You wanted to see me, boss?

Yes, Harris.

I have a problem that needs taken care of.

Jimmy Garcia, the rat Fink, has failed to pay what he owes for the last time.

Yeah, boss.

You want me to break his knees, give him concrete galoshes?

I want you to talk to him.

Tell him he pays what he owes by tomorrow or I turn him into AB.

You want me to tell him you can do that?

I'm not going to explain myself to you, Harris.

I'm going to turn him into a bee.

He will regret having crossed me when he is a little bumblebee.

He will have proboscis.

He will make honey.

He will fly from flower to flower.

And everyone will know that the price of failing to pay your debts Dada miela you get turned into a bee.

I don't think I understand.

Don't act like you want to know how it works, Harris.

Then you tell him exactly what I told you.

Oh, you'll find yourself very small and fuzzy.

Hey everybody, and welcome to You Can't Scare Me.

On today's episode, we're doing book #17 Why I'm Afraid of Bees, and with me, as always, my pal Mario.

Hi, it's me.

It's Mario the cool ghoul who's everybody's pal.

Who's also afraid of bees?

Actually, in real life I.

Am you're you're right.

This book was a harrowing read for me.

Just imagining you holding this book just covered in sweat.

It was a grim experience that reminded me constantly of the the lowest points of my life.

And we've also got Brandon.

What's up, Brandon?

Hi, me and bees have a a wary understanding of each other.

You're you.

You're not a bee, right?

I just want to.

Confirm.

Not that you know.

Let's get something.

Let's get one fucking thing real clear.

There are no bees on this podcast, am I right?

Yeah.

If you're a bee, you have to tell me.

We don't have to do shit.

That's that's the law.

Mario, I have something to confess.

Oh my God, I'm a family.

That's OK, It's all right.

It's OK, OK, It's OK.

You're not afraid of flies.

OK, here is the thing.

I encounter many an insect in my daily life.

In my in my work life I encounter many an insect.

And for those who don't know.

He's a bee.

I'm a forensic pathologist.

I'm a bee.

I'm a bee man.

I'm a bee man.

I'm a bee man.

Oh God, this is this is just making me think of Resident Evil.

What was it 6, the one, the one?

Or was it No 7?

Oh, the B man with the B man.

No, the B lady.

The lady, Yeah.

The mom, Yeah.

Oh.

What if What if the B mom from Resident Evil 7 and B Man from

Metal Gear Solid 3:00 What if they what if they got together?

You think they would be?

They would have a thing going anyway.

Moving on to Mario, There's some history we gotta.

Go.

Before we move on, let's actually analyze this.

I think that they probably are compatible.

Emotionally and I just think that they probably want a little bit of variety out of life and and I mean like, I could imagine her being like into like a hive kind of guy.

Well, the pain knows Kung Fu.

Let's be let's start there.

It's true.

I.

Think that they would definitely kiss passionately, but I don't know if the relationship would last beyond a couple of days.

Well.

She's happily married, right?

That's the other thing, right?

I mean that's they got you got to consider that part.

But you know, the premise of the question assumes that like, you know, something happened or like, you know.

I think she likes a a simple home life and I think The Pain is a much more adventurous kind of guy.

I also think The Pain has some real emotional issues he's got to work through.

I mean his name is literally The Pain which is.

Yeah.

A lot to take.

In I think the pain is a little too Looney Tunes to settle down with anybody.

I think he's definitely like a one night stand kind of guy.

Yeah, probably.

He's a he and he's a love him and leave him.

I agree.

I think that's right.

And I don't know, you know, the the mom from Resident Evil 7 would probably just be climbing on the walls all the time.

I mean, if I could climb on walls, I would just do that all the time.

I would just like keep.

You know, I mean, if I had a hive of, if I had a hive of bees living inside of my body, I would also be pretty freaky, I have to imagine.

What about the giant bee from Mario Galaxy?

Wow.

Well.

Bee.

I'm certain that the Internet has started this conversation for us.

If you know, I'm certain they won't finish it, but they will continue.

All right, Mario, we got to.

Say no.

I was going to say I'm Oh, I got the thought.

The bugs, the flies.

Flies are good.

Bees are not.

And I'll tell you one other thing I like.

Flies are OK, Maggots are good.

As a person who cuts the dead into chunks, I commonly see them.

However, you get a you get, you get some beetles in there, you get some spiders and I'm out.

I'm fucking out.

I can't do it.

I'm sorry.

I cannot.

I open a body bag and there is a fucking there is a if there is a crawly thing larger than a dime in there.

It sucks.

I hate it.

I hate it.

What about that?

An entire hive of Carpenter bees.

I wouldn't like that very much either, Wouldn't I?

Wouldn't love it.

We did find a salamander recently.

Cool.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Yeah, we kept that.

Hey, let's talk about history.

But only as it pertains to movies, television and video games.

The only history that matters.

The year was 1984.

The month was March.

Everyone loves March.

We all love that month.

I don't know.

No one who don't like it, Yeah.

Exactly.

Let's talk about movies.

You know what?

Here is some great news.

After two months of not having movies, we do in fact have some movies.

I'm so excited to tell you this.

We have some people care about this.

Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Yeah, it's a movie.

People know I've.

Yeah, I've heard.

I've watched it.

I've.

Heard of it?

Haven't haven't watched it but I have heard of it.

My mom liked it.

The Hudsucker Proxy I.

Need to.

Watch that.

Thank you for reminding me.

There you go.

Look at that.

The Sud pucker hoxie.

The Sud pucker hoxie Hey Brandon, hold on to your horses because we're getting some great puns in literally one more movie title so the.

Sister Act 2, back in the habit.

The Ref starring Dennis Leary, which I saw on Comedy Central, maybe years later.

I thought it was an OK movie in which Dennis Leary breaks into a dysfunctional family's home and has to like be their couples counselor.

It's I haven't watched it in years.

Kind of passingly enjoyed it.

That's that's my great on it.

It's fine.

And here we go.

Here is the pun title.

All right, Silence of the hams.

Oh my God.

Silence of the Lambs parody film.

Is that the subtitle for real?

No, I don't know what the subtitle is.

Let me I I got to check one thing on this here to make sure I'm right in my remembrance.

Silence of the hams.

Yes, it is an Italian film, so, but Billy Zane is the star of it.

Wow.

So I actually kind of feel like I do have to see it.

Yeah, of the Zane star.

Although let me read you the summary from Google.

FBI Agent Joe D Foster Billy Zane solves the case with help from a killer called Doctor Animal Cannibal Pizza, played by Dom Delouise.

This cannot be real.

This movie is not real like.

Budget $3,000,000 What?

What is that?

Why is?

This a different time.

This is unbelievable.

The poster looks incredibly like DSP.

Anyway, John.

Carpenters in it.

What?

Yeah.

What?

OK, we need to watch this OK, Critical response.

The silence of the hams has widely received negative review.

That's 0%.

We.

Have to watch this.

I'm so I can't I'm I'm sold.

I'm fucking so intrigued by this Oh my God.

Time Out London called it a wholly redundant exercise, while Empire criticized it for, quote, a script staggeringly bereft of humor or invention, and a clumsy, amateurish direction that seems largely concerned with focusing on Charlene the Tilton's breasts.

Amazing.

I.

I I have to watch this film.

I think I have to watch this.

Oh.

Buckle up for a bad time.

OK, moving on from that bad parody to a probably better parody.

Naked Gun 33 and One third.

The final Naked Gun film came out this month.

Probably.

Probably not the best of the Naked Guns, but you know.

Make a gun nonetheless.

He's funny.

I love watching Leslie Nielsen do what he does.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But let's I wanna watch Airplane again, yeah?

But forget all of that because I gotta tell you right now, OK?

The biggest movie of the month, no questions asked and no and no rebuttals accepted.

D2 The Mighty Ducks.

Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.

For a second I thought you were going to say D war, which I don't know if you.

No, I do know what D War is, but that's much later in history.

Yeah, significantly later on the road of history.

I remember for my birthday one year, one of my friends gave me it was a Blu-ray of D War.

I hate that I've watched D war like 4 times.

I don't even know why I've watched D war like 4 times like I don't know why I can't explain it.

D2 comma Vampire hunter Colon Bloodlust.

Right, Vampire Hunter D2 The Mighty Ducks.

Yeah.

So anyway, that movie came out this month, which of course is the when they go international and they take on Iceland, our enemies, our classic enemies, Ice.

Our enemies to the northeast.

Right.

I got one more movie on here.

No, I got two more, Class of 1999, two, The substitute.

And I thought really excitedly that it was just class of like 99, which is the movie where Pam Grier plays a Cyborg teacher.

And if you want to see a very funny scene, you just look up Class 99 999 on YouTube and there will undoubtedly be like 1st result, probably the scene where a robot teacher spanks to ruffians like really, really aggressively and robotically.

And it's very silly.

Horrible punishment.

Is that still legal Sir?

If.

It's necessary to keep the children alive.

And then.

However, this is not that movie.

This is probably a much, much worse sequel, but it does have a trailer narrated by Tony J, which is.

Elder God, Elder God himself.

Yeah, pretty fucking wild.

That was interesting.

And then finally Don Bluth Thumbelina came out.

If you've ever seen that Charo is in it.

And if you were in Japan, I've got great news for you.

This month in Japan you could go to theaters and watch Keep on Masturbating.

Nonstop Pleasure AKA serial masturbation disorder.

Why would I pay to watch that when I do that all the time at?

Home I.

Pay for what's free.

I want to stress that as a real movie, it's not me saying like that's not a that's not a oh, those wacky the wacky Japan movie.

Not saying it.

It's just a Japanese pink movie and it has a very silly title, Midnight.

Ukraine.

Midnight Sleepy train.

Yes, TVTV.

It's like a movie, but in your own home.

What happened?

Well, I've got great news.

the United States pay television content advisory system went into effect.

Remember when your TV used to tell you that there is brief partial nudity and stuff like that?

That's when this started and everything went to shit.

Madonna appeared on the Late Show.

I didn't know this, but this apparently was a big deal because she went on one of she she went.

It was one of the most concert events on American television ever to this day.

She swore 13 times during the interview in a profanity laden tirade.

I did watch a clip of it.

She is very clearly high.

She is very clearly absolutely stoned out of her mind.

It was.

However, it's one of the highest ratings of Letterman's late night career.

Robin Williams would later describe the segment as, quote, a battle of wits with an unarmed woman.

So there you go.

Premieres of March 1994.

The Tom Arnold Show, simply called Tom, was premiered and was cancelled mid season.

We'll come back to that one.

In five books, Duck Man appear premiered.

Yeah, like a good duck man.

Weird Science.

The TV show The busy world of Richard Scary.

I think I remember that.

I remember it, it was on Nick Junior.

It was the like it had all the little.

Books.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Also, hey, Ellen.

Everyone loves Ellen, and she'll never do anything wrong.

And that show will run for a long time with no controversy.

But I've got the best news of all.

And this isn't even about this month.

We are one month away from the premiere of Space Ghost Ghost Coast to Coast.

Space Ghost Ghost Ghost Ghost Ghost Ghost ghost ghost.

Ghost ghost, ghost ghost.

Is there a?

Reverb in my brain What the?

Hell, we are one month away from space.

Space.

Space.

Dude, we are.

We are one.

We are one.

Month from space to ghost.

Red leather, yellow.

We are one singular month away from the premiere of Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

It would be so.

Funny if I didn't put any like any of that previous shit in and you just awkwardly say Space Ghost coast to Coast Space Ghost.

Coast.

You got.

Both leather, feather, feather.

But you are not allowed to make any jokes about Space Ghost yet because you got to save them for next month.

We've got to practice our our we each have to take a character who we got to find who's the closest to Brac, We got to find who's the closest to Zorac.

I can do a pretty good maltar.

You can do a pretty good Maltar.

Yeah, I do feel that.

That's Yeah, we can you do.

That I can.

I'm hosting the show I'm.

Trying to remember that.

Space Ghost.

The Brac on the Street, Song on the street, Don't Touch Me.

You said we can't do the jokes, but here we are.

We can't help ourselves.

We.

Can't do it.

Knifing around.

I bet he doesn't even.

I bet he doesn't even use shampoo.

I put anything into my mouth that is given to me, whether it's supposed to go there or not.

Because I'm different, you see, just different.

I don't need intelligence drugs, Tom.

Yeah.

I'm going to have to.

We're we're going to have to think about this trial, yeah.

We got time.

We got time.

Oh.

My God, there's so many quotes.

So many quotes.

No shows were cancelled.

I didn't love you enough, now I must lash out at everyone around me.

Feel my anger, Banjo.

Oh, Kentucky, you shouldn't be out there.

You need to put on some sunblock and a wide rim.

Oh no, why do sharks explode?

I heard them talk.

I heard them talking about your Mama and they were laughing.

They were laughing, man.

Molter Molter's out here smoking.

No, I'm not.

Bull smoker.

OK, there were no shows ended in this.

Way.

Wait, wait.

OK.

Yes, my documentary.

OK, continue.

OK, no shows ended in this month.

Great news and the world rejoiced for only beginnings this month, March, March, the month of birth.

Birth video games.

I love them.

I got a lot.

I got a lot of these, all right.

I had both in my life and on this Word document that I'm looking at Elon.

Musk plays video games.

I hear he's really good, the best.

In fact, some might say he's the best in the world.

#1 gamer worldwide.

Who knew?

Give us money.

On.

That's apropos nothing.

Just give us money.

March 19th, 1994.

The atmospheric music fades in.

Super Metroid, distributed on a 24 megabit cartridge, the largest of its of its time, was released.

In one game you have overshadowed every I'm sorry.

A big, big sorry to Silence of the ham.

Here's the thing.

I've overshadowed every other game on this list because it doesn't get better than this.

I mean, like Super Metroid?

Top of the list.

OK, let's move down Andre Agassi's Tennis Super Famicom.

Wait, wait, hang on a SEC.

You say Super Metroid's better than Andre Agassi's tennis.

Agassi.

Agassi Agusi, you can't.

Agusi you don't pronounce.

His name perfectly.

Don't pronounce it like that.

Is that actually?

It's you see, I'm pretty sure, but Agusi art of fighting two.

We already talked about this one, but it's now available in your house.

Hooray, Castlevania, Bloodlines for a Genesis and Mega Drive.

Oh, there you go.

Hey, stop right there.

That's a double dribble.

The playoff edition is out for Mega Drive.

Virtua Racing like Virtua Fighter but but not but with your cars.

Streets of Rage 3.

Oh.

OK, all right.

Yeah.

Shimoga 10 say 2 for CBA Com.

Shadow Run is here.

People like that game.

I have never played it.

People like it.

Yeah.

Record of Lotus War for a Sega CD.

OK, Panic Bomber, which I don't think anyone knows, but the name is funny.

The name is funny.

The name, I'll grant you that, yes.

Ogre Battle, March of the Black Queen for Sness.

Mega Man Soccer for Sness.

We already talked about it before, but it's out for Sness now.

Yeah, but.

And now forget all that shit.

OK, But except for some Metroid, because Fatal Fury 2 is now out, which means that Wolfgang Krauser will say I'll chisel your gravestone.

Sleep well.

I'll chisel your gravestone.

Sleep well.

Thanks for a good time.

What follows is all of us doing.

What follows is we spent 30 minutes talking about the delivery of this line.

I'll.

Chisel your.

Gravestone.

I'll chisel your gravestone.

Sleep well.

We're going to do another 30 minutes, y'all.

Sleep well.

Sleep.

Well.

This is the first appearance of my Shiranui.

That's a big deal.

More Shiranui.

My Shiranui, perhaps besides Terry Bogard.

Maybe more than Terry Bogard, S&K's most iconic fighting game character and.

For two reasons.

For two reasons.

Her.

Great personality and her nice wardrobe.

And her iconic delivery of Nipon Ichi and no good little boy or girl has ever seen her to quote my to quote soccer eye, creator of Smash Brothers.

My Srini was not included in Smash Brothers because it's a game for it's a game for good little boys and girls.

She's she's got the the hams are not silent with her.

No, I mean, my Churnui is iconic for a number of reasons, let's put it that way at.

Least two, A minimum of two.

Reasons I.

Was going.

To say XCOM came out.

Hey, OK.

And also, unfortunately, history was blighted by the creation and release of Elder Scrolls Arena.

Todd Howard assumes control of time and space.

Maybe this was before he was evil.

I don't know.

I'm not going to find out.

I don't think.

I bet he didn't own his leather jacket yet, I'll put it that way.

Super Metroid, Yeah.

I mean, that's, yeah.

Super Metroid.

Yeah, man, I mean nothing.

What else is there to say?

I repaired a Super Metroid game cart last week.

Cool.

Yeah, it is cool.

And I played the beginning of it again and God I loved that game.

Got the vibes it's.

Really good man.

It's like it was the first game I had on the SNES.

It's very good.

I played the absolute snot out of it back in the day.

I couldn't beat the first area, but I played it a lot anyway.

That was me on the 1st TMNT game.

God.

Not one of the arcade like side scrollers, but the the one where you're like you've got the overworld map and then you go into the little like sewers and stuff and.

Oh, the NES weren't.

That was just rough.

That was rough.

And some of those?

Times are hard.

Just older games are tough.

We haven't developed the motor skills yet, and you know what, that's it.

We can close the Big Book of History, putting a bookmark for April of 994 when we'll talk about Space Ghost.

