After all was said and done, Jon would end up spending about THIRTY FUCKING YEARS looking for the short. THIRTY. He considered it his life’s work.

Listen. I can appreciate that level of dedication to recovering a lost piece of animation history, but uh. damn.

Anyway, he posted about it online, where many other people reported seeing it as well. The fact that there were multiple accounts of its existence, but little to no information on it anywhere, was what made it start garnering attention on the internet. Now a bunch of people are looking for it.

No one knew for sure what the title was yet, so most referred to it as the “Crack Monster Cartoon”, or something similar. The lack of a known title (or music, or voice actors, or writers, or literally anything) made it extremely difficult to research, but there were too many reports to write it off as a hoax.

So people kept looking.

I’m gonna leave out some details in the middle here, since I don’t wanna make this thread too long. But it’s super interesting, I’d recommend checking it out for yourself. Let’s just skip to the weird part.

After years of searching, Armond received a fax to his workplace with an untraceable number. It read: 

“WE HAVE THE COPY”

Additionally, they said they would send him said copy of the short, on one condition: he was to never show it publicly, or post it online in any way. 

Whoever it was that contacted him, they did NOT want it to be viewed by the general public.

here it is, btw.

So six months pass. Armond gets a letter, which says 

“WE TRUST THIS COMPLETES YOUR SEARCH”

Also enclosed in the envelope is a DVD.

To clarify, he received it on a SUNDAY. These people, whoever they are, found out where he WORKED, and then went to the effort of delivering it PERSONALLY on a day where there was NO MAIL, just to send the message THAT THEY KNEW WHERE HE LIVED AS WELL.

FOR THAT SESAME STREET CARTOON.

So now he has it. And he tells people he has it, but that no one else can see it. Which is, of course, INCREDIBLY unsatisfying to the people online who have also been searching for it, right?

Enter Dycaite, the founder of the Lost Media Wiki.

So Dycaite started looking into it as well. Like I said, I’m skipping a bunch of details in this thread, but long story short he eventually received an anonymous email.

The email contained CRACKS.

There were no instructions telling him not to share it. Dycaite didn’t hesitate, which is how we got the version of CRACKS that I linked.

With the newfound context provided by the video, it actually makes complete sense that it was only aired a few times. This short was made right before the word “Crack” became widely known as a euphemism for drugs, which is how you get characters like “The Crack Monkey”. 

Sesame Street doesn’t want to be associated with that, so they stop airing it right? Eventually it’s forgotten about, the only record of its existence being Sesame Street’s digital archives.

(It’s believed that the person who emailed Dycaite had access to these archives, due to the timestamp and title at the start of their version of the clip.)

So… that’s it right? It SEEMS like it should just be a classic story of formerly lost media, cartoon stops airing, gets lost, people online find it again. We even know WHY it was lost, not because it was “too scary” or whatever, just because it didn’t age well.

But there’s still SO MUCH mystery surrounding CRACKS.

The version of CRACKS that Jon Armond received was different from the version Dycaite received. Armond says his version appears to be an actual recording, as it starts with a brief appearance of Bert and Ernie, before transitioning to the short. As mentioned earlier, Dycaite’s version seems to come from some kind of archive.

So it can be reasonably assumed that the people who contacted Armond are not affiliated with the person who emailed Dycaite. The person who contacted Dycaite also didn’t seem to care if the short was released to the public. Armond still hasn’t released his version of the recording to the public, though has apparently shown it to a few people privately.

So why all the secrecy? And why was Jon Armond given a copy? Did they simply feel bad for him, or was there something they didn’t want him to discover in his search? Was the version Armond received (and therefore the version that was aired) somehow different from the version Dycaite got????

i don’t fucking know babey!!! and neither does anyone else apparently!!!!

oh AND the group who didn’t want CRACKS to ever be viewed doesn’t actually seem to be affiliated with Sesame Street, since they presumably don’t have access to the archives. (otherwise, why not remove the info from the beginning and send that version?)

so there’s an unofficial Sesame Street Forbidden Knowledge Guild out there i fuckin guess!!!!!!!!

anyways that’s cracks for you