Episode 31: Goosebumps

the page and I'm really shore. Matter of fact, I'm real happy because I'm reading books where in my grabbing it from a nook. Now we're coming through with some goosebumps sounds, and we're coming all around, coming to your town. Matter of fact, don't get so scared that you might just dookie, dookie, Just listen to what I say. It's stay spooky, spooky. We got Danny sitting over there. It's sitting real comfy, inner Green, Little Jay, Joey Cliff popping

on the track to day. And maybe that's all I got to say, because if the nerdy rap coming back, like I'm coming through the trap. Matter of fact, I might come through and do a super wrestling match. People in the d MS asking for the wrestling episode, but I'm like, hey, hey, hey, home me just hold starting off with some bars. That has been a great show, everybody, thanks for coming in. Yeah, catch us next time. Honestly, I listened to a podcast that was just that for

three matters. Oh man, if if Dopetown wasn't already doing it, that that's what my podcast. I was going to say. That is what you would call a song three minutes, three minutes with like a chorus and a good hook and like sang by somebody. I like, man, just just a twelve track podcast. It's alright, yeah and you you heard that right. For for those who are just super confused because they're not up on the hip hops, that was Travis Scott's goose bumps uh instrumental. So it was

a nice little fake out. Everyone thought I was doing the regular theme. I was like, check it out. Um. The instrumental just totally threw me off because the courses I get goosebumps every time, and I forgot where it went. So I just started free stop. That's okay, it good, that's all good. Um. But yeah, so we have Joey Cliff today everybody writer, comedian for enthusiasts, currently writing on Notice News with Jessica Chobot. That's me, that's the things I do. I am also at that channel. Yeah, I

wrote for a show that Danny Holsted. Yeah, you wrote on Natural Selection, super fun. Let's take one quick second to talk about your underground cat network. That's the thing. That's the thing I always go on podcast, But that's that's you know, that's exploded because you know, for those who don't know, uh, cats are great. Yeah, cats are great. But we're gonna have to take two steps back before

jumping in. So the first step is there used to be something called it the USB Underground Network, and then that turned into a monstrous place that us be no longer wanted to be associated with, so it had to be changed to the l A Comedy the l A Underground Comedy Network, and like, because we're comedians, everybody decided

to make like fake versions of it. So somebody made like an l A Underground Baseball Network people talk about baseball, and LA Underground like hat network where pople talk about hats. So I just started posting pictures of cats and all these networks, and somebody said, hey, you should just make an l a underground cat network, and I did, and I got very popular, very quickly. Now it's it's got eight thousand members. It's really it's it's the most creatively

fulfilling thing I've ever made. I did not belong in there at all, as I'm a dog person. It's okay. It was funny because you know, Ronnie from White Women, I would see him commenting in there, and I thought he was doing bits, but he was like having genuine conversation about cats. Well that's that's what I love about it is, Like, that's what I realized in creating it is, um there are so many people that, like I want to talk about their cats, like and they're just excited

to talk about them. Their phones are full of cat pictures, but they feel embarrassed, like you know, posting in a regular Facebook or Twitter, Instagram or whatever. So like this group basically allows like legit comedians to just geek out about their cats. Yeah, it's it's such a fun space. And there was like some drama there too, Oh yeah, yeah, sometimes I like some was the drama. I like I I put the hard band whenever anybody does anything not

cat related? Are you the only moderator? Um? Okay, So I was the administrator for like the first it's been around for two years. For the for the first year and a half, and then it just got so big, like once we started getting like, I don't know, I think like seven thousand people. Just I'm busy. I'm working a bunch of writing jobs. So I got Haley Mansini and a guy named Jed Pratt to comoderate it with me. And it's great. We've got like a group chat. We

post a lot of cat pictures as well. I was like, like, this thread is getting a little bit spicy. We should watch it. Somebody's thinking about talking about dogs on this thread. We gotta put it. That would be me. I'm going to infiltrate. I'm gonna I used to have cats. In fact, I gotta do you know me and my impressions if I'm so good at them? Um, this is my cat

would always sound like he was talking. My cat, Oreo would sound like he was very good cat name, by the way, and my other one was Snicker, named after like cats named after food. It's I think I originally wanted to call him Crystal or Tiffany bag, which is very ten year old thing to want to name me cat. But then turn out he was a girl or no, it was a boy. Um, and I still could have kept it that Tiffany but um okay, so this is OREO. He would when he would say when he would talk,

let me see if I can do it. Wow, that's how we sounded. So I on top of doing that Wow, I host a show at UCB where I just interviewed people about their cats called Chats on Cats. During one of the shows, I played footage of a cat saying I love you, and it was just like and it got such a good reaction that I had to stop and replay the video like six times. There's like a thirty second applause and sheer break every time after play

people talking cat. People love talking cats. Really, I mean once cats are not now of talk, we're done for his people. Yes, So today we're talking about a little goosey and a little bumpies. Oh yeah, the goose bumps, the goose uh joey. Before we get into it, what was what was your earliest memory of goose bumps? So, my earliest memory of goose Bumps is Um. When I was in elementary school, I was really into just all

things short scary stories. So like, if you guys remember those books scary Stories to tell him the dark with the really creepy drawings in them, I would always like check out, Oh yeah, I'm really excited about that, and like he's basing the character designs on those original like really the one, the Harold one or the one with like the stuffed man, the stuff man, like the girl with like the snider coming out of her. Yeah, so uh. Off of that, I was just always looking for like

new scary stories to read. And I remember like the Albertson's near where I grew up started stocking these these books called goose Bumps books. I didn't necessarily know a ton about him, but I think I was just running out of stuff to read and I just saw I think it was like the First Monster Blood or something

like that. UM, And I saw that on the shelf, picked it up because it was like five bucks or something like that, read through a day, really liked it, so I just like had my mom kind of like get me a bunch of them, and I went through and got all the back copies and really just like every month, like the day that they like We're released in my local Albertins, I'd pick up a copy and read through it. Mm hmm yeah Albertson to bring it back.

