"Some of you never came to the realization that one of your childhood educators is a crazy person 14 years after last seeing them and it shows." ... My mum homeschooled me until I switched to distance learning.
When I was in highschool I had a teacher who inspired me to try harder, believe in myself, and pursue my passions. She was truly an inspiration to the entire class and made so many personal sacrifices to provide for "her kids." I lived in a predominately white area with deseg and a decent immigrant population, and this teacher judged no one for the color of their skin or country of origin. Saw her on facebook last year and she's a fucking anti-mask/vax, anti-immigrant, generally-hateful nutjob now. I dunno what happened. Was she always a hateful bitch and just hiding it at work? Did she suffer some catastrophe in the decades since I've seen her? Truly a bummer to realize that someone who helped make you a better person has fallen so low.
@@joelsephjoelstar Damn, that's… that's rough. It went from aaw to _oh_ real hecking fast It rather makes me think of my father now. Ever since he found that first Jordan Peterson video… it's just been downhill from there.
@@joelsephjoelstar A few years after I graduated high school, a teacher I really liked got caught having an inappropriate relationship with a student. You really never know what someone is like behind the scenes, or what they are capable of when they drop their professional persona.
Mood my mom did homeschool me often and last time I looked at her Facebook I found a rant she posted about how women shouldn't be held responsible for abuse+ sexual assault because women are oppressed. #girlpower
I haven’t thought about Goosebumps in years, but I think the only one I ever really read was the one about the magic mirror that swapped you with a mirror doppelgänger of yourself, and that at the end the main kid broke the mirror, and then the book ended with him noticing that his friend Lefty, who was called that because he was left-handed, was playing baseball and pitching right-handed.
If I can nitpick, I find that vampires are rarely portrayed *exactly* the same between franchises. Part of the fun of writing vampires is getting to pick and choose which rules you follow and which ones you rewrite entirely. Who would confuse the vampires of Daybreakers with the vampires of Twilight or What We Do in the Shadows? But you really hit on something here. If you're going to be bad, it's better to be memorably bad.
My highschool Mythology teacher (who managed to make the Odyssey boring btw) decided to make a Percy Jackson rip-off. It went about as well as you would expect.
One of the most popular songs of pop culture in my country has a dog barking as an instrument, the song is used in many peaceful protests because the song talks about poverty and the lie of the education system That dog barking hit really hard 😔🤙
Goosebumps was the series that started my love for the horror genre, along with series from the 90s and early 2000s that are kind of similar, but in a different genre such as mystery, sci-fi and fantasy.
I wrote a blog post last October about goosebumps knock offs! Fun fact, your teacher's series is not the only Christian goosebumps series. There was also Spinechillers by Fred E. Katz which has HILARIOUS goodreads reviews. There was also the Midnight Library series, Spine Chillers (Jim Razzi), Spinetinglers, and Fright Time
Also I thought I had never heard of the Michigan Chillers series but you said "the first one, Mayham on Mackinac Island" and... I own that. I own a SIGNED copy of that. I'm Canadian??? How did I get a signed copy of that book??
All that talk about the “alien all along” twist endings for Boosegumps reminds me of the only one I’ve ever red, where it turns out that all the characters are robots, except for the protagonist, whose dog is trying to smuggle him to earth
@@larsnyman2455 daaaamn, I read that, the one with a Leprechaun and one with a ghost in a cave on the beach or something. Never touched the series again, didn't really like it
Stine does that "everyone is evil/not who you thought they were/not human" twist a lot. I can think of another story of his where everyone except the "evil ghost" has like eyes in the back of their head and technically aren't "human" and the "evil ghost" is the last member of normalhis family because everyone else was captured by the hair-eye people
It just follows the typically mystery genre naming conventions ie a is for alibi, arsenic in the azaleas, murders don't wear pink, etc. But at it's core it's hey people can be different try to look past your first judgement based on appereance.
@@DIEGhostfish it's teaching kids not to be judgemental assholes because someone looks different while using monsters to address irl issues. If you look at the problems they show in the books you can see the parallels between sexuality and race using monsters just makes the topics easier to discuss
@@ayajade6683 did it, though? the plots of the books were so monster-specific i can’t really see them having much value as analogies for people who are different in the real world. and the ending of the books, like many child-mystery/horror stories in general, always leaves the reader on an ambiguous note, one of those "character debunks supernatural thing.....or did they????" type deals. if the books are supposed to be about accepting the differences of others thats kind of a bad way to end the story, like "you should judge people who look different from you because they’re probably normal!.....OR ARE THEY."
9:10 This take isn't _that_ different for those of us who grew up in Slavic countries, but props to Stein for avoiding the modern pop-cultural werewolf tropes.
Man, seeing that cover for Bailey School Kids unearthed memories I forgot I had. Reading one or two of those books in elementary school, good lord. I remember reading Aliens Don't Wear Braces in a reading circle back in 3rd or 4th grade, I think?
Werewolf Skin remains the best Goosebumps book. So jarringly different (and better) than the rest of the series is it that it makes me wonder if Stine hired ghostwriters (no pun intended).
The only thing I remember about Spooksville was the episode of the HUB show where a doctor was stealing people’s tonsils because she had spilled a drink in a tanning bed and ended up melting her skin off so her organs were falling out but tonsils were elastic enough to keep them in place so like everything that wasn’t her face and hands was just a mass of stuck together tonsils
Hey James it's me, your old teacher. You didn't enjoy the books I wrote because you haven't accepted Jesus into your soul yet. Don't worry you'll come around
4:40 The combination of the covers and the multicolor logos definitely made it hard for me to sleep at night well into my teens lol. I used to think about how freaky Slappy was all the time man.
No lie, I think I literally have almost every existing Goosebumps books of every series until the Horrorland Series, started in 2008, where I kinda drifted away. The only ones that I don't have a complete collection is the Choose your own adventure series.
