Scratch & Sniff

Original Author: TheDarkCat97

There’s no interesting backstory here; I didn’t buy this thing from some creepy garage sale. I didn’t get it as a gift from some estranged relative that doubled as a cultist or anything. The TV was bought at the mall. It was sitting on a shelf, ordinary as anything. It’s a cheap one, too. Nothing about the way it looks would suggest that this thing would be as screwed-up as it is.

It's just your regular ol' flat-screen with everything on it, like Netflix, Hulu, and it even connects to my Xbox One.

When I first bought it at the local mall, there was nothing off about the desk clerk's reaction to the thing, he was like everybody else. He didn't get over-dramatic about it, or started screaming out of nowhere. He just did his job and nothing was the matter. When I got to the house, I placed it on the wall like all flat-screens go, and I already purchased Netflix to go with it. Everything was flawless. I began watching my favorite show, "1000 Ways To Die", from season one-to-four, and as days went by, nothing seemed to be out of place. That is, until three weeks later after I have purchased Netflix.

I was coming back from work as a technician to watch another episode of 1000 Ways To Die, until I noticed a new show had already popped up. I took a look at it, and it looked like a knock-off of Tom and Jerry. I thought 'What the fuck, how did this get here?' Because, there was no commercials announcing this kind of cartoon on either Cartoon Network, or Nickelodeon, or any kind of child-friendly TV station on that matter. At least, I think so.

The show was called, Scratch & Sniff.

A very, very sketchy name for a cartoon like this, and the animation was done in a way that it resembled Dave Alvarez's work. Hell, it looked like the Looney Toons illustrator did the animations himself. It kind of resembled Paul Dini's comic Kickstarter, "Boo & Hiss", but... there was no sign that he did this, neither did it show who created it. It just showed the title of the show. I clicked on it to get more information on the show, and luckily there was. It reads as follows: "A never-ending rivalry between a cat (Scratch) and a mouse (Sniff) whose chases and battles often involved slapstick, comedy, and minimal dialogue." I mean, it does sound like Tom and Jerry, but I could've sworn that there was no advertisements about the show anywhere on TV, or online. I looked at the episode list, and it only showed four seasons, and there were episodes suggesting that they're going to be good. I clicked on episode one, titled "Let's Get Ready To Rumble", and the intro began after Netflix was done loading. The intro was similar to Kid vs Kat, but the fast jazz music was so, so mediocre. Like it was made somewhere on YouTube, and whoever made this used it for the show.

After the show's title and the episode's title card (which showed both Scratch and Sniff about to fight in some sort of wrestling ring, with people cheering and applauding with cameras flashing), it faded in with a shot of a two-story house at night. It then cuts to Scratch; a slim black anthropomorphic cat with yellow eyes (he looks distinctly like Hiss from Paul Dini's new Kickstarter, except the character was re-colored as such), being talked to by his owner; a twenty-four-year-old man with a white T-shirt, black shorts and brown short hair with baby-blue eyes, saying that he's going to order a pizza, and that he's giving him a job to watch the house for any rodents. I was a bit curious here, I know cats are really good mousers, but how can a cat watch the house for burglars (okay maybe they can, seeing that they'll do anything to protect their masters.)? But seeing that this is cartoon logic, I thought nothing of it.

Scratch began doing what any kid would do when left home alone, he began to lock the doors and windows, preventing anyone from breaking into the home, picked up a toy gun and a soldier's helmet, and began to march around as Military music played in the background. It then panned over to the mousehole in the living room, showing Sniff; a grey anthropomorphic mouse similar to Boo (when he was alive), again from Paul Dini's new Kickstarter. He walked out his mousehole and snuck upstairs to play pool in the owner's man cave, as the man called it. As usual in this kind of show, Scratch finds out what's going on and the usual slapstick happens with comedic results. I didn't find this funny, I'm too old for shows like this. The shows that gets a laugh out of me is either The Dave Chappelle Show, and Family Guy, since I'm clearly a grown man.

