When we were kids, the things we found scary were different, that’s for sure. There’s a lost episode of the Winnie the Pooh cartoon that you may or may not have watched if your parents loved you and could afford to subscribe to the Disney channel back in the day.
The episode almost never aired, in fact the Disney vaults have on record that it only aired twice, the second time the last half having been mysteriously cut and so and so. This and that. I myself happened to work at Disney in the late 90’s when I came across the tape.
I should first warn you that this story isn’t for children, and if there are any small children, send them out of the room. If they try to get into the room, throw a shoe at them because it’s the only thing that will keep them away.
The stomach lurching horrors and spine tingling terrors that are bound to ensue will rock you to your very core and make you question the very meaning of your humanity. I couldn’t sleep for months, weeks, even hours after watching the tape. My family disowned me. My pet iguana, Sasparella the third died. And the worst part of all? My reflection in the mirror has been replaced by a demonic pantsless yellow bearman with demonic eyes- and I know you don’t believe me. No one at the mental ward did, that’s why I had to pretend to deny the screaming and the violence to get out. But now I’m fine, I am. I’m right as rain. Happy as a clam. Sane as can be. No screws or bolts missing from this lego set, no sirree bob. ALL THE BRICKS ON THIS ESTABLISHMENT ARE ADEQUATELY MORTARED. So.
In the honey-coated annals of horror history ,there haven’t been many horror movies starring bears. Strange, considering the only bear in popular culture is the jolly ol’ honeybear himself, Winnie the pooh. A lover of the sweet sweet syrupy fructose known as honey. But what is honey exactly? The reproductive juices of the honeybee? Why even call it honey, then? Call it the larval vomit of insects that we spread on our toast with chagrin and great aplomb. Friend, oh dear friend of mine, I warn you, once the tape starts you’ll never look at honey, bears, bees, rabbits or even tiny, tiny pigs with tiny pig limbs the same way again.
I made a three bean salad, blended up a delicious pineapple-apple Chicago oriole milkshake, began frosting a cake, prepared a piping hot bowl of tortellini, insisted the government caused the September and made myself a big, big tasty pie bowl of nobody views me anymore. I poured some powdered sugar on some French toast, cut myself a big ol’ pumpkin-pied wedge of the pumpkin pie, pulled a drumstick off a November Christmas ham, and lifted a boiling buttered lobster out of the with my bare hands.
I sat down alone to enjoy my feast of kings and prepared for the modern court jester, the VHS. But I didn’t get anything in the realm of entertainment. Unless you consider entertainment to involve… never mind.
The episode started with a loud, gurgrling voice. The hundred acred wood looked sadder and full of despiair. You immediately see eyore had committed suicide through hanging himself from a tree with his own tail which he cut off. The rabbit walks outside angrily with a burning cross on the front step. What shocked me the most was the sight of pooh bear reading the necromicon. There are dead human bodies all over the woods, some growing from the ground, or at least shoved into the ground from the neck up. Pooh bear smiled at the camera. “I’m going to kill each and every one of you!” and he just sat there, smiling, while piglet lay in the corner looking less like a pig and more like an unmoving bowling pin. The piglet’s mouth wasn’t moving but it was still as tenacious as couild be. “Oh what fun we can have with gunpowder and dynamite!” He proceeded to tell the audience how they could assemble a bomb from common household ingredients! “And as for a shell casing, nothing works better or faster than a living vessel.” He smiled.
Pooh bear hung up some “happy birthday tigger!” surprises because I guess it was his birthday. Tigger ewalked into the door. Piglett…piglet exploded. Highly realistic blood and gore spewed out from every orifice as his tiny arms and legs flew across the screen. Piglett’s tiny intestines slapped poohbear in the face while the big yellow bear just kept smiling away.
Tigger, the black-striped tiger, was known for his jumping. But now he just limped painfully with two broken ankles. He fell down dead as insects picked his corpse clean in what looked like timelapse video of ants rending the soft fur and flesh into nothing but a gaping, open jawed tiger skeleton.