I don't even know do those still exists. I think that I'm from Washington State, so like we had them. I grew up in Orange County here. Yeah, I think that they have to still exist. I think that they're like owned by Kroeger now or something like that, but I think that they're still technically listeners. Let us know, is there an Albertson's there? What about Blockbuster? One person is like, yes, I live next to the one Blockbuster

in the organ? Yeah, yeah, that one? Is that the only one that's still in the LASTA one just shut down? There's one an organ that still exists that. Like the guys just said, like, I make no money off of this. I'm thinking about making an historic monument. Oh that's so cool. Yeah, it's like, well, my visit like a road trip thing. It's somewhere in like I think Eastern or Eastern or Western Organ or something that's like west of Portland, I

want to say, in like Eugene or something listeners. If you live next to the Blockbuster, please send us a phote, send us a receipt from that blockbuster. Just we need proof. I know. It's like you don't even have to return those. Do you please do for that one person that's still working it. Yeah, if you're if you're happening to be next to that blockbuster, if you could rent a copy of I'm going to see the original Independence Day and mail it to me, I really appreciate it. I will

not watch it on FX every July four. Yeah, but I want to watch it now. It's like I don't know what nine months from now. Yeah, getting TiVo or TiVo, that's not a thing anymore, only a VCR. Okay, moving along, moving along? If he can you tell us about some of the history of arl Stein. Yeah, arl Stein are known as Robert Lawrence Stein. I guess he wants no NU know. I can see why he just went by r L. You know. But he was also sometimes known as Jovial Bob Stein or Eric Affaby a funny story there.

He used to write joke books, and that's why he went by Jovial bob Stein. If that was his pen name when he wrote just like it was literally just like forty jokes to tell at a party or whatever. If you would, if you were jokester, if you want, we know people that have like names like that. I feel like I would be like jokey Clift Clift but joke Clift yeah, joke fe jokes jokes. Danny, what what would your what would your your hockey comedy book writing name? Um,

I don't know what it's like Danny Danny ha Nandez. Yeah, there you go. Slapper ye Danny Slapper. Oh yeah, that's good. That's a store that one. So it's born October eight in Columbus, Ohio. Spooky place. Ohio is spooky. I went to just side little fact my ex wood ex husband wasn't grew up in Ohio, and he took me to the Witch's Ball, which is a real place. Um, it's this large marble ball in Ohio. People, if you know about this, let me know. Um it's in a cemetery

that you have to like park and walk to. But apparently a witch is buried under this marble ball. They said, like a woman that killed her family and the and the rumors that they buried her standing up and put this huge marble marble ball over. I actually looked it up because I'm like, that's not a cool thing, you know, you know what I mean, you're back oh when you're little, and you're like, oh whitch, and they're like, oh, that

was probably an innocent woman. Um. But I looked it up and I don't know if that's even a real if that's actually what happened. Okay, so she killed her family. I feel like the distinction between which and murderer is very murky. Actually, yeah, which is don't really murder people. Um, that's just the thing that and they're also not like Satanists most of the time. I don't know, I've been studying. Yeah, and then more it just was anyways, that's a whole

other Well we should do one on Yeah. But so Columbos, Ohio is a spooky place. I think it's interesting that his nickname is the Stephen King of children's literature. Like that's such a cool but also lame. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, like like I would it would be such a it's like you're the Mozart jingle. Yeah. I was like, oh, man, if you're like the Dave Chappelle of children's television podcasting, Yeah, that's a lot harder than like making it four kids.

You know, even though you know some things for kids are fun and good. Uh, spooky stuff maybe not so much. Have you went back and seen are afraid of the dark? Not as scary as I remember? Ah, but I digress. He graduated from os U Ohio State University in nineteen sixty five with a Bachelor of Arts in English, and he used his degree. He's like the only English major

that degree. Yeah, what's really scary here is the amount of people that don't use their major disappointment from your parents and that what a what a shift that would be if Hollywood just got empty and communications jobs just got impacted. With me, everyone's like, you know, communications, what what what about? Communications attracts so many people who really want to chase their dreams. We'll find out another episode

of Narratifficent. On this episode, we're gonna talk about R. L. Stein at os U, who edited the os U Humor magazine, foreshadowing that uh that joke book that Joey was talking about and uh, the magazine was called the Sun Dial and it was for three out of his four years there. He later moved to New York City, to pursue his career as a writer. Yeah, and so he ended up writing a dozen of humor books for kids under the name Jovial bob Stein and created the humor magazine Bananas.

So Bananas was for teenagers and it was published by Scholastic Press. It had seventy two issues that ran between nineteen and nineteen eighty four. Did you know about that? Did? I didn't know about it? But um, okay, so this is maybe a deep poll um. I didn't know until recently that he was such a huge, like such a humor writer. But a friend of mine who does shows at the Bright Citizens Boget Theater in New York, actually got r. L Stein to agree to have an entire

late night show based around him. They did live at New UCB, New York. And originally I was like, oh, that's crazy that, like the goose Bumps writer would agree to have a late night talk show based around him and had written by him. But like, with all of his humor background, I guess that makes sense the show. So he so he was there, like he hosted It was like the tonight show was Jimmy Fallon but hosted by R. L Stein. Do they have did they film

any of them? Um, they probably filmed it. I'm not sure if it's available online, but you can find like sketches of it on online. The show is called Night Late. The premise of the show is that they get a different celebrity or a weird figure to basically have a late night talk show built around them every month. So they had like, like Drew Carey's done it, that may sense, like, but Erlstein, like my friends, his name is Eric Kinning him, he like co created the show, and I saw he

was getting Arlstein. I was like what he was like, Oh, yeah know, he like wrote comedy for years in gold. I can't remember if any of his books I felt like had comedy, but maybe that was. I mean that was sort of what Goosebumps spoke joke. That's that's sort of what Goosebumps books were, and that's that's what made them four Kids, and they were scary books, but they also had just like moments of comedy to undercut the tension.

