Speaker 1: Welcome to NERTIVEUS. And and of course I did earlier
Speaker 1: a few weeks. But you know I'm gonna hit y'all
Speaker 1: off with that goose bumps theme. Let's go. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: talking goose bumps today. Yeah. Uh well, beat yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1: You feel that, y'all, feel that energy coming through. Put
Speaker 1: your hands up, listening to your off office cubicle. Put
Speaker 1: your hands up. I got one hand up, my other
Speaker 1: hands holding your glass of water. I get goose bumps
Speaker 1: every time I'm reading in the books, so scary turned
Speaker 1: the page and I'm really shore. Matter of fact, I'm
Speaker 1: real happy because I'm reading books where in my grabbing
Speaker 1: it from a nook. Now we're coming through with some
Speaker 1: goosebumps sounds, and we're coming all around, coming to your town.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, don't get so scared that you might
Speaker 1: just dookie, dookie, Just listen to what I say. It's
Speaker 1: stay spooky, spooky. We got Danny sitting over there. It's
Speaker 1: sitting real comfy, inner Green, Little Jay, Joey Cliff popping
Speaker 1: on the track to day. And maybe that's all I
Speaker 1: got to say, because if the nerdy rap coming back,
Speaker 1: like I'm coming through the trap. Matter of fact, I
Speaker 1: might come through and do a super wrestling match. People
Speaker 1: in the d MS asking for the wrestling episode, but
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, hey, hey, home me just hold starting
Speaker 1: off with some bars. That has been a great show, everybody,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming in. Yeah, catch us next time. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I listened to a podcast that was just that for
Speaker 1: three matters. Oh man, if if Dopetown wasn't already doing it,
Speaker 1: that that's what my podcast. I was going to say.
Speaker 1: That is what you would call a song three minutes,
Speaker 1: three minutes with like a chorus and a good hook
Speaker 1: and like sang by somebody. I like, man, just just
Speaker 1: a twelve track podcast. It's alright, yeah and you you
Speaker 1: heard that right. For for those who are just super
Speaker 1: confused because they're not up on the hip hops, that
Speaker 1: was Travis Scott's goose bumps uh instrumental. So it was
Speaker 1: a nice little fake out. Everyone thought I was doing
Speaker 1: the regular theme. I was like, check it out. Um.
Speaker 1: The instrumental just totally threw me off because the courses
Speaker 1: I get goosebumps every time, and I forgot where it went.
Speaker 1: So I just started free stop. That's okay, it good,
Speaker 1: that's all good. Um. But yeah, so we have Joey
Speaker 1: Cliff today everybody writer, comedian for enthusiasts, currently writing on
Speaker 1: Notice News with Jessica Chobot. That's me, that's the things
Speaker 1: I do. I am also at that channel. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wrote for a show that Danny Holsted. Yeah, you wrote
Speaker 1: on Natural Selection, super fun. Let's take one quick second
Speaker 1: to talk about your underground cat network. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I always go on podcast, But that's
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's exploded because you know, for those
Speaker 1: who don't know, uh, cats are great. Yeah, cats are great.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna have to take two steps back before
Speaker 1: jumping in. So the first step is there used to
Speaker 1: be something called it the USB Underground Network, and then
Speaker 1: that turned into a monstrous place that us be no
Speaker 1: longer wanted to be associated with, so it had to
Speaker 1: be changed to the l A Comedy the l A
Speaker 1: Underground Comedy Network, and like, because we're comedians, everybody decided
Speaker 1: to make like fake versions of it. So somebody made
Speaker 1: like an l A Underground Baseball Network people talk about baseball,
Speaker 1: and LA Underground like hat network where pople talk about hats.
Speaker 1: So I just started posting pictures of cats and all
Speaker 1: these networks, and somebody said, hey, you should just make
Speaker 1: an l a underground cat network, and I did, and
Speaker 1: I got very popular, very quickly. Now it's it's got
Speaker 1: eight thousand members. It's really it's it's the most creatively
Speaker 1: fulfilling thing I've ever made. I did not belong in
Speaker 1: there at all, as I'm a dog person. It's okay.
Speaker 1: It was funny because you know, Ronnie from White Women,
Speaker 1: I would see him commenting in there, and I thought
Speaker 1: he was doing bits, but he was like having genuine
Speaker 1: conversation about cats. Well that's that's what I love about
Speaker 1: it is, Like, that's what I realized in creating it is,
Speaker 1: um there are so many people that, like I want
Speaker 1: to talk about their cats, like and they're just excited
Speaker 1: to talk about them. Their phones are full of cat pictures,
Speaker 1: but they feel embarrassed, like you know, posting in a
Speaker 1: regular Facebook or Twitter, Instagram or whatever. So like this
Speaker 1: group basically allows like legit comedians to just geek out
Speaker 1: about their cats. Yeah, it's it's such a fun space.
Speaker 1: And there was like some drama there too, Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes I like some was the drama. I like I
Speaker 1: I put the hard band whenever anybody does anything not
Speaker 1: cat related? Are you the only moderator? Um? Okay, So
Speaker 1: I was the administrator for like the first it's been
Speaker 1: around for two years. For the for the first year
Speaker 1: and a half, and then it just got so big,
Speaker 1: like once we started getting like, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: think like seven thousand people. Just I'm busy. I'm working
Speaker 1: a bunch of writing jobs. So I got Haley Mansini
Speaker 1: and a guy named Jed Pratt to comoderate it with me.
Speaker 1: And it's great. We've got like a group chat. We
Speaker 1: post a lot of cat pictures as well. I was like, like,
Speaker 1: this thread is getting a little bit spicy. We should
Speaker 1: watch it. Somebody's thinking about talking about dogs on this thread.
Speaker 1: We gotta put it. That would be me. I'm going
Speaker 1: to infiltrate. I'm gonna I used to have cats. In fact,
Speaker 1: I gotta do you know me and my impressions if
Speaker 1: I'm so good at them? Um, this is my cat
Speaker 1: would always sound like he was talking. My cat, Oreo
Speaker 1: would sound like he was very good cat name, by
Speaker 1: the way, and my other one was Snicker, named after
Speaker 1: like cats named after food. It's I think I originally
Speaker 1: wanted to call him Crystal or Tiffany bag, which is
Speaker 1: very ten year old thing to want to name me cat.
Speaker 1: But then turn out he was a girl or no,
Speaker 1: it was a boy. Um, and I still could have
Speaker 1: kept it that Tiffany but um okay, so this is OREO.
Speaker 1: He would when he would say when he would talk,
Speaker 1: let me see if I can do it. Wow, that's
Speaker 1: how we sounded. So I on top of doing that Wow,
Speaker 1: I host a show at UCB where I just interviewed
Speaker 1: people about their cats called Chats on Cats. During one
Speaker 1: of the shows, I played footage of a cat saying
Speaker 1: I love you, and it was just like and it
Speaker 1: got such a good reaction that I had to stop
Speaker 1: and replay the video like six times. There's like a
Speaker 1: thirty second applause and sheer break every time after play
Speaker 1: people talking cat. People love talking cats. Really, I mean
Speaker 1: once cats are not now of talk, we're done for
Speaker 1: his people. Yes, So today we're talking about a little
Speaker 1: goosey and a little bumpies. Oh yeah, the goose bumps,
Speaker 1: the goose uh joey. Before we get into it, what
Speaker 1: was what was your earliest memory of goose bumps? So,
Speaker 1: my earliest memory of goose Bumps is Um. When I
Speaker 1: was in elementary school, I was really into just all
Speaker 1: things short scary stories. So like, if you guys remember
Speaker 1: those books scary Stories to tell him the dark with
Speaker 1: the really creepy drawings in them, I would always like
Speaker 1: check out, Oh yeah, I'm really excited about that, and
Speaker 1: like he's basing the character designs on those original like
Speaker 1: really the one, the Harold one or the one with
Speaker 1: like the stuffed man, the stuff man, like the girl
Speaker 1: with like the snider coming out of her. Yeah, so uh.
Speaker 1: Off of that, I was just always looking for like
Speaker 1: new scary stories to read. And I remember like the
Speaker 1: Albertson's near where I grew up started stocking these these
Speaker 1: books called goose Bumps books. I didn't necessarily know a
Speaker 1: ton about him, but I think I was just running
Speaker 1: out of stuff to read and I just saw I
Speaker 1: think it was like the First Monster Blood or something
Speaker 1: like that. UM, And I saw that on the shelf,
Speaker 1: picked it up because it was like five bucks or
Speaker 1: something like that, read through a day, really liked it,
Speaker 1: so I just like had my mom kind of like
Speaker 1: get me a bunch of them, and I went through
Speaker 1: and got all the back copies and really just like
Speaker 1: every month, like the day that they like We're released
Speaker 1: in my local Albertins, I'd pick up a copy and
Speaker 1: read through it. Mm hmm yeah Albertson to bring it back.
