Legend of the Lost Books

[00:00:00] Greetings boys and ghouls, I'm Sean with the Goosebumps Crew Podcast. You've asked for it and now the Goosebumps Crew Podcast wants to deliver. And you're in for a scare because the Goosebumps Crew is proud to announce one weekend at Horrorland.

[00:00:19] So get ready my friends for an event that celebrates the magic of horror literature like never before. It's where you'll find like-minded fans of some of your favorite horror shows and movies, including some of the guests who've appeared on the Goosebumps Crew Podcast.

[00:00:33] Our special guests, panels and activities for fans of all ages will immerse you in an exciting and spooky atmosphere sure to get you into the spirit of things. But here's the thing, we can't do it alone. We need your support to bring this dream of ours to life.

[00:00:48] By making a donation, you become an essential part of making this extraordinary event a reality. As a token of our appreciation, the Goosebumps Crew has prepared some extraordinary gifts and rewards exclusively for our backers.

[00:01:01] So my friends, join us on this magical journey where we will create a weekend filled with your passion and shared love for the horror genre. Please visit our Kickstarter donation page now. Let your passion ignite the flame that will make this event a reality.

[00:01:41] The most thrilling, spiting news series ever. From the pages of Ariel Stein's bestselling books, I must scream, go on forever and ever. We now return to Goosebumps.

[00:02:45] Greetings Goosebumps fans, young and old, big and small. Welcome back to the Goosebumps Crew Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Isaiah Vargas, and I'm joined by the rest of the Goosebumps Crew, Bjorn Panalik and Nick Shaw.

[00:02:55] And we're back to talk some more Goosebumps, of course, as always we are. And, you know, as usual, we talk here on the Goosebumps Crew Podcast. We talk about all things Goosebumps. We talk about all the wonderful things from Goosebumps in the 90s, which was by far

[00:03:11] definitely its golden age. That is when Goosebumps was everywhere. It was dominating the books. It was dominating the TV show and just like everything in between toys, merch, live shows. Like it was everywhere. And it was good for a while, but then the dark age came.

[00:03:33] You might be thinking Goosebumps had a dark age. Well, yes, it did. There was a time in the 90s when countless legal disputes combined with declining sales led to a stagnation in the Goosebumps franchise that would last for about 10 years,

[00:03:51] technically, if you want to go from the time it happened until its revival, Goosebumps Horrorland in 2008. There was a time when Goosebumps was just a stagnant franchise. It was on a complete halt. And today we're going to talk about what led to that halt in the Goosebumps

[00:04:10] franchise, as well as all the canceled books and stories that died when this franchise hit its rock bottom. So we're going to talk about all of that today. And there's a lot of really cool things to talk about.

[00:04:26] But first, I must always remind you that if you are not following the Goosebumps crew podcasts on YouTube and our audio platforms, as well as following the Goosebumps crew on social media, then frankly, you need to rethink your Goosebumps fandom,

[00:04:43] because if you are a real Goosebumps fan, you will be listening or watching the Goosebumps crew podcasts. Not only do we have new episodes every week where the three of us talk about everything Goosebumps from the books, TV shows, movies, merch, video games, all sorts of stuff,

[00:05:02] whatever it is that's Goosebumps, we probably will talk about it. But also, we've had some incredible guests on the podcast related to the Goosebumps franchise, including actors from the Goosebumps TV shows, the 90s TV show, the movies, the 2023 series. We've had cover artists. We've had toy makers.

[00:05:22] We've had prop makers. All these different guests that we've had. So many wonderful guests and so many wonderful topics. If you love Goosebumps, make sure you subscribe to the Goosebumps crew podcast on YouTube, follow our audio platforms, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and I Heart Radio

[00:05:39] and follow the Goosebumps crew on our social medias, our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. All those links are in the description below. Also, at the time of recording this, we are currently in the middle of our Kickstarter for the Goosebumps convention One Weekend at Horrorland.

[00:05:58] The three of us, the Goosebumps crew, are currently planning to make a Goosebumps fan convention a reality. One Weekend at Horrorland is an event where we are going to bring Goosebumps fans of all ages together, as well as many of the guests

[00:06:11] we've had on the Goosebumps crew podcast to indulge in Goosebumps activities, panels, live meet and greets, photos and all sorts of other stuff, including live music, food and drinks. But we need your help to make it a reality.

[00:06:26] If you go to the link in our description to our Kickstarter and either help us by sharing and or donating, you will be helping to make this a reality come November. And we need all the help we can get by July 30th. We need to reach our $60,000 goal.

[00:06:42] And if we reach that by that time, then Horrorland is going to become a reality. So only you guys can help make this a reality. So make sure you click the link in the description, visit our Kickstarter and either help us by sharing and or donating today.

[00:06:59] All right. It's time to talk about the dark age of Goosebumps. So starting things off, we got to talk about how we got to this moment. So, you know, in 1992, Goosebumps first graced the world. We had the first few books. We had Welcome to Dead House.

[00:07:15] We had Stand of the Basement. We had Monster Blend and so forth. And these books caught wind pretty quickly. They weren't popular at first. Many people actually forget that actually the first six Goosebumps books were not actually that popular. It wasn't until

[00:07:32] I believe it was Let's Get Invisible that somehow it just ramped up. In fact, actually, Scholastic was ready to pull the plug on Goosebumps by the time Book 6 even came out. So we would have only had six books in this franchise in an alternate timeline.

[00:07:49] Can you guys believe that? Six books in the Goosebumps franchise. And we would have only had six episodes. They didn't even call it a franchise then. Yeah, there probably wouldn't have been a TV show if there was only six books.

[00:07:59] And it would have been one of those very short lived TV shows. It's all we know is that it was kids telling kids. R.O. Stine said they created like this secret little kids network and it took off. Yeah, and it's crazy. But again, Goosebumps took off.

[00:08:15] So we got for five whole years, we got Goosebumps Mania books, countless books coming out every single month. We had the Goosebumps TV series, which began in 1995. Rose to become one of the most popular shows on Fox Kids, where it aired in America.

[00:08:33] And we also had all sorts of stuff. We had clothes, board games, toys, candy, all sorts of stuff. We even had stuff like a Goosebumps live show in Disney World and another Goosebumps stage show that would tour around the country.

[00:08:47] So it was pretty serious stuff and it kept up until about 1997. But then stuff started brewing in the in terms of the legal matters going on between our good buddies Scholastic, the publishing company behind Goosebumps and Parachute Press, who basically owned the rights to create the Goosebumps books,

[00:09:10] which was headed by, I believe it was Joan Worasha. I might be mispronouncing that name and R.L. Stine's wife, Jane. And they headed Parachute Press. And again, they were the ones that created the Goosebumps books. And then Scholastic would publish them.

[00:09:28] They're the ones that would, you know, send them out to booksellers. They'd be the ones that would market it. They were basically the headhunchers in all this. And it wasn't until 1997 when some frustrating concerns started arising over at Scholastic.

[00:09:45] But it actually started to go off on a different topic really quick. One of the upsets going on between the two companies actually concerned marketing. And Parachute Press was angry with Scholastic because well, actually, no, Scholastic was angry with Parachute Press

[00:10:03] because Scholastic believed that Parachute Press was overstepping their rights by authorizing several business deals that were not approved by Scholastic beforehand. So it basically ended up with Parachute retaliating because Scholastic or Parachute felt that Scholastic was hindering their ability to profit on the franchise

[00:10:23] because Scholastic basically held all the marketing rights. Parachute essentially owned the rights to create the books and Scholastic owned everything else. So anything marketing wise or venture or business ventures, all that went through them. And most of the time they would net profits from it.

[00:10:42] But probably the biggest thing that led to all these legal troubles was the alleged, I would say, claim that R.L. Stein was getting ghost writers, aka freelance writers to work on the Goosebumps books. So basically, Scholastic's contract

[00:11:02] with R.L. Stein stated that for the mainline Goosebumps books, he could not employ any freelancers to help him write the books. It had to solely be him through in and throughout. And they were accusing him that after book number 16, that he was getting other people

[00:11:22] to help him write the Goosebumps books. So it basically led to this whole thing that actually ended up with Scholastic withholding payments to Parachute Press. So Parachute Press was not getting any, if all money for Goosebumps for quite some time.

