Does Slime Pay? (ft. Jim Smylie and Goosebumps Completionist)

[00:01:05] Greetings Goosebumps fans, young and old, big and small, living dead and undead.

[00:01:09] Welcome back to the Goosebumps Crew Podcast.

[00:01:11] I'm your host Isaiah Vargas and I'm joined by my good buddy Bjorn Pelinik.

[00:01:15] Unfortunately, Nick Shaw was unable to join us this week as he is sick, but that's okay

[00:01:18] because we're still the Goosebumps Crew and we're still going to talk some Goosebumps.

[00:01:22] Also joining us today, returning Goosebumps Completionist Austin.

[00:01:25] Good to see you Austin.

[00:01:26] Thanks for joining us once again.

[00:01:28] And if this is your first time joining us here on The Goosebumps Crew Podcast,

[00:01:32] I want to sincerely welcome you all.

[00:01:33] If you are or have ever been a fan of the Goosebumps series of books or the franchise

[00:01:38] that it spawned, then this podcast is going to be right up your alley.

[00:01:41] Because as I always say, me, Bjorn and Nick are some of the biggest Goosebumps nerds on

[00:01:45] the planet and Austin too.

[00:01:47] And we talk about Goosebumps for hours on end.

[00:01:49] We could talk about it for hours on end.

[00:01:51] That is exactly what we do here on this podcast every week.

[00:01:54] We have a brand new episode to talk about anything Goosebumps related, whether it

[00:01:58] be the books, TV shows, movies, video games, merchandise, whatever it is.

[00:02:01] If it has Goosebumps in the name, we're going to probably talk about it until

[00:02:04] our teeth rot out of our mouth.

[00:02:06] So in that case, if you end up liking today's episode, make sure you leave a

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[00:02:50] Now, if you guys remember, and one of our previous episodes, we talked

[00:02:54] about Goosebumps lost to books, the lost Goosebumps books.

[00:02:58] And in that episode, we talked about two instances where a title was

[00:03:02] conceived through a contest, but they never got made into official Goosebumps books.

[00:03:09] Now, one of those titles was Dead Dog Still Fetch, which we did an interview

[00:03:13] with the winner of that contest, the 1998 contest Brain Juice Terrifying

[00:03:18] Title Contest, which Braden Gardner from Iowa won.

[00:03:22] And it basically was a whole thing where he won with his title Dead Dog

[00:03:25] Still Fetch.

[00:03:26] Arlstein got to come to his school and they got to make an entire short

[00:03:30] story in front of his entire class based around that title.

[00:03:34] And we did a whole interview with him.

[00:03:36] Episode 30, if you guys want to check that one out.

[00:03:39] But there was another title that we mentioned in that video.

[00:03:42] That was also the product of a contest, a contest that actually happened

[00:03:46] four years prior to the Brain Juice Terrifying Title Contest.

[00:03:50] And joining us today is the winner of that contest, Jim Smiley.

[00:03:54] Jim, welcome to the Goosebumps Coup Podcast.

[00:03:56] How are you doing today?

[00:03:57] Doing great.

[00:03:58] Thanks for having me on.

[00:03:59] Absolutely. We're glad to have you on.

[00:04:01] And we're going to talk about your title that you came up for the 1994

[00:04:04] partnership between Scholastic Connect and America Online,

[00:04:09] the name of Goosebumps title contest.

[00:04:12] And you won with your title Slime Doesn't Pay.

[00:04:15] And we're going to talk all about that title today.

[00:04:19] But first, before we get into the contest, I want to know.

[00:04:23] So obviously you joined the contest and you won.

[00:04:27] So you must have been a pretty big Goosebumps fan back then.

[00:04:30] Oh, yeah.

[00:04:31] I am well, I don't have quite the impressive collection that I can see

[00:04:37] behind each of you guys.

[00:04:38] But I definitely had a lot of those books.

[00:04:44] I was a really bookish kid and I was always looking for genre stuff.

[00:04:49] I was really into sci-fi, really into fantasy.

[00:04:52] And I'm not sure where I saw my first Goosebumps book.

[00:04:55] But I think the first one I really remember getting into and reading over

[00:04:59] and over again was Monster Blood.

[00:05:02] And, you know, ever since that one, I picked up what was it called?

[00:05:08] The one with the really awesome spooky cover of the skeleton family on the polaroid.

[00:05:12] Like Stay Chees & Die.

[00:05:13] Stay Chees & Die.

[00:05:14] Yeah, that one.

[00:05:16] And then Night of the Living Dummy.

[00:05:18] I definitely remember reading those over and over again.

[00:05:21] All of my all of my books were doggiered to hell and back.

[00:05:26] And if I'm allowed to say that word on this on this podcast.

[00:05:29] You are.

[00:05:30] But yeah, I just remember.

[00:05:34] Stein was really, really good and is really, really good at like

[00:05:38] taking the everyday arts of childhood

[00:05:41] and like making them relatively scary in themselves before there's even

[00:05:46] like a zombie or an evil doll or haunted goop that shows up like a pair of bullies

[00:05:54] becomes like this unfair, frightening thing that you have to deal with.

[00:05:58] Like the sense of like powerlessness or frustration or not being able to trust adults.

[00:06:03] I related to a lot of that because, you know, I was kind of a nerdy

[00:06:08] kid who needed needed to explore the world and didn't really know how at times.

[00:06:14] And yeah, Goosebumps was really good at just connecting to that.

[00:06:19] So I was I was very into it.

[00:06:21] I got a lot of them from Scholastic.

[00:06:25] Absolutely.

[00:06:25] And definitely you're absolutely right.

[00:06:27] Goosebumps is that sort of book series that really did resonate with kids back then

[00:06:32] for those particular reasons because it was both an escape,

[00:06:37] but it was also like a mirror to the realities of a kid.

[00:06:40] It took sort of like the everyday troubles that a child would have

[00:06:44] and put it through sort of the supernatural lens,

[00:06:47] but you still also have like the frustrations

[00:06:50] and the hurdles that a kid has to overcome.

[00:06:53] Like you said, not being able to trust in the doll, they're dealing with bullies

[00:06:56] or being like unpopular in school, like whatever the case is.

[00:07:01] Like a lot of kids had those problems growing up

[00:07:03] and Goosebumps was able to channel into those realities.

[00:07:07] But again, put it through sort of that spooky supernatural lens

[00:07:12] to act as sort of an escapism.

[00:07:13] I know that certainly is how it was for me.

[00:07:16] And I know definitely a bunch of other kids who grew up reading these books.

[00:07:22] So what was it like to be a Goosebumps fan?

[00:07:25] Because at the time of this contest,

[00:07:28] the book series was about two years, two years old.

[00:07:31] And the merchandise was sort of starting to ramp up

[00:07:35] before I like really, really exploded.

[00:07:37] But what was it like?

[00:07:38] Was it like a super hot thing at the time?

[00:07:42] You know, I'm thinking back.

[00:07:45] I was a been at the time of the contest.

[00:07:47] I think I would have been 11 years old.

[00:07:48] I was born in 1983 and our school,

[00:07:53] honestly, it was much more about, I think, like,

[00:07:55] Pogs and Magic Cards at that time than Goosebumps itself.

[00:08:00] But I did know like I saw other kids reading them.

[00:08:04] And sometimes the library would get new ones and they'd be out

[00:08:07] and I'd be frustrated.

[00:08:08] So I did know that they were a presence.

[00:08:10] And I was definitely starting to see like the Goosebumps swag

[00:08:15] and Merch show up in the Scholastic catalog.

[00:08:19] I think there was like a glowing brain eraser or something like that,

[00:08:22] or maybe a skeleton pencil that I just desperately begged my mom to buy for me.

[00:08:28] I never lived that dream, unfortunately.

[00:08:29] But I, yeah, I know that it was it was a big

[00:08:36] like a big deal like I could I could tell there was a community around it,

[00:08:40] even if I didn't get to like sit down and talk my favorite books with people very often.

[00:08:47] Yeah. And I mean, did you did you collect any books?

[00:08:51] Would you start your own little collection of books

[00:08:55] or like by Merch or anything like that?

[00:08:57] It was mostly just as the books came out, I would get them.

[00:09:02] Monster Blood, I think there were like four of them, right?

[00:09:07] I know every time a Monster Blood came out, I wanted that.

[00:09:10] Monster Blood was my absolute favorite

[00:09:12] and might have been the first book I bought actually or my mom bought

[00:09:18] and the Night of Living Dummy.

[00:09:21] And then again, say cheese and dye.

[00:09:23] I keep remembering more of that now.

[00:09:24] I can remember like the guy taking is getting his picture taken

[00:09:27] and dying of fright from it and all that.

[00:09:29] But it was basically just I think my only criteria were number one,

[00:09:35] is it a goosebumps book?

[00:09:37] And number two, is the cover art like scary?

[00:09:41] Does it have that like nice spooky

[00:09:43] like jump out of your skin thing?

[00:09:46] And if the answer was yes to one or both, I wanted to read it.

[00:09:51] I think my collecting dropped off a little bit later.

[00:09:56] By the time I got to like seventh or eighth grade,

[00:09:58] my interest had kind of tapered down.

[00:10:01] But I always had a serious fondness for them.

[00:10:04] And like I remember the Goosebumps TV series.

[00:10:07] Gosh, I can't remember when that came out, but I remember

[00:10:10] even at my age being excited to at least check out the pilot of it.

[00:10:16] So yeah, I was very much just, oh, is the book out?

[00:10:19] All right, let's let's go get the book or we've got a library

[00:10:22] and I'd be like, I go check and see if the name Goosebumps is out.

[00:10:25] I was definitely keeping an eye on the shelves whenever I could.

[00:10:29] And if I if I had the means and the method, I would grab that book.

[00:10:33] Absolutely.

[00:10:34] 95 and 96 was kind of like the biggest years of Goosebumps.

[00:10:39] 95, the TV series started.

[00:10:40] The merch was starting to come out.

[00:10:42] But 96 was the year that the merchandise exploded.

[00:10:46] Like most items you find have 96 on it.

[00:10:49] 96 and 95 was the early days.

[00:10:53] I think in 1994, the only.

[00:10:56] Real thing that I know you could get was they did some of those

[00:10:59] like packs and they did some of the

[00:11:01] like there was the Goosebumps backpack that you could order in the back of the book.

[00:11:05] That was a 94.

[00:11:06] There were certain things that you could get, but 95, 96 was like.

[00:11:11] Bang, it just it blew up.

[00:11:13] Like you bring things back.

[00:11:14] I remember, I think an advertisement for that backpack now.

[00:11:18] I wish it was always fun to look in the back of the Goosebumps books

[00:11:22] and just see like what was coming soon or like this.

[00:11:26] Like this book is coming sooner.

[00:11:28] Like we're starting a brand new series.

[00:11:30] And these books were coming out every month.

[00:11:32] Like I don't know if if you guys are not familiar at home.

[00:11:36] Like how frequent these books were coming out

[00:11:38] because nowadays Goosebumps books come out every few months.