Speaker 1: I don't even know do those still exists. I think
Speaker 1: that I'm from Washington State, so like we had them.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Orange County here. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that they have to still exist. I think that they're
Speaker 1: like owned by Kroeger now or something like that, but
Speaker 1: I think that they're still technically listeners. Let us know,
Speaker 1: is there an Albertson's there? What about Blockbuster? One person
Speaker 1: is like, yes, I live next to the one Blockbuster
Speaker 1: in the organ? Yeah, yeah, that one? Is that the
Speaker 1: only one that's still in the LASTA one just shut down?
Speaker 1: There's one an organ that still exists that. Like the
Speaker 1: guys just said, like, I make no money off of this.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about making an historic monument. Oh that's so cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, my visit like a road trip thing.
Speaker 1: It's somewhere in like I think Eastern or Eastern or
Speaker 1: Western Organ or something that's like west of Portland, I
Speaker 1: want to say, in like Eugene or something listeners. If
Speaker 1: you live next to the Blockbuster, please send us a phote,
Speaker 1: send us a receipt from that blockbuster. Just we need proof.
Speaker 1: I know. It's like you don't even have to return those.
Speaker 1: Do you please do for that one person that's still
Speaker 1: working it. Yeah, if you're if you're happening to be
Speaker 1: next to that blockbuster, if you could rent a copy
Speaker 1: of I'm going to see the original Independence Day and
Speaker 1: mail it to me, I really appreciate it. I will
Speaker 1: not watch it on FX every July four. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I want to watch it now. It's like I don't
Speaker 1: know what nine months from now. Yeah, getting TiVo or TiVo,
Speaker 1: that's not a thing anymore, only a VCR. Okay, moving along,
Speaker 1: moving along? If he can you tell us about some
Speaker 1: of the history of arl Stein. Yeah, arl Stein are
Speaker 1: known as Robert Lawrence Stein. I guess he wants no
Speaker 1: NU know. I can see why he just went by
Speaker 1: r L. You know. But he was also sometimes known
Speaker 1: as Jovial Bob Stein or Eric Affaby a funny story there.
Speaker 1: He used to write joke books, and that's why he
Speaker 1: went by Jovial bob Stein. If that was his pen
Speaker 1: name when he wrote just like it was literally just
Speaker 1: like forty jokes to tell at a party or whatever.
Speaker 1: If you would, if you were jokester, if you want,
Speaker 1: we know people that have like names like that. I
Speaker 1: feel like I would be like jokey Clift Clift but
Speaker 1: joke Clift yeah, joke fe jokes jokes. Danny, what what
Speaker 1: would your what would your your hockey comedy book writing name? Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's like Danny Danny ha Nandez. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go. Slapper ye Danny Slapper. Oh yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1: That's a store that one. So it's born October eight
Speaker 1: in Columbus, Ohio. Spooky place. Ohio is spooky. I went
Speaker 1: to just side little fact my ex wood ex husband
Speaker 1: wasn't grew up in Ohio, and he took me to
Speaker 1: the Witch's Ball, which is a real place. Um, it's
Speaker 1: this large marble ball in Ohio. People, if you know
Speaker 1: about this, let me know. Um it's in a cemetery
Speaker 1: that you have to like park and walk to. But
Speaker 1: apparently a witch is buried under this marble ball. They said,
Speaker 1: like a woman that killed her family and the and
Speaker 1: the rumors that they buried her standing up and put
Speaker 1: this huge marble marble ball over. I actually looked it
Speaker 1: up because I'm like, that's not a cool thing, you know,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, you're back oh when you're little,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh whitch, and they're like, oh, that
Speaker 1: was probably an innocent woman. Um. But I looked it
Speaker 1: up and I don't know if that's even a real
Speaker 1: if that's actually what happened. Okay, so she killed her family.
Speaker 1: I feel like the distinction between which and murderer is
Speaker 1: very murky. Actually, yeah, which is don't really murder people. Um,
Speaker 1: that's just the thing that and they're also not like
Speaker 1: Satanists most of the time. I don't know, I've been studying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then more it just was anyways, that's a whole
Speaker 1: other Well we should do one on Yeah. But so Columbos,
Speaker 1: Ohio is a spooky place. I think it's interesting that
Speaker 1: his nickname is the Stephen King of children's literature. Like
Speaker 1: that's such a cool but also lame. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like like I would it would be such a it's
Speaker 1: like you're the Mozart jingle. Yeah. I was like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: if you're like the Dave Chappelle of children's television podcasting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a lot harder than like making it four kids.
Speaker 1: You know, even though you know some things for kids
Speaker 1: are fun and good. Uh, spooky stuff maybe not so much.
Speaker 1: Have you went back and seen are afraid of the dark?
Speaker 1: Not as scary as I remember? Ah, but I digress.
Speaker 1: He graduated from os U Ohio State University in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five with a Bachelor of Arts in English, and
Speaker 1: he used his degree. He's like the only English major
Speaker 1: that degree. Yeah, what's really scary here is the amount
Speaker 1: of people that don't use their major disappointment from your
Speaker 1: parents and that what a what a shift that would
Speaker 1: be if Hollywood just got empty and communications jobs just
Speaker 1: got impacted. With me, everyone's like, you know, communications, what
Speaker 1: what what about? Communications attracts so many people who really
Speaker 1: want to chase their dreams. We'll find out another episode
Speaker 1: of Narratifficent. On this episode, we're gonna talk about R. L.
Speaker 1: Stein at os U, who edited the os U Humor magazine,
Speaker 1: foreshadowing that uh that joke book that Joey was talking
Speaker 1: about and uh, the magazine was called the Sun Dial
Speaker 1: and it was for three out of his four years there.
Speaker 1: He later moved to New York City, to pursue his
Speaker 1: career as a writer. Yeah, and so he ended up
Speaker 1: writing a dozen of humor books for kids under the
Speaker 1: name Jovial bob Stein and created the humor magazine Bananas.
Speaker 1: So Bananas was for teenagers and it was published by
Speaker 1: Scholastic Press. It had seventy two issues that ran between
Speaker 1: nineteen and nineteen eighty four. Did you know about that? Did?
Speaker 1: I didn't know about it? But um, okay, so this
Speaker 1: is maybe a deep poll um. I didn't know until
Speaker 1: recently that he was such a huge, like such a
Speaker 1: humor writer. But a friend of mine who does shows
Speaker 1: at the Bright Citizens Boget Theater in New York, actually
Speaker 1: got r. L Stein to agree to have an entire
Speaker 1: late night show based around him. They did live at
Speaker 1: New UCB, New York. And originally I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's crazy that, like the goose Bumps writer would agree
Speaker 1: to have a late night talk show based around him
Speaker 1: and had written by him. But like, with all of
Speaker 1: his humor background, I guess that makes sense the show.
Speaker 1: So he so he was there, like he hosted It
Speaker 1: was like the tonight show was Jimmy Fallon but hosted
Speaker 1: by R. L Stein. Do they have did they film
Speaker 1: any of them? Um, they probably filmed it. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if it's available online, but you can find like
Speaker 1: sketches of it on online. The show is called Night Late.
Speaker 1: The premise of the show is that they get a
Speaker 1: different celebrity or a weird figure to basically have a
Speaker 1: late night talk show built around them every month. So
Speaker 1: they had like, like Drew Carey's done it, that may sense, like,
Speaker 1: but Erlstein, like my friends, his name is Eric Kinning him,
Speaker 1: he like co created the show, and I saw he
Speaker 1: was getting Arlstein. I was like what he was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: yeah know, he like wrote comedy for years in gold.
Speaker 1: I can't remember if any of his books I felt
Speaker 1: like had comedy, but maybe that was. I mean that
Speaker 1: was sort of what Goosebumps spoke joke. That's that's sort
Speaker 1: of what Goosebumps books were, and that's that's what made
Speaker 1: them four Kids, and they were scary books, but they
Speaker 1: also had just like moments of comedy to undercut the tension.