[00:11:40] So it was some some tension going on at the time. It was this big back and forth between these two companies. Imagine working like 12 hours a day and you didn't get paid. It's messed up, is like, especially for a franchise like Goosebumps

[00:11:56] that's so lucrative and so popular and is getting all these business ventures not getting paid for that. It's messed up. Yeah, 100 percent. You know, think of all the stuff that we were getting to, like with all the merch and everything and Parachute Press.

[00:12:10] Like, yeah, man, I'd I'd be the same. I'd be like, yo, where's my money? Pay me, bitch. But Scholastic was certain that. Where's my money, man? Where's my money? Scholastic was certain that Stein was using ghostwriters and essentially his contributions would be minimal.

[00:12:29] So they would basically be the one that would write out the whole story and then Stein would sort of just be kind of like the guy would change a few things here and there, but he would still pass it off as his. That was their their claim.

[00:12:44] Now, Parachute basically said that the writer clause in his contract was meant to prevent plagiarism and it didn't necessarily mean that he couldn't receive help. So he could get freelance helpers to maybe like help with the outline. But then Stein would write the story.

[00:13:06] So it was sort of a thing where they would help him, but he still did the majority of the work. It would still start with him and end with him. That's what they alleged. And it just led to this whole back and forth.

[00:13:17] If you actually want to read more about this topic, I should have said this at the beginning. But if you want to read more about this topic, I would consult the Goosebumps Wiki, which is hands down, if you want to know any knowledge about Goosebumps,

[00:13:29] the Goosebumps Wiki is like the go to place. I mean, this is run by people who know this franchise in and out in almost every single way. So there's a great article over there detailing all this. But yes, essentially up to this point,

[00:13:44] there was a lot of back and forth between Scholastic and Parachute Press about what Scholastic saying that Stein's breaching his contract and Parachute saying, hey, you guys need to give us more money for all this work that we're doing.

[00:13:58] And this franchise is popular and we're not getting our shares. So a lot of, you know, US legal crap. Oh, yes. It was popular. It was very popular. And Goosebumps fever was everywhere. So, yeah, just think how much money people were benefiting on at the time with Goosebumps.

[00:14:20] It's just crazy to think like with now, Goosebumps, like, you know, obviously, there's been a resurgence, but like nostalgia. But you think back in the 90s, like they were making serious buck. When it comes to Goosebumps, like, I don't know what Harry

[00:14:34] Potter would make now or Star Wars would make now. You know what I mean? Like that was Goosebumps in the 90s. So, yeah, it's just it was a whole different world then. It was a different time.

[00:14:45] Mm hmm. Amazing that so many companies were able to get the license to do Goosebumps products, because if you try to do it now, it's like pulling teeth, man. They just won't give it out anymore. It's it's few and far between with people who get it.

[00:14:59] Even companies like Cavity Colors have been trying to get Goosebumps for years. And it wasn't until recently where they finally launched their first products from Goosebumps, like officially licensed products. So that's wild to think that like just anybody and everybody

[00:15:13] back in the 90s wanted on that Goosebumps train and they were giving it out like candy. Yeah, yeah, make this. Yeah, make this. Yeah, make this. So there was actual Goosebumps candy back then, too. Yeah, I was used to go to brushes, probably toothpaste, underwear, socks,

[00:15:31] shirts, shorts, shanty hats, and who mean there's everything like you could think of that. There's Goosebumps. They might have Goosebumps floss. I don't even know. Maybe maybe that would be rare if there is anything that existed back then.

[00:15:46] Like there was a Goosebumps product tie in of some kind with it. So I wouldn't be surprised. There's a lot of things I wouldn't be surprised that there was a Goosebumps thing of. But of all the things you could think of me, there might have been floss.

[00:16:01] You can flush your teeth with Goosebumps. With Goosebumps, you can have green toothpaste. Green floss. Yeah, green toothpaste. Goosebloss. They did that for one of the products, Goosebloss. There was like Goosemarks, which were like bookmarks. There was like Spooky Speakers. Like, I don't know.

[00:16:21] The names were so ridiculous, but like they worked at the time. They worked. They did. But unfortunately, all this back and forth between the two companies eventually, of course, went to court. So Parachute were the first ones to file lawsuits. They actually filed three against Scholastic.

[00:16:39] One of them basically alleged that Scholastic was mismanaging the franchise, which caused their own loss in revenue from misbusiness deals. They would follow. So that was the first one they did. The second one was actually dismissed in August of 2000,

[00:16:56] but then it was appealed and brought back to court. So this was like going back and forth. And then Scholastic followed their own suit, which basically tied back into the Ghost Rider thing, saying that Stein breached his contract. So they were basically going to Parachute Press,

[00:17:15] taking Parachute Press to their own lawsuit. But they retaliated by doing their third lawsuit, which basically they demanded 36 million dollars in financial reparations, claiming that Scholastic was being excessively strict regarding their contract with Stein. So it was again, big back and forth.

[00:17:35] Everyone was saying you did this. You did that. It was a big tug of war between the rights and who owned what in terms of the franchise. So because of all of this and the reason we bring this all up is that basically everything Goosebumps related 1997

[00:17:54] and beyond was halted. It just stopped. And if you guys will wind that up with the time, that's when the sales of the books were also slowly declining. Soon after in 1998, the TV show would be canceled.

[00:18:11] A lot of the stuff like the previously mentioned live shows would end in 1998. And of course, this would lead to a lot of series being canceled before having a proper ending. If you guys know, if I'm not mistaken,

[00:18:28] I think the only series that ended with an actual like not getting canceled was the original series. The original 62 had its. I wouldn't say proper conclusion, but it ended on its own terms. But it ended on a pretty low note with Monster Blood 4.

[00:18:49] Yeah, they should have gotten rid of it. I know we've talked about it. It was like, what was his obsession with Monster Blood? Like, why did we get so many sequels? And they were all bad, in my opinion.

[00:19:00] Like, I don't even really care for the first Monster Blood, but the sequels were way worse. Well, that's the thing. It's like by the time you get to Monster Blood 3, it's like, first of all, this character like is insane

[00:19:11] if you want to keep on messing with the stuff. Like if somebody comes up to you and say, look what I found. And like I would take it, run somewhere far away with it and chuck it and then just be like, it's gone. It's gone.

[00:19:25] But don't chuck it in the ocean because like a big shock might eat it. And then throw it in the volcano. That would be Monster Blood 5. Run to Mount Vesuvius, which has been dormant for hundreds of years,

[00:19:38] throw it on in there and hope that Pompeii doesn't get engulfed again. That should be Monster Blood 4. Yeah. Oh, man. I have this so many things I don't think there should have been a Monster Blood 4 anyway. You know what they should have ended the series with?

[00:19:56] They should have ended the series with a Welcome to Deadhouse sequel. We started with Welcome to Deadhouse. We end the series with Welcome to Deadhouse. It all comes to a conclusion. Full circle. Full circle. But in addition to all that legal stuff,

[00:20:13] again, you know, there was there was a lot of declining sales starting in 1997 and actually Scholastic stock dropped more than 50 percent in that same year. So they were struggling hard. But eventually they would come back in 1998 because Harry Potter was on the horizon.

[00:20:32] So many people think that Harry Potter was the new savior. Well, many people sadly wasn't. Well, yeah, I mean, it certainly didn't help. I wish we could blame Harry Potter for everything, but but I kind of like Harry Potter, so I can't blame it.

[00:20:51] Well, there's a lot of people would blame Harry for everything. OK, there's a lot of people who would blame Harry Potter for all that. But to set the record straight, Harry Potter is not the sole reason Goosebumps died. It was a it was a symptom.