[00:11:43] Like you'll probably get like two, maybe three a year depending on the release schedule.

[00:11:48] But back in the 90s, they were like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

[00:11:52] They were coming out and that's just the original series.

[00:11:54] You're not even accounting for all the spin-offs and the game books and everything.

[00:11:58] So like Goosebumps were everywhere.

[00:12:00] So I can imagine probably if anyone was like keeping up with the collecting,

[00:12:05] it was a constant barrage of just being like, oh, no, I got to get that.

[00:12:09] No, I got to get that.

[00:12:10] No, I got to get that.

[00:12:12] Um, I'm very I really like that you had like a criteria for like which one you wanted to get.

[00:12:18] Like is it Goosebumps?

[00:12:20] Well, yes.

[00:12:21] But does it look scary?

[00:12:23] And honestly, that's probably one of the reasons why it became so popular

[00:12:28] is because they look scary.

[00:12:30] Yeah, take a look at like Night of the Living Dummy and see,

[00:12:33] you know, that creepy slappy face on there and be like, that is horrifying.

[00:12:37] I want to read that.

[00:12:39] Oh, there one like people.

[00:12:41] So the monster, it might have just been Monster Mask.

[00:12:44] Maybe that was it.

[00:12:45] But it was like a little kid holding up like a really disgusting like monster face.

[00:12:49] The haunted mask.

[00:12:50] The haunted mask. Yeah.

[00:12:52] I remember that one too.

[00:12:54] God, that's kind of like the book equivalent of like going to Blockbuster

[00:12:58] and walking through the horror aisle and seeing all the like

[00:13:01] which had the craziest box art.

[00:13:03] Like that's whoever was doing the design on those runs of Goosebumps book.

[00:13:08] Books knew what they were doing.

[00:13:10] Well, oh, 100 percent.

[00:13:12] Like you was the I got to tell you this because when you're talking

[00:13:15] about the scariest covers because I've said this a couple of times on the podcast,

[00:13:19] but one of my good friends, his younger brother had to go to therapy

[00:13:23] because of the cover of Night of the Living Dummy.

[00:13:25] Oh, that wasn't a joke.

[00:13:26] Oh, God.

[00:13:27] And it was no joke.

[00:13:28] No, like it traumatized him really bad that he had to go and talk to people.

[00:13:33] Oh, God.

[00:13:35] That's scary.

[00:13:36] Like Tim Jacob is really just, you know, even though like Night of the Living

[00:13:39] Dummy 2, you see more like, you know, let's say less is more like in horror.

[00:13:44] Like the less you see kind of like why the Blair Witch project is so terrifying.

[00:13:48] It's like, you know, all you see is his head, you know,

[00:13:52] it really like a close on the cover of that book, you know,

[00:13:55] and there was just something about it that was very eerie and it obviously didn't.

[00:13:59] And some kids are just naturally scared of puppets anyway.

[00:14:01] Yeah.

[00:14:02] He's got a fear of puppets like that book cover just would not have been for you.

[00:14:07] So it's not the biggest goosebumps fan that kid.

[00:14:10] Yeah. Yeah, I hope he doesn't hold a grudge against the guy or against the artist.

[00:14:14] I might be misremembering.

[00:14:15] Was it was it either the Living Dummy one book or was it

[00:14:19] or was it the girl cried monster tape like that somebody chased around in your family

[00:14:24] and like they were scared?

[00:14:26] My brother was traumatized of the girl who cried at Monster episode.

[00:14:30] So back in the nineties, obviously you had certain goosebumps

[00:14:34] episodes that were released on tape, primarily the two part is.

[00:14:37] But then you had episodes like the girl or cry monster,

[00:14:40] which was genuinely a scary creepy episode that Jack Lenz who did the original score

[00:14:44] even said, I don't know how that one aired, to be honest.

[00:14:48] But it did.

[00:14:49] And my brother hated it so much because like my mom burnt it

[00:14:53] like with back in the day, we actually had to record off TV on a VHS.

[00:14:57] She actually recorded the girl or cried monster off the TV

[00:15:00] because you couldn't buy that one back then.

[00:15:02] And I remember watching it.

[00:15:04] My brother hated it so much that he like pulled the tape out, smashed it,

[00:15:09] like all the tape out of it so that it could never be viewed again.

[00:15:13] I cried because I knew I couldn't watch it again.

[00:15:15] But he was strong ties by that episode.

[00:15:18] So goosebumps, you know, in the eyes of young kids back then

[00:15:23] was just like some of it really was creepy and spooked a lot of kids, you know,

[00:15:28] to the you know, and it's you know, sent them to therapy.

[00:15:31] So what you get to a point to where that cover art and those books were

[00:15:36] obviously they were scary, but they also did their job in hooking the reader.

[00:15:40] It's what Tim I always remember what Tim told me.

[00:15:44] He was like my job back then was to be the hook, you know,

[00:15:48] being Arlstein worked as a team.

[00:15:50] He was like, I was the hook.

[00:15:52] I hooked you in as a reader and then Arlstein would supply the story.

[00:15:57] So it's like it's a good one, two of like, oh, what is that?

[00:16:02] And then you read it.

[00:16:03] So, you know, that's it's why cover is just as important as a story,

[00:16:07] in my opinion, because as a kid, you you're going to be attracted

[00:16:11] to something that looks really interesting and then you want to read it.

[00:16:15] So it did it.

[00:16:16] And they had to like they had to, I'm sure you've, you know,

[00:16:19] talk to them at length about this or read at length about it.

[00:16:22] But this is just me guessing based on all this, like the amount of empathy

[00:16:26] for your readers, like the understanding of your audience and as an artist,

[00:16:31] like having to think of like what's the perfect balance of, but also

[00:16:37] like getting the kid to flinch, but then want to reach for the book.

[00:16:41] Like they definitely had a great handle on that.

[00:16:45] Just thinking back now to walking through the library and looking at the shelf

[00:16:49] high and like looking at those spooky covers and wanting to read it.

[00:16:54] So I remember.

[00:16:55] Did anyone else did anyone else do this?

[00:16:57] Did anyone else read the books and sometimes just flick back to the front

[00:17:01] and then keep reading and then back to the front, like as I was reading it.

[00:17:04] I'll tell you what I did do when I grew up,

[00:17:07] I was mainly a library reader and my library bondings didn't have a

[00:17:12] synopsis on the back.

[00:17:13] So you literally had to shop the covers.

[00:17:17] So if I went to the library, I would look at the cover and I would look

[00:17:20] at bad hair day and be like, no, I'm good.

[00:17:23] I don't want to read you.

[00:17:24] But then I looked at something like the girl who cried monster or

[00:17:28] something like the wearable for fever, swamp or just something with a captivating cover.

[00:17:32] And I'm like, OK, I want to I want to see if this scene is going to be in the book.

[00:17:36] And that's that was something I would when I was much younger,

[00:17:38] was always looking for is the cover scene actually in the book.

[00:17:42] And often the not it wasn't, but it was it was still something fun, you know,

[00:17:47] for think back on in the case of say cheese and diet almost it wasn't.

[00:17:52] Yeah, that cover with the skeleton family

[00:17:55] was actually conceived by Tim Jacobus before I think I think it was before

[00:18:01] the full story was written, but Scholastic loved it so much

[00:18:04] that they basically like Maidstein put that scene in the book.

[00:18:09] It wasn't in there originally. Oh, man.

[00:18:11] The whole scene where it was animated dream sequence.

[00:18:14] So he didn't have to like, you know, insert it into the actual story.

[00:18:19] But that scene like was basically that cover art was so good

[00:18:23] that Scholastic Maidstein make that a scene in the book.

[00:18:26] So that's the power of a cover art.

[00:18:29] Oh my God, I'm I got to reread reread these books now.

[00:18:32] My mom still has like she's been cleaning out her house.

[00:18:35] She still has my entire goosebumps collection.

[00:18:38] I'm now remembering I'm like, girl, the Crab Monster,

[00:18:40] I think I have that one too, because you guys were talking about the spooky cover.

[00:18:44] I just Google it. I'm like, oh God, I remember that image.

[00:18:46] But yeah, now I'm like, I got to pick these books up again.

[00:18:50] They're a breeze to read. So yeah, they certainly are.

[00:18:53] I actually want to say you probably got like now that I think about

[00:18:57] if you were ordering them through the, you know, the catalogs,

[00:19:01] you probably have all like the original books in first print.

[00:19:05] Now that I think about it, because if you were ordering them

[00:19:07] as they were coming out through the catalog, yours must be like

[00:19:11] such a pristine like first print, first edition book of every book.

[00:19:16] Well, as pristine as an 11 or 12 year old, let it be. But exactly.

[00:19:20] You know, yeah.

[00:19:21] I mean, I've got a 19 month old in the other room.

[00:19:24] I should keep him around for when I want to scare him later in life.

[00:19:29] Only a little scare. I'm only a little.

[00:19:30] But only a little, you know, or maybe a lot.

[00:19:33] You never know.

[00:19:36] But one more thing I'll bring up is we were talking about the library

[00:19:39] and I certainly went to the library to look at books, the goosebumps books.

[00:19:43] But I actually remember this was back in libraries had VHS tapes that you could check out.

[00:19:49] I remember seeing the goosebumps VHS tapes and those had the same cover art.

[00:19:55] But I saw like that was where I first saw stay out of the basement

[00:19:58] and welcome to Dead House and Night and Terror Tower.

[00:20:01] And I was just like, oh my gosh, like those are terrifying.

[00:20:04] So like so why can't I take my eyes off this?

[00:20:07] So like I couldn't stop looking at it.

[00:20:09] I should stay out of the basement.

[00:20:10] Was that just like the green evil hand, like holding a doorknob?

[00:20:14] Yes, indeed.

[00:20:15] You know, I can't believe I remember that that there we go.

[00:20:18] That's how good these covers are.

[00:20:19] OK, it's so it's so good and never truly leaves your memory.

[00:20:23] So that's the power of a cover art.

[00:20:25] But and you and you mentioned that like you mentioned that Monster Blood

[00:20:29] was probably your your biggest favorite.

[00:20:31] But were there any other books that like you can remember as like being really,

[00:20:35] really good to you?

[00:20:38] Oh, you know, if I pulled up a list of them, I'm sure names would stick out.

[00:20:43] But no, those are the ones that come to me as Monster Blood

[00:20:48] and then say Cheese and Die, Night Living Dummy.

[00:20:52] And I do remember now looking at that creepy cover

[00:20:54] where I've got my other monitor.

[00:20:56] I remember liking the girl who cried Monster a lot.

[00:20:59] But now I'd have to go through my pile and be like, oh, this one was a favorite.

[00:21:04] I'm sure I'm sure the moment I had my hands on them again, I would it would all come back.

[00:21:09] Yeah, it'd be like the the ratatouille scene where it's flashback to your childhood

[00:21:13] because you just take a look at them.

[00:21:16] And instead of a scrappy French kid eating ratatouille,

[00:21:19] it's a nerdy 11 year old like huddled in the corner trying not to

[00:21:23] try to pretend he's not terrified, but what he's reading.