Speaker 1: So like, I think that he referenced like one of
Speaker 1: his favorite characters in the Goosebumps book is I want
Speaker 1: to say, like King Jelly jam In. Um, I think
Speaker 1: it was like escape from Camp jelly Jam or whatever
Speaker 1: was the book, And um, that's a character that would
Speaker 1: enslave athletic kids to bathe him because he smelled so
Speaker 1: badly that he needed he needed to be bathed twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day. And he like at the end
Speaker 1: of the book, all the kids are freed and they
Speaker 1: all escape and King jelly jam Uh died because he
Speaker 1: smelled so bad because nobody paved. So it's like, that's
Speaker 1: like a joke. That's like a funny thing, right, So
Speaker 1: it's like that those details, I think we're already always interspersed.
Speaker 1: He has such a weird mind. He is Stephen King.
Speaker 1: He's just a weirdo. Yeah, he's a weirdo. So in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties six Stein wrote his first horror novel, which
Speaker 1: was called Blind Date. That already sounds terrifying. He followed
Speaker 1: with many other novels, including The Babysitter, Beach House, Hit
Speaker 1: and Run, and The Girlfriend. He was also the co
Speaker 1: creator and head writer for the Nickelodeon Network children's TV
Speaker 1: show Eureka's Cast until recently that's coming back full circle
Speaker 1: and that was just a normal kids, I mean, it
Speaker 1: was a weird kids. Show, but that was still just
Speaker 1: a kids show. Yeah. And then in nine he started
Speaker 1: writing Fear Street books. I do remember those, yeah, and
Speaker 1: that was that was right before the Goosebump series. Those
Speaker 1: are like teen horror novels. So it's a lot of
Speaker 1: just like teenagers in scary situations. Yeah. So he had
Speaker 1: a couple of other things. He authored three humorous science
Speaker 1: fiction books in the Space Cadet series titled Jerks and
Speaker 1: Training Bozos, Good Groops There and Losers in Space, And
Speaker 1: then in Stein and Parachute Press went on to launch
Speaker 1: goose Bumps. There was actually, um, there was a parody
Speaker 1: series of goose Bumps that was released in the mid
Speaker 1: nineties called goof Lumps that like wasn't written by erl Stein.
Speaker 1: But now seeing that he's got such a humor background,
Speaker 1: I wonder if he released two bucks and I think
Speaker 1: that one owns them, and if he's just like yeah,
Speaker 1: like if it's like a hat tip of like yeah,
Speaker 1: one comedy writer to another. Yeah. Um. So this was
Speaker 1: this is what he had to say on horror. I
Speaker 1: think horror is funny. Horror makes me laugh in a
Speaker 1: movie theater when the shark comes up and starts eating
Speaker 1: you did laugh. We watched Halloween together. Halloween had solid,
Speaker 1: strong jokes, but when the faces is smashed up and
Speaker 1: people getting knife related, I'm not like. I think we
Speaker 1: laughed at so if he and I went um. Opening weekend,
Speaker 1: we watched the latest Halloween, which did great in the
Speaker 1: box office, number one with Jamie Lee Curtis of course,
Speaker 1: and we were cracking up way too much. But also
Speaker 1: there was legit humor because I don't know if people noticed,
Speaker 1: but Danny McBride wrote on it, and several of those scenes,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is a pent. Danny's humor comedy
Speaker 1: and horror movies is so good because it just cuts
Speaker 1: the tension. You know, for sure it's necessary. Its like
Speaker 1: a quiet place that you want to be scary all
Speaker 1: the time, but like if it's like a slasher fleck,
Speaker 1: you want it to have like an up and a down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this is his quote. I think horror. This is
Speaker 1: from Arlstein. I think horror is funny. Horror makes me
Speaker 1: laugh at a movie theater. When the shark comes up
Speaker 1: and starts eating the kid, I'm in the theater laughing.
Speaker 1: I just I did um. One of my friends made
Speaker 1: me see the Meg and we saw in for Dy
Speaker 1: which means yet, which means we paid extra for it.
Speaker 1: But also there was like water splashing in our face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that we laughed a lot. I just never get scared.
Speaker 1: There's something missing in my brain where if I'm reading
Speaker 1: a Stephen King novel or I'm at a horror movie,
Speaker 1: I just laugh. Writing this stuff hasn't really affected me
Speaker 1: at all. I just I think it's funny. In goose Bumps,
Speaker 1: every chapter and is a punchline. Oh what you just
Speaker 1: pointed out Joey ahead of the curve. Yeah, ruining the
Speaker 1: flow of the show. You're enhancing it. Oh thanks man. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Goose Bumps is a collection of novels that were basically
Speaker 1: most of the time one shoot story was like an
Speaker 1: anthology series. Anthology series of just spooky dookie stories. And
Speaker 1: then sometimes you had to choose your own adventure ones.
Speaker 1: Which were those were? Those were like make I think
Speaker 1: it's like make your own goose Bumps or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they made fifty of those. Um I remember I didn't
Speaker 1: get as into those, but they were good stuff. Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I used to you know when you're like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: just read this, but you had your fingers like no,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back. I didn't want. That was a
Speaker 1: lot of like yeah, you like say the same something
Speaker 1: that's like really funny about I think it was a
Speaker 1: choose your own goose Bumps was like sometimes there would
Speaker 1: be like trivia at the end of the of a
Speaker 1: chapter of like previous goose Bumps things. So it's like,
Speaker 1: if you know who the main character of the Haunted
Speaker 1: Mask was flipped to this page. Oh do you think
Speaker 1: it's this? Go to this page. So it was like
Speaker 1: homework to read other Bumps books. Great marketing text that was.
Speaker 1: That was the earliest version of DLC right there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you better are you better figure this out? You
Speaker 1: go and die? Yeah, if you don't know what happens
Speaker 1: in Monster Blood three, then sorry. Um. So we're actually
Speaker 1: going to take a quick ad break and then we're
Speaker 1: going to get into some of our favorite goose Bumps
Speaker 1: right after this and we're back. So we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into some of our favorite ones. But before we do,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the first ever goose Bumps book. So
Speaker 1: it was Welcome to Dead House. That was number one.
Speaker 1: It was released July. Did you read all of them? Okay? Wow? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dead House was so creepy. So basically it
Speaker 1: was the story of um a family of A common
Speaker 1: theme in Arleston stories is that a family moves either
Speaker 1: moves from out of town or a kid like visits
Speaker 1: a family member that's from out of town, both things,
Speaker 1: by the way, frightening to children moving to a brand
Speaker 1: new change. Yeah, change. So this was the Benson family
Speaker 1: moves to the town of Dark Falls. Yeah, they moved
Speaker 1: to the town of Dark Falls. They move into this
Speaker 1: house that's really creepy. One of the kids that it's
Speaker 1: a family with, like I think it's like two kids
Speaker 1: and a dog. One of the kids starts to see
Speaker 1: just like weird, creepy looking children in their house that
Speaker 1: will disappear, and they start to realize that they don't
Speaker 1: really see, like during the daytime, anybody in like the
Speaker 1: neighborhood that they live in. And then they slowly realized
Speaker 1: that the reason that they do that that they're that
Speaker 1: they're only seeing people at night is that all these
Speaker 1: people are ghosts and the only thing that keeps them
Speaker 1: alive is that um people that live in the house
Speaker 1: that this family just I'm just moved to need to
Speaker 1: be sacrificed once a year in order to keep these
Speaker 1: ghosts in existence for an other year. So the family
Speaker 1: gets wise to this. Um, they managed to stop the
Speaker 1: guy that sold them the house. I think they like,
Speaker 1: I think that I forget exactly how they do what
Speaker 1: they like, hit him with a wrench or something like that,
Speaker 1: a spooky ghost wrench. Um and um. Like then the
Speaker 1: family gets away and then as they're leaving they see
Speaker 1: this like ghostly guy basically like introducing the house to
Speaker 1: another family, and another family is getting ready to move in.
Speaker 1: So that that's kind of twist at the end, is
Speaker 1: that this place always well you know what I know
Speaker 1: es grow doesn't work like that. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things wrong with this story. R L. Ste Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: there's a scene where the Benson kids melt a ghost
Speaker 1: base off of its skull, which is pretty intense for
Speaker 1: goose Bumps books Best Face Melt Team. Like, Carlstein said
Speaker 1: in interviews that like that, Um, he didn't think he
Speaker 1: got the formula right with this one. He think he
Speaker 1: thought it was a bit too scary because before this
Speaker 1: he was writing for teenagers at the Fear Street series,
Speaker 1: whereas this was like aged elve and like, if you like,
Speaker 1: go back and read it. This book is like legit terrifying,
Speaker 1: and like it got a little bit softer as the
Speaker 1: series went on, but like it's great. It's like a
Speaker 1: good start to the Goosebumps. Scary stories to tell in
Speaker 1: the dark is pretty terrifying though, And those were in
Speaker 1: my elementary school read like Scholastic or whatever book fairs.