[00:21:07] It was a symptom of the problem. It was part of it. But eventually this would all culminate in the final nail in the coffin, which was Stein not renewing his contract for the year 2000, which meant he would now leave Scholastic and the Goosebumps series died that very day.

[00:21:26] But there were. But there were many other plans to possibly bring the Goosebumps books back. But we'll get to that just a second to close out the topic of Scholastic's legal trouble. It wouldn't be until 2003 that Scholastic would buy everything involving Goosebumps.

[00:21:50] They bought all the rights of the franchise for about nine and a half million dollars. So now they owned everything Goosebumps related. They would be the makers of the of the books now on top of having the marketing and all the distribution rights.

[00:22:06] And then it would eventually lead to the first set of reprints. And then eventually it would lead to the revival series Horrorland, which would fall in 08. And then it leads us to today where the series is going strong, strong ish. It would never quite reclaim the same,

[00:22:22] you know, top of the world era that it had back in the 90s. But 94, 95 and 96 were like the biggest years. And 95, 96 were like top of the world. You know, 94 was still big, but 95 was obviously when the TV show came out and like the first big merch came out.

[00:22:44] So it was like that was the year that Goosebumps just went bang. You know, I would argue. I would argue that Goosebumps actually peak years were actually 96, 97, because even while most of this legal stuff was going on,

[00:23:01] I mean, you got to remember that was like the height of the TV series. That was like when most like big business dealings were going on, like even like the Escape from Horrorland video game. And once again, those live shows that were going on with Dreamworks.

[00:23:17] Yeah, literally, Dreamworks that did the Escape from Horrorland game. You had like Spielberg in there, Jeff Goldblum in there, Eric Lloyd, who's coming off the Santa Claus movie. Like that was I was like that was Pete Goosebumps 96. Well, yeah, and that was the year.

[00:23:33] And actually, we neglected to mention, but because the series halted at the same time, not only were books canceled, but again, many other business dealings, there was supposed to be a Goosebumps movie in the late 90s. And it didn't happen because of all this legal crap.

[00:23:49] Oh, why does horror need to have a legal battle? Romero, welcome to Dead House movie. Mm hmm. That epic is a sad loss because that would have been awesome. Even if it was bad, it would have been awesome. It would have been really cool.

[00:24:08] And then we also nearly got a Tim Burton Goosebumps movie, which would have been so amazing in the 90s as well. Like, could you imagine what that would have looked like? I was going to say, so what one do you think he would have adapted?

[00:24:20] Like if you're going to go off the one book, say Tim Burton. But what's great? That was the problem. But that was the issue, Tim Burton. They didn't know which book to adapt. Personally, I would have gone with Horrorland

[00:24:35] because you can make a full fledged movie with that. But you could make like that's a big set. You know what I mean? Like that's something you could have made big. I mean, if you did like, I mean, welcome to Dead House two.

[00:24:44] That would have worked like George R.R. Romero, as you said. But I think if they wanted to just go big right away, one day Horrorland could have made for a full length film, in my opinion. I think that would have worked really well.

[00:24:56] But then again, it was 1998. So series 2000 was coming out too. Would they have gone with like one of the newer books that was like coming out at the time or would they have gone with one of the original 62? Like, but I would have gone with Horrorland.

[00:25:10] I mean, I definitely would like to hear what people think. Like what book best represents what Tim Burton could do like what and his style of moviemaking. Like what book more fits with his style? Yeah, because I think that's interesting. Like we'll probably never know what film because

[00:25:31] like Isaiah was saying, you know, that's probably the issue was they just didn't know which one to send his way. So also it's like, do you think it would have been good? Tim Burton, like Beetlejuice Nightmare Before Christmas?

[00:25:45] Or would it be Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Tim Burton? No, I think it would have still been that 90s Tim Burton. Like Nightmare Before Christmas. I think it was still been that. What's to say it was even going to be live action?

[00:25:59] What's to say it wouldn't have been like a stop motion clay stuff that would be pretty cool if it was animated in stop motion like Nightmare Before Christmas, a Goosebumps movie that would be. Look at the Horrorland Escape from Horrorland, like look at the Escape

[00:26:13] from Horrorland game, how the how it looked. That looked like a Tim Burton sort of a if you actually look at the footage of like Horrorland when it's like racing through and you've got the weird monster jumping like that kind of gives me a Tim Burton feel

[00:26:27] when you actually look at some of the footage of that Escape from Horrorland game, especially like in the trailer and stuff. So I don't know. I feel like he could have totally nailed that. But yeah, I'm just I can't think of the top of my head.

[00:26:38] I would like to go on the vein of Nightmare Before Christmas. I think Attack of the Jack O'Lanterns would have been really cool to see by Tim Burton. That would be. Yeah, you know, Jack O'Lanterns because he stays in that

[00:26:50] horror Halloween kind of vein of stuff with this. Shock Street. I think that second track should be a good one. Honestly, I feel like a Goosebumps movie would work if it was in the same vein as like Creepshow or it is like an anthology of stories.

[00:27:05] So then that way, you don't have to write an entire hour and a half movie off one book. You can do multiple books and then the sequels can do another set of books. So I mean, not to say that the movie we eventually got was bad, but

[00:27:22] you know, there's I feel like there's maybe more creative ways to do a Goosebumps movie. But unfortunately, I mean, we've talked about before. It's definitely the amalgamation of all the books together. It doesn't work quite as fluidly for an hour and a half movie.

[00:27:38] They really should have condensed it down to maybe two or three tops. I mean, maybe four if they go in the style of Creepshow, maybe if they were able to fit it in like that. I think that'd be kind of hard with some stories, though, just because of.

[00:27:57] Time constraint, I guess, of an hour and a half, two hour movie, but, you know, I don't know if anybody out there has watched Trick or Treat that Michael Dougherty did, but that's an anthology film of four stories that tie into the same night.

[00:28:12] So it'd be kind of cool if he was able to keep the same vein, maybe like the Halloween stories to do all of them. And then probably one is not so you're a man. That is like the most Halloween movie ever.

[00:28:24] Halloween, even Halloween doesn't have that much Halloween in it. So Trick or Treat is my favorite horror film because of how aesthetically pleasing it is for Halloween. And I mean, it is falls to the wall. Halloween goes from lore to like different culture.

[00:28:43] They touch base on a lot of things from Halloween. There's a kid that pukes chocolate in that movie. Retreating. Oh, check your candy. Yeah, that's technically it's a combination of chocolate and blood and vomit. So. Yeah. That's only because he didn't check his candy. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:05] Check your candy. You know, anyway, it's razor blades, poison, all that stuff. So you're supposed to check your candy. It's one of the rules of Halloween. Yeah, just getting an apple. Like I'd be like, oh, I think that's a really good idea. Yeah, I think so, too.

[00:29:22] I wish. Well, God, even then, like just, you know, a Goosebumps movie in the 90s at the height of its popularity would have been great. But, you know, we had to wait 15 years after, you know, the craze died down to get a movie.

[00:29:36] And they could have done the same thing like you just said. They could have done a movie like, yeah, with Halloween as like taking all those books, they could have done a book with they could have done one story that has like all the camp stories in one.

[00:29:47] Do you know what I mean? Like the same thing. It's like I don't understand why they never thought to do that. You know, you could have had like all of it in the one. Could have also been a conflict of interest with the TV show.

[00:30:01] Like they probably didn't want it to be as much of an anthology because the TV show was on at the time. So they didn't want to be almost like, you know, like an extended, extended episode of the TV series, you know what I mean?

[00:30:13] I never understood that whole claim anyway. Like there's a lot of other franchises that do that stuff. You know, I feel that's why we never get either like DC's notorious for it, like they're they're so like the DC comics, TV shows, anime films are fantastic.

[00:30:31] The movies have been very hit and miss, depending on who you talk to. And they won't cross over like Marvel does, like Marvel does their MCU TV series, but they also that ties into the movies, you know, so they'll have the same actors from movies

[00:30:46] go to the show and show to the movies and vice versa, whatever. DC will just like will not do that, like they will never do that. Like, so if there's a Batman in a movie, you're not going to get a Batman in the TV shows.

