Pingu's Punishment

Most people grew up with a happy little show called Pingu. Pingu was a show that had a clay penguin named Pingu and it showed his adventures. The characters spoke some sort of penguin language.

The original show ran from 1986 to 2000. There was apparently an unreleased episode that was released a year later.

Now, this is where it starts to become interesting. When I was 5, or 6, I saw the beginning of a Pingu episode called "Pingu's Punishment" on TV. I only saw a bit of it, but what I remember was Pingu was very angry, and his mother began smashing plates. I also remember the episode was about Pingu playing outside when he was supposed to be doing chores. My mother came in at the plate smashing part, shut off the TV, and told me that dinner was ready.

After dinner, I was looking up the episode list on Wikipedia to find out that no episode called "Pingu's Punishment" was released.

I thought this as an adventure to myself, and I contacted trickfilmstudio, the company that made Pingu. I asked to them for a complete production guide of Pingu and they sent it to me via email. I looked at it, compared it to Wikipedia's list, and I noticed something was wrong with the final series. "Pingu Helps Grandfather", which was the 23rd episode of series 4, was missing. At the bottom of the list was an episode titled "Pingu Ending". I asked for a synopsis, but they refused to give me one, stating it was personal information.

I then googled "Pingu Ending" and "Pingu's Punishment". Then, I found something. It was on rapidshare. The file's name was "Pingu's Punishment Unreleased Last Episode.zip", and I downloaded it. I went to "My Downloads" and I found the folder. It contained two files. One was a notepad file. It was titled "fear.txt", I opened it. It read:

''This is an unreleased episode of Pingu dated April 11, 2000. This originally planned to end the series, and this was actually released in some countries. Watch at your own risk. ''

I began to feel a bit suspicious and my heart pounded. But my curiosity overtook me. I opened the second file, an avi file.

The 1st part was the same episode I saw when I was a kid. However, something felt off. The theme song was distorted and instead of Pingu's usual 'Noot Noot', there was backwards audio. I recorded it with SoundRecorder and it played "You can't survive like this beyond death." I found that very creepy but continued with the video.

I got to the part where Pingu's mother was smashing plates. Suddenly, it cut to black. A blood curdling scream was heard. It faded back to the kitchen. Pingu's mother was sitting on a stool crying, only it sounded real. She began crying but it started to sound like laughing.

Suddenly, it cut to Pinga. Pinga was lying down on the floor, her head was ripped off. I paused it there, I felt sick. But what made me sick more was that it wasn't clay blood. It was either food coloring or it was real. I continued it. Pingu's mother kept crying.

Suddenly, it cut to a black and white video of 2 scientists going into a slaughterhouse. It showed a bunch of cows getting slaughtered. Suddenly it showed a penguin being stunned and then being hanged upside down. The butcher slit the penguin's throat and it died from blood loss. It began showing pictures of dead penguins.

It cut back to Pingu's mother crying. A trampoline was in the kitchen. There was also a fan. She jumped up to the fan and blood splattered everywhere. The body of Pingu's mother fell down. It showed pictures of the dead bodies of Pingu, Robbie, and the other characters. An old music box playing "Hush Little Baby" faintly played. I paused to go to the bathroom to vomit. I felt really nauseous and sick after witnessing what I just watched. I continued the video.

A distorted voice said something backwards. I recorded it and played it in reverse. It said: "Your life will be all pitch black in a few seconds. You must be smart enough to play this backwards, because you're stupid enough to believe me." My chest pounded. The credits were in Times New Roman. The background continued to show the disturbing images.

It closed with a background of a mask with red eyes. The mask suddenly said in a distorted tone" Darkness begins now." Suddenly my computer froze. Then the lights flickered and the power went out. The power came back on within a few seconds later. I was now shaking and I wanted to find the source of the film.

I got in contact with Carlo Bonomi, the voice of all the characters. I pretended it was an interview, and I talked about Pingu. I finally mentioned "Pingu's Punishment". He stopped, and he asked where I had heard that before. I explained the entire thing to him. He then told me the story.

During the 4th season of Pingu, there was an writer/animator named Ted Goldman. Ted was a quiet man, who usually wasn't that sociable. Sometime during the middle of the season, Ted's mother had been trying to reach something from the upper shelf. The ceiling fan was still on. She got decapitated. Ted was immediately hurt by this. He began submitting morbid ideas, such as Pingu killing all the other characters. He even asked Bonomi to do a voice of Pingu dying. Goldman found out that Pingu was closing production at the end of the season. Ted passed off the episode as the series finale. Right after they had watched the episode, they discovered Ted was being charged with animal cruelty, beastiality, and murder. Ted left an apparent suicide note claiming he was going to live in Antarctica. However no records claim he was ever there and he was last spotted in Santa Barbara, California purchasing a gun. They never found him.

I was left shocked. Then a thought occurred to me to play the entire episode backwards, starting from the part where the distorted voice began. I heard a scream, a shout, and a very eerie voice that said something that still haunts me to this day.

"The only way out of this hell, is suicide."