Speaker 1: But I think that those those had to have been
Speaker 1: written in like the eighties or something, right, Yeah, when
Speaker 1: like it was okay too, It's just like they were
Speaker 1: less care about it. Yeah, Joey, do you want to
Speaker 1: talk about one of your favorite ones though? Okay? So um,
Speaker 1: my top of the list favorite Goosebumps book is a
Speaker 1: book called One Day at Horrorland. I was going to
Speaker 1: say too, because a lot of people remember the covers,
Speaker 1: so I just wanted to say the cover of Welcome
Speaker 1: to Dead House is a haunted house where a man
Speaker 1: with a heavy brow is making a fire in the
Speaker 1: fireplace while the door is open. So yeah, so my
Speaker 1: favorite Goosebumps book is One Day at horror Land. The
Speaker 1: cover it the cover of it as a sign that
Speaker 1: says welcome to horror Land with like a spooky monster
Speaker 1: kind of peeking his head over the sign. Um. The
Speaker 1: basic premise of this is that, um, a family called
Speaker 1: the Morris family is um on a road trip and um,
Speaker 1: their car breaks down outside of this weird haunted theme park,
Speaker 1: and I think that their car like explodes outside of
Speaker 1: the theme park too, and then, uh, somebody working the
Speaker 1: theme park just says, hey, we'll take care of it.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about it. You can hang out in this
Speaker 1: theme park while we're figuring out. Here are some free tickets.
Speaker 1: So they go to this theme park and as you expect,
Speaker 1: a bunch of monsters show up, and um, they're they're
Speaker 1: basically the entire time that they're in the theme park,
Speaker 1: convinced to stay there because there's like a contest to
Speaker 1: win a free car just conveniently they need. So that
Speaker 1: convinced them. To day monsters start showing up. Um, they
Speaker 1: run for the monsters. Um. They eventually learned that the
Speaker 1: only way to beat the monsters is by pinching them,
Speaker 1: because apparently they're like balloons, so if you pinch them,
Speaker 1: they deflate. And is the real thing? Are also line
Speaker 1: very he's a real cut up, real funny guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, Yeah, so they pinch all these monsters too,
Speaker 1: they're called the monsters are called the horrors to um
Speaker 1: get them to deflate, and they jump into this free
Speaker 1: car that they find and drive away. And then when
Speaker 1: they get home, they realized that one of the horrors
Speaker 1: was like clutching onto the bumper of the car, and
Speaker 1: they're really terrified. And the last page of the book
Speaker 1: is the horror apologizing for scaring them and then offering
Speaker 1: them free tickets to go back to the park if
Speaker 1: they want to go, and then the horror leaves, and like,
Speaker 1: what I like about this is I think that this
Speaker 1: is one of the few goose Bumps books that ends
Speaker 1: with a relatively happy ending. Um. Usually the way that
Speaker 1: these end is like it ends with some sense of
Speaker 1: like oh, like you know, everybody's gonna die, or like
Speaker 1: oh this this is going to continue. Where this just
Speaker 1: ends with like, yeah, the family's car got destroyed and
Speaker 1: they left with a free car, and like the monster
Speaker 1: followed them. The monsters gave them free tickets back to
Speaker 1: the theme park, which they probably won't take up on it,
Speaker 1: or which they probably want take the monster up on it,
Speaker 1: and UM, I don't know, it's just it's the family
Speaker 1: is left relatively unscathed, and there is a it's a nice,
Speaker 1: it's nice to read goose bumps book that kind of
Speaker 1: the twist doesn't have an edge, I guess. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: thing that I like about this is that the family
Speaker 1: is involved. Because I've been watching, um, The Haunting of
Speaker 1: Hill House, which I love. I think it's great, but
Speaker 1: like that and and just in horror and scary movies
Speaker 1: in general, I feel a lot of times the parents
Speaker 1: don't believe the kids, and that bothers me so much
Speaker 1: because I made this point on Twitter. I'm like, if
Speaker 1: my child were to be like I saw a ghost,
Speaker 1: I would a thousand percent believe them, just because there's
Speaker 1: so much more sensitive. I be like, this house is haunted,
Speaker 1: this house is haunted. I believe you, Um, but it
Speaker 1: seems I think it's nice for kids to have their
Speaker 1: parents believe like in this, you know, in a lot
Speaker 1: of I don't know if that's always a case in
Speaker 1: his books, but in this one in general, I like,
Speaker 1: I mean, in this one in particular, I like the
Speaker 1: fact that the parents were also like, holy crap, there
Speaker 1: we also understand this is crazy. Yeah. Yeah, But what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is just like I feel that's a common
Speaker 1: theme in scary movies where people gas light children. They
Speaker 1: just don't believe them. It's just like, no, don't worry
Speaker 1: your friend that disappeared, like when we heard this crazy
Speaker 1: screen that was probably just a dog. You have scratches
Speaker 1: on your back and I know, you know you probably
Speaker 1: just got in a fight with a kid at school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is just it's a weird horror movie trope that
Speaker 1: like if it's like lazy writing, because it basically just
Speaker 1: makes it so it's like, oh, we're earning another thirty
Speaker 1: minutes of this movie for the parent to realize there's
Speaker 1: a monster, whereas like the more fun choice is like no,
Speaker 1: the parents are on board too, there are monsters. Now
Speaker 1: you gotta figure this out to go. I just feel
Speaker 1: like if I I would definitely believe a kid of
Speaker 1: like there's you know, kids are scary themselves, and when
Speaker 1: they draw those little pictures like oh, who's the girl
Speaker 1: with the all the black hair in front of our faces? Like, oh, cool,
Speaker 1: so you drew this drawing of all your friends and
Speaker 1: there's a giant guy with a knife. Do you call
Speaker 1: like the I don't know, like the knife guy. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I should probably look into that. Hey, Sally, you drew
Speaker 1: Jesus upside down on the cry and then just it
Speaker 1: says die Die Die next to his head. Uh okay, Anyways,
Speaker 1: I like that the family was involved in this. Um,
Speaker 1: if you do, you have a favorite Goosebumps book, I
Speaker 1: know you wanted to share. Yeah, yeah, that that was
Speaker 1: a good so I was just getting a refresher. So
Speaker 1: my favorite. So the way I picked a lot of
Speaker 1: my Goosebumps books was the cover. And that's one thing
Speaker 1: I want to say. Yeah, the artwork for the covers
Speaker 1: were so good. And that's when I looked up the
Speaker 1: list of the books because I was tracking down my book.
Speaker 1: I had like huge nostalgia just seeing all these covers
Speaker 1: and just want to say that the guy that wrote
Speaker 1: the painted the most memorable cover covers as a guy
Speaker 1: named Tim Jacobus, and um yeah, he like would hand
Speaker 1: paint them every month. They look hand painted. Yeah great,
Speaker 1: so freaking good. Like I'll make my way up to
Speaker 1: like the one that I am doing, but I just
Speaker 1: want to shout out some of these dope covers. So
Speaker 1: the one that the cover that scared me the most
Speaker 1: was the Barking Ghosts, which if you haven't seen that one,
Speaker 1: it's literally the most terrifying dog you've ever seen in yours,
Speaker 1: like white with red eyes, right yeah, and it's and
Speaker 1: it's completely dark the cover. And when I saw that one,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I remember that one. That's like
Speaker 1: I don't usually have like nostalgia that hits me in
Speaker 1: movies like Ready Player one didn't do a ton for me.
Speaker 1: But the end of the first Goosebumps movie, when they're
Speaker 1: just doing stylized like crazy three D drawings or and
Speaker 1: renders of goose Bumps covers, I got chills. I got
Speaker 1: goose bumps, you might say mine. I think is that
Speaker 1: as far as covers is, Night of the Living Dummy
Speaker 1: Dummy is just coming back. Monster Blood too with the
Speaker 1: hamster on the cover is the one that just like,
Speaker 1: it's just that's going to be in my mind forever. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then I think the second runner up was Attack
Speaker 1: of the Mutant, just because it looks so cool and
Speaker 1: then it turns out to be a pretty creepy story.
