Lost Media is something that continues to
entice us for so many different reasons. But sometimes the intrigue doesn’t lie in
the media itself, or the timeline of its discovery, but rather how it was discovered. Every now and then, a piece of lost media
will be found in an incredibly bizarre or coincidental way. These are the ones that stick in my head,
and today we’ll be going through them. For this video, I won’t be covering those
that I’ve made mini-documentaries on, such as Clockman or Cracks. But anyways, let's take a look at pieces of
Lost Media that were found in the strangest ways. Rarely would somebody expect to hear that
an episode of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood was pulled from syndication because of violent
and disturbing topics… but it happened. Well, sort of. In November of 1983, a five-arc episode of
Mister Roger’s Neighborhood aired titled “Mister Roger’s Talks About Conflict”. This episode was made in direct response to
the ABC telefilm titled “The Day After”, a film that featured graphic nuclear war imagery. It starts off like any normal episode of Mister
Roger’s would, but things get a little strange when we visit the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. King Friday becomes suspicious of all the
parts that are coming out of Corney’s factory, and sends Negri over to investigate. Meanwhile we cut to Prince Tuesday at school
where they’re learning about war. Most kids are horrified while Prince Tuesday
seems kind of into the idea of it. Upon going home, he finds his father, the
King, looking over the parts they intercepted from the factory, believing it to be a bomb. The second episode continues the story, with
the King continuing to spiral into paranoia over the fact that this might be a bomb. Eventually, the King jumps to conclusions and
assumes that Southwood is making over a million bombs. So then the King starts wanting to make their
own bombs. After this episode things escalate, and lessons
about air raids and gas masks are taught, but in the end everything is shown to be blown
out of proportion, as Southwood was really just making a bridge. The issue is completely resolved. King Friday takes all the bomb parts and turns
them into a record player for the school, and Mr. Rogers concludes the arc by saying:
”Rules are very, very important. Not just for games but for all things. Even big things like countries. Countries have to have rules to protect people too. And someday you'll be helping to make the
rules for your country. I trust that you'll make the best kind you
know how." The episodes were removed from rotation on
April 5th 1996 due to its content and talks of war in the media. The episodes remained lost until May 20th,
2017, when out of nowhere, the first two episodes were uploaded to the YouTube channel TROG
SLEEP NOW. Then, less than one month later, the entire
five episode arc was uploaded to a private torrent tracker called MySpleen by a user
named Snowpeck. Since then the entire arc was restored by
Lost Media Wiki user YoshiKiller2S and uploaded to MySpleen and the Internet Archive, which
fixed many audio and saturation issues. So, what makes this so interesting? Well, for starters, no one knows anything
about the TROG SLEEP NOW channel. The channel is actually still around to this
day. They never uploaded any other videos and they’ve
since deleted the Mister Roger’s episodes. It's as if this channel existed for the sole reason of uploading them. The timing is also strange. I mean -- why now, after all these years? Well, one theory is linked to former President
Donald Trump and his slashing of public broadcasting in favor of more military spending. Releasing a lost episode that speaks specifically
about the dangers of war seems apt, almost like a warning of things to come. It’s possible this is all just a coincidence,
but the timing seems a little too convenient. Nevertheless, it was a win for lost media
restoration, and remains a personal favorite of mine. Metropolis is a film that is no stranger to
any film major. This 1927 German expressionist film is seen
as one of the pioneers of the science fiction genre, and is among the first feature length
films in said genre. The original film at the time of its release
was met with mixed reception. It was applauded for its groundbreaking special
effects, but was criticized for its story having an alleged communist message. It was also criticized for its incredibly
long run time; the original German version clocked in at about 153 minutes. So to appeal to a more international
audience it was cut down from two and a half hours to an hour and a half, with many plot-relevant
scenes getting chopped, along with several important characters. The film, as a result, became something of
a mystery for those who saw it after the cuts were made, as it was pretty hard to tell what
the plot was actually supposed to be about without these important scenes and characters. Unfortunately, upon being cut from its original
length, many of the deleted scenes were lost to time, never to be seen again. Or so we thought. Almost a century later in 2008, a film collector
in Argentina revealed that they had a copy of the original 153 minute version of the film,
although it was heavily damaged. It turns out that this film collector had
been loaning his copy out to theaters for years this entire time, and Argentinians had
