LazyTown Test Reel

Before LazyTown became a hit children's TV series or even an internet meme, it was originally an Icelandic children's picture book for healthy lifestyles back in the mid 90s. The book was extremely successful in Iceland, and it even got a couple of spin off books and a musical in 1997. But what a lot of people don't know, was that the book was originally meant to be a lot grittier and a lot more serious. But Magnus Scheiving, the writer of the book, and would later appear in the TV series as Sportacus, the athletic sports hero, made it not so much serious, but way more scary for a kids' novel.

I was a former fan of the show and decided one day to have a look at it's origins more closely, since I had only seen the more recent 1999 sequel to the original musical. I looked for the show's origins on Google and I saw what looked to be an early edition of the first book. The cover was a little strange since it only showed the much more elderly, mythical elf version of Sportacus looking rather depressed, I got a little confused the more I stared at the image, but then I saw it came with what looked to be a tape, which was labelled, "Early Test Reel". Early, huh? Well, seeming as this was an Ebay link for only $8.99, I decided to get myself a copy, so I did.

After a few days, the package finally came at my front door with the book and tape in it. I realised after picking up the package was that the actual wrapping was very dirty and even a little ripped at the side. Funny, Ebay would always make sure that all packages are wrapped at least a little nicely, but maybe it was a rough travel. And it also looked like the delivery guy would've had KFC or Burger King or something, as the packaging was rather greasy. But still, I finally had the chance to find out what this early reel tape was all about.

I set up my VCR, and pushed in the tape. When I hit play, it looked normal and cutesy enough, as the colorful LazyTown, or as it was called Sunshine-Town back in those early days, was waking up from sunrise. But as soon as the characters came on screen, I noticed something was off, one kid, what looked like an early Stephanie, walked out of her house depressed as hell looking, and one kid, which I think was an early Pixel, came out of his house, half burnt and half electrocuted. Pixel was what scared me the most, and I know in the 1999 musical he looked rather electrocuted with his green wiry hair, but at least he didn't have burns all over him! I continued watching curiously.

Then, the old version of Sportacus, the energetic elf creature, came out leaping and jumping from behind some hills, like said, this version was much more elderly and smaller, but in this particular film, he was much more angry and usually would be seen yelling abuse to the kids, although I can't translate Icelandic very well, but it sounded incredibly mean and made out the elf seem like a power hungry bully, something the final version in the series absolutely hated. I was taken aback a little when he started what looked to be fat shaming Ziggy, causing him to punch him right in the stomach, Ziggy started bawling his eyes out as Sportacus proudly marches off smirking.

He then approached Jives, one of the characters who had been removed when the series was in pre production, and starts to bully him as Jives is depicted as a terribly weak character, he tried to get up off the grass after Sportacus pushes him, but he couldn't, so Sportacus kicked him in the ribs. Even though it was an animated film, the kick was so painful looking, I even felt it! That was something to achieve from an animated feature! Sportacus then goes over and starts CHOKING Stephanie, she gagged and wheezed, and I could even hear a couple of cracks as Sportacus went on, and then finally, Sportacus snaps her neck completely after about 30 seconds, killing her. Causing another scrapped character, Officer Obtuse, starts to chase him around the town armed with a glock.

Sportacus, being able to outrun the officer, hides behind a house for protection, little did he know that Officer Obtuse had climbed on top of the roof glock in hand. He then proceeded to gun down Sportacus with realistic looking blood, even though it's animated, I nearly crapped myself right there. Officer Obtuse then laid the body behind a dark alleyway, which frightens an alley cat, some of the kids approach the alley and scream in terror, their screams start becoming distorted, damaging the film the louder they got. Before anything else weird happened I shut off the movie and started to damage the tape. After I took the tape out of the cassette, I threw them in the trash.

At night, I tried to picture what I saw earlier in my head, LazyTown, an innocent get fit show for kids, started off as a scary animated drama about a child killing elf bully rather than the helpful and fatherly Sportacus later on. No wonder the cover of the book looked so depressing and dark!