It Was a Halloween Like no Other. Last Year, in 2016. I Was an Animation Researcher on Toronto, Canada. I've Been Involved with The Recovery of "Rude Removal" and Leaked Secret Information about Sony's R Rated Film "Sausage Party".
It Was 10 PM and I Was Sitting on My Laptop. Ending a Conversation with a Non-Credited Animator of The Aforementioned Movie. Ten Minutes After the Conversation Ended. I Got an Email by None other Than Sabrina "Sibsy" Alberghetti. Who's Been Recognized as a Concept Artist for My Little Pony. Not Exactly my Cup of Tea, But I watch it Every now and then.
It Wasn't until I Read the Email when everything got Interesting. it Read "Season 2, Episode 3" And in Capital Letters "IT'S TIME YOU KNOW THE TRUTH" With a Folder at The Very Bottom.
For Those Who Don't Know, The Episode in Question is "Lesson Zero" Where Twilight Sparkle Becomes Paranoid and Goes Insane. This was one of My Favorite Episodes.
While I thought it would Be an Average Behind the Scenes Skit. I Curiously Downloaded it.
Within The File. There Were Only Two Things. The First Being a Word Document. Saying that this was an Unfinished First Draft of "Lesson Zero" And That The Title, Story, and Content Were Unrecognizable from The Finished Product. And That The Name. That Was a Play on the Phrase "Less Than Zero" Did not Start as Such.
The Second File was an MP4 File Simply Called "L0" It is Around Half the Length of an MLP Episode. Only Ten Minutes Long. Pretty Normal for a Prototype.
The Episode Starts With The DHX Media Theme, It Was Stangely Low-Pitched, But Nothing Out of The Ordinary. Except that Meanwhile, There Was The DHX logo and The Canadian Rating of 14+. Making Me Question What I'm About to Watch.
An Text on The Card Says "31-10-2010" When The Show Was Only Weeks old. And Only Three Episodes Were Realesed.
The Episode Starts Quite Normally. On The Oak Tree Library. Spike Was on a Table, Waiting For Twilight to Wake Up. The Animation Was Sub-Par. It Looked Like The Show, But There Was Some Frames Missing. Twilight Comes to The Scene, Looking Sleep Deprived. When Spike asks her if she's Okay. The Animation Glitches.
On The Word File. It Also Said That While Lesson Zero was Being Storyboarded on June of 2011. The Animators Would Animate a Few Scenes of The Original Draft. And The Voice Actors Would Spare Their Free Time Recording The Lines on Their Personal Microphones.
And if What You're Hearing Right Now Sounds Weird, I'm Telling You. This is Just The Tip of The Iceberg.
The Intro Sequence Appears, But There's a Stitch to it. It Runs 5 times It's Original Speed. Almost as if it Was Fast-Forwarded. The 30 Second Intro Was Compressed into Only 12 Seconds. The Intro Ends When The Theme Song Glitches at The Shot of The Book. Then it Abruptly Cuts To Black.
It Fades to a Title Reading "Zero". Then it Fades to Some Opening Credits. It is Revealed That Both Megan and Sibsy Were Writers of This Episode, And That The Latter Storyboarded it. Despite of Her Not Being Shown on The Credits on The Lesson Zero. Raven Molisee, Who Went to Storyboard the Final Product. Was The Director of The Episode.
The Scene Starts at Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy Were on A Table, While Twilight was Entering The Room. Most of it Was Storyboarded, and Not Really Animated.
Twilight Looks Just as, Maybe a little More Weakened than In The Intro Skit. Her Stomach Rumbled in Hunger. But This Wasn't the Quick and Soft rumbles that you hear in Cartoons all the time. These Were Long, Low-Pitched, and Excruciating, It Sounded Like Real Entrail Noises. Twilight Says This Was a Strange Kind of Hunger. One That The Normal Food She's Consuming Does not Have an Effect On.
Pinkie Pie Tips Her Hoof on a Glass of Water before Handing it to Twilight. She Says It's Easier to Taste than Anything Else. Pinkie Pie Says It's Just Water. But Twilight is Not Convinced, Claiming There's Something in it. Twilight Keeps Drinking as It Slides to Another Scene.
The Next Scene is Back on the Oak Tree. Twilight is Back Home. Working on How to Levitate a Wooden Box She Just Got . She Twitches. Making The Box Fall into her Head for Comedic Effect. She Levitates The Box From Her Head, This While She Keeps on Twitching. At This Point. She Legitimaly Thinks Something is Wrong With Her. As She Starts Screaming Out of Nowhere, and Struggling to Keep Calm. Again, This is Only the Tip of The Iceberg.
