Invent a lost media story

This one is based off of a dream I had last night.

"The Darkness Has Risen" is a cancelled finale TV/Direct to Video movie of the 1999 animated kids horror series "Archie's Weird Mysteries" that was planned for a Early 2001 premiere/release. The TV/Direct to Video film was intially the 4 final episodes of a cancelled "Season 2" of the show before DIC Entertainment canceled plans of a season 2 of "Archie's Weird Mysteries" in favor of making the final episodes of the scrapped season 2 one huge TV/Direct to Video movie in collaboration with Universal Pictures and their Cartoon Studios division. The story would've been about an evil dark force, created by villains from previous episodes, looming over Riverdale, causing a few characters to turn evil. One piece of concept art showed an evil two headed Dillon with a mechanical arm. Another showed Moose with spider legs and multiple eyes, kind of like a bootleg Waternoose from "Monsters Inc." It is up to Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and Reggie to stop this evil force and make Riverdale beautiful again (and not a magnet for B-movie type monsters). Along the way, the gang encountered other characters from other places. Yes, this was meant to also be a crossover movie with DIC and Les Studios Tex's other licensed works. Initially, the movie was only going to be a crossover with "Sabrina the Animated Series" and "Sonic The Hedgehog (TV Series)" known by fans as "Sonic SatAM". It made alot of sense as Sabrina tend to appear within Archie's own adventures a few times, as well as Archie Comics being the main publisher of the Sonic comics as of the creation of this movie and the comics incorporating characters from "SatAM" and expand the show further. Then DIC Entertainment decides to add "Inspector Gadget", "Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century", "Dennis the Menace (1986 series)", and for some reason, the 1998 animated movie "My Friend Martin" Yeah, this is the most awkward crossover movie, even if it premiere on television or released on VHS and DVD.  Apparently this is made as a decision to make the real "twist" villain Dr. Claw (and making it the first time they showed his face in the animated "Inspector Gadget" universe). 

Sega was even on board with production, as a tie-in game for the Sega Dreamcast was planned to be released ahead of the movie. Most of the original cast and crew returned for this epic finale crossover movie of some of their most popular shows with some writers from Archie Comics on board for the project. DIC Entertainment made a BIG deal about releasing the film to the point that Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released a teaser trailer on certain VHS copies of "Monster Mash", "Alvin and the Chipmunks Meets the Wolfman", "Chicken Run" and "The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire". The teaser is done in the style of the cold teaser openings on PAX TV airings and future home media and digital prints of "Archie's Weird Mysteries" episodes (DIC Kids Network and early home media prints cut out the cold teaser openings and go straight to the intro). The trailer showed off some behind the scene footage, footage from their respective shows, and a finished scene from the movie. The teaser trailer on "Monster Mash", "Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet The Wolfman" and "Chicken Run" had the working title of "Archie's Weird Mysteries The Movie" and Early 2001 release window, while the trailer on "The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire" had the official title of "Archie's Weird Mysteries The Movie: The Darkness Has Risen" and a February 2001 release and included a plug for the Sega Dreamcast tie-in game to be release in January 2001. Fans, mainly Archie fans and Sonic Fans, plus people who grew up in the 80's are in for the biggest crossover movie. Even Archie Comics is doing a comic adaptation of the movie that span across the "Archie Weird Mysteries" comics, the "Sabrina the Animated Series" comics, and the "Archie Sonic Comics".

But unfortunatly, less than a month before it's release, Universal Pictures and DIC Entertainment announced the film has been delayed to  March 11 for the "World TV Premiere" and March 13 for the home media release. Sega also announced the game is delayed to February 20. Things turned for the worse as on February 6, 2001, as the film and tie-in has completed post production, Universal Pictures announced the film has been cancelled even though the film is ready to go for a big TV premiere and a home video release two days later and the game is ready for shipping to stores two weeks after. A few reasons why this decision was made were that Yuji Naka wanted some of the Sonic characters to have their "Sonic Adventure" designs, which angered Ben Hurst, ABC refused PAX TV to let them show "Sabrina the Animated Series" on another network outside of UPN due to the show already being a hit on "Disney's One Saturday Morning" and "Disney One Too", and test audience's reactions were said to be horrified by some of the content of the film. The FCC even refused to let them show the movie on TV due to how dark it is. In addition, Disney already announced a sequel to their "Inspector Gadget" live action movie which feared some of the crew working on the film (coincidently "Inspector Gadget 2" ended up as a direct to video film). The tie-in game however, ended released either way, only to have mixed reviews by longtime fans of DIC's works, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Archie Comics in general, saying that even though the game is almost done in the same game engine as the "Sonic Adventure" games, the game's clunky controls and bad dialogue makes "Sonic Shuffle" look like a masterpiece of "carbuncles eating themselves". Afterwards, DIC Entertainment signed a deal with MGM to distribute future DIC animated movies on DVD. Later on, DIC Entertainment got the permission to aired their newly named "DIC Movie Toons" on Nickelodeon. We did get a Archie movie using the designs from "Archie's Weird Mysteries" with "The Archies in Jugman", and Sabrina, Inspector Gadget, and Dennis the Menace would receive their own movies as part of "DIC Movie Toons".

