I’m an early 2000s baby, so I mainly had a childhood by the late 2000s and early 2010s. My momma always bought my older siblings and I DVDs and one of my favorites was Strawberry Shortcake from 2003. Growing up, I loved cartoons and still do as a young adult.
I was home one night while my third older brother was in his room playing video games on his new gaming PC. For reference, my house is one floor with a kitchen, dining room, living room, one bathroom, and three bedrooms. The living room has a new upgraded smart TV, so an old DVD player wouldn’t work with it. I decided to go into my parents’ room because they still had their old DVD player and small TV with antennas.
My parents’ room is two doors away from my brothers’ room, so I was close. By how my brother likes to play his games, he has a headset, so he wouldn’t be interrupted if my DVD was loud.
I headed into the bedroom and looked at the shelves where the DVDs were neatly kept. I scanned for a few seconds and decided to pick out my favorite DVD of Strawberry Shortcake. It was a little dusty after not being played for so long, so I just lightly brushed my hand over the packaging. I plopped that sucker into the DVD player after turning on the TV. Thinking of that childhood nostalgia, I decided it was best to cook up some popcorn while the theme song was playing. I jammed out to it for a moment before stepping outside of the room. Of course, I cooked the popcorn in the microwave for about a minute and a half.
After pouring the fresh microwave popcorn into a bowl and spreading Valentina sauce over it with a few squeezes lime, I returned to my parents’ room. I looked at the main menu to scan for specific episodes I wanted to see and my eyes blinked for a split second. I saw an episode title I’ve never seen before.
Now, I’ve got a collection of DVDs of the Strawberry Shortcake series with every episode from every season and I’ve watched all of them multiple times when I was a kid. Enough to annoy the fuck out of my brothers whenever the cartoon was on. However, this titled was called, “Blueberry’s Sorrow Show”. Blueberry Muffin was my favorite character in this show because she had pretty wavy hair and blue was my favorite color.
I put a handful of popcorn in my mouth before clicking on that episode out of curiosity. That, my friends, would be the worst mistake of my entire damn life.
The theme song was the same and I couldn’t tell anything was wrong until the title screen came. The outside was a sky view of some scary-looking branches that seemed to be from the forest surrounding Blueberry Muffin’s home. Well, her debut episode was spooky for fun, but these backgrounds looked like they were from Ellen and Edgar or some Tim Burton film. Regardless, I kept munching on popcorn and carried on watching.
The camera zoomed in on Blueberry’s house and the inside of her house. The main room was a mess. The bookshelves were knocked over with books scattered across the floor, pillows from a couch were torn open and feathers stood from them. My eyes ran around to look at the scene to see some bones nearby. The camera turned to the left to show Cheesecake, Blueberry’s pet mouse, on his back gasping for air. The mouse seemed to have fallen on his back and was probably in his last moments judging by the menacing shadow looming over him. I heard very disturbing laughter and I stopped eating when I realized what was going on.
Blueberry Muffin herself was holding a hammer and her cheek was covered in a small spot of blood. Her hair was tangled, her clothes were torn, and she had a crazed look on her face. She laughed while bending down to her knees and looked at her dying pet.
“You thought you could save them, huh?” she asked him before the camera focused on her grip on the hammer.
Slowly, she raised her hammer in the air and began to violently hit her mouse with it. I recoiled in place as blood and guts flew around and Blueberry’s crazy laughter increased in volume. When she was done, her face was covered in Cheesecake’s blood. She sighed before getting up and leaving her house.
I wish I could have just saved myself more of the trauma, but for some jacked up reason, I chose to keep watching.
Blueberry had been hiking in the forest and it showed her path going up a trail and it soon led to a mountain and a cliff. The screen focused on her crazed expression and heavy breathing for what felt like forever. Her breathing finally melted into intense sobbing and tears began to fall. The girl was mumbling and I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but I heard “why can’t I keep my friends alive?” escape her sob.
After some time, she finally stood up and reached her arms in a T-pose. The camera focused on her from behind and she stood for a second before falling forward off the cliff. The DVD stopped and scratched before I ejected the disc from the player and the disc was horribly destroyed and burning hot to the touch.
I sat on the bed almost bursting in tears at what the hell I just saw. For months I never told anyone what I saw, but I trashed that DVD and the others of that series. I don’t know how I can handle shit like Saw or House of 1000 Corpses, but I can’t stand to see my favorite childhood cartoon become morbid out of nowhere.