Dead Bart Trilogy

NOTE: This page is a collection of the creepypasta “Dead Bart” by KI Simpson.
== Dead Bart (1st Story) ==
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.
Finding details about this missing episode is difficult, no one who was working on the show at the time likes to talk about it. From what has been pieced together, the lost episode was written entirely by Matt Groening. During production of the first season, Matt started to act strangely. He was very quiet, Mentioning this to anyone who was present results in them getting very angry, and forbidding you to ever mention it to Matt.
I first heard of it at an event where David Silverman was speaking. Someone in the crowd asked about the episode, and Silverman simply left the stage, ending the presentation hours early. The episode's production number was 7G06, the title was Dead Bart. The episode labeled 7G06, Moaning Lisa, was made later and given Dead Bart's production code to hide the latter's existence.
In addition to getting angry, asking anyone who was on the show about this will cause them to do everything they can to stop you from directly communicating with Matt Groening. At a fan event, I managed to follow him after he spoke to the crowd, and eventually had a chance to talk to him alone as he was leaving the building. He didn't seem upset that I had followed him, probably expected a typical encounter with an obsessive fan. When I mentioned the lost episode though, all color drained from his face and he started trembling. When I asked him if he could tell me any details, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and handed it to me. He begged me never to mention the episode again.
The piece of paper had a website address on it, I would rather not say what it was, for reasons you'll see in a second. I entered the address into my browser, and I came to a site that was completely black, except for a line of yellow text, a download link. I clicked on it, and a file started downloading. Once the file was downloaded, my computer went crazy, it was the worst virus I had ever seen. System restore didn't work, the entire computer had to be rebooted. Before doing this though, I copied the file onto a CD. I tried to open it on my now empty computer, and as I suspected, there was an episode of The Simpsons on it.
The episode started off like any other episode, but had very poor quality animation. If you've seen the original animation for Some Enchanted Evening, it was similar, but less stable. The first act was fairly normal, but the way the characters acted was a little off. Homer seemed angrier, Marge seemed depressed, Lisa seemed anxious, Bart seemed to have genuine anger and hatred for his parents.
The episode was about the Simpsons going on a plane trip, near the end of the first act, the plane was taking off. Bart was fooling around, as you'd expect. However, as the plane was about 50 feet off the ground, Bart broke a window on the plane and was sucked out.
At the beginning of the series, Matt had an idea that the animated style of the Simpsons' world represented life, and that death turned things more realistic. This was used in this episode. The picture of Bart's corpse was barely recognizable, they took full advantage of it not having to move, and made an almost photo-realistic drawing of his dead body.
Act one ended with the shot of Bart's corpse. When act two started, Homer, Marge, and Lisa were sitting at their table, crying. The crying went on and on, it got more pained, and sounded more realistic, better acting than you would think possible. The animation started to decay even more as they cried, and you could hear murmuring in the background. The characters could barely be made out, they were stretching and blurring, they looked like deformed shadows with random bright colors thrown on them.
There were faces looking in the window, flashing in and out so you were never sure what they looked like.
This crying went on for all of act two.
Act three opened with a title card saying one year had passed. Homer, Marge, and Lisa were skeletally thin, and still sitting at the table. There was no sign of Maggie or the pets.
They decided to visit Bart's grave. Springfield was completely deserted, and as they walked to the cemetery the houses became more and more decrepit. They all looked abandoned. When they got to the grave, Bart's body was just lying in front of his tombstone, looking just like it did at the end of act one.
The family started crying again. Eventually they stopped, and just stared at Bart's body. The camera zoomed in on Homer's face. According to summaries, Homer tells a joke at this part, but it isn't audible in the version I saw, you can't tell what Homer is saying.
The view zoomed out as the episode came to a close. The tombstones in the background had the names of every Simpsons guest star on them. Some that no one had heard of in 1989, some that haven't been on the show yet. All of them had death dates on them.
For guests who died since, like Michael Jackson and George Harrison, the dates were when they would die. The credits were completely silent, and seemed handwritten. The final image was the Simpson family on their couch, like in the intros, but all drawn in hyper realistic, lifeless style of Bart's corpse.