The slapstick humor continues throughout the entire episode, till the owner gets back home. Scratch was about to devour Sniff, until he hears the car door shut, and sees the kitchen a mess. In a speed of light, he cleans up the entire kitchen as if he was Superman before the door opens. As expected, the owner was quite impressed with his pet's efforts, and he even sees that Scratch caught Sniff. He congratulates Scratch for his efforts, and goes to eat his pizza. The cat then goes out back and throws Sniff outside, only for Sniff to re-enter the house through another hole and began watching TV in what looked like a mouse version of the home. Then the episode ends.

Not a really bad episode, I have to be honest. I found it really interesting and pretty enjoyable. As days went by, I would return home and watch another episode of that obscure kid's show. There was an episode where Scratch and Sniff were at a museum, the movie theater, hell even in the middle ages. But that was all season one. Season two was a bit different. As the episodes progressed, they got weirder and weirder.

There was episodes where the characters would get more and more cynical with each other. In one episode, there was an episode where Scratch had a screwdriver go through his eye in a cartoonish fashion, and he painfully pulled it out, taking his eye out in the process. And what made me shocked was... the injury stayed with him throughout the show. And in another episode, Sniff was burnt by Scratch's flamethrower, and the little burns stayed with him throughout the show as well.

By season three, the character's became a lot more sinister; showing death glares and evil grins. Every episode was more gruesome with every slapstick routine, and the side characters like a Dobermann named Don Barks and an orange Tabby cat named Stripe, did nothing to help. And by the fourth and final season, both Scratch and Sniff where about as bad as ever; becoming creepy characters with their trademark violence. Scratch's personality changed to that of a serial killer while Sniff's personality changed to that of an organ donor.

Both where very out of character, which made me uneasy. Why would somebody this messed up would make this for little kids?

As a technician, I had to get to the bottom of this. I checked the station it's airing on the internet, and it aired on a TV network called, PBJ; an American children's television network that was a joint venture between Luken Communications and DreamWorks Classics. It began programming in late summer 2011, and had 19 broadcast affiliates before they ceased operations in March 2016. The weird part was... this is now 2019, and it's been three years since PBJ became defunct. I went online to Wikipedia to see the early and late broadcast PBJ had to offer, and Scratch & Sniff wasn't listed in any of the shows.

I had chills go down my spine, and I'm not the one who gets scared easily.

I'm sorry if I didn't describe any of the episodes of the show to you, because I have a lot on my mind and I didn't want to waist your time with just a long-ass story. I didn't want to call the police, because I didn't want to waist their time by showing them a creepy show that aired on an old obscure TV network. Besides, I would go to jail for that kind of shit. And another thing. The show was gone. I'm not kidding you, the show was gone. I tried using the search bar, but it only took me to other cartoons like Tom and Jerry (of course), Looney Toons, and other kid's shows. That's it. It was like everything on Scratch & Sniff never even existed at all.

It was like the entire show... vanished from existence.

I asked my neighbor if he saw a show titled Scratch & Sniff, seeing that he was a sucker for old kid's shows, and he flat-out told me everything.

He said that his son used to watch it when PBJ aired on TV, but he said that it began to act strange, then it went full nightmare fuel, which proves I did not imagine or dream it. But how it disappeared from Netflix remains a mystery.

I don't know what the hell is going on, nor do I have any evidence to back up my claim. But I do know that PBJ is actually real, and Scratch & Sniff did air on that specific network, but it was taken off the air for quite some time. It is void of any screenshots, clips of the actual episodes, and musical soundtracks: although some of the musical cues are literally taken from YouTube (specifically Kevin Macleod), meaning that this show's musical score is really low-budget.

I haven't told anyone this, mostly because they wouldn't believe me, so I kept it all to myself. So I tell you this, if you happen to stumble upon a show by the name of Scratch & Sniff, please let me know, send a photo or video footage as evidence, I'll be more than happy to post them on here when I get the chance. Because stuff like this doesn't just randomly happen to everyone.

The person who made this show was never found, the show is, now and days, non-existent. And the man, or woman, who made this show, has never been identified.