I'm surpriced none of the "Across the Street" books are about satanic Dungeons & Dragons... I suppose that fad was long passed when James's teacher started writting
I was all excited for Jesus LaserHands Christ and now I find out that he's *not even real.* God dammit, James. I can still remember a Goosebumps cover: it's a closeup of a white door being held a little bit ajar by a hand, and the hand has leaves growing out of it. I think the title had something to do with a basement, and the hands belonged to the character's dad, who was turning into a plant? Also there was one about a sponge that freaked me the fuck out lol. Like it drank blood out something… I haven't thought about "Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots" in decades lol. I totally read that book, though.
Gotta say, I have kinda the opposite view of you when it comes to these books. I read Goosebumps as a kid along with several of these other series, and I LOVED Spookesville, because of the reoccurring characters and plots. it felt more tense to me because I grew to care about the characters, not to mention I loved the interconnectedness and how things tied together in the end. Goosebumps was super fun, but I felt, as a kid, Spookesville made me THINK more. Also, I would love and in depth review of Christian Horror novels because, some of them are sooooooo ridiculous and crazy. Forbidden Doors was one I read as a kid and it was.....so strange . Everything was a demon, naturally, and I mean...EVERYTHING. Also, telling us the fake ending was super cruel, like, dude, you know we're not gonna read it, but now my brain is gonna make me google this shit... ugh.
My first exposure to wicca was scooby doo and the witch's ghost... no idea how accurate that was, but little me was very pleased with the interplay of accusations, intentional misunderstandings, and in- world real magic happening.
I came to the realization my old teacher was crazy two months in, then again with another teacher three months after first meeting. Which I guess isn't so weird that they were crazy but it was weird that I had two entirely unrelated crazy teachers. What are the odds of that?
@@oisinmaguidhir2902 the first one ran her class like a pseudo-military style with even bathroom breaks being unimportant. The other one was always going on about how she's doing everyone a favor by teaching the Special Education kids, then when a kid said she had to use the bathroom and that she couldn't hold it, the teacher flipped a desk and shouted "Pee your pants right here!" What is it with authoritarian teachers and holding kids bowels hostage?
@@cam4636 In middle school, I had a science teacher who thought the LHC was going to create a black hole and end the planet. She also showed us movies like Happy Feet, for some reason.
You know doing kids from the same town could be a premise for some short series because they could do stuff like kids from one year disappearing then their investigation being found out later on and then them returning, being recovered or their efforts being useful. Could be pretty cool so long it doesn't become longer than 5~ books per town/area
I'm glad to see you back! I hope you're doing okay. My goal is to actually collect the goosebumps books. I genuinely enjoyed reading in the library alone and searching for these books--only to hide them in certain areas so no kid could borrow them like a gremlin. It helped me study English a bit more and it was very easy to read!
I remember the Michigan Chillers books being really weird, because I only sold them merchandised as souvenirs. I never read any of them, because I assumed they were bootleg. The last c in Mackinac is silent.
I live in Michigan and I met the author of the Michigan Chiller's series when I was a kid! I loved them but he never wrote a book about my town until recently. There's a whole store in the author's hometown that is dedicated to Michigan and American chillers.
I often found Shivers biggest lure was how much more dark and less silly Goosebumps could be. That and far often there felt impending fear. I also loved the covers for Shivers - they made me want to buy the books. Goosebumps covers never fully pulled me in. I also remember Shivers did not hold back. In many ways I felt Shivers was the step between reading Fear Street, Point Horror or Christopher Pikes story. Honestly I would love to buy the whole Shivers collection, because I had such great memories from them. One of my favourite was Animal Rebellion due to visceral descriptions in them.
@@andrewdiaz3529 It honestly isn't interesting. The main character accepts Jesus into his heart and then he starts to get his life back on track while staying in jail.
I was talking to a friend of mine about books the other day, and how certain genres fall into what I call a premise cycle. I mentioned to him I was re-reading the Shariana series by Terry Brooks, which I like a lot but it's also a obvious knock off of LOTR. However, a ton of fantasy novels where knock offs of LOTR. They had the same basic set up. Quirky wizard guy comes to young elf, dwarf or smurf or whatever, says something about a dynasty, they get a merry band together, and spend the next 300+ pages walking towards the ring in a big magic field, I'm sorry, sword, oh I'm sorry, magic clock only the young elf, dwarf or whatever can touch and make magic come out of. I call it the "epic walk" genre. Then "Harry Potter" came out, and every fantasy novel become chosen one who is a boy goes to magic school, and has two friends, WHO HAVE TO BE A BOY AND GIRL. Etc, etc. Think of all the thrillers that where Di Vinci Code knock offs, all the romances that where Twilight knock offs, all the dystopian novels that where Hunger Game knock offs, and in the 80s and 90s, all the Tom Clancy knock offs, and in the 80s, all the Stephen King knock offs. Nelson DeMille, who I actually do like to read despite all his right wing and macho nonsense in his books, is basically a Tom Clancy knock off author. Genres run in cycles. I can't really blame these authors though. Despite the template they have based on a hit, it's still probably fun to put your original spins on these established things despite it already being done.
The author of the Michigan Chillers books actually visited our school in Grand Rapids, and I remember him being really nice. Never read them but it was cool to have stuff representing my state.
Please read "Knight to Bishop" by Desiree Michele. It's a horribly written detective novel/vampire erotica shitfest. I would love if you were to make a video on it.
