Welcome to Fear Coded, a podcast where we talk about media from the horror genre and take a queer reading of a single book, video game, film, podcast or TV show to explore just how queer horror can be.

We are finally feeling stuffed after eating so much dangerous soup at the kids table, but we have one more piece of children's horror to sink our teeth into.

Today we are talking about RL Stein's Night of the Living Dummy, the seventh novel in his famous Goosebumps series.

I'm Marilee.

I'm Tyler.

And I'm David.

And we want to thank all the bats in our belfry for being part of our amazing community by supporting our Fear Coated Patreon.

Thank you to will, knight of cups, Doug, Jacob, Alyssa, Blake, puckish, rogue, Tyler, Derek, Maureen and Tommy.

Now before we start putting our hands on our faces and screaming Oh no, I want to check in with my Co host to see just how things are going for them in in the landscape of horrors our real world has to offer.

What's making y'all feel scared or what's making you feel prepared?

Gain I am feeling both scared and prepared.

I which is I think is like the second week in a row that I have done this.

I'm breaking the rules.

So many, so many Tyler, so many things.

You, you just have so many feelings.

You're like that girl at the at the climax, The emotional climax of Mean Girls.

Yes, I don't even go here though so but I do never mind we're getting.

You definitively go here.

I like you're one of the three people who go here.

Yeah, I'm getting into the weeds here.

I am scared and prepared because I'm about to experience my first snow, not my first ever snow.

I have seen snow six times in my life.

This is my first snow as a resident of the Midwest.

Wow, Merrily and I gave you so many snow tips last time because it was all about preparing for interacting with snow.

But now what?

I don't think we did Merrily because we were so focused on the shoes.

The shoes and the gloves is we didn't prepare Tyler emotionally for Snow.

It's.

True, or you live in an apartment right?

So you don't have to worry about like snow proofing.

Thank God, it's fucking sucks.

Yeah, no, I am not interested in any of that boring shit.

I'm excited to open up the sliding glass curtains and just the regular curtains are made.

They're not made out of glass.

I'm not rich.

Wow.

Ineffective curtains.

Also, they're made of glass.

Well it's like it's like a bilatro when you have like a glass playing card at state.

As long as it stays on my wall I I'm racking up passive points.

Boy, I love that.

I love.

That I'm excited to look outside and see like a even a slight dusting of snow.

I'm excited to see it come down.

I can't wait to just be a part of that, that magical moment.

The last time I saw snow, I was with my friends.

We were in a cabin in Michigan and it when it started to snow, I went outside and I just kind of stood out there and I was just looking up at it and apparently I just had the most like magical Coca-Cola before AI kind of moment where it was like he's, he's beginning to believe it's Christmas magic, you know, that kind of crap.

And I am excited to experience that feeling again.

But I also nervous because it's like, oh, what if it's what if there's lots or what if there's more?

What if it's slushy?

What if I have?

So I'm gonna I'm we're getting boots, we're getting shoes.

Don't worry.

We got the good treads.

I have taken the lessons to heart, however don't have them yet.

So OK.

OK, OK, Soon, soon, soon.

For sure, soon, soon.

So I have to get that and then I'll be and then I'll be golden like Huntrix.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

OK.

Do you have snow tires yet?

Do you know about like chains and all that stuff We.

Have been told that we don't have to worry about that where we are.

OK.

Not that they're going to.

If you were going to go into the country, it might be a problem, but you should be fighting in your city.

Yeah, I'm not too worried about that.

They've we've also been told they're really good about plowing around here.

So again, yeah, feeling pretty good about that, especially because Marshall is the driver.

I'm usually passenger Princess.

Elite.

We love that.

And so I'm feeling good.

So I would say I'm definitely more in the prepared column, but there is like a little hint of fear, like a sousal of terror.

Wow, fancy for sousal of terror.

Great with the dangerous soups.

So true.

Yeah, I don't even think that's the first time Soussant of Terror has been mentioned on this podcast.

And yet I don't think we mentioned it during the tale of the dangerous suit, correct?

Correct.

That one slide by, but I believe in our introduction the the term Soussant of horror was used only because I believe that was almost the episode title before we went with fainting couches.

That's so.

Very much so, yeah.

Incredible, incredible.

I I'm excited for you, Tyler.

I think I think your your ratio is correct.

The first snow in particular is a is usually more exciting.

Even for places where it snows pretty frequently.

People usually enjoy that.

First snow.

Well, I am feeling mostly prepared with a little scared.

Marilee, how are you feeling today?

I'm feeling all over scared, frankly.

All over scared.

Yeah.

So I'm I'm not, I'm not prepared today.

And thus, by the metric of our decision tree, I am scared.

Our tree that has two branches and yet we we have created a third.

A secret third thing that we talk about sometimes and sometimes we're on both branches.

It's very difficult, but like I'm only on the scared branch today.

Here's the thing I have been watching this show with my my sister.

She got, she started watching it last year, got very, very excited about halfway through season 2, got less excited because the show is apparently it's really good, but like some bad stuff happens.

The new season is coming out I think in January.

I'm not sure.

That's none of my business.

Here's the thing.

She decided that we're going to be watching it together and so we have been watching it.

And here's the thing, I really really, really, really, really, really really want to watch more Jiu Jitsu Kaizen.

But I can't watch it without my sister.

And she is too busy to make time for me to watch this show that I like, I really enjoy.

I know that it's going to break my heart and all that shit, but like I got to wait for her to be ready and it's it's ruining my life, especially because I, I said the words jujitsu Kaizen near my phone.

And so obviously everything is trying to like throw stuff at me, but I can't look at it because it might have spoilers because I know that like bad shit goes down.

I don't know what happens.

Presumably everything bad in the world.

Everything bad in the world?

But I don't know and I cannot look and it's really bubbing me out that I cannot watch this fucking show.

And, and really, what's on the line here, Mary, it's not just your entertainment, but it is the very bond of sisterhood that is on the line.

Exactly.

You're an adult, you could go watch this without your sister, but that is the most ultimate type of betrayal I think we can all agree.

So yeah, no, especially because when things are happening, if I look to my left, I know that my sister will not be watching the screen.

She'll be watching me and I And like, if I already know something that I cannot react to correctly and that's gonna be a bummer.

Like that's a betrayal.

OK, OK, I understand.

I.

Understand this is a big move it's difficult merely I have very little knowledge of jiu jitsu Kaisen.

I have seen the first episode once and I don't remember much of it at all.

And then I also know that domain expansion is a thing where it's like I've created a sort of bubble of my that's will over other people or something, or it's like an alternate plane of existence that it has been created.

I do not understand.

I just like saying it.

And then Marshall looks at me like, how the fuck do you know that?

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah, I mean, that's the reaction I would get if I mentioned it to Mike.

He would be like, we're I'm not watching that you and Danny can watch.

That well, I was going to say David, like does Danny.

Yes, yeah, Feels like a boyfriend thing.

Feels like a boyfriend thing.

I don't know, though, so I don't, I don't need to introduce me to you.

He's trying to go through the the MCU right now.

That's his like, main priority is because he's never seen a Marvel movie, so he wanted to start at the beginning, which became a a source of contention.

But yeah, wow.

I mean, it's what a choice, what a choice to make in the year of our Lord 2025.

I know we kind of missed that boat.

I feel.

I feel like now you're better off just not getting into the MCU.

I agree.

Yeah, I agree.

But it it didn't come over here the same way that it was in the States.

So it's got that, it's got that weird delay thing.

Yeah, as a as a dyed in the wool Marvel person who saw Iron Man in theaters opening weekend, my dad picked us up from school and we just went to the theater because he was also yeah, yeah.

I simply cannot recommend watching the entire MCU.

So we're doing what we're doing I.

Don't know, Steven.

But that has nothing to do with Marilee's being scared of of of both familial commitment and a delayed gratification of knowing what comes next, even though you know you are driving towards a Cliff.

Oh yeah, no, like I'm going towards the Cliff.

I know that I'm going towards the Cliff.

My sister is sitting in the passenger seat eating popcorn as I am driving towards the Cliff.

And like, I also want to hit the gas pedal because I want to know what happens because I know that there's a Cliff coming.

I just don't.

I'm blindfolded, so I don't know where the Cliff is or how many rocks the car is gonna hit on the way down.

Probably all of them.

I just, I'm picturing this in a vivid Thelma and Louise situation and you just keep adding more more vivid details to it.

Tyler, that is fascinating to me because while yours is probably the better reference, I was imagining Marily and her sister in a Wacky Racers situation and a Barbera Racing cartoon.

I was also thinking dual, but that is less befitting because you don't.

I guess the threat of spoilers is the giant mysterious semi truck driving up behind you while Steven Spielberg films you.

But I think the Thelma and Louise of it all is still like the best one.

Yeah, cuz like there's a, there's a bit in Dumma and Louise where they're having a great time and I'm like in the great time part of Dumma and Louise.

Yeah, you guys take that picture, that Polaroid start of watching Jiu Jitsu Kaisen.

Brad Pitt is there.

Yeah.

This is this is the fun time of the movie.

Yeah, I'm discovering that I'm so good at crime.

It's.

Hell yeah.

Well, be gay, you do crime.

You and Marion Crane just having a blast over here.

Yeah, exactly.

David, what is making you feel scared or prepared?

Listen, I feel prepared this week.

Mine is also media related because in between in between the medicine which I must take, which is the Incredible Hulk or whatever it is that we just watched recently IA while ago.

This happened a while ago.

So we really we've been sleeping on it a little bit.

But wow, that's season 2 of Interview with the Vampire became available for streaming and we have been very, very methodically going through it.

We're not doing too much at a time.

We're sort of savoring it and enjoying it.

It's a show that we watch without our laptops open.

It's a very like in it experience thing.

We Mike makes the lights do their like light thing where they match the sort of vibe of the TV.

I love that.

Yeah, but not He used to have it set up in when we lived in the States, that the edge of the TV, the behind of the TV light would change with whatever was at the edge of the TV.

Incredible.

And it sounds incredible in practice.

Distracting.

OK, I could see that.

If you go from a dark screen to a bright scene like you, it's like looking at the Ark of the Covenant, like it is not OK.

It's not OK.

It was great.

I'll tell you this.

It was great playing Death Stranding with that feature on.

Yeah, that was that was Immaculate.

No notes there.

