Penelope's Park

If you weren’t an only child growing up, have you ever had to put up with sibling rivalry? I know I did, and I wish I didn’t. It can range from annoying horseplay to arguments that really chuck rocks at the heart, but what I dealt with was much more serious than that. It ended up having me separated from my brother, between a barrier of our own hatred for the longest time. 
And to think I could’ve prevented this, if I wasn't such an audacious jerk. 
I always wanted to be an animator growing up. After so much work put into college, the arts of coloring, sketching, and polishing my craft, I was finally ready to put my all into my passion project. For a while now, I’ve dreamt of showcasing my animation to the higher-ups at big companies, to see if I’m good enough or if there’s anything I need to change. I had plans to make adult cartoons as well as adverts, but I wanted to start off with something simple first, that being educational programming. 
That’s why I started my development on a pitch pilot for Noggin. Man, I’m getting sentimental just talking about this. The name of the show was “Penelope’s Park,” and like a lot of educational programming, it was meant to teach kids about basic concepts that they’re still trying to get the hang of, such as their ABCs, numbers, shapes, etc. 
During development, I had limited tools to work with. I had made the mistake of taking out loans for college at the time, and spending a hefty amount of money for a better setup was out of the question, so I decided to just stick with my graphics tablet, cheap softwares (for both sound and animation), and my desktop microphone. It’s a good thing that a girl from my class opted to voice act. I promised her that she would get paid by the reps if they thought she was “good enough,” which looking back made me sound like a dick. Thankfully, we still keep in contact, but I’ll keep her anonymous for the sake of her not getting her inbox blown up. I also had a friend from filmography class help me shoot each scene. Kudos to him. 
Now, you may be wondering, what does all of this have to do with my brother? Collin (my sibling) took the same classes I did, but he ended up dropping out. When I asked my professor, he said that it was because of “stress.” Now, I know that wasn’t the case at all. 
Fast forward to when I showed the pilot to a test group. I took deep breaths and reassured myself that things were going to work out in the end. After all, the worst thing that they could’ve told me is that this cartoon sucks, and I knew they weren’t going to say that, as I spent sleepless nights trying to perfect it. I did a short slide presentation about what I had in mind for the series, along with some business stuff like why I chose Noggin to work for. 
Finally, I rolled the film and showed them the progress I garnered over the past three months. 
The pilot started just how I remembered it. A view of my basement interior, full of toys, playsets, and of course, a dollhouse, which is where the main character came in to play. Penelope came right out of the door and the key on her back would turn with glee, ready to meet the audience. The test group seemed to like her design a lot, along with the mixture of 2D and live action. Penelope squeals with excitement.
“Oh my stars, a new friend! Hi there, super duper happy to meet’cha! My name’s Penelope, what’s your name?”
Three seconds of silence ensue. 
“That’s such a cool name! I got a feeling we’re gonna be best pals by the end of today! Hmm… there's so little time, yet so much to do. So many games to play, and lotsa memories to make! I’d love to have a partner to do all that stuff with me. Maybe you can! Whaddaya say?”
Another second of silence.
“I knew you’d be onboard! Ooh, we’re gonna have such a fantastic time together! Follow me, I’ll show ya around!”
Penelope started to walk around the setting, to where it looked like less of a basement and more like a village playset. There were little stores surrounding her, an empty fountain, and of course, a park, topped with all sorts of activities. This is where the learning portion of the pilot begins.
At this point, Penelope talks to the viewer about what kind of stuff they can do until the end of the day. She exclaims that they made it to the park, and she informs the viewer that they can have a break between playtime. After practically frolicking over to the area, the following events ensue.
The first activity is hopscotch, but with numbers. Penelope tells the viewer that she isn’t the greatest at this game because the square placement always gets her confused, so she asks you for help. She ends up mastering the game in the end, and all is well.
Next is an imagination sequence on the playground. The viewer gets to play pirates with Penelope, and she pretends that there’s an enemy boat trying to raid them. In this scenario, there is a net cannon in the bottom of the ship, but a passcode is required. Instead of numbers, the lock has pictures of things that would be on a pirate ship. Once they finally get the net cannon and fire at the enemy pirates with it, she celebrates with a sea shanty dance before the scene fades back to the playground.