I remember getting almost getting written up while I worked at a grocery store for answering my departments phone with 'Viewer beware, you're in for a scare, hi, I'm R.L Stein'
Methinks you should revisit Goosebumps (or else give the Goosebuds podcast a listen). The books are *at least* as weird as the other late 80s/early 90s properties you mention. Consider, for example, how the origins of Monster Blood get retconned without explanation between books. Plus Goosebumps kids are generally only in danger at the end. Most of the scares are fakeouts. ("Then a ghoulish face emerged from the shadows!" End Chapter One. Chapter Two. "It was my brother in a mask.") And I feel like an adult could read a Goosebumps book in under an hour? In fifth grade I got one from the school library and finished it before we headed back to the classroom. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, by contrast, isn't all that weird? (Fair warning that I'm about to get far too pedantic about a 30+yo franchise aimed primarily at children, so if you've met your quota of white guys' lecturing about things that don't matter, you might want to keep scrolling.) Something that gets lost in discussions of TMNT is that it was originally a *very* clear satire of then-current comic book trends. This is because most people are more familiar with the first adaptation than the Eastman and Laird comics, whose silly premise and grim-'n'-gritty artwork parodied the hyper-violent works popular at the time. In particular, Kevin and Peter took aim at and inspiration from Frank Miller's run on Daredevil. Like Matt Murdock, the Turtles were New Yorkers who gained superpowers in an accident and then used those powers, along with ninja training, to fight a shadowy organization of martial artists. Whereas Murdock was taught by an old man named "Stick" to combat "the Hand," the Turtles were raised by "Splinter" to enact his revenge against "the Foot." Moreover, the mutagen that transformed the Turtles and the radioactive material that blinded Murdock are implied to be one and the same, and the same truck spilled them in the same near-collision. For bonus points, the best-selling comic at the time would likely have been Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men: a team of mutants. In 1983 (the year before TMNT's creation), that title introduced the Morlocks, a race of (often nonhuman-looking) mutant sewer-dwellers. None of this is speculation, by the way. Eastman and Laird have cited as influences Dave Sim's Cerebus (1977-2004) (a "mature" black-and-white comic about an anthropomorphic animal), Claremont's New Mutants (1982-1989) (about a group of teenaged mutants), and Miller's Daredevil (1979-1983) and Rōnin (1983-1984) (ultraviolent soap operas about ninjas/samurai in modern-day/near-future New York CIty). All those details that appear random at first glance, the disparate ingredients that form the Turtle soup, are in actuality specific and deliberate references. It's only removed from their original context that the Turtles become "weird." In spite of this, weirdness has always been their biggest selling point. Nothing exemplifies this better than their name, which reads like some delightfully bizarre tone poem or maybe the opening salvo of a Scrabble game. The "weird" factor was exacerbated by the 1987 cartoon, which turned Kevin Eastman's and Peter Laird's loving sendup of comic excess into a half-hour commercial for the (admittedly awesome) Playmates toyline, whose aesthetic appeal lay in sheer grossness more than anything else. (Don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of the cartoon. It was a favorite of mine and my dad's when I was very young, and it introduced me to the Turtles. I just don't see any reason to waffle about its purpose.) If the 90s movies seem especially weird, that's because they (like the 2003 cartoon) strike a balance between the Mirage comics and 1987-1996 cartoon. Like the cartoon, their Turtles have distinct personalities with headbands to (not?) match, a love of pizza, and a vocabulary consisting mainly of surfer slang. Like the comics, these Turtles live in a city both literally and figuratively dark, where violence has consequences and curse words ("Damn!") sneak their way between the cowabungas. (Re: violence, it should be noted that, while the cartoon Turtles *carried* the same weapons as their comic counterparts, they rarely *wielded* them due to outcry from parents' organizations. This would continue in the first movie sequel, whose opening sees the Turtles fend off Foot ninjas by using yo-yos, inflatables, and sausage links.) This mixture does result in some tonal dissonance, but the 90s films are probably the purest distillation of the franchise, as they encompass the self-aware grimdarkness of the early comics as well as the marketable archness of the cartoons. tl;dr: TMNT isn't nearly as weird as Goosebumps. And Goosebumps isn't that weird if you subscribe to the view that many of the books were written very quickly by one guy who probably had better things to do.
I never read Goosebumps but I watch Bailey Meyer's Goosedrunks series where she reads Goosebumps books while drinking and I got the impression they were very weird and goofy and poorly paced and written. They're definitely fun reads, but it's kinda a stretch to call them "good". I'm sure they're great for the target demographic but I can't imagine they have much appeal for adults beyond nostalgia.
Yeeeccchhhh. I grew up in the 70s with the Tom Swift Jr. books. My brothers had collected the whole set, about 33. Very repetitive but still mostly fun with Tom making a new invention and exploring something with it. Saddens me that no one knows about them anymore. Everyone knows the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew but no one knows Tom Swift. Sometimes you can find a few in a used book store. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift_Jr.
I read Tom Swift as a kid too! They were free on our Kindles, I read every one I could get my hands on :) haven’t revisited them since, i wonder how they hold up
@@JamesTullos Depending on the age of the books - they might be collector items. The older books - 1st eds can fetch a few hundred dollars if in good condition.
I've been searching for a while for a Goosebumps-aper, I'm pretty sure it wasnt Strange Matter but I had found it in a Walden's next to those. This one had something like a angry snow man on the cover but damn it actually turned out to be way more horrifying than anything i'd read up until that point. Plot: Kids on a field trip get stranded because of a blizzard. All the adults die or get lost and the kids find some kind of weird mansion. It's pretty bleak and hopeless and they never get back to civilization in the end.
I LOVED fear street as a kid, bc I ofc was a bad bitch who thought goosebumps was for BABIES. I was insufferable but I'm glad I got into those books. I think a review of the cheerleader series or something might be a fun review to do one day with the popularity of the series coming back w the Netflix movies and all
Could you review the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series by Michelle Paver? It’s a YA fantasy set in Ice Age Europe. First book’s called Wolf Brother
Bailey School Kids at least had its own formula. In that series, the four Bailey School Kids see a quirky adult (And boy, are there a LOT of them in Bailey City!), think they're something like a vampire, investigate the adult in question, and try to convince the others that they're a monster.... and at the end of each book it's usually left vague as to whether or not the quirky adult IS a creature or not. With a few exceptions like the ghost one. ...or that one scary one where the sasquatch is following them and the ranger says "Huh there's no Mr. Squash here." Uh oh.... D:
The witch next door sounds like every Christians idea on what paganism is lol. The mom freaking out reminds me of how my mom freaks out and doesn’t believe me when I explain what modern satanism is about.
You can’t just tell adult in horror for children. The horror of being a child is knowing on some level, whether subconscious or consciously is that adult don’t believe them. That if you where to go to authority and so did the monstrous math teacher. Most of the time the teacher would be given the benefit of the doubt.