A thought occurred to me after seeing the episode for the first time, you could try to use the tombstones to predict the death of living Simpsons guest stars, but there's something odd about most of the ones who haven't died yet.
All of their deaths are listed as the same date.
== Dead Bart/Script (Transcript) ==
NOTICE: This was an script of an original Dead Bart story
The intro was the normal season 1 intro. You can't see this on TV anymore, it's a little longer and has a few slight differences from the pre-HD intro that started in season 2 and replaced the season 1 intro in syndication. The chalkboard has Bart writing:
"The good aren't the only ones who die young."
The couch gag seems incomplete, we see a still frame of an empty couch while we hear a static noise.
The episode starts with the Simpsons family at the table.
Bart: Dad, why do we have to go on this stupid trip?
Homer: I've had enough of your whining you stupid little brat, just eat your breakfast and get packed.
Bart: The only reason we're going on this trip is because you're a loser who can't afford to take us anywhere good.
Homer slaps Bart across the face. Lisa seems upset by this, and talks to Marge.
Lisa: Mom, can't you do something?
Marge: Just let it go.
Lisa: But I'm scared that...
Homer: Lisa, shut up and stop bothering your mother or you're next.
Lisa stops talking and seems to be holding back tears. Marge just sighs and looks at the ground.
The scene cuts to the Simpson family loading their car. Ned Flanders is mowing his lawn and sees them.
Ned: So long Simpsons clan, may God bless you on your trip!
Homer: Shut up Flanders.
Bart: Yeah, no one's going to make a trip with this fat moron fun.
Homer: Shut up you little smart ass punk!
Homer slaps Bart again.
Bart: I wish I was dead.
Homer: You're not the only one, now shut your face and get in the car.
The family gets in the car and starts driving. Marge is trying to wipe Bart's face where Homer's slap left a mark, but Bart pushes her away. Lisa keeps nervously looking back and forth between Homer and Bart.
We see the Simpsons' car pulling into the airport parking lot, the family gets out, hauling their luggage.
Bart: Can't we just stay home? You'll just spend the entire trip watching TV and stuffing your face like usual, Homer.
Homer: I swear to God, if you mouth off one more time I'm throwing you under the plane while it's taking off!
Marge: Homer, if the kids really don't want to go, maybe we should just stay home.
Lisa: Yeah Dad, I really don't think the trip is worth it if you'll just keep fighting the entire time.
Homer: I'm not the one being a rude little brat, now stop making excuses for Bart and shut up.
Lisa: But Dad...
Homer slaps Lisa. Marge looks like she's about to get angry, but her face falls and she just sighs and keeps walking. The Simpson family is presenting their tickets and about to board the plane. An early version of Raphael (the sarcastic guy who does various jobs) is the clerk.
Raphael: Five coach tickets. Enjoy your trip, big spender.
Homer looks like he's about to punch Raphael, but manages to restrain himself. The family walks onto the plane, their part of it is in very poor condition, you can see cracks in a few of the windows.
Bart: This smells even worse than our car.
Marge: Bart, please, stop aggravating your father. For me?
Bart: It's not my fault you married a fat loser.
Homer slaps Bart again, noticeably harder than the previous times.
Homer: Now I don't want to hear one more word from you for this entire trip, do you understand you little piece of crap?
Lisa is crying slightly, obviously trying not to. Homer ignores her, Marge looks at her but doesn't seem to be able to think of anything to do to help.
Pilot: We will be taking off now, everyone please fasten your seat belts until we are at full height.
The plane starts gathering speed. Bart takes off his seat belt.
Homer: Bart! Put your seat belt back on this second or...
Bart: Or what? You'll take yours off and come after me? You wouldn't get off your fat ass even if it was safe.
Homer just growls and starts grinding his teeth.
Marge: Bart, please, you could get hurt! Bart: I don't care, it can't be worse than sitting next to Homer.
Bart starts fooling around, messing with carry on luggage, climbing on people who are buckled into their seats. Bart is across the aisle from Homer, right next to a cracked window.
Homer: BART! Get back in your seat right now!
Bart: Screw you Homer, this is the most fun I'll have on this stupid trip. I'll...
