The X-Files’ eighth episode of the eleventh season appeared to have all the horrors that were in store. “Familiar” was the name of the episode. The X-Files season 2 episode “Die Hard Die Verletzt” had a similar theme, therefore it was more of a throwback. Because the two narratives share a similar basis, I will refer to them as similar.
Both had a witchcraft foundation. But “familiar” was more like an amalgam of Goosebumps and IT. The novel is set in a tiny village, and one of the characters is clearly modelled off Georgie. This episode of the X-Files really delivers on all fronts, with astonishingly good eerie scenes that start to make you shudder right away.
Mr. Chuckleteeth: A Malevolent Satanic Demon
The opening theme tune of a cartoon I assume is called Mr. Chuckleteeth is sung by a young child named Andrew. He is pictured having fun with a Mr. Chuckleteeth toy in a park in the Connecticut village of Eastwood. So it is obvious that he enjoys the performance a lot. While playing in the park, Emily, another small child, notices a large Mr. Chuckleteeth moving through the forested area.
Diane, Andrew’s mother, is on the phone at the same moment. She sees Andrew gone when she turns around. While Diane searches for Mr. Chuckleteeth, Andrew has entered the jungle to look for him. A search party is sent out to search for him with a group of police investigators, including Rick, Andrew’s father. There is obviously a lot of chaos in the neighbourhood. In the woods, they discover Andrew’s mangled body. Rick is obviously distraught.
After they find the body, our favourite FBI detectives, Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, show up to look into the matter, since the killing of a law enforcement officer’s family member comes under the FBI jurisdiction. In this case, it implies that Andrew has been murdered. Scully notes during the examination of the kid’s body that he has neck injuries that probably killed him.
The injuries also look consistent with being shaken to death; she believes this could be the work of what she calls a ‘serial offender’ who probably has gotten off so far, escaping arrest. While Moulder, on the other hand, speculates that the culprit is either a coywolf or, more exotically, a hellhound. Except he is less of ‘oh, a man murdered the little boy’ and more of ‘somebody opened the gates of hell, which is why this boy is dead .’ The reason behind this? During the autopsy, Moulder also discovers a material that resembles sand or salt near Andrew’s ankle, which is not shown to the FBI agents or even talked about.
It’s clearly a big deal because Moulder immediately visits Chief Strong, the police chief of the town, at his home. At the same time, the community comes together at the church to grieve the boy’s passing. Moulder observes that the family has many publications on the history of the town, including information on witchcraft and witchcraft trials. He asks to speak with Emily, who was in the park with Andrew when he went missing, making her a major witness.
At first, she doesn’t tell them anything. She claims to not have seen him go away. However, later, Emily reveals to Moulder and Anna (her mother) while watching television that she previously saw Mr. Chuckleteeth in the jungle before Andrew died.
Meanwhile, Rick looks through the existing criminal database at the station to find registered sex offenders, since Scully had recommended that the profile of the murderer matches that of a sex offender. This leads him to discover a man by the name of Melvin Peter. Scully wants to know whether Rick is the one who murdered Andrew. But by the time she can have the interrogation with him, Rick has already left the station premises in search of Peters.
They see him speeding off in a cop car, so Scully, Moulder and Chief Strong pursue him. As he approaches Peter’s home, Rick enters armed with a revolver. Although Peter is not at home, Scully, Moulder, and Chief Strong locate many images of him appearing in clown costumes at kids’ parties. They find a caged monkey, a Mr. Chuckleteeth mask and shoes and clown outfits in Peter’s closet. So yeah, from the looks of it, it is a little difficult to rule out the possibility of it being his work.
Meanwhile, back at the Strong residence, Emily is watching tv again. This time it is her favourite show which is quite obviously a rip-off of Teletubbies. Suddenly, one of the characters from her show is standing on her lawn, luring Emily outside. Later, she is discovered dead, having been killed in a similar way as Andrew. This time, Moulder spots a circle of salt surrounding the body, which may be enough evidence to not rule out witchcraft.
When the sex offender, Peters, enters town again, he sees a giant crowd around his house. When Rick spots him, he assaults the suspect. Back in the forest, Chief Strong is forced to confess the truth about witchcraft to Moulder, which he had been hiding so far.
According to Strong, the reason for all this happening is his sins. He has been a lustful man and has committed adulterers, which he thinks are leading to all of this. The fellow officers are quite obviously concerned and worried once they find out the truth.
Meanwhile, a large audience gathers in the park to witness Rick beating Peter severely while he keeps denying killing Andrew. When the cops reach, they can’t get the crowd to disperse, so Moulder uses his gun to fire in the air. Scully calls the entire thing under FBI jurisdiction and states that anybody seen causing more harm would be booked for attempt to murder. Rick is then removed from Peter, but it obviously doesn’t stop there.
He unexpectedly grabs his service gun and shoots Peter once straight in the head, effectively killing him. The thing is, Rick, doesn’t know about Emily’s death at this point, and he is in a state of rage due to the death of his son, so he cannot see that Peters was actually not in town when the murders happened. One of the police officers later reveals that Peters was actually at a birthday party miles away from the town, so he couldn’t have been the one who did it.
