The 1968 Pilot Standards & Practices Tried to Bury
By Elias Thorne, Media Historian | May 13, 2026
In the late ’60s, television was drowning in “monster-coms.” But internal memos from a defunct CBS production wing reveal one attempt so fundamentally unsettling it was scrubbed from the record before a single episode aired.
The project, Ordinary People, survived only in a single publicity still: 6653.png.
The Visual Evidence
At a glance, the ensemble mirrors every successful archetype of the era: a monster father, gothic mother, vampire uncle, “normal” relative. But the center of the frame is dominated by a child production notes identify only as “Chainsaw.”
He wears a rigid, oversized rubber chicken mask. Unlike his co-stars’ elaborate prosthetics, the mask is static and expressionless. Survivors from the crew claim the actor never removed it on set, treating it not as costume, but as his actual face. This refusal to acknowledge the mask became the “unresolved issue” that reportedly terrified network executives.
The “Difficult” Child
While the parents were played for laughs, Chainsaw was written with staggering banality. The family never once addressed his appearance.
A surviving Standards & Practices memo, dated August 12, 1968:
> “Request clarification regarding whether child is injured or under physical duress. Furthermore, please instruct the writers to stop referring to the child in-script as ‘completely normal-looking.’ The visual dissonance is resulting in physical discomfort among test audiences.”
The Lost Scenes
Test screenings were a disaster—not because jokes failed, but because audiences stopped laughing whenever Chainsaw entered the frame.
Scrubbed footage descriptions include mundanity made “deeply wrong” by his presence:
– Chainsaw silently practicing the clarinet for three uninterrupted minutes
– Chainsaw standing perfectly still in a kitchen scene, staring at a neighbor through a window
– Chainsaw returning home covered in thick, wet mud; the Gothic Mother simply reminds him to wash his hands for dinner, without looking up from her knitting
The Legacy of 6653.png
The network took a total loss rather than air a single segment. The child actor—known only by his first name, Chainsaw—disappeared from the industry the day the set was dismantled.
Today, 6653.png stands as a haunting reminder of television almost crossing from “spooky fun” into something truly, unintentionally surreal.
To the family in the photo, he was just a boy.
To the rest of the world, he remains an unexplained glitch in the history of the sitcom.
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Editor’s Note: Research conducted with the cooperation of the UCLA Television Archive. When reached for comment, a CBS representative stated: “We have no record of this production, the image in question, or the name ‘Chainsaw.’ We would appreciate it if Mr. Thorne stopped calling.”