Gooseblog: Tales To Give You Goosebumps

In 1994, Goosebumps had become a mega success for Scholastic and R.L. Stine. In the midst of what would be the prime era for the series, Stine would begin work on a special set of books known as the Tales To Give You Goosebumps Series. Instead of being the basic formula of one 120+ page story, these were instead a series of ten short stories that pad out a 120+ page book. Think like another book I covered, Goosebumps Triple Header, only with ten stories as opposed to three. Initially, these books were released as special editions, meaning they needed to be ordered from the order forms in the back of certain Goosebumps books, or were available via book orders or book fairs. These editions also were bundled with special items. From book lights, to ball caps to... erm... boxer shorts. Six books were released periodically between 1994 and 1997, some even being holiday focused.

Now with the preamble out of the way, let's get the show on the road by talking about the first Tales to Give You Goosebumps book. But before I do, I'll mention how I'll cover these. I'll recap each story, give a quick review of each, as well as a grade, then review the entire book at the end, along with a general ranking. Seems pretty simple enough. So let's get diving.

COVER STORY

I love this cover. The moonlit night, the beautiful design on the house on the hill, all that Jacobus foliage (gotta talk about that green, dammit!) and a great looking ghost on the front. What's important about this ghost is that it's the prototype to what would be the face of Goosebumps before Slappy. This is the prototype for Curly the Skeleton. While Curly never had an official story, he served as the mascot for the series, often splayed on most of the Goosebumps merchandise of the 90s. Some more interesting trivia for you, did you know there are two Curlys?

The most well known version of Curly is the pink mohawk version seen on merchandise. It's a striking enough visual and feels totally 90s with his shades and scarf. If you think of Goosebumps, you likely think of this version along with any of the actual creatures of the books.

And then there's Tim's Curly, the one we actually see on book covers. This one goes for a flat white buzzcut and is made to look a bit more fun. This version of Curly would also be accompanied by his pet bulldog named Drool, who gets featured in almost every cover and piece of Tim art that would follow. Why were there two variations of this character? Beats me. But which do I prefer? Honestly, I like Tim's Curly a bit more as Tim was given a bit more leeway to have fun with him and put him in more silly situations. We'll talk more on this Curly with the covers that follow, but as for the original cover for this book, it's great Tim work as always.

STORY #1: THE HOUSE OF NO RETURN

Robbie, Lori and Nathan run the "Danger Club". To enter said club requires the initiation of staying an hour in the house on Willow Hill. A dead looking old house that clearly should have been demolished like, years ago. Their latest recruit, a kid named Doug lasts only fifteen minutes before running off into the night, screaming his head off. So, the kids need new meat. Enter Chris Wakely, the new kid in the neighborhood who is a total fraidy cat. But if he wants in the club, he's going to have to do the initiation (which we learn the three other kids never did since they started the club). He gets to the doorstep of the house and that's enough for him, he peaces out.

Since they still want Chris to go into the house, they decide the only fair thing to do is, of course, trick him into it. Halloween arrives and they go trick-or-treating with Chris, only to force him into the house. The hour passes and it seems that Chris has passed the initiation. Then more minutes pass. And more. And more. To the point where the kids think something bad must have happened.

TWIST ENDING: They go inside the house, only to run into a pair of ghosts who say they made a deal with Chris and let him leave out the back. But now the other three are stuck in this house forever.

CONCLUSION: I like the premise, but I can see how Stine couldn't make more than 14 pages out of this one. Twist is solid, though why the ghosts waited until their deal with Chris is strange. Regardless. It was okay. C+.

STORY #2: TEACHER'S PET

Becca Thompson and Benjy Connor were hoping their sixth grade teacher was going to be the totally awesome Mrs. Wenger. But instead, they get Mr. Blankenship, a skinny, strange balding man with a long turtleneck and an affinity for snakes. And by affinity, I mean he keeps filling the classroom up with tanks of them. It gets to the point that Becca is having nightmares about snakes sneaking into her backpack and attacking her at night. Yes, this 13 page story has enough time for a nightmare sequence because Jovial Bob. After an incident involving a "perfectly good to eat" white mouse escaping, Mr. Blankenship is particularly hissed-err, pissed. Beccas' had enough and plans to free the mice to piss him off some more. Benjy and Becca enter the school at night to enact their plan, but get accosted by a giant snake.