But you know what I bet would be really good with that setup is Red Dead Redemption 2.

Yeah, if I could play more than an hour of Red Dead Redemption two, I'm sure I would enjoy that time.

I will.

Come to Spain, I'm going and I'm going to play that game for you and you're going to enjoy it, damn it.

Here's the problem is I don't want to get on a horse, Tyler.

I don't want to get on the horse.

I'll get on the horse for you.

OK, well that's fine if you get on the horse for me, I'll do everything else.

I just didn't like the horse part.

I just want to walk everywhere and it's way too big to walk everywhere.

David, I truly feel like like we established on Blue Sky that if we were in a Disco Elysium scenario, you are my steadfast Kim Kisuragi who has one cigarette.

One night, every night.

Every night, but just the one.

And then I am crazy, easily forgetful, making surreptitious leaps in logic and mentioning communism queerness every moment I can.

But sometimes we also like to trade hats, and I'm feeling that moment right now.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a big Walker in video games.

I know this has nothing to do with my prepared Witches Interview with the Vampire Season 2.

Fucking fantastic we have.

Like 2.

Yeah.

But yes, just as a side note on preparedness, I love to walk in a video game.

I couldn't be fussed with a horse.

Generally don't like a car either.

I played that whole Sleeping Dogs GTA clone without ever getting in a car unless it made me get in a car.

There's cars in that game.

Sleeping dogs.

Yeah.

This whole point is like, I don't know, you're in, like, Tokyo.

I won't walk around.

This is a very walkable city.

That's what I thought.

I thought it was all walking.

Yeah.

And Emma Stone is there.

I didn't.

Emma Stone is there.

She's like in the very beginning of the game.

Damn, yeah, I played it a long time ago.

Yeah, she's in the game.

So it is another actor whose name I can't remember, but he's he was brilliant.

He's passed away.

But yes, Emma Stone in a video game way before she ever had an Oscar.

Emma Stone, come on the podcast.

Genuinely come.

Talk about begonia, yeah.

Yeah, great.

Well, no, Emma Stone can't come on the podcast because we're talking about a novel that she may have read.

This actually feels like very Emma Stone coded Emma Stone.

Come on the podcast and tell us if you read this book because we are talking about the 1993 novel Night of the Living Dummy.

This is the 7th work in RL Stein's Goosebumps series, which are a series of horror novels intended for young school age readers.

Novels are typically disconnected from one another, although the ventriloquist dummy Slappy, whose first appearance is in this story, reappears frequently and has become a mascot for the series.

Ironically, in this story, Slappy plays second fiddle to a different dummy named Mr.

Wood.

Penis joke The author, Robert Lawrence Stein has been called the Stephen King of children's literature and given the breath of his work.

That would be accurate.

The original Goosebumps series was released from 1992 to 1997 and is composed of a whopping 62 books.

Since then, Stein has written multiple spin off Goosebumps series.

Stein is also the second highest selling American children's author, just behind Doctor Seuss, and he is highly lauded for his part in encouraging children to read.

Yeah.

For our first foray into Goosebumps, we decided to go with a classic.

Who isn't afraid of a creepy ventriloquist dummy?

Considering how many Goosebump books there are, not to mention Stein's Fear St.

series and it's explicitly queer film adaptations, which we will cover someday, that is a threat.

This will certainly not be the last time we return to Stein's works.

What's everyone's experience with Night of the Living Dummy and the Goosebump series as a whole?

Let me just start here because I think I did read some of these as part of a corporate promise from Pizza Hut to give me a personal pizza for reading books.

Nice, nice.

Book it.

I yeah, book it.

I don't think this one was one of the ones I did for that, but I also then don't know why I would have read others of these.

I remember them having lavish and huge displays in every bookstore that we would go into, and that sort of pulled us as consumers into doing it.

And then typically my aunt, who was the one who took my cousins and I to go book shopping, would pull us away to a more discount bin situation, which also had plenty of things that we enjoyed reading.

And so she was right to do so.

But I remember these being actually fairly accessible.

Maybe they were also at the school library.

But truly and honestly, after that sort of experience as a child, I have touched nothing else.

Stein, No Fear St.

no related TV film adaptations.

This is kind of it.

And reading this, if I did read it as a child, there was no memory of it.

So this was like a totally new experience for me.

Marilee, what about you?

So I was definitely more of a magic tree house girlie.

Like I read those books a bunch when I was a kid.

David is looking confused.

The Magic Tree House was a, a children's series where two kids would enter this tree house that was, of course, magic.

And it would take them to different points in history.

So where they would like, go and like, do experience a historical event and like, try to bring something back.

And then because they had to like, I don't remember the exact premise, but you had to get something in order for the tree house to take you back to the present.

Yep, OK.

They went to the Titanic.

I remember that one I read.

I think that was my first ever Magic Tree House book, was the Titanic.

Because, as every other millennial, in 1997, I was obsessed with the Titanic.

Obviously, yeah, I know we all were obsessed with the Titanic.

We all had a book that talked about the Titanic.

Always.

And I think the one that I remember most distinctly was the one where they went to Pompeii, because that one, it was a fun natural disaster.

I liked that The Magic Tree has books.

I think I must have read some of the books when I was a kid, but I simply don't remember any of them.

The one that I distinctly remember being in my house, so one of my siblings must have read.

It was a choose your own adventure goosebump where there was like something in the basement, like I think it was like the tale of the cursed peanut butter or something.

And I remember thinking it was a stupid but BI was scared of it so I didn't.

Don't think I ever read that one.

I did watch the Goosebumps TV show though.

OK, OK.

What were you, Tyler?

I was.

Too scared to read Goosebumps as a kid.

I remember very distinctly in 3rd grade my third grade teacher and Miss B recipe.

She was wonderful.

She did have a little personal library in our reading nook area and she had a huge swath of Goosebumps books that were either like previously owned by the school library or she got them from other libraries in the county and, and just also got them because, you know, back in the day, back in the mid 90s, I like to imagine that school districts were a little friendlier to teachers than they are today.

But yes, she had a whole collection of them.

Whenever it was reading time, people would go over.

I remember all the boys would pick Goosebumps and then I would like probably had Harry Potter on me.

So I was reading that cursed me it's name.

But honestly, I'm glad I did not read Goosebumps as a kid because I knew that I would be scared shitless by it.

And as an adult, I am so glad that as a young person I was self aware enough to know that because yeah, this shit would have scared the fuck out of me.

It was like, I think like as an adult it maybe it like feels scary in a different way because of just like these poor children, the parents, no adult will help them.

But but as a kid, I, I just would have been terrified by like the the ventriloquist dummy exists.

So your parents don't believe you or the evil ventriloquist dummy exists?

And then also RL Stein, Columbus favorite son, so always going to love him from this point on.

I did hate the ending however.

Yeah, no, it was not good.

Get.

To it, it was not good.

Terrible ending.

So was this a scholastic book?

Yes.

Was this like?

Yeah, Every Goosebumps was a scholastic book for sure.

I was trying to think of where else maybe I got exposure to this and as Tyler was talking about the reading nook and maybe the school district being a little bit better.

And these were the days in which Scholastic would actually give teachers books as part of their, like, bribery to come into school and sell merchandise.

But like, something at least good for teachers came out of that.

That might have also been how I got exposed to them because that is ringing a lot of bells.

And I didn't really connect the Scholastic book fair dots on this one.

Oh yeah, Scholastic Book Fair always had a huge goosebump spread.

OK.

I remember there was, there was always like a little Harry Potter section, a goosebump section, merchandise just on tables all over the place.

And then just like the rest of the scholastic, you know, catalog, OK.

No.

So Speaking of Harry Potter, cursed be its name and Goosebumps in the same breath, I got to ask Tyler, when did you stop reading, like, books like Goosebumps?

Because I remember very specifically because, like, we did, I read Harry Potter in like, second grade.

And I remember looking at other, like, small books.

Yeah, I know.

I know.

I'm a lot young.

Sorry.

David.

So old I'm so.

Old I my third grade teacher, Miss Priebe is who exposed us to Harry Potter.

She was reading Sorcerer's Stone to us.

Sorry, David, sorry.

It's.

Fine, it's fine.

No, it's great.

The the time will come for you all.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's already coming.

It's already begun.

Yeah, no.

But so like I remember after reading the Harry Potter books, I remember looking at like the Magic Tree House, which again was a series that I really liked from like pre-K to around 2nd grade.

And I just thought, why bother reading a little book like that when I could have like a big book?

Oh my God, yes, barely.

Yes exactly.

We are sharing the same gifted kid brain cell because that was exactly my thought was like, well, I don't want to read any of these books because I've been reading Harry Potter babies.

These are clearly for babies.

And then also the Harry Potter books and other like big size novels have so much more points in Accelerator Reader.

Yeah, exactly.

Did you?

Know about this program?

Yeah, yeah, do do so.

We all had Accelerator Reader, the AR program.

No, I don't think it was called that.

But we did have like a lot of reading things, but like I switched to other books, but I stopped reading like that.

Stuff like that.

I remember I read a lot of like nature kid books, like, but like actual proper like novels for children instead of like the little baby books.

Like Goosebumps were so thin.

I got you.

You took away points for other bigger books.

You did, and then that would have gotten you a better chance of getting a personal pizza from Pizza Hut.

OK, so I I wasn't aware how accelerator were connected to your bucket program.

You know that our bucket program was like straight up just a book and a lot of it was some like fucking honor system shit, which I'm sure why that was not the case by the time you all were the the.

Yeah, no, you had to take a rigorous wiggle list.

Oh goodness, David, keep that in a rigorous AR test afterwards.

That would ask you obscure questions from the book, usually about 5 to 10 that were like, who did this?

What was this about?

You know, like there were multiple choice, but they were they were intense.

And if you fail, then you had to reread the book.

That's insane.

We didn't have that.

You could either reread it or you can move on to a different book, But it was still just like, well, I guess you didn't get credit for reading 300 pages.

Sorry, that's.

Nuts.

Yeah.

I think ours was more honor system based.

Again, I think it was a program with the school and like local like pizza places or something.

I remember just saying in elementary school, I think it was in fifth grade, at one point, there were like 2 like challenges, one like statewide and 1 was like at our school.

And I got to a point where the librarian was like, OK, well you got to choose which book kinds of books are you going to be reading.

Like which one do you want your points to go for?