[00:21:26] Yeah, like it's like that like a kid sitting under the cover with a flashlight.

[00:21:31] Exactly. Yeah.

[00:21:32] And just like that at night. Oh, man, those are the days.

[00:21:36] But now we get to this contest.

[00:21:39] So in 1994, there was a partnership between Scholastic Online

[00:21:43] and America Online or Scholastic Network and America Online.

[00:21:49] And it was basically pretty simple.

[00:21:52] It was name a goosebumps book.

[00:21:55] And I mean, this is that this was big news as like, wow,

[00:21:59] we get to name the next goosebumps book.

[00:22:02] And that was the whole contest.

[00:22:03] It was like you get to name Arlsteins next book.

[00:22:07] So this contest was like the first of its kind.

[00:22:11] And as we said, we did cover the second one that happened in 1998.

[00:22:16] But this was the first ever goosebumps contest.

[00:22:19] So how did you find out about this opportunity to name a goosebumps book?

[00:22:24] You know, it must have been in one of the Scholastic catalogs.

[00:22:28] And my teacher may have even told me about it.

[00:22:31] I think her name was Miss Harris.

[00:22:34] Like one of my teachers knew that I loved goosebumps.

[00:22:36] And it does seem like the kind of thing she would flag for me

[00:22:40] if I didn't see it myself, but definitely can remember looking at a

[00:22:45] entry form on a Scholastic physical Scholastic catalog copy

[00:22:50] and just being like, oh, my God, I have to do this.

[00:22:53] Yeah. I mean, again, first of its kind, you're you look at that as a kid

[00:22:58] and you're like, whoa, like I got to do that.

[00:23:01] I know I would certainly jump at the opportunity.

[00:23:05] But so what was the process of coming up with a title?

[00:23:08] I mean, you're an 11 year old kid and you're trying to think of like,

[00:23:10] what would I want to be a title?

[00:23:12] So like, what was the process and how did you land?

[00:23:14] On slime doesn't pay.

[00:23:17] Well, I remember going to the library.

[00:23:20] I went to central school and Glanko we had this big library

[00:23:26] at these long tables and I sat down with one of my notebooks

[00:23:30] and I just wrote out like any word combos I could think of

[00:23:36] like puns or alliteration.

[00:23:40] The other thing I remember is rabbit and rabbit

[00:23:43] to give you an idea of the quality of the other ideas.

[00:23:48] And I just kept trying to hit like what's what rolls off the tongue?

[00:23:52] Well, it sticks in your head and then slime doesn't pay

[00:23:56] kind of hit like a bolt to lightning like, oh, it's short punchy

[00:24:02] uses a known phrase and it has horror implications.

[00:24:06] So it stuck with me.

[00:24:07] I wrote that one down.

[00:24:09] I think I also subpoenaed rabbit rabbit.

[00:24:11] So thank God they didn't treat that as my only submission.

[00:24:14] But yeah, that's the one I went with.

[00:24:17] I definitely spent a long time sitting at that table in the library,

[00:24:20] though, before I got to that.

[00:24:22] I mean, it's a great title. Slime doesn't pay.

[00:24:24] Chicken, chicken, rabbit, rabbit.

[00:24:26] I see what was going on here.

[00:24:28] Yeah, I mean, Slime doesn't pay is a really good title.

[00:24:32] Like it really is.

[00:24:33] It seems like something that R.L.

[00:24:35] Stein would come up with so I can see why they, you know,

[00:24:38] why they chose that as the winner.

[00:24:41] You mentioned rabbit rabbit.

[00:24:43] Were there any other scrapped title ideas that you can remember?

[00:24:47] I wish I could.

[00:24:49] I wish I could recall them.

[00:24:50] They're so bad that I purged them from my memory

[00:24:52] and anything I make up now would be too good

[00:24:56] to realistically be what they were.

[00:24:59] The one thing is I wonder now,

[00:25:01] and I think I said this to Jude DeLuca as well.

[00:25:05] If slime doesn't pay, if I originally subtitled

[00:25:07] Monster Blood 2, because I think this was either two or three.

[00:25:11] I think this was either before two or before three.

[00:25:15] I might have originally said like Monster Blood,

[00:25:18] Colin, Slime doesn't pay or something, but

[00:25:21] that also has been lost to time.

[00:25:23] That might just be me hypothesizing.

[00:25:25] It would be, I mean, it would be an interesting title for a sequel.

[00:25:29] You know, Slime doesn't pay related to Monster Blood.

[00:25:32] So I could definitely see the process behind that.

[00:25:35] But I mean, yeah, it I don't know.

[00:25:39] I don't know what else to say.

[00:25:40] It's just a really good title.

[00:25:41] So I mean, I've been working and like just came down to you.

[00:25:45] Just like, yeah, I've been working and writing for

[00:25:49] in various kinds for like 15 years

[00:25:52] and I've never come up with anything that good again.

[00:25:54] So that's it.

[00:25:56] Was there was there any thought at any point of like the contest

[00:26:00] stipulation of like naming the next goosebumps book?

[00:26:03] Like, man, I want to be that kid that gets to name a goosebumps book.

[00:26:07] Like, do you remember thinking anything along those lines?

[00:26:10] Definitely.

[00:26:11] I definitely wanted to make my mark on on goosebumps.

[00:26:15] Like, you know, again, I kind of a nerdy shut in kid.

[00:26:19] I don't I don't know if I thought it would make me cooler

[00:26:21] in the eyes of my peers, but it would I would have something to my name,

[00:26:26] you know, and I also I just loved goosebumps.

[00:26:29] I wanted to like the idea of, you know, Jimmy Smiley.

[00:26:34] Jimmy Smiley's Slime Doesn't Pay by Arl Stein or something like that.

[00:26:37] They have a mouthful, but like the idea of being associated with it

[00:26:41] and contributing to it really got me hyped up.

[00:26:45] It's like, imagine if somebody asked you to help name the next

[00:26:48] Star Wars movie or something, like, of course,

[00:26:51] every kid is going to just leap out of their chair at the chance to do that.

[00:26:54] That's that's how big goosebumps was for me at the time.

[00:26:57] When you make your mark on history, essentially.

[00:26:58] So it's like you jump at the opportunity to be like immortalized in some way,

[00:27:03] you know, no matter what it is, even if it seems like, you know,

[00:27:07] maybe it won't be a big deal.

[00:27:08] It's like, you never know.

[00:27:10] You know, I mean, I mean, I'm in my family for like

[00:27:13] for like 10 straight years.

[00:27:15] So the big deal to make maybe that franchise will have a big bounce back

[00:27:19] in community support and then they'll reach out to you like

[00:27:23] 20 or so years later for an interview.

[00:27:25] Hmm.

[00:27:27] Who could have foreseen?

[00:27:29] I know.

[00:27:32] Go back in time, tell me.

[00:27:33] I'm like, what's a podcast?

[00:27:35] Yeah.

[00:27:37] Yeah, if only you could tell your past self is like,

[00:27:40] you know what this is going to lead to?

[00:27:41] It's going to lead to you being on a podcast.

[00:27:45] It's like a radio show.

[00:27:47] Only you choose whether or not there are ads.

[00:27:49] Yep. You know, you came up with the title.

[00:27:51] Did you have any like thought process behind

[00:27:53] what the possible story could be, even if it didn't turn out that way?

[00:27:57] Like, was there sort of a story attached to the title or is it just the title?

[00:28:02] Man, you know, I can remember

[00:28:07] just thinking back to imagery of like evil slime

[00:28:11] around somebody's ankles.

[00:28:13] Like, you know, like when you step in mud and you can feel it seep up to your shoe.

[00:28:17] I remember now thinking about that image with like evil slime.

[00:28:20] But beyond that, no, I didn't really have much.

[00:28:23] I figured I'd leave that that part to RL.

[00:28:27] Absolutely.

[00:28:27] Well, it's always interesting, too, because it's kind of the way that

[00:28:31] RL Stein does, you know, does his his books, too,

[00:28:35] because he comes up with the title and then comes up with the story from the title.

[00:28:40] That's how he does it.

[00:28:42] So it's like you were it's like you were channeling him.

[00:28:44] You were channeling him.

[00:28:48] But no, I mean,

[00:28:51] that's the thing about a title, too, is that when you hear that title,

[00:28:54] you're like, what could that be?

[00:28:56] Like, what does that like entail?

[00:28:58] Like monster blood is like, what would that story be?

[00:29:03] Like, what is what is monster blood?

[00:29:06] Is it like, is it blood from a monster?

[00:29:08] Is like, is it like, like, what is it?

[00:29:11] Or or Night of the Living Gummy is like so,

[00:29:15] like a living ventriloquist on me.

[00:29:17] It's like, that's the power of a title is like you you hear it and you're just kind

[00:29:21] of like what what would that story be like?

[00:29:24] So that's what's interesting about coming up with a title.

[00:29:27] And again, RL Stein does that, too.

[00:29:29] He always talks about how he sat on the title brain juice for months

[00:29:35] because he liked the title so much, but he just could not come up with

[00:29:39] a story for it until eventually he was able to and then became part

[00:29:43] of the series 2000 series.

[00:29:46] So again, that's the power of a title.

[00:29:49] It's just the it's like the key to a new story.

[00:29:54] You unlock the door to a new story. Absolutely.

[00:29:57] That's I this is sort of tangential, but it's making me think of

[00:30:01] I did musical improv comedy for a while.

[00:30:05] And one thing you would always have a musical director

[00:30:09] who could improvise along with the performers and they would

[00:30:12] cue you in the scene for Oh, now the song's happening based on like

[00:30:16] they'd hear a line of dialogue and just start playing.

[00:30:19] And then you would be like, OK, we've got the title now.

[00:30:22] What the heck is the song going to be about?

[00:30:24] RL Stein sounds like a master at that.

[00:30:26] No, absolutely. You're out.

[00:30:28] Build off of that one great idea.

[00:30:30] And there's a ton of titles that like he came up with but never turned into books.

[00:30:35] I think what was it?

[00:30:37] He had like 43 freak out street and.

[00:30:41] Eating frenzy, the good, the bad, the very itchy

[00:30:45] dim wits of doom.

[00:30:47] There's a bunch of them.

[00:30:48] Yeah. So like titles he could come up with, but just couldn't come up with a story for.

[00:30:52] And then was just kind of like, eh, but that brain juice one,

[00:30:55] he just could not let that one go.

[00:30:58] You got to you got to make sure you you let brain juice,

[00:31:02] you know, sit and dry age and marinate until you can find the right use for it.

[00:31:07] Yeah, you age it and then you take it.

[00:31:09] It could have really gone with brain juice.

[00:31:12] He could have he could have had it that someone literally

[00:31:15] like grabs the brain and just like makes actual juice out of it.

[00:31:18] Could have made like a real doc. Yeah.

[00:31:21] Oh, yeah.

[00:31:23] Story I can even picture like the cover art

[00:31:25] for a book like that.

[00:31:27] What if it came out in the 90s, like you'd have the brain

[00:31:29] and you'd have like a juicer or something.