The plane lifts off the ground. Bart loses his balance and falls backwards. He grab part of the seat, his legs kicking back and forth. His foot hits the window and breaks it. The crack turns into a hole the size of a person, and Bart gets sucked out. We see him falling out of the plane from an overhead angle, he's too small to see the details. He quickly falls and crashes into the ground. The camera zooms in on his corpse, which looks closer to a slightly off photo than anything animated. Blood is seeping out from under his body, the front is intact, but his eyes are clearly lifeless, and his limbs are at an unnatural angle. The camera stays on this picture for a few minutes, ending act one.
Act two begins with Homer, Marge, and Lisa crying, there isn't much more to say about it. There isn't any coherent dialogue, the first two minutes look and sound like a normal Simpsons episode where the characters happen to be crying. Minute three is when the voice acting improves, the crying sounded more real than any acting I had experienced before. Minutes four and five have the faces appearing in the windows, pausing I was able to make out some details, they don't seem to be any particular characters, they seem more like pencil sketches colored Simpsons yellow. The murmuring also starts during these minutes. Minutes six and seven have the animation decaying, by the end of the act you probably wouldn't be able to tell it was The Simpsons if you started watching at that point.
Act three opens with the one year later title card, the family is still at the table. The animation has returned to normal, but they're all skeletally thin. Maggie isn't present, but her high chair seems to have dust on it.
Marge: Another pointless day. Homer: Why couldn't we have all died.
Lisa: Let's just figure out what to do today, then we can wait for it to be over.
Marge: We've never even been to Bart's grave, maybe we'll feel better if we finally visit it.
Homer: We won't, you know we won't.
Despite this, Homer gets up from the table. The family goes outside and starts walking down the street. The first few blocks are completely deserted, but look normal otherwise. The next few have the houses showing signs of neglect, overgrown lawns, broken windows, cracks in the structure. The last blocks before the cemetery have the house looking even more decrepit, and with loose, unstable animation. The family reaches the cemetery, and finds Bart's body just lying in front of a tombstone, looking just like it did at the end of act one.
Marge: My special little guy...
Lisa: He's never going to look any different, is he?
Homer: He doesn't want us to get over this, he died angry at me, and I'm supposed to remember that forever.
The family starts crying again, this goes on for a few minutes. Homer then speaks his inaudible line, and the view zooms out, showing the guest star tombstones. The handwritten credits appear, and then the shot of the entire family on the couch drawn in the style of Bart's corpse. The file doesn't end on its own, it just stays on that shot until you close it.
== A Dead Bart Update (2nd Story) ==
Well, I had to get rid of that computer that I watched the episode on. Even after a complete reformatting, it never worked correctly. The episode file could never be deleted from it and it kept opening on its own. I wiped the hard drive clean several times, but the episode wouldn't go away.
The sound control didn't work and it was a laptop, but the power never seemed to run out and I couldn't get it to turn off. I was going to keep the computer just so I'd have a copy of the lost episode, but looking at it was making me nervous. I had a recurring nightmare several nights in a row. as the lost episode. The episode was playing, but instead of the photo-realistic Bart corpse, it was myself at ten years old. I found a picture of myself at ten and the nightmare was closer to it than my own memory had been. I swear... that picture of myself at ten, dead, started flashing on the computer screen so quickly that I could never be sure. After that, I destroyed the computer.
I haven't been able to get the episode out of my head, though, and decided to do more research to try to understand it. I found a few people online who seemed to know about it; apparently the episode aired once in a suburb of Portland, Oregon. I have a cousin who was watching The Simpsons during the first season and lives around there, so I asked him if he remembered the episode.
He asked me how I knew about it; it was a nightmare he had that he had only told his parents about, and I was only a few years old at the time. I told him about the episode I saw and the people online who remembered it. He thought I was just playing a prank on him, and when I got him to look at the online posts about it, he screamed and hung up. He hasn't responded to any attempts I made to contact him since.
Determined to get to the bottom of this, I kept searching online. I found someone who said they had a tape of it they would sell to me. I was nervous, but determined to find out the truth about this and end the matter. I bought the tape as well as a really old and cheap TV/VCR, since I had a feeling neither would be the same after I watched the episode.
