The Praying Orange

Religious trauma. Quite a touchy subject to talk about for most people, especially for me. Not just because of how scarring it can be, but because I fear no one will believe what fueled it for me. Well, one of many things I’ve experienced during my childhood, really. Before I get to that, however, I’ll need to catch everyone up on what I’ve been exposed to.
I come from an incredibly evangelical family, with them always trying to shove the gospel in my face. As a kid, I was never sure how this would convince me to follow Jesus. Additionally, every Sunday, they would keep forcing me to go to church, even when I didn’t want to. We went to this run-down baptist church, with the pastor spouting out bible stories without a script. It kinda just felt like I was being yelled at for not following God for most of my life. The only thing I particularly enjoyed about church was the youth group my parents signed me up for.
Every Sunday evening, my parents would drop me off there for a kid’s bible school. I met many of my friends there, though only a few stayed by me to this day. We were taught a lot of the stories you’d expect: Moses parting the Red Sea, the creation of the Earth, Jesus’s birth, etc. To keep us interested, the youth pastor would keep trying to fill his sermons with meme references akin to the time. Try not to laugh when I mention that this of all things traumatized me. 
Back in 2012, we had a sermon explaining the fruit in the garden of Eden. He didn’t really explain its effects on humanity, just what it could resemble. For some reason, he attempted to explain it with an Annoying Orange parody video, even admitting he made it for us to watch. It was called “The Praying Orange”; despite what the title says, Orange didn’t pray once in it, the church just named it that because it’s a Christianity buzzword. 
The video was a parody of the first ever Annoying Orange episode, with Orange annoying Apple in a kitchen. Specifically, it featured them in the pastor’s kitchen. It also had Funny Walk- the usual Annoying Orange background music -playing over it, albeit with the kitchen’s radio audio clashing with it. The fruits had the pastor’s eyes and mouth shoddily-edited over them, with him even trying to imitate their voices. Overall, the whole thing just had a very low budget feel to it.
The video started like how the original did, but cutting the title card. It would just start with Orange annoying Apple, telling him bad jokes and repeatedly saying “hey.” Then, after a while, instead of saying the “orange you glad I didn’t say apple again” line, the scene played out differently. 
Orange: Hey! Hey, apple, hey!
Apple: What, orange? What do you want?
Orange: Orange you glad you and I follow Christ?
Orange didn’t laugh after saying that, seemingly not telling a joke. Confused, Apple was taken aback by his question.
Apple: Wh… What? No, we’re fruits, how can we even follow him?
Orange would blankly smile at him for a couple of seconds, right before his expression morphs into a disappointed look. He starts to drop the annoying act entirely. 
Orange: Well, Apple, we’re living things, right? Not just as fruits, but we can speak tongues like Him, too.
Apple: Yeah, but we don’t worship him. We’re just fruits, what do you want me to do other than inevitably get cut?
The background music slowly faded out, leaving only the kitchen’s radio music, playing a modern take on the church hymn Amazing Grace. As it played, Orange began to sound angry, looking down and gathering his thoughts. He would then answer Apple, now using a more cryptic tone to his voice.
Orange: Good question. You could always just sit there and rot without Jesus. 
Apple: Oh thanks, Orange, I never thought instead of dying I could just die but slowe-
Orange: I don’t mean it like that, Apple. Just listen to me and you won’t have to rot like how I almost did.
Apple: Oh, uh… ok?
The radio’s music slightly increased in volume during the conversation. The camera would slowly zoom in on Orange as he explains himself.
Orange: Whenever I’m not thinking about the Lord, I feel rotten both inside and outside. My mind slowly drifts away from His warm, loving hands, and my skin starts to wither. I keep trying to recite His tellings when I’m feeling down, and all of a sudden I’m back to feeling ripe.
As he talks, sections of his skin layer peel off, which seemed to be flicked off by a string. His eyes also began to slowly mold before becoming pitch black.