[00:30:59] Anything like rather that's a Batman TV show or whatever. I feel that's stupid, to be honest. It's. Missed opportunities and goosebumps, you know, I think they definitely could have done something similar, maybe not exactly the same.

[00:31:16] But just because I had say like a really bitch and haunted mask episode doesn't mean I can't get a really awesome haunted mass movie. So, you know, just saying, just saying on a mass three. But going off, you know, again, this movie was not the only

[00:31:36] casualty of all that legal crap in the 90s. We also had a string of unreleased books that did not see the light of day. You know, we always talk about the iconic goosebumps books. Well, these are the complete opposite.

[00:31:54] They're the books that nobody knows because they don't exist. So we're going to talk about some of those books today because a lot of these series again got just immediately cut off because Stein was no longer with them. So they couldn't continue.

[00:32:11] So starting off with our good old friend series 2000, everybody knows that the final book in the series 2000 series that was released was Ghost in the Mirror. And probably the most well known lost goosebumps book was the book that was supposed to come after that being number 26,

[00:32:30] The Incredible Shrinking Fifth Grader. Now, going off of the art of goosebumps, The Incredible Shrinking Fifth Grader was supposed to be released and if the 25th book came out in February 2000, this one would have come out in March 2000. And the original concept, the description of the book

[00:32:51] was about a boy who stepped in front of a projector, like a film projector, and then he just continues to shrink and shrink. And we actually have a piece of commissioned cover art from Tim Jacobus

[00:33:04] that depicts a young boy who is fighting off a giant rat with a pencil. And it's a pretty awesome cover art. And it really sucks that, you know, there's cover art, but no book. But it's the only book in the series 2000

[00:33:22] series to not have a story with the cover art. The other ones that came after or were supposed to come after weren't so lucky because there was actually supposed to be 40 series 2000 books originally when they signed the deal for that series.

[00:33:40] So we only got 25 and 15 were never released. Only one of them do we have a description, a title and a cover art. And the 27th book, we only have a title. Number 27 was allegedly supposed to be called When the Snake Bites. What the story was?

[00:34:01] We don't know. Never got never got written. We already know it was the sequel to Welcome to Camp Nightmare. I mean, is is it actually or was it? So I'm just saying it is. Remember, he got bitten by the snake.

[00:34:18] Hey, yeah, yeah, I'm saying you're just going to bite. Yeah, it might have been. You never know. Yeah. I don't know. I'm going to guess by the book title. There's a snake and it bites. Yep. Someone gets bitten by a snake. And that's it.

[00:34:35] And then dies of poisoning. And that's how the book ends. Yeah, that'd be it'd be the shortest anti climatic goosebumps book ever. Kid gets bit by snake, dies in a hospital bed. The end. Go to bed.

[00:34:51] Which way you go and get bit by the snake and you go to the hospital and get bit by the snake in the hospital, the hospital, the snake, the snake comes by, gives you flowers. So unfortunately, it's not about Mike getting Mike's snake bite.

[00:35:07] Or you go the other way and the Chuck, you know, Chuck Norris shows up and the snake bites him. Maybe maybe you know Larry is so like, oh, you know, just wrap the baby's arm, you know, after you got that,

[00:35:20] Michael bitten by a snake, maybe Larry gets bitten by a snake. And this time, you know, I don't know. He's all like, oh, my God. But no, I don't think so. I think it realistically was just a yeah, like you said,

[00:35:33] a story about a kid getting bitten by a snake. And that could have been a really cool cover up. He visits him in the hospital with flowers and he's like, sorry, sorry, I bet you man, it's all good, brother. It's all good, brother.

[00:35:46] Bring it in. Bring it in. Snake, bring it in. Bring it in. I don't have hands. Snake. Also, I must correct myself. When Ghost in the Mirror was released in January 2000, which means that Incredible Shrinking Fifth Grader would have been February 2000.

[00:36:06] I had to remember because actually Ghost in the Mirror was the only series 2000 book to be released in the year 2000. So false advertising. The irony. All I can say is I'm so glad that we got even to that point,

[00:36:20] because like you think of the few books that came prior, like Earth Geeks, Must Go, Slappy's Nightmare. Imagine if it got canned before those books. Man, I'd be pissed. Like, you know what I mean?

[00:36:31] Well, Series 2000 was such a great series that it sucks it got cut off at all. Like we could have had 40 books in that series and we didn't. 40, 40 total Series 2000 Tim Jacobus arts. Think about that. We only got 26. Imagine seeing those on the shelf.

[00:36:47] Like how big, how long that would have been. Exactly. After you had them in a row. Now, there is a rumor, even though we know the titles of 26 and 27 what would have been them. There is a rumor because we don't know all the other ones.

[00:37:03] So 13 Series 2000 titles never made, never released. We don't know what they would have been about. But there's a rumor going around that many of Stein's standalone books that he wrote between 2000 and 2001 and even some later down the line were actually originally planned to be Series 2000 books.

[00:37:20] Now, again, it's just a rumor. This is not true. And Stein himself has stated that it's not true. But he also admitted that the book he wrote, The Adventures of Shrinkman was evolved from the original plot of The Incredible Shrinking Fifth Grader. So. Maybe maybe that's true.

[00:37:42] But there's books that he wrote in that time, like Creatures From Beyond Beyond, Zombie Town, My Alien Parents, Three Faces of Me, The 13th Warning, even something like First Day of School Forever, which came out way later. There's rumors that they were possibly planned Goosebumps stories

[00:38:01] and we'll never know. We'll never know if they were, then at least we got them. Maybe Books, maybe Books 28 was like when the dog bites. Books 29 was when the cat bites. They're all just about biting. Yeah, it's all about biting. Yeah, it's just number 37.

[00:38:19] When the when the geriatric homeless man bites. That would have been that would be a new sub series of Goosebumps. Goosebumps Bites and it's all just about. Like there's like a dozen books about just getting bitten by something.

[00:38:38] Oh, man. When the spider bites wouldn't really be, you know, good for Stein and then it turns out to be a backdoor Spider-Man pilot. That's what I mean, like you go through some legal trouble, like at that point, like copyright trouble, really.

[00:38:53] If you know, it's just like you guys thought this was a Goosebumps book. Just kidding. It's a Spider-Man graphic novel. Yeah. Hey, funny fact Stein did graphic novel for Marvel. Man Thing, Swamp Thing. Was it called? Man Thing. Yeah, he did. It says Man Thing.

[00:39:11] Man Thing. Yeah, it was. Man Thing, Swamp Thing. There were a bunch of things. John Carpenter's The Thing. It's a lot of things. On the Dog Bites thing. Now, another Goosebumps series that got abruptly cut off was the classic Give Yourself Goosebumps line.

[00:39:28] Now, as we have right now, the last normal book, and I say normal because there was also the special editions, the last normal book in the Give Yourself Goosebumps line was number 42's All Day Nightmare. And then we also had eight special editions,

[00:39:43] the last of which being Weekend at Poison Lake. However, there was cover art made for the unreleased 43rd book in the Give Yourself Goosebumps series. Craig White was commissioned to do a cover art that featured Very Angry Penguins in the Antarctic. Angry Feet.

[00:40:01] Angry Feet. That's our head canon title for that. I believe Bjorn, you came up with that. Angry Feet. Angry Feet. That should have been the title. Yep. So good. It predates the movie we're parroting by six years. It's a shame.

[00:40:21] Yeah, the makers behind Happy Feet took a look at that and be like, oh, shit, we should do that. They maybe see that cover art. What do we call it? Happy Feet. I love it. What if the Happy Feet were Angry Feet? Brilliant. It's a shame.

[00:40:38] Yeah, if only the whole legal thing didn't happen for like even another six more months. I think even if we got like up to book 30 of series 2000. Imagine if it didn't happen at all. I mean, would Goosebumps have that resurgence?

