The Johnny Rocket Show

When I was a young lad, one of the essential parts of my routine was watching the Sunday morning cartoons. For a period of around four hours, I remained glued to my TV. Nothing could stir me from my seat – there could've been a house fire and I wouldn't have even noticed.

One Sunday I sat on my couch as normal and flipped to the cartoon's channel. I had made it just in time for my favorite show, Skid Kid and Holly Dog. It was, uh, regional.

Anyway, as the incredible adventures of Skid Kid and the Holly Dog commenced, the TV began to break up. It was to my great displeasure, as the image began to glitch and the audio change from exponentially loud to deafly quiet. As I was prepared for my tantrum however, the freezing stopped – just in time for commercials.

Even though I was irritated, I continued watching, hoping desperately I got the chance to see how Skid Kid would defeat the likes of Lizard Louie. It was halfway through a vacuum commercial that the breakups began once again, only this time it turned to a different program entirely.

Sometimes the channel had 'mini-cartoons' during the break, so I assumed this was one of them. On my TV was a clay ball shaped as a moon. You could see a tiny puppet string holding it up – bad production value, I say – and the rest of the room was dark. It stayed like that for a good minute until it turned to the title screen.

On a metal sheet the words 'THE JOHNNY ROCKET SHOW' lay in red paint. The lack of sound turned into the distant murmur, but nothing else.

The screen changed again, this time showing another gray, clay figure of a boy. Well, at least I assumed that's what it was – it was about as well made as something I would make for art class, with very distinctive dots for a pair of eyes, a nose, and a smiley face. Suddenly, a black gloved hand picked up the figure and started moving it around, making very quiet noises. He sounded excited, but the lack of his voice plus the indiscriminate murmur made him very hard to here, so instead it sounded like a conglomerate of excited yet lackluster cheers with a few murmurs in between. This continued for a while longer, in which sometimes the screen would break up like before, but after awhile the camera moved up and showed something that made me hand on to my seat and sit as far back as possible.

The camera zoomed out, revealing the entirety of the man holding the clay toy. He was in a dark room, with his body covered in all black. At the top of his head lay a horse skull, straight out of a wild west movie. It covered his entire face.

This continued with his small excited voice and the playing of the figure that eventually I was so uneased I just left and didn't watch cartoons that day.

I never figured out what happened afterwards while I was a kid, however an article I had recently found lead me to believe that the network was hijacked for around 20 minutes and broadcasted from an unknown location in the state. Whoever did it has never been found, nor a proper explanation to the events placed. 

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