Goosebumps: Episode 10 Night of the Living Dummy II

(note: For anyone unfamiliar with Goosebumps custom, the tv series remained consistent with the book titles. So, this episode is Night of the Living Dummy II because that’s the book it was adapted from. The original Night of the Living Dummy was never adapted.)

For the episode that gave this series’ most memorable villain his first on-screen appearance, wow this is crap. Slappy (Ron Stefaniuk) is appropriately charismatic, but nothing else really works. In this particular episode even Slappy seems a bit weak, showing little ability to actually do anything particularly horrible (his later episodes give him the power to turn people into Dummies, bring other dummies to life, possess people, and make him a far more overt pedophile than in this appearance).

To be fair, I don’t think the family in this episode is supposed to be especially likable. I get the impression we’re supposed to see them as a family of dorks living in the land of sunshine and rainbows. You don’t hate them, but I think you are supposed to see them as far too sensitive.

The parents (Gina Clayton and Richard Fitzpatrick) are intent on having daily family time when everyone in the family stands up and…does something. The father sings, the son Ted (Andrew Sardella) shows a video he made of the family, the older sister Sara (Caterina Scorsone) shows her painting, and our protagonist Amy (Maggie Castle) fails at ventriloquism with her dummy “Dennis.” After Dennis’ head comes off, Amy’s father reveals that he bought her a new Dummy by the name of Slappy, who has a magic incantation written down in his pocket that Amy conveniently takes out and reads aloud.

However, when Amy tries to perform with Slappy, the dummy begins spewing insults at the rest of the family, which they all believe to be her ventriloquism (why they think she suddenly became competent at throwing her voice is beyond me). However, to me this scene really highlights the entire problem with this family: they apparently can’t deal with even the slightest thing getting out of line. Slappy’s jokes are basic-level standup comedy: Dad can’t sing, Sara can’t paint, Ted is stupid, and Mom is fat. The jokes aren’t even terribly original.

Saying “Slappy is alive” would be pointless unless I was talking to someone who not only knew nothing about this series, but had no ability at all to see obvious plot twists coming…oh, and didn’t read the title of the episode. Over the course of the episode Slappy does destroy a painting, and nearly hit Amy’s father with a guitar (resulting in the guitar being destroyed), before going on a rampage through the house attacking Amy and Sara. However, there’s never any indication that he poses any form of threat that would not be posed by a small person of his size. He might teleport once or twice, or he might just be nimble and quick on his feet.

Slappy asserts that saying the words made Amy his slave, but we’re never shown any evidence that it did anything more than bring him to life. Furthermore, he’s defeated by…having his head smashed on a hard surface. That’s it, and he’s gone. The twist? He was destroyed by the other dummy, Dennis (he talks, but I’ve tried and cannot find any record of who voiced him)

In spite of his ineffectualness, Slappy is still creepy here. However, the rest of the cast lets him down, Castle most of all. I often glace at the IMDB page of these episodes to see if any of the child actors are still working. I was utterly shocked to find that Castle is. Maybe she gets better, but in this episode she’s just terrible. Every line sounds unnatural and rehearsed, and I didn’t feel a single emotion coming out of her. Most of the other actors are, at best, meh.

Watching this episode seems less like an enjoyable nostalgia trip, and more of a history lesson. This episode is clearly inferior to less remembered stories like The Phantom of the Auditorium and Return of the Mummy. It’s an important part of the development of my generation of horror fans, and it introduced those of us who didn’t regularly read the books to a great icon, but that’s far from the same as being good.

Goosebumps: Episode 9 Return of the Mummy

Just as I was beginning to lose hope, I find a one-part episode that doesn't feel rushed. Return of the Mummy feels a little like the script had a razor blade taken to it, but somehow it still works. I suspect this was at least partially because the show lacked the budget to portray an actual pyramid or anything of appropriate scale for ancient Egypt, so we're limited to scenes of people in small rooms. However, these scenes function to deliver the story in a fun, if somewhat campy manner, carried by actors who are clearly enjoying themselves in the roles.

Gabe (Daniel De Santo) is a kid sent to Egypt to spend the summer with his archaeologist Uncle Ben (Elias Zarou) and his cousin Sari (Annick Obonsawin) who are in the process of opening a Pharaoh's tomb. I seriously doubt that the first people to enter a Pharoah's tomb would be the lead archaeologist together with his young daughter and nephew, but this is clearly set in fantasy world. In fact, a good argument could be made to place this story in the same continuity as the old Universal Mummy films.

Before the episode even begins Gabe has already purchased a “summoner” from a man at the airport. Apparently this is the hand of an actual Mummy, which can be used to awaken other Mummies. Uncle Ben, while suspecting the hand was a scam, expresses a willingness to let him try it on the Pharaoh. We get rapid exposition dumps, such as giving Ben a piece of amber with a scarab in it while explaining that possessing a scarab grants immortality. Meanwhile, Sari acts as the standard Goosebumps antagonistic sibling.