Speaker 1: It's basically this like bootleg batman looking cat who who's
Speaker 1: like swinging at it. But the one that I picked
Speaker 1: and the one that I remember so greatly reading is
Speaker 1: mostly because I could not I didn't um expect it
Speaker 1: to be what it ended up being was called The
Speaker 1: Beast from the East, which was was the It was
Speaker 1: this beast on a bamboo treek, blue and furry. It
Speaker 1: looks kind of cute but looks kind of creepy, and
Speaker 1: I was like, where's this going? And the concept of
Speaker 1: the Beast from the East is this family they go
Speaker 1: on this camping trip in the forest and these kids
Speaker 1: run into these blue beasts and they have to play
Speaker 1: basically a game of tag, but uh, with a caveat
Speaker 1: is if they lose, then the beasts get to eat them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so what ends up happening is they get the rules,
Speaker 1: and one of the rules is if they're in the
Speaker 1: brown square, the free eat square, the beast can eat
Speaker 1: them no matter what. And they have to find this
Speaker 1: tree by sundown, and all of his different events happen.
Speaker 1: One of them ends up getting captured. They end up winning,
Speaker 1: but they kind of cheat and they say, oh, because
Speaker 1: you know the game wasn't called over, you still lose.
Speaker 1: And while they're getting ready to cook him, the brother
Speaker 1: who was captured escapes and saves them, and they surmise
Speaker 1: that because the brother this move is actually a complicated
Speaker 1: move in there, like weird Bear Tribe, and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: since they knew to do that move, they must be
Speaker 1: level three and you're playing against level one. Uh so yeah,
Speaker 1: you're playing against level one, so sorry for making you play.
Speaker 1: It doesn't count. And then it in the twist is
Speaker 1: uh Flag, So Flag is the name of the leader
Speaker 1: and goes. Flag apologizes for making the kids play the
Speaker 1: game and lets them go. Flag even gives the kids
Speaker 1: directions back to the camp site. The kids follow Flag's directions,
Speaker 1: but they are surprised by a beast. Ginger says that
Speaker 1: beasts can't tag them since they are level three, but
Speaker 1: the beast reveals that he has also level three, and
Speaker 1: ta Ginger, such a good Yeah, that's like just a out.
Speaker 1: Every book has just like just a twist like that.
Speaker 1: That's like, oh, they're still fun. Um. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: mine is uh the Haunted Mask. The Haunted Mask a
Speaker 1: uh is a picture of a little girl in overalls,
Speaker 1: but she's holding up a terrifying mask. And this was
Speaker 1: about this haunted me not only because of the book,
Speaker 1: which I had, but I also had the VHS of
Speaker 1: the episode. Um, so this was Carly Beth buys a
Speaker 1: Halloween mask from a store. It's super haunting in the
Speaker 1: um in the movie of it or the TV show.
Speaker 1: After putting on the mask, she starts acting differently. She
Speaker 1: gets super aggressive, and then the mask gets stuck to
Speaker 1: her face. So this actually was inspired by arl Stein's
Speaker 1: son matthew Stein, who put on a mask and then
Speaker 1: had trouble trouble getting it off during Halloween. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just remember how terrifying it was and like her
Speaker 1: like the mass becoming part of her skin, like she
Speaker 1: couldn't find like where it stopped and ended. Um, And
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's so creepy. And I had a
Speaker 1: mask just like this. So this came out in this
Speaker 1: with the eleventh book in the Goosebumps series and came
Speaker 1: out Yeah, my, A really good twist at the end
Speaker 1: of that was, Um, she finally gets the mask off,
Speaker 1: she um, you know, like takes it back to the
Speaker 1: shop that she bought it from, and then she comes
Speaker 1: home and the last page of the book is she
Speaker 1: sees that her brother was like, Hey, check out this
Speaker 1: scary mask, and he puts it on. Yeah. Um, so
Speaker 1: my uh my next couple favorite goose Bumps books would
Speaker 1: be pretty much the entire like Monster Blood saga. Um
Speaker 1: they made four of a Monster Blood one too, three
Speaker 1: and four. Um, they basically ran the gamut. I think
Speaker 1: that the the final main goose Bumps spoke was Monster
Speaker 1: Blood four and like usually one would come out of
Speaker 1: every ten issues or so. And the basic premise of
Speaker 1: it is that there was a wizard or a witch
Speaker 1: named Sarah Beth that um took like kind of a
Speaker 1: silly Putty esque substance and used a magic spell to
Speaker 1: cause it to grow kind of like the blob. So
Speaker 1: it sounds a lot like Rita from Yeah making things grow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. Yeah. So basically this uh, this Monster Blood
Speaker 1: is used to make like in the second one, like
Speaker 1: a hamster eats some and then grows to a huge size.
Speaker 1: The first one, I think a dog eats some and
Speaker 1: then grows grows really huge. And then basically these these
Speaker 1: people have to or the you know the teens that
Speaker 1: are always in it, Um that's the Evan, Ross and
Speaker 1: Andy or their names. Um, they have to figure out
Speaker 1: a way to stop this giant thing that's grown. In
Speaker 1: the Monster Blood too, one of the kids comes up
Speaker 1: with a solution when the hamster gets to the size
Speaker 1: of being like building sized, where he eats some and
Speaker 1: then he's like, I gotta fight this hamster. It grows
Speaker 1: gigantic and he just has a brawl with a hamster.
Speaker 1: U Uh. Something that I think it's funny about this
Speaker 1: series is, um, there's a huge plot hole and then
Speaker 1: they establish at the end of Monster Blood one, UM,
Speaker 1: I think that what they like. They the witch Sarah
Speaker 1: Bath you know, comes to life and they managed to
Speaker 1: defeat her, and they realize that once the monster Blood
Speaker 1: hits an expiration date, then it loses all of its
Speaker 1: magical power. So that happens at the start, at the
Speaker 1: end of the first Monster Blood you know, the which
Speaker 1: passes away, the monster Blood expires, but then for some reason,
Speaker 1: the monster Blood still works in Monster Blood two and
Speaker 1: three and four, but they don't really explain why or how.
Speaker 1: Um and then a Monster Blood four there's like a
Speaker 1: really weird twist where they find blue monster blood that
Speaker 1: like kind of turns into these weird slug monsters and
Speaker 1: like when you eat them, it doesn't make you grow,
Speaker 1: It just makes you multiply. So yeah, so it's someone
Speaker 1: needs to make like a video game like or a movie.
Speaker 1: Monster Blood is the coolest name. That's like I watched,
Speaker 1: um so watching like the first goose Bumps movie. In
Speaker 1: the most recent goose Bumps movie, they just came out
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, they haven't touched monster blood
Speaker 1: at all. The reference it is like a throwaway joke,
Speaker 1: like like Jack Black's earl Stein will say like, oh,
Speaker 1: what what should I do? You monster blood on him?
Speaker 1: But they haven't actually had monster Blood appear in either movie.
Speaker 1: So I think that like, if you're Sony and you're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to make a goose Bumps movie,
Speaker 1: like make give us a monster Blood movie. There's four
Speaker 1: monster Blood books to pick for it. Monster Blood remember that?
Speaker 1: Remember that like weird that like Monster Truck movie that
Speaker 1: came out. It was literally like Monster Truck. It was
Speaker 1: like the truck was alive. Um I wanted to say
Speaker 1: before we move on to the next one. So I
Speaker 1: touched on the Living Dummy, which was super and I
Speaker 1: remember we talked about how that was a Twilight Zone
Speaker 1: episode two. I mean a lot of these were like
Speaker 1: blatant ripops other things. Yeah, say Cheese and Die, which
Speaker 1: was where it takes a picture and then you see,
Speaker 1: um is it you see yourself dead? You see yourself
Speaker 1: in a position of bad luck. Yeah. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: literally a twilet Zone episode. And like funny story, uh,
Speaker 1: like the are You Afraid of the Dark actually did
Speaker 1: an episode that seemed like a blatant rip off of
Speaker 1: Say Cheese and Die, which I think they're both probably
Speaker 1: looking Twilight Zone episode. And then when the goose Bumps
Speaker 1: TV series came out, they made essentially their own sites. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a ton of them, just like a spooky camera,
Speaker 1: which I respect because now it's for you know, not
Speaker 1: all those kids are going to watch Twilight Zone. But
Speaker 1: I did want to say at night they for sure.
Speaker 1: I watched it when I was little and it changed
Speaker 1: me and my mom. My mom watched it when she
Speaker 1: was little. Um so living So Night of Living Dummy
Speaker 1: was actually a saga because there was Living Dummy and
Speaker 1: there was like seven of them. There was Night a
Speaker 1: Living Dummy two and Night a Living Dummy three. And
Speaker 1: I would be remiss if I didn't say that it
Speaker 1: was starring Slappy the Dummy, who we later see, I
Speaker 1: mean we saw in the TV series, which was super creepy.