TWIST: The giant snake is Mr. Blankenship. The kids run off in fear. The next day after school, as a deal between them, Benjy and Becca feed Mr. Blankenship mice.

CONCLUSION: I think with some energy, this could have worked as a full story, but the result we get here is too rushed to enjoy in any major capacity. I do like the twist. It's The Girl Who Cried Monster, but without the senseless murder of an innocent librarian (#JusticeForMortman). Other than that, it's not super deep enough. No wonder the episode takes a drastic change. C+.

STORY #3: STRAINED PEAS

The first few paragraphs of this story talk about Iron Man. I guess Stine knows more comic books than just X-Force. This is important apparently as Iron Man is battling some guy named Dr. Destro, who has a birthmark called the Mark of Evil. And wouldn't you know it? So does Hannah, the newborn baby sister of our protagonist Nicholas. So, right off the bat Nicholas suspects his sister of being evil. His suspicions grow when she throws up on him. Then when she starts crying at night and swears he sees her birthmark grow. More issues ensue like her eating his math homework, then spilling paint all over the floor. After cleaning some strained peas off her (oh hi title), he swears he saw her eyes glow. And then shit gets really intense randomly when Hannah starts stalking Nicholas with a pair of scissors. WHAT? Of course Nicholas gets blamed for everything, including giving his sister sharp objects, because Goosebumps Par-eh, in this case it's more the fact that this kid's kinda crap.

TWIST ENDING: It turns out that Hannah is indeed a monster. A case of switched babies as the family's actual baby was given to a family of monsters. Nicholas is relieved, until this new baby threatens to kill him once she can walk.

CONCLUSION: Part of me thinks that this is less the story of an evil monster baby and of a child's overactive imagination. One that's so bad that he has no physical grip on reality. And thus we're left with a kid who thinks everything is a monster or evil. Well, that's a better concept than what we actually get, which is a story about a monster baby. C-.

STORY #4: STRANGERS IN THE WOODS

Lucy is being shipped off to her great aunt Abigail's for the Summer. Just her and her dog Muttster (which is definitely more inspired a name than Barky). After an issue with salty cookies, Lucy leaves with Muttster, but not before Abigail tells her to stay out of the woods. That night, Lucy sees strange lights from within the woods. But when she asks Abigail, she says that she must have been seeing things. They then go for a drive where Great-Aunt Abigail plows through traffic and causes a big accident. Lucy's red flags are going off, and they get redder as she sees the lights in the woods again, thinking that this is eerily like a pod people movie she saw, only with less Trumpy. This seems to be founded when she sees Abigail glowing green. Eventually, Lucy decides to just go into the woods and see for herself. She sees the lights, then feels something grab her. It turns out that the lights and everything was coming from a movie being filmed. Abigail apologizes to Lucy for not telling her, then says her erratic driving was because she lost her glasses.

TWIST ENDING: Lucy finds Great-Aunt Abigail's glasses, but when she hands them to her, Great-Aunt Abigail turns into an alien.

CONCLUSION: I liked this one, but again the rushed nature doesn't leave much of an impact. Fine enough twist-before-the-twist with the lights being a film production. And while the real twist was predictable. It worked fine enough. B-.

STORY #5: GOOD FRIENDS

Dylan and Jordan are best friends. Practically inseparable. Dylan also has issues with his fourteen year old brother Richard. Jordan has issues too with his seven year old sister Ashley, who always talks to her imaginary friend Jaclyn. The boys throw a ball at "Jaclyn" which upsets Ashley, thinking she might have gotten hurt. They then threaten to tie Jaclyn to a tree, which sends Ashley away. Richard then shows up and starts harassing Dylan, telling him to do his homework and how his basketball skills are weak. Later, the boys decide that they're still in the market of picking on Ashley, so they decide to use Richard's pet tarantulas, brilliantly named Axel and Foley, to scare her and make her think that Jaclyn's been eaten alive. They sneak into the room and take the tarantulas, ready to throw them at Ashley...