So like, I think that he referenced like one of his favorite characters in the Goosebumps book is I want to say, like King Jelly jam In. Um, I think it was like escape from Camp jelly Jam or whatever was the book, And um, that's a character that would enslave athletic kids to bathe him because he smelled so badly that he needed he needed to be bathed twenty four hours a day. And he like at the end of the book, all the kids are freed and they all escape and King jelly jam Uh died because he

smelled so bad because nobody paved. So it's like, that's like a joke. That's like a funny thing, right, So it's like that those details, I think we're already always interspersed. He has such a weird mind. He is Stephen King. He's just a weirdo. Yeah, he's a weirdo. So in nineteen eighties six Stein wrote his first horror novel, which was called Blind Date. That already sounds terrifying. He followed with many other novels, including The Babysitter, Beach House, Hit

and Run, and The Girlfriend. He was also the co creator and head writer for the Nickelodeon Network children's TV show Eureka's Cast until recently that's coming back full circle and that was just a normal kids, I mean, it was a weird kids. Show, but that was still just a kids show. Yeah. And then in nine he started writing Fear Street books. I do remember those, yeah, and that was that was right before the Goosebump series. Those are like teen horror novels. So it's a lot of

just like teenagers in scary situations. Yeah. So he had a couple of other things. He authored three humorous science fiction books in the Space Cadet series titled Jerks and Training Bozos, Good Groops There and Losers in Space, And then in Stein and Parachute Press went on to launch goose Bumps. There was actually, um, there was a parody series of goose Bumps that was released in the mid nineties called goof Lumps that like wasn't written by erl Stein.

But now seeing that he's got such a humor background, I wonder if he released two bucks and I think that one owns them, and if he's just like yeah, like if it's like a hat tip of like yeah, one comedy writer to another. Yeah. Um. So this was this is what he had to say on horror. I think horror is funny. Horror makes me laugh in a movie theater when the shark comes up and starts eating

you did laugh. We watched Halloween together. Halloween had solid, strong jokes, but when the faces is smashed up and people getting knife related, I'm not like. I think we laughed at so if he and I went um. Opening weekend, we watched the latest Halloween, which did great in the box office, number one with Jamie Lee Curtis of course,

and we were cracking up way too much. But also there was legit humor because I don't know if people noticed, but Danny McBride wrote on it, and several of those scenes, I was like, this is a pent. Danny's humor comedy and horror movies is so good because it just cuts the tension. You know, for sure it's necessary. Its like a quiet place that you want to be scary all the time, but like if it's like a slasher fleck, you want it to have like an up and a down. Yeah,

So this is his quote. I think horror. This is from Arlstein. I think horror is funny. Horror makes me laugh at a movie theater. When the shark comes up and starts eating the kid, I'm in the theater laughing. I just I did um. One of my friends made me see the Meg and we saw in for Dy which means yet, which means we paid extra for it. But also there was like water splashing in our face. Yeah, that we laughed a lot. I just never get scared.

There's something missing in my brain where if I'm reading a Stephen King novel or I'm at a horror movie, I just laugh. Writing this stuff hasn't really affected me at all. I just I think it's funny. In goose Bumps, every chapter and is a punchline. Oh what you just pointed out Joey ahead of the curve. Yeah, ruining the flow of the show. You're enhancing it. Oh thanks man. Yeah. Goose Bumps is a collection of novels that were basically most of the time one shoot story was like an

anthology series. Anthology series of just spooky dookie stories. And then sometimes you had to choose your own adventure ones. Which were those were? Those were like make I think it's like make your own goose Bumps or something. Yeah, they made fifty of those. Um I remember I didn't get as into those, but they were good stuff. Oh yeah, no, I used to you know when you're like I'm gonna just read this, but you had your fingers like no,

I'm gonna go back. I didn't want. That was a lot of like yeah, you like say the same something that's like really funny about I think it was a choose your own goose Bumps was like sometimes there would be like trivia at the end of the of a chapter of like previous goose Bumps things. So it's like, if you know who the main character of the Haunted Mask was flipped to this page. Oh do you think it's this? Go to this page. So it was like

homework to read other Bumps books. Great marketing text that was. That was the earliest version of DLC right there. Yeah, like you better are you better figure this out? You go and die? Yeah, if you don't know what happens in Monster Blood three, then sorry. Um. So we're actually going to take a quick ad break and then we're going to get into some of our favorite goose Bumps right after this and we're back. So we're gonna get into some of our favorite ones. But before we do,

let's talk about the first ever goose Bumps book. So it was Welcome to Dead House. That was number one. It was released July. Did you read all of them? Okay? Wow? Yeah, Welcome to Dead House was so creepy. So basically it was the story of um a family of A common theme in Arleston stories is that a family moves either moves from out of town or a kid like visits a family member that's from out of town, both things, by the way, frightening to children moving to a brand

new change. Yeah, change. So this was the Benson family moves to the town of Dark Falls. Yeah, they moved to the town of Dark Falls. They move into this house that's really creepy. One of the kids that it's a family with, like I think it's like two kids and a dog. One of the kids starts to see just like weird, creepy looking children in their house that will disappear, and they start to realize that they don't really see, like during the daytime, anybody in like the

neighborhood that they live in. And then they slowly realized that the reason that they do that that they're that they're only seeing people at night is that all these people are ghosts and the only thing that keeps them alive is that um people that live in the house that this family just I'm just moved to need to be sacrificed once a year in order to keep these ghosts in existence for an other year. So the family gets wise to this. Um, they managed to stop the

guy that sold them the house. I think they like, I think that I forget exactly how they do what they like, hit him with a wrench or something like that, a spooky ghost wrench. Um and um. Like then the family gets away and then as they're leaving they see this like ghostly guy basically like introducing the house to another family, and another family is getting ready to move in. So that that's kind of twist at the end, is that this place always well you know what I know

es grow doesn't work like that. So there's a lot of things wrong with this story. R L. Ste Yeah. So, um, there's a scene where the Benson kids melt a ghost base off of its skull, which is pretty intense for goose Bumps books Best Face Melt Team. Like, Carlstein said in interviews that like that, Um, he didn't think he

got the formula right with this one. He think he thought it was a bit too scary because before this he was writing for teenagers at the Fear Street series, whereas this was like aged elve and like, if you like, go back and read it. This book is like legit terrifying, and like it got a little bit softer as the series went on, but like it's great. It's like a