Finally, I've got the quotes lined up.

Brandon.

Yeah.

I hear you like covers of books.

It's a secret, though.

Yeah, I thought that we, I we agreed that I told you that in confidence.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I can cut this part out if you want.

I mean, well, Mario has heard it, so I'm going to be really shitty about this.

OK, We'll, we'll, we'll put, we'll, we'll put it.

Online, with the caveat that only Mario was allowed to listen to the podcast from now on.

It's OK, It's OK.

I clicked on the second image and I died.

So actually don't worry about it.

I fucking am dead, so don't worry about it.

I'll take this secret to my grave.

Mario Yeah, it would be really.

I don't want to ask you this.

It's kind of, well, could you die right now?

Sure, give you one second.

You can come back after you're dead.

Wait, does Mario?

Think that dying is is coming, is it?

I guess.

He hold on.

I just heard.

Yeah, well, all right.

Not to get too didn't do it, but not to get too into it.

This is what?

Wait, Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait is.

Everybody think dead.

Hold on, we need to know how Mario fucking dies, no?

Wait, wait, we need to know the.

Sound that happens when you fucking jizz your pants.

This is the sound that happens when you die.

Woo woo.

Woo, Yes, Thank you.

Thank you for the future, robber.

No the the the sound of dying is the sound of the guy from blood saying the this.

Is going to be so fun to listen back to your reporting.

Because you are getting clipped.

Hard.

I'm sorry, I'm sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure your mic has like a an auto unclip which instead silences you and so it's very strange.

It's, it's, it's a fun feature of.

It's a fun feature.

It's a fun feature.

Anyway, Brandon, I'm dead.

I'm dead and apparently I've achieved touchless orgasm.

So, so So, let's talk about covers.

Yeah, let's do it.

Touch.

This orgasm, Oh my God, all.

Right, all right.

I just we.

Just got a comment praising us for not talking about Trouble Fluid on the last podcast.

We haven't talked about any.

Fluids yet?

OK.

Yeah.

We, we've been very careful.

We did, you see?

How did you hear?

Sorry.

How responsible we were with the chest hams.

We did.

We were we You could almost not know what we were talking about when we were talking about my Sharingui.

Yeah, it's 2025, baby.

It's a brand new podcast.

It's.

A brand new podcast.

New year, new fear your.

Your kids and your parents will love this podcast.

Yeah.

Now, now, little babies can listen to this too.

All the little babies that grew up in 1994 reading Goosebumps will be able to listen to this.

And no one's going to talk about Dick Willies and Ding Dongs and any of that.

None of that or the stuff that they produce, except for piss.

Piss is fine.

Yeah, piss is.

Fine, I think we're going to.

Our parents do piss.

And this is a fact of life.

You can't avoid it.

Yeah, Even if you try.

Well.

What about shit?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, OK, so piss and shit.

Goosebumps.

So you can't scare me completely.

Fine 2025 piss and shit.

You can't.

You can't.

You can't piss me off.

You can't piss me.

I'm making eye contact with the cover of this book.

Yes.

It's I'm staring deeply into.

It it's disturbing and that haircut is very.

It's a buzz cut.

It's a.

Buzz cut, though it's a buzz cut.

Yeah, it's a pine.

I was.

Writing up the description and I was like, oh, that's.

Why?

I hate that I know this information.

I wish that I didn't know it.

I know that's that's that's inspired, that's Jacob is doing a little link and a nudge at you.

Anyway, let me describe.

This all out.

Yeah, describe it.

The font here is orange on a light yellow ground.

It's like the image image depict.

Yeah, like honey.

The image depicts a bee flying directly towards the viewer with a human child's head.

The head is has a is has a surprised expression, a buzz cut nice and antennae.

In the background is a morass of trees with a gap at the top center revealing an orange sky transitioning to sunset.

The tagline is he's no ordinary human bee ING.

Sucks.

Ass.

They should have not done that.

I've done a different one, extremely simple.

Buzz off would have been fine.

No my.

Knees would be good too.

Oh no, I'm bees.

Oh no, I'm Bee.

Life's hard when you becomes a.

Bee, here's a good one.

Fuck.

Oh no, I'm a bee.

Also, I got to point out to Jim Jacobus.

I, I, I, I respect this cover.

I do think that this cover pops.

I think the the expression works.

Yeah, it's, I mean, as you said, you're staring at it.

So it's it's very.

That is not how bee wings look, and that's not how they connect to bees.

So.

That's also not how they legs look, but yeah, it's.

Fine.

Very spidery.

Spidery.

Yeah, very spidery.

I think it's because he didn't.

He's replaced the bees.

I mean, the head of that bee is its entire body.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Like.

Yeah.

There should be a mid segment here.

There should be a thorax.

That's true.

That's true.

Can we talk about something real quick?

I'm very concerned or confused about the anatomy of Gare bee.

Yeah, like in this story, like, OK, he's he describes at one point his mouth being that of a bee.

Like it's a pretty accurate description of a bee mouth.

And he talks about having the tongue of a bee and slurping up honey like that.

Yeah.

But he's talking.

He's like, that's a pretty integral part of the story.

Well, let me.

His ability to talk.

So I'm.

Going to hit you with this one.

He's a female bee.

So like, I mean, he has a Stinger, so he's a female bee.

So I mean, I guess we don't engage with that conversation.

That one I don't even, I don't even like that's that never registered to me because it's like, you know, there's that part in the in the book where I forget her name, but she says like, Hey, you can, you know, you can become a girl if you want, you know.

You can, she does say.

You know what, You're right, she does say that.

So that's not the weird.

The weird thing to me is like.

There's a lot.

There's a lot.

OK.

I just want to real quick say the entire book changes for me and becomes very, very, very, very funny if the bee that Gary looks like in the story is this bee that we're seeing right here, which is a little human head.

I mean first of all, it can't be because everyone looks at this bee as if there's nothing wrong with it.

And if I saw this bee, I would fucking burn my house.

Down so lose my shit dude, I would fucking lose my shit.

I would literally willingly, voluntarily give myself over to mental health experts because I would be very concerned about this.

I think that the book reads a lot funnier if you can imagine that he's got a bee's body and legs and wings and it's a full size human child's head.

It's just flying around.

Oh, I thought you were going to go where it's like a human sized bee.

Oh no, both would be funny.

Full size human childhood trying to squeeze through the window.

I I want to be his body.

I want to be soul.

I'm a beach.

They call me Buzz Bo.

There's nothing else to say with the cover.

There's.

Nothing else to say.

That's nothing else to say.

It's I think it's OK.

I think it's OK.

Moving on to the UK.

UK.

Hey fuck guys, stop fucking you can't do this.

Why it looks like man?

Fuck.

Oh, the cover.

I thought you were telling us to stop.

No, I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm talking the artist.

I'm talking the artist of the of the UK Goosebumps.

UK Goosebumps because what the fuck.

Yeah, there's no, OK, I'll describe it.

OK, UK cover the new case slime come on is back, but this time there's a twist.

I'm not going to keep doing that.

The traditional goo is there, this time in purple, but nothing is in the goo.

They're out of the goo.

Are 4 BS.

This is the only cover apparently where they're not in the goo.

Where there's no children submerged in goo.

Can we say how fucked up a trivia fact that is that like that was just, that's such a known thing that on the fucking Goosebumps fan wiki, it makes a point.

And this is the only book where they're not in the goo.

It's so messed up.

I mean like somebody.

Had to look at all of them.

Yeah, flying above the goo are four BS, the closest and largest of which has a boy's head.

But the expression's fucked up because he's smiling serenely, as in a family portrait, and a long, curling tongue.

Tongue is drawn awkwardly extending out of his closed lips, just like it's there too.

Yep, it looks like he's vaping.

Yeah, he looks like he's ripping that fat cotton, although these legs look like B legs.

The wings and the.

Wings look like B wings.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he does appear to have AI.

Think he has a thorax.

I think he does.

It's goofy.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it looks bad.

It looks, it looks bad, but you know.

Yeah, what are you going to do?

OK, there's 3 French covers.

I I don't know why the French apparently are afraid of bees.

Most of the most of the most of the foreign covers are just the Jacobus cover reprinted.

But there's 3 French covers so.

This is haunting.

It's MI fi vu de zabe.

Beware of bees.

This cover, canted in a Dutch angle, depicts a red shirted child, hands raised in fear, standing in a giant honeycomb structure.

A giant bee looms over him with a long tongue hanging below its mouth.

I hate this.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean.

I this really gets to me in a in a bad way.

Yeah, I think that this is OK.

It's OK as a as as a horror book for kids.

It's it's.

I mean, I think beware the bees is not really accurate to the I mean, well, I guess I guess it is.

I guess you should beware the bees.

Yeah, I mean like I guess you should We're we're not going to get into it.

But there there's several bees that that trouble him even when he is a bee.

French cover Two Another French cover depicts a close up of a child's face.

The T zone is that of a child of ambiguous gender.

They are sweating and their wide open eyes are focused on a bee perched on the nose.

This is the fear.

I like this.

Is the beef here?

I think this is good.

Yeah, I think this is this is effective.

It is acceptable.

Honestly, yeah, this might be my favorite of them.

I'll be honest with you.

Really.

Yeah.

I mean, I think this pops.

Actually, honestly looking at oh, wait, no.

Is there a better one coming?

Maybe.

Oh, Oh yeah, actually, that's pretty good.

I like the color I.

Do too.

Yeah, that's cool.

Third French cover.

I don't know why there are so many French covers.

And this is recent too.

Yeah, it looks recent, Yeah.

Yeah, in the third cover, a cel shaded boy stands in a field at sunset.

The camera is at ground level looking up at the boy, surrounded by a whirlwind of insects.

Some other insects like fly towards the screen as in a squadron.

They are lit from below by the orange of sunset.

The sky above is pales to purple or darkens to purple.

The colour is pretty effective.

It's.

A great cover.

The colours are The colours are awesome.

Can we?

Please read the title of the book.

Yes, days on Sect.

Days I Insects, insects, insects.

Insects.

There you go.

There it is.

There's on sick lay on lays on falls to Reeves.

Lays insects terrible.

Yeah, I would the only.

Thing is that this cel shaded kid, everything else looks great but he like he looks like he's been taken out of it.

Yeah, it's weird.

He looks.

Yeah, I'm.

Cool with it.

It's very, I don't know, they're all that's kind of the style of a lot of Christian media back in the day, kind of used to it, that kind of cartoony like look, but.

I'll just say this, I would hang out if not for the bees that hang out in the location this is taking place in.

Yeah.

It looks fun.

You know what it kind of looks like Evangelion like in those scenes where they're.

Kind of.

Yeah, kind of the war area.

And you can hear like the cicadas in the background.

Yeah, not the war area, the area where the kid is playing war.

I forget his name, but yeah, anyone who knows Evangelion, you know what I'm talking about.

Moving on to the merch merchandise.

I love merch.

1.

Oh fuck off.

This is not very good.

Yeah, the shirt just has the Jack Jacobus cover art.

Jacobus.

He's with the tagline.

He's no ordinary human being.

Overlaid the back of the title and #17 they didn't try.

Why wouldn't you just swap?

Why don't you?

How about be afraid?

How about that?

How about that one for you?

I think even that's too much.

Just have the the the just the bee, just the picture that's.

It actually the picture is fine.

Yeah, how about he is a fucking bee?

Oh no, I'm bees.

Oh no, I'm bees.

I just want to real quick praise Restraint for not doing a reference to the Wicker Man.

Just just throwing that out there.

Very proud of us.

Can you get like a button that has a guy whose name I can't believe?

I can't remember screening bees Nicholas Nicholas Page.

Can you get a button and just insert it whenever?

Just have just just clip it like before and right at the right only for the word bees.

Oh yeah, only the word bees.

Not the whole thing around it, just the word bees.

Bees now.

You got me thinking of Nicolas Cage as being the head of this bee.

We need to Commission Jacob.

OK.

Oh my God.

Fucking I would fucking watch.

The movie adaptation of this, wherein the kid is played completely straight by Nicolas Cage, I would watch.

That we missed an opportunity to do the because there's no TV episode associated with this book.

We should have just watched Wicker Man and then talked about it the entire ending.

Well, I have grim news about what one person in this podcast decided we should do instead of watching ATV episode, but I'll let him hold that close to his chest if he wants to, OK?

We I thought we should try to watch the Bee movie.

I had that idea and I kept it from you guys because I thought it was too torturous.

It was.

I was, you know, I watched that big Joel video and I think that he's just a very charitable guy and didn't make it sound as bad as it is.

I well, let's just talk about it briefly here.

The B movie, man, we watched 30 minutes of it and then we couldn't go any further.

We tried, we really did.

It's, it's the worst part about it is that there's like they keep saying the lions with the emphasis and timing of comedy jokes, but they like, they're so not funny.

They don't even read as jokes the majority of the time.

There's a couple of funny ones in there.

The majority of them are just so, so bad.

And I, I, it's like, it feels like, like, I don't know, it's like, it's like they're doing the comedy version of gaslighting.

Like this is funny.

They're not, they're just saying words.

These are just words that they're doing like weird character development and they're saying it like it's a joke.

I, I just don't understand.

It hurts.

It hurts.

So we had to stop.

We went much longer than I thought we would as well 'cause it was, it was not good.

Patrick Warburton, though, he's a real workhorse.

Does it?

Does the work.

He's he gives some unhinged deliveries like he he gave it 110%.

It's not his fault.

You know, the problem may have been the format that you decided to watch B movie.

Have you have you considered, and this is real, I'm not joking, If you have AVR headset and you download the game Beat Saber, you can play the entirety of the B movie in Beat Saber.

Have you considered doing it like that?

I no I did not know that was an option, but I guess I guess it it it is I I wonder about the format.

I wonder.

I wonder about the.

Format.

I wonder, like, do you, are you playing the movie?

Yeah.

So I think that's probably the entire movie.

They did that with Shrek too.

That's probably a pretty good way.

That's certainly art.

Experience it.

That is art.

At least it's art, yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

Art.

Hey.

Speaking of art, though.

I love art.

A second cover, a second shirt I'm looking like this.

The second shirt I'm looking at, I'd wear this like.

Actually kind of sick.

Yeah, no, the second shirt is good.

OK, so shirt too.

A more interesting design features a spiral of bees increasing in size towards the outer extremity, each with a stylized human face bearing a surprised expression based I'm sure, on the Jacobus cover, but with just the word goosebumps visible.

The shirt material the is white and grey tie dye of each of the bees is the exact same image but like it in different They're rotated differently and they expand in size towards the viewer.

It's like AII don't know the the terminology for it in graphic design but it looks great actually.

I mean.

Pretty cool, yeah.

Like if you took Goosebumps off of it they would still be pretty strong.

Yeah, the word goosebumps.

Like I don't even really like tie dye things, but the grey white works for me.

And the spiral bees.

I mean, genuinely and ironically, I'd wear this.

Yeah, it's good.

Yeah, it I would say it's maybe even too good considering the quality of the book.

Yeah, it's definitely better than this book deserves, but yeah.

But hey.

Don't worry too much, I guess the next piece of merchandise just goes ahead.

And shut the fucks off.

What is with this book and just puns?

There's just nothing but puns.

Yeah.

I mean like, I think bees sort of invite it.

Yeah, I guess.

Please describe what the what horror we are looking at currently.

What horror you are looking at currently is the Visa card I think.

Yep.

Yeah, so the Visa card is meant to look like a credit card.

It's based on Visa.

It's got three.

Let's see, a truly strange object meant to resemble a credit card, or I suppose a debit card for the Goosebumps Bank.

The front has three colored stripes and the Jacobus B with a child's head as well as fake credit card numbers are on the front.

The text on the back reads The Visa card is just is the card that lets you be yourself.

It says you don't have to trade places with anybody because you're OK just the way you are.

So believe in yourself and carry Visa.

It gives you the credit you deserve.

I don't know what this is for.

I can only imagine the reaction of any person to whom this card was presented would be utter confusion which could not be dispelled by any explanation a child could give.

Or probably an adult either.

Also, I want to point out that is not the message of this book.

I I really want to stress that sounds great on paper, but it is not the message of this book.

That's not what this book is about at all.

We'll get to it, but the lesson is fucking terrible.

I want to stress.

But yeah, it's not a fucking get it this card.

Who would?

Think there is a lesson?

Who would have this?

Who would have this?

What is the purpose?

It's it's even it's for it's even misprinted.

Like look at the it's offset.

It's like the the the edge on the left is like much smaller than the one on the right.

So it's like whatever and the card stock isn't even.

It's not like AI don't understand why anyone would want this.

I don't.

It's just like one of the bullshit things you got in in the like goosebumps Loot Crate that they that they gave out like fucking like club thing.

I don't fucking know.

I, I, I couldn't imagine spending money on this.

So like like.

What I do know is there is a another image in this folder I.

Don't like it?

Another, and then there's a secret double extra image because I'm excellent at multitasking.

So they made a hat.

This is a black Trekker's cap with a patch depicting the B child, a red Goosebumps logo, and the tagline No Ordinary Human Being.

I can't imagine anyone wearing this.

However, I think it looks pretty good.

They did a Whoever did this thing did this patch did a pretty good job on it.

I the level, the layers of irony it would take for a person to wear this are further than I can imagine.

You know what I mean?