TWIST ENDING: When Richard shows up and starts yelling at Dylan about stealing his tarantulas and how he's been playing with Jordan and Ashley again. Richard says that Dylan is too old to have imaginary friends.

CONCLUSION: I really liked this one. As a short story, its format works pretty well so that we don't take too long to get to the twist. As horror, it's not a scary one, opting for a quick little slice of life tale. But even with no scare attempts, the twist still hits like a truck. Not just that Jordan was imaginary, but that Dylan has dreamed up a sister for his imaginary friend, who has an imaginary friend that he mocks for not being real. Holy mental layers of irony! They even play up Jordan to be the devil on Dylan's shoulder. The one who tells him to do bad things like shirk responsibilities. Like, we've had kids with questionable degrees of mental stability before, but Dylan definitely takes first prize. A+.

STORY #6: HOW I WON MY BAT

We open the story with Michael Burns telling us about his amazing bat and how he's an amazing power hitter, but he also tells us that he wishes he never got this bat. Cut to earlier on, as Michael reveals that he wasn't good at all, barely able to connect with the ball. After sucking at practice, he heads home in a huff. He winds up tripping into a small man, who offers him a lighter bat to use. The man is revealed to be Mr. Smith, the director of the Lynnfield Sports Museum. He lets Michael use the bat, provided that after the big game, he returns right to the museum and gives it back. No detours, get your ass back here pronto. The game arrives and sure enough, Mike becomes a pro, winning the game single handedly. After the game however, Mike immediately decides that maybe he should just keep the bat.

TWIST ENDING: He heads to the museum, noticing what appear to be wax figures of other kids using sporting goods. He then tells Mr. Smith that he wants to keep the bat. Mr. Smith agrees to it and asks Michael to give one more good swing. Then a bright flash. Now Michael spends the rest of his life, trapped in that pose, used as a display in Mr. Smith's sports museum.

CONCLUSION: This one worked pretty well for a short story. Very simple little parable about the dangers of underestimating magic, and that there's always a catch. The story does a fine job up until the museum scene to keep you wondering what Mr. Smith's catch truly is, and when you get to the "wax figures" it makes a lot more sense. Not just what the catch is, but how he runs his sports museum. Overall, a solid one with a good dark ending. Don't use magic corked bats, kids!  A-.

STORY #7: MR. TEDDY

12 year old Willa is obsessed with stuffed animals and wants a new teddy bear she sees at the store. This pisses off her 11 year old sister Gina, who wants a CD player. Regardless, Willa gets the bear and moves him to her bed, replacing her old bear named... Old Bear. I guess it's an apt name. Then things get weird. Mr. Teddy is moved around randomly in the middle of the night, Willa's collection of porcelain eggs are broken, and her room gets torn apart. She blames Gina, but Gina says she didn't do anything. Eventually Willa moves her dresser to the door of her room and goes to sleep, only to wake up and see the dresser moved, and her stuffed animals torn apart. Then Willa sees Mr. Teddy who seemingly tries to choke her, before Willa goes to tell on Gina. Except Gina wasn't home that night, so Willa realizes it was indeed Mr. Teddy. She then goes about tearing the bear to shreds.

TWIST ENDING: She brings Old Bear back down from the shelf, who then speaks to her saying that he'll be with her for the rest of her life.

CONCLUSION: It's a truncated Night of the Living Dummy but with a teddy bear. Meh. At least there wasn't any slave talk. C.

STORY #8: CLICK

Michael Newman is a frustrated family man, who thanks to a magic remote control from Christopher Walken can manipulate time. Oh wait, that's the Adam Sandler movie. Had to get that reference in.

Seth Gold is a couch potato who spends all his free time watching television, more often than not engaging in some channel surfing. That is until his dad brings home a new universal remote. Seth tries it out until a scuffle with his four year old sister Megan causes it to fall on the ground. After checking on it, Seth begins to test the remote some more. He mutes his mother, causes the dog to scratch itself in slow motion, even rewinds the family's pudding eating. He pauses time so he can cheat on a test. However, at lunch, other kids at school see the remote and keep getting frozen, to the point that everything is in a total panic. Seth presses every button possible to fix this.