You hear some strange, masonic chanting as Pooh begins to conjure up threats to ancient san muerte. A storm and a flood fill the hundred acre woods as the remaining residents are drowned or killed. “And I have just one more thing to tell you.” Smiled the bear. “I’m full…” He picked up a big ol’ pot of the sweet stuff and shoveled it into his face. “Kids.” He smiled. “I’m full of bees!” He opened his mouth as bloody pools began to soak out of the face of the costume. Bees flew out of Winnie the pooh’s mouth, throat and eyelids. The neck falls limp a little while more and more bees burrow their way out of the highly, realistically drawn organs as he continues to talk, a disembodied voice. “I’ve always been watching you, and now your soul belongs to us. There won’t be a tomorrow, a fate worse than death awaits you, fingers in your ears, hands on your back, I crawl like your family but the door was never opened. Who was here, who was there? Do not cry out in this hollow space.” As the final bees crawl out from the costume, his wrinkled yellow eye sockets are filled with empty, empty black hollow holes. “For the hour is late and I own your dreams.” The bear skin falls on the floor, torn apart as the bees begin to crawl and burrow. One crawls on what could be considered the camera lens and the screen just sits there.
There’s some music here, but its more downplayed than the usual music you hear on the show. Cut to Christopher Robin’s house, the boy who supposedly originally discovered the hundred acre wood. Well, the book is torn and glued shut by superglue. It looks like its been severely damaged, as though someone tried to cut it, burn it, freeze it, but nothing could break this book. You see Christopher Robin just laying there on his bed, not moving or breathing. His eyes are completely sewn shut with “X’es” covering both in a not very cartoonlike fashion. Then I heard Pooh’s disembodied voice…
“And if you say Winnie the Pooh in the mirror three times with the lights off, this will happen to you too. Fuckhole.” And then the tape cut off.
My appetite was ruined. I dumped out the chalupas, the big macs, the crème brulee and ten boxes of little Debbie snack cakes down the toilet. I decided to throw out all the food in my house after watching this. To be honest the whole thing just made me sad, uncomfortable and nauseous. I had completely lost my appetite. I opened the fridge. The tiny plastic honeybear container smiled at me. It was a sinister smile, I’ll tell you that much.
Curiosity got the best of me, though. A few weeks of sleepless nightmares involving bears, bees and the collective works of Ayn Rand later, I decided to try what the tape said. I mean It was just a tape, right? It’s not like when things happen in these stories and then later it really happens in real life I mean that never happens in these stories right?
I took a deep breath and looked in the mirror.
“Winnie the Pooh.” I said. He showed up immediately. He thought I couldn’t see him there, but I could. “Winnie the Pooh” I said it a second time and he started to move closer. I decided not to say it a third time. I know what you’re thinking. I should have, right? Well, instead I made a sandwich. “Maybe you should consider a healthier choice.” A voice whispered. I mean it was him, he was right there, in the corner. Thought I couldn’t see him still.
He hadn’t even appeared. I found out that there was a camera installed under my sink and someone in a van outside had been stalking me.
I sighed, loudly. I ate my sandwich and went to bed. And when I woke up, they were all there. Yes, I know, you’re tired of this, well so am I. The ragtag collection of lost episode villains were all standing in my living room. George Jetson was using my coffee machine. Doctor Robotnik was playing with my jenga blocks! Garfield the cat was eating some baking soda in the fridge and smiling at me. The eyes of the many lost episode characters peered at me, stop immediately, and began to sing.
And began. To. Sing.
“Fruits. Vegetables.
Fruits. Vegetables.
Broccoli asparagus, bananas pears
Alfonz: Go straight to the fridge and I’ll meet you there!
Coconuts, peaches, plums, bananas
I’d even eat them in an African savannah!
Celery, asparagus, corn and broccoli too
We already said broccoli but that’s because it’s so good for you!
We frightened you with tapes because we want you to see!
The only true horror is not eating healthy!
Cookies, cakes and pies will make your gut and stomach swell
Bob Saget: I’m so hungry I could eat a horse, but not at Taco bell!
Thanks for listening to our spooky tale!
Now let’s all much on, a great big bowl of…kale!