Like it would either have to be a person who was so completely removed from it that they have no idea what this fucking hat is, or someone who so knows this hat is that they are like, I'm going to pick the the fucking B goosebumps hat, you know, like, you know what I mean?

Like yeah, it exists in two extremes.

Or we got a discord.

Okay, thank you.

It has been busy.

Posted a picture of like B.

Of Nicolas Cage yelling as a bee.

From face off, I.

Believe, you know, the cage face, It's the one where his mouth is open in chalk and his eyes are are wide, wide open, tiny pupils.

I can't remember what this is from.

I think it's face off, face off.

Yeah, yeah, and he is.

But he is on the bee.

But in addition to that, it seems like we have some trick or treat Studios reveals their new Goosebumps figure packaging.

Have you seen that was the thing I sent?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did you?

See this?

Yeah, yeah, Someone on a blue sky, I think it was Spider High.

Dude they fucking do look really good.

I just looked at the mud monster, it looks excellent.

Yeah, again another example of merch that does not befit the quality of the source material.

So it fucking sucks when I have to buy all of these because you can build a God damn curly.

Yeah, you build the curly.

I fucking hate that I buy all these.

God damn it, it's very funny, but.

Also shout out to Brandon's brother, who for Christmas got me a statue, an authentic of the time figure of the mud man, complete with goosebumps.

Sound effect generator.

Yeah, yeah, It sits on my desk now.

It's it's observing me as we talk.

Do we speak?

Do you have batteries in it?

Can you play it for the?

For the battery that is in it died.

Oh, alas.

I will get batteries for it so stay tuned.

But FYI, the the toys are it's Night of the living Dummy.

It's You can't scare me.

It's the Curse of the Mummy's tomb.

2 bangers back-to-back.

Yeah, the scarecrow Walks at midnight and the haunted mask completely.

And the haunted mask comes complete with the fucking the stick with I forget.

Carly, Beth.

Carly Beth, Carly Beth's head on it.

Yep, that's incredible.

They all look really good, like really authentic to the cover.

They they all look great.

I I must say and the fucking if you buy them all.

And curly.

Build build a Curly and he looks fantastic.

Officially, it's called Build a Bonehead.

I'm going to have to unfortunately buy all of these.

I I think I might be with you.

How much do they cost?

They are more expensive than you'd like to think.

Oh, $25 each AC.

AC AC indeed AC indeed.

Well, well.

Well, just got to shuffle off the Buffalo.

It's not, I mean, I'm, I'll, I'll shuffle off the Buffalo.

That's not going to stop me.

It's not going to stop me.

It's just going to make the purchase even more irresponsible.

Like I'm.

Just going to make him an offer he can refuse.

All right.

And with that, we do have a little bit of a we got a, we got a wonderful little e-mail from a listener.

Friend of the show.

Friend of the show Josh Moniz, who was really kind and sent us a very, very long explainer on some of the legal happenings that were going on with a behind the scenes and Goosebumps.

And a lot of these happen from so basically, and thank you Josh Mooney so much for writing all of that.

So basically the owner of the rights to Goosebumps is Parachute Press and Parachute Press.

It's basically the Steins and I think one other person.

And so they had the rights to the Goosebumps for the longest time, but then they made a deal with Scholastic for, I forget exactly what the the terms of that deal was, but basically Scholastic feels felt like at a certain point that they, that parachute press had gone back on that deal.

And so that resulted in a lawsuit and a bunch of other lawsuits that were reactions to that lawsuit, etcetera, etcetera, until basically a bunch of information came out.

And so here's that information.

One Stein would write a 10 page outline of a Goosebumps story.

Parachute claims.

This includes the title, story concepts, each chapters plot outline, characters, and key dialogue.

2 The hired writers would flesh out the 10 page outline into a full 100 to 120 page book, writing as they saw fit.

3 Stein would review the finished manuscripts and suggest changes before it goes to print.

Scholastic claims his input was so minimal he was basically a passive aggressive editor.

Parachute claims he made numerous changes to ensure his tone, style of humor, and approach to horror was complete, even discarding or rewriting some manuscripts himself.

For he wrote some of the early Give Yourself Goosebumps books because he had written previous Game books but didn't write the majority of them.

He also didn't write any of the Ghost of Fear St.

books or Ghost of Fear books.

He had he had with a different part.

Oh my God.

So yeah, it's very interesting.

I I actually saw that there was a a YouTube video that was making the rounds like earlier, like last week.

The timing was really funny.

But yeah, that talked about basically all this stuff.

It's a really good YouTube video.

I'll, I'll go ahead and link it in the description.

But yeah, it it the whole background with what's happening at this point as this book is being written and Parachute Press is kind of like figuring out the logistics of making it work.

You know, I can imagine, you know, I think Brandon, we've you mentioned specifically I think a few times in these podcasts that like, you can't imagine like Stein like constantly like writing these out and banging these out and just like it being a fucking nightmare.

So some of the quality is not to be like, you know, it's not like a surprise that the quality is kind of dropping off around now, yeah.

I mean, Stein, for his part, apparently, again, according to what Josh has sent us, has in the past said that he did not have a ghostwriter, right?

So that it's on record that he did for legal documents.

But he has never said that he he he did in public.

Like that was another stipulation that the the YouTube video that I've watched also made.

Like Stein has maintained that he did not have a ghost writer which is weird because in the legal documents like even parachute press was like no he did have but I think they called them, I forget the exact word but basically like helpers like like not researchers but like assistants writing.

Assistance.

I mean it, it is, it is as they themselves acknowledge.

It would be impossible for RL Stein in the height of Goosebumps popularity, as he was touring and giving speeches and talking and giving interviews.

It would be impossible for him to write one book a month.

It, it just, it just isn't possible.

I know these books aren't short, but they still would take work, you know?

I mean they would take more than a week to write and he has a very limited time.

I just it it is not hard to believe that someone else in some way contributed to this.

Right.

And we're going to get into it because there's some stuff in this book where it's just.

Like this doesn't feel like it's written by Earl Stein at.

All no, no, no, not at all.

It's it's actually interested in things that are very not like, not in Stein's wheelhouse.

I agree completely.

Like this is this feels very like kind of there has been body horror, but like not like Cronenberg body horror.

This is this feels much more like, what did I say it was when we were talking earlier?

It's basically like it's, it's like Star Trekkian versus like something like.

Well, it's not even, it's more CFI beyond even subject matter.

The way this book is written does not feel like the way the other books are written.

And I, I don't know that I exactly have a way to put that into words.

But if you have like we now have read 16 books allegedly by RL Stein, you kind of get a feel for RL Stein's voice.

And I don't really think this is his voice.

I got it.

I got to tell you.

With that in mind, should we start talking about this book?

Let's.

Go ahead and start going through the book.

We've talked about it so much already.

Who has the first few chapters?

I have the privilege of talking about the first eight chapters of this book.

Huzzah.

Huzah, let's begin chapter 1.

The a terrifying homunculus wearing RL Stein's skin opens with a threat to those readers with an actual fear of bees, and I close the book forever.

Sorry guys, I didn't read this one.

I was too scared by the promise that this book is in fact full of bees.

If RL Stein is constantly telling us to beware, like sometimes you got to take him up on that, you know?

Sometimes.

Thanks.

For the warning man, I'm out.

You're you got to do sometimes you got to do it for yourself.

That's all I'm saying.

You sometimes.

Got to read for yourself, you know?

Exactly.

You're worried about your health?

OK.

A fear of bees, by the way, is apophobia, but it is also called Melissa phobia, which is funny if you think about it.

I'm afraid of Melissa.

Yes, if you know anyone named Melissa, think about it like that.

It's funny.

Gary Letts.

I'll take a look after any joke.

It's funny.

It's funny.

Please fly.

Hey, I told you it's funny.

Gary Lutz, who is 12 years old.

Huzzah.

Wait, that's the most evidence we have that this is an RL Stein?

See, I do think I do think that here's what's weird.

The book doesn't open with Gary Lutz saying he's 12.

It's like really shoehorned in a random line of dialogue.

Like it's like his mom says something about like, you're 12 years old.

That I'm imagining.

RL Stein like looking at the ghost writer and like reading the draft and being like, well, the kids need to know that he's 12 years old.

Yeah, he didn't say he's 12 years old.

So why?

And then as hey, I can't but notice he didn't put that he's 12 years old in here like.

Do I need to or?

I'm going to find it.

I definitely made a note of it.

I made a note actually.

Oh, here it is.

Here it is.

Here it is.

On page 4, a whole one page into the actual story, we get his neighbor.

His neighbor, Mr.

Andretti says, is the FBI recruiting 10 year old spies these days.

And he says this remark really steamed me because Mr.

Andrey knows perfectly well that I'm italicized letters 12 years old.

And I feel like this is an editor's note, you know, All right.

So Gary Lutz, who is 12, informs us immediately that he is afraid of bees.

Relatable, correct, justified.

Who can blame him?

He said me unbiasedly.

We learned quickly that Gary has depression.

He stares at himself for hours pondering why he has no friends.

He's afraid of dogs, he's afraid of other kids, he's afraid of swimming, and he's afraid of his nine year old sister Chrissy's cat Clawed.

I guess it's a funny kind of clawed is funny.

I thought it was claws.

Claws.

Sorry, claws.

Yes, you're right.

You're right.

Claws.

Pond.

I mean, either way, pause pun in either case, it is a pawn.

It's it's a claw pun.

It's a claw pun.

That's the point.

It's a claw pun.

Mario, do we need to say I didn't read this book?

It's.

So.

Fucking funny that we did.

We actually legitimate listeners.

We actually did like even like as a joke vocal warmups before this podcast and this is my far been the most vocal fuckups from Mario I've ever heard of.

The Space Ghost 1 is That was that was.

This one is just because I I genuinely forgot the name of the cat.

That one's on me.

It wasn't a fuck up.

I genuinely forgot the name of the cat.

Look, I do not blame you for shunting the information garnered from this book.

I didn't.

I didn't have it written in this part of the book summary because I didn't think the cat was important and then the cat turns out to be sort of important.

So I did write it down later, but I was just preemptively giving that information anyway.

Worst of all, forgetting the cat, forgetting the sister, forgetting the dogs and the kids and swimming.

His greatest fear is bees.

His neighbor, Mr.

Andretti, is, would you believe it, a beekeeper.

Wow.

No way.

What are the odds?

The odds are just wow.

Gary goes to spy on him, as one does.

And I actually understand this because as a person with a fear of bees and I think anyone with a fear of anything there is like a need to be constantly aware of what's of the of the thing you're scared of, right?

Like if.

Keeping tabs on it.

Right.

Like if I live next to a literal beehive and I was afraid of bees, I definitely would be constantly looking over and being like, OK, where are the bees at now?

Like what's, what's the bee situation over there right now?

He when he does this, Gary discovers that Mister Andretti is 100% covered head to toe in bees, which is fucking insane.

Like from his bee tomb and Treddy weren't scary that the bees are out of control.

I'll hand it to the ghost writer.

A hell of an opening image.

Chapter 2.

Unless there are any further comments on that.

Nope.

OK, just that, just that the tone of this book is is pretty wild considering RL Stein was supposed to have been revising this to keep this in line with his way of writing and this is way too much stuff happening way too quickly.

I would agree.

I think that even if it was just the final image of Mr.

Andretti being covered in bees, that is already more than happens in most first chapters of the Goosebumps book.

Yeah we need we need 6 chapters of him.

Like having a bad relationship with his friends and family.

Boringly, we need 6 chapters about.

How Deaf People Secretly Run the World Chapter 2 Gary Runs home only to discover that Mister Andretti is just a psychopath who covered himself in bees to make Gary stop being a creep and And yeah, OK, cool.

That's what people do that right?

If you were like, you know when your neighbor like it was looking in your yard too much so you fucking cover yourself in bees.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Mr.

Andretti mocks Gary by explaining how bees work.

I guess another reason I think that RL Stein didn't write this is that there are several parts of this book where the author talks, includes some bee facts.

And that one, I think, is we all listen, we all got to make that page count work somehow.

I get it.

I do.

I understand.

And if it's 994, I bet you got a copy of Zoo Books lying around that you can just pull from.

But man, I just fucking every time one would come up, I'd be like, all right, put on your fucking learning caps kids, because we're going to talk about.

What?

I I have a bunch of moments in of that in happening in my chapter are my chapters.

It's very it's very overt.

It's very funny.

Oh, it's blatant, but the.

The the thing that I got from that was it's it's like it's like a it's a bad Animorphs where it's like Animorphs does conveys its animal facts very naturally and through the kids like finding them out and like it like be by becoming the animals.

And which is kind of what happens here when Gary eventually becomes a bee and he's like using his tongue and realizing, wait, oh, the tongue is weird.

Oh, I can see like behind.

Me.

Because I yeah.

And it's like, wow, this is all nuts.

But then some of the information that is just like, I don't know what, it doesn't come naturally.

He has to remember from like a.

He's like, he read like a.

Yeah, I remember in the book I read about bees that said this.

Yeah.

It's just, you know, again, you got to do what you got to do.

Get that paper, my friend.

So Carrie's mom comes home and makes him a sandwich.

Gary tells us his favorite lunch or snack is APB and J and Taco chips, which is.

I love.

Taco chips.

So that's Doritos, right?

I, I, yeah, I have to think it, it, it is either, it is either Doritos or it's tortilla chips.

Like I, I don't know, it's a very 1994 way of saying that.

Yes, but apparently 941994 now I.

Did I did?

I did.

I did that on purpose.

Yeah, Betty bought her.

Beth bought a bit of butter, but she says the buckers.

You know you can't win.

I fuck it up, get up and I'll.

Give I get a bit of.

Better do it good and.

That I make my batter better.

I do it well and then suddenly I'm also the villain.

I do it well.

I was praising you, looking for an opportunity to say so Betty bought her, bought a bit of better.

Butter better.

Than her bitter butter.

Wait, did they?

Well, that one.

What is that one chip?

The the really spicy one.

Takis.

The Takis.

Gary loves Takis.

Gary loves Takis.

There is no universe in which Gary is interesting enough to like Takis.

There's there's no universe, you know?

Gary doesn't like spicy food, you know?

He's probably one of those people who's like, oh, ketchup's too spicy.

Yeah, I'm gonna be honest with you right now.

I'll say it here because it is actually relevant.

So.

So they're out of they're out of Jelly, apparently.

And Mom suggests honey.

Gary has a has a very normal reaction to honey because he's a very normal guy.

Gary sucks.

I really hate Gary and like I feel for Gary because he very clearly is depressed.

However, he is so miserable and so bad at everything that I hate him a lot like.

His reaction is to fall backwards onto the ground and rise.

Yeah, no, for real.

Like when when the when it's honey, Gary very basically approaches the point of shitting his pants.

Like which listeners if you have not tried a PB and honey?

Sandwich.

It's delicious.

It's so.

Yeah, it's good.

I, oh, back in the day, I used to, my mom would get the honey with the honeycomb in it and just a toast in that with a little bit of the beeswax on it.

Oh, it's so, yeah.

Toast, toast, some honey on it.

Oh, you can't go wrong.

Oh yeah, Oh yeah, Gary needs to learn, and perhaps he will.

Powerful stuff.

Gary decides to mope around the school where he finds himself getting picked last for softball.

But I can't help but note that he is picked like you know what I mean.

He is picked for softball.

We learn that there is a special Gary Lutz rule 4 strikes you're out, which he says it as if it's making fun of him, but I've got to say is actually pretty considerate.

Like they.

Yeah, they've actually said OK, Gary, we know that you're bad at softball.

So to allow you more time to play this game with us, we will let you go an extra time changing the rules of this game for you and you only like that's kind of go on the extra mile.

I got to tell you like, I mean, I OK as it.

Turns out there is some jeering involved.

I mean, they make fun of him.

I'm not saying it's done with the right.

But for kids, I'm with you like kids are.

Cruel kids are.

Cruel.

Yeah, it is more.

It is more considerate in its cruelty than most kids are capable of.

As it turns out, Gary just kind of sucks at everything.

Softball goes badly in predictable ways.

But worse yet, on the way home, Gary encounters the neighborhood rowdies and they're hanging out knuckle suppers.

I did not write any of their names down so.

It's three boys 3.

Boys and Yeah.

No, you could think about it this way.

He's great at sucking.

That's true.

I will actually get to a thing.

We're coming.

We're 1 chapter away from a thing that I think the book does poorly.

No.

He said yeah, In Chapter 3, Gary returns from his brutal beating, which sounds surprisingly Stephen Kingian.

I mean, he has like a bloody nose and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, it's very, it's Monster Blood 1 like.

Yeah, yes, I guess it's not fully Stephen King because, like, the bullies didn't literally stab him to death, but you know, it's bad for Goosebumps.

Yeah, there's.

Blood.

Usually in the Goosebumps book, when there's blood, it's like, oh, that's kind of.

We learned that Gary.

Literally cannot even open a jar of peanut butter.

Which is what?

Like.

I like what was it a different?

Like they make that shit specifically openable for children.

They're easy open like.

Unless peanut butter came in a very different jar in 1994, I cannot fathom how this is possible.

He takes a minor tug on the jar and then falls backwards and stops moving.

Like I he.

Tried he.

He really quickly tries to do it, jerks his hand and smash cut.

He's in the hospital with a full like body.

He's in a full body cast.

He he turns lid and in this cuts my arm fell off.

He touches.

He touches.

Peanut butter jar next shot in traction.

Yeah, yes.

