Local 58 is a fictional television station created for a YouTube horror anthology web series created by webcartoonist and author Kris Straub, who is known for creating the creepypastaCandle Cove. Straub also confirmed via Reddit that the fictitious series Candle Cove originally aired on Local58. The series is about a fictional public access television channel named Local 58, which is constantly hijacked with broadcasts of ominous and surreal videos. The fictional TV station also appears to be named in the fashion of PBS affiliate stations, therefore indicating that it might have been an unidentified PBS affiliate or simply a decoy/clone.
Videography
You Are On The Fastest Available Route
A found footage-style dashcam video dated from 2014 involving a driver following a GPSsatnav. The GPS begins to direct the driver off the main road and into a forest. As the directions grow more ominous, and instruct the driver to park the car and turn off the headlights, a massive roar can be heard as the feed cuts to the driver fleeing from a bipedal creature that begins to give chase, which is itself the destination the GPS refers to. Eventually, the driver wrecks the car and is incapacitated as the creature begins to walk towards the destroyed vehicle, all while the GPS still gives instructions until the GPS says "you have arrived".
Contingency
Contingency shows Local 58 ending their broadcast day, and SMPTE bars are aired. Suddenly, the broadcast is interrupted with a prerecorded emergency alert from the fictional "Department for the Preservation of American Dignity" and a written message from President Lyndon B. Johnson claiming that the United States has been militarily defeated by a foreign enemy. As "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" play, the message states that viewers must commit suicide and kill their children until the entire population is dead, recommending suicide by gunshot via the "victory position". The message states that it "will repeat until there are none to read it" and concludes with "The 51st state is not a place". The hijacking stops, and Local 58 airs a retraction claiming that the message was a hoax. However, it is possible to see a "hoax apology card" behind the message, suggesting the previous message was the result of "accidental public broadcast during off-air remote operation relay test".
Weather Service
This video starts with a programming schedule broadcast at midnight, which is interrupted an EAS message warning viewers not to observe a meteorological event. It shortly goes back to normal broadcasting, but then is interrupted by a more urgent EAS bulletin warning viewers not to go outside or look at the sky. However this warning is replaced by a new message claiming that the warning was lifted and directing the viewer to go outside. It is then apparently hijacked with a different message warning viewers not to look at the Moon and to avoid all windows and mirrors. The station briefly returns to normal programming before a final EAS message airs in which the messenger appears to have been exposed to the moonlight and driven insane. It then cuts to a live feed of the Moon while distant sounds of screaming are heard until the feed cuts out.
Station ID
Station ID is a video that displays the following while surreal music plays:
ANALOG HORROR AT 476 MHz WE BEGIN OUR BROADCAST DAY LOOK AWAY IT DOES NOT MATTER THERE ARE OTHER RECEIVERS SAFETY IN NUMBERS
The video serves as the channel’s trailer. Also there has been a subreddit named after the first line dedicated to videos inspired by the Local58 hijacked public access channel aesthetic.
The broadcast opens with a programming schedule with a visual style that of the 1980s. The first program on the schedule is "Show for Children" at 4:15 AM, which is a rather odd time for a kids' show to air. It then transitions into an old 1929-style cartoon called "A Grave Mistake", featuring a fictional anthropomorphic skeleton known as Cadavre, which literally is the French word for corpse. It follows Cadavre stumbling through a graveyard at night under the watch of a smiling Moon. He comes across an open grave and wonders if his lover may be inside, and decides to peek. He is frightened by a realistically drawn skeleton and runs away. He finds another grave, only to be frightened by a creature resembling a rotting bird and run away again. The Moon now stares at him intensely. He looks in another grave, and descends into it, entering a long and dark cave. After wandering through the cave for some time, he reaches another open grave, but cannot escape; instead, he lies face up on the ground under the light of the now realistic moon. He apparently dies, turning into a lifeless skeleton. Stock music in the cartoon was reused from scores by Carl Stalling and Sammy Timberg from The Brementown Musicians and The Fresh Vegetable Mystery respectively.
A Look Back
A Look Back is a compilation of the history of Local 58 as it shuffles through different logos. It is then hijacked and says:
WE SEND SIGNALS TO OURSELVES THRU THEIR DOMAIN DID WE REALLY BELIEVE THEY WOULDN'T ADD THEIR OWN
It then shows clips of all of their hijackings, afterward, the message saying "DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL", "MORE TO COME" and then "WE BEGIN OUR BROADCAST DAY" before more hijacks conclude and the station's broadcasting returns back to normal.
Real Sleep
The broadcast appears to be based on a personalized VHS recorded by the fictional "Thought Research Initiative" in 1983 for a man named “Philip Gerhardt.” It starts with a simple myth or fact game about sleeping, which claims that dreaming is not essential to mental health. It then displays a visual of monitored brainwaves called the "Kleitman Map", implying that the video was personally designed to prevent dreams by applying an inverse of the Map. The video then cuts to a segment where four sequences are introduced in a manner similar to the flashed face distortion effect. Sequence one tells the viewer to look directly at the center of the screen before faces flash at the viewer, then the sequence ends on a distorted face. Sequence two has two faces slowly merge together until the face fades away. Then, sequence three instructs the viewer to repeat the phrase "There are no faces", while the faces flash faster and faster and become more distorted. Sequence four then begins to flash a number of ominous subliminal messages discouraging sleep at the viewer while a distorted face appears in the background. The video concludes with the viewer being told that they have now completed the real sleep program, and to avoid seeing a doctor as the screen fizzles out.
Skywatching
Skywatching begins as an educational program similar to and Star Gazers broadcast in the 1990s. After the introduction the show is hijacked by a feed displaying home video footage of the night sky with the same title as before the hijacking. The camera displays different asterisms, and then turns to the Moon. The words "HIS THRONE” are displayed on the screen as the cameraman begins to switch lenses. The camera then displays close ups of the Moon's surface with strange constructions and seemingly organic formations. The Moon then slowly fades away as the camera zooms. As the cameraman begins to switch lenses, the Moon reappears, now far larger in size and with a creature visible inside. An air raid siren is then heard, and the video ends with the cameraman walking towards the Moon with his hands raised, while the word "REJOICE” in red appears on the screen, just before the siren abruptly cuts out and the hijack concludes. After the credits, the video concludes with the message "Keep Looking Up."
Effects
Local 58 is notable for using effects to make videos realistically resemble analog television and public access channels. Straub has talked about how the videos look like decaying film and how he utilizes the Doppler effect in the sounds and music used in the videos.
Popularity
Views and subscribers
As of July 29th, 2020, Local 58 has over 299,000 subscribers and more than 10,001,674 views.