Speaker 1: It was also in the movies, So he is definitely
Speaker 1: he's he's like, to me, almost like the crypt keeper
Speaker 1: something for Tales from the Crypt, Like he is there.
Speaker 1: He's kind of like the mascot I feel like of
Speaker 1: goose Bumps, they actually have. They have. There's a currently
Speaker 1: running Goosebumps book series called Slappy Land that literally is oh,
Speaker 1: that's feel like it's it's Tales from the Crypt, but
Speaker 1: each stories narrate is like introduced by Slappy Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: And like I forget the name of the character, but
Speaker 1: there actually is a goose Bumps mascot. It's like a
Speaker 1: skeleton with a mohawk. It's it's called Willy the Skeleton
Speaker 1: or whatever. No Willie the Skelets. Like I think that
Speaker 1: if you buy, like on the inside page of the book,
Speaker 1: it's just like ask Willie or whatever. So, Joey, why
Speaker 1: don't you tell us one more of your favorite goose Bumps.
Speaker 1: I'm sure everyone's going down nostalgia Laine right now. So
Speaker 1: my final favorite Goosebumps book, it would be goose Bumps
Speaker 1: number thirty. It's called It Came from Beneath the sink,
Speaker 1: and the premise of it is, um, a family lives
Speaker 1: in a house and they find this like weird sponge
Speaker 1: underneath their sink, and um like, I think that, like,
Speaker 1: the daughter of the family finds this sponge and realizes
Speaker 1: that it's breathing, and um they she doesn't entirely know
Speaker 1: what the deal is with it, but she realizes that
Speaker 1: whenever she has it that she experiences bad luck, and
Speaker 1: then the sponge will like make a noise and people
Speaker 1: around her will experience bad luck. So um Like, she
Speaker 1: tries to get rid of this thing because she realizes, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is some mythical beast that's causing bad luck. I
Speaker 1: forget the exact name of it. There's like a specific
Speaker 1: name in the book for this mythical beast that is
Speaker 1: this sponge that creates bad luck and feeds on bad luck.
Speaker 1: And um Like, she tries to bury it like under
Speaker 1: her yard, but it like kills all the plants that
Speaker 1: her dad just planted, So her dad's like, oh, why
Speaker 1: did you do that? Um She she tries to give
Speaker 1: it away, but I think that every time that she
Speaker 1: gives it away, like appears back in her house. Um
Speaker 1: they like they realized that like if you if you
Speaker 1: try to get rid of the sponge, like, the only
Speaker 1: way to get rid of it is to die, and
Speaker 1: it's passed on to somebody else or you, um like
Speaker 1: or if you give it away, you will die within
Speaker 1: a day of getting rid of it. So finally she
Speaker 1: learns that the way to get rid of this thing
Speaker 1: after like it really messes her up, like it makes
Speaker 1: her like accidentally cut her hands with scissors and do
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff. Um, she learns that like
Speaker 1: it feeds on fear, so the only way to kill
Speaker 1: it is love. So she basically like pets it like
Speaker 1: it was a cat and says like, I love me
Speaker 1: a little guy, and thing is like no, might want
Speaker 1: to weakness And then it's kind of like a good
Speaker 1: thing to teach kids. But that's like I feel like
Speaker 1: every fourth goose Bumps book the ending is like, oh
Speaker 1: love was it's only reconnect, you know. I kind of
Speaker 1: like that. It's like die die but also love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like that. It was good. It was just a
Speaker 1: nice like it was a nice like low sticks like
Speaker 1: weird villain. And I think that that's like one of
Speaker 1: Erlstein's strength is just like villain, like just like monsters
Speaker 1: that are weird, Like everything doesn't have to be a werewolf.
Speaker 1: It can be a weird small sponge guy that like
Speaker 1: feeds on bad luck or whatever. Yeah, I guess listeners
Speaker 1: of you remember one that ends kind of in a
Speaker 1: similar way with like a love one. Let us know,
Speaker 1: because I'm kind of fascinated. I can't remember all of
Speaker 1: the books. There's so many. Um, we're going to take
Speaker 1: a quick break and then we're going to get into
Speaker 1: the TV show in the movies right after this. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm watching this as it goes on. In this these
Speaker 1: effects weren't as scary as there were for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those those dog eyes do not hold up, just like
Speaker 1: Google eyes. Just just watch it looks like someone did
Speaker 1: it as a bit, uh for We're just gonna play
Speaker 1: one more time to Joey can see these eyes a
Speaker 1: little bit. It wasn't Arlstein in what was he in
Speaker 1: part of the he shut up? Yeah, yeah, he's at
Speaker 1: the beginning because briefcase open like, oh no, my pages.
Speaker 1: He actually he looks like he does not care. He's
Speaker 1: just straight up literally that's like once He's Something I
Speaker 1: love about carl Stein is like he just seems like
Speaker 1: he seems like a writer in the coolest sense of
Speaker 1: the word. And then he's like, I don't know just
Speaker 1: what his job is like, he's not. He doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like a guy that like overly romanticizes the process. UM.
Speaker 1: But interesting to note um. Ryan Gosling was actually in um.
Speaker 1: One of the early episodes of the goose Bumps TV
Speaker 1: series was specifically the adaptation of Say Cheese and Die.
Speaker 1: He was one of the main characters, and you know,
Speaker 1: watching it. When I was watching that growing up, I
Speaker 1: was definitely like, oh, yeah, that kid's going to be
Speaker 1: in a movie name drive. Yeah, but you mean we
Speaker 1: saw him on the Mickey Mouse Club. I mean he
Speaker 1: was making his rounds. I just want to correct myself
Speaker 1: a little bit. Of the goose Bumps Slappy Land World
Speaker 1: series is actually called Slappy World, So you guys should
Speaker 1: check that out. It's great. Um. So, goose Bumps the
Speaker 1: TV show is a Canadian American horror anthology. Wasn't it true,
Speaker 1: Iffy Canadian boy. I'm sure it was probably filmed in
Speaker 1: Vancouver or something. So originally began airing on White TV
Speaker 1: in English, and it also aired in French and Canada.
Speaker 1: That's cool, Network ten in Australia and on Fox Kids.
Speaker 1: I think that's why I remember watching it in the
Speaker 1: United States starting September four and ended September seven. Nine
Speaker 1: only ran for three years. Something feels so much longer
Speaker 1: than that. There's something that's so like doing doing this
Speaker 1: podcast and sort of revisiting a lot of this goose
Speaker 1: Bump stuff. Something that's so surprising to me is how insane,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't realize how popular goose Bumps Books was.
Speaker 1: Like this show was the I think the most popular
Speaker 1: television show for kids for like two years in a row,
Speaker 1: and goose Bumps Books have sold like four hundred million copies. No,
Speaker 1: that makes perfect sense. So it had four seasons and
Speaker 1: it had seventy four episodes. Most of the episodes were
Speaker 1: they were like retellings of goose Bumps stories, so um,
Speaker 1: I believe, like the horror Land episode I think was
Speaker 1: split into two episodes, but other than that, it was
Speaker 1: like it was like there was like a couple of
Speaker 1: slappy episodes and then other than they just kind of
Speaker 1: like they covered all the hits, basically the Cuckoo, Clock
Speaker 1: of Dune, Um, Ghost Beach, Monster Blood, like you had
Speaker 1: talked about Revenge of the lawn Gnomes. I remember that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they had that and then, um and I used
Speaker 1: to rent I think they used to have They used
Speaker 1: to have Buster used to episodes. I used to rent them. Um.