been watching the original cut of the film unknowingly. There was talk going around that theater employees
had to wait two and a half hours for the film to finish, and now it makes sense why. The copy of the film was badly damaged thanks
to it being printed on 16mm positive stock, while the original negatives were on 35mm film. Due to the amount of damage involved, restoring
the film to its original glory became one of the largest film restoration attempts in
history. Two years later in 2010, Kino Films and the
F.W. Murnau Foundation showed off the 99 percent complete restoration and released it on DVD
as “The Complete Metropolis”. However, it remains at 99 percent complete, as, unfortunately,
there are two scenes that are far too damaged to be restored, those being a scene of a monk
preaching in a chapel and another scene of a fight between the characters Rotwang and
Fredersen. So, what makes it interesting? It still remains unknown exactly how or why
the original German film ended up in Argentina and remained so hidden for all these years. The copy was made at some point in the 1960s
or 70s, but how or why still remains a mystery. Perhaps someday we’ll learn why, but for
now we celebrate the return of the birth of sci-fi, and one of the greatest films ever
made. Doctor Who is infamous for being a series
that has a ton of missing episodes. Despite being a massive media franchise, to
this day there are still episodes that remain missing. In fact, most of the BBC’s programming from
the 1930’s to the 1970’s remains lost to this day thanks to “junking”, which
was when old videotapes and film recordings were destroyed in order to make room for new
media recorded on new formats. Unfortunately, due to these practices, 97
episodes of the original series remain lost to this day. The only thing that remains for many of these
episodes are single stills or audio tracks. Most of these lost episodes were during the
run of the Second Doctor, with a handful of the First Doctor episodes missing as well. However, the number of lost episodes was originally
much larger, and a few have even been found here and there in the strangest ways. While video recording at the time was in its
infancy, it was still being done. A few episodes were first discovered in Devon,
England, when a 12 year old boy at the time had meticulously recorded some of the early
episodes in his bedroom, not even allowing his mother inside so he could get the cleanest
sound possible. The next set of episodes ended up being found
in Nigeria. During the 60’s and 70’s the BBC sold many episodes
of Doctor Who to overseas stations for broadcast. These stations would often destroy their own
copies as well, so it’s really a miracle that any survived… especially since they
were found in Nigeria, whereas their original destination for delivery was actually Hong Kong. It’s unknown how these episodes made their
way to Nigeria, but good thing they did or else they might have been lost forever. Some other lost episodes were found in an
abandoned BBC building in Villiers House, Ealing. After the company had left the building, one
employee decided to double check once more to make sure everything had been taken out…
and found two episode recordings left behind in a forgotten back room! If that wasn't weird enough, a few episodes were even
found randomly in the basement of a church in London! Now, the mystery behind why these episodes were
found in this church basement is perhaps the most intriguing bit surrounding Doctor Who lost media. There were rumors that this church was once
a building previously owned by the BBC, and that’s why the episodes were found there. However, the Doctor Who fansite BroaDWcast
delved deep into this mystery in order to find the truth behind it all. Early reports and news stories never made
mention of the church building being formerly owned by the BBC, that’s an aspect that’s
introduced much later in the narrative. While many news stories reported different
facts, almost in a game of telephone to see which parts got distorted, almost all of them
stated that the church was once a Mormon church located in London. It’s believed these episodes, alongside
an episode of a different series titled “Warship”, were being sent to the Australian Broadcasting
Commision, or ABC. They were most likely found in the Mormon
church basement, but its believed it was never truly a BBC building at any point in time. The church was built in 1978 and the episodes
were discovered in 1983, so they would have had to be placed there during a very small
window of time. Other details became murkier and murkier,
such as who was it that found the episodes? What else was in the film canisters? How did the canisters get there? All of this could have been prevented had the
BBC just had the foresight, to see just how big and important Doctor Who would be one
day, and simply not destroy their episodes. But least it makes for an interesting topic. Up until now, we’ve mostly covered films,
episodes of television shows, and other various forms of lost media, but
I don't think I've ever covered a lost 4chan post. Well here we are. This lost 4chan post was about SCP-173, which
would eventually lead to the incredibly popular SCP Foundation. For reference, the SCP Foundation is a fictional
organization all about containing and documenting various entities, individuals, locations
