Sparkles and Gloom, 2003 workprint
Many years ago, when my sister was about 7 and I was 15, we were left by ourselves while our mother was at work. At that time, she was in love with this solo cartoon named "Sparkles and Gloom" which was a pilot pitched for Nickelodeon. She was so infatuated with it that our grandmother even made homemade stuffed dolls of the characters for her. My sister brought them everywhere. She would always ask me when the next episode would come out. I didn't want to disappoint her with the fact this was just a one-time animation, and would tell her "Maybe some day". We sat down in the living room together and turned the TV on. We skipped through the channels and noticed two familiar characters on the screen as we skipped through Nickelodeon. My sister got so happy and excited when she saw Sparkles and Gloom. I returned to Nickelodeon, but the screen was black. A text followed, "Sparkles and Gloom, 2003 workprint. Test version, not for publication", followed by a hotline beep, much like what you heard during those emergency hotlines that interrupted your shows. Finally, the introduction began. It looked almost like the one in the final version, but with many noticeable differences. The lack of color, almost everything being in a rough sketch form, and only minor beats in place of where the music should have been.
The introduction closed, and the beginning of the episode finally took place. It was an environmental shot of the village, followed by mountains like what we see in the completed short. It slowly zoomed in, following the voice of a narrator. He had a voice similar to the one we hear in the original Grinch cartoon, but his voice was so muffled and distorted that we couldn't make out a single thing he was saying. I even had to rewind the sequence several times to see if I could hear anything audibly. The only words I could make out were "Sisters", "Rivalry", and "Fun-mischief". This shot stayed on the screen for nearly 2 minutes with just background music playing. I reached for the remote again and suggested changing the channel, but my little sister begged me not to, as this was her favorite cartoon. I put the remote down in her favour, and the cartoon finally continued. Sparkles popped her head in the screen for a brief second, then jumped back out of view. She then walked into the screen in full view, but I noticed her outfit was different. It was black like what it was when we see her competing against Gloom, but it also had red splatters on the corner of it, and even on her face. She waved and spoke in a voice that was done by a different woman than what is heard in the official animation. It was much lower, and she sounded shaky, like as if she were coerced into reading her lines. Listening closely, it sounded like she was even about to cry. She was introducing the viewer(s) to the "Geevil school" and described the fun activities they did there. The school was on fire, and the sky was dark red with black clouds. No rainbow, no gloomy half of the sky, just crimson dark red. It didn't even look cartoonish at all. It was like a CG-I or professionally edited sky that was changed to dark red. The sky was even moving, as if it was being recorded from a first-person camera view. Sparks of lightning even appeared a few times with an unsettling roar followed by strong wind. I started hearing chattering in the background of the audio, and had to rewind it and turn the volume up. I was very uncomfortable at my discovery. In the background, you could hear arguing between the production crew and Sparkles' actress, but it sounded like it had been washed out with the wind and thunder intentionally overlapping it. I didn't change the channel because my sister didn't notice.
Gloom then walked in, but her outfit was a dark red, rather than purple. Her eyes were also red. Like Sparkles, she also was voiced by a different actress than what is heard in the completed cartoon, and spoke in a shaky tone as if she were threatened to read her dialogue. This actress was an actual-child and indeed cried several times throughout her dialogue, as opposed to Sparkles who was able to hold her emotions in. She and Sparkles had a traditional cartoony argument with each other, before introducing us to their classmates in the school. Sparkles did her trademark frollicking throughout the hallways as Gloom slowly followed behind her in a comedic way. The pictures on the class walls made my stomach turn. I have seen many real life shock videos and photos, but I won't even repeat what these pictures displayed. I don't even remember a majority of them. Finally, the two girls step into a classroom with all of their friends which were the characters we saw in the completed cartoon, but were colored differently and had some minor changes to them. Everybody gathered and sung the Geevil School tune, but the melody was different and everybody sounded anxious and I could even hear moaning and crying from some of them. At that, the singing sounded like it was coming from far more people than the amount of characters displayed. The characters all finished their song then sat down.