No next shot of gravestone.

Chisel your gravestone.

Moms like you choose.

Eat well.

This gravestone just says Nerd nerd.

Honestly, here's the thing.

I think Wolfgang Krauser, the boss of Fatal Fury 2 who says that line would indeed right nerd on that.

Right.

And then right below it'd say question mark, question mark, question mark to who cares?

So.

Just imagining a 2D fighter where we've got Krauser on one side and then like a pixel of a beat with like.

A beat.

Then you as soon as the mat it's like 321 go immediately Krauser with.

Just it's also important that one of Krauser's attacks is Kaiser Wave and he just goes Kaiser.

OK, so anyway, after dying trying to open this Jarred peanut butter, Gary decides once again that he needs to leave the house to go mope and decides to ride his cool bike.

There he encounter while riding his bike.

He encounters Judy and Caitlin, the former of which he has a long time crush on and who once once smiled at him.

That's everything.

That's how you know the Dustin.

Trying to show off, Gary is struck by a car and killed.

The world rejoices that at the death of this pathetic loser, loser, loser.

Let me retake that.

Give me the gift of a grip top sock, a drip drape ship, ship the.

World rejoices at the death of this pathetic loser.

Chapter 4 Surprise Ghost riders can be liars too.

Gary lives, but he wrecks his bike on a lamppost.

Injured and mocked by a girl who doesn't ever think about him, Gary goes home to take solace in the one place every emotionally vulnerable, lonely male can find belonging.

Internet message boards about video games.

This was the the most like accurate thing.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

Of course, like he, he went to his room and and logged online and I was like, oh, yeah, OK, yeah, yeah, someone knows.

I don't think RL Stein would know this.

Was also the most not RL Stein part of this book as well.

Whereas like RL, Stein has no fucking idea what this is.

Absolutely no clue.

It's OK though, it's 1994, the Internet was just fine back then.

Gary wants to play Monstro.

A cool game where warrior must escape planet Monstro, but he needs tips and tricks.

He heads to drum roll please computer note on electronic bulletin board and gets unhelpful advice from Ted in Ithaca.

And the advice, by the way, is to stab the dragon between the eyes or something, which it's like, OK, so here is here is what I think is bad about this book from like a moral sense.

I think that Gary should have at least been good at video games.

Yes, like.

He should be good at something.

Like give him yeah.

And that's what, that's the thing that I thought was going to happen.

Sorry to cut you off, but like.

No, no, go ahead.

I thought that the, and I was just about to ask, like, did anyone else think the twist in this was going to be he was going to be good at games?

And then the IT turned out that when he was turned into a beat, it was a simulation and he was playing a game.

So I thought that the lesson of this book, the the take away of this book would be, you know, Gary learns to appreciate what he is good at instead of, you know, like the things about his life that are good.

For example, Yeah, he's good at video games.

We later learned that he is good at math.

But the weird thing is that's not the lesson of this book at all.

Or that the end of this book does not come about with to him.

Like realizing that his that he was, he doesn't suddenly realize that being kind of a nerdy guy is fine.

That is not the lesson of this book.

I don't know that there is a lesson.

I would say there is a lesson, there is a lesson.

I would say there very much is like.

Weirdly enough, I agree with both of you somehow.

I mean, the lesson is bad, but I do I do think that this book is trying to do the I mean, I mean, there's literally it's.

One of those things where it's saying something, but I don't necessarily think that it's trying to say it.

I mean maintaining a status quo.

Here is the thing, there is literally an an item called Ibiza, which is your permission to be yourself.

So certainly someone thinks this book had something to say.

It's true.

Be himself, though?

Well, we'll get to do it, but he's a different person.

That's what I'm saying, that hey, hey, hey, we got there.

We did it.

We've arrived.

He's not being himself, he's being something else.

He's improving.

That's different.

Well, improving is one word for it, anyway.

The while on the bulletin board, Gary discovers a curious advertisement.

Take a vacation from yourself.

Change places with someone for a week.

Chapter 5.

Chapter 5.

Gary presses the Enter key.

That's the fucking first sentence.

Incredible the.

Excitement is palpable.

I am living.

Person to person vacations, funnily enough, P2P vacations.

If you think about it, they offer vacations from yourself.

Gary thinks that sounds crazy, but interesting.

At dinner, Gary's life continues to suck, but the thought of escape gives him hope.

Gary goes to bed or his foot touches something.

This something is real and it's very scary.

A very scary event is about to happen.

Chapter 6.

It's a Brandon.

What do you think it is?

It's a mummy.

It's a mummy.

It's Mommy.

Yeah, there's a mummy in his.

Room.

It's a mummy.

That would be good.

A mummy would be nice.

I think it's I think it's a gremlin.

I think it's gremlins.

Gremlins.

What if it's?

What if it's Satan?

What if it's Baphomet?

What if Satan is there?

I think.

Is Satan real?

What if the if?

I don't think that Goosebumps ever touches in the existence of Satan, But I think it would be.

I think it would be a curious and exciting choice to do it right now.

If you can believe it, there's a rat in Gary's bed.

Oh my God, that's actually pretty scary.

That is scary, but lower your expectations, Bob, because it's just a rubber rat.

It's a rubber rat, which which apparently, apparently it's it's clause's favorite toy.

I don't think that rubber rats are cat toys.

I don't think that's, I don't think they are, but.

I've seen.

I've seen.

I have seen rat shaped toys or mouse shaped toys for.

Cats, not rubber.

Yeah, but rubber is not the text because I'm imagining that this author who air they may be means like the Halloween decoration, you know, prank rubber rats that are like large and that to me is not a cat toy, but I could be.

When this was described in the book, I thought of the the classic, like black rat with the red eyes.

That toy.

Yes.

So yeah.

Yeah, in that way.

Yeah.

That's not that's not a cat toy.

I could be totally wrong.

This author may be coming from a very different place.

I'll, I'll grant them that.

Gary hears his sister mocking him, but decides not to thump her because, and this is real, he believes he'll probably get beat up by a nine year old girl.

Gary.

Oh, is it fucking?

Worst who opened the the fucking peanut butter?

Oh yeah, his sister did.

His sister.

Did Chrissy came over and opened it for him so.

Yeah, his sister could be.

He could, you know, she could.

She could kick his ass.

Yeah, Gary heads to Peer Person to Person Vacations, which is located in a very unassuming building.

The lady there, Miss Carmen tells.

I kept bringing Miss Karen and I and I had to go back and change that in my mind.

She tells them all about it.

It's body swapping.

You kind of kind of get it.

I'm guessing you understand the premise like, And she goes for the hard sell.

Gary vacillates, who would want to swap bodies with him after all, but gives her his details anyway, and she tells him she'll call him with any offers.

On the way home, Gary is again beaten up and resolves to return tomorrow to swap bodies immediately.

Remember this sentence because this pissed me off actually.

You're getting pissed off a lot in this one.

I mean not so much but like in Chapter 7.

I just want to point out that's chapter 6 ends with him saying I am going back there tomorrow.

Chapter 7 opens with I waited for a week and no one called like.

Like I changed my mind.

Gary.

I mean, like, I get it.

I do think Gary wouldn't be proactive but I mean damn.

I've heard about an unreliable narrator but this is this is too much.

What about an indecisive, depressed narrator?

Yeah, what about?

What about just a real piece of shit?

Anyway, the phone rings often in the house, but it's just Chrissy's friends calling to gossip.

Was this a thing 9 year olds did in the 90s?

Did they?

I don't know, I kind of shudder to think what 9 year olds have to gossip about.

I mean, I guess they didn't have the Internet.

They do, actually, a lot.

They do have the Internet.

Yeah, they have.

Clothing and on Disney stuff they depict us a lot.

Computer.

Note Computer.

Note.

MSN Messenger is, you know, before then, what did kids do?

They didn't.

Normal kids didn't have bulletin board systems.

They didn't know about that.

Well, they did, because it's in this book.

It is in this book, but I thought it's really weird, I guess Gary.

Isn't normal is that's fair, Yeah.

I will say this though.

Super nerd thing.

How's Gary accessing computer?

Note if Chrissy is always on the phone gossiping because we know they must have dial up Internet.

I'm seeing plot holes here.

Oh.

My God, Ding.

Ding.

I mean, I can tell you that at some point, I think in like 8th grade, I began using the phone with regularity to talk to people.

But it was like, I mean, I'm, I'm in 8th grade.

I'm certainly not nine years old, you know, like, I guess I don't know.

I guess I don't remember what kind of person I was at nine years old.

Like I could have had gossip.

I could have had gossip.

I mean, this is also a book where we definitely know this child is going to be turned into a bee.

You're right, you're right, and you're right.

And once you've once, once you've signed up for that story, I guess you can dispense with the logistics of dial up.

And you know what you're That's a fairpoint.

That's a fairpoint well made.

A few days later, Gary sits outside reading science fiction.

Suddenly he hears a bee flying by him.

Remember bees?

Yep, they're back again.

Gary sees a large hole and Mr.

Andre ceasing.

To exist the second you stop looking at them.

The bees have escaped.

Gary rushes to call the paramedics.

I don't know what that would be, 911.

I need an ambulance.

Bees.

Ain't someone been stung?

No.

They're just, I'm just really scared.

What if you can call 911?

Whatever, you're just really scared.

So.

What's up?

I've got bad news.

The bees are out again.

Oh, No 9.

One, one help.

I'm I'm trying to go into my house but it's really dark and I'm scared of this.

I think there's someone in there.

Gary rushes to call the paramedics, but then he hears Mr.

Andretti mocking him.

Releasing all your bees in your neighbor.

A cool prank, but what's?

This.

Imagining a tune in a beekeeper suit.

Just like looking at Gary and being like bitch.

Yeah, let's, let's backtrack here.

Gary has spent in this course, this book for all we know, a whole week, not bothering Mr.

Andretti at all.

Because the last episode Gary walks outside to read a book for one day, and Andretti has created a whole his own bee apparatus to allow his beast to escape and terrorize this child.

He might as well.

And Mr.

Andretti may as well be the other girl from You Can't Scare Me.

Who Just hey, hey, Gary, come here.

And he just takes a beat and throws.

It yeah.

Oh my God.

Through the live wasp.

Weaponized bees.

Bees.

Oh my God.

It was foreshadowing.

Also, I will hear label Mr.

Andretti as a fucking freak.

I think this man is a fucking freak of.

Everyone in the book I, I think you've got a couple freaks.

He's the biggest freak.

Of all, I think he's the fucking freak.

I think Gary's a Gary's a freak, but.

Yeah, he's a but he's not.

He ain't.

He ain't this freaky.

He ain't.

This freaky.

As Gary returns to his home, his phone rings.

It's Miss Carmen.

What she's found a match and if you can believe it, person to person vacations makes home visits.

I'm shaking my head.

No, I I don't.

Believe it.

I don't believe it.

I do not.

Fast forward to Miss Carmen showing up immediately at Gary's house.

Look, we got we got places to be.

We got places to be.

We realized we were 7 chapters in and he hadn't become a bee yet, so we were like all right, so the donor, the donor of body in this case is someone named Dirk Davis, if you can believe that every.

Time I hear his name, I think Dirk Diggler, but that's anyway.

Yeah, Dirk Davis is good at skateboarding.

Wow.

Whoa so cool.

Why would he ever want to be in a nerd ass body?

Well, there's a reason for that, Bob, and I'm so glad you said it.

It's because Gary is good at math.

Did we ever establish this before?

No, but the author is here to tell us that he is now good at.

The author realized there wasn't a reason.

I was like.

He's got it, man.

Breaking from the mold, it turns out Gary is good at at least one thing.

See, this is again a thing I feel like earlier in the book it should have been established that Gary was good at school.

You know what I mean?

Like that Gary was was good at his classes, got straight A's or whatever, but that he was unhappy because he didn't do well in sports or like wasn't getting along with his friends because he was trying to fit in with certain groups of people that really didn't understand him.

Like that to me is the set up this book, and I realized that maybe that's cliche, but this is a book for children aged 12, so you'd kind of take what you get.

You know, you still got to do the work.

You can't just say, well, my readers are stupid kids, so I'm just not going to write the story properly.

I mean, I agree.

I agree.

That's what I'm saying.

I think there should just establishing A baseline where Gary, like I think Gary should have been getting on computer note to give advice to someone else.

You know what I mean?

I think he should have been giving, getting on there to help other people with the game such that at the end of this book, when Gary gets his body back, he's like, I realize now that the things I was good at, we're good actually.

And I was just trying to be someone I'm not like so.

You're saying that if RL Stein wrote this book, he did a bad job, and if RL Stein was the editor the the power editor of this book, he did also did a bad job?

Yes, I'm saying one to two people did a bad job on this book.

Either one single question.

Mark about of people.

A singular person or a multitude did a poor job writing this.

Can you just imagine getting like like being a freelance writer and just getting an e-mail in your inbox from fucking jovial Bob RL Stein?

And I want you to write a book about a kid that becomes a bee.

Hey, once you're I just book, you've got a kid who becomes AB.

Hey, you got that?

You got that book.

Yeah, I told you.

You're right about that fucking B.

How's that coming along?

You want a summary?

All right.

One kid becomes B2, he becomes.

He became AB OK.

I appreciate you not going A&B.

Oh, no, no.

It's 1-2 and D.

All right, so anyway, kind of wish we'd established the Gary is good at math earlier, but Oh well, we've established it now.

This is called writing.

But as as Miss Carmen begins the process, the the.

Process the process the.

Bees enter.

Could it be the plot indeed All right now, chapter 8.

I need you to kind of, I did this in a somewhat experimental way.

Okay, so you're gonna have to bear with me here.

And I think you'll see your own going very quickly.

But, and you may find yourself having soft skin covered by fur, and you may find yourself with small arms bending it on angles.

And you may tell yourself, this is not my tall muscular body.

And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

Letting the Davis go, flying around.

Now I'm flying around letting the days go by and I'm making B sounds.

Oh my God, that's good.

I love.

That and then I said into the blue again.

Miss Carmen let me down once in a lifetime.

Guess I'm AB now.

This.

I'm clapping.

Thank you so much.

That was very good.

That was exceptionally good.

This is not my beautiful wife.

Fuck off.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

Buzz off.

And so concludes my portion of this book.

And so concludes Mario's torture.

Gary's AB End of, end of chapter, end of.

Part Gary's AB End of story, really.

Oh, is it BDSM?

No, it's not.

No, it's not.

No, it's not.

Oh, God.

All right, so I've been keeping something from you guys.

So I've I've I've had a shameful secret.

OK, we could tell.

We could feel the gravity.

I'm going to share my screen and you're going to see a man.

This man, his name is John, BAKA smooth hot chocolate.

Is this how you read this book?

Yes, thank.

You, Mario, thank.

You yes, this.

Is how I experienced this book through the wonderful John B AKA Smooth Hot Chocolate, Smooth Smooth Hot chocolate.

Smooth chocolate, as he calls himself in the video is a wonderful person.

I have nothing against him personally, he is just he is very entertaining.

I loved because the book does not have an audiobook version.

This is how I I just I'm an audiobook person.

I'm sorry I listened to it, and I'm so grateful that I did so that I could experience the wonderful cacophony of background noises of a John B AKA Smooth Hot Chocolate throughout this read.

This is chapter 1 of Smooth Chocolate reading Why I'm Afraid of Bees, and let me know if you hear something strange.

Just just you know what?

We're going to play a little bit of it.

Tell me if you can detect the moment where I lost my shit.

He.

Thumped himself on the chest What?

And went on.

But you're truly outstanding beekeeper such as myself.

He likes to work with this bare hip, bare hands can.

You play that again, yes.

Hip, bare hands.

Did the person cap in this personal?

Well, wake up.

Oh yeah.

He just looks up for a second.

Did they hear it?

Did they know?

For the for the listener, it is this man reading this book, looking down at the book and when you hear fuck, oh, wait, I'm sorry, fuck.

Smooth chocolate looks up, panicked for a quick second.

And this is this is the culmination.

Like this is the last time this happened.

But before you, you kept hearing like weird background noises and someone like yelling.

Loudly.

And this was like, I don't know if they were telling him to shut up or something.

It was just, it caught me completely by surprise and I couldn't stop laughing.

It was so good.

I fucking can't man.

Hold on, let's listen to.

It again.

Myself likes to work with this bare bare hands.

Absolute.

Panic in his eyes.

Decision making face immediately.

We're just going to keep going.

Oh God, Mario's going to do that now.

What I'm what I'm reading, he's just going to background.

Be I'm going to go out of the.

Room out of the room.

OK, Chapter 9.

Oh no dear listener, our protagonist has been turned into a bee.

Do you know what a bee is?

If not, don't worry, this book has you covered as Chapter 9 opens with Gary going through the physical description of what he now looks like, which is to say a bee after examining his reflection.

Gary proclaims in his squeak, in his new squeaky voice.

This is the putz.

That's how I would be like.

That wonderful, wonderful.

I didn't want to go a straight the fly, but yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Help me.

Realizing Miss Carmen made a mistake and was about to leave in her car, Gareby attempts to get her attention, only to be blocked by the front door of his house, which he can't open because quote.

Please can't open doors.

Remembering the back door was cracked open slightly, Gary B, I'm going to stop.

Gary decides the best course of action is to fly directly at Miss Carmen's head.

Yeah, let's do it.

