 Those are medieval robots. Did you ever question why Nickelodeon took so long to re-release Crybaby Lane? For those and unknowns to the elusive film, it was a kid's horror film directed by Peter Lorre, and released for the public to view on Tuesday on October 20th of 2000. After that year, the film faded into obscurity and was never re-ran again on television until members of the Lost Media community came together to look for the film in the 2010s, culminating in Nickelodeon re-airing the film on Tuesday in the year 2011, coincidentally in October 2, likely to capitalize on the hype to find the film again. After that, the memory of the film would fade from the view of the public eye and even those who had wished to watch the film again after all the years of searching for it had less than stellar things to say about it, with it having a mediocre rating online. For some this is where the tale of Crybaby Lane ends. A goofy and mildly scary family film that was aired once, and wasn't remembered until later on. It goes deeper than that. Far deeper. Before speaking my mind, I must preface this with some needed context. Upon release, the film was heavily scrutinized by parents for being too dark and or graphic for children's television, and thus Nickelodeon wishing to avoid the controversy buried the film and never spoke of it again. However the Crybaby Lane that many online remember, is not the same Crybaby Lane those working at Nickelodeon at the time remember, nor is the same film those who worked in the film remember. The film many remember within media circles was dubbed, The Lower Cut, due to it being directed and written by Peter Lower and the other writers who worked on the project. Whilst this film is indeed a real film that can be watched online now, the film in question I am about to talk about is almost entirely different. When the movie was in its early production stages, there was a deep division amongst the staff of Nickelodeon for the direction of the movie. Peter Lower wished to make the film again to a family film with some horror elements like the Indiana Jones movies, or the Goonies. Whilst many at Nickelodeon at the time supported and worked with Lower, there were some who opposed it and wished to make their own project, with the name of the project being the only shared thing between the views of the two teams. The movie worked on by Lower would be finished and taken out of production hell by October of 2000. However the mysterious other project under the same name would fall out of sight for those working at Nickelodeon. I dubbed the time of the film's production to be production hell, because the behind the scenes fighting wasn't like anything I had ever heard of yet, at least from my sources. Whilst those who were on Lower's side wanted to make the film in live action, some started working on both 2D and 3D animations depicting their visions for what they believed the film should be, which meant communications between various writers and directors at the time was tedious to put it lightly. With all of the internal strife at the time, Nickelodeon and Peter Lower himself even considered restarting the film from scratch, or canning it altogether. However the higher ups at Nickelodeon had other plans. Seeing the competing cartoon network at the time and how their shows were succeeding by margin, Nickelodeon, which was once the kingpin of children's broadcasting, needed to step up their game to be able to compete in the market. Noticing the more laid back and relaxed approached scene and took to their shows, with most of them appealing to a more child centered fan base, Nickelodeon decided that in order to compete, they'd have to expand the reach of their consumer base beyond children to earn more in the market. This would be noticeable with the more slapstick and somewhat edgy shows on Nickelodeon at the time, such as Ren and Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life, and eventually Invader Zim later down the line in 2001. During the gap between the release of Rocko's Modern Life, Courage the Cowardly Dog and Invader Zim, Nickelodeon had a newfound success with their shows and was competing better in the market prior to the release of these shows. Whilst controversy would surround Ren and Stimpy due to its perverted creator, these allegations would mostly be sidelined in favor of talking about the success of Nickelodeon at the time. With the appeal to teens and even young adults being made apparent with how far some of the shows mentioned would go. During this time however, the higher ups at Nickelodeon as well as certain writers and animators wanted to see how far they could push their shows, as it seemed that, or those, shows considered dark and or immature seemed to make a lot of money for Nickelodeon. However, those who are aware of Nickelodeon's history at the time may know, nothing too much interest in this category would be released, with Nickelodeon reverting to making more children-oriented shows like See Them Again. This is where it all comes back to crybaby lane. Nickelodeon wanted to test the creativity of its staff at the time and thus split the project into two groups after seeing the strife. Those who wanted to make their own film separate from Laura's were given their own cubicles plus department and free creative reign over the project, whilst Laura's