I know theres probably a million other comments about this but. Mackinac island huh :Y as a michigander that got me to look up from my drawing tablet and look at the tv
Ah camp nightmare was my favourite when I was little! I don’t think I ever read the book of it but the episode of it from the show had me going wild. The reveal at the end the first time I saw it blew my mind in a way that not a lot did at the time. I also really liked the one where the kid turns into a dog and his parents are like okay with it or something? Idk that one really creeped me out and I loved it
I loved these books,I think I read all of the ~~30 ish books in our school library, great fun as a kid. I would be one of the only kids actually reading in our allocated library time, the rest would just talk because the rules weren't really enforced. I was born in 2003 and this is a school in India btw, the goosebumps books were pretty damn prolific.
I had a massive set of Goosebumps books in the 90s. I was 10 in 94 so I was the perfect demographic. I loved reading them. The 90s was nuts with kids shows on cable. Lol
The most interesting but also accessible discussions on the nature of divinity I've read in fiction come from an indie rpg maker game that I won't name here bc it's _very_ nsfw lmao
My favorite goosebumps book will forever be one of the graphic novel triple adaptions. Specifically about the werewolves in Florida? If Im remmebering the location right? Bc I think it almost made that story actually pretty scary to me as a pre-teen. Though I was a big coward for a while so I dont know if that really says anything about the adaption
Is that Werewolf at Fever Swamp? If I recall it was in there, along with that scarecrow one. That one was tamer than the others but since we live close to a forest, that scared me a lot!
@@runawayfromtoads674 YEAH THAT WAS IT! After i typed this comment I looked it up and apparently the guy who adapted and illustrated it is like famous for working with Clive Barker on something as a co-author which honestly. Iconic of him.
You're tempting fate by saying that no one is going to read The Magic Store Across the Street to see it's true ending. Who that poor sucker is , I don't know, but it's only a matter of time. Also the moment you said that Jesus came down from heaven and broke him out of jail, I knew you were lying because that's just way too entertaining for a book series like that.
Goosebumps horrified me because it was the first thing to introduce me to the concept of bad endings, implied bad cliffhangers, and fates worse than death. I also remember another christian goosebumps ripoff that I can’t remember the title of but I thiiiink it was written by the author of left behind? (EDIT: nope not him, still looking) I don’t remember the books being scary, but I read more than one so I must have liked them okay enough as a dumb 12 year old lol.
Im not sure if this shared these but.....The Shivers Series and Fright Time Series are two others I've never meet anyone who has read any of these who is my age. Our Doller General was selling them when I was a kid in the 90's! I still have most of the ones I bought my kids read them now.
If you want a weird christian goosebumps, don't have a pastor come in and fix everything. Have the parents not believe the kids, then something bad happens, and the kids have to try their best, and then they screw it up causing negative consequences for the rest of the book that they have to deal with.
Me listening to the end of the video: oh hes reading the patron names guess its over *hears him say "Karkat_Kitsune"* OMG HOMESTUCK IN PATREON???????????????????????????????????????????????????kfmdfjgdkjghkrhs
"Some of you never came to the realization that one of your childhood educators is a crazy person 14 years after last seeing them and it shows."
... My mum homeschooled me until I switched to distance learning.
When I was in highschool I had a teacher who inspired me to try harder, believe in myself, and pursue my passions. She was truly an inspiration to the entire class and made so many personal sacrifices to provide for "her kids." I lived in a predominately white area with deseg and a decent immigrant population, and this teacher judged no one for the color of their skin or country of origin.
Saw her on facebook last year and she's a fucking anti-mask/vax, anti-immigrant, generally-hateful nutjob now. I dunno what happened. Was she always a hateful bitch and just hiding it at work? Did she suffer some catastrophe in the decades since I've seen her?
Truly a bummer to realize that someone who helped make you a better person has fallen so low.
@@joelsephjoelstar Damn, that's… that's rough. It went from aaw to _oh_ real hecking fast
It rather makes me think of my father now. Ever since he found that first Jordan Peterson video… it's just been downhill from there.
@@joelsephjoelstar A few years after I graduated high school, a teacher I really liked got caught having an inappropriate relationship with a student. You really never know what someone is like behind the scenes, or what they are capable of when they drop their professional persona.
Mood my mom did homeschool me often and last time I looked at her Facebook I found a rant she posted about how women shouldn't be held responsible for abuse+ sexual assault because women are oppressed. #girlpower
@@_gremlinboy That is very antifeminist of her and not cash money
I haven’t thought about Goosebumps in years, but I think the only one I ever really read was the one about the magic mirror that swapped you with a mirror doppelgänger of yourself, and that at the end the main kid broke the mirror, and then the book ended with him noticing that his friend Lefty, who was called that because he was left-handed, was playing baseball and pitching right-handed.
Thisss one.
I was a kid trying to learn more English and I didn't understand the ending until it hit me at highschool and I was mind blown.
when he broke the mirror, did the doppelgängers go back to the mirror?
@@alastorbutwithagun I think so, but the very end was a cliffhanger where one of them was still in the real world.
That one was one of my favourites, along with the one where this girl gets a huanted mask for Halloween and it tries to become her
@@whyareallmynamestaken1382
is that the one with the goblin mask on the cover?
If I can nitpick, I find that vampires are rarely portrayed *exactly* the same between franchises. Part of the fun of writing vampires is getting to pick and choose which rules you follow and which ones you rewrite entirely. Who would confuse the vampires of Daybreakers with the vampires of Twilight or What We Do in the Shadows?
But you really hit on something here. If you're going to be bad, it's better to be memorably bad.
My highschool Mythology teacher (who managed to make the Odyssey boring btw) decided to make a Percy Jackson rip-off. It went about as well as you would expect.
Do tell!
that sounds so bad, i wanna read it
Please tell us the title!
Drop the title.
where is the sauce?
The goosebumps TV theme goes way harder than it should.
Like really how is a song featuring a barking dog as an instrument that good
One of the most popular songs of pop culture in my country has a dog barking as an instrument, the song is used in many peaceful protests because the song talks about poverty and the lie of the education system
That dog barking hit really hard 😔🤙
The goosebumps theme song walked so SOPHIE (rip) and hyperpop could run
If you check out the Mario Paint music editor community, you’ll find some more dog vibes
Goosebumps was the series that started my love for the horror genre, along with series from the 90s and early 2000s that are kind of similar, but in a different genre such as mystery, sci-fi and fantasy.