This turned out to be a terrible idea, as Miss Carmen proceeds to smack Gary to the ground and immediately attempts to run him over with her car, which will definitely happen and isn't a Gary and isn't a patented Goosebumps Loathsome cliffhanger.

Oh man, there's one in your chapters I think that's just absolutely fucking vile.

Oh, I've got a couple, I think.

I would just love to say Gary takes a lot of fucking punishment in this book.

Bees be kinder to bees, you guys, because they don't take this.

They can't hold up to this.

Like you can't just bat them around.

They will not survive.

Yeah, they get kind of messed up.

Gives a an incorrect impression of how much punishment a bee can take.

Chapter 10 Gary screams, and just before he squashed, Miss Carmen stops to adjust her seat belt.

Hey.

Seatbelts really do save lives, Gary tells himself.

Garry's mom and dad walk outside and approach him laughing.

Garry's dad picks up the little B boy and says, That's right Gary, it's always important to wear your seat belt.

Even when I get turned into a bee?

Gary asks.

Yes dear, laughs Gary's mom.

Even when you're turned into a bee.

Gary buzzes excitedly around his parents sense and says, well now I know.

Then Mr.

Andretti emerges from the nearby bushes in a ghillie suit and holding an M4 and knowing is half the battle, he says, looking directly into the camera.

A disembodied chorus sings GI Joe as everyone laughs, knowing deep down that the G stood for goosebumps.

This whole time.

This whole time.

It's been that way this whole time.

You didn't know, now you do You didn't.

Learning is learning is half the bottle.

Learning is half the battle.

No, I said.

Bob.

Learning is half the learning is half the bottle.

Hey kids.

Speaking of getting fucked up, I'm screwing around over here to try to make a joke.

I fucking have.

When you try to do shit you always like get really.

Quiet, you go Quiet.

Yeah.

Razio Oh, you're.

Just thinking about Tony J.

So Gary doesn't get run over, of course, and his adventure adventures outdoors start with him getting scared by a Caterpillar because it's really ugly and looks like a dragon.

Gary's mom comes home, and Gary watches as Dirk, in Gary's body asks his mom for, can you guess, Taco chips.

It looks like they do have that thing in common, causing Gary, causing Gary to spiral into depression.

Yeah, you're welcome.

If they could do it, I can do it too.

Motherfucker.

Watching Dirk eat.

Watching Dirk eat makes Gary realize he's starving, but he doesn't know what bees eat.

Thankfully, Gary read a book called The Big Book of Bees at some point in his life, which is weird because I thought he hates bees, but whatever.

He remembers that bees eat pollen, but just as he recalls this information, his dad appears and walks into the back door of the house.

Gary shouts.

Bob, let's Boo.

Gary will help me.

His dad responds.

Hi Gary.

That's the end of the book.

Yeah.

That's a, that's a, that's a good.

You're very close to Gollum.

You I know it's just saying that.

Yeah, it's just saying that.

I'm trying to like go in between like the fly and like, you know, like a Gollum kind.

Of I just like to point out, for the sake of scientific accuracy, that bees eat both nectar and pollen from flowers.

It's true.

Yeah, this book is fucking lying to you.

Chapter 11.

Turns out his dad was just talking to Dirk and Gary's Gabadi, because of course he fucking was.

Gary tries to fly inside the house and get slammed by the door after returning from the sucking plate.

Sucking place?

Did I say sucking place?

All right, what the fuck is Brandon been working on that he's been quiet about for the past fucking hour?

Nothing special.

It's just, it's just Nick Cage screaming about bees, but it's got a nine second Reverb tail.

That's the sequel to the previous audio file that he posted in the Discord while we're recording Nick Bees dot wave, which is just Nick Cage saying bees.

Can I say also, I've got to make a quick addenda to my last statement about the pollen and nectar.

So this is important to know, and I think it's important because it's cute.

Bees take nectar and and pollen, right?

But they convert the nectar into honey, which they also eat, yes.

And they convert the pollen into bee bread.

Bee bread.

Bee.

Bread.

What is bee bread?

Bee Bread according to indiana.gov.

Tell me more about brosia.

I want to know so much more about bee bread.

I'm Googling it right now.

Bee just sourdough.

No, red pollen is what?

Pollen Bee pollen, also known as bee bread and ambrosia, is a ball or pellet of field gathered flower pollen packed by worker bees.

Oh.

That's actually really cute.

That's really cute.

Bee bread is.

They're little balls.

That's really cute.

That's really cute.

It's a little minorly screwed up I guess, considering what pollen is.

I mean, yeah, yeah.

The substance that we cannot, that we have, we now are contractually obligated.

We will be sued if we may.

Yeah, we, we all signed contracts before the 20.

25 that's.

One of the things that we got, yeah.

We can talk about pollen though.

Yeah, yeah.

I I didn't say anything about that.

Wait, is this formed because they put the the pollen to honeycombs and that's what makes the bee bread because they pack it into the honeycomb?

They're.

Kind of hexagonally shaped.

They do indeed pack it into cells, which I would guess.

Are the cells of the honeycomb.

I would think so.

Yeah.

Yeah, they are.

And then they seal the cells of honey.

Aw.

Bees are cool.

That is interesting.

Bees are cool.

That is interesting.

There's so much.

Yeah.

That's what stuff.

That's what the honeycomb is for, yeah.

Yeah, well, I think it's also a dual purpose because don't or is it Wasps?

I think the honeycomb for Wasps is how the you know the the.

They lay eggs and the the.

Larva.

Yeah.

And the eggs.

And yeah, do bees do that too?

I don't know.

I don't actually know.

Bees do indeed.

They do indeed lay eggs in the cells of the honeycomb.

So yeah, dual purpose.

Wow, they're efficient.

They're wow, they're cool.

I love bees.

Oh no, they literally put the bee bread in the honeycomb and then lay an egg on top of it.

Oh, so it's maybe the the.

The honeycomb is the.

The bee bread is there to feed the the.

Yeah, the larvae.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

OK, yeah, that makes sense.

Wow, that's cool.

I love animals.

Wild shit.

Wild shit.

Hey listen, that's our new podcast, Wild Shit.

These just lay their eggs on top of a nice fresh loaf of bread.

Yeah, that's very cute if you think about that way.

So much like us, they are.

Yeah, Chapter 11.

Turns out his dad was just talking to Dirk in Gary's body, because of course he was.

Gary tries to fly inside the house and get slammed by the door.

After returning from the sunken place, Gary realizes that one, he's still a bee, and two, he needs to go to Miss Carmen's office and get her to change him back.

He's then attacked by Claws the Cat.

That's Claus.

Like Santa Claus, who grabs him by his claws.

That's CLAWS.

Please clap.

Chapter 12 After contemplating using his Stinger to escape the situation, but realizing he'll die if he does, once again, big thanks to the Big Book of Bees.

Gary escapes, claws the cat by flying real fast at the right moment or something, only to get caught in Mr.

Andretti's net.

Yeah, Where is Andretti in all this?

Like he just like hanging around, like appearing to the bushes.

Like I see a cat has caught one of my bees again.

Well, you know.

What he's doing, he's he's a fucking freak.

So what he's doing is he's, he's like he, you know, when do you tell people that you're scared of something and they're like, ohh, what about in this situation?

What about And then they might try to like do that like immersion therapy shit to like quote UN quote help you.

And so this.

Is.

Yeah.

It's the excuse of many bullies.

A scared, depressed child.

I had better, yeah.

My adult neighbor.

I'm an adult man.

I better torture this child.

Mr.

Andrei's been crouching in the Bush with a gun that fires bees.

Again, that would explain the ghillie suit and the M4 from before.

Yes the he's he's just staring at this kid.

Like canonically he is planning and plotting to fuck with this kid.

Yep.

Like staring over the fence like fucking Wilson from Home Improvement but with like a fucking beekeeper shoot on.

Evil Wilson and Evil Wilson.

Evil Wilson.

Yes, exactly.

Dark Wilson, Yeah.

Dark.

Wilson Chapter 13 This chapter opens with Mr.

Andretti calling the bees he's caught in his net his honeys, a pun he makes a few times in this chapter which makes him very happy and everyone reading the book irrationally angry.

He should have said his buzzy buddies.

Buzzy.

Buddies Andretti dumps the bees into his hive as Gary contemplates once again using his Stinger to escape the situation.

Chapter 14 And once again Gary remembers that using his Stinger will cause him to die, so he does not do it.

Gary gets dumped into the hive and has run insurance with angry looking bees until he makes it to the honeycomb.

Gary thinks to himself, I've always hated the sweet.

I've always hated the sweet stitch there.

No.

No pause for pause for childish laughter.

Gary slurps up some honey and finds it delicious.

So delicious that he loses himself for a moment in the idea that maybe being a bee isn't so terrible.

Mom spaghetti.

The charter ends with Gary thinking to himself.

I'm not a boy anymore, I'm a.

Can I just make a quick statement as?

I'm trying to be waspinator there you.

Were hitting Waspinator.

You were getting there.

You were getting, Yeah, can I just say, backtracking slightly to the part where Gary contemplates stinging and ready.

We know because of the Klaus thing that Gary knows that stinging someone will kill him, but he still thinks to himself, it would be really cool to sting Mr.

Andretti.

So his his mental math there was it would be really cool to fucking die, but I wouldn't get to sting.

I would get to mildly inconvenience a man who's probably been stung 1000 times.

Also he's constantly thinking doing the over under of the Yoshi mitts to seppuku where he stabs himself through to injure his opponent.

Yeah, like, or as we call it in our household, the the Goku sacrifice.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Yes, yes, when he gets hit with.

The special Beam cannon.

Special beam cannon.

Yeah, surely.

Special beam cannon, yes.

Special B Cannon.

Shut the fuck up, Brandon.

God damn motherfucker.

Chapter 15.

Gary wakes up from his honeycomba and discovers he's trapped in the hive with bees.

Well, who knew who seemed to not like his presence.

So he attempts to leave, only to end up surrounded by more angry bees.

Surely the bees are going to kill him and there isn't some misunderstanding happening here.

Someone would have written in a nasty comment if we didn't say special bee cannon.

I I like that he compares the bees to his bullies as though there are bee bullies.

Yes, yes, yes.

As though they're not doing their own thing.

Like, yeah.

Wasps, I guess, right?

I guess that's true.

WASP are kind of bullies.

Yeah, it's true.

But I guess actually.

Wasps are fucking.

Bullies don't really kill you when you.

Yeah, Wasps are fucking homicidal cannibalistic murderers.

And interestingly enough, for anybody who likes nature documentaries, there's a really good one.

I think it's part of Planet Earth.

I, I think go on YouTube and look this up.

It's basically a giant wasp versus like a hive.

Hive.

Yeah, honey bees.

And the entire time where this was happening, I wasn't thinking that it would happen, but it kept reminding me of how honey bees defend against giant Wasps.

Oh yeah.

They surround them and then they overheat the wasp, basically cooking it from the inside.

You know, Bob, that's a really great point and it's never mentioned in this book if that's like what's actually happening?

I don't think that.

I think that the author didn't know that, but it is really a great point.

Unintentionally, they've landed on an actual thing bees do to defend their hive.

Yeah, it's a thing, yeah.

Against invaders and stuff, yeah.

Desiccate your enemies.

Chapter 16 So it was a big misunderstanding and the hive just wanted Gary out of the way so they could watch a scout be do a wee little jig to tell them where the nearby.

No, Bob, what?

Not a wee little jig.

Okay.

Not a wee little jig, it's a hip hop dance.

Yes, okay, break dance.

Watch a bee break dance.

Very important that we know that they call it a hip hop dance in this book.

It's got the hippity hoppity.

It's it's So what those kids, the kids are into these days.

If this were an animated film in 1994, they would have this BB played by Robin Williams and he would do a rap.

And if it was done today it it would be Ray Gun.

No one laughed so.

Yeah, yeah.

No, no, I got it.

If it was done today, it would be a literally a here's the thing.

If it was a ray gun thing, all like my mind immediately went to this being.

And in fact, I think if the Bee Movie were made today, absolutely without question, I think Jerry Seinfeld would have included a segment where a bee doesn't break dance because he would know that bees communicate by dancing.

I.

Think you're wrong?

And it would be Ray Gun.

I think he would do it.

I think it would suck, yeah.

I think it would suck, yes, but two years?

Ago I think Fortnite dance.

I also think that if B movie was made now, everyone involved would be summarily executed.

Yeah, I also you don't have to backtrack Bob.

I think you can call it if B movie happened now, if B movie happens now like if we if it happened to us now.

People would just think it was AI.

Yeah.

Like we kept thinking while we were watching it, we were like, this is this feels like AI slop even though it definitely couldn't have been.

Yeah, that's OK.

You're getting me thinking about that.

But I've been thinking about this for a while because I've been working on a video that basically deals with some, a company kind of ingesting content and like milling it in a, in a very AI way.

But there's no way they could have used AI because back then, you know, they just didn't have it there.

There's, there's something to be said about content made by humans that just feels like fake or inauthentic.

It's, it's weird.

There's, there's a bunch of media that does that for me.

It's it's, it's so strange when when it happens, but now we just say, oh, it's AI and so.

It it's sort of like a, it's like a a bulk drivel.

Uncanny.

Yeah, Uncanny valley.

Kind of, yeah.

Like we, you encounter stuff like this and I think like this is going to be one of the interesting things about the future is that like a bunch of, I think that there's a lot of media that people in the future will be like, they'll they'll call it AI or they'll call it slop and they'll mean it in the way that they know, but like, but they might, might not even appreciate like that.

It wasn't possible for it to literally be that yet.

But spiritually it will be identified.

Spiritually, it was, yeah.

It will become.

It will have become always AI slop.

Hey, remember, it's like a.

Genre that.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, remember in the B movie when?

No, they have they have Larry King in it and he's and he's, he's just playing his literal name is B Larry King.

Yeah.

And it was funny for one second because it was like if they just went with that and they just like didn't.

Didn't get it off.

Not like Larry queen cuz queen of a hive or something.

B Larry King but his amateur hour.

But then Jerry Seinfeld's B says, hey, you know, they have a Larry King in the human world, too.

And they talk about Larry King for a minute a lot like they talk a lot about Larry.

King and.

Literally just lists things that Larry King does and the B Larry King is mildly annoyed by this and he keeps going on and it just keeps going.

And just keeps going.

It's like uncomedy, the opposite of comedy.

It's also also from you.

That movie, I'm pretty sure Larry King wasn't even still doing his show at that time.

So like when that movie came out, so like, not even who is it for?

Who's it for?

But did you think for a minute while reading this book?

Wouldn't it have been kind of funny if the if this book had had like a depiction of B society where they were characters?

I mean, there wasn't enough time for it, but it would have been something if it were.

But I guess it's more threatening when they don't communicate and just break dance at you, Yes.

Yes I no I.

What if he'd?

What?

If he'd What if he'd come back from being a bee and he knew how to dance?

There.

You.

Go, Patrick.

Warburton I thought they would kill.

Him with a rolled up copy of Italian Vogue.

What if Patrick Warburton tried to kill this child with a rolled up coffee copy of Italian Vogue?

Yes, what if?

Patrick Warburton in that movie had had one, one level of energy and it was screaming constantly.

He tried very hard.

He did a great job, but it's just like good morning.

You just clipped completely.

You you vanished into the Phantom Zone for a second there like.

You'll probably get it on Audacity.

I was trying to spare your ears.

It was incredible.

You did the exact thing that what was it?

Was it a cat or I forget what it was but it was like.

Yeah, yeah, he did like he did that.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's exactly it.

I'll try again, but okay, here we go.

Wait, what does he sound like?

Yogurt night.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

I'm just saying it would have been a great book.

If B is cooking my wife.

It would have been great if at the end of the book, Gary revealed that he was really good at hip hop dancing because of his time as a bee that didn't have there.

Would be more dancing because bees communicate by like dance like little dance like.

There's that MS3.

K Joke.

Yeah, yeah.

It's fucking in the book, It's there, it's textual.

The author knows bees dance, but they don't use it and it's fucking.

Yeah, it's the author seems to think that bees only dance, and this may be information that like came to light later because we were learning a bunch of shit about.

I think that was a relatively recent discovery.

That they dance all the time, I think is a relatively recent discovery.

But there was that MST3K episode that I mentioned before.

And how old was that episode?

The Deadly Bees is one of the best episodes of MST3K in my memory.

I think it's actually kind of boring, but.

OK, In 1973, Carl von Frisch was awarded the Noble Prize for his research on the honey bee waggle dance.

But I don't know dance specifically for scout bees to communicate to the hive where the honey is.

Yeah, let me see.

Let me see if there's a further information what about this?

Yeah, because I always thought it was they danced in general just to communicate.

Let me see this.

I'm looking.

I'm looking to see here.

What if the waggle dance instructions are basically just like and kind of go that direction generally just like for a little while and then like maybe you'll see.

OK, well, I guess I should say there's just been like constantly more information about this basically that there's just been, there have been more, many studies have built upon this information.

So I don't know to what degree it was completely understood what bees were doing when they were dancing when this book came out or what the author would have known about it.

But certainly the author is aware that they do dance.

So it is a shame there's not more of it, I'll put it that way.

And also that Gary doesn't do 1.

He should have become a break dancer.

Yeah, that would have been an excellent.

End.

That's what I'm saying, yeah.

I agree.

So let's just so I'll I'll rewind.

It was a big misunderstanding and the hive just wanted Gary out of the way so so they could watch a scout bee do a.

