Do you guys know about the Banana Splits? You know that one show from the 70's made by Hanna Barbera. Not that it's unimportant, but I do know that I won't be the same ever since what happened recently.
So, when I went to check on the mail, I saw a DVD and a letter, with the DVD supposedly branded as a Banana Splits DVD.. However, this didn't look like one to me. I read the letter first. It says that the previous owner that bought the DVD is sorry for the product arriving late. I hadn't bought this, but I was curious and wanted a better look at the DVD.
The DVD cover featured the Banana splits, as usual. However, they were also accompanied with a blue shark lady with a cyan bra and a skirt. Fleegle had shoes, but Bingo also had shoes too, and Drooper had open eyes. The title said "The new Banana splits how volume 1". I looked at the back of the DVD. The back cover showed some screenshots of the episodes contained on the DVD, and listed names of some of the episodes. I was intrigued to see the contents of the DVD. So, I shoved the DVD into my DVD player and was booted up the menu screen.
The menu screen had nothing noteworthy, it was just a larger version of the picture from the DVD box, accompanied by the Banana Splits song playing in the back. There were multiple options on the menu below.
One option was "About the cast". I clicked on this option, hoping this would give me answers to why the characters look so off. I was given a menu featuring the characters descriptions, along with pictures of the cast. There were 9 slots. I already knew who Fleegle and his buddies were, so I focused on the other 5 slots instead.
This is how I learned who the shark lady was. Her name was Amy, and she was apparently a hunter of treasures and loved reading books. There were also other characters, like Hootie, a brown tomboy owl with a purple dress, Bon bon, a pink mongoose who is a DJ, Yuko, a monkey whose a lighter shade of pink and loves Japanese culture, and Hazel, simply described as Snorky's girlfriend. When I was done reading the bios, I left the "About the cast screen".
Afterwards, full of curiosity, I then clicked on the episode selection. Looking at the episodes, I noticed one that caught my eye. An episode titled "Amy's loss", with a picture of the shark as the titlecard.
I clicked on it, and the episode started. It showed no logos or intro. Strange. Normally there would at least be an intro before the episode starts. But, whatever. The episode then cut to its first scene. Right away I notice that it is animated, which is unusual for the Banana Splits, which is normally a live action show.
Amy can be seen in Fleegle's magic shop. She seems to have a frown on her face. Fleegle approaches her, asking what's wrong. She says, in the most generic female voice that I've ever heard, that her pet turtle, Shelly, has gone missing, and that she can't find him. Fleegle then calls a meeting in hopes the other split members would know about the whereabouts of Shelly. Hazel says she was the last one with Shelly, as she had taken her to her room to give him a ban aid after he hurt his flipper. Amy decides to go into Hazel's room to she if Shelly was there.
After Amy comes out of Hazel's room, the scene transitions towards another scene. The next thing I would see would be different from the cartoon I had put on and would scare me for the rest of the night.
This time, Fleegle, Bingo, Hootie and Amy in a dark body of water wearing swim suits. They were still searching for Shelly, as he was not in Hazel's room. The crew looks everywhere, they look under rocks, behind seaweed, so long and so forth. Fleegle drops his flashlight and goes to get it. However, after catching it and going back to where his friends are, Shelly shows up and cuts Fleegle's oxygen supply. He starts choking, gasping for air, and asking Amy to stop and get him back up to the surface so he can breathe. His breathing becomes more panicked, and he starts screaming, while Bingo and Hootie watch in fear. Eventually, he goes unconscious and the screen cuts to black.
When the screen cuts back to normal, we can see Amy crying over a bloody body. I quickly notice the body doesn't belong to Fleegle, but Shelly, Amy's pet turtle. She cries about how her pet had died. The Banana splits show up to comfort her about her loss. When it's Fleegle's turn though, he doesn't show up, but instead we get a close up of Shelly's dead body while he speaks in the background. The body is mostly bruised, but also seems to have been bitten. Did Amy.. eat her pet turtle???
After the horrifying imagery, the episode proceeds to roll to the credits, while a slightly low pitched version of the Banana splits theme song plays in the background.
When I was sent back to the menu, it looked different. It was dark and had low contrast. Gloomy, moody music played in the background. I swear I could hear Fleegle's screams in the background as well. I then ejected the disk from the DVD player and put it back in it's case. I have not thought about touching it ever since.