[00:31:33] That's too far off from the actual cover art

[00:31:35] because it's the cover art for the book is an actual brain.

[00:31:39] And but the juice is being poured on the brain.

[00:31:43] It's one of the in fact, you know what?

[00:31:46] I'm going to do this.

[00:31:47] Yeah, it's about today I could Google it,

[00:31:49] but you probably have a right behind you.

[00:31:51] Look. Here it is.

[00:31:53] Ha.

[00:31:55] Mine is a terrible thing to drink.

[00:31:58] Yeah. OK.

[00:31:58] That's some that's some good just old fashioned goosebumps right there.

[00:32:03] Oh, yeah. This is like.

[00:32:05] You look at this and you're like, oh, yeah, that's goosebumps right there.

[00:32:08] I remember when I was OK, so to put this into perspective,

[00:32:12] I was a TV show generation kid.

[00:32:14] So I was born in 94.

[00:32:16] My first interaction with goosebumps was TV show.

[00:32:18] But I did catch the tail end of series 2000

[00:32:21] and like 99 and 2000 and I'd go to border's books

[00:32:25] and I would stare at brain juice's cover on the goosebumps shelf.

[00:32:29] And I would just stare at it for like 10 minutes.

[00:32:31] My mom is like, are you going to buy it or just stare at it?

[00:32:34] I remember telling her, I'm like, I just want to stare at it.

[00:32:37] I'm too afraid to breathe.

[00:32:38] Because of the brain and but like the embossed covers

[00:32:42] on the series 2000 books were also another thing.

[00:32:44] Oh, yeah. That just ruined me away because instead of just the font

[00:32:48] being embossed like the original 62, even the artwork is embossed.

[00:32:52] So you feel the field of folds of the brain right now.

[00:32:56] Yep. It's like you're trying to feel it like curiously three.

[00:32:59] You're stroking it like a cat.

[00:33:02] I think that's what a psychopath does.

[00:33:07] Our sign is patting a brain to a typewriter right now.

[00:33:12] That's how it's his brain.

[00:33:14] That's how he like gets new ideas.

[00:33:15] He just like gives it a little patent and is like, I got it.

[00:33:19] Exactly.

[00:33:22] Or it's like a RL if you're listening, we we love you.

[00:33:26] We love you, man.

[00:33:29] So.

[00:33:31] My next question, I guess, would be, I don't know if Isaiah has us already planned,

[00:33:36] but so you come up with a title

[00:33:39] as you hear that you won the contest or

[00:33:43] that you made it far into what I should say.

[00:33:46] You know, I think it was actually my mom who told me.

[00:33:50] And then we I think it was the Tribune.

[00:33:54] It was either the Tribune or the Sun

[00:33:56] Times reached out for a quote about it.

[00:33:58] And like I was still just vibrating with excitement.

[00:34:01] I think it was over the phone that they asked the questions.

[00:34:06] Gosh, I think it was yeah, it was either my mom or or my teacher.

[00:34:12] And then from there, we got the call from the newspaper a couple days later.

[00:34:17] And I just was beside myself.

[00:34:21] I mean, that's a really cool thing that we've always like your mom's tree.

[00:34:24] Yeah, the whole family just like, oh my god, did you hear about Jimmy?

[00:34:28] Oh my god.

[00:34:29] So so the media like apparently knew before or you even knew that's crazy to me.

[00:34:35] So I think it sounds like they were trying to promote this like under wraps

[00:34:40] like, hey, this kid won, why don't you reach out to him and,

[00:34:42] you know, talk to him and ask him questions?

[00:34:45] Maybe maybe that was, you know, a sign that this was actually a huge thing

[00:34:50] because they're getting the scoop on the next Scoospom Spook title

[00:34:54] and a homegrown hero in Illinois made the title.

[00:34:59] I mean, you must have been feeling like, oh, you're on Cloud9.

[00:35:02] You're going to be a celebrity or be like the coolest kid.

[00:35:05] I can only imagine definitely.

[00:35:07] I had like the whole like sitting back, sliding on the sunglasses,

[00:35:11] feeling like everything is coming up, Jimmy right now.

[00:35:15] I just felt like the coolest kid in the world.

[00:35:18] And, you know, I had stacks of goosebumps books in my house.

[00:35:23] And here I was thinking I was naming, I think.

[00:35:27] I can't remember if it was branded as like literally name the next goosebumps book,

[00:35:32] whatever you give us will be the next one.

[00:35:34] But I definitely in my head, I was like, I just named the next goosebumps book.

[00:35:38] Like this is going to be on shelf soon.

[00:35:40] I'm going to point out and be like, I named that.

[00:35:43] Yep.

[00:35:43] That was me.

[00:35:44] Exactly.

[00:35:45] I built that son.

[00:35:46] I think that's I think that's what they were advertising it as is

[00:35:50] that you were going to name the next goosebumps book.

[00:35:52] Like they were going all the way and considering it was this was October 1994.

[00:35:58] So, God, I'm trying to think like where exactly that would land in the actual

[00:36:02] if it was part of the original series, it would probably be in like.

[00:36:06] The 30s, probably like that area, if I remember correctly.

[00:36:10] But because if the contest ended in late 94,

[00:36:14] that I would have put it somewhere in the late 20s, I think.

[00:36:18] But given the time that Stein would actually have to sit down and write the book

[00:36:22] and get to go through editing and all that, that would be an extra few months.

[00:36:25] So it would have come out in the 30s if it if it did come out, sadly.

[00:36:30] I think the way kid we've stooped in his video put it

[00:36:34] probably would have been between like, I think, barking ghost and jelly jam.

[00:36:40] Like it might have been.

[00:36:42] But you never know.

[00:36:44] But and that's another thing, too, is like, you know, we were talking about

[00:36:47] like the opportunity to make your mark on a franchise you really like.

[00:36:52] It's another thing to like actually succeed.

[00:36:55] Like you just get told like you did it like you made it.

[00:36:58] You're going to like live your dream now.

[00:37:00] So it's it's a pretty cloud nine.

[00:37:02] Like you're living on cloud nine sort of feeling.

[00:37:05] So did Scholastic reach out to you when you had one?

[00:37:09] Did they like send you a letter?

[00:37:11] Did they like call you?

[00:37:14] You know, I think the way the way that we found out was, I think, a phone call.

[00:37:21] But then the official like congratulations, Mr.

[00:37:26] Smiley came in the form of this massive gift box that came in a coffin.

[00:37:33] It was totally I was going to say totally metal, but totally like it came in a big

[00:37:39] cardboard coffin and it had a congratulations message.

[00:37:44] I think I think maybe a personalized one from Arlstein.

[00:37:48] If I if it was, I have lost it, which makes me just know.

[00:37:53] But definitely came with a card of congratulations, you know, way to go

[00:37:57] winner. You have received the year's membership in like the Goosebumps Club.

[00:38:03] And I think it came, Isaiah, with that hat.

[00:38:09] I think I had one of those hats for a while and came with a bunch of candy.

[00:38:16] I don't maybe know it didn't come with the backpack that I would still have

[00:38:20] that backpack for sure.

[00:38:21] Did and then I think it came with some additional Goosebumps books.

[00:38:25] So it was all rolled into rolled into one package.

[00:38:30] That's awesome.

[00:38:31] And you got a year's membership of the fan club, so you probably were like

[00:38:34] getting tons of Goosebumps swag like throughout the year.

[00:38:37] Yeah, I think I was.

[00:38:39] I'm going to have to dig through my mom still has like all of my old

[00:38:42] bedroom stuff in an attic somewhere.

[00:38:44] I'm going to have to dig through some boxes next time I visit her.

[00:38:47] Yeah, we're going to have to look for all that stuff.

[00:38:50] I'm going to be sending this podcast around to my whole family

[00:38:53] because they've been ever since Jude first reached out.

[00:38:56] They've been a buzz like, did you hear about Jimmy's book?

[00:38:59] Jimmy's book is back on the menu and then it came out and everyone's

[00:39:02] their minds were blown.

[00:39:04] Again, it's like, you know, it's like the light at the end of the tunnel.

[00:39:08] But it's time to get to the darker part of that tunnel.

[00:39:12] Because unfortunately, the book did not come out.

[00:39:17] So there was there was no book called Slime Doesn't Pay.

[00:39:21] And the title was not used in a Goosebumps book.

[00:39:26] I'm putting I'm I'm specifically paying attention to Goosebumps book.

[00:39:31] We'll get to that in in a little bit.

[00:39:34] But but it did not adorn the cover of any Goosebumps book

[00:39:38] for the rest of the original series or the rest of the 90s run.

[00:39:42] How did you find out that it wasn't going to happen?

[00:39:45] Did they reach out to you or did it just not happen?

[00:39:50] Just didn't happen.

[00:39:52] If if there was ever a conversation, I don't think I was part of it.

[00:39:59] We just

[00:40:01] they were like, tune in, keep an eye out.

[00:40:04] And it nothing ever happened with it.

[00:40:06] And I don't know either maybe I or my mom sent an email

[00:40:11] at some point inquiring about it.

[00:40:13] But we never really heard anything.

[00:40:16] We kind of assumed.

[00:40:19] Oh, you know, maybe maybe it's lost in the shuffle.

[00:40:23] Maybe it's going to be released in a couple years.

[00:40:26] And gosh, you know, I think maybe Monster Blood

[00:40:30] was part of my original suggested title.

[00:40:33] And we saw another Monster Blood book had come out and we were like,

[00:40:36] did he just decide?

[00:40:37] Oh, well, I'll write another Monster Blood book.

[00:40:41] But yeah, there was this centeregnum.

[00:40:44] We didn't hear anything about it.

[00:40:45] Could you imagine if like the book came out like Monster Blood 3?

[00:40:50] I'm assuming it might have been that one.

[00:40:51] Could you imagine if that book came out and just the tag line was like,

[00:40:55] slime doesn't pay or something.

[00:40:57] You would have been like, oh, come on.

[00:41:02] Man, what a slap in the face.

[00:41:04] Well, that I should say this before we before we ever found Jimmy

[00:41:11] All right, before, you know, it became known who, you know,

[00:41:14] we actually had a face to the name.

[00:41:16] Let's just say there was a massive theory that Monster Blood 3 perhaps was

[00:41:22] possibly slime doesn't pay at some point.

[00:41:24] Maybe Stein might have entertained making it

[00:41:27] because with the new introduction of the character Kermit

[00:41:30] and the aunt character in that story, people seem to think that

[00:41:33] that possibly could have been his initial idea that maybe Scholastic was like,

[00:41:38] well, maybe you're going down the monster blood route.

[00:41:40] Why don't we just make this full on monster blood three?

[00:41:44] So so that's that's just a theory out there.

[00:41:47] We don't know if that's true, but proof of thought that could be true.

[00:41:51] And I hope it is for young Jimmy's sake because

[00:41:56] having having a person win a contest is like putting a face to the fandom.

[00:42:02] And we all get to live vicariously through you.

[00:42:04] I mean, once you succeed, so we feel like we succeed with you sometimes

[00:42:07] and seeing seeing a kid not get his dream met.