It Cuts Back to Pinkie Pie, Who Runs to Rainbow Dash. Once She Approaches to Her. Things Start Getting Weird. When Rainbow Dash Asks What's Going on. Pinkie Takes a Deep Breath and Says...
"We Need to Hide"
Except...Not in The Squealy Voice She Normally Talks With. It Only Sounds like Andrea Libman Speaking on a Normal, Serious Voice.
Pinkie Pie then Explains that Twilight has a Few Parasites that Feed off Brain Tissue. And they won't stop until she eats equine meat.
I Thought they were Just Being Paranoid. I thought wrong.
It cuts to Twilight. Who is The only animated thing on the Scene. She Starts Talking to Herself about which one of the mane 5 She Could Visit. She Decides to Pick Fluttershy.
She Says this While referring to her as "kindly soft".
Then She Says this.
"I Have to Go. There's No Much time. My Brain will Turn into Dust once it Reaches Zero...I can't die now. The Clock...is ticking"
Now, When Twilight Says her "Clock is Ticking" Line, She Developes an Unsettling,Stretched out Smile. Some Viewers Got Really Scared of That Face. But This one... Let Me tell you... This one is Ten Times Worse.
In This Version. Twilight Opens Her Mouth incredibly Slowly. And Her Sleep Deprived Look is not Helping.
We Cut to Fluttershy's House. This is Entirely Storyboarded, Once Again.
When Fluttershy Sees Twilight. She Looks A bit Nervous. I, once again, thought that fluttershy would just be scared and that was it.
When Fluttershy Tries to Fly off. Twilight Prevents Her From Doing So by Levitation. Then She Starts Controlling Fluttershy's Head.
There is No Dialog After This Happens. Only The Sound of Twilight Choking Fluttershy. Twilight Gives an Evil Grin and violently Snaps Fluttershy's Neck.
When She Drops Her on The Floor. Chunks of Fluttershy's blood started Coming out of Her Mouth. Twilight Then Gazes at Fluttershy's Corpse. Sounds of Post-Death Coughing Can Be Heard on The Background. She Levitates a butcher knife as She starts Licking Her Lips. The Scene Ends Frames Away from Twilight Cutting Fluttershy's Head off.
On The Next Scene, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash Run to Twilight's House. With Backpacks Containing God-Knows-What.
They Are Shocked to Find Twilight Completely Sane and Fine.
They do Suspect after Twilight Drinks Something Red . But She Convinces Them That it's Strawberry Juice.
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie leave the Oak Tree Library. Claiming That if Twilight does Something Weird, They Can Call Them.
Spike Asks "What Were They Talking About?"
Twilight insists that nothing is Going on. However, things get worse when we see Fluttershy's Beheaded Corpse lying on the Closet. Spike, Traumatized. Says Nothing for 25 seconds.
"I have to Tell Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash!" Said Spike. Still Horrified By What he Saw.
Twilight Says "Tell ANYONE and I will Chop you off in Square Bits"
Spike Could've Taken that as a Meaningless Threat. But He SAW what she did to Fluttershy. And she can do it to him.
It fades to Twilight on sugarcube Corner. Twilight asks pinkie pie about the disease. She says There is a cure. But is hard to be found.
Twilight exclaimed. Saying that She needs the cure soon. Only to be interrupted by applejack.
"I know what you did" said applejack "spike told me everything"
Twilight. Feeling Hopeless. Starts Convulsing. The Sounds are Very Uncomfortable and Grating. She then changes back to Twilight Snapple.
Twilight Uses her Horn to Stab Applejack on the Eye. At Least That's What it Sounds Like. As the Video Shows a shot of Twilight's horn Getting Closer to Applejack's eye. Then a DHX logo covered the entire scene for 20 seconds. The Document Said That one of the Animators Vomited upon watching this Scene.
Then Pinkie Pie gets incredibly Shocked . almost as She lost all hope. Behind Her Back, Twilight Levitates an axe and Slices Pinkie Pie's Head. Severed Brain and Bone is Everywhere. It Almost Looks like that Smile HD video.
Twilight. Losing all hope. Decides not to eat them and walks away.
The final scene shows snapple on a bush. Laughing at the camera. With a drum sound that gets progressively faster until she gets a stroke. And we are left with a heartbeat monitor beep sound. The end.
After Production. Sibsy decided to remove herself from the credits of Lesson Zero.
In her Place. The Storyboard artist Nicole Wang was Introduced.
The Fact that They thought that this... THIS would be greenlit. Honestly Freaks me out.
You know how Snapple came to be.
You know how lesson zero came to be.
Season 2, Episode 3.
You Now Know The Truth.