Suicidemouse.avi Rewrite

## Suicidemouse.avi Rewrite by Doros70

(Suicidemouse.avi was created by Alexander Culafi)

to: roman.forrest@\*\*\*\*\*.com

from: noahclemmins@\*\*\*\*\*.com

\*\*\*\*\* \*\*\*\*\* \*\*\*\*\* \*\*\*\*\* \*\*\*\*\*

I'm sure you know about those Mickey Mouse cartoons from the 1930s. You know, the ones that just released on DVD recently. People have told me it was such a joy to receive films that would otherwise be lost to time had they not been properly restored. Well, I heard through the grapevine that there's some very interesting extended footage of an unreleased test reel that even the most avid Disney fans would be begging to get their hands on. Though given Disney's vise-tight legal team and the certain "implications" of the footage, I may not be able to show it in full to you. What I can do, to the best of my ability, is describe it.

I'm talking about the infamously known and rumored ["Scene #50: Stroll"] that was revealed to the public in 2005 in a short documentary show "The Scribbles and Sound of Mickey Mouse". It talked about the behind-the-scenes work on old Disney cartoons. The people behind it, as stated at the beginning of the documentary, were ex-Disney employees with full sources to back it up. The film itself fell under tons of legal issues, but I won't delve into that now. The most famous of the test footage was from 1932, given the unassuming title of "Scene #50 Stroll" by Disney staff.

You know the one. The continuous loop of buildings in the background with Mickey in the foreground, walking at a steady pace across a city road. A normal mundane test run of Mickey's walk cycle, albeit with a dreary feeling to it. Mickey's hands were crossed behind his back, and his normal cheery smile curved to one side, giving an almost dissonant, unacquainted look. No sound was provided, as the people just talked over the footage. The scene of Mickey frowning was enough to make rounds on the internet, even spawning a "recreation" of it that's said to be "cursed" and that "bad things will happen" if you watch it. All just ghosts and fairytales.

But until a year ago, most people believed that the film cut to black and that was it. Just some normal junk footage with a somewhat eerie feeling behind it. At least, that's all that Disney would allow them to show.

Recently, an anonymous user on 4chan popped up on /b/, claiming to be one of the producers of the documentary. Not only that, but he also claimed he had the "full" length of the footage. At first, the users were suspicious of these baseless claims, but sure enough, he provided a few snippets of the film that were previously unseen. They didn't look any different, but they had audio. Audio that sounded like the typical white noise and crackle that old cartoons would produce. But strangely, intermixed with the noise were a few distant piano notes. It didn't make a melody. Just sounded like someone banging on the ivories.

Some accused him of lying, saying he only edited the audio over. Anon refuted this claim by showing the full unedited audio file via screenshot, showing no overlay. Within a few minutes, the full, unedited cut of the cartoon was presented as a digitized AVI file. The thread later 404ed due to some users directly breaking guidelines when it came to harassment. However, I nabbed the file before its deletion.

Strangely, the file was titled "suicidemouse.avi".

The first thing I noticed is that the video was a solid 9 minutes long. The clip of footage shown in the documentary was a mere 30 seconds, so this immediately piqued my interest. Sure enough, around the 3-minute mark, besides the static in the background, the off-kilter piano began. It continued for around one third of the runtime before stopping. I kept watching to see if anything had changed. After all, why watch a boring walk cycle for 9 minutes? Especially when, besides the audio, it seems that was all there was to it.

That is, until something happened. Something that, if I released to the public right now, I'm sure would spark tons of interest.

The footage cut to black before coming back seconds later. It presented the same walk cycle, but this time, the unbearable sounds of the piano were replaced by a murmur that gradually grew into a gurgled cry. As the noise got louder and more indistinguishable over the next minute, the picture began to... warp. On the 7th minute, the murmur turned into a bloodcurdling scream and the picture got more obscure.

The sidewalk started to go in directions that seemed impossible based on the physics of Mickey's walking, and the dismal face of the character was slowly curling into a smirk. The background got blurrier, and Mickey's face started to fall apart. His eyes slowly rolled on the bottom of his chin and his curled smile was pointing upward on the left side of his face. The buildings became rubble that floated in midair, and the sidewalk was still impossibly navigating in warped directions.

There was shading to it being cast over Mickey. Up until then, the animation was flat and lacked any depth. But here's the thing I want to emphasize. The animation had such depth provided by the shading and shadows cast over it, it looked nearly three-dimensional. Now, anyone today can perform something like this thanks to the advent of modern tech, but this I feel was far beyond what any of Disney's animators were capable of. At least, I think? Because I've seen some impressive animation tricks that move with fluidity and detail all presented in what we'd consider "outdated" cartoons. I'm not sure what kind of technology animators had back in the 30s, so don't quote me on this. Truly, it's something you'd have to judge for yourself.

As a big sidenote, the last few seconds of the animation had a piece of Russian text that said, "the sights of hell bring its viewers back in". And at the final frames, the letters "M.S" were written. Usually these would be considered initials of a name. I did some digging online and read up on the list of employees Disney's studio's had at the time. It took a while, but I think I found a lead, as all other sources before now leave the creator of the test reel completely unknown.

"M.S" may have been the name of an unassuming newbie animator by the name of Murray Sherman. While he isn't credited for working on anything besides sketching outlines, an additional note mentions he had schizophrenia and had committed suicide in 1936 possibly due to his delusions. He lived on the ground floor of an apartment building, and witness reports from his upstairs neighbors did mention one interesting thing that occurred weeks before his death. From downstairs, coming from the apartment basement, the sound of banging piano keys could be heard followed by bloodcurdling screams.

...

When something like this gets easily overlooked, I have a feeling that there is something huge at work. Message me back so we can figure out how to go about this.

Sincerely, NC.