[00:42:11] It's just soul crushing.

[00:42:13] And it's such a sad story when I first heard it, heard of it.

[00:42:16] I was like, I got to get to the bottom of it and figure out

[00:42:18] what's exactly going on here or what happened because

[00:42:23] there was like nothing on it.

[00:42:24] And the only thing we found was like the Chicago Tribune

[00:42:31] article about it.

[00:42:32] And then we found something else on archive,

[00:42:34] which we'll probably get into later.

[00:42:36] But that's still for a long time about it.

[00:42:42] It's worth so much more or like there's so much more information about everything,

[00:42:46] even the tiniest little thing available these days.

[00:42:48] But like back then, you know, I was a pretty connected kid.

[00:42:51] I was very as America Online.

[00:42:55] My family was using the World Wide Web

[00:42:59] back when it was still a weird option on AOL.

[00:43:02] And I didn't know where to go to look for any of this stuff.

[00:43:05] And it became kind of a running joke.

[00:43:09] And then like kind of a, hey, what the heck thing in my entire extended family?

[00:43:13] Like, so does anybody see Jimmy's book yet?

[00:43:16] Hey, anybody know anything?

[00:43:18] Anybody see the book?

[00:43:19] Hey, Jimmy, didn't you win a contest a few years back?

[00:43:22] I think I bet my mom I'll have to ask her, but I bet she held a grudge

[00:43:27] against Mr. Stein for a while for this book never coming out.

[00:43:31] I can imagine.

[00:43:33] But it's I don't know.

[00:43:35] And you know, going back to that theory about

[00:43:38] Monster Bud three possibly slime doesn't pay because that's that is possible, too.

[00:43:43] But even then, that's still like not exactly like a happy ending

[00:43:47] because it's like, OK, maybe it was you can assume that it was considered.

[00:43:52] But at the end of the day, they still didn't use the title.

[00:43:55] Yeah. Well, it's like you never we can theorize about it.

[00:43:58] But it's still they get used for a book.

[00:44:01] So it's like there's a whole point

[00:44:02] of the contest, you know, and it just feels like a slap in the face,

[00:44:07] especially if you're a 11 year old kid and you know, you're a Goosebumps fan.

[00:44:11] And hey, you're going to have your title on a book like.

[00:44:14] Yeah, like, you know, Austin said it's soul crushing.

[00:44:17] I would have hurt me, you know, like you wouldn't believe, you know?

[00:44:20] I was pretty.

[00:44:22] So I didn't mean to talk over you, but I was I was pretty ticked for a little while.

[00:44:27] I'm not going to say I stopped reading Goosebumps because of it,

[00:44:30] but I definitely I was I was ticked off, you know, it's like, well, what happened?

[00:44:35] I got I got this awesome gift box.

[00:44:37] Thanks, guys. But like, where's where's my book?

[00:44:40] And it never came to fruition.

[00:44:42] It was not meant to be for whatever reason.

[00:44:46] Yeah, it's it's a terrible experience to have to go through.

[00:44:49] Was there any compensation for it or did they just with just radio silence?

[00:44:54] Just radio silence. Oh, man.

[00:44:57] I wasn't I wasn't expecting like a ticker tape parade or something.

[00:44:59] I just wanted my book, you know?

[00:45:01] Yeah, you want what you you want what you were promised.

[00:45:04] So like I didn't need royalties.

[00:45:06] I just wanted to see it.

[00:45:07] I didn't even need well, it would have been nice to have on like the inside

[00:45:10] cover like as as entitled by Jim Smiley or something.

[00:45:13] But like, I didn't need residuals.

[00:45:15] I just I just wanted to see that book and be able to point out it and be like,

[00:45:18] hey, look, look guys, I named that.

[00:45:20] Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

[00:45:23] It's terrible.

[00:45:25] And yeah, so for the longest time ever since that contest.

[00:45:28] And you know what? That's probably why this is my speculation.

[00:45:33] But that's probably why they had to do the second title contest.

[00:45:36] That was the one between

[00:45:40] Gushers, like I think it was Kellogg's or whatever company was doing.

[00:45:45] Oh, I forget.

[00:45:47] Fruit rollups.

[00:45:49] Fruit rollups.

[00:45:50] Yeah, it was a rollup.

[00:45:51] Yeah. And goosebumps.

[00:45:53] And it was like this big thing.

[00:45:54] So yeah, it was tying in.

[00:45:56] It was 1998 and they were tying in with brain juice.

[00:45:59] But yeah, it was scholastic and fruit rollups doing this contest once again to name

[00:46:03] a goosebumps story.

[00:46:04] So it was almost kind of like, oh man, we messed up.

[00:46:07] The first one didn't didn't pan out well, so we got to do another one.

[00:46:12] I'm just going to throw this out there, guys.

[00:46:14] If the first one didn't pan out, you could always just go and write the book.

[00:46:19] And then nobody's going to ask any troublesome questions in 15 years.

[00:46:23] Yeah, it's just being like,

[00:46:24] why didn't you just write the book the first time?

[00:46:27] Yeah.

[00:46:28] But but this time for this contest, they specifically

[00:46:31] they specifically said that it's going to be a short story

[00:46:35] that's not officially published.

[00:46:37] So they're like, now they can't now they can't come after us

[00:46:41] if we don't make it a book because we said it's just going to be a short story.

[00:46:46] They could have done it as well.

[00:46:49] They could have jumped into one of the titles to give you goosebumps books

[00:46:52] or something triple hit.

[00:46:53] They could have added slime doesn't pay to one of them, even if it was,

[00:46:56] you know, when you're doing that contest and submitted the same title.

[00:47:00] Oh my God, that would have been fantastic.

[00:47:03] It's like RL signs like, well, this is a great name.

[00:47:05] Like, wait a minute.

[00:47:08] It's like and then you walk out because there's a whole thing

[00:47:11] where they like announce the winner and they walked out

[00:47:13] and then you just walk on front of them and be like, remember me.

[00:47:16] Mr. Stein, I'm glad you liked my title again.

[00:47:19] It's time to reap what you sow.

[00:47:21] You would have been like 15 at that point though.

[00:47:24] You would have been like 15, you know, like in high school,

[00:47:27] we're like, wait, I don't want my book.

[00:47:30] 15 year old kid comes walking out being like, so where's my book, Mr.

[00:47:34] Stein? It's like a professional wrestling entrance.

[00:47:38] Like, is that no, it can't be. Oh my God.

[00:47:41] It's just my it's just smiling.

[00:47:44] And then you body slammer else.

[00:47:47] Again, we love you.

[00:47:49] Chokes.

[00:47:51] You look straight through a straight through a table covered in tax.

[00:47:59] Helen, a cell Jim Smiley, Arles Stein.

[00:48:02] Nineteen ninety six.

[00:48:04] Do I want to know?

[00:48:05] Like his his his his writing process, I don't know much about it.

[00:48:09] But I wonder if part of it is because it wasn't his title.

[00:48:14] Like if his thing is I come up with the title and from there,

[00:48:18] everything else blows and then he gets someone else's title plunked down in front of him.

[00:48:22] Maybe it's like, well, that's a really good name, but that's not mine.

[00:48:26] I can't do anything with it.

[00:48:27] I wonder if that was part of it.

[00:48:29] And that's why they had to add the caveat for the next one of

[00:48:33] it's unofficial, not quite fan fiction, but not quite official response either.

[00:48:38] Definitely. Awesome.

[00:48:41] But you have you had a point like what did have been a compromise for you, Jim?

[00:48:47] If, let's say, Stein made a short story or a triple header story out of the title

[00:48:53] with using the same title and maybe made you the main character.

[00:48:56] Would that have made you equally happy?

[00:48:59] Yes. I bet I can imagine that several of the relatives

[00:49:04] that I've already mentioned would be like, well, no, you have to have the book be named.

[00:49:08] But if I had a book, even a goosebumps short story where the main character was named after me,

[00:49:14] that would I would have like just gone nuts of me shoving it in people's faces,

[00:49:20] possibly even more than just the official title book.

[00:49:22] If I could be like that, that's named after me.

[00:49:24] Like, oh, my God, it would have been like being on prime time television.

[00:49:27] Yeah. But it's like, yeah, it's like you don't get any compromise.

[00:49:31] Like there's like, look, if you don't do the whole book,

[00:49:34] like an entire goosebumps book at least find some way to follow up on it.

[00:49:40] Like, yeah, it's great that I got all this merchandise.

[00:49:42] But like, that's not what I that's not what I signed up for.

[00:49:46] It was just, you know, it was a side stuff.

[00:49:50] If the problem was that it would impede on monster blood because it's too similar.

[00:49:57] You had give yourself goosebumps back then, too.

[00:49:59] You could have made this a give yourself goosebumps book

[00:50:02] and made a choose your own adventure and probably. Oh my gosh.

[00:50:06] I think that's a sign of character.

[00:50:08] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:50:09] I would have.

[00:50:11] Yeah, I would have bought that.

[00:50:13] I would have showed that off to give yourself goosebumps monster blood.

[00:50:16] Or give yourself goosebumps.

[00:50:18] Slime doesn't pay.

[00:50:19] Yeah. I mean, something incorporated somewhere else.

[00:50:23] Yeah. I am surprised, honestly.

[00:50:26] It's probably because it was in that that period right before

[00:50:31] nothing ever went away because like the web was people were using it back then, obviously.

[00:50:37] But like it just you could memory whole things a lot more easily back then.

[00:50:42] That's why I was I was kind of shocked when

[00:50:45] Jude reached out to me about it because I was like, oh my God,

[00:50:48] I didn't realize people would even remember this contest happened.

[00:50:52] But God bless fandom and the Internet

[00:50:55] is you guys think and nothing gets passed.

[00:50:59] And us.

[00:51:00] But yeah, I think it was because it was right on the cusp of before

[00:51:04] everything had a digital paper trail or everything had a wider presence

[00:51:09] that maybe that's another reason they were able to just kind of.

[00:51:12] I don't want to get away with it because it's not like they committed a crime,

[00:51:14] but just kind of flew under the radar.

[00:51:18] And I'm surprised nobody asked at the time of the second contest.

[00:51:21] Whatever happened to the one with the first contest.

[00:51:23] And they're just like, I don't know what you're talking about.

[00:51:27] Exactly.

[00:51:27] It was one of the titles, you know, like

[00:51:30] because, you know, you know, when you have like a horror franchise,

[00:51:34] like, I don't know.

[00:51:35] I heard

[00:51:37] Eskender, they put the final chapter.

[00:51:39] They could have done like us monster blood like monster blood for slime doesn't care.

[00:51:44] You know, I mean, you could have added it even to like the actual title as like the,

[00:51:48] you know, but I would have taken that.

[00:51:51] Halloween, H2O 20 years later, but Monster Blood 3, slime doesn't pay.

[00:51:55] Yeah. Yeah. Two years later.

[00:52:01] Not quite the same dramatic time lapse, but you know.

[00:52:05] Yeah, it's a time lapse.