[00:40:54] Would it still be going just on a lower key? Yeah, I think it would have been. We would have got a Goosebumps movie. Yeah, I think it would have kept going. We would have got a Goosebumps movie a lot sooner than we did.

[00:41:06] To be fair, the declining sales were happening irregardless of all the legal stuff. It was just unfortunately, no matter how high and mighty anything is, it will eventually die. The the the want for it will die out eventually. It has happened. Everybody goes there.

[00:41:26] There are there are franchises that have withstood that test of time. I'm not saying they're aren't. I'm just saying that they some of them don't go. It just needs to be reimagined in a more inventive way. But think of Ninja Turtles or Star Wars

[00:41:43] or, you know, a lot of those other franchises are out of Transformers still going strong to this day. Well, let's be honest with ourselves. I'm not saying that a franchise will die per se. The declining sales wouldn't have meant the death of the franchise.

[00:41:59] I'm just saying that it wouldn't be as popular as it would be in those first few years, because eventually a new things come along and B, eventually oversaturation takes its toll. And the thing that we have to admit is that eventually Goosebumps was going to get oversaturated.

[00:42:17] There was going to be so much Goosebumps stuff that people were eventually going to be like enough. Enough of this. That's why you called 96 and 97. But I'm just saying, like we can still have all we could have still had all these really great things put throughout the years.

[00:42:38] It just has to be like it just has to be less of it and reamped as it goes through. No, and you're right. I was just saying that the declining sales would have happened irregardless of the legal stuff.

[00:42:49] The legal stuff just basically nail in the coffin that stopped everything. Like everything just stopped from then. Like it was meant to stop almost. But like instead of doing a new book every month, they could have done one like every three, four months,

[00:43:03] kind of like what they do now. Or it's like one book every, you know, and like. Of course, I think that's what they should have done anyway. And don't get me wrong. It's at the time you're like, yes, a new book. Yes, a new book.

[00:43:15] But again, that also goes into like, man, I just got this other book. I haven't even finished reading it yet. Like I got I don't know. I've got two more Goosebumps books and you're like, ah, shit. There's many. Not that they're long books or anything, but like.

[00:43:29] I think if they were spread out a bit more, that would have helped a little bit. There's many folks who then you think about it used to be Goosebumps fans, but we'll admit that, you know, they fizzled out

[00:43:38] because there was so many coming out at one time that it just became too much to keep track of. Again, it's kind of that over saturation thing. And then eventually, you know, you had all the all the copycats coming out.

[00:43:51] So it wasn't, you know, the only one in its field anymore, I should say. It had all this competition. So well, when you think of it and look at it in hindsight, I mean, if we didn't get those pushed out every month, basically,

[00:44:08] we wouldn't have nearly as many books as we do, though. That's true, because if they would have spread it out, we'd probably have maybe a third of what we have now. Maybe half. Hard to say, because I guess it depends on

[00:44:24] if they were spread it out every other month, every three months, every four months, however, they would have done it. But who knows? That's only, of course. Yeah, because we got books anyway during the peak, kids were just wanting that next book already, like,

[00:44:39] I already need the next one. It was like so that's why Stein felt like the pressure to keep pumping them out, because like kids were like, no, I need the new book. I need a new book. I need a new book. I need a new Goosebumps.

[00:44:49] I already finished this one in like an hour. I need a new book. So a month, maybe a month felt like eternity back then, you know, like for the kids, during the peak time, like just wanting that next Goosebumps book. You know, who knows?

[00:45:03] Whether you go to your parents for more money, it's like, hey, I need more money for a Goosebumps. I just bought you a Goosebumps book. Oh, that was the last month. Oh, see, I finished it. You're with the times, old man. That's the you're freaking 37. That's right.

[00:45:21] That's that Malcolm in the middle reference, say, futures now. Oh, man. When they like punch him in the in the balls, when he goes to like shoot the hoop, the play they did. They went to do the play. The Peter Pan. Yeah, play.

[00:45:39] Anyway, going back to give yourself Goosebumps. So we established that there was supposed to be a 43rd gave yourself Goosebumps book. It was just the cover art that was released, though, that was made. However, if you guys remember succinctly, give yourself Goosebumps was coming out

[00:46:00] in between new series 2000s and series 2000 was originally supposed to go to 40 books. So can you guys imagine that there might have been even more give yourself Goosebumps planned besides 43? Well, I would have been somebody did the math. There could have been room for 15 more. Give yourself Goosebumps.

[00:46:23] Well, like, holy moly. So yeah, that's crazy. But it could have happened. Like you think of the ones we got to like return to Terra Tower. You know, we got body squeezes, you know, see like another book we got,

[00:46:40] you know, your plant food, it makes you wonder like we've gotten more like more sequels to other Goosebumps books. Like it is like, you know, give yourself Goosebumps books. Like that's what I think too. Like we might have got more. You know, we might have got like

[00:46:56] I mean, I know we were getting them in this, but that's the thing. We're getting them a series 2000 as well. Like we got returned to Ghost Camp, for instance. You know, we got like Bride of the Living Dummy. So we were still getting like more like sequels.

[00:47:06] Why? Like it makes you wonder too. Why I'm afraid of these two. Why I'm afraid of wasps. Chicken, chicken, two. I'm still I'm still afraid of bees in case you were wondering. That's the title of the book. It should have just been called Chicken

[00:47:21] because then Chicken, Chicken, two could have been Chicken, Chicken and then Chicken, Chicken, three could have been Chicken, Chicken, Chicken. Chicken, Chicken, Chicken, Chicken, Chicken. It's just chicken over and over and over again. It starts to look like the it starts to look like the book

[00:47:32] that Jack Torrance was writing in The Shining. It's just chicken over and over and over again. Yeah, yeah. Well, they also did that kind of sort of later with the the tails to give you goosebumps and it's like more and more tail. More and more and more tails.

[00:47:48] More and more and more and more and more and more. You say it fast enough, it almost sounds like you're saying moron. Moron goosebumps, moron tails. It could have happened. It could have happened. But but unfortunately, could have should have didn't.

[00:48:04] If Sins Butz was candies and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas. Man, it's a shame about a book that was actually announced to come out, but didn't. And that is from our good friends in the TV presents series.

[00:48:20] The hardest to find slash most expensive goosebumps books to ever exist. There was actually supposed to be another book after Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes in the TV presents series, that being Blob That Ate Everyone. There was supposed to be a blob that ate everyone TV presents book.

[00:48:37] It was advertised on the back of Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes, but it didn't happen and never came out. It's the only goosebumps book in existence that was advertised on the back of a book, but did not get released, which is interesting. That means it was there.

[00:48:53] It was to be released. Yeah, it was right there. Ready there, man. It was there. Just a shame we never got like more of those just just goosebumps in general, I wish it just continued and didn't stop. And like, I'm glad it came back.

[00:49:09] But yeah, it would have been nice. I don't know if I wanted more TV presents books because that would have meant hundreds of more dollars to be spent just to complete that series. Well, supposedly, I think it was you, Bjorn.

[00:49:23] Somebody had said that there's a blob that everyone that is out there. So, yeah, back when I was doing my YouTubeing, my YouTubeing days of the peak YouTubeing goosebumps, I was a fan. It was like there was a couple of people that I used to talk

[00:49:39] to a lot of different people back then. Oh, my God. Like I get messages all the time and, you know, I, a guy sent me this is back when I was using my computer. I wasn't using my this thing right here.

[00:49:49] This is what I was living at my mom's and I was using her computer. It wasn't even my computer. And yeah, I got a message from I don't even remember his name. I don't even think, no, he didn't want me to share his name.

