Welcome to the inaugural edition of “Product of the 90’s”. A review article that looks back at pop culture hits of the 90’s and sees how well they hold up. Even though I was born in 1984, my fondest memories come from the 1990’s. It was a great decade full of awesome shows, great movies, excellent video games, and so many memorable moments that it’s almost impossible to get them all out in one simple sentence. But for as much as our nostalgia builds up these beliefs that the 90’s was a perfect decade, how much of that really holds up? Does Mummies Alive and Biker Mice From Mars still come off as some of the best kids TV? Has Jim Carrey’s classic films of the mid 90’s still stand as classics? We’ll take one product with each article, see its history, and see if a lot of it holds up. And I figured since this review comes out as we get closer to Halloween, it’s only fitting to look at one of the biggest successes in print media. The series that you know at least one kid who had a couple books of. That’s right, we’re looking at Goosebumps.
PRODUCT: Children’s Novella Series
90’s SPAN: 1992-2000
Part 1: The Birth
Goosebumps is the brainchild of author R.L Stine. Stine had begun his career in writing mostly in humor books for children under the name of “Jovial Bob Stine”. Stine would even be the head writer of the Nickelodeon puppet show Eureeka’s Castle. It wouldn’t be until the 80’s that Stine’s true calling in horror would occur. Stine was a longtime fan of horror, and with his first teen horror Novel Blind Date, he proved to have quite the knack in murdering teenagers… in story form of course. In 1989, three years before Goosbumps, Stine would create the Fear Street series, which focused on a street where evil things like murders, or paranormal acts would occur on a regular basis. It was a success with more than 80 million Fear Street books sold. He also continued work on children’s stories with the Space Cadets series.
Part 2: The Phenomenon
In 1992, the book publisher Scholastic had interest in bringing Stine’s successful horror work to a younger audience. Stine was all for it, but had no title idea, until he had seen an ad on television for “Goosebumps week”. And from there, Goosebumps was born. Stine started with a six-book deal with Scholastic, and released the first book “Welcome to Dead House” in July of 1992. It didn’t exactly fly off the shelves at first, and it seemed like this series wouldn’t be too major. Then the magic of word of mouth helped sell the original books, and with each new book, the franchise seemed to grow like monster blood. It didn’t hurt that they would get artist Tim Jacobus to draw the covers. Each chilling cover was a great incentive for kids to pick the books up.
So, what exactly entails most Goosebumps stories? Well, each book is its own horror adventure, though certain stories would have sequels down the line. Each story has a young protagonist, most often 12 years old. They’d sometimes be moved to a new town, or they’ve gone to camp (and there were a ton of camp books), where maybe there’s a monster terrorizing the place, or the people the character meets may be evil, or possessed, or even really dead. Many stories would have our hero find some sort of mysterious object that would lead to some sort of horrifying adventure. Be it a mysterious slime called Monster Blood that when ingested can turn whatever ate it into a giant, be it a camera that can predict a horrible future to whoever it takes a picture of, or an evil ventriloquist dummy that caused trouble and tried to make kids into his slaves. And if a lot of those sound like old horror movie plots and Twilight Zone episodes, then you aren’t too far off. A lot of Stine’s works do feel like classic horror works done in a newer light for young readers. It’s very much like an introduction to the genre for kids.
The books were a little over 100 pages each, with chapters that often ended with a scary cliffhanger, only for it to be something frivolous in the beginning of the next chapter. Each book would have funny moments, and scary imagery, though never too traumatizing. Though the original book, Welcome to Dead House, is considered by many, including Stine himself to be the one with the most frightening visuals, including some gory details about faces melting.
But what everyone remembers about these books were the twist endings. Like any good horror movie, you need to end with a big shocking twist like the monster is still alive. And Goosebumps had some really brilliant ones. And yes, I’m going to spoil some. For example, the book Welcome to Camp Nightmare where a young boy named Billy begins to notice that all of his fellow campers are mysteriously disappearing. When he stands up to the counselors who he believes are the ones behind the disappearances, he finds out that this was all a test. The kids were never gone. This whole thing was a training exercise by Billy’s parents to get him ready for their trip… TO EARTH! That’s so corny that it’s actually pretty genius. What about My Hairiest Adventure, where the kids were dogs all along? Or the Cuckoo Clock of Doom where the protagonist’s screwing with time caused his bratty devil of a sister to be erased from history? Goosebumps was pretty creative stuff.
The success of Goosebumps was so massive that the Fox Network would come calling. Seeing the popularity of Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? Fox Kids would adapt the book series into a live action television series that aired from 1996 to 1998. Despite being done in Canada on a really dirt cheap budget, it proved to be a massive hit, holding great ratings during the majority of its run. Since many of the stories would be next to impossible to bring into live action, the episodes and stories weren’t done in the same order as the books. And even then, a lot of the choices made no sense. For example, the series did Night of the Living Dummy II and III, along with the later Bride of the Living Dummy, but never did an adaptation of the original book. Another interesting tidbit about the show is that it would feature several successful actors like Ryan Gosling, and Hayden Christensen My opinion on the show is that it’s a classic. It’s cheap looking, has some mixed acting, but it works for the younger audience.
Merchandise for the series was off the charts as well. Everything from toys, board games, pogs, handheld games, apparel. There were even two interactive PC games. There was even a live stage show. And of course, with the success came knockoffs like Shivers, and Bone Chillers. The later of which even got its own Saturday Morning show on ABC. The book series also continued to spin itself off with Give Yourself Goosebumps, a series of choose your own adventure stories, Tales to Give You Goosebumps, which were short story collections, and many more. The original main series would run from 1992 to 1997 with 62 stories under its belt. Stine had made bank with the franchise as well, with at one point making a 41 million dollar income in 1997. He was also named the best-selling children’s book author by the Guinness Book of World Records.
Part 3: The Death
By 1998, the mania of Goosebumps was starting to say cheese and die. Stine ended the original book series, and created a sequel series known as Goosebumps Series 2000. It did okay initially, but began to slow down. By the time the book series reached its 25th book in January of 2000, the Goosebumps series was finally over. Stine continued on from Goosebumps working on book series such as The Nightmare Room, Mostly Ghostly. and would bring his horror works back into television with the series The Haunting Hour, currently airing on The Hub.
Part 4: Does it Hold Up?
I think Goosebumps does hold up. Sure some of the pop culture references are dated, but the core stuff within is still entertaining enough for kids of this generation. It also doesn’t hurt that the books never went away, as the original series would be re-released throughout the 2000’s. And After taking a hiatus from Goosebumps for a decade, Stine returned to the series that made him famous in 2010 with Goosebumps Horrorland, which brought back classic goosebumps monsters, and linked the stories together by putting the protagonists in the haunted theme park. The series is still ongoing with new series like Hall of Horrors, and the recent Most Wanted. Stine also does new stand alone children’s horror novels, which he has reunited with Tim Jacobus to do covers for. And plans are currently under way for a Goosebumps movie in 2014/2015 featuring Jack Black. In 2012, Stine also released Red Rain, his first adult horror novel, which has earned great reviews.
So in the end of it, Goosebumps is a successful product of the 90’s. I think a lot of it has to do with the simple fact that kids love to be scared, and love the idea of the paranormal and the mysterious. And for over 20 years, R.L Stine helped mold generations of horror fans. It’s a franchise that will live on as long as that love for being scared is still around. With that in mind, I give Goosebumps a rating of Totally Rad.
Until next time, 90’s fans.