We get a reporter (Afrah Gouda) who shows up the site, having mysteriously found out about the dig. Strangely, she has a piece of amber with no scarab in it, because apparently all pieces of amber are supposed to have bugs in them. For some reason she's allowed to enter the tomb with them, because why not.

The Mummy's appearance is fairly sudden. The episode assumes that we knew it was coming, even if the characters didn't, so why pretend otherwise? The real twist, however, is that our reporter is actually the Pharoah's sister, who controlled him throughout his reign, and gained immortality by becoming a scarab. She slept in her piece of amber every night, while able to become a human by day. This is all infodumped on us when she appears, so don’t think I’m rushing. She even continues infodumping after her brother, uninterested in re-establishing their Kingdom, smashes the amber and she’s transforming back into beetle-form.

Her brother then attacks Gabe and Sari. Why he cares about attacking them I'm not sure, but destroying Gabe's summoner appears to stop him and destroy the tomb. So, my best guess is he wanted to get rid of the thing that was keeping him awake.

The episode ends with Uncle Ben trying to figure out how to explain the events to reporters. I'm not sure why Uncle Ben believes them, since he was unconscious for most of the events, but I suppose the 8-year-olds in the audience don't think of things like that. Honestly, the plot hole just adds to the glorious cheese for me.

Unseen to Gabe, however, the supposedly destroyed summoner slips back into his suitcase, headed home for America. I'd actually be curious what happened when it got there. Can it only bring back mummies, or could Gabe cause a zombie apocalypse? I guess we'll never know.

Goosebumps: Episode 8 Piano Lessons Can be Murder

I'm hoping that I'll eventually encounter an individual Goosebumps episode that wouldn't have worked better as a two-parter. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely when they're boiling down a 100-page book to just 20-minutes. Piano Lessons Can be Murder certainly fits into that category, as it tries to combine both a ghost and evil robots into a single story.

That said, however, I'm really not sure that this is a story that deserved two parts. It isn't horrible in concept, but it's also less memorable than you'd expect for such a story. I can safely say that I would sacrifice this episode for a second half of The Phantom of the Auditorium.

Jerry (Ben Cook), a kid with few friends and a big imagination moves into a new house with a piano in the basement. Jerry develops a crush on a local girl named Kim (Erica Luttrell, kudos for the interracial romance) with an interest in music, and decides that he wants to learn to play to impress her. However, the Ghost of a former music teacher who lived in his house (Brenda Devine) warns him to “stay away” from the Shreek School, where he gets his parents to sign him up for piano lessons.

Dr. Shreek (Aron Tager) is a strange man, with a weird obsession with hands, who employs a maintenance main named Mr. Toggle (Geza Kovacs). Eventually, Dr. Shreek tries to take Jerry's hands, only to be shut off by Mr Toggle, who as it turns out is a robotics genius who built Dr. Shreek and various other piano-playing robots...and Mr. Toggle then tries to take his hands because robotic hands are hard to build. However, the ghost comes, revealing that Toggle had been a student of hers (she claims he was lazy, he claims she was too demanding), and for attacking Jerry the teacher traps Toggle in the school and forces him to practice for all eternity. Jerry gives up on the piano.

I run through the plot quickly to make my point: All of this material might have worked if there was proper time for build-up. Most of the actors are pretty good, and Jerry is one of the more memorable protagonists from this show. Rather than being a bland everykid, he constantly narrates imaginary adventures the instant he's out of earshot of an adult (and sometimes within).

However, the characters other than Jerry seem to get only two, perhaps three scenes. Dr. Shreek gets one scene teaching Jerry the piano, and throwing in a comment about how his own hands don't “work like they used to” as blatant foreshadowing, and a scene of him going crazy. Mr Toggle, likewise, gets his introduction where he shows off his robotic floor sweeper, and says that he “programmed” Shreek to call him a genius, the scene of his own breakdown, and the final scene of him being forced to play.

Most notably, Kim gets her introduction, and then returns at the end of the episode. Apparently it would be too much to remind the audience of why Jerry wanted to take piano lessons in the first place. If she couldn't be worked into the story, then her presence probably wasn't necessary. It's not like parents have ever needed a reason to put a kid with minor problems in piano lessons.

The ghost is the one element that does work. I'm not sure if it's the repeat appearances throughout the episode, or just the actress, but whenever she's onscreen warning Jerry that he's in danger I feel the tension. The ghost is also fairly unique, neither falling into the cliches of the harmless, helpful ghost, nor the purely wrathful. She clearly has a moral compass, and cares about Jerry even as a boy with no particular connection to her. Her motivations remains surprisingly human.

That said, it's clear you don't want to get on her bad side. She's a strict disciplinarian, and is apparently prepared to stay with Toggle forever to make sure he's suitably punished. I’m not sure of the creative process that went into this spirit, and I kind of suspect it was a simple “we need to make the ghost scary,” but what we got by design or accident was good.