I wrote a blog post last October about goosebumps knock offs! Fun fact, your teacher's series is not the only Christian goosebumps series. There was also Spinechillers by Fred E. Katz which has HILARIOUS goodreads reviews.
There was also the Midnight Library series, Spine Chillers (Jim Razzi), Spinetinglers, and Fright Time
Also I thought I had never heard of the Michigan Chillers series but you said "the first one, Mayham on Mackinac Island" and... I own that. I own a SIGNED copy of that. I'm Canadian??? How did I get a signed copy of that book??
All that talk about the “alien all along” twist endings for Boosegumps reminds me of the only one I’ve ever red, where it turns out that all the characters are robots, except for the protagonist, whose dog is trying to smuggle him to earth
Isn't that one 'welcome to camp nightmare' ?
@@whyareallmynamestaken1382 nah, it was something like “Night of the living Gnomes”
@@larsnyman2455 Oh right, I haven't read that one
@@larsnyman2455 daaaamn, I read that, the one with a Leprechaun and one with a ghost in a cave on the beach or something. Never touched the series again, didn't really like it
Stine does that "everyone is evil/not who you thought they were/not human" twist a lot. I can think of another story of his where everyone except the "evil ghost" has like eyes in the back of their head and technically aren't "human" and the "evil ghost" is the last member of normalhis family because everyone else was captured by the hair-eye people
Dude. Your hair looks so luscious and pretty. I'm jealous.
Me too, I wonder what product he uses?
Bailey school kids was just teaching kids not to fear adults they didn't understand
It just follows the typically mystery genre naming conventions ie a is for alibi, arsenic in the azaleas, murders don't wear pink, etc. But at it's core it's hey people can be different try to look past your first judgement based on appereance.
Not sure teaching kids the opposite of stranger danger is a good idea.
I loved Bailey School series
@@DIEGhostfish it's teaching kids not to be judgemental assholes because someone looks different while using monsters to address irl issues. If you look at the problems they show in the books you can see the parallels between sexuality and race using monsters just makes the topics easier to discuss
@@ayajade6683 did it, though? the plots of the books were so monster-specific i can’t really see them having much value as analogies for people who are different in the real world. and the ending of the books, like many child-mystery/horror stories in general, always leaves the reader on an ambiguous note, one of those "character debunks supernatural thing.....or did they????" type deals. if the books are supposed to be about accepting the differences of others thats kind of a bad way to end the story, like "you should judge people who look different from you because they’re probably normal!.....OR ARE THEY."
a "michigan chiller" sounds like a cocktail
9:10 This take isn't _that_ different for those of us who grew up in Slavic countries, but props to Stein for avoiding the modern pop-cultural werewolf tropes.
Man, seeing that cover for Bailey School Kids unearthed memories I forgot I had. Reading one or two of those books in elementary school, good lord. I remember reading Aliens Don't Wear Braces in a reading circle back in 3rd or 4th grade, I think?
My 6th grade English teacher wrote trashy romance novels and used text from them for example sentences in her curriculum and it was disgusting,
My absolute favorite Goosebumps book is the 12 screams of Christmas, it was genuinely one of the scariest story in the series, horrorland is also fun
Everyone when Spooksville gets brought up: It's a little early for Spooktober.
Doot Doot
This channel is one of the only ones I watch on RUclips where I don't skip through the endings of videos, because they're always very entertaining.
Werewolf Skin remains the best Goosebumps book. So jarringly different (and better) than the rest of the series is it that it makes me wonder if Stine hired ghostwriters (no pun intended).
The only thing I remember about Spooksville was the episode of the HUB show where a doctor was stealing people’s tonsils because she had spilled a drink in a tanning bed and ended up melting her skin off so her organs were falling out but tonsils were elastic enough to keep them in place so like everything that wasn’t her face and hands was just a mass of stuck together tonsils
thats horrific and amazing
Hey James it's me, your old teacher. You didn't enjoy the books I wrote because you haven't accepted Jesus into your soul yet. Don't worry you'll come around
Mr. Curran? You look so young!
@@JamesTullos Obviously it's all that Jesus, making a patch with the holy ghost takes years off your skin don't you know.
Is this satire? There's no way this is real
@@henryradley7850 no but it is a joke
@@JamesTullos Okay but you using an emoji of yourself nearly killed me (but thankfully I let Jesus into my heart, and so I was saved)
4:40 The combination of the covers and the multicolor logos definitely made it hard for me to sleep at night well into my teens lol.
I used to think about how freaky Slappy was all the time man.
No lie, I think I literally have almost every existing Goosebumps books of every series until the Horrorland Series, started in 2008, where I kinda drifted away. The only ones that I don't have a complete collection is the Choose your own adventure series.
I only had the Lost In Stinkeye Swamp CYOA book but I remember it being one of the only books that legit frightened me as a kid.
I'm surpriced none of the "Across the Street" books are about satanic Dungeons & Dragons... I suppose that fad was long passed when James's teacher started writting
Darkest Dungeons :)))
Yeah, the "satanic panic" is more early 90s
29:58 That actually sounds awesome! I'd love it if Jesus himself busted me out of jail and laser blasted my enemies!
AH, DAMN IT! YOU LIED TO ME!
I was all excited for Jesus LaserHands Christ and now I find out that he's *not even real.* God dammit, James.
I can still remember a Goosebumps cover: it's a closeup of a white door being held a little bit ajar by a hand, and the hand has leaves growing out of it. I think the title had something to do with a basement, and the hands belonged to the character's dad, who was turning into a plant? Also there was one about a sponge that freaked me the fuck out lol. Like it drank blood out something…
I haven't thought about "Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots" in decades lol. I totally read that book, though.
Gotta say, I have kinda the opposite view of you when it comes to these books. I read Goosebumps as a kid along with several of these other series, and I LOVED Spookesville, because of the reoccurring characters and plots. it felt more tense to me because I grew to care about the characters, not to mention I loved the interconnectedness and how things tied together in the end. Goosebumps was super fun, but I felt, as a kid, Spookesville made me THINK more.