[00:50:02] And yeah, he had some photos of a blob that ate everyone TV presents book. And I remember the message just saying, is this rare because I've never seen it. And I straight away went on to Google trying to find it thinking,

[00:50:17] Oh, maybe they did release it. Like it was just extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely rare. Now we're just doing the adding words things for emphasis. But no, this never got like physically released. It never happened. But he claimed that because obviously like,

[00:50:37] you know, back then it was, it was a different time back then. And you know, his mom worked at Scholastic and basically they actually printed so many copies of it. I don't know an exact number,

[00:50:50] but some of them filtered out to people that worked at Scholastic and his mom just like gave it to him. It was like, Oh, here, this is a good spot. You know, you go, you can have that.

[00:51:01] And he sent me photos of like the front of it, the back of it, some of the like the color photos. So it's on my mom's laptop who is a computer who is not here at the moment. She's over in Ireland. So once she gets back,

[00:51:13] my plan is to go into the computer and try and dig those up because at the time I didn't really think much of it cause I was just like busy doing my YouTube and stuff. You know, it was around the time of the movie was coming out.

[00:51:23] So I was more focused on that. Goosebumps books weren't really expensive yet. So we're living at a time now with this rate, goosebumps books, expensive ones, you know, lost goosebumps books. Um, but back then it was like, eh, you know, whatever.

[00:51:38] Didn't really think much of it, but now I'm like, shit I gotta go back and like find those photos because if I post that on, you know, the goosebumps crew, about we posted on here posted on my YouTube or Instagram or anything,

[00:51:51] man, like people are going to freak out and people will be trying to find that book. Right? So, um, yeah, it's like anything, you know, like I think I've used this as a reference before,

[00:52:01] but like I'm a huge fan of sex pistols and they did an EP for God save the queen with a company called EMI, but, um, I think it was EMI and basically they printed like 500 of them until the contract got like ripped up because apparently they breached

[00:52:17] that contract. And, but those 500, they destroyed, I think 200 of those 500, so 300 of them got like handed out to people that worked for the company and stuff. So I think this might be a similar situation where maybe they

[00:52:31] printed like a couple hundred of them until they were like, okay, no, we're not doing it. It's, it's been scrapped. And those few hundred copies ended up in the hands of people that worked at Scholastic,

[00:52:41] maybe a close family friend that was a big band of goosebumps and was just given to them. So, but the fact that I haven't seen another one since those photos makes me think like either it was a very good fake,

[00:52:56] like a really good fake and made it look very legit or no, like there is a very, very small quantity out there. So, but I will dig those up. Well, and it's very possible that it could have been printed because again,

[00:53:11] it was advertised in the back of another book. So it's possible it was already set to be done. And I think there, there is also a rumor that the series actually ended before all the other ones got canceled because Stein and his alleged ghost writers

[00:53:29] figured that their time was better spent elsewhere, like on series 2000 or you know, other, more of the like main series stuff. So the series was kind of just canned from there, which is, if that's really a true rumor,

[00:53:45] it's weird because he didn't even work on those books as far as I'm concerned. Those were written by other people. So, but it's sad though, cause they were, they're aesthetically pleasing now to look at, you know, like I actually like, I thought they were really neat. I mean,

[00:54:02] I would have loved to had one for almost every episode. Yeah. And now they're like the only grail for boost bumps fans. How was I not a haunted mosque one? Like Fever Swamp or like Tara tower,

[00:54:15] like not living in me three, stay out of the basement. Like you think, like they're the only two part of that exists is Welcome to Camp Nightmare. I still think there might be because those episodes were on video so you

[00:54:26] could actually watch them and the TV presents were more meant for episodes that were only viewable and reruns at the time. I mean, now you have DVDs and stuff like that. So you could watch them anywhere. But at the time it was, that makes sense.

[00:54:42] That makes sense because Camp Nightmare didn't only got released in the UK on VHS. And that was in 1999, which was after this series was canceled, the TV presents books. So maybe that's why we did get a Camp Nightmare VHS, but it was so late in 1999. Like that's like,

[00:55:02] that's well after they stopped making them like in Australia, the last one came out in 98, which it was right at the end. And it was the state of the basement one. It was, yeah, at the time when people just didn't care anymore, sir. But I did.

[00:55:20] I lived it. Yeah. And another book that did not see the light of day, but to its credit was not advertised as such is the third book in the shortest lived goosebumps series, the triple header series. So for those who are unaware,

[00:55:35] triple header was a series of goosebumps books that each one would have three stories in it. So it was sort of like a, like tales to give you goosebumps. The number of short stories is shortened, but the stories themselves are longer.

[00:55:51] So each book had three stories and there was two that were released. A third one was supposed to be released and even a supposed cover art of the triple header main characters, lefty, righty and slim was released eventually down the line.

[00:56:08] But the book itself was never, it was never officially announced. There was no word on what the stories were going to be, but all we know is that there was supposed to be a third one and it did not get released,

[00:56:21] which stinks because it's still the only good series with only two entries. Released for that. Did the cover art ever get released or anything? Or was it just the thing? Yeah, there's the cover art was surface or at least what people assume was the

[00:56:34] cover art. Uh, cause it's the lefty righty and slim writing in a car. Uh, it looks very similar to the haunted car. Um, the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's basically the haunted car, but with a red paint job instead of blue. Um,

[00:56:49] we talked with a goosebumps completionist about this and he actually thinks that maybe the haunted car was supposed to be a story in that book before getting its own release in series 2000. But, um, you never know. It could have been,

[00:57:05] I mean I always was fascinated by the name lefty righty and slim. And I'm like, why couldn't they call the middle one middle lefty? Look, if I went to go my own life being called middle, I'd probably hate myself.

[00:57:22] Oh, you're like Harold middle in goosebumps. It could have been like, yeah, Harold middle, Harold middle, Harold middle lefty and righty. No, this should call them like Jeff. He's like, here's my brother. My brother, right? Yeah. I'm Jeff. My name is Jeff.

[00:57:40] My name is Jeff. My name is Jeff. Oh my God. My name is Jeff. So up to this point, uh, we've talked about unreleased entries in, um, yep. That's the one right there. I reckon the haunted car that was meant to be the haunted car. I,

[00:57:59] I am with Austin on that. I agree. Yeah, I agree. It could have been, you never know. It was repurposed. But, um, up to this point, we've talked about the unreleased entries in certain subseries in the goosebumps franchise. Um,

[00:58:15] but we've yet to discuss probably the biggest fish of them all. An entire goosebumps series left to rot. So following up on our good buddy, RL Stein leaving Scholastic after not renewing his contract, he went over to Harper Collins publishing. Now,

[00:58:38] for those of you who are familiar with Stein's work, Harper Collins is the publishing company that helped bring the nightmare room to life, which are awesome books. I love them the series and the books. And Harper Collins was actually tasked with not only doing nightmare room,

[00:58:54] but also doing a revised goosebumps series. They wanted to bring goosebumps back so soon after leaving Scholastic. Uh, and they had all this stuff planned for it. They had a new name. It was called Goosebumps Gold. It was going to be the revitalization of the goosebumps franchise.

[00:59:11] It was going to come back with a vengeance. I mean, they had, they brought Tim Jacobus back to do the artwork. RL Stein had three books already planned all of them sequels to goosebumps books in the original series. As you can see there,

[00:59:26] Nick is pointing to the first one to be released in the series, The Haunted Mask Lives, which would have been the third story in the haunted mask saga. Uh, there was also Happy Holidays from Dead House, the sequel to Welcome to Dead House also acted as a

[00:59:43] Christmas story. And, uh, we also had the third book, Slappy New Year, obviously another slappy book, uh, that would have taken during new years. And these three books, they were announced, they had cover art made,

[00:59:59] they were all ready to go. Harper Collins was going to go all in. They had an extensive market campaign planned. Tim Jacobus put everything on his website and said it was going to be coming in fall of 2000. Fall of 2000 rolls around, nothing comes out.

