Gabriel Garza - Your Worst Nightmare (Original Version)

Do you remember the Season 6 Episode 8 of Gabriel Garza called "Your Worst Nightmare", which was aired on January 13th, 1996 on Syndication? If you haven't watch the episode, here's a summary of the plot:

When Gabriel did something terrible at school, Vio decides to possess Gabriel as a monster to do evil stuff. In the middle of the episode, Gabriel gets hated by everyone and Roge, Leno and Cole tried to stop Gabriel from doing those stuff until the brothers finally realize that Gabriel's being possessed by Vio in the episode's climax. In the end, Vio wanted to possess someone someday.

The episode is a little bit scary and disturbing because of the plot and title. Well, there's something morbid behind it...

There was an early version of the episode that was MUCH more disturbing and horrifying and was originally planned to be a Halloween special in season 6 (probably around October 1995) but the executives changed the darker theme for the episode because of the content. Also, they delayed the episode to a much later date which was January 1996.

Before the final version was aired on TV, the original version was copied into a VHS tape, and since my friend worked at Gingo Animation, he had the tape of the original version of the episode.

He focused more about having it in his possession rather than watching it. He knew about my love for the original episode so he let me borrow the tape of it for a while.

When I got home, I popped the tape into my old VCR player and there was static for a few seconds and then it showed black screen. Right before the intro starts, a message appeared on the black screen, saying:

"The following episode you about to see is an early version of the season 6 episode 'Your Worst Nightmare', created on August of 1995. Unlike the final version, this version contains blood, gore, violence and disturbing content, and it was actually aired in other countries before the final version was aired in the US. Watch it at your own risk."

After the message, it cuts to the intro, which was normal. But the beginning was different, you know where Gabriel gets in detention in school for talking back to the bullies? Well, instead, it shows a black screen but you could hear Gabriel and Roge arguing about something, but the audio is muffled so you couldn't hear what they're saying. After about five minutes, the tape cut to the scene of Gabriel getting ready for bed. When Vio arrived, I noticed he has red growing eyes and has a creepy grin.

When Vio possesses Gabriel, he orders him to kill people in this version, while in the final version he orders him to do some very rude stuff. Gabriel has transformed into a demon, and he has red growing eyes in this version. Then the screen fades to black. A new scene begins with Gabriel killing everyone in Sinking Spring, but the screen was distorted, and all you could see is red. When the screen turned back to normal, it shows Gabriel doing something disturbing... It looks like he's raping Claire.

The scene cuts to Roge facing Gabriel after he killed everyone until they start a battle with each other. In this version, Roge finds a pistol on the ground and shoots Gabriel in the gut. But then Gabriel comes back to life and grabs Roge by ripping off his arms, legs, and head, until he is dead and just a white ball with a pool of blood behind him.

Gabriel then arrived to Vio's lair and told Vio that he had killed everyone in Sinking Spring. But Vio says to Gabriel that what he did to Gabriel was wrong, and that Gabriel will die, which angered Gabriel, till' the point where he took out a knife and stabbed Vio, 5 times in the chest. Vio dies, as Gabriel rips off his arms, legs, and head. The episode then ended with a message in Japanese but I realized this message was from LSD: Dream Emulator. The credits then rolled, playing unusually ominous music for the show.

After witnessing what I just watched, I threw the tape out. I will never forget this experience. If you stumble across the original version of "Your Worst Nightmare", let me know.