The Hidden Vault

The Rugrats storyboard “Incredible” is an unreleased storyboard comic for the Nickelodeon series Rugrats. “Incredible” is one of the most infamous pieces of lost media not only due to the lewd nature of the comic itself, but also due to the sexual harassment and grooming allegations against its creator, Steve Ressel.

History

“Incredible” was the third page in a storyboard comic created by the Klasky production crew of Rugrats sometime around 1998. One of the directors, Steve Ressel, contributed to the third page of the comic, which is also the only page of the comic that is available online. The first two pages of the comic that were created by the other artists initially involved Angelica being difficult to Tommy. Tommy would then get her a drink from the kitchen and put dog food and drano in the drink in an attempt to harm Angelica and thus get his revenge for his mistreatment by her. Ressel was initially disgusted by the comic but interestingly decided to contribute some drawings of his own. His first page of drawings, and the third page overall of the comic, would be the famous “Rugrats storyboard jam” that most of the public is familiar with at this time. His first page involved Tommy walking over to Angelica, attempting to give her the tainted drink, before being confronted by Didi who confronts him for having juice before dinner. Didi is then suddenly assaulted by her husband Stu, who charges into the scene and violently shoves her to the floor. Stu becomes verbally abusive to the children while Tommy twitches uncontrollably. Stu then makes a sexual remark to Angelica while drinking the tainted juice that Tommy originally planned to give to Angelica.

However, it didn’t stop there as Ressel would eventually add a total of 12 frames to the storyboard while other artists would only do 3 or 4 frames. The next page was a close up of Stu’s crotch, with lightning bouncing around and the words “Balls of Thunder!” appearing. This simple storyboard jam was beginning to take a life of its own as other artists would add their own additions to the story. Apparently, some of the later images involved Angelica stroking Stu’s testicles with her hands and multiple incest sex scenes. One of the artists then proceeded to take the entire storyboard comic to the production crew of The Wild Thornberrys, before an executive producer noticed the comic and intervened by taking it. The status of the comic is still unknown to this day. The storyboard would first come to the public attention by being posted on Ressel’s LiveJournal blog sometime in the 2000s or early 2010s. The storyboard was widely criticized by countless netizens and fans of Rugrats due to the disturbing nature of the comic itself and the incest scenes implied in the later pages of the comic, as well as grooming allegations against Ressel which further tarnished the reputation of the comic.

In 2020, a YouTuber by the name of Shannon Strucci came forward with allegations of having been groomed by Ressel when she was 16 and he was around 38. Strucci shared inappropriate messages and pornographic art that Ressel had sent to her when she was a teenager. While Shannon didn’t want to cancel Ressel for his actions, she did want to share her story with the public after learning about another woman online sharing her own story about being groomed at an early age by an older creator in the entertainment industry.

Fan Video

A YouTuber, QELINDENT, made a full animation of the “Incredible” storyboard. I first came across it on the Rugrats subreddit and thought that I would share it here. I personally think that the team did a great job of animating the storyboard and giving their own style and humor to the comic.

Personal Thoughts

As a fan of the Rugrats franchise, the “Incredible” storyboard fascinated me when I first learned about it and did my own research on the subject. I always thought it was interesting how the first two pages of the “Incredible” storyboard were never released. I understand the potential resistance by the Rugrats crew to not release the later pages due to their lewd nature, but we don’t know if the first two pages mentioned by Ressel are as explicit as the other pages.

Ressel did mention that an executive producer confiscated the infamous storyboard, but Ressel didn’t elaborate on what became of the comic. He said that it was either destroyed or locked away, but we still don’t have a clear consensus on the whereabouts of “Incredible” or even if there are multiple copies somewhere.

An interesting tidbit about “Incredible” is that despite the cursing and violent behavior shown by Stu in page three of the comic, Ressel still decided to censor the word “cunt” on the last panel where Stu is drinking the tainted juice. The word “cunt” is replaced by “c-word” instead, but its somewhat funny that he decided to censor the word considering the content already in page three and in the later pages of the comic.

I also think that a common misconception about the storyboard is that only Ressel worked on it. However, he himself mentioned that other crew members worked on the comic and added their own additions to the story. It’s possible then that other artists not only could give more information about “Incredible”, but could also have their own copies or pages saved, such as Ressel did with his third page of the comic.

I know that this may be an unpopular opinion, but I would love to see “Incredible” released online. Despite the very inappropriate subject matter and the allegations against Ressel, it’s still a part of Rugrats history. I think often times we dismiss and ridicule content that is either politically incorrect or in poor taste, and while I’m not defending the production of “Incredible” in any way, I think it would be nice to show the public the sometimes dark undercurrents in the animation and entertainment industry.

Sources

https://lostmediawiki.com/Rugrats_%22Incredible%22_(partially_lost_storyboard_jam_comic_of_Nickelodeon_animated_series;_1998)#google_vignette

https://web.archive.org/web/20201122012957/https://controlc.com/70e6d741

https://meaww.com/invader-zim-director-steve-ressel-accused-grooming-of-underage-girl-shannon-strucci-inappropriate