The episode was pretty much the same as the file I downloaded... I don't want to say anymore; this wasn't worth it and I'd give anything to go back to how I felt when I had the computer with the file scaring me. I destroyed the tape, but it didn't help. The commercials on the tape... I don't want to remember them. There were monsters from my dreams I had never told anyone about, news promos about tragedies that hadn't happened yet, surreal computer generated animation that wouldn't have been possible in the 80's—or now for that matter!
A former friend watched it with me, but he saw completely different things, with one exception. There was a seemingly live news report from June 6, 2013. In complete monotone, he recited the details of millions of people having died in their sleep, some of them waking up for a few seconds first, rambling incoherently about something that people could only piece together had something to do with nightmares, and I'm sure you can figure out what date was on the tombstones of the currently alive celebrities.
There was one difference in the episode itself, though. The "joke" Homer told was completely clear on this version. When it zooms in on Homer's face, while looking at Bart, he says:
"If only we all were that lucky."…
== Dead Bart: From Start to End (Final Story) ==
NOTICE: This was an final page of an Dead Bart trilogy. I took 4 pages to my Dead Bart trilogy series.
==Dead Bart: Uncomplete==
The story of “Dead Bart” is a long and confusing one. To summarize, Dead Bart was a production by Matt Groening, and one of the first episodes in “The Simpsons” series. Today, not much footage from "Dead Bart" exists, since most copies have been destroyed. Including those made by the studio. The production has been considered to be a “mistake”, and those who have seen the episode, or worked on it, have said that the creation of it should never have happened.
FOX labels all of its episodes according to a smart and efficient system. But the creation of "Dead Bart" has caused an inconsistency in the amount of episodes reported. The original production label given to the episode was “7G06”, but searching for 7G06 brings up another episode, entitled “Moaning Lisa.” People believe that this is to hide the fact that Dead Bart was ever created.
Many people know the plot of the story quite well, having read about it in endless Creepypasta. But not many know the actual origin of the production.
==Dead Bart: Over the Years==
During the early part of 1989, Matt Groening was experiencing quite a few health problems. He had been experiencing serious delusion and had visions of his death from time to time, many of them eerie and vomit-inducing. He was under a lot of pressure to produce quality content for FOX, who were forcing him to work nights in order to get the first season of The Simpsons finalized and ready for broadcast. Having made several mistakes in his life so far, he had decided to make one more, and that mistake was Dead Bart.
He wrote the episode in hopes that it would allow him to sleep easy. Like many people write their feelings down on paper, Matt felt that doing the same would take his mind off things. Except for instead of just writing them down, he put them into a storyline, and made his characters play out the scenario.
The episode starts with four characters: Bart, Homer, Lisa and Marge. Maggie hadn’t made an appearance in the episode, as the overall idea for The Simpsons was a lot different when he had started writing Dead Bart. This includes Maggie being absent. There are several fan theories regarding continuity as to when and how Maggie was born.
The Simpsons show was originally going to make stylistic use of death, and the ramifications of someone dear dying. The characters had stronger feelings, due to the effects of death on them in earlier years. Bart had more hatred for his elders, Marge was subject to depression, Lisa was more anxious and Homer was a lot angrier. This concept wasn’t scrapped completely in newer episodes of The Simpsons though. Homer still has a strong sense of anger, as reminiscent of him strangling Bart all the time. One of them is related to the characters feelings, Homer being angry, and Marge being depressed may drive them away from reproduction, plus Marge’s depression may have been caused by previous experiences. (Maybe she had an abortion?).
The episode Matt had wrote wasn’t supposed to be an actual production though, it was simply a log of his feelings turned into a script. But somewhere along the line, one of the head animators had picked up Matt’s work, and took the episode seriously, animating the entire thing, and had voice tracks produced to go along. The voice actors became suspicious as to why they had been asked to read such deluded lines, but they never brought it up with Matt, as they didn’t want to mess with an individual who was in such a state. (Or somebody in more authority than them for that matter.)