[01:00:20] Tim Jacobus updates the website again, fall 2001. No books come out in fall 2001. Apparently for whatever reason, most likely licensing issues, the series was silently, but surely canceled before it even had one book made or written. And nobody knew,

[01:00:46] not even Tim Jacobus knew at the time that the series was canceled. So again, it was most likely due to licensing, you know, Harper Collins did not own anything related to Goosebumps. Scholastic still owned all the rights,

[01:01:01] even if they were to still yet buy every right related to Goosebumps. They still owned everything. And even with a new revitalized logo and new stories, it wouldn't help. So that's most likely the reason that Goosebumps goal did not come

[01:01:19] to pass. But again, that unfortunately meant that all those books, the three announced and the nine other unannounced books, there was supposed to be 12 fun fact. They're actually were, I think within the last few years, there were 12 ISBNs recovered all related to Goosebumps goal,

[01:01:38] which means that there were 12 books planned for that series with only three being officially like teased. But we didn't get any of them. Goosebumps gold faded into obscurity and never saw the light of day. Harper Collins had no, no say in the Goosebumps franchise.

[01:01:56] And the Night Rare Room would continue on. Goosebumps would not come back until Scholastic re-bought the franchise and then did their own revival in 2008 with Goosebumps Horrorland. But yeah, Shame me. A sequel to one, Welcome to Dead House, which we still have not gotten.

[01:02:18] That's so sad that we never got that because love the book, love the cover, love the episode, personal favorite, never got a sequel. All we will ever have is that cover up. It would have been a holiday book, which we don't get too many Christmas ones per se.

[01:02:35] Which is interesting that Stein's never done really more of the other holidays. Obviously we have Halloween ones and that makes perfect sense. But you know, we don't really get a lot of Christmas. We don't, I don't think we've gotten Thanksgiving. I could be wrong.

[01:02:52] I don't recall Thanksgiving. Maybe that was what Chicken Chicken. I think that's what we talked about. Should have been Turkey Turkey. I'm not mistaken, but obviously Valentine's and it's funny because like I remember, I messaged him after I got this Haunted Mask Lives piece from Rob

[01:03:15] and I was like, Hey man, I was like, what's the story behind this? What a, like this particular item. I mean, we know the story of why Goosebumps Gold, you know, pretty much didn't happen. But he said that it was to his knowledge. It was,

[01:03:32] it was one he made for an elementary school visit as a promotion for that book and the new book series. But you know, it's a shame he's actually touring elementary schools promoting this, not knowing probably at the time it ain't going to happen.

[01:03:49] I mean, that sucks. I mean, I'm glad this piece exists. And then, you know, obviously he signed it and signs had signed it, but man, like just, how cool would it be if you know,

[01:04:01] you got Tim Jacob is coming to your school showing you art for his new book series that he's doing with Stein Goosebumps Gold. And you see that, I mean, cause honestly, I love the art for the Haunted Mask Lives.

[01:04:13] I mean, it's so crazy looking to see the mask being ripped off of her face and even Happy Holidays from Dead House. I mean, I love the original Welcome to Dead House book cover, but I don't know that, uh, Happy Holidays from Dead House looked, yeah,

[01:04:29] looked pretty gnarly. Give me like not remember Christmas vibes with the wreath that came alive to attack that old lady in the chair. That's what it made me think of. It's a shame like, but we did get Slappy New Year eventually repurposed in the

[01:04:44] Horrorland series. So that happened. And I think it was Unique was potentially the Haunted Mask Lives was repurposed into screams of the Haunted Mask. Maybe? That's the rumor. That's the rumor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's Slappy New Year's kind of one of those.

[01:05:00] Although that's true or not, we don't know. Stein has never really confirmed or denied that that's the same story, uh, repurposed. But I mean, to be fair, if you're a writer and the story you were going to do for this book from a

[01:05:13] book series that didn't happen, why waste the story? Reuse it. Just in a different, you know, media, whether that's down the road for, you know, screams of the Haunted Mask or whatever, you know what I mean? Kind of like you did with, you know, Slappy New Year.

[01:05:29] That's a, that's on the nose. Same title and everything. Like I'm going to say that was that. Well, supporting the claim that screams of the Haunted Mask was a repurposed Haunted Mask Lives is kind of interesting considering that the

[01:05:47] cover art for Haunted Mask Lives is her ripping the mask off her face. That's actually what happens in screams of the Haunted Mask. She rips the haunted mask off her face. So it, it could be, it could be.

[01:06:00] Yeah. That's why the rumor is that it's the same one. Well where's the repurposed? Welcome to Dead House. Happy holidays from Dead House. Where's that at Stein? Who knows? You can do that with House of Shivers. Come on, like give us a,

[01:06:12] give us Happy Holidays from Dead House. Imagine if that was the next book that he just announced, like literally, like as soon as we finished this podcast, the next House of Shivers line announced Happy Holidays from Dead House. Cause we predicted the future.

[01:06:26] Yeah. Oh God. I would just cry. I would cry. Like that should be the last Goosebumps book he ever writes. Should just be a Welcome to Dead House book. So yes, like we said earlier, the whole entire Goosebumps franchise in the whole franchise comes full circle.

[01:06:42] Yeah. In a way. And well it's called Welcome to Dead House. If it wasn't going to be Happy Holidays from Dead House, what could it be titled? If you say welcome to Dead House. Goodbye from Dead House. Goodbye from Dead House. Holidae. Holidae. Holidae. Oh man.

[01:07:06] I always think you're talking about saying holiday in a cockney British accent. Happy Holidaes, mate. Happy Holidaes from Dead House. Happy Holidae. Happy Holidaes from Dead House, mate. Happy fucking Holidae from Dead House, mate. That's the Aussie title. Happy fucking Holidae.

[01:07:25] One more thing I will say about Goosebumps Gold is that for a series that never got released and you know, for the most part, we don't know anything about the stories besides the titles. A lot of info still does exist about it.

[01:07:38] I mean, you can still visit if you use Wayback Machine, you can still visit the original Tim Jacobus website where Goosebumps Gold was advertised and it was teased there. And we have, you know, three cover arts, technically, technically two because the slappy painting that was made

[01:07:58] is considered a cover art, but it's basically just slappy in shadow. But three pieces of art connected to it. Almost like it was almost incomplete or something. Plus a logo. And also eventually we had the cover mockups because those surfaced just a few years ago.

[01:08:19] It was like this is what the cover for Hauna Mask Lives would have looked like, which is actually what is framed up there in your room there, Nick. So it's pretty interesting for as a little information we do have,

[01:08:31] there still is more information on it than something like, you know, the rest of series 2000 or the 43rd gave yourself Goosebumps. We still have decent enough information and the rumors that they were repurposed in the future stories. So who knows? Maybe Goosebumps Gold isn't so lost after all.

[01:08:50] So but in terms of how it was originally presented, it did unfortunately die before it came out. Even if they just had those three, I think I recall seeing the slappy one. When you look it up, of course, there's like all these different variation art of slappy.

[01:09:10] But I think this is the one you guys are talking about, right? Yes. So that one. That could have been the cover. I would have been it looks pretty eerie in a way, because it's just like his face with a shadow, almost like something eerie going on there.

[01:09:24] But, you know, all they had to do was add a one of those. What are they call those party favorite things that you blow and they go, all they have to do is like add that to his mouth. And that could have been like they did for the

[01:09:38] the other cover, the actual one that got released. Yeah, the horror. I believe he did have a I think he did have a party blower in his mouth and a party hat. Yeah, stuff for it. Could have just like added that slappy New Year.

[01:09:49] But maybe that was the book cover. Maybe he was like doing something different, like black and white. You know, maybe that was it. Or like I said earlier, maybe it was just incomplete. Like he hadn't quite touched up, hadn't fixed it. You know, so who knows?

[01:10:04] But I think it's still cool that it exists. Mm hmm. It does. And again, you know, there are some things we know about it more so than some of the other unreleased books. So, you know, sometimes you got to count your blessings on certain things.

[01:10:18] Actually wonder what happened to the original paintings Tim did for Goosebumps Gold, you know what I mean? Like was at that point in time, did he go digital? You know what I mean? And it's like if there are original paintings of Goosebumps Gold covers.