team was put on a lease to see what the writers at Laura's group would have to offer. This ended the strife with the groups now seemingly getting on with their own projects, however Nickelodeon seemingly began to lose interest in the free reign cut of the movie, and thus, Peter Laura's movie was chosen to have all their focus placed on it, however the higher ups at the time never explicitly can be aforementioned free reign cut. After interviewing three ex-staff at the time, I feel it would be best to let them explain their experiences better, as I myself wasn't involved with the production of the film. Each interviewee has wished to have their identities kept secret and will from now on be referred to by aliases they curated for themselves. Jesus, that was a struggle. Cleaner boy. I never was a high up guy in the studio. I was a janitor for multiple departments, however I always got a good look of the ongoing events in the studio. I was always pleased to see the banter between writers, animators, etc. as it seemed like a calm and pleasant atmosphere to work in. I couldn't say the same for those working on Cry Baby Lane. Let me tell you now, that out of all my years as a cleaner, the shit that went on in the department that worked on that project was beyond me. Animators spilled coffee and water on the daily, some falling asleep on the job and getting yelled at by the director, with some even crying and getting angry over being overworked. I chalked this up to most of the people in that department either being new with writing scripts for live action films, or due to them being interns of newly hired people who had just got the job. Either way, the place was a fucking wreck every time I'd got there. I remember one evening in particular that always stayed with me. One of the storyboard directors there got into an altercation with the director over the direction of the story. He'd only say one thing to her constantly. This needs more edge. This needs more depth, and it certainly needs more of a plot. Whilst what I said right now may sound like constructive criticism, when coming from a sleep-deprived fat drunk, you'd probably say otherwise. The poor woman logged with all sorts of abuse from the fat bastard, with him even yanking some of the storyboard sheets from her and checking them on the floor. I felt like I should have said something that day, but it was already nearly the end of my shift, and I didn't want to cause any more conflict. I vaguely remember asking if she was okay, however I've long since forgotten her name, as she used to tell me a lot about this and the messed up stuff he used to do. After that, though, there was only really one other incident that I could remember that stood out to me. Oh God, where do I even begin? I was working overtime on the same day I believe, and I heard from one of the guys working on the project that there was going to be a screening of sorts for the invigilators to the higher ups or whatever you call them. It was supposed to be three concepts for whatever the heck the movie was supposed to be. I never got the chance to see what was going on in there, but needless to say, the invigilators weren't very impressed with what happened. Whilst vivid disappointment and anger could be used to describe them, I could say the same for that poor guy who was in there with them. Whether he was either an intern or a junior writer, I don't know, but going off of his looks must have recently joined. I entered the room after the verbal fight between the staff, and the poor guy was under the table cowering whilst the writers were heading off and shit talking the invigilators. I figured he must have been yelled at by either the invigilators or the other writers, but what didn't make sense was him murmuring something under his breath. I tried to talk to him and even offered a hand to him, but he just burst into tears. After that day, I never saw that kid again. Little. I'll just skip right to the chase. I was a storyboard artist at the department during the production of the movie. For being a film written by degenerate drunks who spent all day gaffing around in the offices, they sure as hell knew how to make everyone feel uncomfortable. I remember one day at my cubicle quite well. I remember being approached by one of the senior writers of the film who was clearly out of it at the time. His eyes were dilated and bloodshot, and he moved like an action figurine. The worst part was his stench. Fucking Christ, was it awful? I remember on one of his tangents he'd suggest all sorts of awful and horrible plot points surrounding the concepts we as the storyboard team would come up with. One time, he suggested that one of the protagonists should progressively go insane as the film goes on, due to him losing the ability to sense things, resulting in him harming himself in all sorts of ways to at least feel again, resulting in his death by accident, with no one there to even nurse him back to health or to even bother finding him. Another time, he'd suggest to lower personally prior to the split in departments that the story of the film should follow an anthology-styled plot where each segment of the film is its own story, with little to no connection. The aforementioned plot he described to me earlier was just one of the plots he described to lower. I'd hate to imagine what the other two