The revelation that Toggle was the true villain worked, but having him shut down Shreek ruined the whole effect. Either Shreek should be working for him at the end, or Toggle should have motivations at least slightly different from those of his creation. As it plays now, the scene is awkward. They basically took one villain out of the story to replace him with another, effectively identical villain.

Even so, they were good villains. This is hardly the only time this series gave pedophillic undertones to it's villains (hell, it’s more rare for the villains not to have them), but the decision to have them obsessed with a young boy's body-part seems like the kind of thing the studio would likely forbid today. It’s legitimately unsettling.

More than one source on the internet have noted that this is the rare episode without a twist ending. That seems to be more-or-less true. The revelation of Toggle's punishment was, according to the Goosebumps Wiki, not in the book, but it's not really surprising once he was taken by a piano teacher. Ironically, it still managed to be more frightening than many of the actual twists. Playing piano for the rest of eternity, kept alive by magical forces? Or continuing as a ghost? Not a way I’d like to spend my time.

I don't exactly recommend the episode. It has all the parts for several good stories, but it's nothing special in and of itself. It seems like a waste of a lot of talent, and a number of good ideas.

Goosebumps: Episode 7 The Phantom of the Auditorium

I’m actually starting to dread one-part episodes of this show. Even when all the other parts are in place for a good story, the actors still rush through their lines. This episode is another lost opportunity. The kids are mostly passable actors, and borrowing the costumes and organ music from The Phantom of the Opera is a cheap way to get chills, but it works.

The story takes place in a school where the drama class is about to do a production of The Phantom, an obvious knock-off of the above-mentioned story. We’re told the story of the play, and for the most part it’s the same basic premise as the name-brand Phantom. One major change, however: in this play, The Phantom is killed by the Raoul equivalent out of jealousy, and then returns as a ghost.

Brooke (Jessica Moyes) is cast as the female lead in the play, “Esmerelda.” Her friend Zeke (Shawn Potter) is the Phantom. The two of them have excellent chemistry together, and seem like one of the more realistic friendships I’ve seen in children’s television. Zeke is a prankster, who enjoys startling Brooke in his costume. However, Brooke doesn’t really seem to mind, and the two project a sense of trust.

However, Brooke’s snobby understudy Tina (Julia Chantrey) informs us that the play is cursed. Seventy years earlier the play was performed, and the child who was to play The Phantom disappeared, his body never found, and a year later his ghost appeared on the stage when the play was performed again.…also, there’s a new student named Brian (Stuart Stone), and a creepy “night janitor” named Emile (Erik Fink) hanging around.

Of course, things start to go wrong with the play. And by “things” I mean “thing.” As far as I can tell, putting aside a jump scare or two by Zeke, and a bad dream Brooke had at the beginning of the episode, the entire plot seems to be driven by a single incident disrupting rehearsal, when someone in a Phantom costume zip-lines in and causes a prop to nearly hit Brooke. Zeke, having the costume and being a prankster, is blamed and kicked out of the play.

Granted, in the real world this might be enough to create a real issue, but in the world of Goosebumps, where parents and lawsuits are the things of legends, it hardly seems up to snuff to shut down production. This is yet another case of a full hour being needed. At least three or four incidents would have really built up the tension.

Naturally, the two leads team up with Brian to investigate under the stage, and find that the Phantom has been living there. As it so happens, “Emile” was not a janitor but a homeless man living under the school with a Phantom costume. Apparently he felt that the play being performed would create a greater chance of discovery than…people believing that children were in physical danger. There’s no real climax to this storyline, as Emile apparently just runs off when he realizes he’s been discovered, but I’m okay with that. I imagine it’s pretty accurate to what a real homeless person would do if he knew his shelter had been found.

And then, the twist: on the night of the play, someone knocks out Zeke and takes his place on stage. Brooke realizes that she’s on stage with an actual ghost (the flames in his eye sockets were probably the give-away). The Phantom gives a speech in which he explains that he fell down the trap door, died, and became a ghost…oh, sorry, he “fell into the abyss” and “became a real Phantom.”

Honestly, the inability to directly reference death works here. The Phantom is quite effective if you interpret him as an overly dramatic child suddenly given supernatural powers. He even asserts that playing the Phantom in his Middle School play would have been “the greatest night of my life.” And apparently he plans to take “Esmeralda” with him into “eternal darkness.” He’s defeated when she rips off his mask.

And for an extra twist: the Phantom was to be performed by Brian seventy years ago. Brian was the ghost. This would have been a good twist…if we’d had time to develop Brian properly. As it is, he was the background character who painted sets, and was sad that he’d moved to the school too late to audition (…if he could fool the teacher into thinking he was in the class without records or a social security number, why not do so early enough to audition?).

Still, the scenery and atmosphere gives this episode a huge advantage. I really want to know who thought The Haunted Mask merited twice the running time of this episode. This is a rare time when not only was I willing to do my second viewing, I was actually looking forward to it, because the episode is really that enjoyable.