good start to the Goosebumps. Scary stories to tell in the dark is pretty terrifying though, And those were in my elementary school read like Scholastic or whatever book fairs. But I think that those those had to have been written in like the eighties or something, right, Yeah, when like it was okay too, It's just like they were less care about it. Yeah, Joey, do you want to talk about one of your favorite ones though? Okay? So um, my top of the list favorite Goosebumps book is a

book called One Day at Horrorland. I was going to say too, because a lot of people remember the covers, so I just wanted to say the cover of Welcome to Dead House is a haunted house where a man with a heavy brow is making a fire in the fireplace while the door is open. So yeah, so my favorite Goosebumps book is One Day at horror Land. The cover it the cover of it as a sign that says welcome to horror Land with like a spooky monster

kind of peeking his head over the sign. Um. The basic premise of this is that, um, a family called the Morris family is um on a road trip and um, their car breaks down outside of this weird haunted theme park, and I think that their car like explodes outside of the theme park too, and then, uh, somebody working the theme park just says, hey, we'll take care of it. Don't worry about it. You can hang out in this theme park while we're figuring out. Here are some free tickets.

So they go to this theme park and as you expect, a bunch of monsters show up, and um, they're they're basically the entire time that they're in the theme park, convinced to stay there because there's like a contest to win a free car just conveniently they need. So that convinced them. To day monsters start showing up. Um, they

run for the monsters. Um. They eventually learned that the only way to beat the monsters is by pinching them, because apparently they're like balloons, so if you pinch them, they deflate. And is the real thing? Are also line very he's a real cut up, real funny guy. Yeah, you're right, Yeah, so they pinch all these monsters too, they're called the monsters are called the horrors to um get them to deflate, and they jump into this free

car that they find and drive away. And then when they get home, they realized that one of the horrors was like clutching onto the bumper of the car, and they're really terrified. And the last page of the book is the horror apologizing for scaring them and then offering them free tickets to go back to the park if they want to go, and then the horror leaves, and like, what I like about this is I think that this is one of the few goose Bumps books that ends

with a relatively happy ending. Um. Usually the way that these end is like it ends with some sense of like oh, like you know, everybody's gonna die, or like oh this this is going to continue. Where this just ends with like, yeah, the family's car got destroyed and they left with a free car, and like the monster

followed them. The monsters gave them free tickets back to the theme park, which they probably won't take up on it, or which they probably want take the monster up on it, and UM, I don't know, it's just it's the family is left relatively unscathed, and there is a it's a nice, it's nice to read goose bumps book that kind of the twist doesn't have an edge, I guess. Yeah. The thing that I like about this is that the family is involved. Because I've been watching, um, The Haunting of

Hill House, which I love. I think it's great, but like that and and just in horror and scary movies in general, I feel a lot of times the parents don't believe the kids, and that bothers me so much because I made this point on Twitter. I'm like, if my child were to be like I saw a ghost, I would a thousand percent believe them, just because there's so much more sensitive. I be like, this house is haunted,

this house is haunted. I believe you, Um, but it seems I think it's nice for kids to have their parents believe like in this, you know, in a lot of I don't know if that's always a case in his books, but in this one in general, I like, I mean, in this one in particular, I like the fact that the parents were also like, holy crap, there we also understand this is crazy. Yeah. Yeah, But what I'm saying is just like I feel that's a common theme in scary movies where people gas light children. They

just don't believe them. It's just like, no, don't worry your friend that disappeared, like when we heard this crazy screen that was probably just a dog. You have scratches on your back and I know, you know you probably

just got in a fight with a kid at school. Yeah, it is just it's a weird horror movie trope that like if it's like lazy writing, because it basically just makes it so it's like, oh, we're earning another thirty minutes of this movie for the parent to realize there's a monster, whereas like the more fun choice is like no, the parents are on board too, there are monsters. Now

you gotta figure this out to go. I just feel like if I I would definitely believe a kid of like there's you know, kids are scary themselves, and when they draw those little pictures like oh, who's the girl with the all the black hair in front of our faces? Like, oh, cool, so you drew this drawing of all your friends and there's a giant guy with a knife. Do you call like the I don't know, like the knife guy. Oh man,

I should probably look into that. Hey, Sally, you drew Jesus upside down on the cry and then just it says die Die Die next to his head. Uh okay, Anyways, I like that the family was involved in this. Um, if you do, you have a favorite Goosebumps book, I know you wanted to share. Yeah, yeah, that that was a good so I was just getting a refresher. So my favorite. So the way I picked a lot of my Goosebumps books was the cover. And that's one thing I want to say. Yeah, the artwork for the covers

were so good. And that's when I looked up the list of the books because I was tracking down my book. I had like huge nostalgia just seeing all these covers and just want to say that the guy that wrote the painted the most memorable cover covers as a guy named Tim Jacobus, and um yeah, he like would hand paint them every month. They look hand painted. Yeah great, so freaking good. Like I'll make my way up to like the one that I am doing, but I just

want to shout out some of these dope covers. So the one that the cover that scared me the most was the Barking Ghosts, which if you haven't seen that one, it's literally the most terrifying dog you've ever seen in yours, like white with red eyes, right yeah, and it's and it's completely dark the cover. And when I saw that one, I was like, oh, I remember that one. That's like I don't usually have like nostalgia that hits me in movies like Ready Player one didn't do a ton for me.