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” I yelled. “Get the fuck out of my apartment, what is this?” Alfonz Ribeiro, who played carlton on the fresh prince walked out in a speedo. He stood next to a bowl of cereal with French toast and baby sausage links. “All a part of a balanced breakfast!” He attempted to dive into the bowl of cereal in a cartoon fashion, but instead cracked his head on the bowl and table and fell on the floor with an apparent concussion.
“Haven’t seen you in a while, partner.” I leered up to see, horrified, that George Jetson, my old nemesis, was alive and well. “Keep your spacely sprockets in your pants, you sick fuck.” I picked up the kitchen knife.
Then he took the costume off. They were government agents. This was all evidently just part of a plan to get kids to eat healthy. “We’re frightening you thin.” George said. “We want to scare you so much that you simply cannot eat another bite of keish, pie or baked potato with sour cream.” “By dangling your ballsack in my face?!” I screamed. George sneered at me. “Pears.” He held up two ripe pears. “They were pears, you sick fuck. Get your mind out of the fucking gutter.” Steve Urkel walked in. He sprayed V8 all over me, revealing that all of the blood in the lost episodes was just tomato juice.
Now that I thought about it, it all made sense. I mean really think about those lost episodes. Wasn’t there a severe prevalence of food in all of them. “See, that’s why we used skeletons. What’s thinner and healthier than a big, bony skeleton?” George Jetson, or Luis Alejandro, gave me a big hug and handed me a t-shirt with the food pyramid on it. He smiled at me and we talked for a bit over some deliciously fattening pumpkin pie. Now normally I’d call them out on their hypocrisy, but it was October 31st. Halloween. The night when witches and skeletons can freely roam the streets among the normal people. A night for those who wear a costume all year round to finally take it off and show the world what they truly are. Hands are snakes, fingers are skeletons and there are eyes in the punchbowl. “Ballfubbling fuckgoblins there are cookies in the fridge!” Dr. Robotnik squealed with delight, listening to a festive ipod he must have purchased somewhere.
They showed me some fantastic government technology they use such as digging holes in the tv set so actors can crawl in and out of them at will. I mean it seems a little out there, but is it really? I mean the government already watches you on camera, watches you on google maps, can hack into your smartphone, can listen to your conversations, record your webcam video, stalk you through campaign-targeted google searches, send drones to scout your possession, access your emails, scout you through automated databases, detain your thumbprints, access public medical records, see you naked at the airport… Comic Sans the Man Hernandez opened up a can of peanuts similar to how he opens up a can of whoop-ass on a regular basis.
“What’s that.” Luis said. He pointed to… a bee. “It’s a bee.” I said. “What’s a bee?” He asked. “It’s what comes before a but not after c!” I joked, but Luis was no longer laughing. “No seriously what is that!” He screamed. “It’s a bee.” I said. “Buzz buzz.” I said.
All of a sudden the cabin door ripped open and a live grizzly bear painted yellow entered! “Oh my god!” They screamed. “Oh my god!” The bear ravenously bit into all of them, mauling them to death. Someone had turned the stereo up louder and themesongs to all of my favorite tv shows played while the bear violently turned them to piles of blood and guts. Many were naked, some were fucking each other in the ass, but when it was time for the bear to maul me it simply grabbed me, laughing and held me close to its gnarled hairy chest, and laughed and laughed. Vegetable juice was everywhere. The bodies were forced, some half alive, into a big wicker tree. And burned alive.
“You see there, piglet. There are no stars, no gods, no heaven or hell. Nothing exists but empty space and you are but a thought. A vagrant thought, a useless thought, left to wander forlorn among the empty eternities. Go now, dream other dreams, and better. Happy Halloween!”
There are bees in the fridge now. Bees in the cupboards. Bees on the table, bees in the bathtub. Bees in breadboxes, bees driving cars. A bee wrote this. And by the time you read this there will be a bee on every block, a bee in your cellphone, bees in the VHS boxes, honeycombs in our hearts and the whole world will be covering you in sticky molasses.
Open your mouth and let the bees escape your burning spirit. Or you might just cry honey and the world will see you for what you truly are.
{{by|Schizima}}