Speaker 1: So then fast forward to I can't believe it took
Speaker 1: that long to get a goose Bumps movie. Okay, so
Speaker 1: interesting story there. They they tried to make a goose
Speaker 1: Bumps movie as far back as like, but they just
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out which book to base the movie on
Speaker 1: because they were like sixty two very popular main goose
Speaker 1: Bumps books, plus all of the bonus books like Goosebumps
Speaker 1: two thousand and all that stuff. But um, they couldn't
Speaker 1: figure it out. In two thousand and eight, I think, um,
Speaker 1: they finally settled on, oh, what if it was like
Speaker 1: a fake biography of R. L. Stein That way you
Speaker 1: can kind of couch it in that and used to
Speaker 1: explore all of the goose Bumps books. And then I
Speaker 1: believe in twelve was when there was first like a
Speaker 1: pretty good draft of the script and like that got
Speaker 1: green Litton pushed along and I think I want to
Speaker 1: say in Jack Black attached as Earl Stein and um
Speaker 1: the entire time Like arl Stein. He said in interviews
Speaker 1: that like he was like, like, they would tell me
Speaker 1: stuff about a Goosebumps book movie, and I would not
Speaker 1: believe them because like they kept on saying there was
Speaker 1: going to be one for twenty years. Yeah. I wonder
Speaker 1: if you like the fact that Jack Black, because they're
Speaker 1: both he's a comedy person. Yeah. I mean that's a
Speaker 1: cool thing about the movie is um for those of
Speaker 1: you who haven't seen it, Jack Black definitely plays arl
Speaker 1: Stein like a big old goof. He plays like a
Speaker 1: guy who's just very like, very full of himself, and
Speaker 1: he's like Goosebumps with the greatest books ever written, and
Speaker 1: and I wrote them me the greatest writer. Like there's
Speaker 1: literally a monologue where he says, they sold four hundred
Speaker 1: million copies. Does any of kids? I mean, I saw it,
Speaker 1: but it was once I saw that. Yeah. Um, in
Speaker 1: the movie, does he have okay spoiler for the movie, Um,
Speaker 1: the first movie, he has a daughter who's revealed to
Speaker 1: be a ghost from one of his books. That's the
Speaker 1: big twist at the end. But um, yeah, I like
Speaker 1: Jack Black has said that, Um, he's surprised that arl
Speaker 1: Stein totally got it. Got oh, I like I would
Speaker 1: have to play arl Stein is just like a big goofy,
Speaker 1: pompous guy for this to work, and like he was
Speaker 1: completely on board. Arlstein even has a couple of like
Speaker 1: Stanley cameos and the first goose Bumps in they're not
Speaker 1: like super They're not like super showy. It's like the
Speaker 1: first Goosebumps movie. He pops up at the end literally
Speaker 1: is just an extra school teacher. So like the movie
Speaker 1: ends with Jack Black arl Stein starting to teach English
Speaker 1: at this high school of these kids that he like
Speaker 1: his books excellently tormented, and he's just walking through the
Speaker 1: hallways on his first day and then Erlstein walks past,
Speaker 1: and Jack Black is like, all right, you mist are black,
Speaker 1: and arl Stein's like, hey, Mr Stein, Oh I get it.
Speaker 1: It's like that kind of thing. Which yeah, but he's
Speaker 1: still dressed like arl Stein. He feels very black and
Speaker 1: carry and like looks really like annoyed to be there. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the plot follows a teenager trying to save his
Speaker 1: town with arl Stein's help. After all monsters, demons, and
Speaker 1: creatures from the goose Bumps franchise began to escape from
Speaker 1: the books wrecking havoc in the real world. That's actually
Speaker 1: a good Um. Whoever came up with that, that's a
Speaker 1: good plot. It's a good plot, and like it. Uh.
Speaker 1: The Goosebumps stories are very like I don't know, like
Speaker 1: arl Stein wrote each book in like ten days. They're
Speaker 1: very like they can feel really formulaic. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I mean he had to write one a month.
Speaker 1: He had a couple of ghostwriters, but like he would
Speaker 1: he said that an interview, is that usually would take
Speaker 1: him like three weeks to write a goose Bumps book,
Speaker 1: but there have been times that he's been able to
Speaker 1: turn one out in six days. Like I think that
Speaker 1: he wrote one in ten days. But so they're very
Speaker 1: much like, hey, we gotta like like slap on a
Speaker 1: twist at the end. Oh great, it's scary mummies, get it?
Speaker 1: Like um and um. He would actually start with the
Speaker 1: title of the book and then figure everything out from there.
Speaker 1: And that's something that actually there's a joke that they
Speaker 1: reference in the movie m where he keeps on saying
Speaker 1: like something like slappyes revenge. That's a great title. That's
Speaker 1: all I need. Um and uh. But like the basic
Speaker 1: plot line of most goose Bumps books is like pretty
Speaker 1: formulaic and there's not like there's like some heart to it,
Speaker 1: but it's like they're just short enough that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily want to make a feature length movie about it.
Speaker 1: So like by doing this where it's sort of like
Speaker 1: arl Stein is one of the main characters and it's
Speaker 1: all about all of his books, it really it gave
Speaker 1: a heart because it justified like why, Like it's about
Speaker 1: the guy that would write goose Bumps books and how
Speaker 1: he like grew up and he didn't have any friends
Speaker 1: and he wrote, uh these like scary novels because he
Speaker 1: wanted to like punish the world. And the movie is
Speaker 1: basically about him learning that he does need people to survive,
Speaker 1: and like it's a really sweet story and um, it
Speaker 1: really makes me like arl Stein more. I was gonna say, Um,
Speaker 1: so the goose Bumps movie that dropped in it grows
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty millions million budget, so it to
Speaker 1: oh yeah, the budget was eighty four million. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then uh, goose Bumps too. Haunted Halloween just dropped for
Speaker 1: all you listening October twelfth of this year. You already
Speaker 1: saw it, Yeah, I just saw it. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: give away spoilers because it just came out this month,
Speaker 1: but it's spooky. But was it better than the first one? Okay,
Speaker 1: so we'll say the budget of the first one was
Speaker 1: eighty five million, the budget of the second one was
Speaker 1: thirty million. And you feel it, so that must mean
Speaker 1: because Okay, so on the first one, I was reading
Speaker 1: it said it had relatively positive reviews from critic. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the first one was the first one was like
Speaker 1: a solid B plus. It was like enjoyable watch that
Speaker 1: seems to be enough in Hollywood day. And it was good,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, you said you saw it. It's like
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. I thought it was good. Just as
Speaker 1: a big goose Bumps fan it too. Were younger, I
Speaker 1: would be more into it. Yeah, like it was, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be as harsh, Like it was a good It
Speaker 1: was a good use of the franchise and it made me,
Speaker 1: you know, like I thought it was fine. The second
Speaker 1: goose Bumps movie, as opposed to be about all goose
Speaker 1: Bumps books, really just focused on one goose Bumps book,
Speaker 1: and because of that, it felt like it was a
Speaker 1: ninety minute episode of the TV show as opposed to being,
Speaker 1: you know, like a heartfelt movie, And there were good
Speaker 1: things about it, but it was definitely like the first
Speaker 1: one was then testing out the franchise, whereas the second
Speaker 1: one feels like, Oh, if we can just churn out
Speaker 1: million dollar goose Bumps movies that will give us fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars on an investment, we'll just keep doing that.
Speaker 1: So like, if this does well, I'm sure we'll get
Speaker 1: one that's just based on Monster Blood and one that's
Speaker 1: just based on Horror Land, one that's just based on
Speaker 1: the Hunted Mask. But something that was interesting about it
Speaker 1: is that um Jack Black plays the role of r
Speaker 1: el Stein in the goose Bumps franchise, and they wrote
Speaker 1: two drafts of the script for the second goose Bumps movie,
Speaker 1: one where Jack Black was going to be in it
Speaker 1: and the other way we wasn't gonna be in it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was entirely based on if he was
Speaker 1: going to say yes to it or not, And like
Speaker 1: you could really feel it, like he's barely in the
Speaker 1: second one. He's only in like four scenes, and they're
Speaker 1: all like pretty sure you know what he was shooting
Speaker 1: That other one, the clock was the house of the
Speaker 1: Clock and it's well, yeah, that actually looks I mean
Speaker 1: to me, it looks good. But I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was that came out to right. It was like
Speaker 1: he had to competing movies. But I think that it's
Speaker 1: just like for the same audience, Like that's around the
Speaker 1: same age. The House with the Clock and its Walls
Speaker 1: is also based on a popular book series, so it's
Speaker 1: literally also spooky. Yes, it's both based on Halloween based movies.
Speaker 1: But this, uh, you know, like I'm glad that they
Speaker 1: had Jack Black for it and it made say and
Speaker 1: it didn't have any of the returning stars other than
Speaker 1: Slappy from the previous one. And I think Slappy was
Speaker 1: even voiced by a different guy. Yeah, Like this was
Speaker 1: definitely like it like it felt like I don't want
Speaker 1: to be too harsh on it. I thought it was
Speaker 1: fine for what it was. It's a kid's movie, you know.