But the end of the first Goosebumps movie, when they're just doing stylized like crazy three D drawings or and renders of goose Bumps covers, I got chills. I got goose bumps, you might say mine. I think is that as far as covers is, Night of the Living Dummy Dummy is just coming back. Monster Blood too with the hamster on the cover is the one that just like,

it's just that's going to be in my mind forever. Yeah. Uh. And then I think the second runner up was Attack of the Mutant, just because it looks so cool and then it turns out to be a pretty creepy story. It's basically this like bootleg batman looking cat who who's

like swinging at it. But the one that I picked and the one that I remember so greatly reading is mostly because I could not I didn't um expect it to be what it ended up being was called The Beast from the East, which was was the It was this beast on a bamboo treek, blue and furry. It looks kind of cute but looks kind of creepy, and

I was like, where's this going? And the concept of the Beast from the East is this family they go on this camping trip in the forest and these kids run into these blue beasts and they have to play basically a game of tag, but uh, with a caveat is if they lose, then the beasts get to eat them. Uh. And so what ends up happening is they get the rules, and one of the rules is if they're in the brown square, the free eat square, the beast can eat

them no matter what. And they have to find this tree by sundown, and all of his different events happen. One of them ends up getting captured. They end up winning, but they kind of cheat and they say, oh, because you know the game wasn't called over, you still lose.

And while they're getting ready to cook him, the brother who was captured escapes and saves them, and they surmise that because the brother this move is actually a complicated move in there, like weird Bear Tribe, and they're like, oh, since they knew to do that move, they must be level three and you're playing against level one. Uh so yeah, you're playing against level one, so sorry for making you play. It doesn't count. And then it in the twist is uh Flag, So Flag is the name of the leader

and goes. Flag apologizes for making the kids play the game and lets them go. Flag even gives the kids directions back to the camp site. The kids follow Flag's directions, but they are surprised by a beast. Ginger says that beasts can't tag them since they are level three, but the beast reveals that he has also level three, and ta Ginger, such a good Yeah, that's like just a out. Every book has just like just a twist like that. That's like, oh, they're still fun. Um. I was gonna say,

mine is uh the Haunted Mask. The Haunted Mask a uh is a picture of a little girl in overalls, but she's holding up a terrifying mask. And this was about this haunted me not only because of the book, which I had, but I also had the VHS of the episode. Um, so this was Carly Beth buys a Halloween mask from a store. It's super haunting in the um in the movie of it or the TV show. After putting on the mask, she starts acting differently. She gets super aggressive, and then the mask gets stuck to

her face. So this actually was inspired by arl Stein's son matthew Stein, who put on a mask and then had trouble trouble getting it off during Halloween. Um. Yeah, I just remember how terrifying it was and like her like the mass becoming part of her skin, like she couldn't find like where it stopped and ended. Um, And I don't know, that's so creepy. And I had a

mask just like this. So this came out in this with the eleventh book in the Goosebumps series and came out Yeah, my, A really good twist at the end of that was, Um, she finally gets the mask off, she um, you know, like takes it back to the shop that she bought it from, and then she comes home and the last page of the book is she sees that her brother was like, Hey, check out this scary mask, and he puts it on. Yeah. Um, so my uh my next couple favorite goose Bumps books would

be pretty much the entire like Monster Blood saga. Um they made four of a Monster Blood one too, three and four. Um, they basically ran the gamut. I think that the the final main goose Bumps spoke was Monster Blood four and like usually one would come out of every ten issues or so. And the basic premise of it is that there was a wizard or a witch named Sarah Beth that um took like kind of a silly Putty esque substance and used a magic spell to cause it to grow kind of like the blob. So

it sounds a lot like Rita from Yeah making things grow. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. So basically this uh, this Monster Blood is used to make like in the second one, like a hamster eats some and then grows to a huge size. The first one, I think a dog eats some and then grows grows really huge. And then basically these these people have to or the you know the teens that are always in it, Um that's the Evan, Ross and Andy or their names. Um, they have to figure out

a way to stop this giant thing that's grown. In the Monster Blood too, one of the kids comes up with a solution when the hamster gets to the size of being like building sized, where he eats some and then he's like, I gotta fight this hamster. It grows gigantic and he just has a brawl with a hamster. U Uh. Something that I think it's funny about this series is, um, there's a huge plot hole and then they establish at the end of Monster Blood one, UM,

I think that what they like. They the witch Sarah Bath you know, comes to life and they managed to defeat her, and they realize that once the monster Blood hits an expiration date, then it loses all of its magical power. So that happens at the start, at the end of the first Monster Blood you know, the which passes away, the monster Blood expires, but then for some reason, the monster Blood still works in Monster Blood two and three and four, but they don't really explain why or how.

Um and then a Monster Blood four there's like a really weird twist where they find blue monster blood that like kind of turns into these weird slug monsters and like when you eat them, it doesn't make you grow, It just makes you multiply. So yeah, so it's someone needs to make like a video game like or a movie. Monster Blood is the coolest name. That's like I watched,

um so watching like the first goose Bumps movie. In the most recent goose Bumps movie, they just came out a couple of weeks ago, they haven't touched monster blood at all. The reference it is like a throwaway joke, like like Jack Black's earl Stein will say like, oh, what what should I do? You monster blood on him? But they haven't actually had monster Blood appear in either movie. So I think that like, if you're Sony and you're trying to figure out how to make a goose Bumps movie,

like make give us a monster Blood movie. There's four monster Blood books to pick for it. Monster Blood remember that? Remember that like weird that like Monster Truck movie that came out. It was literally like Monster Truck. It was like the truck was alive. Um I wanted to say before we move on to the next one. So I touched on the Living Dummy, which was super and I remember we talked about how that was a Twilight Zone episode two. I mean a lot of these were like

blatant ripops other things. Yeah, say Cheese and Die, which was where it takes a picture and then you see, um is it you see yourself dead? You see yourself in a position of bad luck. Yeah. Yeah, that is literally a twilet Zone episode. And like funny story, uh, like the are You Afraid of the Dark actually did an episode that seemed like a blatant rip off of Say Cheese and Die, which I think they're both probably looking Twilight Zone episode. And then when the goose Bumps