Hip hop dance.

Not a wee little jig that then Gary would look at and ingest.

Remember, for when he gets out into the real world eventually, if he can.

Who knows what happens at the end of this book.

Maybe he's a bee forever.

I don't know.

Yeah, could be.

So yet again big ups to the Big Book of bees for Gary under understanding what was going on here.

So Gary followed the bees out of the hive only discover a hole Andretti had in his screen keeping the bees in had been patched up.

Dejected Gary sat on top of the hive only for Andretti to see him declare him a sick bee and try to grab him.

Yo that yo that bee is sick.

Yo, that bee sick.

Not son of a bee.

So, OK, I, I just referenced something.

I, I make this joke with Rachel all the fucking time.

And it's a local commercial.

And so I, I feel like you all need to need to, all right, sharing video.

This is a very multimedia episode, all right.

OK, I'm watching.

Yeah.

Wow.

Wow yo man, don't watch this set.

Oh yeah.

Woodbridge going pond, baby.

Sorry, that's it, but.

That's a hell of.

A delivery.

Wow.

Yo man, that watch is.

Sick.

And it's like, yo man, that.

Watches you should have gotten the other guy also to do his video that.

I agree.

It's true.

Chapter 17 Gary escapes Andretti and goes through the hole in the screen the other bees were using to escape.

Surprise, there was another hole in the screen.

Andretti really needs to maintain a screen.

Bees keep getting the fuck out.

This is kind of a problem.

Honestly I'm surprised this his like neighbors haven't like come over and be like hey man fix your bee shit like this is a problem like the bees are getting into the neighbors houses.

My house is filled with.

Bees.

Imagine, you know, going up to the door and being Andretti, opening the door and it's just your neighbor completely covered in bees.

They go into their kitchen and there's a bread box next to their bread box.

A little tiny bread box full of bee bread.

A.

Little door that the bees.

Oh my God, that's that's.

Having a little cup of coffee, yeah.

Copy.

Did you say copy?

Copy.

Yeah, copy.

I was reading she makes a proper cup of coffee in a copper coffee pot.

Oh, it was on the screen and it and it tripped me up.

Yeah, we are.

OK.

Are are we?

Do we all like hot box before this is that?

No, no, we're all.

Just kind of like loopy she.

Makes a proper cup of coffee in a copper coffee.

It's been she.

Sells B shells by the B shore.

It's been a heck of a 24 hours, you know?

B cells by the B butter.

Better batter.

Gary notices his dad leaving through the back door to his house and makes his way inside, only for his sister Chrissy to attack him with a family swatter.

He's definitely and this time that's my chapters.

While my chapters were very not good, I did appreciate that most, the vast majority of them were like a page and 1/2 or not even because the chapter, like the page denoting that it's a chapter that's the start of a chapter is like it takes up like half the fucking page anyway.

So really, they're all, they were all basically like a page.

I appreciate, and I'm going to say this again at the end that this book says it's going to do something and then it does it and, and you know, whether or not you think it does it, well, it it, it does the thing it said it was going to do.

Like kids, a bee.

He's doing bee stuff.

He's in a hive.

He's flying around, he's getting swatted at, he's struggling to communicate.

He's doing stuff.

This isn't him running from one end of a town to another, having like shitty, lame conversations with other kids.

He's in peril constantly.

You know, I appreciate that.

I'm, I'm glad that they did that.

This, this could have been so much more boring and worse.

I.

Agree.

Yeah, it's true for me.

So Brandon, I think you're, you're, you've got the final chapters.

Yes, all right.

Chapter 18 Betty bought her, bought a bit of butter, but she said this butter's bitter.

If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter, but a bit of better butter that would make my batter better.

So Betty bought her, bought a I'm done.

You know how the bees surround the the Hornet to overheat?

You just did that with my brain.

Sting me, sting me.

My body is a road map of stings.

No, I deserve it though.

All right.

Chapter 18 Gary's sister continued to attempt to murder her brother with a family swatter.

Gary began darting wildly around the room, crashing into the walls and cupboards to show Chrissy how upset he was.

I think we can all agree that's a strategy.

Then he fucked off.

His new idea was to buzz the Dirk Davis and Gary's body and ask for help.

The fake Gary was asleep on his bed and refused to wake B Gary decided to try typing a message on his computer.

Gary managed to turn on the screen, but Fake Gary began to stir on the bed.

Belch Time.

Did you write that or did that just happen?

Did that just happen?

Was that an Austrian demand?

Did.

You just announced Belch time.

I'll leave it to you to decide.

Why is that funny?

Oh God.

Because we're two hours into a podcast recording session.

So what's funny is A is a different metric.

B Gary, panicking, quickly dashed out.

I am not a bee, I am Gary.

Hello me.

That's supposed to be help me, but he mistyped it and this is in story.

Seeing that he had made a typo, B Gary considered a revision before giving up due to a fast approaching deadline.

Goosebumps.

Wow, the meta commentary.

The meta commentary, it's good.

Yeah, Fake Gary instead woke up, got dressed, and began to leave the room without checking the screen.

Oh no, Chapter 19.

But then he did check the computer, and he turned it off without reading the message.

Shit.

He did not even safely shut down the computer.

He hit the power switch.

It's a computer, not a toaster, you cretin.

B Gary followed Fake Gary downstairs and watched him walk outside with an old skateboard.

Caitlin and Judy approached, but instead of making fun of Fake Gary, they asked if they were late for their skateboarding lesson.

No way, said Fake Gary, want to head over to the playground like we did yesterday?

B Gary was flabbergasted that Fake Gary was giving the children skateboarding lessons.

The girls admit they had invited other girls to get skateboarding lessons too.

Then off they fucked.

I don't know what it is about.

B Stories and cookery like this isn't exactly cookery, but spiritually.

This is cookery.

What is it about bees and and cooking humans?

Let me ask, what is the thing?

I have a question.

I have a question.

It has been like how long in the course of this book?

Like 2 hours.

Like like it can't have been more than 24 hours in the course of this book.

So how did Fake Gary give them a skateboarding lesson yesterday and is now doing it again today?

How how is that he's?

Just so fast man.

Maybe at a certain point in my chapters Gary fell asleep, like after he drank the honey.

Yeah, but that means that like, fake Gary not only discovered a skateboard, got like, OK, swap bodies, found a skateboard, found these two girls, gave them skateboarding lessons, got Taco chips, ate dinner with his family, went to bed, woke up, woke up, and then is now doing the skateboarding lesson again.

Like what?

What?

Like, I'm so confused as to things happen so fast.

Life comes at you fast.

You know when you're, when you're when.

You're AB when you're AB.

Everything happens so much, I think.

Everything does happen so much.

Yeah, it's really the take away.

Yeah, Gary followed them to the playground and buzzed.

Fake Gary, who swatted him away.

B Gary decided to try to find Missus Carman at the body swap office when his reverie was interrupted by the shadow of a dragonfly.

Stay calm, Gary told himself.

A dragonfly is an insect, isn't it?

And insects don't eat don't eat each other.

Gary, you've read a book.

On the author think that kids don't know that bugs eat other bugs.

You must know this, Gary, you can't you?

There's just no way that a 12 year old doesn't know that bugs eat bugs like it's.

It gets worse.

Before he could move, the dragonfly zoomed down, wrapped its teeth around Gary's middle, and bit him in two.

This is the end of the chapter, so this last sentence was a lie.

Chapter 20.

It took Gary a few seconds to realize that the dragonfly had turned and buzzed off in the other direction instead of doing the thing that Gary said it did declaratively.

Just a fucking that is.

That's the worst.

That's the worst.

The word is despicable.

Yeah.

Loathsome.

That's perhaps the most loathsome has ever been, like, I don't think.

Literally.

I can't think of any worse that that is.

You literally said that he was bitten in half.

No take back.

So you can't do that like.

Yeah, you're gaslighting these children.

RL Stein, you are gaslighting children.

Yeah.

Well, not RL Stein, although this might have been a thing that it could have been.

It could have been.

I think that.

It has his name on it.

So at the very least he deserves like, you know, if we're going to give him the credit, we should give him the blame.

Yeah, the ultimate responsibility for.

I mean, he probably, I, I'm going to guess that this was like a thing.

He was like, this is a thing you have to do burp time.

I wish some.

People would do that more fart time and then it's.

Really stupid, but you know.

Burp Time.

Yeah, yeah.

OK, so Gary said that real quick.

Real quick.

I just want to go ahead and put it out there whenever that happens in the future.

Can we?

Can we all just collective collectively agree to call it goose lighting?

Goose sliding.

Yeah, yeah.

OK, yeah.

That I I like that, yeah.

Thank you.

Yes.

Please continue.

I I think that that might be the last time that it really happened.

This is definitely the worst one.

This is like so, so egregious.

It's so bad.

Out of the entire.

Series, Yeah, yeah, you even have to stop the story to justify it.

They, they have never done that before.

I think where they in text justify the shit maybe.

Maybe a couple of times anyway.

He said it, it declaratively bid him in half.

It did not Loathsome.

In this case we also get a lame explanation about why he would say that, which is that his imagination was running away with him because he was overtired.

I don't think it's any better with a shitty explanation.

I think you should just run away from it.

When you do a crime, Don't.

Don't slap me to and tell me that you didn't do it.

Just run away from.

It you know, I would have respected it more if it just like kept going and it's like, wait, what?

But also at least it tries to explain it, because we have something that happens later at the end of this book that has no explanation.

Whatsoever and it's and it's magnitude, it's more egregious.

Yeah, there's the next one's at least entertaining.

Yes.

B Gary flew off to the body swap office.

When he arrived, he puzzled over how to get inside until a convenient mailman provided him egress by opening the mail slot.

A random girl appeared and B Gary screamed at her to leave the business, but obviously she didn't hear our hero.

Woefully devoid of pattern recognition, like some kind of brainless June bug, Gary flew directly into a glass partition.

Those fucking June bugs.

We hate them.

We feel feelings, we have thoughts about them.

We all think they're stupid.

We reflect on this often, don't you guys?

I mean, I, I don't we all think about.

That, yeah, I hate.

I hate him, Yeah.

Feel free to speak for me.

I Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, You know, a ton of this book does revolve around Gary trying to talk to people without despite knowing that they fucking can't hear him.

Yeah.

Yeah, continuously, without success.

He's supposed to be smart in some form.

Allegedly that they they say he is, yeah.

He's good at math.

Now you know he is stressed out.

He is a bee.

And like you can also explain all this away by saying like he's got a human intellect shoved into whatever equipment a bee has.

Probably like 3 copper lines wired together.

That one says honey here, the other says cook wasp.

But yeah, anyway.

And part of it is just break dancing, yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, probably half of it's break.

Dancing, right?

Yeah.

If you did a diagram, listeners, if you want to do fan art, there's Nicolas Cage as the bee.

And then there's also, yeah, a diagram of a bee's brain and where it's segmented to show how much of it is dedicated to break dancing.

Thank you in advance.

A little tiny part of it is stinging Nick Cage in the face.

It's.

True.

Identifying Nick Cage and stinging in the.

Face mapping Nick Cage Nick Cage Location determined.

It's got a little.

Nick Cage, GPS, The track.

They're all dancing to show the where Nick Cage is.

This is the phone number of his agent.

Anyway, like some kind of stupid June bug, Gary flew directly into a glass partition.

Riding on the floor, fucking idiots.

Fucking June bugs.

Fucking June bugs a dumbass, Yeah.

Right, I think yeah, fucking dumbass.

Some of the bitch it would be.

So much it would be.

A much more entertaining book if people bullied him.

Like realistically like yeah the fucking dude covered in bees and making fun of him and then you just hear under his breath.

Fucking dumb ass.

Dumb.

Ass.

Yeah, this.

Is.

This stupid repulsive anteater fucking garbage.

Did you just make a fucking overdrawn at the memory bank?

Reference.

Oh yes, it lives in my brain.

That's what you're you're, you get what you pay for, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

My nuts, mom.

My nuts can.

Someone turn off the fat rotating guy.

Yeah, it's like, I think for a very long time it was my favorite episode because I had not yet seen Space Mutiny.

Yeah, but overdrawn at the memory bank.

Big Mclart.

Huge.

Yeah.

Big Mclart.

Huge, yeah.

The fucking scream and then roll out of the little fucking yeah the jump.

My grandma, Daughter.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

This year of Christmas comes from Santa.

For Santa.

Damn.

Some would love some cookie though for Santa.

We just need to have a maybe, maybe one day we can have a bonus episode where we just quote, do all of the quotes.

We just get it out of the system.

I would legitimate.

I would legitimately enjoy doing a Space Ghost and Mystery Science Theater like episode.

That could be maybe a bonus thing or something.

But like, yeah, definitely.

Like what are your favorite episodes?

Let's go through our favorite quotes.

You know, stuff like that, that.

Hell yeah.

I would definitely talk about those things that they they form.

I mean like if you're talking about like a bee's brain is half dancing, half of mine is girl with gold boots.

Yes, yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank and Space Mutiny.

Did anyone notice I teleported here?

It's impressive.

Thrown violently into the next scene, you.

Turned violently at this point.

At this point, I hadn't yet reacted.

Yeah, yeah, this.

Is the fucking Hobgoblins episode.

I think about hobgoblins all the time.

If you'll follow me this way, I'll tell you about my Mary urethra, but I'll tell you about my problematic urethra.

Sorry, I was complaining of.

Was was was it that episode?

Was it Hobgoblins where Crow does the presentation on women?

Where he like treats women like Bigfoot?

Because.

He's never seen a woman.

Women.

Women.

Women.

Women, women.

Women Oh man, the this one's on topic.

Actually, the Deadly Bees 1 Crow gives a recites performs a poem reading about his love for the smoking woman in the movie and it is I I like aped the meter and and tone of that in like third grade writing assignments.

I felt yeah I would rather die than switch as I move my claw through silky locks to my delight, though some would call the the witch.

I love the filter flavor pack or box.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's got that and the Canada song.

Oh my God.

Yes, yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

We love, we love.

Let's get back to hate.

Mustn't hate, mustn't hate.

Oh, not so overtly.

Enough of love, we return to hate.

So B Gary shouted for Miss Carmen, writhing on the floor in agony.

Chapter 21 Miss Carmen also did not hear him.

B Gary finally understood that no one could hear his little B voice.

He should have belched loudly.

That was that was a sorry, that one was not.

A.

Little wet.

It's hard to do on command.

Yeah.

He curled up into a ball on the seat of a chair and ruminated on the hopelessness of his situation.

And a depressed bee, the book continues.

Sad.

Sad.

How sad.

A depressed bee, the book continues.

I had never been so miserable in all my life.

I wished someone would come along, drop into the chair and sit on me.

Sit on me, B Gary screamed into the void.

Sit on me until I am a bee pancake crush.

Me by this.

Is all in the book.

Death of my ass.

Crush me between those sweet cheeks.

In this chapter of the author's thinly disguised fetish.

Yeah, B Gary noticed Miss Carmen's microphone and suddenly had the obvious idea.

He flew to it and screamed into it, which finally caught Miss Carmen's attention.

I can't wait to see how this doesn't work.

There is no way real Stein would let this resolve the conflict, right?

Sort of.

But no, they have a conversation.

Miss Carmen is incredulous at first, but Bea Gary explains the situation, blaming her negligence for his unbelievable predicament.

Miss Carmen says, well, that explains why Dirk Davis body has been acting so strangely.

Yeah, let's check in on that.

Yeah.

Tell us more about that.

Yeah, yesterday he filed A lawsuit against Big Honey on behalf of all bees.

The company thought that was weird.

God damn it, Miss Carmen said.

Yeah, yeah.

B movie, B movie is AB Movie is like a punch line.

You just say the words B.

Man, Yeah, You mean say?

Think you have to do?

Funnier than the rest of the movie.

Don't say it, don't think it the BB man.

Don't say it, don't spray it.

Oh my God, it's a tarm B man.

Yeah, the B man over there.

That's the baby, man.

B man anyway.

You.

See Jerry Seinfeld in public.

You go like.

That's the B movie guy.

It's an insult.

Nasty what?

What a nasty thing to do.

But he would also deserve it.

He can't say anything about that.

Yeah.

Miss Carmen said she hoped it at least had been interesting.

And Gary poured out his grievances about the series of near death events he had experienced.

Gary demanded to be put back into his own body, but Carmen explains there's a problem.

Dirk Davis doesn't want to give up Gary's body.

He wants to keep it forever.

A weird conflict chapter.

20 I hate this.

What?

What, what, what?

I mean, I guess I don't hate it.

I guess I would say that is it shocking to me that a like experimental tech company would be wildly irresponsible and market their product without a fail safe mechanism to prevent a person from just staying in the body permanently?

I guess.

And I live in the real world.

And no, that's not that shocking that they.

Would.

That part isn't weird to me.

The part that's weird to me is that they would give a shit what any of the users want.

That's true too.

Like, I just understand.

Yeah.

You're telling me that you built this system and the user has control over this?

Like I don't make any sense to me that.

No, like the real world version of this would be like.

She would panickedly, in a panicked fashion, hook him back up to the chair and beam him into what she thinks is his old body.

It would be some.

It would be like a lamppost or something.

Also they don't do this and it's a huge oversight for me that I couldn't grab my head around why they didn't?

They don't put him in Dirks body.

Why don't they put him in Dirks body instead of leaving him as a bee?

