You know how Fox has a weird way of counting Simpsons episodes? They refuse to count a couple of them, making the amount of episodes inconsistent. The reason for this is a lost episode from Season 1.January 19th, 2010. That's the earliest record I've found of "Dead Bart," a creepypasta that originated on infamous forum 4chan. If you don't know 4chan, it's the online home of users who alternate between swapping cartoon porn, saving cats from abusive owners, and mocking disturbed teenagers. They're like humanity, only...moreso. In all likelihood, "Dead Bart" was conceived in the wake of similar internet urban legends like "Squidward's Suicide" and "Suicide Mouse." Those stories, which focus on perverse "lost" footage from otherwise innocuous cartoon characters (Spongebob and Mickey Mouse, respectively), migrated from the 4chan board to tumblrs and forums two months prior, in November of 2009.
Which begs the question: just who in the hell wrote this story?
I delve into internet archaeology only because I've otherwise been fortunate in linking "Candle Cove" to Kris Straub and "Slender Man" to Victor Surge. Those stories have a clear genesis, and it's nice to credit the authors for their creativity, given the overabundance of anonymous dreck that fills creepypasta sites. "Dead Bart," as far as I can tell, has no author, and that adds to the chill factor.
The story unfolds in a conspiratorial manner, with the narrator confiding, "No one who was working on the show at the time likes to talk about [Dead Bart]." So, like so many heroes of horror fiction, the narrator decides it's a great idea to investigate the blood-curdling mystery. However, his "investigation" is remarkably easy. Too easy - why would a visibly disturbed Matt Groening go out of his way to direct the narrator right to a cursed episode? Regardless, the narrator finds the episode, watches it, and learns why nobody's ever seen it. It's a non-comedic episode of the show that has Bart sucked out of a jet window. He dies, his family mourns, and the episode grows surprisingly morbid. Late in the story, the family visits Bart's grave. They find his corpse above ground, seated with its back against the tombstone.
The family started crying again. Eventually they stopped, and just stared at Bart's body.
The description of the episode generates some goosebumps, as the narrator explains that a dead person on The Simpsons actually looks like a regular person. A clever conceit, even though the show famously made a joke out of this. It's a bummer that none of the fan art surrounding "Dead Bart" retains that element of increasing realism, especially when the narrator makes that a central element of the episode's discomforting nature. As was the case with "Candle Cove," attempts to make a video version of "Dead Bart" are simultaneously honorable and tedious.
"Dead Bart," on its own, doesn't quite have the stylistic confidence of something like "Candle Cove," which buttressed its similar adventure with a clever, intentionally amateurish "voice." What "Dead Bart" does have - what gives it longevity - is its great O. Henry punch-line. An ending twist that arguably has nothing to do with the central source of fear: the growing unease of a comedic show wallowing in grief and mortality. Instead, it goes in a completely different direction, one that doesn't cheat so much as suddenly expand the "world" of the story. So much so that the last thing you're thinking of, at the end of "Dead Bart," is Dead Bart.
Earlier Creepypasta Entries:
Creepy. You get my PM on MC?
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