Does anyone else remember Lost in Storyland?
It was an early 2010s cartoon; I think it aired on Disney Channel around the same time as Gravity Falls. LiS was never nearly as popular as GF, and it somehow seems to have been completely wiped from the internet, because if you try to Google it you can't find anything at all. Maybe it's just nostalgia talking, but as far as I can remember, it was really good. I consider it something of a spiritual predecessor to The Owl House and Amphibia, because it was doing the "western cartoon isekai" thing like a decade before either of those shows existed. Given the massive fandoms of shows like GF and TOH, I don't know how Lost in Storyland seems to have been completely forgotten.
Basically, the show was about this girl who got isekai'd into a fairy-tale fantasy world. I cannot for the life of me remember the protagonist's name (which is weird; they presumably said it all the time), so for the sake of this post I'm just going to call her Riley. As far as I remember the show started with Riley already in the fairytale world, which would've been kind of weird since it was really important that you knew how she got there (she fell off a cliff into a lake), so maybe I never actually saw the first episode or something. Now Riley didn't have much going for her in the real world, and she didn't really like her mom, but she was obsessed with fantasy. She was the sort of girl to always have her nose in a book, constantly wishing to escape the mundane real world, so she was thrilled to have been transported to the fairytale world. The title is a bit of a misnomer; she wasn't really "lost in storyland," she didn't want to leave.
So the fairytale world didn't actually contain any explicit fairy tale references, but there was plenty of obvious inspiration. (For example, this one princess girl who became Riley's best friend was clearly based on Cinderella.) From here, the show was pretty much an episodic series, wherein Riley would help people and make all sorts of new friends. She kept a journal documenting her adventures throughout the show. If I recall there was some bad guy "dark lord" or whatever to provide an overarching threat, but it never culminated in anything. The episodic adventures were really fun, and there were pretty much no bad episodes (except the fortune teller episode, that one was stupid).
While the rest of the show was great, I'm mostly here to tell you about the season finale, because it was absolutely insane. So at this point Riley has discovered that she can't stay in the fairytale world. For some reason, her presence there has a time limit that will expire very soon. So now Riley is going around saying goodbye to everyone she met, but she's not done yet. She's walking through an alley or something with one of her friends (I forget which one) when suddenly she turns a corner to see a house from her home neighborhood. She turns around; the other guy is gone and she's just back home. But the magic isn't completely gone; for some reason she can see tiny creatures all over the city. Assuming they must be trying to guide her back to the fairytale world, she starts running after them. She quickly runs into her mom, who has clearly been looking for her for weeks. Her mom tries to be all like "where the heck have you been?" but Riley, determined to return to her fantasy, turns and sprints away. After a short chase through the city's urban area, Riley following the tiny creatures while being pursued by her mom, she hides in a park where a crowded festival is taking place. Riley continues trying to evade her mom, who asks the festival-goers if they've seen her.
I remember the next scene especially vividly. Riley tries to run for another hiding place, but meets a dead end: a high cliff overlooking a lake. Riley breaks down crying and drops to her knees. At this time, her mom finds her, walking up from behind. "I never even got to say goodbye," Riley weeps, and her mom puts a hand on her shoulder. Riley knows her mom is there; she doesn't care to run away anymore. Riley's mom pretty clearly assumes she is here to attempt suicide. That is, until Riley starts dropping the names of her friends, friends her mom has never heard of. At this point Riley's mom's expression shifts from concern to confusion, having no idea what Riley is about to do next. Suddenly, Riley's face is free of tears, and she looks positively elated. "I can't wait for you to meet everyone!" she exclaims, grabbing her mother by the waist and leaping from the cliff.
Riley's mom frees herself, and can only look on as Riley dives to the bottom of the lake, blinded by her singular goal. Riley swims ever deeper, grasping for the invisible passage that she is so certain must still exist. Just as her hand scrapes the lake's floor, the scene cuts out.
When Riley awakens, the first thing she sees is her mother's face. "Did we make it?" she asks, but quickly realizes that she is in a hospital bed. Riley's mom hugs her, simply grateful that her daughter is alive. Shortly after, a nurse informs Riley that they found her journal (which she had presumably dropped before jumping off the cliff). The nurse tells Riley that she's actually a really good writer, and should look into getting published. Riley knows the nurse wouldn't understand.
And that's how it ended. Frankly that seems way too dark for Disney Channel, especially in the early 2010s. Furthermore, I don't remember any further LiS content ever being released. It was definitely meant to have a season 2, where Riley really would go back to the fairytale world (though presumably the show would never be able to return to season 1's lighthearted tone), but I'm pretty sure it never happened. I wouldn't be surprised if Disney cancelled the show; they do care a lot about ensuring their shows fit the channel's target age demographic after all. Though that doesn't explain the show's lack of any fandom, or how all mention of it seems to be completely gone from the internet. Some of my friends claim to vaguely remember the show, but no one else can recall any specific details. So, if you remember watching Lost in Storyland, please let me know.
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