Some of the cast and crew remembered this big TV/Direct to Video movie. Mainly Jaleal White, Ben Hurst, Melissa Joan Hart, Jim Cummings, and Ken Penders (yes, that Ken Penders). No joke, Ken Penders remembered seeing the test screening of the film and said to himself "The film could've been better if they had me on board for the production of the film and let them add Knuckles". Ben Hurst did brought up the movie in a interview and said that Sega wanted the film to used the "Sonic Adventure" designs for Sonic, Tails, and Robotnik, which really fired up his temper. Jaleal White said in a interview he had a blast recording dialogue for the film, especially the fact this is the last time he voiced the Blue Blur for a long while. When asked if he have any production material, Jaleal said that he probably lost some material for the film during a move. Mellissa Joan Hart does remembered that when the film got cancelled, she was out of town when she saw an news article about the cancellation of the film and went to DIC Entertainment's headquarters and demanded answers of the reasoning why her animated film she starred in got cancelled a month before release. Jim Cummings remembered bits and pieces of the film, mainly of a scene Dr. Robotnik capturing Chief Quimby. Jim Cummings posted an image of the scene through his social media. 

Over time, some people, who are apart of the test screening remembered the film. A post about the film's existence was posted on the r/movies subreddit on November 23, 2018, posted by one of the test audience of the film's screening. While some VHS collectors have gotten some of the different copies of the films that contained the teaser trailer, but this eventually sparked a huge lost media search. Some people actually found some concept art, animatics, and even stills from the movie. On March 11, 2021, twenty years after what would've been the film's premiere date, someone actually spoke with some Archie Comics writers and they confirmed that the film's few VHS and DVDs are indeed store somewhere in Wildbrain's headquarters and that some of the voice actors and crew members did have some of DVDs and VHS tapes somewhere. It was also confirmed that the production team saw a test screening of the "Josie and the Pussycats" movie and said that their big Archie crossover was going to be better than that "hot garbage adaptation" of the hit Archie Comic. Then, on October 14, 2021, a YouTuber uploaded the opening to an early printing of "How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000 Film)" and it surprisingly included a trailer to "Archie's Weird Mysteries The Movie: The Darkness Has Risen". The print date is from January 3, 2001, and the trailer included our first look of what the film would've been, showcasing a more serious animated film. On May 11, 2022, a prototype of a cancelled PC version of the tie-in game was discovered and released online. The PC version of the game is different as the game is a 2D side-scroller rather than a 3D platformer and uses the 2D designs of the characters. People though joked around about the "midi soundtrack" and surprisingly even the Mobius stage theme was remix to a Sega Genesis mix through a "high quality rip" of "Sonic Origins" version of the theme for "Metropolis Zone Act 2" uploaded by SilvaGunner just 2 months after the prototype dropped online. 

Then on the evening of March 23, 2023, a big discovery just happened. Someone actually found a copy of "Archie's Weird Mysteries The Movie: The Darkness Has Risen" at a Goodwill in Portland, Oregon. It presumably seem to be one of the VHS tapes that the Archie Comic writers confirmed to exist. The person who owned the tape said that he will upload the entire tape if he have a VHS to Digital converter.

No joke, but I had an apparently false memory of a theatrical live-action Magic School Bus movie in the early 2010s that I always saw commercials of and my brother and I have a shared false memory of a cardboard cutout of a live action Miss Frizzle at the stores standing by the back-to-school products.