Dag's Death (Lost Episode of the Angry Beavers)

Back in 1999, for my first job, I was hired by Nickelodeon Animation Studios to be an animator. I was so excited that, back then, I get to work at an animation studio, home of one of my favorite cartoons ever created on Nickelodeon, The Angry Beavers, since I work closely with the show's creator, Mitch Schauer. I even met with the voice actors of the show, Richard Steven Horvitz, the voice of Daggett, and Nick Bakay, the voice of his brother, Norbert. They all tell me about the upcoming episodes, and whatnot. So much so, they allowed me to be in screenings of the episodes before they even aired. I was so happy!

But the other day, something morbidly chaotic had happened. Mitch, Richard, and Nick came in all sick and they couldn't talk about their sickness, which is fine, it's flu season, so they left early. But before that, they gave me an episode of The Angry Beavers on videotape. I know I may be soulless, but I care more about watching the new episode with those hilarious, wacky brother beavers than worrying Mitch and friends being sick. As I got home, I put the videotape in the VCR, curious about what shenanigans will happen. Although, I wish I didn't.

The intro played normally, which made me gleeful. I mean hey; It's the Angry Beavers; how can it be possibly bad? But then, the title card came in and it said, "Dag's Death," which had more of a dark, creepy look since the title card involved Daggett's eyes in bloodshot red and the words at the bottom, in which the writer and director's credit of the episode would appear, actually read, "Yes." I wasn't ready to dismiss the episode, so whatever.

After that mess, we cut to the dam, but there is no audio, as we see Norbert having a serious and depressing look on his face. Tears didn't fall on his face, but it was pretty morbid. The audio was automatically fixed roughly 50 seconds in, with some, well, disorienting, creepy piano music rather than the happy music they play, as we see Norbert drinking the usual Yahoo! root beer, and he was trying to say, "Spoot." The problem is, and maybe I'm nitpicking and all; but the audio was muted again, and I couldn't hear Norbert at all. His lips was just moving.

Thankfully, the audio was back up again, and Daggett came in all wacky, even though he's bruised up. "Hey Norby." said Daggett. "Wan-" the sentence ended abruptly, and then, Norbert's dialogue was muted once again, and I assume he was mouthing, "Daggy Waggy." Then, Norbert's audio was unmuted and had a sinister laugh. Daggett screamed, but not in a happy-go-lucky sorta way, but in a violently painful way. Then, the screen cut to black for 30 seconds, just to hear more screaming from Daggett, as we cut to back to the episode and we hear Norbert laughing evil-like still. He then threw Daggett to the sharks in the river right by the dam as he was screaming, and he was eaten alive! It gets worse, we see semi-realistic beaver bones, meaning that it looked realistic, but was drawn in a cartoon matter, and that made me frightened!

We then see 2 minutes of Daggett's funeral hosted by Norbert, and we see all the characters sobbing. I'm talking about Treeflower the beaver, Barry the Bear, Trucky the truck-driving rat, and Bing the gecko. And they were literally crying, and we hear Daggett's name being called loudly in Norbert's voice; more of a funeral like chant, and not coming from Norbert's mouth himself (once again, like I'm sorry I'm literally repeating myself, I actually have ADD). Anyway, Norbert showed the Dagget's corpse from a shark, and Treeflower had a sick, disgusted look on her face. I would too, it was very shocking! How?! How could Norb do something like this?! Treeflower said, "Why, Norby? Why did you do this?" Norbert said, "I don't know." What made me laugh inside is that in that part, Norbert sounded like an old man rather than Nick Bakay's usual voice. To be honest, it sounds like Hank Hill from King of the Hill, but more depressed. Wait, I wasn't even aware that Mike Judge was involved in this episode? Eh, whatever.

We then see Daggett's Muscular Beaver costume, in the brother's bedroom, at the dam, and Norbert comes in and says, "He was a great hero." He then sobbed for the remainder of the episode. He cries throughout the remainder of the episode. The episode ends with Norbert hanging himself with a tied noose on top of a ceiling, which is too graphic for Nickelodeon... at least for myself.

I was extremely sick to my stomach, because I cannot believe that these hysterical characters went to their horrifying stages in that episode. What... the... fuck?

Luckily, Nickelodeon did not air this episode. But still, I quit Nickelodeon Animation Studios, and I never watched The Angry Beavers the same way after that episode... until recently in 2011 when I went back to the animation studio for a company picnic. I did not want to announce the lost episode, since the cast and crew already knew about... Dag's Death, and if anyone would contact Nickelodeon via email, phone, Facebook, whatever, just don't talk about it. It was so haunting. Also as haunting about Hank Hill... but that's a story for another time.

Originally written in 2013; revised by TVBCrap