the results lead nowhere. We were all frustrated, I was filled with anger, I wanted to know who Skinner was, so I could kill him slowly like he killed his victims. The man in the short video couldn't be identified, given that the video was in really bad quality. Again, I was furious that I couldn't find Skinner, but I still have hope. Maybe with more careful analysis, we can find Andrew...wherever he is...