[00:52:08] But yeah, no, it's just it's really interesting that they botched the first contest

[00:52:13] and then they did a second one and then legitimately made a point to be like,

[00:52:17] OK, it's not going to be an official book though.

[00:52:20] So you're going to have to settle for what you get.

[00:52:23] Oh, our school and come up with.

[00:52:26] And Stein has never really addressed this directly, right?

[00:52:29] Like he's never talked about it.

[00:52:31] Not really. And well, I can attest there has been private conversations

[00:52:36] that I've seen from him and Jude, which we'll probably get into shortly,

[00:52:42] that he seemed very earnest that he thought it was a great title

[00:52:47] and just forgot about it.

[00:52:49] So I can go.

[00:52:51] I can live with that as long as he still genuinely like the title

[00:52:54] like that. My other theory was like he had no involvement in this

[00:52:57] and the marketing guys just picked one and he was like, Oh, OK.

[00:53:01] Oh, great. All right. Sure.

[00:53:02] Thumbs up, send him a skeleton.

[00:53:03] Like if it turns out he knew about and liked the title

[00:53:07] and just in the in the throes of writing, God knows how many books

[00:53:12] every week for his publishers forgot about it.

[00:53:15] I can live with that now.

[00:53:17] Makes me wonder what happened back then.

[00:53:19] I love that. Send him a skeleton.

[00:53:22] No, then in the call in no other context.

[00:53:25] Yeah, send him a coffin like in no other context.

[00:53:28] Is that a good thing?

[00:53:29] But yeah, and with a note that says climb inside.

[00:53:36] Oh, my God.

[00:53:39] It's that SpongeBob meme where it's like, OK, get in.

[00:53:42] Get in.

[00:53:45] I will chime in, though, Jimmy, at the time of the the contest

[00:53:49] you were a part of it would have been in the middle of the 20s

[00:53:53] of the original series.

[00:53:55] And around this point is when goosebumps started to explode with spin offs

[00:53:59] like with like tales to give you goosebumps and give yourself goosebumps.

[00:54:03] They came out around that same time.

[00:54:05] I'm also kind of wondering maybe if the hecticness

[00:54:08] of trying to keep up with, you know, not only one book a month now,

[00:54:11] but two books a month and then a short story collection every once in a while.

[00:54:15] But maybe it actually did just get lost in the shuffle.

[00:54:18] And it could be.

[00:54:20] Yeah, because because I thought about that myself.

[00:54:23] And I'm like, you know, I don't believe grown people would have just cast aside

[00:54:27] this kid's title and just made him feel bad for no reason.

[00:54:31] There has to be something like some reason of legitimacy as to why I never got.

[00:54:37] Yeah, I can't picture like

[00:54:40] Arlstein like with like busy with a cigarette like no time for this kid.

[00:54:45] Like he's probably just literally like I can't even remember how many words

[00:54:49] one of those books would have.

[00:54:51] But like you were saying, I said like it was one a month in those early days.

[00:54:55] So he's probably just drowning in deadlines.

[00:54:58] And yeah, if that's when the spin offs are all happening

[00:55:01] and he had a direct involvement in virtually everything,

[00:55:04] I can easily see like as a creative professional myself,

[00:55:08] like things just getting lost in the shuffle at that point.

[00:55:12] That's why I try not to hold against him now.

[00:55:14] I joke, but, you know, like he the guy had a lot on his plate.

[00:55:18] So if it is simply, gosh, I liked it.

[00:55:23] But we we never made it official and it just fell behind with all the other stuff

[00:55:28] that I got as as it exploded in popularity.

[00:55:31] That actually makes sense.

[00:55:32] And in a way, it's kind of comforting.

[00:55:33] It definitely seems like the most likely scenario in all this.

[00:55:37] And I mean, unfortunately, the reality is

[00:55:40] we just don't have the answer.

[00:55:42] Like this is all purely speculation and it could be really anything.

[00:55:47] But I think that might be the most likely scenario.

[00:55:50] But there is a sort of a secret superhero, if you don't mind me saying this and all this.

[00:55:55] And that would be your brother who fought like hard to get this book.

[00:56:01] And your brother, I know he there was a Reddit

[00:56:06] like discussion going on in 2019, if I remember correctly.

[00:56:09] And your brother went on there and asked are all signings like, hey,

[00:56:13] my brother Jim had this title that he submitted for a contest back then

[00:56:18] and it never turned into a book.

[00:56:21] And I think that one, I think there was two instances where he reached out to Stein

[00:56:25] and that one, I don't think he got a response and correct me if I'm wrong on this.

[00:56:30] But I think there was a second time where he reached out to him.

[00:56:33] And I think our own sign did respond and he was like,

[00:56:36] oh, I really like that title is like, I'll see what I can do with it.

[00:56:40] So it was like, OK, and then, you know, not too soon after.

[00:56:46] We we got a little bit of the fruits of that labor.

[00:56:50] But yeah, your your brother, I mean, he

[00:56:53] he fought tooth and nail to get that title used in a book.

[00:56:58] So that's pretty cool of him.

[00:57:01] Yeah, it he definitely was actually kind of

[00:57:05] picked after that first Reddit thread.

[00:57:07] He was like, yeah, Jim, I brought it up and I like described the contest in detail.

[00:57:13] And I never got an answer.

[00:57:15] And then when he got the next response, he was not satisfied.

[00:57:19] He's like, I got kind of a non answer this time.

[00:57:23] You know, so still didn't get that book out.

[00:57:26] And that's why we were all blown away when the the detective work

[00:57:31] from external parties started happening.

[00:57:33] Yeah, because we started well, we, you know,

[00:57:36] they started reaching out to you to figure out the story.

[00:57:39] And then the story came out because Jude reached out.

[00:57:43] I know, Austin, you were doing your your detective work to find him.

[00:57:47] And then a kid we've stooped on YouTube did his video about all the lost

[00:57:51] goosebumps books and when the detail about both contest of the 1994 and the 1998 one.

[00:57:57] So the story was starting to become more well known.

[00:57:59] And now we knew, you know, the faces to go with the names.

[00:58:04] So like it was we were finding a lot of this out for the very first time

[00:58:08] where we were finally getting some, you know, some answers to some questions

[00:58:12] that were had.

[00:58:13] So I mean, that's that's one of the great things about both the goosebumps

[00:58:18] community and the internet as a whole is that some of these things

[00:58:21] that may have been lost to time 10 or so years ago are like being uncovered now.

[00:58:26] So, you know, that's what we like to do.

[00:58:29] That's what we do.

[00:58:30] And it might have paid off because

[00:58:33] just a couple of years ago, we finally got an R.L.

[00:58:37] Stein book called Slime Doesn't Pay.

[00:58:41] So I guess this time slime did pay.

[00:58:44] It just took a few decades.

[00:58:47] But we finally got Slime Doesn't Pay on the cover of not a goosebumps book,

[00:58:52] but an R.L.

[00:58:53] Stein book.

[00:58:55] So what was your reaction to finding out that it finally happened?

[00:59:00] I mean, I giddy like I.

[00:59:04] I couldn't believe it.

[00:59:07] Jude, the look was the first one to tell me he reached out and he pinged me.

[00:59:11] He's like, hey, well, first he was like, hey, you know, I've been in contact with them.

[00:59:14] And they say, you know, there might be something percolating.

[00:59:17] And then he contacted me again with the news like, hey, Jim,

[00:59:21] they're they're actually writing it.

[00:59:23] It's going to come out.

[00:59:24] And I couldn't I was beside myself.

[00:59:26] I was like, oh my God, thank you so much.

[00:59:27] This is so exciting.

[00:59:28] I was telling my whole family, I know at least one person was like, well,

[00:59:32] is it goosebumps?

[00:59:32] I'm like, shut up.

[00:59:33] I don't care.

[00:59:35] I was finally going to see my idea a 20 year journey.

[00:59:41] However many decades, I'm 40.

[00:59:43] So I I'm basically already a skeleton.

[00:59:48] But just blown away, finding out that it was actually going to exist.

[00:59:53] And then just last year, Jude actually went and got a copy signed

[01:00:02] IRL for me and mailed it to me around the holiday.

[01:00:07] And getting to hold it in my hand, I was actually crying as I as I read

[01:00:11] the card he sent with it like I had started reading it back then.

[01:00:17] But you know, we have a baby and so I haven't had that much time to read

[01:00:20] things and I actually in prep sat down and read through it over the past day.

[01:00:27] And just I was beaming the entire time like it feels unreal that

[01:00:33] beholding like physical proof that this contest happened.

[01:00:38] Yeah, shame that Arl Stein didn't like just write a little something extra

[01:00:42] in the book for you saying sorry, it took so long.

[01:00:45] I'll start for the delay.

[01:00:47] Here you go.

[01:00:48] He actually asked me he was like, hey, I'm actually in line waiting to get this

[01:00:52] autographed but Arl or no, he said Arl signed it.

[01:00:56] But he was too tired by this point.

[01:00:57] I waited in line.

[01:00:59] Do you want me to go back when he's pressure and have him sign a copy with a note?

[01:01:03] I'm like, no, man, you're good.

[01:01:05] You've already gone above and beyond what any normal Internet hero would do.

[01:01:10] So I know I know in his heart that Arl Stein was thinking it though.

[01:01:15] Absolutely.

[01:01:16] Well, and it's it's another thing to speculate about.

[01:01:21] But it's more than likely the case that all of this uncovering of this story

[01:01:27] is what led to this book being made finally.

[01:01:30] And again, it's through Jude doing what he does.

[01:01:34] And even your brother, you know, like poking the bear and being like, hey,

[01:01:40] when's that when that book coming out?

[01:01:42] It finally happened.

[01:01:43] And now Arl Stein, you know, he was swamped back then in the 90s

[01:01:46] because goosebumps were so big.

[01:01:49] But Arl Stein doesn't write as many books now and he's trying to focus

[01:01:52] on doing standalone novels now that are not goosebumps.

[01:01:56] So it was probably easier for him now to like really sit down and be like, OK,

[01:02:01] what should I write for this title?

[01:02:04] Like, you know, for a fact that he probably was being like, OK,

[01:02:09] this is like, you know, something I got to like close the book on.

[01:02:14] Hey, hey, hey.

[01:02:16] I got to walk.

[01:02:18] We got jokes, folks.

[01:02:20] Yeah, I definitely I think if this was just something that got

[01:02:25] brought up on Reddit threads occasionally or something to the fan community

[01:02:31] forever wondered about it wouldn't necessarily have finally come to

[01:02:35] ruin, which is to relentless dedication of fans and, you know,

[01:02:41] amazing internet sleuthing by people like Austin and and dogged

[01:02:46] questioning from my brother Bart or from Intrepid reporters like Jude,

[01:02:50] who finally got the ball rolling on this.

[01:02:54] Not running like malice on Stein's part of like, I'll never write that book,

[01:02:58] but more like just, you know, it's been decades.

[01:03:02] So having this passionate community and passionate people like you guys

[01:03:08] to actually get it over the finish line, it's really meant a lot.

