I've always found myself attracted to the media most people scoff at, and as a big fan of the Louis Sachar book series "Wayside School," I inevitably became the number one defender of its TV show, simply called Wayside. The reception was lukewarm at best and it only scraped out two seasons but it had a special place in my heart due to finding the books and show at a very young age (and developing a minor crush on the TV show's version of Maurecia that ended up getting me humiliated when I tried to ask out my school's resident skater girl- but that's a story for another time). I still look back on the show fondly, even though I'm now a year or two through college. And that is where we find ourselves at the beginning of this story; with me browsing eBay for Wayside media.
Wayside had a very limited presence in Nick merchandise, probably due to it being based on an existing property and Louis Sachar himself going on record to say he wasn't a fan of the show, which left me in a tough spot. Pretty much all that was sold were the books and physical editions of the show, both of which I already owned, so my best bet if I wanted anything was commissioning artists or making things myself- I still have a custom-made Myron campaign button somewhere in my desk drawers.
So every so often I'd go on the different retailing sites and even Etsy to search "Wayside" in hopes some fairly rare shirt or piece of promo material could be snapped up. I wouldn't call myself a collector but I suppose that was exactly what I was doing, even if it lead to nothing.
That's where I found the DVD.
I had come across a seller of rare cartoon ephemera that I didn't even know existed- like a Lion King sippy cup from Olive Garden or the entire set of Aristocats Happy Meal toys. And one thing caught my eye, one listing.
“WAYSIDE SEASON 3 EPISODE 1 RARE WORKPRINT- ALMOST FINISHED!”
I was shocked, to say the least, and more than a bit suspicious- there were never any plans for a third season. So I contacted the seller and asked about what the deal was. Their response was enlightening.
“Sometime around the end of 2007, drafting was being done on the third season of Wayside, which was going to be twice as long and add material from the second and third books, as well as a few characters that were missing in the original 2 seasons such as Kathy, DJ and Benjamin Nushmutt. It was going to be a big event and Louis Sachar was even going to endorse it after personally approving of scriptwork done for some later episodes, but there was this sudden executive order to completely torch the show as soon as it was done airing for some reason. Something about potential parental complaints being too big to address. I haven’t watched this disc myself, but apparently it has the workprint of the first episode, and I’ve opened it up to check what else is in it- some promo materials for the third season- so it’s not mint condition or anything. Either way I’d recommend you watch the episode- I would but I want to make sure the disk is good quality and working when it gets to the buyer so I’m not touching it.”
I was convinced enough by this, and the price was cheap- somewhere around 40 or 50 bucks- so I ordered it.
It took a few weeks to arrive but when the box came I ripped it open and checked the contents.
There were some promotional fliers in there- weirdly, all focusing specifically around Myron. There were a couple characters on the fliers I didn’t recognize- presumably the new students. One with a big grin on his face I immediately took to be DJ, and another one standing with her arms crossed and tongue out I hazarded a guess was Kathy. None of the fliers really seemed to say anything beyond incredibly vague, noncommittal terms what the season would be like- although one flier implied there’d be an episode where Todd and Maurecia kiss. The wording on some of them, as well as the general graphical choices, seemed to imply these were to be handed out by teachers or around schools for some kind of marketing campaign, which surprised me- usually, when Nick had a non-SpongeBob show they barely marketed it, so the sudden change confused me.
Either way, though, all this was really doing was distracting from the main event- the third season’s first episode. I eagerly inserted the DVD into my computer and the video immediately began playing, with the theme song I had grown to love so much.
Next was the title card, but it was completely silent, rather than having a short jingle like the usual title cards. I wasn't phased by this, though- it was a workprint of an episode, so obviously not everything was finished yet. Presumably the jingles for the episodes were done last or at least very late into the cycle.
The graphic for the title card was simply a simplistic illustration of an attache case, and the episode’s title was “Myron is Free.”
I immediately recognized this as being a reference to Book 2, where in one chapter Myron signs some papers with several men, one with an attache case, and becomes “free” to do whatever he wants in the school. Something about that concept always kinda freaked me out as a kid for whatever reason. Maybe it was how it was barely addressed and Myron really could have just done… ANYTHING. I had some dark thoughts along those lines as a kid- being given the freedom to do anything with no strings attached could lead to some foul behavior if things like The Purge were to be believed. But I digress.