TV series came out, they made essentially their own sites. Yeah, there's a ton of them, just like a spooky camera, which I respect because now it's for you know, not all those kids are going to watch Twilight Zone. But I did want to say at night they for sure. I watched it when I was little and it changed me and my mom. My mom watched it when she was little. Um so living So Night of Living Dummy was actually a saga because there was Living Dummy and

there was like seven of them. There was Night a Living Dummy two and Night a Living Dummy three. And I would be remiss if I didn't say that it was starring Slappy the Dummy, who we later see, I mean we saw in the TV series, which was super creepy. It was also in the movies, So he is definitely he's he's like, to me, almost like the crypt keeper something for Tales from the Crypt, Like he is there. He's kind of like the mascot I feel like of

goose Bumps, they actually have. They have. There's a currently running Goosebumps book series called Slappy Land that literally is oh, that's feel like it's it's Tales from the Crypt, but each stories narrate is like introduced by Slappy Yeah. Um, And like I forget the name of the character, but there actually is a goose Bumps mascot. It's like a skeleton with a mohawk. It's it's called Willy the Skeleton

or whatever. No Willie the Skelets. Like I think that if you buy, like on the inside page of the book, it's just like ask Willie or whatever. So, Joey, why don't you tell us one more of your favorite goose Bumps. I'm sure everyone's going down nostalgia Laine right now. So my final favorite Goosebumps book, it would be goose Bumps

number thirty. It's called It Came from Beneath the sink, and the premise of it is, um, a family lives in a house and they find this like weird sponge underneath their sink, and um like, I think that, like, the daughter of the family finds this sponge and realizes that it's breathing, and um they she doesn't entirely know what the deal is with it, but she realizes that whenever she has it that she experiences bad luck, and then the sponge will like make a noise and people

around her will experience bad luck. So um Like, she tries to get rid of this thing because she realizes, Oh, this is some mythical beast that's causing bad luck. I forget the exact name of it. There's like a specific name in the book for this mythical beast that is this sponge that creates bad luck and feeds on bad luck. And um Like, she tries to bury it like under her yard, but it like kills all the plants that her dad just planted, So her dad's like, oh, why

did you do that? Um She she tries to give it away, but I think that every time that she gives it away, like appears back in her house. Um they like they realized that like if you if you try to get rid of the sponge, like, the only way to get rid of it is to die, and it's passed on to somebody else or you, um like or if you give it away, you will die within

a day of getting rid of it. So finally she learns that the way to get rid of this thing after like it really messes her up, like it makes her like accidentally cut her hands with scissors and do a bunch of other stuff. Um, she learns that like it feeds on fear, so the only way to kill it is love. So she basically like pets it like it was a cat and says like, I love me a little guy, and thing is like no, might want to weakness And then it's kind of like a good

thing to teach kids. But that's like I feel like every fourth goose Bumps book the ending is like, oh love was it's only reconnect, you know. I kind of like that. It's like die die but also love. Yeah, that's like that. It was good. It was just a nice like it was a nice like low sticks like weird villain. And I think that that's like one of Erlstein's strength is just like villain, like just like monsters that are weird, Like everything doesn't have to be a werewolf.

It can be a weird small sponge guy that like feeds on bad luck or whatever. Yeah, I guess listeners of you remember one that ends kind of in a similar way with like a love one. Let us know, because I'm kind of fascinated. I can't remember all of the books. There's so many. Um, we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to get into the TV show in the movies right after this. I'm sorry, I'm watching this as it goes on. In this these

effects weren't as scary as there were for me. Yeah, those those dog eyes do not hold up, just like Google eyes. Just just watch it looks like someone did it as a bit, uh for We're just gonna play one more time to Joey can see these eyes a little bit. It wasn't Arlstein in what was he in part of the he shut up? Yeah, yeah, he's at the beginning because briefcase open like, oh no, my pages.

He actually he looks like he does not care. He's just straight up literally that's like once He's Something I love about carl Stein is like he just seems like he seems like a writer in the coolest sense of the word. And then he's like, I don't know just what his job is like, he's not. He doesn't seem like a guy that like overly romanticizes the process. UM. But interesting to note um. Ryan Gosling was actually in um.

One of the early episodes of the goose Bumps TV series was specifically the adaptation of Say Cheese and Die. He was one of the main characters, and you know, watching it. When I was watching that growing up, I was definitely like, oh, yeah, that kid's going to be in a movie name drive. Yeah, but you mean we saw him on the Mickey Mouse Club. I mean he was making his rounds. I just want to correct myself

a little bit. Of the goose Bumps Slappy Land World series is actually called Slappy World, So you guys should check that out. It's great. Um. So, goose Bumps the TV show is a Canadian American horror anthology. Wasn't it true, Iffy Canadian boy. I'm sure it was probably filmed in Vancouver or something. So originally began airing on White TV in English, and it also aired in French and Canada. That's cool, Network ten in Australia and on Fox Kids. I think that's why I remember watching it in the

United States starting September four and ended September seven. Nine only ran for three years. Something feels so much longer than that. There's something that's so like doing doing this podcast and sort of revisiting a lot of this goose Bump stuff. Something that's so surprising to me is how insane, Like I didn't realize how popular goose Bumps Books was. Like this show was the I think the most popular television show for kids for like two years in a row,

and goose Bumps Books have sold like four hundred million copies. No, that makes perfect sense. So it had four seasons and

it had seventy four episodes. Most of the episodes were they were like retellings of goose Bumps stories, so um, I believe, like the horror Land episode I think was split into two episodes, but other than that, it was like it was like there was like a couple of slappy episodes and then other than they just kind of like they covered all the hits, basically the Cuckoo, Clock of Dune, Um, Ghost Beach, Monster Blood, like you had

talked about Revenge of the lawn Gnomes. I remember that one. Yeah, so they had that and then, um and I used to rent I think they used to have They used to have Buster used to episodes. I used to rent them. Um. So then fast forward to I can't believe it took that long to get a goose Bumps movie. Okay, so

interesting story there. They they tried to make a goose Bumps movie as far back as like, but they just couldn't figure out which book to base the movie on because they were like sixty two very popular main goose Bumps books, plus all of the bonus books like Goosebumps two thousand and all that stuff. But um, they couldn't

figure it out. In two thousand and eight, I think, um, they finally settled on, oh, what if it was like a fake biography of R. L. Stein That way you can kind of couch it in that and used to explore all of the goose Bumps books. And then I believe in twelve was when there was first like a pretty good draft of the script and like that got green Litton pushed along and I think I want to say in Jack Black attached as Earl Stein and um

the entire time Like arl Stein. He said in interviews that like he was like, like, they would tell me stuff about a Goosebumps book movie, and I would not believe them because like they kept on saying there was going to be one for twenty years. Yeah. I wonder if you like the fact that Jack Black, because they're both he's a comedy person. Yeah. I mean that's a cool thing about the movie is um for those of you who haven't seen it, Jack Black definitely plays arl