[01:03:15] Absolutely. Any time, any time.

[01:03:17] And I'll say this, you know, when I first learned the story,

[01:03:23] one of the first things I thought of would be, you know,

[01:03:28] we got we got to find where the story originated from who was and who was behind it.

[01:03:33] I was the person that helped Jude find you, right?

[01:03:37] I've already told you this and he reached out to you.

[01:03:40] But from conversations and updates from Jude throughout the whole process,

[01:03:44] I got to see like behind the scenes direct messages from him to Arles Stein.

[01:03:50] And I think given all the information Jude presented to Stein about the title,

[01:03:55] hey, this is the contest that Jimmy won any update on any update

[01:04:00] if you ever going to use the title, blah, blah, blah.

[01:04:02] And Arles Stein was like, man, that's such a great title.

[01:04:04] I don't know why I never used it literally.

[01:04:06] I'm not kidding in this timeframe.

[01:04:08] Within a span of a few weeks, we get an announcement that Blackstone

[01:04:13] and Arles Stein signed a book deal on the first one is Slime Doesn't Pay.

[01:04:17] And I'm like, holy crap, I think we've done it.

[01:04:19] We finally got this book made.

[01:04:22] And that's what this was his debut with Blackstone too.

[01:04:25] Yeah. So this was his first book in his book deal with Blackstone Publishing.

[01:04:30] Oh my God. That's wow.

[01:04:32] That makes it feel even better.

[01:04:34] My title gets to kick off a whole new partnership.

[01:04:37] And I think Shark Knight is a part of that too.

[01:04:39] That was his most recent stand-alone novel with Shark Knight.

[01:04:43] And I think that was the second in this deal.

[01:04:45] So yeah, Arles Stein's got a bunch of new novels coming out and much more planned.

[01:04:49] So it's really interesting.

[01:04:51] And from what I've heard, I unfortunately have not read Slime Doesn't Pay or Shark Knight.

[01:04:55] I'm trying to get to it.

[01:04:57] But from what I hear, they're pretty good books.

[01:05:01] Yeah.

[01:05:02] And I believe you said that you had read it recently, Jim?

[01:05:08] Yeah. I just finished it this morning, actually.

[01:05:12] It's a delight.

[01:05:13] I mean, it's obviously for your younger readers.

[01:05:15] But that's, well, let me rewind that because

[01:05:19] young adult fiction is incredibly important and well-respected genre.

[01:05:22] But it's just delightful.

[01:05:25] I definitely immediately felt that high stakes, everyday problems for kids thing

[01:05:35] that I talked about earlier again reading it.

[01:05:37] Because I'm the youngest brother.

[01:05:39] So I can't talk about having an annoying younger brother.

[01:05:42] But I can talk about having older brothers who even though decades later they would go on Reddit

[01:05:47] and ask really nice questions for you, can at the time seem inexplicably mean etc.

[01:05:51] And so this book having like, I'm not going to spoil any details.

[01:05:58] But my brother seems like a monster and my parents just seem like they're not taking it

[01:06:03] seriously enough.

[01:06:04] And I've got all these other things that are important going on in my life.

[01:06:09] All these high stakes to the protagonist, low stakes to us living our grown-up lives.

[01:06:18] But that sense of empathy and that sense of realism even in a book that's partially about

[01:06:25] evil monsters and slime, it really took me right back to 1993, 1994.

[01:06:33] And I'm smiling just talking about it because by the time I got to the conclusion,

[01:06:37] I was like, oh my God, I love those books.

[01:06:39] I'm so happy about those books.

[01:06:41] Yeah, I remember hearing about the announcement of that book and I just felt like so happy.

[01:06:47] Because it took a long time, but you finally reached that happy ending where you finally

[01:06:55] got to see the fruits of that labor come to fruition.

[01:06:59] And I mean, I can only imagine the feeling it is just to know I have it.

[01:07:06] It's here, finally.

[01:07:08] Yeah, I told Jude that this is the kind of thing that the Internet is for.

[01:07:18] Bringing these communities of people together, bring it like at its best,

[01:07:23] Internet fandom and Internet culture lets people connect over stuff like this.

[01:07:29] And then out of the goodness of their hearts and out of curiosity and passion and fandom,

[01:07:34] they can do something like resurrecting a long dead title from a contest in the 90s and bring

[01:07:45] belatedly a little boy's dream to life.

[01:07:48] All just because you're all that passionate about goosebumps and because of kindness and because

[01:07:54] of friendly interest, yeah, it's just been marvelous to watch and be part of.

[01:08:02] Absolutely.

[01:08:03] Oh man, just picture this for a second.

[01:08:06] They adapt it into a film.

[01:08:09] Oh God.

[01:08:10] Or to the episode.

[01:08:12] And it's your title.

[01:08:13] That's my requirement.

[01:08:15] I get to play the dad.

[01:08:16] You don't have to pay me.

[01:08:17] I just get to be in it.

[01:08:18] And here's the thing Jim, and he has some credence to this,

[01:08:23] beyond on to something.

[01:08:24] There was a movie recently made called Zombie Town,

[01:08:27] which was based on a standalone RL Stein book.

[01:08:30] And they are looking more into his standalone stuff to make more films around.

[01:08:35] I can definitely see Slime doesn't pay possibly being a movie in the future,

[01:08:39] but we just got to keep an eye out for it.

[01:08:41] But if that happens, I think you got double the win here because you got a book and a movie out of it.

[01:08:47] Oh my God, I will get the poster if that's a movie.

[01:08:50] I will get that frame posted.

[01:08:51] Incredible.

[01:08:52] Maybe it would be RL Stein's way of being like,

[01:08:55] you know, you waited long enough, I'm going to give you double the recognition.

[01:09:00] It's going to be a post credit scene.

[01:09:02] He's going to walk out like, hi, I'm RL Stein.

[01:09:04] And I just like to say thank you, Jim Smiley.

[01:09:07] That would be great.

[01:09:09] Yeah.

[01:09:09] Jim Smiley is the name of the villain in the movie.

[01:09:13] Oh my God.

[01:09:15] And he relies as pretty much like a goosebumps villain almost.

[01:09:19] I would also take that.

[01:09:21] Or the movie is actually not an adaptation and it's a documentary about you trying to get RL Stein to make the book.

[01:09:29] Oh, God.

[01:09:30] That's like an internet fan.

[01:09:31] He's like on the golf course and you're like chasing after him.

[01:09:33] He's like right by book.

[01:09:35] Mr. Stein was the title not good enough.

[01:09:39] He's like, let's go.

[01:09:40] Let's go.

[01:09:40] Come on.

[01:09:40] Where's the book?

[01:09:43] For it.

[01:09:46] Oh my God.

[01:09:47] There is a movie in there somewhere.

[01:09:49] We got to write it.

[01:09:51] It's an interesting book.

[01:09:53] Like again, you know, when you hear that title, you're like what is that story about?

[01:09:57] And for the longest time, you're like, we didn't know.

[01:10:00] It was just a title.

[01:10:01] But now we have a story to put to that book and the story is pretty interesting

[01:10:06] because it's not the typical like monster blood or blob sort of thing.

[01:10:10] It's a little bit different in a way and I won't spoil any story details.

[01:10:17] But I definitely recommend checking out the book if you haven't already,

[01:10:20] even though it's not Goosebumps, it's still RL Stein.

[01:10:24] It's still his writing.

[01:10:25] You can basically just pretend it's a Goosebumps book because it is essentially a Goosebumps book

[01:10:31] even if it doesn't have the branding on it.

[01:10:34] But yeah, it's just incredible.

[01:10:37] It won an incredible story from the beginning to the contest to now.

[01:10:43] And I can imagine your family was quite happy that it finally came to be.

[01:10:49] They were just over the moon and I mean there were so many jokes being cracked.

[01:10:53] Like about time did he send you any money to go with it?

[01:10:56] And a lot of them were amazed at Jude's dedication and amazed at

[01:11:01] Austin, you being able to find me in the first place.

[01:11:05] So how did you get in touch with these people?

[01:11:07] There's a whole community out there and I was like there's this constellation,

[01:11:12] there's this whole galaxy of fandom that I am in hindsight not surprised at all.

[01:11:17] It exists and is so passionate but they were all really happy for me.

[01:11:21] I brought it with because Jude said to me around Christmas.

[01:11:24] I brought it with to a family gathering and was holding it up so people could see it.

[01:11:32] It was something.

[01:11:35] I'm going to forward them all this link too.

[01:11:37] So if you get any new subscribers, maybe it's them.

[01:11:42] Yeah, I love them.

[01:11:43] Definitely hope that they check this out and I hope everyone does because this is a great

[01:11:49] story connected to the Goosebumps universe.

[01:11:52] Absolutely.

[01:11:53] Have you kept up with the series since then?

[01:12:05] Have you seen the movie or anything like that that's come out or has it just been a blur?

[01:12:13] It's sort of faded into the background to be honest but honestly talking about it now I want

[01:12:19] to pick them up or pick up maybe some of his slightly older aged material just to see get

[01:12:25] more of that Arlstein content back into my brain.

[01:12:30] For a while it just faded away and I definitely put a smile on my face when I saw trailers for

[01:12:36] the Goosebumps movie.

[01:12:38] Was it Jack Black?

[01:12:40] Didn't it condense a few different stories?

[01:12:43] At some point I'm going to have to sit and watch it for Halloween.

[01:12:46] It was a big hodgepodge movie.

[01:12:48] It was sort of like a Jumanji meets Goosebumps where basically this kid moves to a new town

[01:12:54] and Jack Black is Arlstein and he's living next door with his daughter Hannah.

[01:12:59] And Arlstein in this universe apparently whatever story he writes the manuscript contains the

[01:13:06] monster so all the manuscripts are the Goosebumps stories and they're all

[01:13:10] they are all Goosebumps actual Goosebumps books like they looked into every single one

[01:13:14] but when you open it up the monster inside comes out so they open Night of the Living

[01:13:19] Gummy and Slappy comes out or the werewolf of fever swamp and the werewolf comes out

[01:13:24] and then they just unleash them all on the town so it's like a big hodgepodge of Goosebumps.

[01:13:29] It's definitely a movie for the fans because as a fan you look at those and be like oh I know

[01:13:34] which one that comes from so it's definitely that but I would recommend it.

[01:13:38] It is a great like spooky movie to watch around Halloween with the family.

[01:13:43] It was a great theater experience for me because

[01:13:45] oh I bet.

[01:13:46] I got to be that person who's like I know that.

[01:13:49] I know that.

[01:13:49] It was a fun movie it was just like the way I look at the Goosebumps movie it's just

[01:13:53] a fun time for the kids you know but like Isaiah and I I have one nip and it's any

[01:14:01] Slappy sequel book should have been used not the first one because I expected Mr.

[01:14:06] Wood to come out so I was like any sequel book could have been any of them could

[01:14:11] have been Revenge of the Living Dummy, Slappy's Nightmare Bride, 2, 3 any books have opened up

[01:14:17] revealing Slappy not the first one.

[01:14:19] I once talked about it.