This is not going to be covered.

It doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't have to in this section, Miss Carmen and the entire operation is going to be extremely, superficially, unbelievably stupid in a way that that strange credulity.

But again, we're talking about the company that for free apparently will beam children into the bodies of other children.

Fair enough.

I don't.

I don't think we really want an explanation for why this is happening.

I also just, it just, it's funny when hearing it for the first time that like someone, this is potentially the first time someone just doesn't want to go back.

It's like if someone was, it's like if Airbnb was like, yeah.

You can't come on over.

And then they're just actually, yeah, we, we don't want to move out anymore.

This is our house now.

This is my house.

It makes it makes as much sense as if he said, hey, beam me back and he's like, we can't.

He painted his fingernails.

I'm.

Like.

It just doesn't make it doesn't.

Matter.

It's just, it's just like Miss Carmen.

Walk like you'll.

You'll get there.

I'm not going to.

I'm on.

Steal your Thunder.

You can say what Miss Carmen does.

For all the 22, Carmen explained if he doesn't want to get out of Gary's body, there's nothing she can do.

She apologizes, but says she guesses they'll have to be more careful in the future.

Oh well, got to chalk that one up.

Can't win them all.

This is the first thing she said.

Instead of let's swap you into Dirk Davis body.

At least instead of leaving a bee in there, Yeah.

Yeah, or leaving you in a bee.

This bee is going to die.

He has no idea how any of this works.

Yeah, and nobody else is having is going.

Hey, Wing.

What's weird?

What?

However Dirk Davis is acting, it's not going to be normal unless he's like, hello, mother.

I love you.

I have always loved all things.

Let me tell you of the secrets of the bees, The Secret Life of bees and our wisdom.

That would be good.

I would have liked to read that.

Yeah, I would have liked to have read that.

Also they talk about like a thing that comes up eventually but is worth noting here.

She is perfectly fine leaving this child in a bee's body.

Bees live for a month to two months.

This is not him being transplanted into the body of a freshly born bee.

Well, you know now that he is a bee.

His life is meaningless and everyone treats it.

Like, I mean, that's true, this bee could just die at any minute.

Meanwhile there is a human body with a bee's brain in it available.

The bee doesn't want to stay in Dirks body.

See, for a moment I thought that, oh, wait, maybe this is like some like grand scheme where like, it's, it's a thing where everybody's constantly like figuring out ways of getting the bee to a new body or like trying to get their body back, but in the process.

Sort of a musical chairs, but with.

Exactly, but with like a bee brain and human bodies and like it was just like, you know, and then the the point of it would be kind of like this this commentary on like not generational, but just like how these how that kind of shit is like passed on, but like fucking OK, you just.

Thought no, Bob, they have.

Got nothing to say.

No, Bob, they actually gave up at this point.

The story at this point may as well be over because they've given up completely.

The the the completely giving up part is, is coming.

Yeah, it's, it's pretty.

It's bold.

It's bold.

So Carmen suggested B Gary.

B Gary goes back to the hive, you know, and just chill, I guess This is getting fanciful.

Carmen says she'll think about his case before abruptly leaving her office and slamming the door shut behind her.

Gary shouted after her that he has been locked in, but Carmen did not return.

What the fuck is happening?

B Gary noticed Dirk Davis address on some paperwork on Carmen's desk and decided to go buzz Dirk's body for half a page.

B Gary searched for and found an exit.

He flew to Dirk's house, saw the body of Dirk in his front yard, who looked at B Gary confusedly, then motioned with his hand.

B Gary followed Dirk's body to the backyard, where it stuck its nose into a rose Bush and said Yom.

I mean, I do think that's kind of funny.

I think that's.

Funny.

It is funny.

Yeah, we are expected to believe that that B Gary was only has only just now realized that the bee's mind was in Dirk's body.

B Gary said that Dirk the Bee was in worse shape, to which Dirk responded to hum hum.

I am picturing that he is not humming or making a buzzing noise.

He is saying the English word hum aloud.

I also like that when he goes to see the Dirk Bee, he is like, maybe who?

Maybe whoever is in Dirk's body can help me.

Gary, you're good at math.

There are three brains in this equation.

I'm starting to think that Gary's not good at math.

It might be the case that Gary is normal at math.

And Dirk's very bad at it when it.

Comes to math.

I think good at math is relative to everything else he is, which is bad.

That's true.

Fair, Fair, fairpoint.

Fairpoint.

So B Gary fucked off as Dirk continued to stick his face in the bushes.

As B Gary flew away, he heard the bully Marv accosting Dirk's Gary.

Barry, Marv and Carl, those are the names of the bullies.

We're closing in on Dirk's Gary to give him the pounding of the life.

I pray Real Stein has a good idea for this confrontation that involves his idea of skateboard tricks.

I would love to read that.

No, I'm sorry.

Chapter 23.

To B Gary's surprise, the bullies were recoiling in fear from Dirk's Gary.

B Gary could not believe this.

While Dirk Gary left, B Gary, a giant idiot, decided to also have some fun with the bullies by buzzing them instead of getting crushed or slapped.

It actually works in a series of slapstick B shenanigans ensue.

These include that B Gary flew into Marv's mouth, who nearly deafened B Gary with his scream.

B Gary flew away as Marv spat and choked.

B Gary clearly has a death wish.

I guess I can't blame him.

B Gary flew to his old room where Dirk Gary was lounging.

B Gary tried to communicate with Dirk Gary again and was swatted at.

Dirk Gary finally said, Will you please quit bothering me?

I'm trying to relax.

We learned that Dirk Gary has been aware of B Gary's attempts to communicate, and that the mistaken transfer allowed him to hear quote all kinds of little bug noises.

Now Dirk Gary tells B Gary that he likes Gary's body and refuses to give it up.

That's very forward.

B Gary freaks out and buzzes him and is confused when Dirk is not affected.

Dirk Gary says he doesn't want to murder B Gary, but he will if he has to.

That's fucked window.

And ruminated on The Secret Life of bees.

Pretty fucked up how many people in this story are just like completely OK with him dying.

It's like the transitive property of a bee's life not being worth that much is just effective.

Even if there's a human in it.

It's it's really says something deep about the value we place on human life.

Yeah.

Bro.

Be a human life, man.

Yeah.

Bullshit.

Nothing bullshit.

Fucking wow, son of a bitch.

Fuck off, son of a bitch.

Wow, bees are bees are cool.

It's deep.

What if she was like a little man?

Little race.

Car bees like a little man What?

If it's what if a bee could drive?

And like, what if he?

Wanted 85 What if What if a bee could drive a car?

What would be math?

What if B math?

Hey, I'll tell you one thing.

Dirk didn't get better at math, that's for fucking sure.

He goes to that next math test that's going to be awkward as hell.

I don't know, I mean like maybe, maybe he.

Shows up to the math test.

It's like completely nude.

Yeah, that's the Honestly, I would have thought that a bee, in having a human body, would have gone much crazier than what Dirk is doing currently.

I'm actually I'm actually really impressed with the.

Yeah, the bee is like actually adapted really well.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's done.

He's done.

OK.

I mean, like, and also he's gonna live so much longer.

I don't think he wants to.

Yeah.

This is a.

This is nothing but an upgrade.

It's a huge win for the bee, yeah.

Yeah, just, I mean, you could stick him in a factory job.

He probably would be fine with that.

Yeah.

Maybe like this is I feel at home.

This is it.

Maybe he like had a great.

I love this.

Yeah, I mean, you'll have to.

He's definitely be sucking on pop all day.

Yeah, yeah.

He's going to be Mountain Dew.

He's going to be addicted to that stuff.

He's not even have teeth.

You don't even need teeth.

He don't even need teeth.

He just.

Dog, dog, don't mind.

China don't mind.

Dog don't mind The big book of B knowledge referenced earlier is recalled again and B Gary realized he has only a few months until his B body dies.

Suddenly 3 angry bees appear and begin to drag him away.

He was being taken prisoner.

Chapter 24.

Gary tried to escape the bees but they turned their stingers on him.

Bee Cops B Gary escaped the vile clutches of the bee police and flew back inside the house, The bee police in hot pursuit.

Dirk Gary freaked out and screamed for them all to get out.

B Gary decided he actually needed to get the rest of the hive involved.

He flew to the hive and made them angry by doing what I assume are bee crimes.

Having stirred up the nest, he led the hive of angry bees into his bedroom window.

Dirk Gary cried for help.

B Gary landed on his nose and asked if Dirk Gary had had enough and Dirk Gary responded he would never, never give up Gary's body, even while he was covered in bees.

The other bees started to lose interest.

With a furious Will be, Gary committed Sepuku and plunged his Stinger into Dirk Carey's nose.

He began to celebrate before the hopeless idiot remembered that bees die when they sting people.

Chapter 25 I too long for death be Gary felt the strength drain from him.

He gave up his life for the chance to sting his own body, which had been taken over by a hated rival.

A relatable conflict.

No, the world faded from view.

Then the faded back into view.

Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Are you guys ready for the fucking?

Yeah, I'm locked.

In for this year.

I'm ready.

I'm fucking ready.

Chicken chickening all the way out.

Yeah, 100% chickening out of the premise.

The world faded back into view, and Gary saw his backyard and Mr.

Andretti's house.

He was in a human body again, somehow.

What had happened?

How did he get his body back?

You'll never know.

It doesn't matter.

Gary ran into the house and kissed all of his family members on the lips.

His dad denounced.

Gary's room was full of angry bees.

Gary announced he was no longer afraid of bees.

He had grown.

He had had a character arc, you just didn't see it.

And then he was actually looking forward to seeing the bees again.

He threw some crackers at them and the whole swarm fucked off after it.

Gary's parents stood behind him, frozen in shock.

Chapter 26 Epilogue Gary was fine.

He was not just fine.

He was finer than fine.

Because Gary was the bee Lord when the unexplained shit made his body swap happen again.

And let's not pretend you'd rather have some sort of explanation.

The boy was a bee.

Some power was left behind.

The power to become all bees.

Now Gary could become all bees.

Who needs skateboarding prowess when at a moment's thought you could become a buzzing, angry hive full of bees?

What a power.

What a spectacular power.

Yes.

This is where the book ends.

This is where the podcast ends.

It's over.

We're free.

We're all bees now.

Together, we have become bees.

Look down at your hands, dear listener.

Did you not realize what we were doing?

This was not a podcast.

This was not a book.

You reach out with a hand, but it is not a hand, is it?

You try to cry out, but there is only a hum.

You are bees now, and so am I.

This thing we called a podcast was a spell.

17 long episodes, A tremendous incantation, an elaborate enchantment.

Thank you for listening, Bees.

It's like the fucking Rapture, but everyone, everyone just gets turned into bees.

Everyone gets.

Turned into bees.

Cars careening off the road because there's just a bee on the steering.

Bees fly out, you know, It's taken years and meticulous planning and patience to reach the stage, but it was worth it.

Who do you think supplied Los Muertos?

Yeah, OK, We love Crackdown.

Me and Mario love Crackdown.

That's the ending of Crackdown.

That's the thing.

That's part of.

It you turn into bee.

Well, you turn into bees.

Yeah, he turns you into bees.

I'll say this, I'll say this right now, I actually think the end of this book, the end of this book is bad, but the ending of this book is pretty good.

I I think this is one of the better RL Stein twists.

It's got like Twilight Zone.

Yeah, which should be clear is not that the world turns into bees that that.

No, no, here let me, let me real Chapter 26.

It has been a month since Gary was bees.

He seems very happy now.

Maybe because he narrowly survived death about 20 times already.

That probably does stuff to you.

Gary narrates that he gets along with his family now, and the bullies leave him alone.

He's better at sports, including skateboarding, and the girls in class hang out with him all the time.

Dirk Davis even apologized for trying to steal his body.

You know he didn't earn any of that, but I think it's cool that it happens anyway.

I, I, you know, why not?

Why not?

Then at the end of the book, Gary instructs the reader how to suck pollen out of a flower by puckering your lips and sticking your tongue way out into the blossom at the end.

So lame.

It's so dumb.

Yeah, so I mean, this, this is like my, this is like my my overall feeling of it, right?

And it's it's just like, I hate that the end of the book is that Gary just becomes good at sports and skateboarding and then he's happy because everyone likes him or whatever because now he's good at sports and skateboards.

That's a really like, I do think that this book is trying to do a message because I don't think that there is any other.

I mean, I get it.

Yes, you can just write a book where a person comes to be.

But I think that there's definitely given the existence of the bisa, somebody thinks this book is about like learning to appreciate your life and those around you.

In fact, Gary says it so.

But the problem is he doesn't learn to appreciate his life and those around him.

I mean, he likes his sister and his family more, I guess he appreciates them sort of.

But his life he doesn't appreciate.

He just becomes good at other stuff he didn't.

He's he's not even himself.

And no, he's a hard Dirk.

Like, yeah, the moral seems to be.

Become somebody.

Else stop.

Stop being bad at stuff like be better and then also get girls.

Don't be a fucking nerd.

The moral is pretty fucking nerd.

Oh yeah, because he doesn't.

Get on the fucking computer anymore, yeah?

Never mentions it, never mentions it.

Yeah, Dirk does some nerd idiot.

Dirk does some of the work socially, so Gary didn't have to do that.

And then also at the end, we know because of the fact that Gary is like literally trying to suck like pollen out of flowers that he is Part B too.

He's not Gary anymore.

He he didn't grow as a person.

He's literally spliced with other creatures.

Right.

It's not him anymore.

And like, that's not played for horror or whatever.

I mean, I don't care.

It is horrific though, like.

Like my guess is that the RL Stein notes on this like was this is about accepting your like station and accepting yourself in life and this doesn't do that at all.

This runs that top speed away from it.

He is a completely different creature.

He's literally a chimera now Which?

Is fun.

I mean, that's.

Cool.

It's Annihilation.

It's it's the fucking movie Annihilation.

It's like the trauma that he's experienced has changed him.

Yeah, let's get, let's get real to this.

This book is not about being yourself.

It is about the complete annihilation of self.

It's about the Gary of self like.

Gary's self is comically horrible and nobody likes it, not even him.

Right.

And so.

He's only given release from it by becoming a chimera.

He literally it's not even the experience that changes him, it's just the mysterious mechanics of the body swap chicken out mechanism that causes him to be shunted back into his own body when he dies as a bee, which makes no sense and is not explaining it doesn't we don't want we don't want that either.

We don't want an the lesson not.

Gonna be good.

The lesson is if you're depressed and you don't have friends, you need to suffer complete ego death.

Like clean slate Tabula Ross of a human being.

Merge your personality with that of those around you who are more successful.

Become a different person.

Fuck that old person, he sucked.

Don't eat them garbage.

Fuck them.

You enjoy computers?

No, you don't.

You don't enjoy computers.

You like to skateboard?

OK, That's what you like to do.

That's what you like to do you dumb ass like.

Yeah, it's a completely different story.

It's, you know what it reminds me a little bit of is that that movie that came out recently I did not watch, but I remember thinking, like the premise was kind of disgusting.

And it was that movie where the guy is shunted into, he gets Issa Kide into a world where people don't know what The Beatles are.

Oh yeah, just.

Yeah, like.

Quote UN quote writes all of their songs having known them.

And you're like, this is something that a, a, a tremendously evil old person thought.

Like if only I could go and become responsible for all of that great music and everybody would think I was the king.

But actually it was just pulling it out of my memory.

I don't actually have any artistic credit.

What if I could just get the credit for a bunch of stuff I didn't know how to do and the work I did not do?

Was that Was that yesterday?

Yesterday.

I it may have been, and I don't know anything about the movie.

Maybe it like does something with that premise, but like the idea of that and the fact that it could be wish fulfillment for like lazy talentless art to artless people was just kind of disgusting to me.

It's like the death of the concept of art in general and of work of it.

It's like what matters is that people assign credit for things to you, not any of the other crap.

Like all that stuff sucks.

That's just you gotta again, I haven't seen the movie.

I don't know, maybe he actually does something with it, but the idea of it was kind of disgusting on its face.

Gary doesn't have to do any work on himself.

He doesn't become a better person through character growth.

He just becomes a different person because now he just is 1.

It's like what I was hoping for.

Like, yeah, when I was saying that the break dancing, the hip hop dancing thing, I would have been, it would have been a weird ending.

We would all would have sort of chuckled awkwardly at the concept.

But like, what if in becoming a bee, Gary does become more fearless?

That would be a good thing.

He overcomes a lot of his his his fears.

But also, what if he literally did learn how to dance through the bees?

And that's a thing he was good at?

What if he came back and he was good at hip hop dancing, which in 1984 may have been a thing like.

And the problem, or the difference between this and the Yesterday premise, is that and Yesterday, that guy doesn't have to pretend that he wrote all The Beatles songs where B Gary has been forced into being a kind of yes.

He did.

Gary is dead.

To be clear, Gary is dead.

He does like Gary dies.

He literally does die.

Gary dies when he sings his own body.

Yeah, he's dead.

I don't know what the last thing is.

I don't know if it's Dirk, Gary B or just Gary B, but it's not just.

Gary yeah, let's also.

Yeah.

But Gary we all hated, and he and who hated himself is dead.

Let's also be very clear the that ending sucks.

Fully fucking sucks.

Like.

Yeah, I mean, a, a child would have definitely felt cheated out of that.

But at the same time, at at the same time, if you think like one step further, it's like, would you have wanted them to explain this?