and objects that violate the natural law and order of space, time and physics that we know of. Despite the foundation growing and thriving,
the original post became lost for over a decade. The original post was posted onto the 4chan
board /x/, the paranormal board, on June 22nd, 2007. The post described procedures needed to safely
contain a paranormal statue that could move and attack people when it’s not being looked at. If that sounds similar to a certain episode
of Doctor Who… well, that’s because it is. On June 9th, 2007, a few days before the 4chan
post, an episode of Doctor Who titled “Blink” aired, which introduced the creatures known
as the Weeping Angels. The Weeping Angels are living statues that
can attack when they’re not being looked at, hence the title of the episode being Blink. The concept of these creatures is incredibly
similar to the ones being described in SCP-173, and the original post date lines
up with the airing of the episode in June of 2007. This is something that members of the foundation
have argued about for years, with some members saying the post came out before the Doctor
Who episode, despite there being no proof to back that up. Due to the nature of the website, 4chan does
not archive any of its threads, and after a few days, they are deleted so new
threads can take their place. Unless they’re externally archived or have
screenshots taken of them, most of these threads end up being lost to time. Due to its significance in the foundation
and its fandom, many searched high and low for anything that remained of the original
thread for years, scouring several archives, such as Yotsuba Society, Chanarchive and many
/x/ thread dumps in the Internet Archive, but to no success. However, everything changed on October 8th,
2018, as it turns out that Jason Scott of the Internet Archive just so happened to have
an archive of a whopping 10 million threads from 4chan. Just sitting around for some reason. He uploaded them onto the Internet Archive,
and then a user known as dasMaymay seeped through and found the original SCP-173 post
and uploaded it to the SCP Foundation subreddit, ending a decade long search for the post that
birthed their entire fandom. Thank god that Scott had these posts… but
why did he have them in the first place? And why did he sit on them for this long? We'll probably never know but, at least for now, this mystery is solved. This Australian-American film from 1971 was
a thriller, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Kenneth Cook. The film received favorable reviews, but was
an absolute financial bomb in both Australia and America, partially due to poor marketing
but mostly due to some incredibly distasteful content. In the film there’s a scene where multiple
kangaroos are shot to death in a cruel manner. This footage was taken during a real kangaroo
hunting cull, where the hunters hired for the scene were said to be heavily intoxicated
... which explains the messy and disturbing way they killed the kangaroos. This disturbed the film crew so much that
they orchestrated a fake power outage ... as an excuse to wrap up filming for that day. The film also had additional controversy in
Australia due to its depiction of the outback locals being brash, drunk hedonists. Since the film was completely despised by
audiences in both markets it released in, almost every copy in print vanished, and the
films distributor, Group W, went bankrupt, leading to several of the master negatives
to disappear as well. With the original versions of the film disappearing,
the only way to watch it in any form for decades was through a heavily censored version on
rare TV airings, or on incredibly obscure VHS releases. A version was discovered in Dublin, Ireland
in the early 90’s, but it was so heavily damaged that it was beyond restoration. It truly seemed like this film was completely
lost to time, and it sounded like nobody would truly care if it went missing… that is,
except for the original editor of the film, Anthony Buckley, who refused to let it go. He began his quest for the film in 1994, searching far
and wide for an uncut, high quality print of the original film, and it wasn’t until
eight years later in 2002 that his search finally paid off. After travelling to Pittsburgh, Buckley amazingly
discovered the original negatives in a warehouse, stashed away inside a shipping container marked
“For Destruction”. He later learned that had he not found those
negatives, they would have been destroyed one week later. With the original negatives in hand, the restoration
process could finally begin, and seven years later the fully restored film was finally
finished, and premiered at the 2009 Sydney Film Festival to pretty good reviews. It’s hard to say whether or not the reviews
were simply for the amazing restoration effort, or for the film itself, because at its screening
at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009, many audience members walked out in disgust at
the scenes of the kangaroos getting shot. Wake In Fright may not have ever been a film
that anybody really wanted or was fond of, but it was thankfully found moments before
destruction. Up until now, none of these entries have had
much uneasiness behind them. They’ve mostly been curious, confusing or
enticing mysteries. But The Passion of Joan of Arc is different. This silent French film from 1928 by Carl
Theodor Dreyer was an incredibly innovative and influential film for the time it came