Also, I would love and in depth review of Christian Horror novels because, some of them are sooooooo ridiculous and crazy. Forbidden Doors was one I read as a kid and it was.....so strange . Everything was a demon, naturally, and I mean...EVERYTHING.
Also, telling us the fake ending was super cruel, like, dude, you know we're not gonna read it, but now my brain is gonna make me google this shit... ugh.
My first exposure to wicca was scooby doo and the witch's ghost... no idea how accurate that was, but little me was very pleased with the interplay of accusations, intentional misunderstandings, and in- world real magic happening.
I came to the realization my old teacher was crazy two months in, then again with another teacher three months after first meeting. Which I guess isn't so weird that they were crazy but it was weird that I had two entirely unrelated crazy teachers. What are the odds of that?
What made you realise that they were crazy?
@@oisinmaguidhir2902 the first one ran her class like a pseudo-military style with even bathroom breaks being unimportant. The other one was always going on about how she's doing everyone a favor by teaching the Special Education kids, then when a kid said she had to use the bathroom and that she couldn't hold it, the teacher flipped a desk and shouted "Pee your pants right here!" What is it with authoritarian teachers and holding kids bowels hostage?
In America? Pretty good.
@@cadencenavigator958 Right? I have more trouble picking out the non-crazy teachers I had
@@cam4636 In middle school, I had a science teacher who thought the LHC was going to create a black hole and end the planet. She also showed us movies like Happy Feet, for some reason.
Wake up babe new James Tullos video
You know doing kids from the same town could be a premise for some short series because they could do stuff like kids from one year disappearing then their investigation being found out later on and then them returning, being recovered or their efforts being useful.
Could be pretty cool so long it doesn't become longer than 5~ books per town/area
I'm glad to see you back! I hope you're doing okay.
My goal is to actually collect the goosebumps books. I genuinely enjoyed reading in the library alone and searching for these books--only to hide them in certain areas so no kid could borrow them like a gremlin. It helped me study English a bit more and it was very easy to read!
Think your teacher and his wife disliked the video lmfao
Michigan Chillers was great! The author also wrote a series called American Chillers, with one book for each state
Bruh I remember the author selling books out of his car trunk in like Berkeley back in the day. I’m kinda shocked they came up here.
I remember the Michigan Chillers books being really weird, because I only sold them merchandised as souvenirs. I never read any of them, because I assumed they were bootleg. The last c in Mackinac is silent.
"It was a life!" - Most memorable quote from Warriors of Virtue by that princess character.
I live in Michigan and I met the author of the Michigan Chiller's series when I was a kid! I loved them but he never wrote a book about my town until recently. There's a whole store in the author's hometown that is dedicated to Michigan and American chillers.
Dude, theme song from Goosebumps is fire, I even used it as a ringtone for some time.
In Dutch, the word goose bumps is chicken skin.
Look at that Apocolypse hair. I love it.
I often found Shivers biggest lure was how much more dark and less silly Goosebumps could be. That and far often there felt impending fear. I also loved the covers for Shivers - they made me want to buy the books. Goosebumps covers never fully pulled me in. I also remember Shivers did not hold back. In many ways I felt Shivers was the step between reading Fear Street, Point Horror or Christopher Pikes story. Honestly I would love to buy the whole Shivers collection, because I had such great memories from them. One of my favourite was Animal Rebellion due to visceral descriptions in them.
What is the real ending to the Magic Shop Across the Street? Someone will look it up. Not me, but someone.
Anyone read the real ending yet?
Real ending?
@@andrewdiaz3529 It honestly isn't interesting. The main character accepts Jesus into his heart and then he starts to get his life back on track while staying in jail.
As someone from genZ, born in 2007, I can say that Goosebumps is still alive and kicking. As a small child, I adored those books.
"Creepy Clowns of Kalamazoo"
Probably just juggalos that wandered away from Detroit.
Nice video, but I'm a bit surprised you referred to The Bailey School Kids a Goosebumps clone though.
James has joined the cult of RUclipsr Jesus I see. Sick hair though.
I was talking to a friend of mine about books the other day, and how certain genres fall into what I call a premise cycle. I mentioned to him I was re-reading the Shariana series by Terry Brooks, which I like a lot but it's also a obvious knock off of LOTR. However, a ton of fantasy novels where knock offs of LOTR. They had the same basic set up. Quirky wizard guy comes to young elf, dwarf or smurf or whatever, says something about a dynasty, they get a merry band together, and spend the next 300+ pages walking towards the ring in a big magic field, I'm sorry, sword, oh I'm sorry, magic clock only the young elf, dwarf or whatever can touch and make magic come out of. I call it the "epic walk" genre. Then "Harry Potter" came out, and every fantasy novel become chosen one who is a boy goes to magic school, and has two friends, WHO HAVE TO BE A BOY AND GIRL. Etc, etc. Think of all the thrillers that where Di Vinci Code knock offs, all the romances that where Twilight knock offs, all the dystopian novels that where Hunger Game knock offs, and in the 80s and 90s, all the Tom Clancy knock offs, and in the 80s, all the Stephen King knock offs. Nelson DeMille, who I actually do like to read despite all his right wing and macho nonsense in his books, is basically a Tom Clancy knock off author. Genres run in cycles. I can't really blame these authors though. Despite the template they have based on a hit, it's still probably fun to put your original spins on these established things despite it already being done.
The author of the Michigan Chillers books actually visited our school in Grand Rapids, and I remember him being really nice. Never read them but it was cool to have stuff representing my state.
That thumbnail!! I kept singing Little lies by Fleetwood Mac in my head
Please read "Knight to Bishop" by Desiree Michele. It's a horribly written detective novel/vampire erotica shitfest. I would love if you were to make a video on it.
I need more shows like vampire breath. Too many villians are just rude!
Josh Allen is a really talented writer in this genre if anyone is looking for something to pick up. He does short story anthologies.
There was one book I read where the villain was a goosebumps-like series of books and their author
The Mysterious Matter of I.M. Fine, right?
