Gooseblog?: Gooflumps #2½: Stay out of the Bathroom

The year is 1995 and Goosebumps is at the height of its phenomenon. Books are flying off the shelves, topping sales charts, and the merch machine is well underway. If you were a fan at the time, it was the golden age (or if you were me who were foolishly scared off by GB, a livin' hell). But of course any successful product is eventually going to see itself become the subject of parody. And no, this isn't in reference to the many Goosebumps wannabes that flooded the market, be it Shivers or Bone Chillers, or the occasional Deadtime Stories. I'm talking about the time that there were actual parody Goosebumps books on the market. But do they work as parody, or miss the joke entirely? Let's find out for sure by covering Gooflumps.

Gooflumps were a pair of books released in 1995 by Random House and written by the author Tom Hughes, going under the parody name of R.U. Slime. Don't know much about Hughes, and it's an awful common name, but I think this same Tom Hughes also worked on such literary classics as the novelization of Monster House and something called The Web, which was a short lived series about giant spiders taking over the world. Why aren't I reading those books for this blog? Anyway, these books, as it's mentioned on the cover, are parody books based on Goosebumps. In fact, you could tell that Random House feared litigation from Scholastic or the Stines, so they plaster that it's a spoof and not a real Goosebumps book all over this book. But that likely wouldn't stop a clueless grandparent from buying them thinking it's the real deal.

As the covers show, the books also put a heavier focus on gross out toilet humor than what Stine would provide. While Goosebumps has plenty of scenes that would be considered gross, be it the dummies spewing pea soup, or Mr. Mortman (#JusticeForMortman) eating the flies and turtles, they were never the driving focus of his stories. So, right off the bat these are parodies that focus more of lowbrow humor in comparison to Goosebumps. Holy crap, I'm considering Goosebumps highbrow. I need a vacation. How dire are these parodies? Is there some gold in them thar poop hills? Let's find out, starting with Book #2½:  Stay out of the Bathroom.

COVER STORY

No clue who the artist was for these covers, but I do admit, I dig the work here. Has a lot of the Goosebumps trappings of the checkerboard patterns and the warped angle. But that foot is clearly not wearing a red Converse sneaker and so, it's a failure. But in all seriousness, it's well detailed and surprisingly engaging for what is supposed to be a parody cover.

STORY

Joe Kohler (Oh, I get it) is our protagonist. Aside from enjoying video games and the bullying of others, his main love is to really mess up the bathroom. Mostly to annoy his older sister Cynthia. But his toilet humor goes south when he accidentally breaks the toilet by dancing on it. After he gets his friend Roger to get his plumber dad's electrical tape, they manage to fix things momentarily, until Joe's Dad takes a sit and it all goes belly up With no alternative, the family have to find a new John on the cheap, and end up at Gleepnorp's Sanitary Units and Applianes, because that certainly ain't suspicious. As Joe is about to go in, he sees some commotion by the trashcans near a weird spaceship-looking car, and out pops a figure in green. Not Oscar the Grouch, but Joe's Aunt Thelma, who fancies herself a champion dumpster diver.

They enter the building and get greeted by the most obvious alien ever, but of course Joe's dad isn't suspicious in the slightest because Goosebu-err Gooflumps Parents? Regardless, Thelma and Joe are concerned. But it doesn't matter as a toilet is bought from Gleepnorp's anyway. Due to this being a new toilet, Joe is forced to take the basement bathroom while everyone else can enjoy the new fresh flusher upstairs. That night, as Joe heads to bed, he sees a strange green light glow from the upstairs bathroom and then sees his father acting strange. This begins Joe's suspicions. He checks the toilet, only for it to not flush for him. After his dad acts weird some more, he goes to bed. The next day, he asks where his dad's at during breakfast, only to learn he's in the garage totally not making some sort of spacecraft.

You know what this book is missing so far? Some vomit humor as Joe has a date with fighting a kid named Lumpy, who is clearly sick in the stomach, so of course when he gets punched, he ends up puking on Joe. After Joe gets home, he suddenly feels the need to puke, so he heads to the new toilet, which slams the seat on his head. Panicked, Joe tries to save himself, but sees a face emerge from the toilet. He frees himself, only to be chewed out by his mother. After Roger shows up, she goes into the bathroom, only to come out acting weird just like Joe's dad. She decides to give up her law job to bake food for the family nonstop. After she leaves, the kids check the toilet, to find some weird device on the back of it. When Cynthia arrives, the device suddenly vanishes, and Joe and Roger take their leave. We get a scene later that night where the toilet attacks Joe, chasing him until he makes it to the basement toilet and locks himself in.

Cynthia is next to be transformed, going from girly to tomboy, and now Joe is convinced that things are getting crazy around here, especially since Dad won't let him see his obviously not a spaceship in the garage. Roger and Joe go to the Gleepnorp store, only to see it vanished, as well as the weird spaceship car, which Joe clues in also looked like a toilet. The two finally are brought to the Kohler family garage, which is holding the giant RV sized toilet, and it's pretty much revealed there and then that the family are aliens now, intent on destroying Earth and transporting the humans to their planet. Also Cynthia is their commander for some reason. Suddenly Aunt Thelma shows up, as does the salesman from Gleepnorp's. Joe and Roger leave for a bit, then decide to come back for their plan to stop this invasion.

Roger grabs some toy gun called a Kolodner 800 and they return to the bathroom, only to end up sucked inside the toilet. After going down a long tunnel, they find Joe's family trapped in a bathtub shaped forcefield. As the kids try to free them, Gleepnorp shows up, only now a blobby face like the one Joe saw in the toilet earlier. His big plan is to kidnap the humans and replace them with androids for some big planetary domination scheme. Roger uses his gun which actually hurts Gleepnorp long enough for Joe to use Darling Debbie Disinfectant (there's a long running gag of Darling Debbie products that really grates, but at least there's a payoff?) to kill Gleepnorp once and for all.

TWIST ENDING... I GUESS? 

As the family escape the bathroom, they see Aunt Thelma who has destroyed the robot replacements. Turns out she knew about this whole conspiracy from reading Wacko Monthly. Later on, Joe's at Roger's and the two see that Roger's father got the same toilet from earlier. Suddenly the light goes green, and the two kids realize they have to deal with this again, I guess.

CONCLUSION

I mean, it wasn't the worst thing I ever read, but nothing amazing. I'll give credit to Gooflumps for this, the book gets a lot of the structure of Goosebumps down pat with how the book's pacing is and how more often than not the protagonist is an unlikable brat, case in point with Joe. And the story itself is kind of fine, though at even more of a breakneck pace than even a normal Goosebumps book. But other than that, it was really bland. The dialogue for the most part is annoying, there's a lot of running gags like the Darling Debbie products that aren't all that funny, and the twist ending feels weaker than Stine on a bad day. But it wasn't horrible. Just nothing I'd go back to any time soon. Why do I have a feeling I won't feel the same way about Eat Cheese And Barf?