The production eventually came to the rendering stage. Matt was brought into a conference room, where the head animator had the final render on tape. Matt was dumbfounded as to why he was asked in, seeing that he was screening another episode that week, and official production hadn’t been announced yet.
The tape started, with the family, as described above. As Matt watched he became pale and looked flushed. The first scene eventually came to a close, and he was already on the verge of tears.
I’m not going to summarize the rest here, if you need to, go look at the original Creepypasta, entitled “Dead Bart”
As time ran out, and the credits were fading out, a black and white FOX logo appeared on the top of the screen, and the production label, 7G06 faded in just below that, along with the words “Final Sales Copy”. That’s where the tape ended. After that Matt left and went home. The team didn’t see him for another two days, and when he finally turned up, he completely ignored everyone around him. After being asked about his absence by the receptionist, he quoted “we shall never talk about it again.” Since that time, the entire team has uttered not one word about the day.
The tape was thrown out. Not burnt, not destroyed, just thrown out. This allowed an eager fan to pick up the tape from the alley way outside. He watched it several times. His 12 year old son found out about the tape by accident. He then attempted to set the tape alight. Though not a successful destruction, this caused the footage to become shaky and filled with static. An anonymous man recovered the video cassette and uploaded it to a webserver under the name of “deadbart.completeandexploited.net/pwtrue/7g06” which when opened, would bring up a blank black page with a yellow download link. The page doesn’t exist today, and Google failed to get a cached version of it. Not many people can recollect memories of the page while it existed, but some can, including Matt Groening himself.
After many weeks of moping over the incident, Matt had received an email, on his personal address, containing the link “deadbart.completeandexploited.net/pwtrue/7g06”, which was masked as “thesimpsonsofficial.com.” Seeing no harm, and assuming it was their reeboted site, he went ahead and clicked it. This being in the days of 128kbps internet, the page slowly loaded, and then Internet Explorer packed up under the pressure. Matt decided to take a look later on his home PC. After finally getting onto the site, he downloaded the 20mb file entitled “justforyou.flv” and loaded it into his Flash player. To his dismay, the file downloaded was a ripped file of Dead Bart. He closed down his computer, and attempted to track down the old cassette to make sure that it wasn't seen by any one else, but never managed to find it. He could remember the entire website link though, off by heart. It was the shock.
Eventually a presentation came around, documenting the success of the first season. A Q&A was opened up to the crowd, when a young lad asked about the missing episode. David Silverman, the man speaking at the time closed down the presentation hours before they intended the presentation to end.
Another lad, who was researching on the episode at the time, stalked Matt down at the end, and asked about the episode. In his dumbfounded state Matt wrote down:
“deadbart.completeandexploited.net/pwtrue/7g06”
On a piece of paper, and handed it to the enquirer. He then begged him to never speak of the episode again.
That man was the original writer of the Dead Bart Creepypasta.
Although only one VCR of the episode was ever made by the studio, some interns had stolen early footage in the form of Betamax tapes they brought in from home. You would think a major studio would keep their resources safe.
Another man has documented his experiences with a bootleg tape of Dead Bart. Legend has it the start of the tape contained an aired episode of The Simpsons, and he had watched this from start to finish, but hadn’t realized that the tape also contained Dead Bart. While making coffee for himself he heard a loud shouting from the room he had been in, something along the lines of Homer shouting Bart’s name out. When he arrived back in the room he was able to witness Bart being plummeted from a plane, 50 feet up in the air, to be followed by the crunching sound of broken bones. That’s when the VCR player caught fire, and the tape was initially ruined, except for a scene right at the end, showing Bart’s dead body.
==Dead Bart: Where We Stand Now==
With both known tapes of Dead Bart ruined, the latter of people have assumed that Dead Bart was just a story, nothing but fancy words, written to amuse and scare. But it wasn’t. The truth is that the episode was produced. I saw it when I was eight. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since. I now spend my life researching the meaning, and the cause of Dead Bart. Whenever I hear a name being shouted, or screaming from afar, I panic, my heart starts racing. And I see it, that dead lifeless corpse, the one of Bart, with his dead eyes staring right at me in disgust, and I look back at him. Feeling mutual.
Category:Historical Archive
Category:Fox
Category:The Simpsons