The next night, Rick returns home after being released on bail for murder. He then comes home to confront his wife about her relationship with Strong. It’s clearly not a good idea because they have a fight, and she says that she is leaving him. Most of it happens after he tries to hit her. She is shown driving down a dark road right next to the forest. There, she swerves the car to dodge what one can only think of as Andrew’s spirit. Her car flips in the process and she dies.
A heartbroken Rick decides to enter Chief Strong’s house after all this. The reason he is there is to probably kill him, but then he runs across Mr. Chuckleteeth there. He follows the cartoon character while Chief Strong returns home. There is a standoff at this point, and both of them point guns at each other. The scene changes, and we see Scully and Moulder arrive. When they reach, they find that Chief Strong has fatally shot Rick.
It only keeps getting interesting. Chief Strong, after murdering Rick, goes to find Diane and discovers her battered car on the highway near the forest. We now have Diane’s spirit in the woods, which Strong follows without even noticing her mutilated body lying on the forest floor.
After visiting the park where Andrew vanished, Moulder and Scully enter the woods that same night. Seriously, Moulder has such good instincts. Scully should really trust him more, especially when he says bizarre things. Anyways, instead of Diane, Chief Strong discovers Anna, his wife, carrying a grimoire, which is basically a spell book for witches from the looks of it, while standing in a circle made of salt in the middle of the woods. So yeah, mystery solved!
It was the adulterer’s wife, right? No! It gets better. It was the adulterer’s wife, but she was using spirits that she had no control over to do her little work. The hellhound kills Strong when he realizes his wife used witchcraft just to get revenge on Diane for their little affair. Moulder and Scully run over to stop Anna when they see her standing near Strong’s body and crying.
They try to get her out of the circle and she performs another spell in order to break the ongoing one. But this time it backfires, because it causes her to instantly catch fire and, well, crash and burn like her plan. Turns out Scully was wrong and Moulder was right, and people do combust spontaneously after all. After that, Scully gives the grimoire to the authorities (which, strangely enough, they didn’t burn, like hello? Horror basics?. As they leave, the merry-go-round that Andrew had been playing on starts to spin ominously.
More Info About the Demon
The main adversary of this episode is Mister Chuckleteeth. As a result of this episode’s importance in returning the show back to its horror origins, Mister Chuckle Teeth has now emerged as one of the more recognizable villains of this time period. This revival has made him even more recognizable by his peculiar look and mannerisms. Mister Chuckleteeth is a terrifying character despite being a children’s mascot.
He wears a tuxedo and has a huge head like a dummy, odd eyes, and a big toothy grin. He is a silent, black and white character with the exception of a big red bow tie and harkens back to the early days of animation. He moves in a comical style that, although seeming adored by his young audience, is actually ominous and unnerving.
When talking about the inspiration for this episode, Benjamin Van Allen, the writer, said:
“I’ve always been creeped out by children’s television show characters, like Teletubbies. There is another show I saw that kind of inspired the Bibble-Tiggles, as we call them in the show, called Boohbahs. A lot of kid’s shows like that, when you watch them, you’re like, ‘Holy shit. How am I letting my kid watch this? It’s so weird.’ Kid’s TV shows have always really creeped me out. I really just wanted to make a classic X-Files episode. It’s a monster-of-the-week episode, but not all Monster Of The Week episodes actually have a monster.
I really wanted to have some recognizable monster for the episode. That’s where the Mr. Chuckleteeth guy came in. Like the classic X-Files feel, I definitely wanted to set it in a small town. I wanted to start the episode in the town with Moulder and Scully and end the episode in the town with Moulder and Scully. As much as I love all the X-Files lore, I didn’t want to see the X-Files office, I didn’t want to put Skinner in this episode. I just wanted it to be a very classic, standalone monster-of-the-week episode.”
Mister Chuckleteeth was once just a cute little doll that was deeply loved by a little kid named Andrew. The doll was based on a famous children’s program, which was a wholly made-up thing specifically for the show. Mr. Chuckleteeth would eventually come to life as a terrifying, life-sized version of the toy that materialized in the shade of the woods and entice an inquisitive Andrew into the forest.
Turns out, it was all owing to evil powers at work that no one could fathom. Unaware that Mister Chuckleteeth was enticing him to a sudden and gruesome death, Andrew would, obviously continue to follow his favorite cartoon character deeper into the woods. Andrew’s passing and being mauled to death by a hellhound quite obviously caused fear and unrest in the community.
After the Chief kills Andrew’s father for breaking into his home, Chuckleteeth murders the Chief’s daughter as well, while inciting the townspeople to lynch a sex offender, and driving Andrew’s mother off the road by imitating Andrew or his spirit you can say, and then killing her.
The Chief himself was killed shortly after finding that his wife was the one behind all the evil in the village and she was the witch they were searching for. The wife was ultimately Chuckleteeth’s final verified victim. Anna unintentionally set herself on fire in an attempt to undo what she had started and ultimately died, by what one can only assume to be the end of Mr. Chuckleteeth in the process.