Afterwards, Penelope would tell the viewer that playtime “really works up some muscle,” and asks you if you’d like to take a break. She then heads over to a bench with sketch pads on them. Penelope suggests drawing domestic animals, as she thinks they’re really cute. She starts off by sketching a simple visual of a puppy, and she asks if you like it. When it’s the viewer’s turn to draw a cat, there’s a few gags where they end up drawing something that isn’t an animal, making Penelope laugh and joke around with you. After a few attempts, the viewer finally draws a cat, and Penelope compliments their work.
Penelope talks about how they still have some time left, but she can’t come up with anything else to do. A small wind-up duckling toy suddenly shows up, and waddles against Penelope’s leg, catching her attention.
“Oh, it’s you! New pal, this is my good friend, Lucky Ducky! He usually comes by to give us cool stuff to do! What’s on your mind, Lucky?”
The toy starts front-flipping in place a couple of times before stopping. At this point, there’s a lengthy moment of silence. At first I thought that the video was bugging out, but it couldn’t have been if there wasn’t any white noise playing. As far as I know, I didn’t remember adding that at all. I thought I could fix it later, so I didn’t worry too much, until the camera cut to Penelope’s face. Her eye twitches a little, and she begins speaking in a quiet tone. 
“...are you even real-”
Just as she says that, her sentence is cut off by the scene where Lucky Ducky walks away from their direction, prompting Penelope and the viewer to follow him. That was really weird, and I know for certain I never told the voice actor to say that, but I tried to keep calm and collected. After all, I can just explain myself to the test group later, right?
Lucky Ducky leads Penelope and the viewer to a big shop playset with no staff, filled to the brim with musical instruments. Her eyes light up and she skips around the room laughing, talking about how she can’t wait to make music with you. She points to the instrument catalog on the wall, and asks if the two of you could play brass together. Assuming that you told her yes, she grabs a map and makes her way through the shop with you. 
There’s lots of doors to go through to find the one with brass instruments, and in order to find that exact room, she has to go through a pattern of doors with shapes on them. The pattern to get to the brass room is square, circle, triangle, circle, triangle. Once she reaches the room, she plays Mary Had A Little Lamb with the viewer. She marches around the room as she plays the song, with the key on her back winding up the more she stomps. 
This is where I saw another thing that I didn’t add. The screen paused for a moment, and replayed the scene where she marched around the room on loop, but it was in greyscale. A different song would play instead, and it sounded like it came straight from a funeral service. A picture of a note suddenly popped up on screen.
“A song about your career :)”
The scene then suddenly cut back to when Penelope and the viewer left the music place. I know for certain that I didn’t put that in, and the audience was just as lost as I was, but I couldn’t stop the video. I had to know what else was wrong with it, and what could’ve caused these messages to show up.
After talking about how fun it was to play the trumpet, Penelope yawns and stretches.
“Well, that was quite the fun day, but boy, am I beat! A dolly needs to relax. Ready to head home?”
She extends her arm out and smiles. A few seconds of silence ensue.
“Okay, sweet! Though, on the way home, I got somethin’ to share with ya. A little ditty, for my best pal! You were so nice, so patient, so kind to me, and what better way to show my thanks than through song?”
As she makes her way back to her dollhouse with the viewer, she starts singing and dancing. A jazz number plays, and she describes the fun day they had in alphabetical order, saying things like “A is for amazing” and “F is for friend.” 
Finally, after the song ends, Penelope stops in front of her home and gives the viewer a big hug, pressing her face against the screen. I was hopeful, and I started worrying less about the previous problems that went down. The pilot was reaching the end, and nothing too out of the ordinary seemed to happen so far. 
I thought way too soon.
Just as Penelope was about to say goodbye to the viewer so the credits could roll, the video froze again. I checked to see if the video was paused, and no, it wasn’t. The video still played, and there were about seven more minutes left in the time slot. I remember the credits only being two minutes long. It finally unpaused, and while the artstyle looked the same, the animation was slightly choppier. 
“Come inside, I have a book to finish if ya wanna read with me- …no?”
Penelope was clearly dejected after she said that, but she didn’t seem to stop smiling yet. No, this wasn’t supposed to happen, I thought. This wasn’t the ending I put in. I started to wonder what the hell this was supposed to mean.
“U-um… are you sure ya don’t wanna hang out some more? I’m always sitting in this basement by myself, with no one to talk to, and since you showed up, I thought we’d… you know, have more time to ourselves? Why do you have to go already? Are you sure you don’t want to sit on my couch and read some… M-Macbeth?”