Because like there are only so many points like time you can read and I don't remember what choice that I made, but I ended up regretting it because like the other prize ended up being cooler.

Yep, I remember that.

I remember that exact sort of conversation that you would get from the librarian.

It was like way too much pressure for an elementary schooler to have to deal with like crazy.

Also, I am just now remembering we did not do the book IT program at my elementary school.

We did.

So back of the day, back in the 90s Olive Garden used to have a similar program.

And if the class completed to the program, if you got all the way filled up, like you filled up the thermometer with all of the, you know, number of books that you've read, Olive Garden would bring spaghetti and breadsticks to your school to feed your entire class.

Genius idea to make all of us so quiet for the rest of the day.

Oh, yeah, I think, I think 1 of it was like the Sunshine State readers program, right?

Do you remember that?

Yeah, yeah.

Got it every time.

I remember the fact that we grew up like within a very close range of each other.

I'd never met when we were kids does drive me.

We might have been a little.

Bit we might have even gone on the same field trip somewhere.

Like, that's crazy, really.

Yeah, I don't think so.

We never, because you were a lot farther north than I was.

We never like, especially because my school was so big we didn't do field trips with other kids.

That's fair, that's true.

Well, we are not here today to discuss all of our childhood traumas and field trips missed and present for.

Instead, we are here to discuss the themes for today's episode, Night of the Living Dummy.

Our first theme would be Green Eyed Monster, so our two main characters, Chris and Lindy Powell, have a serious case of sibling rivalry.

Being twins, the girls struggle to form their own identities.

Lindy gets a ventriloquist dummy, so Chris needs to get a dummy.

Lindy gets to perform at a party, so Chris has to perform at the spring concert.

This jealousy causes Lindy to act out, tricking Chris into thinking that her dummy Mr.

Wood is alive.

However, when Mr.

Wood actually does come to life, Lindy and Chris are united in their effort to defeat him.

Still, there's no overall moral lesson learned here, which is fine with RL Stein.

He's discussed in interviews that he wants kids to laugh when they read his stories.

He just wants to entertain them without moralizing.

Yeah, I did.

I did kind of like the absence of a morality play, but I I I I like jealousy and competition between the twins as a primary, then becoming secondary conflict motivator and then an abandoned conflict motivator.

Which that's also fine, you can abandoned a conflict motivator, but there wasn't a lot here to throw overboard.

No.

We could have used that game, but whatever.

I had a good I had, I had a good enough time with this.

I do think it's important to see this type of jealousy represented in a children's novel.

But I agree with Stein.

Like it doesn't have to be like, oh, we learned the lesson that we're Better Together.

Like sometimes the lesson is like, watch out for steam rollers and like, that's all it takes, you know?

Yeah, I mean, like, as long as it gets kids reading like back back in the 90s, I don't think this is talking about as much as it used to, but back in the 90s there was a serious girth of children reading books.

Kids were interested in everything else but books because books, you know, that you had to read like Tom Sawyer and shit stuff that elementary schoolers were not interested in.

Harry Potter.

Chris, we, it's name, did a huge effort to shift that to get kids reading, which I think is still commendable just for the pure act that it made kids read and then hopefully read different books.

Goosebumps, however, which was I think probably more of a phenomenon in the United States, really, really, really jumped, like jumped this effort into like sky high, I remember.

So this is all anecdotal, but I do remember that a lot of the boys that I would see reading, they would read Goosebumps as opposed to other types of books.

And I had multiple friends who would read Goosebumps, would read the choose your Own adventure, Goosebumps books.

And I never read it because again, I was too scared.

But it was like the thing, it was like a cool thing to do.

And when you would go to the library, most kids would check out Goosebumps books.

And I think that is that's wonderful.

So I think Arlstein, even if you don't include a moral lesson in this, Laura knows kids get that enough from other children's like morality plays and books and TV shows and all that stuff.

So it's OK just to have like a like a Outer Limits Twilight Zone style of story.

Wish the ending was better but still I think that's OK.

Sometimes it's all right to eat a cookie after eating your vegetables.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And this, this last bite of the cookie was the part of the cookie that fell on the floor that we were like, we're not going to eat this last bite.

And then you kind of wanted to eat it anyway, and you did.

And.

It was fine.

It tasted like pea soup and smelled though.

Yeah, unfortunately.

No, I wouldn't eat a cookie if it had followed a pea soup probably Here's the thing you you you're eating the cookie.

The last bite in the looks falls on the floor.

You think 5 second roll, you pick it up, you eat it and then you find out that there was like dog hair on the piece of cookies like pull the hair out of your mouth.

That's.

What it is, that's what it is.

That's what it is.

That is precisely what it is.

I need a fainted.

Couch through a horrible vision, I must.

What a horrible night for a curse.

Listen, it's not enough to scare children.

We also got to make them laugh.

So our next theme is make them laugh.

One consistent thing throughout all the media that we have covered this month is that each story is just as funny as it is scary.

Over the Garden Wall and The Dangerous Soup are both spooky, but they're also full of stuff for kids to laugh at uninvited and none of the limmy dummy How scary characters.

But there's also witty and sarcastic dialogue that seems to be the secret sauce for kids.

Horror.

You got to scare them and make them laugh in equal measure.

Yeah.

And I think like we talked a little bit about this with Over the Garden wall and we talked to kind of around it with Uninvited.

But like the laughs are kind of designed to entertain people who aren't there for the scare, like teens, maybe adults who are watching with their children.

And it's also there to sort of pacify or ameliorate the fear that is generated from these really horrific images.

And it is kind of a nice 1-2 punch.

But I think particularly in kids media, it's serving those two masters very well.

And I, I bet that if we, I bet if we dedicated a whole year to kids are, which we are not doing now, we would probably find that this is like a very, very, very, very important thing that goes into it.

Now you can have horror and comedy and not be children's media.

I think we talked about this with Nope.

We've talked about it with like Ginger Snaps, It's everywhere.

But like this in particular seems to be the way of using horror and comedy together for the audience.

Totally.

And I think we see that a lot in Night of the Living Dummy and we'll we'll get into that.

But a lot of the like the humor is very like, if you're like, so this book came out in the early 90s.

So if you were say a parent or a teacher reading this, you might see some of the humor in there and just be like, oh, well, that's gross or that's rude.

But you kind of recognize like what is happening or the references that are being made.

The ventriloquist dummy in particular, Stein wrote him to be reminiscent of another like insult comedian from back in the day in the mid 20th century.

And so I think like on that level, it definitely works.

And then I think for kids too, like kids like gross out humor.

Kids like it when someone is written to another person, they like that kind of stuff.

And that's that's totally fine.

Like if it makes them laugh, I'm all for that.

Especially like when we were kids too, Like, you know, Mary Lee and I can speak to this being like actual young children in the mid 90s and late 90s.

But like, there were lots of like scary and funny things that seemed to be happening.

The world itself seemed not as terrifying or as big as it does today.

And so I think the simplicity of it all makes it work a lot better for our childhood memories.

So I'm kind of wondering, like, does this still have like the same impact on like an 8 year old in 2025?

Like, would they still find it funny?

Would they be like, this is kind of boring?

Do they need like a TikTok feed going on at the same time so that they don't get too distracted?

Like who knows?

But I'm I'm kind of curious and I hope Goosebumps is still doing well.

I mean, there was a new show on Disney Plus that like came out this year, right?

I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but.

I believe it came out last year and it ran for two seasons and it was actually queer.

Like when I was doing research for this, there were explicitly queer characters in it.

And then the the great conservative shift happened and, and anything that had like queer stuff intended for children was deleted or cancelled.

And so that was unfortunately a casualty that Disney would go on to say it was just like, well, it was a pool of numbers.

And it's like, well, girl, we know what the actual reason is.

I'm.

Done with you, Disney.

Disney.

Get out of here.

No, but I I swear to God I thought like a a new goosebumps thing came out a couple months ago.

Yes, a movie did come out OK.

I think it's just for streaming, but yeah, there was a a new one.

Because like I, I remember every time I opened my streaming on my on my, my thing, I saw the heavily advertising this and I was like, you're simply not going to get me today.

I'm here for Bake Off and Bake Off only.

So true, that was exactly my experience too.

Wow.

Wow, I've pulled up this Goosebumps series.

David Schwimmer is one of the stars of these television shows.

Yes, and then Jack Black played RL Stein in the Goosebumps.

Movie, right?

Mm Hmm.

OK wow, the fall from grace my man.

Well, don't sell out your band members.

Let them speak.

Well, that's pretty horrific.

But now we have to turn our focus inward to ask if the media that we are considering is horror.

Because we ask one of two questions every time that we consider media for the podcast.

In the first of those questions is, is it horror?

Were you scared reading Night of the Living Dummy?

Does this belong in our conversation as a piece of horror media?

I as I said, I found it scary.

I think there's scary elements to it.

I think it definitely would be scary for a kid.

I don't know if it's like, it's not the exorcist.

It's not my best friend's exorcism.

It's not, you know, Dracula or anything.

But it is still got scary moments, scary themes, scary tropes.

And so by that measure, I do think that this qualifies as horror, especially aimed at children.

This is by the Stephen King of children's literature.

So it's got to be.

What about you, Marilee?

What did you think about?

I mean, I was never scared, but I'm also not a child.

So that didn't really.

Yeah, no, I was like, be very weird if I was so.

So the fact that it didn't scare me, didn't make me, didn't make me think, gosh, this isn't scary.

It's a horror at all.

I'm throw it in the garbage like a fucking weirdo.

No, it's like it is horror.

And I think that it deserves to be part of the children's horror conversation.

I think that this kind of thing is the reason why every, every streamer and their mother these days has a thing about mannequins.

It's because they all were inducted into the fear of, of mannequins and dummies and that kind of thing because of this book.

And and it deserves to be in our conversation, whether or not I found it personally scary.

You know, I think like Tyler, one of the things that I was most stricken by as like a fear response was the children not being listened to.

Yeah.

It made me sort of navel gaze on the month and this is our first entry where the children aren't believed because I guess for a lot of the month we haven't like had, I mean, OK, Wart and Greg never interact with like.

Adults.

The kids in in Dangerous Soup are maybe adults themselves, and the one in Uninvited also don't have adults around so this is the first time they interact with adults, so of course.

Yeah, and then but but that was like a mainstay of Jantinu area.

It was like, Oh no, adults don't trust teens.

