Prologue

The prologue is the first chapter of 1999: Creepypasta. It is a reflection on Elliot's childhood in 1999. It is followed by the first update (November 2009).

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“The year is nineteen-ninety-nine.”

That sentence brings me back to my senior kindergarten class when I was five years old, where we used to read out the date on the blackboard every single day. The year 1999 exists as a stain in my mind, however, as a memory that will not go away no matter how I try to forget it. 1999 marked the year I lost my first tooth, my first time on a plane, and unfortunately the early loss of my childhood innocence.

That one memory that refuses to be wiped, it all started with that new (or old) TV. At that time Pokémon was the latest fad to hit the school. Pokémon cards, games, stickers, and the most popular, the TV show. So, of course, every time I came home from school, I would stay glued to the TV until Pokémon came on at five. The only problem was that my dad watched the news at 5:30, and Pokémon episodes were back-to-back, which meant I had to miss an episode every day, something I whined on and on about. My dad got tired of hearing me complain every day, that must be why he went and bought another TV.

My dad put the TV he bought in my room. Unfortunately, it was just an old, small boob tube, with rabbit ears even. It also only had 20 channels available; not including the channel Pokémon was on. I recall I didn’t care, though. I was just thrilled I had my own TV in my room. After surfing through the channels, I came to the conclusion that only channel 2 (TVO kids) was worth watching so I watched that for a while. It wasn’t for another few months until I discovered channel 21. One day in April, I was flipping through the channels, trying to see if Pokémon was on. I pressed channel 21 into the remote, hoping there were more channels, and to my delight there was. My dad was surprised too, but he let me watch it because it seemed to have kids programs on. The channel was called Caledon Local 21 and later I found out it was indeed broadcasted from the town of Caledon, Ontario, a town very close to my city.

The shows I saw on Caledon Local 21 looked poorly made, and I never understood what was going on in them half the time. However as I grew up, every time I thought of that channel, I realized more and more how messed up the shows were and I had to ask myself, “What the fuck was I watching?”

The following is a list of shows and episodes I remember seeing on Caledon Local 21, how I remember such detail even disturbs me, but I guess things like this stand out in your mind for a while. The channel only ran a few shows, probably because it was only operational between 4:00 pm and 9:00 pm.

April 1999

Mr. Bear’s Cellar – Episode 12: Very sketchy name if you were to look at it nowadays. The show featured a guy wearing a bear mascot costume who would get a new visitor into his cellar every day. (It was always a kid) The show was filmed with a camcorder, and not a very good one either. The police asked me a lot of questions about this show. This episode started with Mr. Bear sitting at a table playing checkers by himself. He sat there playing for a bit until there was a knock on the door. The camera was then looking up the stairs at the door, where there was another knock. Mr. Bear climbed the stairs and opened the door to reveal two young children. One was a boy about my age, and the other was a girl who looked about eight.

Mr. Bear danced in delight, and then started talking to the kids; I couldn’t hear any of them that well, I remember. Mr. Bear then led the kids into the cellar, which was quite dark, only lit by a small oil lamp on the table. I can’t really remember that much more, except him singing a song which I couldn’t hear too well either (Probably because of that large bear mask). The episode ended with them playing hide-and-seek, with the kids hiding in a closet and Mr. Bear counting.

May 1999

Soup and Spoon: I don’t think this was even a show, I think it was more of a special movie thing. All I know is I stopped watching Caledon Local 21 for a while because I thought this show was too stupid, especially since Pokémon now came on at 4:30 and 5:00. I don’t remember much of this, but it showed a can of soup and a spoon both attached to strings, swinging back and forth, as if someone was holding them and dangling them in front of the camera. Interestingly enough, the show was shot in a basement, which looked just like the one used in Mr. Bear’s Cellar. Like I said, I can’t remember much, the only thing I can remember clearly was the end.

The entire thing was only half an hour, and just included stuff I found stupid, such as the spoon chasing the soup around trying to “Eat him”. The ending showed a table and about seven kids sitting around it, each with a bowl of soup in front of them. They were sitting and looking at the camera, but with confused, almost frightened faces. The cameraman then held the can of soup in front of the kids and said, “Spooooons ready?” And then it just stopped.

July 1999

It was summer, and I hadn’t watched channel 21 for a while, until one day when I slept over at my friend’s house, and I decided to check it out again. My friend had gotten a TV in his room for his sixth birthday, so we stayed up very late (for us, 9:30 was very late) and watched TV. That’s when I remembered channel 21 and brought it up to my friend. We decided to see if it was on, and to our surprise it was (they must have changed the broadcasting time).

Mr. Bear’s Cellar – Episode 23: This episode was entertaining for my friend and me, mainly because it had swearing. However, now when I think of this episode, I realize something was definitely wrong when it was filmed. The episode started with the camera on its side, while it was facing Mr. Bear, who was walking upstairs to the cellar door. The camera then blacked out for about a second, before fading in, back upright, and facing Mr. Bear. There was also another kid talking to him, but this kid looked about eleven or twelve.

He was talking to Mr. Bear for a while, but I couldn’t hear well (Again with the crappy camcorder) until the kid started raising his voice. The kid was saying how it was late and his sister had to go home, you could also hear more voices in the background. I remember Mr. Bear clearly saying “Get the fuck out, you’re not invited.” with a deep voice muffled by the bear mask. I remember my friend and I looking at each other and laughing at the mention of the forbidden F word, but the episode got weirder. The kid began climbing the stairs before turning around and saying how he was going to call the police. Mr. Bear began breaking into a run towards the kid, who started screaming and running as well. The camera then cut out, and that was the end of the episode. The channel then turned to static shortly after.

August 1999

I didn’t want to watch channel 21 after that. In August I grew more curious to see Mr. Bear’s cellar for some reason though. The last episode I saw of Mr. Bear was weird and had swearing, which also made me think the show was meant for teenagers. Nonetheless, I flipped onto channel 21 when my dad was busy.

Mr. Bear’s Cellar – Episode 28: Apparently this episode had been playing the entire month of August. It was studied a lot by the police. The entire episode was just Mr. Bear sitting in a chair talking to the audience. “Hello, kids! Do you want to visit my cellar? If you do, please write me a letter at this address!” The screen then switched to a white screen with multi-colored letters reading the address, and that was what remained for the rest of the episode. This repeated for five hours every day until September came.

And guess what I actually did? I sent “Mr. Bear,” or that sick bastard who portrayed him a letter. I did it out of curiosity mostly; my dad was OK with it because he thought it was a legit kid show, but then again he never saw any of what was on channel 21. So I wrote a letter using my best writing possible, I think I just said how I wanted to meet Mr. Bear. So my dad sent the letter to the address Mr. Bear said on the show (it stayed on all day anyway for some reason).

It took about a week to get a response, which I was surprised I did. I still have the letter I received on August 15, 1999. The letter read:

Dear Elliot,

''Thank you ever so much for your letter, I would love to have you in my cellar! We play games, watch movies, and go fire camping in the middle of the woods!''

Come to my house at (the police cut out this address), Caledon, Ontario, Canada.

I look very forward to having fun with you!

Love, Mr. Bear

I cannot believe my dad never found this sketchy, because he actually took me to the house. And then that’s when the police became involved, those endless questions, those pictures of terrified kids, the woods…

That brings me to why I’m writing this blog. That psycho and his friends did some fucked up shit back then, and now it seems he’s trying to get into contact with me again,. The entire police thing is coming back. That has brought 1999 back to me. Over a decade later, it is happening again.