The camera shook left and right, as if the audience was telling her no. Penelope shivers, and the sounds of a heartbeat are all that can be heard alongside her voice.
“Please, please don’t leave me here. I don’t want to go through another five years of seeing no one! Please stay!”
The viewer declines.
“...heheh, hehe! I-I get it, you need something to make the stay more worth your while, I get it, I GET IT! Y-ya want another hug, a kiss even?!”
Another decline. Tears well up in Penelope’s eyes.
“No?! What about… a piece of my dress! If you’re going to leave me rotting for another half a decade, at least carry a piece of me with you! I wanna experience the real world in some way!”
The viewer continues to shake their head at her. Even while knowing that this was a part of my creation, I still asked myself, what in the fresh hell am I looking at? Penelope continued ripping off chunks of her dress, now begging the viewer to say something other than no. She then drops the torn cloth, and puts on an angry look.
“If… if you leave, I WILL HURT MYSELF! YOU HEAR ME?! I’M NOT JOKING!”
Penelope screamed at the viewer, and the heartbeat sound effect sped up. Screeching sounds that were akin to nails on a chalkboard, along with loud, bass boosted rumbles played too. To prove that she wasn’t lying, she began to mutilate herself.
She started with her buttoned eyes, yanking them out until stuffing flew, and loose pieces of string poked out of where her eyes once were. She then grabbed onto the side of her mouth, and slowly tore it off. A few snapping noises could be heard, but she stopped a third of the way through. 
Since she was blind, she ran her hands around her back, groaning in pain, looking for her wind-up key. Once she found it, she yanked on the key three times before finally tearing it out of her. Penelope lets out a scream so loud that it sounded like it came from a slasher flick. She stabs herself in the upper body with the key, before grabbing fistfuls of stuffing and throwing them on the ground. She’d stop and gasp for breath, before yelling at the viewer. 
“STAY! PLEASE, STAY! NOTHING IS REAL, NOTHING HERE CAN TALK TO ME! I NEED YOU! STAY-”
I didn’t even sit through the next five and a half minutes to see what else would happen. I closed the video and pulled out my USB drive right then and there. I tried explaining to the lead representative that I never put those scenes in the pilot, and he didn’t believe me, but he kept calm. He showed me the way out of the building. 
I instantly rang up my classmate on the way home, and asked her if she tampered with the film. She said she’d never do that, and when I informed her of what happened in the pilot, she told me that someone called her claiming to be the co-director. She was requested to come over and record some lines while I was out getting groceries, because the project was suddenly switched to be pitched as an adult show last minute. 
Needless to say, I knew exactly who told her all of that.
I stormed into my house, barking at Collin. I was so angry that I couldn’t even think straight, and I felt like passing out right there from how hard I yelled at him. He told me everything, and he was honest about all of it. 
I didn’t truly help Collin growing up. My mother and father apparently saw me as the “better” child, and I was too dense to see it until now. From school to college, I constantly wanted to work alone, and I kept pushing him away when he needed help with his studies. He forced himself to work on school stuff alone as a result, and even then, our parents only noticed my work. He only got their attention when he made a bad grade or his behavior worsened in class. When he found out that I was working on this animation project, he dropped out just to find the right time to mess with my work, and pray to God that I didn’t notice. 
I didn’t even know how to respond. I was still pissed beyond belief, but what he said really hit me. He was right. I really wasn’t there to help him when he truly needed it, and now, look what happened. I didn’t even give a rebuttal. I stormed right out of the house and drove to my classmate’s dorm. She helped me cool down, and I can’t thank her enough for that.
When I arrived back at the house, my brother was gone, and he took some of his stuff with him. His clothes, his wallet, mainly the most important things he has. My parents told me that they tried to stop him, but he insisted on leaving. 
In case anyone is wondering, Collin is fine. He was good friends with a dude from my animation class all those years ago, and he seems to be having a good life. As for the animation, I didn’t lose it, but I don’t want to upload it. It’ll just remind me of the ordeal I went through with my brother.
I hope that one day, we can put the past aside and show each other how much we’ve grown. I’m sorry, Collin.
Category:Lafawnda's Reading Hour
Category:TV
Category:Animation
Category:Computers and Internet
Category:Noggin
Category:Weekly pasta
Category:Nick Jr.
Category:Nickelodeon