I can't remember much of what happened throughout the continuing minutes of the cartoon, so I will run down what left of it I can recall. A scene opened, taking place at midnight. Sparkles was sitting in her room, an environment we never see in the final cartoon. The room wasn't in the 2D style that the show was animated in. It was a real life prop of a room, designed to look like a child's bedroom. Sparkles was much taller in this sequence and her arms were twisted and skeletally thin. She done completely in claymation with many visible holes and tears revealing her wires, as well as many rotted spots. She also moved in a way as if occasional frames were skipped. She was on her knees, looking outside of her window sobbing. Her eyes begin sparkling, not the typical giant eyes with shiny highlights which traditional types of cartoony characters like these ones are best known for. This was a more realistic kind that got every detail correct. So correct in fact, that it could have even taken more than one artist to tackle each minor outline. She wept as she looked up at the moon and tried having a conversation as if talking to her parents, who were apparently deceased in this version of the cartoon. "I am sorry my wicked sister killed you, mom.. And dad.. You were both beautiful people.. You didn't deserve what happened..". The scene cut from there. It was black for another few seconds before making another jumpcut. Next appeared 1993 surveillance footage inside of a dark hospital. A woman was there, seemingly being the only one inside of the entire floor. She was giving birth to two babies. Moments later, a young girl in purple walked into the shot and took one of them. The mother started crying then let out a piercing scream as if she was being tortured. Something that stood with me for years and would even occasionally wake me up at the middle of the night. She was left with the other baby. The footage ended.
Blackness occurred once again for several seconds, then finally opened with a claymation of a tree waving back and forth several times in front of a house and a snowy environment, before rotting and turning into dust. The same wind from the beginning of the episode returned, somewhat more muffled. The snow in the background melted and the house slowly collapsed. In the same way as Sparkles' realistic tears, it was very detailed, but likely not done by the same animators. The frame paused for a few seconds before cutting to Gloom laying on the ground. She was moaning in pain and blood splashed out of her mouth. She had no eyes or nose and was panting and surrounded by entrails. Then walked in two characters. One being Sparkles and the other being a brand new girl I didn't recognize. The animation was also very poor this time around. She pulls out a meat tenderizer and raises it above her head, looking down at Gloom. She tells her, "Don't feel bad. Think of it like a repayment for our parents". I got too scared. I finally turned the TV off. My sister didn't pout this time. She looked up at me and asked what was going to happen to Gloom. I closed my eyes and lowered my head. I told her it was better if she didn't find out. We resumed that day reading some of my dad's old Spider-Man comic books he lended me when I was my sister's age. It was around sunset; I heard something at the door and I got up to answer it. I thought it was our mother, but when I looked outside, there was only a note. The message on the note, "Thanks for watching our show! We can't wait for you to join us in our pain! You're next!". I was sickly at this point. It wasn't the message of the letter, but it was the fact that we live in a massively spaced out cul-de-sac where it would take somebody a few minutes to run off and disappear but there wasn't even the sound of walking or running away from our house after the note was left. I called our closest neighbour with a surveillance camera to see if he was able to pick anything up at that timestamp the note was left. On the phone, he rewinded the footage to the exact time where the note was left, but there was nobody there. It was the door by itself in one frame, then in the next, the note was just on the door with nobody leaving it, even though it did pick up the audio of someone leaving it and the same thud I heard before opening the door. I returned to the living room with my sister. She noticed I was sick and asked me if we could check what was on TV. I turned it on and flipped through the channels, noticing our cable was cut. Nickelodeon was the only channel working and what appeared was Sparkles in her final design, bouncing up and down happily while giggling and telling the viewer that she can't wait for them to be apart of the next show they had. Gloom was also there, even smiling. All of their Geevil-School friends also started to jump in. I turned the TV off again, and my sister asked me if she could watch the Iron Giant instead, to which I agreed. Finally, the movie ended and it was 10 PM. My mother finally walked in the door where my little sister ran to her and greeted her with an intense hug. My mother was confused. I just closed my eyes and hugged her as well. She could tell something happened while she was gone, but I just told her it was a long day for us.
My little sister is much older now, and has been able to move on from what happened that day. She doesn't even remember Sparkles and Gloom at all. My mother just recently asked me if I recall "that one night where me and my sister got emotional", to which I know exactly what she is referring to. I am still deciding if I want to share with her what me and my sister saw that day, or if I should just convince her that her mind is playing a false memory.