Sarah's Window

To call my cousin Daryll an edge lord would be a massive understatement. His YouTube channel, Sarah's Window was a puppet show filled to the brim with the most twisted and vulgar kinds of humor imaginable. The series centered around the misadventures of Sarah, a deceptively adorable brown beaver puppet that wouldn't look out of place in a kid's show. In fact, the entire show was meant to be an adult oriented parody of an obscure Nick Jr. show called Allegra's Window. Although calling the channel "adult oriented" would be pushing it due to the fact that the sheer amount of vulgarity ironically made it seem more immature than anything else. The Sarah puppet was performed and voiced by his girlfriend who was just as sadistic as him, if not possibly more so. I realize that the whole idea of a beaver protagonist sounds like a pretty unique creative choice but I have no doubt that he only chose that particular species just so he could an obnoxious amount of puns revolving around women's private parts.
The original show that Daryll was making fun of featured a recurring character called Riff The Cool Cat who was exactly what his name suggests, a blue feline with a leather jacket. Because of the fact that Riff's leather jacket somewhat resembled a trench coat, Daryll made a very similarly designed character called Ricky who was supposed to be a drug dealer. There were plenty of other characters as well but perhaps the most chilling addition to the lineup of recurring characters was The Celebrity Hitman. This character might possibly have been the only human in the main cast, although his species was never outright stated. He was a dark shadowy figure who donned a Grim Reaper-style cloak that left only a pair of eyes visible. The entire point of The Celebrity Hitman was that he would kill celebrities, oftentimes in very gruesome ways. There was never any sorts of satire in these scenes whatsoever, just puppet versions of famous people getting graphically murdered. All of these celebrities were ones that Daryll personally didn't like, he even outright admitted to me one time that he would get this sadistic thrill every time he showed a celebrity he hates dying. That statement really put a shiver down my spine the first time I heard it and admittedly just thinking about it today does the same thing.
Literally every single video was nothing more than over-the-top offensive, sexual, and gross content just for the sake of shocking others. Unsurprisingly, Daryll was one of those kinds of 4Chan users who you often hear regularly complaining about "snowflakes" and "political correctness" and would do whatever he could to make those types of people angry. The amount of racist, sexist, and homophobic garbage he would squeeze into one video was utterly ridiculous. This wasn't some Archie Bunker-style satire that mocked racist people either, it was nothing more than Daryll shouting the N-word over and over again for shock value. The "protagonists" would literally do the worst things on a regular basis and suffer no repercussions for them at all. The eerily laid back depictions of every horror imaginable made Daryll seem like some sort of sadist who believed that is how "normal people" should behave.
Whenever he would show me the videos he posted, I would always end up complaining about how completely immoral they were afterwards. He would often try to defend himself by reminding me of the fact that I watch Family Guy to which I would always reply that Family Guy is a show that's meant to poke fun at bigotry, rather than simply being hateful for no reason at all. The amount of arguments we had about the show was staggering. He claimed that the reason he loved showing me them before they were uploaded was so I could have "the honor of viewing them before anyone else does" but I know for a fact it was because he's fully aware of how much the show bothered me and so he thought it was funny to see my reaction.
Not only did the content bother me for obvious reasons but I also hated the fact that this could've been a very interesting concept if utilized properly. Adult puppet shows are very rare and if Daryll had made a puppet based sitcom for adults that didn't rely on cheap shock tactics to get a quick laugh, he could've had a work of genius on his hands! The puppets themselves looked extremely adorable and were about as well made as the actual ones from Allegra's Window, the sets were beautifully crafted, and the special effects looked far more professional than the ones found on even some of the most popular YouTube channels. If only the writing was as good as everything else. He even used a 90s filter on the camera so it perfectly replicated the vibes of the era when Allegra's Window existed, that was a pretty fun extra touch if you ask me.
Speaking of the God awful writing, the plots were about as disgusting as you would imagine them to be. Some of the more shocking examples included Sarah coming to the defense of a local serial killer (the puppet was actually modeled off of a real murderer who lived in our town which only added to the tastelessness), The Celebrity Hitman traveling back in time to when Selena Gomez was a baby and shaking baby Selena as hard as he possibly could, a group of sock puppets coming to town and repeatedly chanting "SHOES WILL NOT REPLACE US!" as a way to mock the tragic events which occurred in Charlottesville, and Sarah discovering that Ricky traps children in his basement and slaughters them. Those kinds of concepts would be highly tasteless if they were used on a horror channel let alone a comedy one!
There was one episode however that I will never forget, the utterly despicable video I saw that day would forever be ingrained in my mind. Even talking about it now is enough to make me cry regardless of the fact this this happened three whole years ago. The day Daryll exposed me to this twisted creation of his was already a very sad day for me. My dog Carl, whom I considered to be one of my best friends in the whole world, had just suddenly disappeared that very morning. That adorable little basset hound would always be lying at the foot of my bed whenever I first woke up but that morning he was nowhere to be found. The following evening Daryll came to our house and showed me the latest episode of Sarah's Window, the first scene showed Sarah watching the movie Old Yeller, I instantly knew that this was meant to be mocking the fact that I just lost a dog as soon as the mere title of that movie was mentioned. While most people cry during Old Yeller and rightfully so, that evil beaver found the film hilarious and thought she would go out and kill a dog herself. I know that sounds strangely sinister but trust me, that kind of behavior was completely in character for Sarah. In fact, I'm pretty sure I remember seeing other previous videos where she joyfully murdered puppet dogs before. But then I saw the thing that would traumatize me forever. Sarah slowly crept up to a real dog who was chained up in her basement. That dog was none other than Carl! Daryll must have kidnapped him while I was sleeping just so he could make this video. The poor little puppy looked downright miserable, clearly showing signs of abuse. He was sobbing in a way that I'd never heard him cry before, he looked hungry as though he hadn't eaten all day, and his left paw even appeared to be broken! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Sarah then picked up a real knife and starting stabbing Carl with it. Hearing the best dog I've ever had cry out in defenseless pain was by far one of the most equally horrific and sad things I've witnessed so far in all my 22 years of life. As she stabbed him, Sarah laughed in a way that sounded downright demonic. Carl's blood was splattered all over the screen as this happened and then finally after stabbing him multiple times, he died.
I was literally a sobbing mess after that video had ended, the first thing I did when I finally had the courage to stop crying was call 911 and inform them about Daryll's animal abuse. I didn't even need to worry about him denying the allegations considering I had all the cold hard evidence I needed in the form of that video. After showing it to the police, Daryll and his girlfriend were both quickly arrested.
I always knew that my cousin was a rebel but I just assumed him to be some kind of Howard Stern wannabee who thought "edgy = funny", I never in my life believed he would be capable of committing actual criminal activity. I know that a lot of times the people who produce seemingly dark and evil content are actually pretty nice in real life. Alice Cooper for example is believe it or not, a gentle Christian man who goes to church every Sunday, which is in great contrast to the Satanic persona he uses on stage. Daryll unfortunately was not one of those people. That fateful day has majorly traumatized me to the point where I can't even enjoy anything that reminds me of the events that took place. One such example is the fact that I'm a huge fan of the [adult swim] animated sketch comedy series Robot Chicken and one of the sketches last season was a parody of Old Yeller. I understand that it was merely intended to be a lighthearted spoof of an iconic film but I can't help myself, the fact that it reminds me too much of that day always causes me to fast forward through that one skit whenever I'm watching the episode on DVR.
Category:Sarah's Window