Here we are again.

And so I do wonder if that that just that being there does also add this like part of horror that that all of this truly is.

And I don't know, I, I like it and I will think about it if we when, when we come back to kids horror in the future, maybe we'll find somewhere the kids are a little less believed by by people in their life.

Because I think that is always a terrifying circumstance of someone not believing you.

Absolutely.

And I do think that that pulling on that thread from Jan Tiniary is really smart.

Children and teens have a lot more in common than either group would like to believe about the other.

Sure.

Yeah.

Whatever, horror, yadda yadda, get that shit out of here.

It's very important to be on on our podcast for it not just to be scary.

It also has to be queer.

So can we discuss this media using like the lens of queer theory?

Yeah, there's sort of this nothing burger crush that one of the girls had and I couldn't even I at one point in time I was like twin a, twin B.

It it'll it'll really matters once the dummies get involved.

So as one of the girls has a crush on some boy that I I really just kind of lost that as as like a throw throw this away thing.

But the the the story actually does like kind of throw it away.

And so like, I was, I was like, OK, well, that makes me happy.

I I do think that the the sort of competition between the twins is maybe the queer part of all of this.

It was kind of giving a little bit of ginger snaps here.

They essentially in like the second third of the book are just having like a diva off of like, who is better.

And I do love that.

And that's gay.

Yeah.

So that was like the queer part for that.

I was able to put out the novel.

Yeah, I, I that's really well put.

I think that for me, it's really hard to talk about this novel in terms of like queer analysis because it again, like the kids are so little.

So it's it's hard to like there's no queer activity or or or lack thereof of like again, there's not that crush.

But here's the thing.

The dummies are so weirdly heterosexual is really like kind of a turn off.

It's awful the way that like these dummies are like about these little children.

These tiny girls be like, I will make you.

You are my slaves.

It felt very weird in a weird way that I didn't like.

And I also just feel like, doesn't the dummy have, like, potential to be a queer reading, like, of something that doesn't quite have full control over its body?

Like, I just think on spec, we should have read these dummies as more queer.

And I think it's the characterization, merrily that that sort of takes me out of that reading for them.

Yeah.

And I think that this genre of like a doll that also has like a soul inside of it can take us to much more queer places to discuss.

Hopefully they'll take us to queer places soon, but we're not there yet.

My other thing about this novel that I kept getting stuck on that you so aptly pulled out, David is like the Jantini Mary of it.

Because as I was reading this book, I kept getting flashbacks from my best friend's exorcism specifically.

Like the vibes in the later half of the book were so my best friend's exorcism in a very weird way.

Like there was that weird goop that comes comes from nowhere that people should be more interested in investigating where the hell this goop comes from.

And like what's going on with the goop?

But no adult ever looks at the adults being useless and then the supernatural having a very real impact on the girls lives and their standing in the community, which is not something that you really think about a lot.

But like these two novels both made a huge point of the way that people reacting to them experiencing the supernatural is like kind of a big deal.

And I don't think I've ever seen that before or since in like such a specific way.

So like, I kind of want to give it queer points for that, but with paired with the dummies being so fucking weird, I don't know how.

I don't know how to feel.

Tyler, what do you think?

Sorry, yeah, I think you could probably make the argument that because Chris is begins to lose control of the situation, people don't believe her when she speaks.

I think that is a very queer thing, especially because these are authority figures in her life that are not the ones believing her.

So you have her parents, which I think is the most painful source to not be trusted by.

But I think also Misses Berman, the music teacher who is the one who encouraged Chris to, you know, perform at the spring concert.

To have that kind of betrayal I think is also really painful as well.

And it's for stuff that she can't control.

So, you know, I think that in itself is a very queer reading of the situation.

And I do think the dummies, you know, instead of being kind of the actual queer analogues in this become like more analogous to like ideological and societal factors that force us into situations that we are not comfortable with and end up getting punished for because we don't fit in with like the standard behavior.

So if Lindy is the one who is like the best example other ventriloquist and is the one that's kind of held up as being like the the gold standard, Chris looks all the more worse for it, especially because she's also a twin.

So there's another effort.

There's another X aspect of like mixed identity not showing, not knowing for sure who you are.

Are you independent of this other person when you're trying really hard to be independent, but you also kind of want to be like them at the same time?

I think that's very queer.

Yeah.

So I think there is.

I think this novel actually does have like a lot of queerness in it that you could pick out.

It's just I don't think RL Stein intended any of that.

No, this is hunting for gold.

And that's fine.

Death of the author is is very valid and this is an actual example of death of the author.

I I think that that's so smart and such a great call out that I hadn't considered.

But like when you think about it, I'm pretty sure Lindy who is like the natural born talent ventriloquist, like she's the one with long hair, right?

And so Chris has short hair and she also is the one who's more interested in jewelry, but like, Lindy isn't.

So like, you could have like a lot of things like how Chris doesn't feel in touch with like the societal ideal, ventriloquism, more femininity, however you want to put it.

And like, feels like she's disconnected from that in a way.

So like you, there's something here that you could put together if you really wanted to.

I don't know that the meat is enough to like just to find out, but.

On, on spec, it's giving Katie and Sam, you've got one sister who's sort of seen as ideal by their by their authority figures and the things that evaluate them.

And 1 is a little bit more outside of the norm.

And then, you know, Sam, of course, was like gay as fuck.

So it's a little bit of that gone home.

Thank you.

Yes, I was like for.

Some reason I went to ginger snaps.

Yeah, it was like that is not their names, it's because.

We've mentioned a lot of sisters here on the podcast so.

Still.

Inherently queer about sisterhood, it feels like.

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Well then, let's jump into the beat by beat of this Goosebumps novel, The Night of the Living Dummy.

Lindy and Chris Powell are twin sisters who are frequently at each other's throats.

We open the story with the kids competing with one another and that becomes a through line for most of the novel until we forget about it.

After being sent outside by their exacerbated mother, the twins investigate the house next door which is under construction.

In the backyard is a dumpster and inside this dumpster Lindy finds a ventriloquist dummy that she calls Slappy.

This is appropriate as Slappy slaps Chris in the face later on when she tries to take him from Lindy.

Lindy has a natural born talent as a ventriloquist and she receives an invitation to perform at a party.

This drives a deep seated jealousy in Chris who wants a dummy of her own and the proverbial monkey's paw curls as the twins father arrives with a dummy for Chris that she names Mr.

Wood.

So we immediately jump into the girls are fighting and it's great.

It's great.

Yeah, I think.

And it's also like it speaks to a real experiences that kids have.

Too.

Yeah, like Merrily.

I think you're probably the expert here when it comes to siblings because David and I are only children.

Yeah, I said.

I have three of them, somewhat of four.

So I've multitudes of experience and this is so true.

I kept from throughout this entire novel.

Here's the thing, through my childhood, I had to share a bedroom with my younger sister and like that drove so much conflict between the two of us.

As soon as like she was able to move out and we were able to have our own spaces, so much of the tension between the two of us calm down.

So they having these children who who have to compete for like attention and like resources within the household and like, and then you have no place where you could go with your own.

You're constantly batting heads.

I feel like as a twin that has to be like exemplified by 1,000,000% because you don't even have your own birthday.

Yeah.

Wow, Yeah, I never even consider that there's.

But that also reminds me, there's like a quick throw away mention that the reason why Lindsay and Chris have to share A room is that they can't the the parents can't afford something bigger.

Yeah.

Which is very real.

It's very real.

And I think as as like an adult reading this, it's appreciated that Stein threw that in there.

I think it's just like a really quick justification.

But I think it's still it to me informs more of like the family dynamics.

The father eventually has to go on like a business trip to Portland for a couple days.

So he's out of town straight up.

And I don't know where this this book is set.

It's kind of set anywhere USA, but it is still just like that.

He has to go far away and they're still not making enough money to make ends meet.

So like, I can understand where the parents are coming from that they are so stressed out.

And I could potentially, you know, spill down to the children as well who are struggling to to create their own identities, especially at this point in time.

Because I think I think there

are like somewhere between 10:00 and 12:00.

You are really trying to find who you are at that point.

Yeah.

And so I think that this is like a good, a very good age range for for Stein to come in here.

But then eventually we go to the outside, the kids are exploring kind of this creepy house that's still under construction, but they come across a dumpster Now.

David, I noticed that you had a very interesting input here about dumpsters, which is a brand new sentence.

So please tell us more about about dumpsters.

Yes, the the word dumpster is it it, it represents the brand dumpster.

Like it like saying I'm going to go Xerox something or could you hand me a Kleenex so named for the Dempster brothers who were the ones who sort of created and made popular the notion of large trash storage and trans crazy.

I'm here for you for unnecessarily unimportant.

Did they keep ventriloquist dummies in?

Did they?

Did they?

Who's to say?

Who's to say, Tyler?

It was fun though, seeing the title case in the novel and being like, Oh yes, you.

That is the correct way to refer to a dumpster.

I for example, even though it is a word that we all use, I prefer a brand name dumpster fire to a generic dumpster fire.

It's just not as good.

It's just not as good.

A dumpster fire itself can probably now both have capital letters.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, the fire you've got to keep title case.

In here.

You can't drop it, but I do like that they find the dummy here.

It's a little contrived.

You don't say.

Like, let's go look at this house that's under construction, Let's jump into this dumpster.

Here's the dummy.

And you know what everyone I knew there had to be a dummy because I read the title.

So like whatever, we're there in chapter 2, it's fine.

But it did feel like, okay, so it was just a dumpster.

That's fine.

Maybe since Slappy has such a significant lore, there's more information about why he was in that dumpster to begin with.

I think I remember again I I never read this book before so this might just be like called cultural osmosis.

I heard people talking about it, but I could have sworn that I that I knew the fact that like Slappy, the dummy was made out of like coffin wood.

Oh Jesus Christ.

Wow, yeah.

So like, I don't know where that comes from because he comes from a fucking dumpster, which I was so surprised when they pulled out a dumpster at a random construction site that was happened to be near their house, which again, I, I don't know about you, Tyler or I, I gave it.

I know you grew up on a farm, but in the part of Florida where I lived, there was constantly construction projects around the neighborhood.

People were building new homes.

So like I totally got going to check out the new whatever.

And dumpsters are places where people, especially construction sites where people go to like toss their trash because you don't have to pay for that yourself.