Stein like a big old goof. He plays like a guy who's just very like, very full of himself, and he's like Goosebumps with the greatest books ever written, and and I wrote them me the greatest writer. Like there's literally a monologue where he says, they sold four hundred million copies. Does any of kids? I mean, I saw it, but it was once I saw that. Yeah. Um, in the movie, does he have okay spoiler for the movie, Um, the first movie, he has a daughter who's revealed to

be a ghost from one of his books. That's the big twist at the end. But um, yeah, I like Jack Black has said that, Um, he's surprised that arl Stein totally got it. Got oh, I like I would have to play arl Stein is just like a big goofy, pompous guy for this to work, and like he was completely on board. Arlstein even has a couple of like Stanley cameos and the first goose Bumps in they're not like super They're not like super showy. It's like the

first Goosebumps movie. He pops up at the end literally is just an extra school teacher. So like the movie ends with Jack Black arl Stein starting to teach English at this high school of these kids that he like his books excellently tormented, and he's just walking through the hallways on his first day and then Erlstein walks past, and Jack Black is like, all right, you mist are black, and arl Stein's like, hey, Mr Stein, Oh I get it. It's like that kind of thing. Which yeah, but he's

still dressed like arl Stein. He feels very black and carry and like looks really like annoyed to be there. Yeah. Yeah. So the plot follows a teenager trying to save his town with arl Stein's help. After all monsters, demons, and creatures from the goose Bumps franchise began to escape from the books wrecking havoc in the real world. That's actually a good Um. Whoever came up with that, that's a good plot. It's a good plot, and like it. Uh. The Goosebumps stories are very like I don't know, like

arl Stein wrote each book in like ten days. They're very like they can feel really formulaic. Oh yeah, yeah, Like I mean he had to write one a month. He had a couple of ghostwriters, but like he would he said that an interview, is that usually would take him like three weeks to write a goose Bumps book, but there have been times that he's been able to turn one out in six days. Like I think that he wrote one in ten days. But so they're very much like, hey, we gotta like like slap on a

twist at the end. Oh great, it's scary mummies, get it? Like um and um. He would actually start with the title of the book and then figure everything out from there. And that's something that actually there's a joke that they reference in the movie m where he keeps on saying like something like slappyes revenge. That's a great title. That's

all I need. Um and uh. But like the basic plot line of most goose Bumps books is like pretty formulaic and there's not like there's like some heart to it, but it's like they're just short enough that you wouldn't necessarily want to make a feature length movie about it.

So like by doing this where it's sort of like arl Stein is one of the main characters and it's all about all of his books, it really it gave a heart because it justified like why, Like it's about the guy that would write goose Bumps books and how he like grew up and he didn't have any friends and he wrote, uh these like scary novels because he

wanted to like punish the world. And the movie is basically about him learning that he does need people to survive, and like it's a really sweet story and um, it really makes me like arl Stein more. I was gonna say, Um, so the goose Bumps movie that dropped in it grows a hundred and fifty millions million budget, so it to oh yeah, the budget was eighty four million. Yeah, and then uh, goose Bumps too. Haunted Halloween just dropped for all you listening October twelfth of this year. You already

saw it, Yeah, I just saw it. We're not gonna give away spoilers because it just came out this month, but it's spooky. But was it better than the first one? Okay, so we'll say the budget of the first one was eighty five million, the budget of the second one was thirty million. And you feel it, so that must mean because Okay, so on the first one, I was reading it said it had relatively positive reviews from critic. Okay, so the first one was the first one was like

a solid B plus. It was like enjoyable watch that seems to be enough in Hollywood day. And it was good, Like I mean, you said you saw it. It's like I enjoyed it. I thought it was good. Just as a big goose Bumps fan it too. Were younger, I would be more into it. Yeah, like it was, it wouldn't be as harsh, Like it was a good It was a good use of the franchise and it made me,

you know, like I thought it was fine. The second goose Bumps movie, as opposed to be about all goose Bumps books, really just focused on one goose Bumps book, and because of that, it felt like it was a ninety minute episode of the TV show as opposed to being, you know, like a heartfelt movie, And there were good things about it, but it was definitely like the first one was then testing out the franchise, whereas the second one feels like, Oh, if we can just churn out

million dollar goose Bumps movies that will give us fifty million dollars on an investment, we'll just keep doing that. So like, if this does well, I'm sure we'll get one that's just based on Monster Blood and one that's just based on Horror Land, one that's just based on

the Hunted Mask. But something that was interesting about it is that um Jack Black plays the role of r el Stein in the goose Bumps franchise, and they wrote two drafts of the script for the second goose Bumps movie, one where Jack Black was going to be in it and the other way we wasn't gonna be in it. I'm sure it was entirely based on if he was going to say yes to it or not, And like you could really feel it, like he's barely in the

second one. He's only in like four scenes, and they're all like pretty sure you know what he was shooting That other one, the clock was the house of the Clock and it's well, yeah, that actually looks I mean to me, it looks good. But I don't know if it was that came out to right. It was like he had to competing movies. But I think that it's just like for the same audience, Like that's around the same age. The House with the Clock and its Walls is also based on a popular book series, so it's

literally also spooky. Yes, it's both based on Halloween based movies. But this, uh, you know, like I'm glad that they had Jack Black for it and it made say and it didn't have any of the returning stars other than Slappy from the previous one. And I think Slappy was even voiced by a different guy. Yeah, Like this was definitely like it like it felt like I don't want to be too harsh on it. I thought it was fine for what it was. It's a kid's movie, you know.