Speaker 1: It's it's the if you're a kid, like if I was,
Speaker 1: if I was younger, if I was like goose Bumps
Speaker 1: book reading age when I first started reading Goosebumps books
Speaker 1: and I watched it, I probably think it was great,
Speaker 1: but like you could definitely feel that like, oh, they
Speaker 1: were like this was there, like like, we're going to
Speaker 1: take this script that has nothing to do with goose Bumps,
Speaker 1: add a couple of goose Bumps references to it, and
Speaker 1: then film and throw Jack Black in at the end
Speaker 1: and call it good. You know, yeah, God, that's funny.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, um, because I was looking
Speaker 1: at uh, yeah, everything that's come out with this and
Speaker 1: not to bring it back to the Twilight Zone, but
Speaker 1: I will. Um. They had an episode in a book
Speaker 1: called a Night in Terror Tower, which is very much
Speaker 1: like Tower of Terrors. So yeah, that was That was
Speaker 1: another good Goosebumps book. I really like that one. It
Speaker 1: was like, um, like there's like a time travel element
Speaker 1: to it. Um it. It was just like it was.
Speaker 1: It's definitely like one that I remember. Well, well, I
Speaker 1: think can you watch goose Bumps on Netflix, the original
Speaker 1: movie for just the TV series? The TV series, It's
Speaker 1: I feel like it's got to be available on one
Speaker 1: of those taming services. What it looks like it is.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to pull it up right now on Netflix.
Speaker 1: Yet they have five seasons from That's dope, So I
Speaker 1: guess you can go and watch shows. Go check out
Speaker 1: that do you have a face that was from the
Speaker 1: TV show. A favorite from the TV different than the books.
Speaker 1: Um So I guess that, Like I think that my
Speaker 1: favorite from the TV show would probably be, um, say
Speaker 1: Cheese and Die, just because it like really faithfully followed
Speaker 1: what the book was. Um. I also appreciated all of them,
Speaker 1: like all of the Slappy episodes. Yeah, he's crez. Um.
Speaker 1: What I thought was funny about it was it was
Speaker 1: very clear that like what was the cheapest venture, like
Speaker 1: quis dummy that we could find, Like the Slappy in
Speaker 1: the TV series does not look good? Those are Oh man,
Speaker 1: some of these graphics. Well, yeah, you can go and
Speaker 1: watch goose from is that hate and Penetieri? Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I bet there's more. I bet there's more
Speaker 1: child actors that are in this than we don't realize. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want to watch, if you want to watch
Speaker 1: the movie, you can, but also the original series. It's
Speaker 1: on Netflix. Yeah. Do you have any other thoughts, Joey,
Speaker 1: any other thoughts? Um So, Yeah, I think that. Um,
Speaker 1: I think the goose Bumps is a really fun series. Um.
Speaker 1: It's definitely like, Uh, I didn't read Harry Potter books
Speaker 1: growing up. I read goose Bumps books, and I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like it's a good it's a good
Speaker 1: thing to read when you're like just getting started and
Speaker 1: like starting to get really into literature. Um. Something I
Speaker 1: think is really funny is that the reason that Arlstein
Speaker 1: thinks that Goosebumps books are successful and this is a
Speaker 1: direct quote, is I think that people like goose Bumps
Speaker 1: books because they didn't have drinking or violence. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there were for kids. There were for kids. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't know, they're good. If you haven't
Speaker 1: read him, to check them out. Um. Also watched the
Speaker 1: first goose Bumps movie and maybe wait for the second
Speaker 1: one to come out on Netflix. That's a good that's
Speaker 1: good solid advice if you do. You have final thoughts
Speaker 1: on goose Bumps. Oh no, I think it's super fun.
Speaker 1: I think you know, one thing that I will always
Speaker 1: take from goose Bumps and I thought was cool was
Speaker 1: that it got me reading. You know, like that's cool.
Speaker 1: Like so I think, you know, because I feel like
Speaker 1: is like the first week of every month like wanting
Speaker 1: Goosebumps books. Yeah, And I feel like there's so many
Speaker 1: parents who are like picky about what your kids are
Speaker 1: reading where they feel like you need to be reading
Speaker 1: you Know, the Theory of Everything by Stephen Hawking, And
Speaker 1: it's like, no, you're ten and you haven't read the
Speaker 1: Theory of read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
Speaker 1: How dare you so I think you know anything? Even
Speaker 1: if it's just comic books by your kids, comic books,
Speaker 1: just get them reading one like goose Bumps books like
Speaker 1: I'm sure that like reading so many of them helped
Speaker 1: me develop my comedic voice. It really young, like it
Speaker 1: gave me like a weird sensibility that i'd like taken
Speaker 1: into adulthood into like professional writing jobs. I wanted to
Speaker 1: say one final thing, and that is that five years
Speaker 1: before he would be Anakin Skywalker, Hayden Christensen was Zane
Speaker 1: in Night Living Dummy three, Parts one and two. Um,
Speaker 1: I want to say one more thing. Um. So I
Speaker 1: host a podcast called five Minutes of Silence where the
Speaker 1: premises of a guest and I just sit in silence
Speaker 1: for twenty five minutes. It's the real thing. You can
Speaker 1: google it, super funny. Is it hard to stay silent
Speaker 1: and sometimes you break it? I mean, like, so the
Speaker 1: rule is that we can't, like we can't talk to
Speaker 1: each other, so um, like usually like if I have
Speaker 1: somebody on it, like they'll work on the screenplay and
Speaker 1: I'll read a book or whatever. But um, I reached
Speaker 1: out to arl Stein to ask if he would be
Speaker 1: a guest on the show. I just sent a message
Speaker 1: to his like his like a fan facebook page, and
Speaker 1: he personally responded to tell me that he wasn't going
Speaker 1: to do it, but it was still a very nice like, Harry,
Speaker 1: thanks for asking me. I'm really busy right now, so
Speaker 1: I don't think I can do this, but I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: But did you sign it like arlt? I think it
Speaker 1: was like la, yeah, dash, this was me so like.
Speaker 1: Arl Stein also seems like a nice guy. He's chill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's cool. Um yeah, slide into his d M. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sliding his DM. He'll probably respond tell him Joey Cliff
Speaker 1: sent Joey where and everyone catch you. Um you can
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at joe Attainment, and you can
Speaker 1: look at cats on Facebook at the l a Underground
Speaker 1: Cat Network. Heck yeah, Actually I was probably promote a book.
Speaker 1: I've got a book that I wrote called The American
Speaker 1: Indian Ready to wear catalog. I'm a enrolled remember the
Speaker 1: Callets Indian tribe. I basically wrote this like short zine
Speaker 1: that Um it's all about Native American representation media in
Speaker 1: the form of like a fashion catalog. And it's like
Speaker 1: a satire book. And it's illustrated by a very good
Speaker 1: Calots artist named Janet Meyer, who's also my mom. So
Speaker 1: you guys should check it out. That's so cool. Available
Speaker 1: on red cat press dot com. Wait is it out now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yeah, send us a link or tweet
Speaker 1: it out when this drops? Oh great, heck yeah. Um
Speaker 1: I'm at MS Danny Fernandez. What is this is coming
Speaker 1: out Tuesday? Um? Yeah, I don't know. Follow me on
Speaker 1: the on the socials, Hit me up, send me memes.
Speaker 1: This is our last week. Sent her one meme, Send
Speaker 1: me one meme. I require one meme to survive every day. Um.
Speaker 1: This was our last SP October. Yeah. We have some
Speaker 1: more spooky episodes coming up, but um, this was our
Speaker 1: our last one for a little bit. Yeah, So thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, glad. I hope you enjoyed uh SP October
Speaker 1: as you know, find me yet if you why the
Speaker 1: way I f y n W A D I w
Speaker 1: E on Twitter and Instagram and if the's on Twitch.
Speaker 1: As a reminder, like I said, you have to re
Speaker 1: up those prime subs every month, so they don't just
Speaker 1: re up if you pay the sub reaps every month.
Speaker 1: But if you get use those free Twitch Prime subs,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to come back to the stream, hangout
Speaker 1: with me and I hit that up again, and make
Speaker 1: sure you run to the tea public. We have those
Speaker 1: Stay Spooky shirts. Once it turns to November they will
Speaker 1: be gone. You will have to wait another year before
Speaker 1: you can buy them. Or if you just need shirts
Speaker 1: for your back, you can check it out. We have
Speaker 1: tons of dope things from where to show people. Let's
Speaker 1: the one of the Jokings podcast out right now. But yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening, and for one last time, let's stay
Speaker 1: Spooky