I remember getting almost getting written up while I worked at a grocery store for answering my departments phone with 'Viewer beware, you're in for a scare, hi, I'm R.L Stein'
Methinks you should revisit Goosebumps (or else give the Goosebuds podcast a listen). The books are *at least* as weird as the other late 80s/early 90s properties you mention. Consider, for example, how the origins of Monster Blood get retconned without explanation between books. Plus Goosebumps kids are generally only in danger at the end. Most of the scares are fakeouts. ("Then a ghoulish face emerged from the shadows!" End Chapter One. Chapter Two. "It was my brother in a mask.") And I feel like an adult could read a Goosebumps book in under an hour? In fifth grade I got one from the school library and finished it before we headed back to the classroom.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, by contrast, isn't all that weird? (Fair warning that I'm about to get far too pedantic about a 30+yo franchise aimed primarily at children, so if you've met your quota of white guys' lecturing about things that don't matter, you might want to keep scrolling.) Something that gets lost in discussions of TMNT is that it was originally a *very* clear satire of then-current comic book trends. This is because most people are more familiar with the first adaptation than the Eastman and Laird comics, whose silly premise and grim-'n'-gritty artwork parodied the hyper-violent works popular at the time. In particular, Kevin and Peter took aim at and inspiration from Frank Miller's run on Daredevil.
Like Matt Murdock, the Turtles were New Yorkers who gained superpowers in an accident and then used those powers, along with ninja training, to fight a shadowy organization of martial artists. Whereas Murdock was taught by an old man named "Stick" to combat "the Hand," the Turtles were raised by "Splinter" to enact his revenge against "the Foot." Moreover, the mutagen that transformed the Turtles and the radioactive material that blinded Murdock are implied to be one and the same, and the same truck spilled them in the same near-collision. For bonus points, the best-selling comic at the time would likely have been Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men: a team of mutants. In 1983 (the year before TMNT's creation), that title introduced the Morlocks, a race of (often nonhuman-looking) mutant sewer-dwellers.
None of this is speculation, by the way. Eastman and Laird have cited as influences Dave Sim's Cerebus (1977-2004) (a "mature" black-and-white comic about an anthropomorphic animal), Claremont's New Mutants (1982-1989) (about a group of teenaged mutants), and Miller's Daredevil (1979-1983) and Rōnin (1983-1984) (ultraviolent soap operas about ninjas/samurai in modern-day/near-future New York CIty). All those details that appear random at first glance, the disparate ingredients that form the Turtle soup, are in actuality specific and deliberate references. It's only removed from their original context that the Turtles become "weird."
In spite of this, weirdness has always been their biggest selling point. Nothing exemplifies this better than their name, which reads like some delightfully bizarre tone poem or maybe the opening salvo of a Scrabble game. The "weird" factor was exacerbated by the 1987 cartoon, which turned Kevin Eastman's and Peter Laird's loving sendup of comic excess into a half-hour commercial for the (admittedly awesome) Playmates toyline, whose aesthetic appeal lay in sheer grossness more than anything else. (Don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of the cartoon. It was a favorite of mine and my dad's when I was very young, and it introduced me to the Turtles. I just don't see any reason to waffle about its purpose.)
If the 90s movies seem especially weird, that's because they (like the 2003 cartoon) strike a balance between the Mirage comics and 1987-1996 cartoon. Like the cartoon, their Turtles have distinct personalities with headbands to (not?) match, a love of pizza, and a vocabulary consisting mainly of surfer slang. Like the comics, these Turtles live in a city both literally and figuratively dark, where violence has consequences and curse words ("Damn!") sneak their way between the cowabungas. (Re: violence, it should be noted that, while the cartoon Turtles *carried* the same weapons as their comic counterparts, they rarely *wielded* them due to outcry from parents' organizations. This would continue in the first movie sequel, whose opening sees the Turtles fend off Foot ninjas by using yo-yos, inflatables, and sausage links.) This mixture does result in some tonal dissonance, but the 90s films are probably the purest distillation of the franchise, as they encompass the self-aware grimdarkness of the early comics as well as the marketable archness of the cartoons.
tl;dr: TMNT isn't nearly as weird as Goosebumps. And Goosebumps isn't that weird if you subscribe to the view that many of the books were written very quickly by one guy who probably had better things to do.
I never read Goosebumps but I watch Bailey Meyer's Goosedrunks series where she reads Goosebumps books while drinking and I got the impression they were very weird and goofy and poorly paced and written. They're definitely fun reads, but it's kinda a stretch to call them "good". I'm sure they're great for the target demographic but I can't imagine they have much appeal for adults beyond nostalgia.
@@janNowa Your impression is 100% accurate, and wow, that sounds like a fun series.
Yeeeccchhhh. I grew up in the 70s with the Tom Swift Jr. books. My brothers had collected the whole set, about 33. Very repetitive but still mostly fun with Tom making a new invention and exploring something with it. Saddens me that no one knows about them anymore. Everyone knows the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew but no one knows Tom Swift. Sometimes you can find a few in a used book store.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift_Jr.
I read Tom Swift as a kid too! They were free on our Kindles, I read every one I could get my hands on :) haven’t revisited them since, i wonder how they hold up
@@Billie12208 No idea. I haven't read them since I was a kid. At least there are no sparkly vampires or an apocalyptic Earth in them.
My dad had the entire Tom Swift collection when he was a kid, actually. After he died I donated them, but I read a few when I was younger.
@@JamesTullos Depending on the age of the books - they might be collector items. The older books - 1st eds can fetch a few hundred dollars if in good condition.
I've been searching for a while for a Goosebumps-aper, I'm pretty sure it wasnt Strange Matter but I had found it in a Walden's next to those. This one had something like a angry snow man on the cover but damn it actually turned out to be way more horrifying than anything i'd read up until that point.
Plot: Kids on a field trip get stranded because of a blizzard. All the adults die or get lost and the kids find some kind of weird mansion. It's pretty bleak and hopeless and they never get back to civilization in the end.
Disney has their own Goosebumps take with their iconic villains.