You have to go down to the dump.

So like them pulling a random thing out.

I, I was expecting, yes, of course somebody threw this evil curse dummy away at a place where it's never going to come back to their house because it's too far away.

Nope, none of that matters.

It's giving Jumanji.

It's giving Jumanji.

Yeah, it's, yeah.

It's got a little bit of that sort of like it doesn't really matter where it came from, but it is kind of like why, you know, I didn't mess with dummies or ventriloquism or even like dolls or stuffed animals as a kid.

Did either of you have a dummy as a child or anything along those lines?

No, thankfully my parents were normal.

Ish because like like one of the girls talks about having a marionette does was that did you put on like plays of their stuffed animals Any.

I mean, I had stuffed animals.

I played with them like I even had some Barbies, though I was never a Barbie girl, I was a girl.

So I was given them as toys and sometimes I played with them.

But I would never put on a play with for other people unless it was a family reunion with my my my cousins, of which there are many because we were a large Irish Catholic family like I, I have more cousins than you could possibly understand.

Yeah.

I understand that because I have Irish friends who have a building cousin.

Yeah, but no.

But I, I, David, to your question, I did have Barbie dolls growing up.

Thankfully my mom was really chill about that and she would just be like OK, if you want the Snow White doll, you can have the Snow White doll.

How cute.

Perfect.

Now, as I started getting older and I started watching more like, I don't know, boy TV, boy movies, whatever, the dolls that I did have would start going through adventures and then we had my grandparents had a pool and a Jacuzzi.

So I'd like bring them in with me and they would then go on water adventures.

And then eventually this upgraded to like action figures and Legos.

So I, I shifted a little bit away from having dolls, but I did still like play with them and create scenarios in my head.

And then I got to the point when I was maybe like 11, I was starting, I went online and I saw that people were making dioramas out of their action figures.

And I was like, well, I could do that.

So I, I would, I would take some of my toys and I would take pictures of them and just be like, well, this is the adventure that they're on.

And I wouldn't post them or anything because I didn't know how to do that.

But I just had Polaroids of like all my little Jurassic Park people getting chased by the loss Raptors or whatever.

This whole thing is so foreign to me just because I didn't grow up with any of this.

I, I own more stuffed animals now than I have I owned in in my entire childhood.

Like it just wasn't like I had a bear like we weren't monsters, but like there no no nothing themed.

And now it feels like all I have because God bless him, Danny brings over like a stuffed animal every other week, I think to Curry my favor.

And like, first it was a Corsola, which is cute, one of my favorite Pokémon.

Then it was a Cactar cuz I like Final Fantasy.

OK, we're on, we're on like a point.

Then it was a Penguin for whatever.

It's a Penguin.

Yay Penguin.

And then like he just starts bringing over this esoteric stuff like a fucking Hello Kitty.

And I'm looking at it.

I'm like, this is a Sanrio character.

Like I don't, I don't know what to do with this shit.

And so maybe, maybe what I need to do, Tyler is put on little plays.

I need to like, I mean, they're big, so I have to put on like a big diorama.

But what do I have?

Nothing but time.

I'll buy a lot of shoe boxes and I'll make a giant diorama for these large figures to play.

But they have to be like, because I was creating like adventurous scenarios and like recreating scenes from movies, You have to do the same.

So yeah, you got it.

So much like the librarian telling Marilee you have two choices in this life about which book it prize you want, I need you to decide do you want to recreate horror scenarios or do you want to recreate gimmick episodes?

Yes, I'll do a bottle episode that'll be great.

Because it will be cheap.

And it will be cheap.

Let me tell you, if I do this, it will be it will be a bottle of this.

I love that.

Yeah.

Like you have to put these these little guys that you have in such situations because like when I was playing with Kit by Toys as a kid, it was always like they had to save the world from the dark sorceress.

And to do that, you had to collect the five little things and then go on an adventure and your friends are almost going to die.

That it was a whole production.

Well, merely DM ING from a from a very young age, I.

Love, I love that.

Well under.

Fortunately for Chris, she really struggles with her dummy, Mr.

Wood.

Chris practices in front of neighborhood friend Cody, but he's less than impressed.

However, she must be doing something right because Missus Berman, the music teacher, invites Chris to perform for the spring concert.

This prompts Chris to try rehearsing in front of Lindy, Cody, and another neighborhood friend named Alice.

Lindy offers to give Chris some tips, so she takes Mr.

Wood from her.

Almost immediately, Mr.

Wood starts insulting Chris.

Lindy claims that it isn't her, but no one believes it.

After this, suspicious things start happening.

Chris starts to hear strange noises at night and awakens to find Mr.

Wood in a pose, strangling Slappy.

This prompts her to believe that Mister Wood might just be.

Alive.

Dun Dun, Dun.

All right, listen, I could lose all these other children.

Their dialogue is actually pretty good.

I just don't need to know who they are.

At one point in time I was getting like a hair description off Alice and I was like, this serves me in no way shape or form RL cut this she.

Tops twice.

And it's fine.

And she also, here's what I'll say about Alice.

Alice is snub nosed and I don't actually know what that means, but it always gives me the impression that the character is kind of like Snooty.

And so that's all I knew about Alice.

It's just kind of Snooty and her dialogue sort of matched, but whatever I I do think it ultimately all ends up working to build the drama that leads to these moments, which is great.

The only thing that caught me a little off guard was I was kind of expecting a little bit more of a runway of Chris's like, Oh no, I'm never going to be good at this into like I'm opening for the school assembly, which is fine, whatever.

It's like got to move.

You got to move.

There's no time.

You can't keep a child focused.

You got to go, I.

Mean, I kind of assumed that there were like time jumps happening.

A worth.

I assume.

This was a bad reading comprehension problem.

There were small time jumps, but I I'm with you on that merrily.

There were definitely some happening, yeah.

Well then cheerfully withdrawn then if if there's a little bit more time than I feel.

About no, because I'm also, I also was totally thrown off by this.

And I think even as a kid, I would have been thrown off by this because there's just, it just happens.

And even if there had been some, some like internal dialogue from Chris thinking like, oh, well, Lindsay's going to perform at the school, but she doesn't realize that I've got a big surprise planned.

And then she just kind of mentions like, I've got a big surprise planned.

And then at the dinner table, she's like, this is my moment to reveal the surprise.

Missus Berman asked me to perform at the school concert.

Yeah.

That'd be that'd be good and campy and I would have loved some camp.

Yeah, we always need more camp here.

It's funny, without that, I was actually kind of like, oh, is something supernatural happening?

Are these puppets pulling the strings of like the political aspirations of Missus Berman, who originally had somebody else lined up and then the puppet, like, changed it?

That is all for nothing, unfortunately, because I do think like that would have fed on the competition play if there was some sort of psychic influence that these puppets were having over the the girls natural competitive activities.

But it's I mean, again, it all works.

I'm I'm polishing an already beautiful statue at this point.

Of time, I mean, I think that we did a little bit of work.

Definitely some of the things could be spelled out more like I assumed that they were time cuts because otherwise it wouldn't make any sense, you know what I mean?

So.

I don't know, I feel like there could be a supernatural explanation.

Why not?

I will say I, I, but I'm now I'm kind of imagining like a Tonya Harding scenario with Mr.

Wood and he's just like, I'm going to break the fucking kneecaps off of this kid that's going to, you know, play, you know, hoops or something.

Stick and hoop hoops on stage.

Play hoops stick and hoop stick and hoop caps is that.

Yeah, reference.

That's rock.

Y'all are killing me.

OK wait real quick before we move on.

This was so little kid coded where where Chris kept talking about like I'm gonna go to the library get a joke book.

I loved that.

I loved to get a joke book.

It was incredible.

It was I felt very seen in that moment because as a little kid, if I was just like, well, I got myself into the situation, how can I resolve it?

Perhaps a trip to the library?

No.

Adorable.

Did anybody else think that Lindy had already checked out the joke books and that's why Chris couldn't find any?

And that's where.

I didn't get that.

I didn't get that because I was also like, David, you just got to read this book.

Stop writing notes of the margins, just keep going.

But I love.

It and here I am.

I never even considered that, but I love that idea now.

Well, she would.

You don't have any siblings.

I it's so it's so sibling to be like having because again, maybe Lindy is just naturally funny, like she's naturally a ventriloquist.

I could also see that happening.

But like her way, her very specific way of being like I don't have any joke books.

It led me to believe, Oh, that's such a sister thing to have like already checked out the joke book.

That's where you're getting the jokes from, and then tell your sister that you don't need them because you're naturally better at it.

That's very siblings.

So fucked.

I kind of love that a lot, yeah.

But we never see a joke book in in her her her bag or anything.

So all for not, probably not real.

But I want a like a director's cut of this book.

Now we just add in things like that.

It's OK.

It doesn't have to be 100 pages or I'll sign.

We can make children work for it.

I'll be better.

All right.

So Chris simply cannot catch a break.

First, she thinks her dummy has come to life.

Now her sister is going to perform on TV.

The rivalry between the sisters reaches 8 new heights as Chris throws Mr.

Wood to the ground in fury.

Mr.

Wood, his expression unchanged, seems to glare at Chris.

That night, Lindy awakens with a jolt to the sound of Chris screaming in the kitchen.

It's a gruesome scene.

The fridge is empty and food is splattered all over the floor.

In the center of the carnage sits Mr.

Wood, gleefully with his wooden stare.

Misses Powell appears, and although the twins argue that Mister Wood made the mess, she doesn't buy it.

It's a dummy threatened by their mother that she'll take both dummies away.

Chris and Lindy offer to clean up the entire mess.

Misses Powell agrees, and the twins get to work.

Afterward, Lindy reveals the awful truth.

She's been pranking Chris.

Lindy was tired of Chris copying her, so every mischief and trick that seemed to be done by Mr.

Wood was actually done by her insane reveal.

What?

What?

Just no.

I didn't believe this when it when it was.

Happening neither did I I.

Genuinely, I thought this was some sort of oh, she's possessed by the by the dummy now and that it's making her say these things.

And I guess at the end, this is actually what happened.

And that I guess the the the real dummy was me because I truly and honestly was was waiting for the the shoe drop on this one.

And if this is actually what happened, this girl needs to like this girl needs to see a professional like this is this is this is a bridge.

Right, David, are, are we owned by Lindy and Chris Powell?