Apple: Uhh… I get what you’re saying but… what’s going on with your skin? 
Orange: You see it now, Apple? The painful divergence between us fruits and Christ? Are you willing to acknowledge the consequences of being alone? 
Apple: Wh-What?! What are you getting at, Or- 
Apple started to rot as well, with eyes beginning to blacken, too. The video then cut to Orange, with his lips starting to rot off, revealing an edited skull mouth underneath. 
Orange: Are you willing to accept your role as God’s fruit? The same one you were given so long ago? 
Apple: ORANGE I’M NOT SOME SORT OF CHILD OF GOD, STOP TRYING TO CONTROL ME, YOU FREAK! 
Orange: How can you be controlled if Jesus isn’t in your heart? To be there to guide you on His path? When will you let Him save you? WHEN, APPLE, WHEN? 
The music started to jumble as Orange continue to yell bible-related phrases at Apple. He would slowly start to cry in fear as it continued, eventually flopping forwards as if he’s bowing to Orange.
Apple: OK, OK, YOU GOT ME! I’M SORRY FOR NOT ACCEPTING CHRIST AS MY LORD AND SAVIOR! I’LL BE HIS FRUIT, JUST PLEASE DON’T KILL ME, ORANGE!
Orange: Do you mean it? 
Apple: Y-YES! YES, I DO! 
Orange: Hmmm… then prove it. Come over to me.
Apple would fearfully roll over to him, whimpering under his breath. Orange would study his miserable friend to see if he’s lying or not. He then notices something particularly off about Apple, widening his eyes before replying.
Orange: …Hey, Apple.
Apple: WHAT? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?! DO YOU WANT ME TO START PRAYING OR SOMETHING? DO YOU WANT ME T-
Orange: It seems you have do know what you were made for. The sins of man will be proud to know you’ve been saved.
Before Apple could even reply to his comment, Orange would try to bite down on him for a split second. The video quickly cuts to black before Apple could scream, right before displaying an eerie visual. 
It was a crayon doodle of the rotted Orange staring down at Apple bowing to him. Amazing Grace would start playing normally again, this time at a lowered pitch. The video would with text beginning to be drawn onto the screen. 
“Jesus can save a rotten wretch like you.”
As you could possibly tell, this freaked every kid- including me -in the audience out that day. Everything Orange was saying felt like the church itself was punishing us for ignoring Christ through him. I almost wanted to run out, but I just apprehensively sat there because I felt like God would punish me if I left. Surprisingly, when my parents found out about what happened, they were shocked by my reaction to it all. Well, they were only really surprised by my reaction to the video and not that it confirmed my fears about both them and the church. At the very least, they were more comforting when it came to how scared I was. By the time we got home, I immediately started reading my bible. I set aside playing on my computer that day just so I wouldn’t rot like Orange. I couldn’t even think about the channel he came from without thinking of that video; his manipulative tellings of the bible kept lingering in my young mind.
It’s now been a decade since that incident, and there’s still been times where I think about the video. I’m still a little traumatized, but I look back on it wondering what happened to both it and the person who made it. I even tried searching for it a year ago to see if the youth pastor uploaded it somewhere. It led to me to discovering that not only did the church I went close down, but the pastor didn’t have much of an online presence. Out of luck, I eventually tried to look up if the pastor uploaded it to YouTube, only to find nothing about it. I thought for a second that maybe it was a passing memory. Then, I decided to talk about it to my friends to see if they remembered it, too.
Both of them mentioned that they watched the video with me, even describing the same things I remembered from it. They also couldn’t find it from researching it either. As a result, we decided to start a lost media campaign to see if other people would be willing to find it with us. It got a few people interested in the video, even joining the server we set up to archive parts of it. We don’t know if people are able to find a scary video from a church no one else knows about, but I’m hopeful I can at least revisit it, even if it traumatizes me again.
Category:Religion
Category:Annoying Orange
Category:Lost Media
Category:Videos
Category:YouTube
Category:Retake