The episode was animated in Flash like the latter half of Season 2, but it was scratchy and rough- the lines were all varying lengths and sometimes even wobbled a bit. It reminded me a lot of the "squigglevision" style used in shows like Home Movies and Dr. Katz, but this time a consequence of unfinished, unsmoothed animation rather than just a stylistic choice.
The episode itself opened on Todd entering class and greeting various characters. He said hello to Bebe, Stephen, the three Erics, Shari, Maurecia and Dana before coming up to Myron's desk. On Myron's desk was a bird, and Myron tossed a handful of seed to the bird, causing it to peck away at the pile.
"Hey, Myron," Todd said, throwing his backpack back to his seat with a "thud." "Who's that?"
Myron looked proud as he responded. "It's Oddly!" "That's the bird's name?" Todd asked, to which Myron nodded. "You sure named your bird oddly," he pondered, to which Myron nodded again, before hesitating.
"He's not my bird," Myron responded proudly. "He belongs to nature, not in a cage! Go, be free, Oddly!"
Oddly raised a birdy eyebrow and then flew out of the window, causing Myron to sigh and Todd to slowly back away.
So far, this was indeed all shaping up to be like the episode- and the next part was too.
Myron slumped his head on his desk and his internal monologue could be heard.
"I bet Oddly thinks I'm the one who lives in a cage. Every day I have to come into this place and I can't come out until they let me, and every time the bell rings it's always the same. Up the stairs for class. Down the stairs for recess. Up the stairs for class. Down the stairs for lunch. Up the stairs for class. Up and down and up and down! I'm never free!"
Suddenly, the gentle tapping of a pencil was heard, Myron's head shot up and the camera panned to Mrs. Jewls in front of the class. "Myron, I already told you," she chided, "no philosophical ruminations in class. Do it again and your name's going on the discipline list. Now," she continued sweetly, "onto long division!"
The screen faded to Mrs. Jewls talking about some math thing or another, before the bell suddenly rang, interrupting her, and the kids rushed out of class like a tidal wave, Myron being the last in line. Another fade, this time to the kids rushing back into class, Myron once again being last. Another fade, kids rushing back out of the classroom with Myron bringing up the rear, and then one more fade. This time it was to the kids ascending the stairs from the lunchroom. Myron was about to follow them, but suddenly stopped in his tracks.
"No!" he declared. "I'm not gonna let the schedule dictate what I do! I am free, and I will always be free! I'll be like Oddly!"
And instead of going upstairs to the classroom, he kept going downstairs, eventually ending up in a dank, dimly-lit basement.
The basement was illustrated in an almost photorealistic style, like an oil painting, compared to the Flash animation on Myron, who seemed to emit a faint stylistic glow that made some of the background visible as he walked through it.
Myron looked horrified, apparently realizing far too late the weight of his actions- being in an unlit basement without any of his friends where anything- or anyone- could be lying in wait for him. If you remember the events of the chapter that this episode was presumably inspired by, they played out pretty much the same, but just in case you don't know: Myron walks forward for a bit, starts hearing footsteps, and throws his shoes, going barefoot as the person behind him apparently catches them, and eventually he's confronted with the person who was following him.
Now, in the books, "person" meant "people-" the group of men in suits, with one with an attache case, telling Myron he can be free, and the rest of the chapter (and book) plays out.
Here, it was just... the case. Floating in the air, presumably held by two outstretched hands.
A voice echoed in the distance. "YOU CAN BE FREE, MYRON..." it whispered gratingly.
Myron opened the case in front of him, and what appeared was a dull, rusty knife. He twisted it in his hands, and his grim facial expression said that he knew exactly what he needed to do.
At this point I was getting a bit spooked. This obviously was way more graphic in its implications than any episode of Wayside, but hey- a mere two years later, Regular Show would run on Cartoon Network, which got away with all sorts of crap- and besides, Invader Zim was on Nick too. Maybe Wayside was just gonna get darker as a whole- some of the chapters of the books became downright despondent.
Thankfully, nothing graphic happened- rather, Myron simply slammed the knife into a nearby wall and carved out one phrase into it with the knife.