Because I feel like you and I are two dummies.

Because I also thought that Lindy was being possessed by Slappy this time because Slappy is the fucking dummy on the cover of the book.

So I figured, well, then he's got to be the one pulling the swings.

Yeah, yeah, good.

I hope we I hope we ham every pulling the strings here.

I maybe maybe a better book.

It had a little bit more of that to it.

Again, you don't actually need the the Lindy betrayal because there's no like consequences for it.

So I think we just have to write a way to get out of the scene.

Like instead of the girls just being like, huh, could one of the dummies have done it and just like sit and Stew on that.

Then we sort of make Lindy the bad guy so that we can like extend this.

Oh, I'm going crazy thing, which that is scary and I do like that.

I just hated this moment.

If if it was real.

And since we have read to the end of the book and nothing came of it, I guess I have to interpret that it was.

Yeah.

So like as a sibling, I can't confirm, but sometimes you could be real mean to your siblings.

Like that is that is real.

That's true, especially again, like the sibling that you are sharing a room with.

My sister and I had like legendary fights when we were kids.

But like this is a little insane.

And by a little I mean like genuinely certifiable.

Like it's so ice cold and beyond the pale what she did especially like taking like we didn't discuss it, but like, and the first time we see Mr.

Wood doing anything like he takes like Lindy takes Chris's clothes that she had set out the night before that she's supposed to like look fancy.

So she has like a Betsy Johnson skirt that gets name dropped constantly.

Neither of you guys are reacting understand Betsy Johnson.

That's a name.

So like, especially at the time, like this would be kind of a big deal.

I'm going to get a silk blouse.

And like when she wakes up in the morning, Mr.

Wood is wearing that outfit and like the silk blouse especially, like you would have to iron that if it got wrinkled and like, that's a huge deal.

You cannot do that like in the 10 minutes you have to get dressed before going to school.

And it's like taking Chris's jewelry, which is like a a thing that she has a particular point of pride in and like having the dummy wear that in like the huge mess.

That's another that's like a huge betrayal.

So like, I never felt like this was supernatural, but I did think about, do we have like a personality disorder?

What the fuck is happening?

Yeah, that's too far.

So I'm sorry, Mary Lee, are we saying Betsy Johnson here?

Is that the like like the the famous designer?

That's correct.

That was a Betsy Johnson skirt.

Yeah, OK.

I did not connect that because I only think about Betsey Johnson as being a feature on Drag Race and not a person who makes children's she.

Doesn't make children's clothes.

That's the thing.

I feel like like she she does like more purses and jewelry stuff and like TJ Maxx now.

Like that's her kind of vibe.

But especially in the 90s, I feel like this was like an adult woman's skirt that like maybe belonged to their mom.

That was hers now.

OK, so like that was me doing a lot of interpreting, but even still, like this was a big deal.

Designer skirt and she got it got wrinkled so she couldn't wear it to school for the fancy party or whatever.

I will.

Say, as someone who didn't know what the Betsy Johnson brand was and thought that Stein had made it up, I felt like, OK, mentioning the name multiple times.

It's really emphasizing like shorthand.

Hey, this is a really important skirt.

Yes, I did get that, but I didn't I didn't connect it with a future RuPaul Drag Race guest judge Betsy Johnson.

She was also on.

Christian.

Is it Lindy and Chris Powell?

Sugar and Spice dress up as Lindy and Chris Powell, Yes.

Yes, Oh my God, do.

It go on, do it.

Go on.

Dracula with it.

Or go on Dracula.

Yes, do a whole goosebump series.

I would genuinely love that.

I'm not even fucking playing around.

I don't.

I can't imagine RL Stein judging drag.

No, I simply cannot.

He wouldn't like that.

Far too much of A heterosexual man from the Midwest.

Yeah, look, we've got, we've got literally one of the dummies in a dress and none of us are using that as a way to comment on the queerness of the dummies because it's just not at the table.

Well, Chris is naturally and understandably furious.

Unable to tell Missus Powell or risk losing the dummies for even mentioning them, Chris instead complaints to Cody.

Returning to her room upstairs, she prepares to rehearse but finds a note in Mr.

Wood's shirt pocket.

On the note is a nonsense phrase.

After Chris reads it out loud, she swears she sees Mr.

Wood blink.

Chris is invited downstairs to perform her routine for the neighboring couple, Mr.

and Misses Miller.

As she begins to perform, Mr.

Wood starts insulting the Millers of his own free will.

Chris tries to explain, but no one believes her.

Although her parents are furious and almost ban her from performing.

The show must go on.

And so Chris begins to perform at the spring concert.

Mr.

Wood insults Misses Berman and then spews a smelly green liquid all over the audience.

Yeah, lots, lots going on in this section.

What's going on here?

Yeah, what's going on here?

So what's going on?

So first of all the the nonsense phrase is karu Mari odona Loma milono carano.

Doing some research I found out that Goosebumps says that it is essentially you and I are one.

So I guess that would explain some of the dummy behavior.

No it doesn't.

Being well, it's unable to die.

Unable.

To die.

Because Chris is still alive, so if they had just simply killed her then the dummy problem would have been taken care of.

Got it.

This immediately becomes like a Fear St.

novel at the very minimum, yeah.

Wow.

Child death.

I was, I was doing some traditional children's literature workarounds here.

I, I did try to do a quick anagram on it.

I did try to read it backwards.

That feels, that felt very children's level of like hide words.

And then I was just like, all right, well, I've done enough.

And then I moved on.

It's gibberish of a Lord like.

Just just just that the like note was even there.

I was kind of like what I wrote in my notes was notes Ex Machina.

Like just truly and honestly like, what the fuck are we even doing here?

The dummy has already spoken of its own accord.

Why do we you have to activate a special phrase?

What's happening?

Because it didn't speak of its own accord.

That was Lindy, Yeah.

Oh, that's right.

That's right.

That's right.

I keep wanting that not to be true.

I know.

So I like reverse engineer that this has already been a live thing.

OK, OK.

You're absolutely correct.

Yeah.

Because, David, I had the exact same thought process that you did.

It's just like, why is the dummy being activated when it was already speaking?

And then I remembered, oh shit, this means that Lindy was actually telling the truth, because it's only going to start acting up after Chris reads the spell.

Yeah, and like, I was displeased with that.

Yeah, I I got to say this is nicely adding a tally to my list of never, ever, ever read A Strange Incantation You Found Out Loud list, because that is something that you see a lot of time in horror and it's just simply never a good idea.

And I don't understand why people do this constantly in every fucking piece of media.

I, I, I agree merely but and you have this list for yourself, but is this our first encounter with it here on Fear Coded?

I don't think that we have bumped into Don't don't Talk Latin in front of the book Xander.

Yet I, I, I don't think we've had this problem as a trio.

I don't think we have it.

So now we are going to have an official fear coded tally and we're up to 1 tick on that one.

I think so.

I think because they never said any Latin.

They didn't.

They didn't speak any spells in Ghost Ship, which is the level of camp you need for this.

There was some singing.

There was some singing in Italian, but that doesn't count.

People sing in Italian all the time.

And there's a whole country where people do that every day.

That's.

Gonna make that joke, barely.

I'm so happy you did.

You and I are the dummies with a single brain cell, bud.

Exactly.

You're you are Slappy.

I'll be Mr.

Wood, all right.

Wow, Mr.

and Mrs.

Miller are really keeping up that that thing that that Katie brought up and we talked about while we were all together for Are You Afraid of the Dark?

That like old people are bad guys.

They're like, they're just there to be sort of like props of being old people.

And I, I kind of love that.

It is an enjoyable source of, like, strange conflict to me.

Why?

I don't have kids.

I'm not going to have kids.

If I had kids, I don't think I would invite over my neighbors to watch my children perform something that seems grueling for everyone involved.

Nobody wants this, right?

Nobody.

Wants OK, so I kind of read that scene differently and like maybe again, I do a lot of work that authors don't intend and I just simply who I am as a person.

But like that scene read to me like the Millers are neighbors and friends with like the Powell parents, right?

But like they don't have any kids.

They're older, they don't have any.

Maybe they like they're, they're empty nesters and so they like seeing kids.

Chris and Lindy don't necessarily like hanging out with them, but their parents are always like you have to spend 5 minutes with the Millers and like them.

Inviting them to perform with the dummies is just like an activity to do for the Millers who like kids but don't ever see their grandkids.

All right, all right.

It's giving the dinks from Doug another 90s reference.

My God.

I'm familiar with Doug.

Doug wore the same clothes.

That was a fashion icon to me.

I found the Millers to be both like creepy, funny, a little bit of both.

I couldn't really understand exactly where Stein was like landing with them because I was also noticing like, are they meant to be a foiled for Chris and Lindy?

Because they were also described as being almost identical if it weren't for like some sort of gender marker between the two of them.

Yes, yes, and they were harmonious and everything, but there's not anything that's done to kind of create a parallel between the twins and the Millers.

So it was also kind of like, what, what is the point of this, except we need to prove that Mr.

Wood is alive.

And I, I couldn't see it.

But I mean, at the same time, it's a, it's a children's book and we need to do stuff like that.

Well, I think children do need to learn the lesson that the longer you date someone, the more you just become looking like each other.

It's just that is that is just naturally true.

This is true.

Yeah, funny enough, Marshall and I have only ever gotten called brothers once.

Wow.

I think it's the red hair on me.

We can call brothers all the time.

I believe it.

You 2 look more alike than Marshall and I look alike.

My best friend whenever we went out and about we were always at like be like oh are you guys twins?

We both have round faces, brown hair and glasses.

I'm like a foot taller than her.

She's like 3 cup size bigger than I am.

We are not similar body types in any way.

It's always like, no, that is simply not true.

All right, let's go to this perform.

Oh my God, the performance kind of drove me crazy a little bit.

And like, maybe because I'm an adult and not a child and maybe when you're a kid you're like trying to pretend like everything is normal.

But like if it was me, I simply wouldn't perform with a dummy that had talked on its own the night before and said some really heated shit that got you in trouble.

I just would would have not done that.

And maybe I'm built different, but like, what do you guys think?

What are you doing here?

Truly.

Yeah, I certainly found that to be a questionable moment, but I'm like, OK, it, it has to happen.

It's the Chekhov's gun of the book is the spring concert.

So we have to pay it off in some way.

And if I were, And at this point, Chris is also kind of like becoming more and more helpless.