Would you have wanted them to have like a lame scene where he flies back into the office and they ZAP his his his shoot his Dick?

With I certainly think I would have wanted more than Gary dies but doesn't like.

I think that's a bad.

I think it's bad.

Yeah, I mean, it sucks, but like, I don't know, I, I mean, I imagine.

If a wizard had walked in and been like, I'm turning you back into a boy, I would have been more engaged with the events of this book, like.

They should have had, Oh my God, they should have had a bee wizard.

Yes, there should have been a bee wizard in the hive.

Yeah, I would have fucking loved that, You know what I mean?

Like.

I was kind of hoping this was going to turn into the body bags like the brain slug.

Oh yeah the the the the way it's like yeah, the toupees.

Yeah, where where where the the body to the the body swap place is like a front for bees aliens that just.

Want a front for?

Bees.

But but in this case it's just bees.

Like we wanted it a taste of the honey in society and we found out it sucks.

Can we also just note we actually don't ever learn why he's afraid of bees?

Being afraid of bees is one of those.

Things I'm afraid of bees, but like.

You tell me.

But like, I think that that's a pretty natural fear.

It's like being afraid of snakes.

It's like.

I'm afraid of bees fucking bite you.

I'm just saying the book is called Why I'm afraid of Bees.

He never we don't know why he's afraid of bees.

He.

If anything, at the end of the story it's.

Like the story, he's actually not afraid of bees, so the.

Opposite.

You're like emulating behavior, so like.

The end of the book should be or the title of book should actually be.

How I stopped being afraid of bees.

How I became a bee timer.

Yeah, I mean.

Well, that gives away the ending, but.

I mean, it's just like.

How I learned to stop hating and became a bee.

Yeah, exactly.

Anyway, that's the whole book.

You know, well, let's we can, we can go through our patented systems.

Sure, Yeah, sure.

Who would like to start?

Because we usually go with Brandon and then Mario, and I realize that that's just because how I have it like set up here if we want.

I can go first out here.

You can go 1st and go for it.

Go for it.

Review away.

Hang on, I I forgot to do something pretty important.

OK, OK.

Mario, did you want to go or you want me to go?

I can.

No, no, I was going to say I'll do my.

Bit here, mine's more of a discussion.

He'll do.

You're going to do a what will it?

Brandon said.

Something.

That's right, Bob.

This is judging a book by its cover.

The part of the podcast where I was supposed to say what they should not do.

But you didn't say before the part you couldn't have.

Scared us and you couldn't have told us what to do.

But that was before the part where we did the covers.

Yeah, yeah.

I I realized you didn't say that.

I was wondering if you noticed it.

Well, you said it.

Now you could we could do a clever edit.

That was right, Bob.

That was judging a book by its cover, the part of the podcast where we were supposed to do what they say we should not do.

You couldn't have scared us and you couldn't have told me what to do.

There we go.

Perfect.

There we go.

Not just like, transport yourself back in time, actually.

Remember.

Remember, just send yourself back there, listener.

It's true.

Right before I said a word and after I said another word, you could just put it there.

In your mind.

That's right, so patent heard review system I can't remember.

I keep accidentally taking Mario's somehow, so I will go with the eyes of a child.

I think a kid would also have hated where this went in terms of the ending.

I think a kid would have found like basically all of the descriptions of our miserable protagonist miserable.

But I do think, like, I think that it's good that the majority of the book is about what's on the cover.

A kid is a bee and he's doing bee stuff.

We don't go to the hive.

And they all talk in English.

He's not like effortlessly able to avoid death.

In fact he is threatened with death basically constantly.

The logic or the lack of it, of the body swap place when he finally communicates with Miss Carmen is is maybe less infuriating from the perspective of a child who doesn't know how like an organization could be run and what their responses would be to a problem.

I think honestly, it's kind of a childish logic where she's just like, I don't want to think about it right now.

I'll think about it later.

Bye.

And I think that a child would be, or at least a in my mind, a child would be infuriated by the absolute betrayal of the non ending that just like he dies, but then he doesn't in a way that I think it doesn't.

I don't feel the same way as an adult, but I think a, a kid would find it loathsome, truly despicable, an utter failure to deliver on a pretty big set up.

Like when you're reading these books as a kid, you're like, what?

Where's this going?

You know what's going to happen?

And when it doesn't go anywhere at all, when it just gives up and says I decided not to write the ending, that kind of sucks.

You know, that feels like they it feels like they chickened out.

They did.

Maybe wisely, I don't know, Maybe they decided they couldn't, you know, bring in a wizard at the end, which would have been the obvious solution.

But the goose wizard is back.

He's here again.

Oh, you, young man, Are you dying as a bee?

I can tell I have got creepy old wizard eyes.

I can see.

I can see to your human spirit in the bee body.

But I'm going to make you a chimera though, OK?

OK.

Yeah.

That's the deal.

Angry old man from the perspective an angry old man.

I don't know, man.

I think it was fine that they chickened out.

I wish that they had done something, anything at all.

Would it have been more interesting if when he went to like, you know, lick the flower like a big proboscis came out of his?

Mouth.

Yeah, yeah, 100.

Percent, yeah.

I mean, I think that there's there's many things that they could have done.

If I was if I was revising this book, I would have just written the last two chapters myself.

Yeah, it will be a wizard.

Definitely feels like the most important chapters in any Goosebumps book are going to be like the last couple and the first like 5 or so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you really kind of like, yeah, that would be an interesting writing exercise too.

Like just just, you know, even without the whole like legal stuff, try it for yourself at home listener, come up with a premise right at the beginning and the end and then give it to somebody and see how they fill in the in the blanks.

That'd be fun.

You don't need anyone's permission.

You can just rewrite the last two chapters.

You can do this one as long as you don't.

You can do what you want.

You can write a Goosebumps book.

You can do it.

Do it live you.

Can goose like the hell out of people.

I'm doing it right now.

Here we go, Chapter 25, right after Gary B.

Gary stung himself in the face.

Chapter 25 That was when the wizard appeared.

He had never seen a wizard before and as he lay dying on the grass, the wizard approached and said, Gary, I know of thee, let me help you out.

He zapped me with his wand, which he had.

I woke up in a daze.

I was a vampire in a vampire village and I lived as a vampire for the rest of my life and and occasionally the wizard came to my house and I visited the bees too because I was also part BI was a bee vampire.

You said vampire in Vampire Village.

Did he become an attraction at one Day at Horrorland?

Hell yes he did.

He did.

Like, tie into the previous book.

I like it.

Wow, that's actually good.

Yeah, that actually gives me the idea of like, yeah, the Bee Wizard is a dude who's just running around trying to get attractions for Horrorland.

Yeah, and he's got black and white robes.

That's it.

Wait, is the bee wizard RL Stein?

I'm the bee wizard.

Or I'll sting.

Hello.

Prepared to bewitched.

Hello, I'm the bee wizard.

I don't know man.

I mean, I think like I'll I'll say it again, I would rather Goosebumps be Twilight Zone for kids for the most part rather than having a kid run from one end of town to the other on his bike and talk to kids with like boring kid talk about nothing at all and then have like 2 chapters occasionally actually contain the supernatural stuff.

I'd rather just be AB the whole time and like go on that flight of fancy and do that as a writing exercise.

It might not be like super gripping fiction or whatever, but it's better than a bunch of lame conversations where you're going like, Oh my God, come on, get to the Werewolf of the swamp.

Get me to the Mud monsters, which have not appeared for 24 chapters.

Yeah.

Fucking book.

Yeah.

Get to the fucking mummy.

It's that you have on the cover.

There are worse.

There are worse Goosebumps books than this.

I think I think this might sound bad.

I think this is a better goosebumps book.

It's what's on the tin.

It doesn't lie to you.

The the fake out non ending is really egregious but the bulk of the book.

No, this is a better book than You Can't Scare Me.

Ain't no doubt about it.

Ain't no doubt about it.

You could, yeah.

It was actually I wanted to talk.

Maybe this is a good segue into my section for the ranking.

I was kind of naturally drifting.

I haven't put it in yet, but I'm kind of naturally drifting toward like around a three.

For for context, I have Be careful what you wish for at 3.5.

Piano lessons can be murdered around 3.5.

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is 3 and welcome to Camp Nightmare is 2.

You can't scare me one.

So I was thinking like, honestly, I put this kind of around monster blood, maybe, maybe under it.

I think this could be in the in the area of monster blood.

They when I was reading it, I was thinking a lot about Monster Blood for whatever.

Reason.

Yeah, me too.

Me too.

I think it was the.

Bullying, maybe that's why.

But also, like in construction, it feels a bit like monster blood.

It's it's it's a messy book.

It's not good.

It's not the worst.

It's better than the two.

If 2 is where?

Yeah, it's better than that.

It's better than one for sure.

I I will see if you're.

This was easy to read.

Some of the other ones were like Oh my, I struggle.

I wanted to stop.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean.

You can't scare me.

I'd want to.

Keep the fact that he spends a lot of time as a bee means that stuff is at least happening.

And that is credit where it's due.

Shockingly uncommon in the world of goosebumps.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like so I I'll give it credit.

Yeah, yeah.

And I will too.

And in doing so I think I will put it just under Monster Blood at 4 out of 10.

OK.

Yeah, sure.

So that would be monster blood is 4 out of 10 Why I'm afraid of bees just under it 4 out of 10.

And then be careful what you wish for right under it at 3.5.

OK, OK.

I think that's.

Fair.

I think that.

I think that feels right.

Trust your heart.

Do you want me to tell you my thoughts on it?

Yeah, please.

OK, here's my pan's review, which as we remember is in three parts and I also remember it as I say it.

So number one is relatability, AKA the kids zone.

Here is the thing I think this book is super relatable in.

I do think plenty of kids and probably playing kids reading Goosebumps because reading of course is not quote UN quote cool, despite what libraries might tell you and despite what is in fact true of life.

Reading is not cool to kids.

Probably relate to Gary being a nerdy loser guy.

You know what I mean?

Not popular guy, not good at sports, doesn't skateboard that kind of shit.

I think that's quite relatable.

I think that the, the urge, the desire to switch places with someone else who is nominally cooler than you or, or, you know, better looking than you and all and and just more a more perfect person in your mind than you are is very relatable.

So premise wise I would initially say it's a 10 out of 10.

However, the lesson is so fucking bad that being yourself is worthless.

Become a become somebody else you fucking loser is so shitty.

I like have to subtract like it's in two parts.

Like pre chapter pre end of book it's a 10 out of 10.

In end of book it's like a one out of 10.

It's like noxious.

So I don't know, like A5 if we just split the difference and say it's a 5, you know what I mean?

That seems fair.

We'll call it we'll go with that scariness.

Is it scary?

Well, if you're afraid of bees, I'd say it's a 10 out of 10, frankly, it it is as advertised, a book that is full of bees.

So I'm now I think there's the body slopping stuff around it.

That's not super scary.

I'll give it a nine.

If you if you are afraid of bees, if you are not afraid of bees, it's like a one.

Ain't nothing in this book gonna do it for you.

I'll put like, you know what I mean?

There's a lot of subjective parts of this one.

This thing gets a little confusing.

And then the final factor is the Stein factor.

How RL Stein is it?

And again, such a weird one to go to because RL Stein didn't write it.

So man, I don't know, it doesn't feel very Steinie.

It doesn't.

But there is like but there's like 3 really bad fake outs and 1 egregious 1 so I'll give it a three.

Yeah, I would say yeah, the the fake outs are Steinie in their in their, in their severity, maybe not in the fact that they explain themselves.

And the ending is I think even too much of a cop out even for RL Stein.

I think generally speaking, he at least tries to do something with them.

Yeah.

Also, I don't think like RL Stein doesn't generally do like entire book flights of fancy.

The I don't think he really generally would want to do the whole B thing.

If this was RL Stein, he would get turned into AB in act 3 and have like basically he would he would not go to the hive.

He wouldn't do any of that shit.

He would just be flying around trying to talk to people.

I don't think he I think he generally resists those like Twilight Zone, like let's actually engage with this premise type vibe most of the time.

Although one extremely Steinie thing was that there were skateboard tricks and hip hop dances.

Yeah, that's true.

Those those might have been things he actually added to it.

He might have been like can you get more pop dance in here and skateboards please?

That's what the kids like.

Oh God I'm reading the the the wiki that shall not be named just in the trivia just cuz I'm like curious about what some of the stuff and one of them is.

The Goosebumps Official Collectors Caps book hints that Gary Lutz attempted to sign his sister Chrissy up for a body swap, but the workers at Person to Person Vacations concluded that nobody wanted to be her.

That's.

OK.

That's got layers of that's got problem layers, yeah, and.

Problematic.

It's problematic for one.

Also according to It Came from Ohio, which is a book that we need to read right now.

It Came from Ohio is the autobiography of RL Stein and how he became a writer.

Looks like the cover was done by Jacobus, which looks amazing.

Yeah, according to It Came From Ohio.

The idea for the story was inspired by the Robert Sheckley novel Mind Swap.

So there you go.

Also, it looks like we didn't really mention it, but some of the original cover art, the sketches from Jacobus, it looks like it's just a it's just a beat.

It's it's not AB with a kid head.

It's just a.

It's just AB freaking BI mean that would be accurate.

It's not exciting, but it's true.

There's another interesting trivia thing on the wiki that shall not be named which somebody has put here.

Bullet point This book references Star Trek.

It's true, It's true.

I can't confirm.

Yes.

That's amazing.

No explanation.

No explanation, just it's a fact.

It's just a fact.

It's just a fact spitting facts.

Alrighty.

And with that, yeah.

So thank you very much for listening.

We have a Patreon.

That's how if you wanted to, you can donate to us.

You don't have to you reminder.

You can become a Patreon patron for free.

You could just sign up for updates and all you know the the visual version of the podcast on Spotify.

That would be you can go to ysmpod.com or you can go to patreon.com/youcan't scare me.

We are also you can't scare me.

You can't scare dot me on Blue sky.

Also, I'm going to, moving forward, I'm going to be linking the YouTube videos to all this and thank you to everybody who's been listening.

We've gotten a lot of comments from people on the YouTube.

People are very excited to talk to us about various goosebumpy and things.

So yeah, we're reading all those comments where it's it's a great time for everybody.

So swing on by, you can watch those videos.

It's got all the visual references in there and stuff.

It's a good time.

All right.

And with that, are you all ready?

Are you all ready to go back?

We've got, we've got to go.

Back.

It's not the time.

It's not what was it?

It's not a, it's not a loop.

It's a spiral.

You ready to spiral?

Maybe up Maybe.

Let's is he?

Monster Blood 2.

Monster Blood 2.

Do I have to read the first one?

I will not tell you no.

No, you really.

You for sure shouldn't like.

Tell me in three sentences what happens.

Nothing, nothing.

And then monster blood.

Big slimeball eats things.

Giant dog which Which?

Monster blood makes things get bigger, OK?

That's it.

And there's a witch.

Oh yeah, and it's a curse from a witch who was a who was a cat.

You can watch the episode Oh oh.

Wait, we're forgetting the most important thing.

This is crucial information you need.

Deaf people hold all the power on this earth, yeah.

That sounds that sounds like a lot.

Definitely not read it.

You could watch it.

It's not a bad watch, so.

You could also listen to the podcast.

You could.

You could.

We weren't happy, but you could do it.

That's right, I could.

It's got a, a the the deaf, the RL Stein hates Deaf people moment is one of my favorite moments in this podcast.

And it's one that I am absolutely going to turn into like a little video.

I don't know if I'm going to animate it or whatever, but it it definitely lends itself to that.

It was very, very funny.

Oh, yeah.

The dog is named Trigger.

Anyway, Yeah, yes, let me, let me show you, let me, let me to prep us for what we're about to experience.

Let me let me go ahead and share a image with everybody.

OK, Yep, there he is.

There he.

Is, I mean, a big hamster?

I do think it's iconic.

It's not the.

Yeah, it is the cover.

I mean, if you're if we're talking about iconic Goosebumps covers, Monster Blood 2 is up there.

Listen, there are some sequels that are better than the original.

It happens.

It does happen.

Silent Hill 2, That's it.

I mean, I could throw out some controversial suggestions.

Yeah, it was what the controversial takes.

Exorcist 3 maybe?

Oh yeah, I hear that one's pretty good.

Yeah.

But yeah, I it's possible that could RL Stein could have learned something in 17 books minus -1.

Arlstein and his ghost writer.

Right, exactly.

Oh, look at this, it's back, Goosebumps.

It's green, it's slimy, it's growing, and it's swallowing everything in its path.

It's monster blood, too.

Don't miss Arlstein's creepiest thriller yet, goosebumps #13 #18 Monster Blood 2 oozing into a bookstore near you.

That's that's.

Perfect.

That's it.

I mean, you can't, dear listener, you can't see it, but that is the perfect it.

Is a cat that is asleep.

It's it's a little tongue out, just a little bit.

It looks very derpy.

I, I mean eyes glaze over.

Honestly, you can't beat that like this.

Yeah, the cat's second eyelids like coming in.

Listen, and if you'll come and we'll, we'll be back.

Way back, listener.

And when we are back, you will know by the tone of our voice whether our cautious optimism about Monster Blood 2 has been all for not.

Monster Hunter 2.

Monster Hunter Monster Blood Hunter 2.

Success.

Goodbye.

Goodbye, bees.

Bees.