It's it's the if you're a kid, like if I was, if I was younger, if I was like goose Bumps book reading age when I first started reading Goosebumps books and I watched it, I probably think it was great, but like you could definitely feel that like, oh, they were like this was there, like like, we're going to take this script that has nothing to do with goose Bumps, add a couple of goose Bumps references to it, and then film and throw Jack Black in at the end

and call it good. You know, yeah, God, that's funny. I was going to say, um, because I was looking at uh, yeah, everything that's come out with this and not to bring it back to the Twilight Zone, but I will. Um. They had an episode in a book called a Night in Terror Tower, which is very much like Tower of Terrors. So yeah, that was That was another good Goosebumps book. I really like that one. It was like, um, like there's like a time travel element to it. Um it. It was just like it was.

It's definitely like one that I remember. Well, well, I think can you watch goose Bumps on Netflix, the original movie for just the TV series? The TV series, It's I feel like it's got to be available on one of those taming services. What it looks like it is. I'm trying to pull it up right now on Netflix. Yet they have five seasons from That's dope, So I guess you can go and watch shows. Go check out that do you have a face that was from the

TV show. A favorite from the TV different than the books. Um So I guess that, Like I think that my favorite from the TV show would probably be, um, say Cheese and Die, just because it like really faithfully followed what the book was. Um. I also appreciated all of them, like all of the Slappy episodes. Yeah, he's crez. Um. What I thought was funny about it was it was very clear that like what was the cheapest venture, like quis dummy that we could find, Like the Slappy in

the TV series does not look good? Those are Oh man, some of these graphics. Well, yeah, you can go and watch goose from is that hate and Penetieri? Oh, I don't know. I bet there's more. I bet there's more child actors that are in this than we don't realize. Um. Yeah, if you want to watch, if you want to watch the movie, you can, but also the original series. It's on Netflix. Yeah. Do you have any other thoughts, Joey, any other thoughts? Um So, Yeah, I think that. Um,

I think the goose Bumps is a really fun series. Um. It's definitely like, Uh, I didn't read Harry Potter books growing up. I read goose Bumps books, and I think that, you know, it's like it's a good it's a good thing to read when you're like just getting started and like starting to get really into literature. Um. Something I think is really funny is that the reason that Arlstein thinks that Goosebumps books are successful and this is a direct quote, is I think that people like goose Bumps

books because they didn't have drinking or violence. Oh really, yeah, I mean there were for kids. There were for kids. Um, but yeah, I don't know, they're good. If you haven't read him, to check them out. Um. Also watched the first goose Bumps movie and maybe wait for the second one to come out on Netflix. That's a good that's good solid advice if you do. You have final thoughts on goose Bumps. Oh no, I think it's super fun.

I think you know, one thing that I will always take from goose Bumps and I thought was cool was that it got me reading. You know, like that's cool. Like so I think, you know, because I feel like is like the first week of every month like wanting

Goosebumps books. Yeah, And I feel like there's so many parents who are like picky about what your kids are reading where they feel like you need to be reading you Know, the Theory of Everything by Stephen Hawking, And it's like, no, you're ten and you haven't read the Theory of read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

How dare you so I think you know anything? Even if it's just comic books by your kids, comic books, just get them reading one like goose Bumps books like I'm sure that like reading so many of them helped me develop my comedic voice. It really young, like it gave me like a weird sensibility that i'd like taken into adulthood into like professional writing jobs. I wanted to say one final thing, and that is that five years before he would be Anakin Skywalker, Hayden Christensen was Zane

in Night Living Dummy three, Parts one and two. Um, I want to say one more thing. Um. So I host a podcast called five Minutes of Silence where the premises of a guest and I just sit in silence for twenty five minutes. It's the real thing. You can google it, super funny. Is it hard to stay silent and sometimes you break it? I mean, like, so the rule is that we can't, like we can't talk to each other, so um, like usually like if I have somebody on it, like they'll work on the screenplay and

I'll read a book or whatever. But um, I reached out to arl Stein to ask if he would be a guest on the show. I just sent a message to his like his like a fan facebook page, and he personally responded to tell me that he wasn't going to do it, but it was still a very nice like, Harry, thanks for asking me. I'm really busy right now, so I don't think I can do this, but I appreciate it. But did you sign it like arlt? I think it was like la, yeah, dash, this was me so like.

Arl Stein also seems like a nice guy. He's chill. Yeah, he's cool. Um yeah, slide into his d M. Yeah, sliding his DM. He'll probably respond tell him Joey Cliff sent Joey where and everyone catch you. Um you can find me on Twitter at joe Attainment, and you can look at cats on Facebook at the l a Underground Cat Network. Heck yeah, Actually I was probably promote a book. I've got a book that I wrote called The American Indian Ready to wear catalog. I'm a enrolled remember the

Callets Indian tribe. I basically wrote this like short zine that Um it's all about Native American representation media in the form of like a fashion catalog. And it's like a satire book. And it's illustrated by a very good Calots artist named Janet Meyer, who's also my mom. So you guys should check it out. That's so cool. Available on red cat press dot com. Wait is it out now? Yeah? Oh my gosh, yeah, send us a link or tweet it out when this drops? Oh great, heck yeah. Um

I'm at MS Danny Fernandez. What is this is coming out Tuesday? Um? Yeah, I don't know. Follow me on the on the socials, Hit me up, send me memes. This is our last week. Sent her one meme, Send me one meme. I require one meme to survive every day. Um. This was our last SP October. Yeah. We have some more spooky episodes coming up, but um, this was our our last one for a little bit. Yeah, So thanks

for listening, glad. I hope you enjoyed uh SP October as you know, find me yet if you why the way I f y n W A D I w E on Twitter and Instagram and if the's on Twitch. As a reminder, like I said, you have to re up those prime subs every month, so they don't just re up if you pay the sub reaps every month. But if you get use those free Twitch Prime subs, you're gonna have to come back to the stream, hangout with me and I hit that up again, and make sure you run to the tea public. We have those

Stay Spooky shirts. Once it turns to November they will be gone. You will have to wait another year before you can buy them. Or if you just need shirts for your back, you can check it out. We have tons of dope things from where to show people. Let's the one of the Jokings podcast out right now. But yeah, thanks for listening, and for one last time, let's stay Spooky