"MYRON IS FREE." The screen faded out with a loud, brassy sting, then back to the title card from earlier, with a "2" fixed onto it in Times New Roman font. Presumably, this was a two-part episode, but that first part was pretty short... I wondered, foolishly, what Part 2 would entail.
I'd know soon enough.
The second part faded in on a shot of the classroom, with Todd chatting with Dana as the day began under a title card: "FOUR WEEKS LATER."
Dana looked puzzled as the camera zoomed on her and Todd.
"You know, Myron's been out for a while," she said thoughtfully.
"Yeah, I noticed that too," Todd responded. "I wonder where he is."
Maurecia skated up to the two of them, holding a bouquet of roses behind her back. "Hi, Todd!" she said, singsong. "I've got someth-"
Todd interrupted her. "Maurecia, have you seen Myron lately?"
Maurecia quirked an eyebrow. "Umm... no," she responded hesitantly. "The last I saw of him was lunch a month or so ago. We were going up the stairs to go back to class, but he went down instead." In the middle of her sentence, she handed Todd the bouquet, and he muttered a quick and surprisingly genuine-sounding "thank you," before he began to speak again.
"We should go look for him," he said. "Friends shouldn't leave other friends behind!"
The two nodded eagerly, and Maurecia leaned in towards Todd, a dreamy look on her face. "Before we go looking, I have something else for you, Todd!" she said in the same singsong tone as earlier.
Todd sighed. "What is it?"
Maurecia wound up her arm and punched him straight across the room. I couldn't help but chuckle- even in such a bizarre episode of the show, there were some things that didn't change.
The screen cut to Maurecia, Todd and Dana at the entrance to the basement- Todd holding a flashlight and Dana holding the 30-floors hall pass from the episode Dana Checks Out- a neat little reference.
"Well, here we are," Todd said cautiously. "The basement- where Myron was last seen."
"You'll hold me if things get too scary, right, Todd?" Maurecia asked, her voice a combination of flirtation and legitimate concern.
Todd hesitated before nodding, causing Maurecia to smile widely.
The three entered the basement, briefly becoming the classic "eyes in a black void" cartoon dark-room trope before Todd flipped on the flashlight.
There were so many dead rats.
Maurecia clung to Todd out of fear and Dana gagged as the three saw the trail of dead rats strewn throughout the basement hallway- the floor saturated with corpses of rodents. They were illustrated in quite the goofy way- like Sammy, the existing dead rat character- but it was still incredibly unnerving. The three carefully stepped through the corpses until eventually they stopped, hearing the sound of linoleum scraping.
They slowly peered around a corner... and saw Myron, carving what looked like a tally mark in the wall with his rusty knife- but he looked different.
He was haggard, having somehow grown facial hair in the month he was down in the basement, and far thinner, like he hadn't eaten at all. He turned to the group and began speaking in a loud, grating voice, not unlike the whisper earlier.
"Hey, guys!" he said. "Wow, we have a lot to catch up on!"
"What is going on here?!" Todd asked, and Myron laughed a disgusting, hacking, wheezing laugh.
"So glad you asked, friends!" Myron continued. "Well, I was thinking. Oddly can be free, why not me? So I separated from the group after lunch one day and I was given my mission. I knew what I had to do."
"Kill all these rats?" Dana asked, horrified. "You know that Section 3 Subsection Q-14 of the official Wayside rulebook prohibits dead rats on school grounds!" She hesitated. "Except Sammy, he can stay."
"Oh, rules, schmules," Myron said dismissively, causing Dana to become red from cartoonish anger. "Rules are just another way of keeping you in the cage! I broke out of that cage, Dana, and maybe one day you will too."
"Rule one of being friends with me," Dana said furiously, "NEVER TALK LIKE T HAT ABOUT RULES! Our best-friendship is over if you keep this up!"
"Who cares? I have PLENTY of friends," Myron laughed. "There's Mark Miller- everyone calls him Benjamin Nushmutt. There's Ray Gunn- he told me he's related to Bebe... they became free! And after long enough staying down here they stopped being relevant to the outside world, but it was OK! We only need each other! Even when I become irrelevant too, they'll be here for me!"
Maurecia rolled up a sleeve and rolled on her skates towards Myron, who nervously backed away until his heel smacked against a body laying on the floor.
"Oh," he said. "Needed, I guess I mean. Hard luck, Ray!"