TWIST ENDING: Seth then presses the OFF button on the remote and the world becomes a dark, empty void. He tries to turn it back on, but the batteries are dead.

CONCLUSION: Yeah, the Sandler movie pretty much ripped this one off. But as a quick short story it works fine enough. Honestly being so abridged hurts it a bit as this one could have worked as a book if given the time. Did get an episode at least. B-.

STORY #9: BROKEN DOLLS

Hey, it's another kid with a toy collection. This time it's Tamara Baker who is pissed that her little brother Neal is breaking her dolls. But her annoyance is broken when her father tells her to get ready as they're going to the crafts fair. Since they know Neal has a bull in a china shop mindset, the parents dump him on Tamara, because... you know. They head to a section filled with weird looking porcelain dolls, all owned by an old woman who is particularly interested in Neal. She gives him a cookie and weirdly touches the top of his head. Suddenly he starts to run a fever and gets really sick, constantly mumbling about Dolly Jelly. Tamara returns to the fair as it's packing up and finds the old woman's dolls, including one that looks like Neal. She tries to get answers, but the woman says she's has powers and will make her disappear. Tamara finds some of the dolly jelly and throws it into a wading pool, causing the old woman to turn into a pile of smoke for some reason. Then suddenly, the Neal doll changes to a blank doll and the real Neal's fever goes away.

TWIST ENDING: A doll gets delivered to Tamara's home. A doll that looks like the old woman. She hands it to Neal and bets him five bucks he can break it, and he goes to town.

CONCLUSION: Concept's interesting, but again being limited to 13 pages doesn't give us any time to really soak in anything. Like, what was the old woman's motivations to turn kids into dolls? What was the dolly jelly? Stuff like that. Don't think this could have worked as a full book, but a longer version of a short story wouldn't have hurt it. C.

STORY #10: A VAMPIRE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Helga Neugenstorm is the new kid in town. She wears all black and acts very weird. Maddy and her friends, who clearly have never heard of goth kids, find her to be sooo strange. So strange that she must be a vampire... IN THE NEIGHGBORHOOD!!! Maddy tries to interact with her, but it doesn't go too well, with Helga saying she doesn't eat anything, which is somehow enough to convince the kids that she must be a vampire. The kids decide to spy on her by checking in the windows of the old creepy house her family lives in. They see Helga, but can't tell if she has a reflection or not. They keep spying on her every night, while slowly thinking they have proof like her hands being cold. Eventually Maddy climbs up to Helga's bedroom window, but gets caught.

TWIST ENDING: Helga is pretty pissed about everyone spying on her. They ask if she's a vampire, and she says yes. But she doesn't show her fangs. The other kids do though. Turns out that everyone but Helga is a vampire... well not anymore I guess as the kids advance on her.

CONCLUSION: It's kind of The Girl Who Cried Monster done right. Having the supposed monster not be a monster and have us actually follow the story from the perspective of the real monsters. Still an innocent victim, but at least Helga isn't lured to be eaten alive. A step up? B-.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Overall, for the first outing, Tales To Give You Goosebumps wasn't too bad. Save for a few clunkers, there were some overall decent short stories that actually worked as short stories. However, on the other end of the coin, there were a lot of short stories that felt either too similar to other actual full Goosebumps books, or tried to stay to the formula of the longer books and just ended up a mess. Regardless, I came out enjoying more than I disliked, and even with killer babies and evil teddy bears, stuff like Good Friends and How I Won My Bat won me over enough to give this a light recommend. Now hopefully the other five can keep that up. I give Tales To Give You Goosebumps a B-.

STORY RANKING

10. Strained Peas

9. Mr. Teddy

8. Broken Dolls
7. The House of No Return

6. Teacher's Pet

5. Strangers in the Woods

4. A Vampire in the Neighborhood

 3. Click

2. How I Won My Bat

1. Good Friends