The episode ends with the same merry-go-round that Andrew was shown playing on, ominously spinning by itself, which can be taken as a hint that Mr. Chuckleteeth or probably the spirit that manifested him was still alive.
As a demon, Mr. Chuckleteeth is not constrained by human conceptions of reality and may assume a variety of guises, including “Biggle Tiggles,” the mascot for the same program that Chuckleteeth stars in, or a huge and menacing black wolfdog. He takes after Slappy the Dummy and The Bell Witch, who resembles Mr. Chuckleteeth in many ways, is one of the most notable rural American witchcraft stories that served as a huge inspiration for the events of this episode (shifting into terrifying forms in the deep woods, stalking victims, and performing impossible phenomena).
Chuckleteeth never spoke in his many incarnations in the show, but during his appearance at the Chief’s house, his theme song becomes ominous, and he confronts his victim directly, threatening to send them “straight to Hell,” as we hear briefly. The episode is recognized to contain several Stephen King allusions and comparisons, with Mister Chuckle Teeth, in particular, receiving a lot of “IT” comparisons, which is quite fitting considering the fact that Stephen King has worked on The X-Files before and even helped create Chinga.
Despite being a recognizable monster from the X-Files revival era, some people have complained that the design of the character is a bit disturbing for a kid-friendly television mascot, claiming that no sane kid-friendly show would feature something so obviously frightening-looking.
But the thing is, the show is designed to be a horror tv show. So, I don’t think this is a valid criticism, but then again, I might just be biased because I really enjoyed this episode and, well, X-Files in general. Mr. Chuckleteeth does, however, bear some unsettling resemblances to Mister Noseybonk from the BBC children’s program Jigsaw from the 1980s. Inspirations from Pee-Wee Herman can also be seen in his design.
Mister Chuckle Teeth is inspired by many occult legends and folk tales like the Black Dog, Bogeyman, Satan, and Hellhound. It is inspired by a few modern legends as well, including antagonists like Slender Man, who is a suit-wearing, abnormally tall monster who stalks and attacks children.
He is a continuation of much older tales that involve beings such as fairies and elves. These elves and fairies were also feared for abducting children the way most folk tales are. He is also associated with woods and remote areas. Another inspiration for this character was Possessed Media, wherein many stories revolve around the haunted or possessed and had supernatural qualities to them, like in Candle Cove.
What Makes Mr. Chuckle Teeth So Dangerous
Now, what exactly makes Mister Chuckleteeth so dangerous? Well, first of all, I’d say it is his ability to not die. Being a spiritual being, Chuckleteeth is obviously immortal and impervious to any physical injury. There is probably no way to permanently kill him, or at least not one we know of yet, and only magical techniques have any chance of success against him. When not called upon or seeking a manifested form, Mr. Chuckleteeth probably lives an ethereal existence in which he is a ghost that is entirely invisible and intangible. As a result, he is out of contact with our world. So yeah, that seems like a difficult villain to beat to me.
The next thing would definitely be his shapeshifting abilities. In a ghost form, Mr. Chuckleteeth has the ability to materialize in whatever shape he chooses, including live individuals, deceased victims, fictional characters, and fabled beasts like the hellhound, as we saw in the episode.
Realistic illusions like that cause individuals to re-evaluate their understanding of reality and feel crazy even when the reality may be created by Mr. Chuckleteeth, thanks to his mind-bending skills. He also possesses psychokinetic talents since, despite being a ghost, he can mutilate people. This implies that he must be able to assume corporeal form, even if it is only temporarily.
Another skill of his that makes him a dangerous opponent is his mind-warping abilities. Chuckleteeth also has the ability to temporarily send individuals insane or have a negative emotional impact on them, as he did when he persuaded the locals to lynch a man who they thought was responsible for the children’s deaths. He was able to persuade them into thinking that just because he is a criminal, he committed the murders.
Or hear me out, he is so good at mind-warping that he has convinced me to think that he was the one who mind-warped people and framed Peters when it could’ve just been a coincidence that Dana Scully also had the same idea. Mr. Chuckleteeth clearly has the ability to make pacts with people, giving him the power to sway events throughout the world. He is thought to be unable to interact with reality without a witch’s help, which accounts for his seeming failure when Anna caught fire and died.
Mr. Chuckleteeth also has a scary amount of knowledge about the personalities, strong points, and vulnerabilities of practically everyone in his immediate vicinity. He may appear anywhere he pleases since he is a spirit, and he can obviously take the forms of the spirits of other people. He is not constrained by space or time, but he first appeared only in the town and the nearby forests.
All in all, I think this was one of the best episodes of X-Files, especially in the 11th season. It delivers on so many levels. There is the classic Scully-Moulder moment where he thinks of something supernatural, and she doesn’t really get on board with it. We have inspirations from children’s tv shows, Goosebumps, and Stephen King novels.
It really can’t get scarier than that, I feel, especially not for tv viewing. It is a well-written episode with a great gloomy palette that stays in accord with the content. I really loved the episode, and we would love to know your thoughts on it as well! So, tell us what you thought of the show and the episode in the comments below!