There was the body of a boy with curly brown hair, eyes blank, foaming at the mouth and laying down on the floor, head resting on his arm as he twitched. It must have been the ill- if not fully dead- body of Ray Gunn.
"The freedom can get too much for some people," Myron shrugged as though he didn't just essentially step on a corpse. "But you know me- authority is in my blood! This is more than I can get with class presidency or even being 'it' in tag again! I have total authority over whatever and whoever comes down here! Including these!" He grabbed a rat and shoved it in the very annoyed face of Maurecia. "My own little Sammys. Everyone LOVED Sammy, but do you know what he was? A RAT! It was like the substitute cow all over again, but at least the cow was alive! So you know what I did? I made more!" He cackled. "Now there'll be more than enough Sammy to go around- maybe I'll even lure some others down here to become free too!"
"You're going too far with this, you know that?" Todd shouted. "You look like you haven't eaten in weeks and you're just killing rats in the basement! No freedom is worth this!"
Myron's laugh turned into a hacking cough before he grinned. "Make me stop, then," he said, producing the knife.
Before he could make a move, though, Maurecia winked at Todd, wound up, and socked Myron right in the jaw! Myron collapsed to the floor and the three grabbed him by the legs and began to pull him up the stairs.
Interestingly, as they pulled up the now-extremely-long stairs, gradually it became darker, and eventually it looked almost like midnight when they made it outside, where they threw him onto a bus stop bench and went their separate ways.
It transitioned to the next day, where Myron and Dana went through some generic talk about how Myron had let freedom get to his head, but it very quickly began to pan down instead of focusing on their conversation, which was odd, considering usually this show would have that final talk be the centerpiece of the falling action.
Down it went, through each floor, until it came to the basement. Louis was down in there, sweeping and kicking away the occasional rat corpse. "Ugh, grody," he muttered as he swept yet another dead rodent into a corner.
"I don't know how that little dude let it get like this down here," Louis pondered. "He was down here for a month but he couldn't have-"
He suddenly froze. His skin turned pale and he dropped his broom.
The screen cut to a shaky photo of a storyboard, and it was a horrific image- Ray's body, shaded heavily and depicted in a gruesomely realistic style. It was all I could do to hold in a choked-up sob as I saw the body- this was like nothing on the network at the time except maybe Invader Zim.
It cut back to Louis, still a storyboard, who was also tearing up. "That must be what happened to Bebe's sister... aw damn," he choked out.
He poked at the body with the end of his broom, which caused Ray's shirt to rip, revealing his torso.
There was a message on it, written in red that was striking against the black and white of the storyboards- maybe written in red, maybe carved in blood.
"IS IT WORTH IT TO BE FREE?"
And just like that the episode ended.
I got back in contact with the seller immediately, telling them what happened, and they gave a response.
"This checks out from what I know.
I have a friend who did some script touchups for Nick back in the 2000s and they told me exactly what happened with this. The reason that this proof even existed- as well as a couple others- was sort of a situation like Back at the Barnyard, if you've ever heard of that. I sort of lied when I said the drafting was being done in 2007- I didn't tell the whole truth, rather. Basically what happened was that the show was all but cancelled at that point, and they knew they weren't going to make it past season 3, so they decided to go overboard and off-the-wall with the plots, making them more dark and containing more elements of violence and darker humor- Invader Zim-like, in a sense. However, this episode got accidentally shown to investors at a meeting and it got the Nick crew wise to what was happening, so Season 3 was completely pulled from creation and the show ended with Season 2."
Then they sent another message.
"I have several of the workprints for some of the other episodes- I think there are 5 in all. I can send those to you for free if you upload them onto the internet. More people need to know about this."
I said I would love to do that and they sent the packages, which are currently on their way.
In the meantime, I've noticed something interesting on my TV- a really specific case of screenburn.
When I turn off my computer, it eventually goes fully black (and when it turns on it eventually shows me the thing I want), but for a couple seconds before both occurences, it shows me what appears to be text on the screen, burnt in in a blinding shade of white.
"IS IT WORTH IT TO BE FREE?"
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Author's Notes:
Just watched Wayside, so I figured that I'd make this to celebrate both the show and the books. Great show!
Yes, this is signifying a potential future series of sequels. I think the books could get surprisingly dark, so this is my way to reference that.
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