So her having to perform and not being able to say like, I don't want to perform anymore, it is, is like part of the horror to me.

So I'm, I'm going to allow it.

But the real problem that I have with the scene is we get some pretty blatant kid friendly fat phobia.

Oh yeah, that's being levied at poor Mrs.

Berman.

Yeah, I, I, honestly, we, we did 3 entries from the 90s here and one was a Cartoon Network show, not a 90s Cartoon Network show, but our, our 4th entry was a Cartoon Network show.

I'm a little surprised that it took this long to get a little fat phobia, if I, if I'm being really frank, because the 90s just were like a caustic cloud of fat phobia.

And I mean, there was like no opportunity for it.

And uninvited.

And I think maybe we just got lucky to have an Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Where that was not a feature.

And then probably because of the creative leadership of Over the Garden Wall, focusing on different things that wasn't there either.

But wow, it sucks.

It sucks even though it's coming out of the villains mouth and you're meant to interpret it as villainess, but it's also there to make the young reader laugh and that I think is the problem.

And I also went back like, is misses Berman even big like she's at?

Least slightly heavy because I know that in the narration Chris says a little fat phobic shit and then it's way worse when it comes out of Mr.

Wood's mouth.

Which I think maybe is giving points to the We Are One kind of translation.

Because if Mr.

Wood is taking all of the worst parts of Chris and like bringing them to the surface, then then that would make sense.

Interesting.

Sucks.

Yeah, I, I I'm interested in that interpretation merely.

But of course we don't.

We don't know that at this point.

Yeah, we don't.

We don't.

Know and like as.

Soon as Mr.

Wood starts talking on his own and starts talking about like the slaves, any kind of like idea that that could be like something that's maybe going on goes straight down the toilet.

Yeah, yeah, no, I found this part very unfortunate.

I think it's it's not as bad as it could be because it's aimed at children.

So it's not saying the most heinous stuff, but it is still programming and kids that being overweight is something that is bad, yeah, and therefore should be made fun of.

And if you laugh at it, it's OK because it's something that you are allowed to laugh at.

And that's pretty fucked.

Yeah.

And I don't know.

I think this story has been adapted in the Goosebumps TV shows and maybe referenced in the movie.

I don't know.

I've seen a little bit of here and there in my research about it.

I think that.

But I like, I would certainly hope that we have moved past the point where it's like, OK, let's make fun of someone for their appearance and their weight because that is very much a lesson that we should not be encouraging children.

I did a little bit of research and I, I feel I don't think that like this story gets adapted as much as you would think with Slappy because like I think most of the adaptations want to have Slappy already as the dummy.

So like some version of the story maybe, but like not as it is.

I think I read somewhere that Mister Wood shows up only one other time and he has like a shirt that says I'm Slappy as the evil or twin or something.

Well, guess that makes sense with the the fat phobia.

But we are ready.

We simply must move on from this horror show of body dysphorphia and talk about what happens next.

Yeah.

So Chris is suspended from school, possibly for life.

Mr.

Powell says that he's taking the dummy back to where he got it.

And Chris puts Mr.

Wood in the closet.

The closet.

That night, Chris hears strange sounds.

When she investigates, she finds Mr.

Wood walking towards the staircase.

He is alive.

Mr.

Wood insists that the twins are now his slaves.

Chris goes to fight him, but she gets punched hard in the gut.

Lindy joins the fray.

The two are able to restrain Mr.

Wood, but when their parents come to investigate, Mr.

Wood plays dead or inanimate.

With no parents to believe them, Chris decides that they have to kill Mr.

Wood.

Can I tell you that if Tyler had been reading this to me as an English teacher and did a little bit of that campy Uncle Arthur, you're my slaves, I might have been a little bit more endeared to this because just reading you 2 are my slaves did not sit great with me.

But hearing Tyler be like you 2 are my slaves, that is a little fun.

Like for some reason that sells it a little bit better as this is this is for children.

This is sort of a campy version of all of this.

This is like the the old woman from over the garden wall is going to like turn these children into her slave situation.

It's not really the subjugation of another person that is so, so unnecessary to dive into, but instead it is the sort of playful fantasy world that's so much better.

But reading it in David Voice, which is how I read books, it was not pleasant because I read like a nonfiction narrator.

Yeah, you're reading it like Buffalo Bill is talking to social You 2 are going to be my slaves.

And instead it's like you 2 will be my slaves and do my bidding.

Yes, that's way better.

That is way.

Better, I should really be doing like audio book work here.

Earl Stein, contact me to voice your your ventriloquist dummies.

But yes, we are now in the scene where we I think is like the the crux of the novel.

This is this is part of the climax, or at least the we are approaching the climax rapidly.

I think this is definitely the culmination of the parents simply do not believe the children.

Yeah.

And that is terrifying to me as an adult.

As a kid, I still would have been scared by that because I was so close to my parents that if they didn't believe me about something, that's a nightmare.

And so if I were to read this, I would get scared.

Congratulations are all Stein.

But yeah, I think even now as an adult, knowing that the kids are telling the truth and knowing how underpowered and what disproportionately like put upon children are, because being a kid, it's it's a lot of fun.

And we talk about like, you don't have to pay taxes.

That's great.

But it's very hard being a child.

It's very, very hard, especially when you're trying to convince people of something because adults are going to assume like, well, you don't know what you're talking about.

You're you're making stuff up or you're lying and you're a troublemaker instead of like, no, no, this this kid, your kid is trying to be honest with you.

And I find that frightening.

I think that's really scary for anyone.

We don't really talk about it, but like there's a real boy who cried wolf factor here because like especially with what like Lindy did earlier in the book, as well as like the the joking around that she had with like Slappy when she first got him.

Like constantly these kids have been saying shit like the dummy did it on its own and like nobody has ever admitted to the parents that like, that was the thing that Lindy was doing to freak out Chris, Right?

Like this is to the parents just an extension of what had already been going on.

And like, it keeps escalating.

Exactly.

Yes, it's and it's the Boy who cried wolf, which is like probably my first ace off fable I ever heard.

Yeah.

It's just, it was a lot.

However, comma, I will say that there was a bit in here that did make me laugh out loud where Chris tells Mr.

Wood, I'm putting you back in the closet.

And like, yeah, that was very funny to me personally, like.

If the if the dummies were just more queer cut.

It would be great.

It would be.

Needed.

Unless and there's no.

Dial up the camp out but knob.

I'm I'm I'm calculating OK.

I think I have something here all right.

Let's do it.

Chris is attempting to take back power and is reversing the narrative of queer people need to be trapped in the closet and instead taking the shame that she feels as a queer person and is shoving that back into the closet as she is now taking back the notion of what the closet is.

And instead it is a place where that shame and fear that you experience as a queer person put it away.

You don't need that anymore.

She fails.

Sorry, but it is what it is.

Anyway, that is me cogitating something really quickly.

I love that.

Anyway, Chris, there's still time.

Chris, there's still time.

There's still time.

There's still time.

All right, well, I guess it's time to get to the shitty climax.

Are we all ready?

I hate a shitty climax.

The worst kind.

So the girls try to decapitate Mr.

Wood, but they fail, sticking him in an old suitcase.

They bury him in like the dirt pile for the construction thing next door, but that doesn't work either.

He just comes back in the morning.

After the the Powell parents leave, Mr.

Wood begins his rampage.

He grabs the family dog Barky, which is such a child named the dog name, and tries to strangle him.

Chris and Lindy attack, and although it is a fierce battle, they're able to get the upper hand.

The twins try to throw him under a steamroller next door, but they miss as Barky is almost hit by the steamroller.

Instead.

Mr.

Wood escapes and gloats that the twins will be his slaves forever, only to then get crushed by a second steamroller.

A rancid green mushroom shaped cloud rises from the crushed dummy and then dissipates.

The twins return home, relief coursing through their bodies.

And then they shriek.

Slappy the dummy has come to life and ask if Mr.

Wood is gone.

And then that's it.

That's the end of the book.

I'm sorry, a second steamroller?

A second steamroller.

A second steamroller has steamroller has hit the ventriloquist dummy.

I just I simply why?

Why is there one steamroller?

Why is there one?

Why is there a second one?

I am.

I'm losing my mind.

The acreage on this next door house is huge, David.

It's like the size of your childhood farm.

I'm struggling with.

They they left out that they live in Wyoming.

Yeah.

But I love, I love the steamroller driver who eventually kills the dummy, gets off and is like, Oh my God, did I hit a child?

And that is his dialogue 3 or 4 times.

I thought it was a kid.

I thought I hit a kid.

I really thought I hit a kid and I was like, my man, are you really post trauma here?

Like did you actually think that you rolled over a child?

Steam rollers cannot go that fast.

You probably could have stopped my.

Excuse me, I watched the first Austin Powers movie and that guy got crushed by the steamroller and that only took what?

25 seconds.

10.

Minutes of film.

You know, we'll have to we'll have to put out a feeler to AQ Division podcast for for their for their take on the steamroller scene from Austin Powers International man of.

Mystery.

I mean, I haven't seen all the the James bonds.

For all we know, Q Division already has like a like a list that they've been working on secretly this whole time.

Gadget Gavin is just so prepared.

That being said, I mean it's funny.

So it like it did succeed in the like curing the fact that this dummy was about to strangle and kill a dog.

Like yeah get get fucking crushed under a steamroller you asshole.

And now the the children won't be his slaves.

I am really glad that the steamroller driver did not hit any of the children because the way Stein described him sounded pretty hot.

Can I, can I read a passage for you?

Yeah, please.

He was a short, stocky man with big muscular arms bulging out from the sleeves of his T-shirt.

His face was bright red under a short blonde flat top, his eyes wide with horror.

Dream man, I probably wouldn't.

I'd I'd want him to grow out the flat top.

I will be honest, that's a little too cop for me, but it's the rest.

It's the 90s.

It's the 90s.

No, but he sounded like he would probably attend the Arbegas School of Portland gentlemen.

And for that?

I agree.

I'm grateful.

I'm grateful for.

Him.

RL Stein did that for me.

The 35 year old reading a children's book.

Right here at the end.

Right here at the end.

Right here at the end.

Yeah, he.

Was trying to soften the blow of the horrible ending to this book.

Yeah, just like them walking in and be like the windows open, Sloppy is sitting in the villain chair and be like, you guys get rid of that guy, hated him and that's it.

