Creepypasta stories

The Magic School Bus Original Pilot

   

Don't worry about who I am. If you really want to know about me, just know that I'm risking a lot by posting this.

If you had a childhood, regardless of when you were born, you should remember the cartoon, "The Magic School Bus". It was a children's cartoon show in the '90s, where a crazy science teacher would take students on weekly adventures into places such as into space or through the human digestive system. It was a rather harmless, and educational show, which is the reason why it has been prominently shown to children since its premiere. What most people don't know about the show was that it was meant to fit into a line of horror stories for kids in a show that was never made, titled "Horror Is Alive!".

The show, much like the "Goosebumps" television show, was about harmless horror stories, with three being shown in one episode. Despite this, the first episode underwent a complete overhaul during it's production. What was to be the opening short was extended to full episode length, after the writer and director of the episode went through a long hard experience with illegal substances, which inspired the middle and end of the short, which uncoincidentally, is where the short takes a drastic turn. Everyone else, or at least most everybody else, were severely scarred due to the experiences making it.

Most quit after reading the script, but others were in desperate need of a job, whether it be they were animators, or mere executives. A whole first season was written, but completely abandoned after the first screening, with the final blow being that the scripts were destroyed in what was once PBS Studios HQ, after an arsonist, who is now believed to be the writer of the episodes (and again, director of this episode), obliterated the building. The few who read the scripts claimed to say they were either too gory to air, or too unnerving for children to enjoy watching. These people wish to remain anonymous, and even remain scarred to this day. 

The first episode wasn't even ready to air before the concept spiraled horrifically out of control and terrified test audiences. Originally planned by PBS, it was designed by Melnitsa Animation Studio in Russia, and thus the original pilot episode was partially animated in Russia before the first screening. In the original episode, the doubting school children were brought onto a school bus (it originally did not have eyes) that transformed into a spacecraft and brought them into space, where strange things began to happen. That was the only description the people attending the screening had, so they had no real expectations for it. After the screening, PBS took the original idea back to the storyboards, fired everyone behind the pilot's production, and remade it with well known employees into, obviously, The Magic School Bus.

The episode was sent to me in a cardboard box by one of my online friends, who simply gave me his first name, Sergei. Sergei was one of the employees during the late 80's and into the latter half of the 90's, his job was merely just checking to make sure the VHS copies of the animations weren't distorted, or any lesser quality than a first generation VHS tape. He never told me this until I expressed interest in his old job, which triggered him to spill everything. He is much older than me, at forty-three years old. The method that he used to have obtained the episode was simply sneaking into the Melnitsa Animation Studios, which is now merely a shoe-making factory, and breaking through the safe in what was then where the animation was processed, which was untouched. There, most of the old animations designed by the studio, were there. The episode was hard to find, but due to him having seen the originally copy when it was sent to him, could identify it. 

As such, the episode starts normally. The recut includes the original PBS episode 1, but the music is different, with an infinitely descending Shepard's tone replacing the happy intro. The title screen is merely black, with the words (Я не могу дышать) over what must be English subtitles that says "The Sad Bus". After some resarch, I found that it actually said "I cannot breathe", which makes a little bit of sense, considering it takes place in outer space, of course. The version I obtained was a recut.