I LOVED fear street as a kid, bc I ofc was a bad bitch who thought goosebumps was for BABIES. I was insufferable but I'm glad I got into those books. I think a review of the cheerleader series or something might be a fun review to do one day with the popularity of the series coming back w the Netflix movies and all
Joke's on you; I'd put The Magic Shop Across the Street on my cringe shelf.
Todd Howard always gives me goosebumps
Could you review the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series by Michelle Paver? It’s a YA fantasy set in Ice Age Europe. First book’s called Wolf Brother
Warriors of Virtue!!!!! Lolol that was my shit.
you saying "get out or die" trigged that episode of south park with pdiddy going "vote or die motherfucker"
great times all around
Bailey School Kids at least had its own formula. In that series, the four Bailey School Kids see a quirky adult (And boy, are there a LOT of them in Bailey City!), think they're something like a vampire, investigate the adult in question, and try to convince the others that they're a monster.... and at the end of each book it's usually left vague as to whether or not the quirky adult IS a creature or not. With a few exceptions like the ghost one.
...or that one scary one where the sasquatch is following them and the ranger says "Huh there's no Mr. Squash here."
Uh oh.... D:
The witch next door sounds like every Christians idea on what paganism is lol. The mom freaking out reminds me of how my mom freaks out and doesn’t believe me when I explain what modern satanism is about.
You can’t just tell adult in horror for children. The horror of being a child is knowing on some level, whether subconscious or consciously is that adult don’t believe them.
That if you where to go to authority and so did the monstrous math teacher. Most of the time the teacher would be given the benefit of the doubt.
I hope you do more "Clones of" videos 💜
It's a good day when we get a Warriors of Virtue reference 😂
The Bailey fucking school kids. I haven't thought of those in twenty years. Longer, even. Wow
I know theres probably a million other comments about this but. Mackinac island huh :Y as a michigander that got me to look up from my drawing tablet and look at the tv
Oh my god I loved the spooksville show
Is it time to write the parody - Lacrosse the Street?
Ah camp nightmare was my favourite when I was little! I don’t think I ever read the book of it but the episode of it from the show had me going wild. The reveal at the end the first time I saw it blew my mind in a way that not a lot did at the time. I also really liked the one where the kid turns into a dog and his parents are like okay with it or something? Idk that one really creeped me out and I loved it
I loved these books,I think I read all of the ~~30 ish books in our school library, great fun as a kid. I would be one of the only kids actually reading in our allocated library time, the rest would just talk because the rules weren't really enforced. I was born in 2003 and this is a school in India btw, the goosebumps books were pretty damn prolific.
There’s also American chillers. They’re like the Michigan ones 🤷🏻♀️
Awesome video ! Luv you man !
I have a deep fondness for Michigan chillers and the spinoff series, American chillers because I learned to read off them.
I had a massive set of Goosebumps books in the 90s. I was 10 in 94 so I was the perfect demographic. I loved reading them. The 90s was nuts with kids shows on cable. Lol
EHRMEHGERD! MEHR FEHRVEHRIT BEHRKS!
The most interesting but also accessible discussions on the nature of divinity I've read in fiction come from an indie rpg maker game that I won't name here bc it's _very_ nsfw lmao
I've no idea what it is, but I'll pretend it's LoQO xD
Anonymous Agony?
How do you feel about Nickelodeon's 'Are You Afraid of the Dark' ?
Loving the long hair on you man. Absolutely keep it, k grew my hair out too and I look so much better personally with long hair.
My favorite goosebumps book will forever be one of the graphic novel triple adaptions. Specifically about the werewolves in Florida? If Im remmebering the location right? Bc I think it almost made that story actually pretty scary to me as a pre-teen. Though I was a big coward for a while so I dont know if that really says anything about the adaption
Is that Werewolf at Fever Swamp? If I recall it was in there, along with that scarecrow one. That one was tamer than the others but since we live close to a forest, that scared me a lot!
@@runawayfromtoads674 YEAH THAT WAS IT! After i typed this comment I looked it up and apparently the guy who adapted and illustrated it is like famous for working with Clive Barker on something as a co-author which honestly. Iconic of him.
You're tempting fate by saying that no one is going to read The Magic Store Across the Street to see it's true ending. Who that poor sucker is , I don't know, but it's only a matter of time.
Also the moment you said that Jesus came down from heaven and broke him out of jail, I knew you were lying because that's just way too entertaining for a book series like that.
James: making us believe his headcanon is actually cannon
I loved the Bailey school books when I was young
There was also a strange matter book about Plant People- like Invasion Of the Body Snatchers, but for kids.
I gotta ask about todd in the thumbnail
Goosebumps horrified me because it was the first thing to introduce me to the concept of bad endings, implied bad cliffhangers, and fates worse than death. I also remember another christian goosebumps ripoff that I can’t remember the title of but I thiiiink it was written by the author of left behind? (EDIT: nope not him, still looking) I don’t remember the books being scary, but I read more than one so I must have liked them okay enough as a dumb 12 year old lol.
Oh my god this is AMAZING
Can you review the Fear Street series next please? 😁
Im not sure if this shared these but.....The Shivers Series and Fright Time Series are two others I've never meet anyone who has read any of these who is my age. Our Doller General was selling them when I was a kid in the 90's! I still have most of the ones I bought my kids read them now.
Clicking because Todd Howard. Let’s see.
If you want a weird christian goosebumps, don't have a pastor come in and fix everything. Have the parents not believe the kids, then something bad happens, and the kids have to try their best, and then they screw it up causing negative consequences for the rest of the book that they have to deal with.
Any plans on reading Kushiels Dart?
Jesus Jailbreak, forever head Canon
I really liked to read the first half of a goosebumps novel before the creepy shit started happening because I liked the scenery of the middle class
Mackinac is pronounced mackinaw but I vibe with the Michigander goosebumps
Me listening to the end of the video: oh hes reading the patron names guess its over *hears him say "Karkat_Kitsune"* OMG HOMESTUCK IN PATREON???????????????????????????????????????????????????kfmdfjgdkjghkrhs
Egg Monsters from Mars was very weird.