[01:14:21] The producer is taking notes right now so.

[01:14:23] Yeah I once brought up the the idea of every Slappy book is open and you just

[01:14:28] have like an army of Slappies because each one has a different Slappy inside so you just

[01:14:32] have like a dozen Slappies.

[01:14:35] And now I'm going to have nightmares tonight guys.

[01:14:40] Just like that scene in Akira with the evil toys except it's all Slappies like crawling

[01:14:46] up onto the bed.

[01:14:46] My Slappies are up there I have three.

[01:14:49] Ah God and every time I.

[01:14:51] I didn't notice that until now that's that's that's the exact reaction.

[01:14:55] No every time somebody comes in my room and they're like what the hell is that and

[01:14:59] that's like oh it's Slappy he's like and you sleep with that in the same room like yep.

[01:15:04] Or you have just a creepy perpetual elf on a shelf you got going on over there.

[01:15:09] Oh yeah you want to go online.

[01:15:12] The cover of Slam Doesn't Pay is also kind of nightmare fuel.

[01:15:15] Yeah it was surprised by the quality of the cover of this.

[01:15:18] It's not it's not Tim Jacobus but Catherine English did a pretty good job on this cover

[01:15:23] I think.

[01:15:24] Very striking art and the artwork inside is great too.

[01:15:31] I don't think the Goosebumps books were art and text right like God I'm dating myself by saying

[01:15:37] that but yeah so I hadn't I hadn't picked up a Stein book that was like

[01:15:43] that had artwork as well in it but um yeah they do a really good job.

[01:15:47] It's uh there is one it's called Slappy Beware but it's a newer book that's the only one I

[01:15:53] could think of.

[01:15:53] Yeah no Aura Stein always talked about how because I think people have asked them

[01:15:58] they're like like have you ever thought about like putting artwork in the Goosebumps books

[01:16:02] and I think he said you know sometimes it's just more interesting to think about like what's like

[01:16:09] to not actually see it but just like think about what's going on in the story especially

[01:16:13] as a kid because you as a kid you have such an imagination that you just envision it in your

[01:16:18] head.

[01:16:18] It can never really be captured by uh you know by artwork alongside it you want to

[01:16:25] think it in your head that's really how I approach Goosebumps.

[01:16:28] Yeah while we kind of got the graphic novels now like in a sense you kind of got I mean it's not

[01:16:33] the whole yeah but that's for people who don't like to read so.

[01:16:37] Okay you are talking to guys who has manga and comics on his shelf too so.

[01:16:43] But I think they could do it I mean they've done it with like the Harry Potter books now

[01:16:47] like they brought out like the illustrated ones I feel like they could for some Goosebumps

[01:16:52] books maybe just take the really iconic ones and do it if they really wanted to.

[01:16:57] But then again who knows well like this one it I won't show much but like it uh when it has

[01:17:05] artwork it's generally not like the scariest thing on the page it's more like the supporting

[01:17:10] country yeah.

[01:17:13] I don't want to spoil the one about the later pages but a lot of it is more scene setting

[01:17:19] or supporting or like one element of what's being described but.

[01:17:23] I thought this song was pretty creepy.

[01:17:24] That one yeah that one uh has some scary stories to tell in the dark vibes.

[01:17:29] That was that's the O.G. releases not the not the new Kiddiffy releases but that's a

[01:17:35] and uh Jim you've mentioned that you uh that you yourself are in a profession of writing uh

[01:17:44] how is that going it's it's pretty interesting that you know you've gotten a career in

[01:17:48] writing yourself now.

[01:17:50] Yeah it's uh well I'm in uh it's a lot less exciting than uh than Goosebumps writing I uh

[01:17:56] I do a lot of professional copywriting um corporate training e-learning that kind of stuff

[01:18:02] so things that pay the bills and then um I was in comedic sketch writing uh and um

[01:18:11] uh hit a sitcom pilot uh I still write one fanfic a year on Archive of our Own but I'll never

[01:18:18] share my handle with anyone um and uh right now I'm freelancing um and working for another

[01:18:25] marketing agency and then have actually been sitting down recently and looking at my toddler

[01:18:30] and thinking to myself maybe I should try and write some kids books which my mom has been

[01:18:36] yelling into my ear for the past year and a half as well so yeah it's uh it's more

[01:18:40] below the line work so to speak but uh definitely just uh I've made my living

[01:18:46] writing in various different ways um and I think Goosebumps certainly help with that like

[01:18:50] that sense of connecting with people of getting your thoughts down on paper in an interesting way

[01:18:54] I've kind of always liked it. Yeah I definitely know a lot of people who read Goosebumps and

[01:18:59] want to write their own you know scary stories including me. I uh I wrote many

[01:19:06] scary stories that I would never want to show a living soul ever because not because they're

[01:19:12] scary it's scary because of how bad they are. Oh god I wrote I wrote some story about befriending

[01:19:18] a robot uh who would beat up a bully in in like sixth grade and uh uh if someone wants to torment

[01:19:26] me they'll like lock me in a room with uh with someone reading it out loud over speaker because

[01:19:30] it was that bad. Yeah hopefully in all this detective slew saying nothing about that arises.

[01:19:37] Oh god. Yeah that's that's the bad guys. That's the evil detectives we hope they never find anything.

[01:19:47] Well we got one more surprise in store before we end off the evening so as we mentioned earlier

[01:19:53] there was an AOL chat where R.L. Stein announced the winners of the contest in October it is

[01:20:01] actually Halloween night of 1994 is when the runners up and the winner of the title contest were

[01:20:08] announced and funny enough we're gonna take a look at it. That is a 1990s website. Yes it is so

[01:20:16] this is the original Goosebumps website uh we actually found this if you guys in our audience

[01:20:23] have been keeping up we found this in our 34th episode with Tyra Young where we explored the

[01:20:30] Goosebumps website and right here on the R.L. Stein page we have a little link right here

[01:20:35] that says chatting up a storm on Halloween and as we click on that we are met with an entire

[01:20:42] chat archival of the America online chat with R.L. Stein on October 31st 1994 so this was an entire chat

[01:20:53] where an MC and R.L. Stein talked and answered questions that were submitted by fans and this is

[01:20:59] like a super long chat there are so many different questions that R.L. Stein answered

[01:21:04] related to Goosebumps whether it be the books or the TV show but for the sake of our topic

[01:21:10] we go all the way to the bottom here and right before they end off the night

[01:21:15] R.L. Stein says I like to uh hold on there we go I'd like to announce the winners of our contest now

[01:21:24] and the MC says great idea so R.L. Stein says here are the winners in the name of Goosebumps

[01:21:29] Contest first I'll list the five runners up we have The Grim Reaper Lives in My Locker by

[01:21:35] Mike Snead SN Mentor 16 Frog's Breath Can Kill You by Cliff 973 Scream Cheese by Tobias Foulzone

[01:21:46] by Jay Coffee 325 Have You Seen My Head Lately by Michelle Devin Harbor MS

[01:21:53] and You Me and Monster Makes Three by Lauren Fishman LC Kids and The Winner the Grand Prize Winner

[01:22:00] Slime Doesn't Pay by Jimmy Smiley Central S

[01:22:05] Congratulations Jimmy Smiley thanks everyone for so many scary titles

[01:22:10] so right there that was the first time that your name appeared as the winner of this contest

[01:22:18] on the website too oh man the official I gotta I gotta save a jpeg of that or something

[01:22:24] I'll make sure to send you a picture yeah send me that link I gotta I gotta share that with

[01:22:28] the family too absolutely it's a really cool archival of different uh I mean there's a I guess

[01:22:34] that a ton of questions that were answered by R.L. Stein but uh it was really cool that he got to

[01:22:39] announce the winner here and these titles these five runners up uh are pretty interesting title

[01:22:44] like those are solid names I like Scream Cheese and Have You Seen My Head Lately the Best

[01:22:49] I think Scream Cheese is so good that's one I would have loved to know what the story

[01:22:53] behind that one is well you don't clean out the fridge for a I'd love to see Tim Jacobus's

[01:23:00] cover up for Frog's Breath Can Kill You I want to see that would be a cool artwork I just want

[01:23:07] to see it it's in my brain and the I mean he kind of did something similar for The Bone

[01:23:13] Showers book uh Creature Teacher or Teacher Creature whatever it was called uh that one

[01:23:18] had a big frog on it with the massive tongue uh sliding out I really like uh The Grim Reaper

[01:23:24] Lives in My Locker isn't that an interesting one but you me Monster Makes Three I think

[01:23:31] that's a really good one too man it is solid yeah very solid titles but Slime doesn't

[01:23:37] pay kicked all their asses yeah well I don't want to brag but I mean sometimes sometimes

[01:23:44] some ideas are just better you know yeah some ideas are just amazing and others suck

[01:23:51] now we just gotta find those they only suck in comparison to my idea yes yes

[01:23:59] now we gotta find those other five people and do interviews with them yeah get on it awesome

[01:24:05] we could get old books I can tell you I think you found the person who did you me and Monster

[01:24:12] Makes Three I don't know about the other four but I know we found at least one of them that's

[01:24:19] really interesting thing is you gotta get us all on a panel and we can all share our memories

[01:24:22] of the series oh yeah every book that comes out in this is those titles like the next title

[01:24:29] of frog breath can kill you for a Reaper Lives in My Locker yeah dude he should do it he would

[01:24:36] make several kids very very happy make them live the dreams that you are living right now

[01:24:43] that's right great that would be awesome and yes if we can ever get them I smell a reunion

[01:24:52] you would wear a crown though in the in that one oh god

[01:24:57] you guys send it to me I'll wear it yep you gotta have the official crown that says king of all

[01:25:03] goosebumps how did you know I made one of those when I was a kid I just have a feeling I'm a little

[01:25:10] psychic on the inside but that is gonna do it for tonight's episode of the goosebumps crew podcast

[01:25:15] Jim thank you so much for joining us it was an absolute delight to talk some goosebumps with you

[01:25:20] congratulations on getting your title used on the book seriously I'm super happy for you

[01:25:26] thanks so much and thanks for having me this has been a great time absolutely we're happy

[01:25:30] to talk with you and also thanks to Austin goosebumps completionists for joining us again

[01:25:35] it's always a delight to have you on here so thanks man if you guys liked today's episode make sure

[01:25:41] you leave a like and comment and if you're watching us on youtube make sure you subscribe

[01:25:45] and hit the bell notification follow us on our audio platforms spotifiable podcast amazon music

[01:25:51] and the iHeart radio and follow us on social media at instagram twitter tiktok and facebook

[01:25:56] you can also follow Bjorn and nick at goosebumps saucy fan and Sean respectively on their social

[01:26:01] medias and youtube as well as goosebumps completionists on youtube and social medias

[01:26:06] also go check out Austin's goosebumps podcast goose junkies that is another great goosebumps

[01:26:12] podcast so go check that out and until next time we'll have another episode for you guys

[01:26:18] next week but until then this has been the goosebumps crew podcast and from all of us here

[01:26:22] if you want to wish you always to take care stay safe and have a very scary day