OK, Insane.

So I we're all on board that this is a bad ending, but I I do wonder if there is some nuance between some of us cuz I did not hate the slappy reveal as a very like Twilight zone yank.

I just don't think there was enough time between a second steamroller on the scene to Slappy reveal that felt way too close together, and that is my problem.

For me, my problem is that like I don't need a moral lesson here, but I would have liked some dialogue between Chris and Lindy.

That was like, oh, I'm so happy that's over.

I'm sorry that I was such an asshole to you, like child translation.

But like, I'm sorry I did this to you.

I'm sorry too.

Let's let's never do that again.

Thank God all of this is over.

Let's let's go get snacks and play fetch with Barkey.

And then it's like, Ah, Slappy.

Yeah.

There's no conclusion.

Nothing gets actually, like, satisfactorily wrapped up.

No, I don't know.

And this the the the Powell twins never seen or heard from again.

Probably cuz Slappy killed him, yeah.

They're, they're his slaves.

They're like, they're like often fucking the Yukon, chopping down lumber to keep him alive forever.

Yeah.

Slap Slappy's become the ship of Theseus, probably.

Marilee, did you did, did do you share Tyler's frustrations or did you have a different like bad reading, bad reading?

Did you have a different accurate reading of the bad ending of the end of this?

I wish.

There was fucking something to like hint that Slappy was conscious beforehand.

Like that would have made more sense to me if like there was something along the way that like Slappy was also incarnated with this magic.

Or if the fact that like Mr.

Wood dying that released the evil into the world's and then like sloppy is the nearest ventriloquist dummy absorbed that evil, Give me something like how like that when it dissipate, maybe it like the a breeze is blowing it in the direction of the house.

I just, I have a lot of questions for why Slappy is suddenly here.

And also I do think that you're both right.

Like an extra scene with the sisters talking to each other about what just happened really could have given the ending a little bit more space to breathe and be its own thing.

But as it stands, the fact that like Slappy is just suddenly alive, it really rubs me the wrong way.

And then the fact that it's just over, like, there's nothing else there.

Like, I guess like an Outer Limits kind of twist, because I feel like Twilight Zone usually, like, Nightmare at 20,000 feet.

William Shatner's character goes through like a whole fucking arc.

This one feels like half an arc for the Powell sisters.

Yeah, it's like.

Wouldn't it be fucked up?

And then suddenly and then suddenly Gremlin on the wing, you know, it's it's just it doesn't really fit.

So I was, yeah, I'm pretty disappointed with with this ending.

But I mean, hey, this was a huge success for kids, a huge success in general for RL Stein, so clearly something worked.

So maybe for kids it's less of a big deal.

But as an adult reader, I am left wanting more.

It feels like an A-24 idea that has been sketched out but then needs to actually be like filled in some more.

Because I think there is an A-24 movie living in this story.

Of of Night of the living Dummy.

Yes, I absolutely believe that.

I mean, I buy, I buy that, Tyler.

I do buy that, yeah.

I buy that for a dollar.

I buy that for a $10 million operating budget for the film.

Well, OK, then I better wrap things up then so that we can get to work.

Not enough.

Money.

Not enough money for a movie, Tyler, Not enough money.

My nest eggs, David.

So how did we feel about Night of the Living Dummy in terms of horror or queerness after our conversation?

Do any of you have final thoughts for this episode?

You know, my big one here is that at the end of reading this, I wasn't interested in reading and other Goosebumps and I'm not the target audience, which is a child, but I we talked about this before we started recording.

Tyler and I both had a version that had an interview with RL Stein.

I had no interest in even reading that like I and I'm a person who is usually vociferous for information and I was like, Nope, I am, I'm fine.

I'm done with this.

I don't I don't need to touch the goosebumps novels again.

I might be interested in some of the other media associated with the name, but I these these are for children and they were for children in the 90s too.

And I think that if I was going to critique over the Garden Wall for some of it's writing, I've got a critique Stein and some of his writing decisions because children do deserve competently written horror.

And there's just we watched a lot of balls go across the plate on this one, and that was a bummer.

Yeah.

I agree.

My my thing is two points.

Point number one, I was constantly hearing the goosebumps theme in my head as I was reading this.

So like, well done Goosebumps theme composer.

You like fucking killed it on that.

But then secondly is just slappy and like holding hands emoji.

And then Jason on the other side being huge franchise defining icons that are barely in the 1st century.

Truly.

Very true.

Truly.

Yeah, real outside influence or outsized influence from from their initial work.

Yeah, I totally agree with you on that.

Merrily.

I think I want to touch now on not just I think we talked a lot about the queerness and what may be there what's lacking in nine of the limmy dummies.

So now I'm kind of kind of expand the pool to just kids table horror month in general.

I think that there was just straight up not a lot of queer queerness or queer representation in children's media from the 90s to the mid 2000s.

And that's pretty fucked.

Now we've we've talked about this with over the garden wall.

There were capitalist and other economic influences that caused that to happen in the 90s.

I'm sure it's that plus like moral concerns because, you know, homosexuality, especially being exposed to children might as well be like, I'm showing them like a full spread of pornography.

Like that was the thought process at the time.

And that's really fucked.

Obviously, that's, that's not where we are anymore, although people are really trying hard to return us to that, to that era, which is not good either.

But at least we did for a time in the end of the 20 tens.

And then probably just up to COVID.

I would say COVID 2020 is when you could say like it has stopped here.

We did start getting queer representation in media, especially children's media, and that was really great.

I mentioned this earlier, but I think when COVID happened and then there was a large cultural pushback because fascists don't have anything else to use as a weapon than to just demonize queer people.

Trans people are under represented.

Dead End Paranormal Park, done by fellow Glitter Jaw member Hamish Steel.

It was a wonderful piece of that representation for children.

And it was like the the first time I ever recall seeing a trans young person being represented in children's media, which I thought was huge and so wonderful.

And it was truly such a wonderful show.

And Hamish's Dead India is on my Christmas list, so I would love to read his works after that.

But that is like a really good example of that queer representation that I think kids really need to see.

And the way Netflix treated it was very unfortunate.

And that's where we are now.

And I and I really hate that these people who are in power are so fucking dead set on criticizing anyone but themselves.

Because obviously the billionaires and the world's first fucking trillionaire cannot be the people at fault here.

It has to be the poor, marginalized people of the world.

But I, I think that, you know, the, the moral arc of the universe is long, it bends towards justice.

And I, I, I do believe that there will be a recovery from these, these steps backwards.

Because I agree, I do feel like we're stepping backwards into the 90s, which sucks.

I mean, I did, I did great in the 90s, but the, the world was not great.

So I, I, I'm ready for us to be back in an era when a company takes a chance on something like Paranormal Park, which I think isn't, should have been on our list of children's horror and like, whoopsie doopsie when we planned this month.

We could have planned that one.

Yeah, but.

I, I, somebody had asked me point blank, It's like, why aren't you doing that?

It was like, that's such a question.

Yeah, that is such a question.

David had this video game he really wanted to cover.

So Tyler really wanted to talk about Are You Afraid of the Dark?

You mentioned over the garden wall a year ago so we had to be good on.

That I, I'm not, I'm not mad about what we chose for children's horror because I do think it's a, it's a, it's a, it is a time capsule of what was happening from the early 90s all the way through the 20 tens when over the garden wall came out.

It is, it is that important time capsule.

And as we step backwards in time with social policies, we need to understand what was happening in that era.

And I think there's different economic factors down.

I think there's different religious groups who are pushing for certain things to happen and not to happen and that that fundamentalism is something we're always going to fight, fight back against so that queer creators can tell queer stories for queer audiences.

And I think, I think if you you were a is it a big Goosebumps reader, you probably had some analysis that came part of your life as a queer person because of that.

I think that's brilliant because all media can do that, and we deserve some media That's for us.

And so just like I think children deserve completely written stories, I think all children deserve an opportunity to read and experience a queer story because that might end up being part of who they are as adults.

Wonderfully put.

Yeah, like fucking round of applause for David.

Come at me, transphobes.

Transphobes do not come on the pod.

Frankly, if you are transphobic and you're listening to this podcast, please unsubscribe.

We don't want.

Why?

Genuinely.

What the hell are you doing here?

Are we got confused?

So also get to like the 140 mark.

Why how are you here?

Like what happened?

Such a question go back to Joe Rogan.

Because because if you were a Rogan listener and this just autoplayed afterwards, like I could understand.

But like you made it this far, you made understand.

Hey, hey, you know what?

It's stranger.

Things can happen with fucking algorithms.

That's true, that's true.

Anyway, thank you for letting me rant.

Rant over.

David has spoken.

Well, thank you all so much for listening to this episode.

Except of course, if you're a transphobic, get already covered, get out of here.

Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Unless you're transphobic, go away.

So we promise that the only spooky dummies here are us.

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This month we had a video episode all about the video game Bilatro, but next week, barely.

Could you just have a seat over here Real quickly?

Tyler and I have rigged up a Ludovicio device and we are ready to force Merrily to watch the holiday film Elf as foretold by the ancient prophecies.

I have the eye drops ready.

Let's go.

They're Christmas cane.

Flavor.

Oh oh, does syrup have sugar in it?

Merrily.

We'll find out when we talk next week about the movie Elf.

Fear Coated is a proud part of the Glitter Jaw Queer Podcast collective.

If you'd like to listen to more Queer media podcast and why wouldn't you, check out the full roster shows at glitterjaw.com.

And we're not done with creepy little things that scuttle around just yet.

We're going to be dealing with a dummy of a different kind as we begin Doll Sember next month, where we will be celebrating dolls in horror all month long.

And we're going to start that with probably one of the most recognizable dolls in 1988's Child's Play.

But for now, we will simply say goodbye.

Goodbye.

I'll take the legs from some old table, I'll take the arm from some old chair, I'll take neck from some old bottle and from a horse.

I'll take the hands.

I'll take the hands and face from off the clock and baby, when I'm through I'll get more loving from the dumb dumb dummy than I ever got from you.

David, maybe cut that out.

No, Oh my God.

David, I don't want to get sued.

David, apply a two times amplifier to everyone's voices during that session.

Goodbye, slaves.

Yes, yes, yes.

Get me some legs, Get me a chair and a bottle too.

Give me a hall.

Give me some time.

Lindy joins the fray.