were. Needless to say, whatever those other two ideas were, they had a bearing on me and the rest of the storyboard team. He'd suggest all sorts of foul and repugnant scenes in the film, that upon retrospect, could probably make it into a cartoon like Ren and Stimpy, but in film form probably not. All sorts of body horror elements were planned to be included in the film such as a pair of Siamese twins who lived with their family. The plot was that the two twins would be treated differently by the family. The more intelligent and respectable of the two twins was treated horribly and in some cases in drafts of the story, abused by members of the family, with the other twin not batting an eye, despite being connected. The other twin on the other hand was loved and respected by the family despite being a bumbling idiot. The plot would later develop when it would be revealed that the family was in on an experiment with the effects of nurture and abuse on a pair of Siamese twins. The smart twin would find out about this and later confront their parents. This was when things would take a turn for the worse, with the twist of the tale being that they never had parents in the first place. They were born from a bone marrow extraction and birthed from an artificial womb. Out of sheer impulse the two twins would try and do two things at the same time. The smart twin would try and dash towards the two scientists once their parents, whilst the other twin would try and run in the opposite direction to try and escape. The malice and cowardice combined would be the unfortunate enduing of both twins. With both twins trying running in the opposite direction, let's just say their body didn't approve of that. I vividly remember the last shot that one of the other artists drew at the time. It was a close-up on the faces of the two parents. Whatever expression was on their faces, they looked as if whatever they had seen was something they could never unsee. I probably don't have long left while writing this as I'm currently quite busy, so I'll cut to the chase. The working environment was abysmally incompetent. The storyboard artists could never match their art to my ideas. There was one I remember in particular. I'd come to her every day to check up on her, she'd always find a way to avoid and change what I had suggested to the storyboard team at the time. She was a special case to say the least. Drawing all sorts of screwed up stuff during working hours. She'd even go over to the reels we had made using a mix of 2D and 3D animation and placed some of her messed up drawings on some of the slides. I remember one day when she did this and it certainly was a day to remember. The observers for the department that day had come to see the progress we had made on the movie and had even asked some of the junior animators and actors to come into the viewing room with them to give them constructive criticism. That would be the case if it was actually the movie we were intending to make that was on the screen. The slide bitch changed the reel for the short film we had made with some of the pictures and descriptions she wrote for what she wanted the film to be. Drawings of all sorts of screwed up shit involving experimentation and Siamese twins were involved. It made me and the junior animator in the room wanna puke. Due to the reel being short, it was over after around 5 to 6 minutes and the observers were not pleased to say the least. One of them screamed and yelled for almost half an hour trying to figure out who had changed the reel which led to one of the junior animators crying and the other guys in the room talking smack about him. I didn't know how to feel at this point. I decided to leave the room with everyone else however I did catch a glimpse of someone entering the room after all of us had left but the one animator who was crying. I didn't bother to say anything as I was beyond pissed at that moment knowing the chance we could get some bloody praise for what we do was taken from us again. That night, I stayed up all night and even had a few beers to numb down the self down I had at the time over all of this and if the project was ever going to succeed at all. It was in my half conscious state that I remembered I had forgotten my phone at the department that night. I decided to sit on it for a few hours before I decided to go out and spare myself having to go to lost and found the next morning and risk being late for work and getting chewed out. To my surprise, two people were still in the department at that time. The janitor and well, her. The janitor I could understand. He was likely paying overtime and didn't get paid enough for the crap he'd have to sit through on a near daily basis. However, there wasn't an option for overtime for the animators at that time, not the actors. I decided to confront her and to say I was livid was an understatement. Me and my drunken state swore like a sailor at her and asked why she did what she did earlier that day. She just smiled and picked something up from her desk. The storyboards from earlier. Without hesitation and filled with anger at the time, I had enough. I yanked the perverse storyboards from her hands and threw them to the ground. After that I bliped out, though I remember one other thing from that night. The janitor must have said something to her. Belle, are you alright?