out, featuring new camera shots and angles that have become standard today, like the
close-up. The film made a huge impact on cinema, and
is to this day considered one of the most impressive and powerful films ever made, especially
with the portrayal of Joan of Arc herself, played by Renee Jeanne Falconetti. Despite being so highly regarded and influential, the film came
under fire due to its harsh portrayal of the British church. As a result of this, many theaters refused
to show it, and as such very few copies were printed. Due to its silver nitrate composition, many
copies burned up during various studio fires over the years, and the last known copy was
thought to have been destroyed during a lab fire in 1929. While the master copy had been burned away,
a 61-minute version was able to be spliced together using spare footage and alternative
takes, although this version was not looked upon highly and was really only used for educational purposes. Sadly, Carl Theodor Dreyer passed away in
1968 believing that his film would forever be lost. However, the story begins to take a mysterious
turn in 1981, where a 35 mm nitrate print of the film was found in perfect condition
in the storage closet of a mental hospital After the film was discovered it was sent away to the Norwegian
Film Institute where it was put in storage yet again. Three years later, in 1984, it was finally
determined that the print included the original cut of the film, and given its pristine condition,
only required about one year of restoration to be brought up to snuff. After its restoration in 1985, the film was
released on home video and has been widely available since. But even after all this time has passed, the
question still remains; how and why did the film end up in the storage room of a mental hospital? There’s no explanation, no answer, nothing. And it seems as though we may never get an answer. Disney, and especially Mickey Mouse, are no
stranger to bootleg or satirical cartoons. Everybody knows who Mickey Mouse is,
so using him to get a message across, be it political, critical or just downright disturbing,
is an easy way to get yourself noticed. Just look at Escape from
Tomorrow or suicidemouse.avi. However, once Disney's lawyers catch even a whiff
of these films, you can expect them to disappear fast. While never proven, many people believe that’s
the case with the 1968 film Mickey Mouse in Vietnam. Created by the duo of Lee Savage, who’s
actually the father of Adam Savage from Mythbusters, and Milton Glaser, creator of the iconic I <3 New York logo, the film is actually titled
Short Subject, but is often just referred to as Mickey Mouse in Vietnam, and was created
in protest of the on-going war in Vietnam. Clocking in at just over a minute, the short
stars Mickey Mouse in his classic appearance after he was recruited to join the army and
is sent to the war-torn country of Vietnam. Upon arriving, Mickey is abruptly shot and
falls to the ground, dead, with blood spilling out of his head. The film ends there. After the film was finished, Savage and Glaser
shared it exclusively with their friends and associates, along with the occasional film
festival screening, but that was rare. As mentioned earlier, many assume that
due to the political overtones, violent imagery and use of their flagship icon, the
film was taken down by Disney themselves, but this has actually never been proven, and
given the lack of tangible evidence it can be generally assumed that this is false. However, unknown as the reason for its disappearance
may be, the film nevertheless faded away for about 40 years until 2010 where it randomly
reappeared at the Sarajevo Film Festival. In addition to this copy, it was also discovered
that The Film Maker’s Coop in New York City had a copy in a 38 minute compilation of
other short films. This compilation was available to rent, but
only for organizations and film festivals, thus making it hard to actually be viewed
by anybody. But then suddenly in April of 2013 a YouTube
user by the name of “abadhiggens” discovered and uploaded the original version of Short
Subject to YouTube. The short was missing its original soundtrack,
but abadhiggens took it upon themselves to add System of the Down’s “Soldier Side
(Intro)” on top of it. When asked about where he found it, abadhiggens
stated that he found it in a bin of scrap films at college and saved it from being destroyed. It was just sitting in there, how it got there
or why is completely unknown. Thanks to the fear of the omnipresent eye
of Disney, abadhiggens deleted his original upload, fearing copyright-related trouble. Thankfully multiple mirrors had been saved
and uploaded to avoid having it become lost media again. Five years later on July 31st, 2018, a YouTuber
named CDCB2 discovered a VHS copy of the original short and uploaded it onto his
channel, which contained the original soundtrack as well as missing title and ending cards. And thus the search for the complete version
of Short Subject, or Mickey Mouse in Vietnam had been found. Despite rumors and the assumption that this
is totally a thing they would do, it would seem that Disney was not officially involved
in suppressing the film. It faded away naturally, and the only reason why
abadhiggens deleted his upload was out of fear over what they might do. It remains unknown to this day how the film
got in that scrap bin. And we may never know why.