[01:10:31] I guess that's something we'll have to get on the podcast. Yeah, I need to get him on here soon. You want to ask? All right, you get the you get the haunted mask. I get sloppy and hey, the three of us,

[01:10:42] Isaiah, you get the happy holidays from Dead House 1. Well, and we don't get in. I see. Hey, mine's the incomplete one. And consulting with the art of Goosebumps once again, there are pages on the Goosebumps Gold arts

[01:10:56] and there are pencil sketches for other possible what they could have looked like. So these got again, these got pretty far into production before. But then again, Tim was also unaware that they canceled the series.

[01:11:09] They never told him he had to find out himself as well as all the other fans. So again, it's a mystery as to why it is. But once again, I personally think it's because of licensing, because it was a different publisher.

[01:11:22] But God damn Scholastic ruined it as they ruin everything now. Yeah, I mean, I was just about to say something similar. Yeah, anyway. Now to move on to Goosebumps Lost titles. Now, these are just titles that we have that we don't know what they were made for.

[01:11:44] We don't know what they were, you know, if they're going to be part of a specific series or short stories. But I have a list of titles that were concocted for the Goosebumps series. We had stuff like The Good, The Bad and The Very Itchy,

[01:12:00] Feeding Frenzy, 43 Freak Out Street. There's another one called Dimwits of Doom. And actually one as recent as 2022. R.L. Stein actually had the idea for a title called Morons from Mars, but his editor told him it might be offensive to the morons.

[01:12:20] So but yeah, interesting to have titles. I would find it offensive, it's fine. Because R.L. Stein so famously comes up with his story ideas with the titles first. If he doesn't have a good title, he's famously said,

[01:12:34] if he doesn't have a good title, he doesn't move forward with it. What made him think Chicken Chicken was a good title? I was going to say, I questioned some of these titles, even going as far as like the House of Shivers line.

[01:12:50] What's the title of the next book, guys? Night of the Living Mummy. Yeah. So how is that a good title? Say my name, say my name. Say my name. There's Night of the Living Dead. And then say my name, say my name.

[01:13:09] Goblin Monday is my favorite cover so far of that series. I like I like it. I think it's a really cool cover. I like the colors. But what I can assume from some of these titles is that again,

[01:13:20] they were probably ones that R.L. Stein concocted, but we're like, eh, I can't come up with an idea for these. Maybe the song was playing in the car and he was like, oh, that's a good title for us for a Goosebump book. Well, say my name.

[01:13:35] Right. He's bumping out in the car. Get it bumping out in the car. Then you think that you think R.L. Stein got the idea for his next book by listening to the radio by 2000s radio hits. Yeah, I reckon he did. That's what I call hits 2000.

[01:13:55] One thing I can think of is that either the first three specifically Good, the Bad, the Very Itchy, Feeding Frenzy and 43 Freak Out Street either could have been used for that unreleased third triple header or it could have been more series 2000 ideas that didn't hit the ground.

[01:14:14] So but all we know is just the titles. We don't know what they were made for. But we do know what one title was made for. You guys have probably heard of a title called Slime Doesn't Pay. This title was a rare to it.

[01:14:33] No, never heard of it. This title was attached to a contest in the 90s for Goosebumps. I believe it was between Goosebump's partnering with AOL to create a Goosebump's title that would become a Goosebump's book that R.L. Stein would write.

[01:14:50] Now this book, as you can see from Bjorn holding it up, this title would eventually become a R.L. Stein written book, not part of the Goosebump's franchise. But this title predates all the way back to, I believe, 1996. And this was created by a kid named Jimmy

[01:15:13] and he was supposed to have his title made into a Goosebumps book. And it unfortunately never happened. So it's pretty interesting. But I'm guessing that Stein sat on that title for a long time. If from what I heard, though, because again, we talked with Goosebump's

[01:15:33] completionist about this, is that Jim's brother went onto a stream that R.L. Stein was holding, like an Ask Me Anything stream and said, hey, my brother entered this contest in the 90s and his title got picked as the winner, but it never got made into a book.

[01:15:52] Are you ever going to make Slime Doesn't Pay? And from what we can gather, he was probably just like, oh, that title. He said, oh, that title sounds good. I got to use that. And then not too short after, Slime Doesn't Pay, the next Goosebump,

[01:16:07] the next R.L. Stein novella is announced. So quite a coinkydink of coinkydinks. Then Jim gets no credit. No, right now. No credit for it. I mean, he just gets the shaft basically. I have to say this now because we're on the podcast,

[01:16:25] but shout out to Nostalgic Goosebumps because he actually sent this to me and he got it signed by R.L. Stein. So I just have to say shout out to him. Awesome dude, guys. Check him out if you haven't. Yep. He's our bro. He's a bro.

[01:16:40] Yeah, he's a big supporter of the broadcast. He's a bro. And a general, though. 100 percent. Goosebump bro, man. You do, bro. But yeah, yeah, boy. Your title finally got made in your book, not a Goosebumps book, but a book.

[01:16:56] I don't know if that's an insult or like a complimentary prize or anything. I kind of want to make the claim that it's an insult, but not intentionally. Like, truthfully, that was so long ago. I think Stein probably forgot.

[01:17:12] And then all of a sudden, when he did hear that, he's like, oh, hey, you know what? That's a good idea. Like a good title. So it's kind of like a title that I came up with. Yeah, exactly. It's like, oh, yeah, I came up with it.

[01:17:25] He got an entire book, like for it. And it's interesting because it's actually like this photo is all throughout the book. But it's cool. He got an entire book just because, you know, and it's got the raised slime on it, too, when you rub your fingers on it.

[01:17:40] So kind of like an old Goosebump book. Yeah. Well, I mean, I like to rub my fingers on raised slime. You can definitely argue that it's an insult that it didn't get made back then as a Goosebumps book, and it's still not a Goosebumps book.

[01:17:53] But at least it did get your title got used. Your title did get you. You just don't get credit for it. Did become a book. It just took 20 years to become a book. Yeah. Yeah. I would have been mad, too, if I was that kid back then.

[01:18:08] Well, that's yeah, I was going to say that's you think about the other contest winner who is like in Invasion of the Body Squeezers one, two. And I think he was in another one, too. Right. He was in like three or four books.

[01:18:20] He won the Goosebumps Terrific Goosebumps giveaway. It was part of Fox Kids. And yeah, he won all the prizes said in the commercial. And he got his name used in Invasion of the Body Squeezers. And since they did a sequel to it and Give Yourself Goosebumps,

[01:18:37] he's in that book, too. So he technically got to have his name in three Goosebumps books. I just imagine that like this dude gets three. But then you come up with the slime doesn't pay and you get shit. You get nothing.

[01:18:52] It's like only to be like 20 years later looking in a bookstore and you see that and you're like, Motherfucker. It's not a Goosebumps book. So that's why I would have been upset because it's like it's not a Goosebumps book though. I would have been really upset.

[01:19:07] Well, again, it only took Jim's brother going to Stein and being like, why didn't you make that book? And he's like, oh, yeah, shit. My bad, homie. Yeah. Imagine R.L. Stein saying, homie. Yeah, that'd be really funny. Someone like R.L. Stein just being like, oh, shit.

[01:19:24] My god. How'd Catherine? What Catherine say is a creepy Mr. Rogers. You got to say it like a creepy Mr. Rogers. He was like, oh shit, my bad, homie. Come here, G. We'll work this out. The Hockadoom. The Hockadoom. Yeah, you got to say it like that.

[01:19:47] Now, there is one more title that we have not mentioned at this point that is also revealed as part of a that is also part of a Goosebumps. I don't think it's Kingdom Hearts. It's not Kingdom Hearts. No, no, this title was part of another Goosebumps

[01:20:05] contest that was held in the 90s and it had a lot of buzz behind it. And the winner was the title Dead Dogs Still Fetch. And we're going to talk about that title next week because we're out of time.

[01:20:23] So yeah, that is going to do it for tonight's episode of the Goosebumps crew podcast. Sorry to leave you on a cliffhanger, but hey, that's the Goosebumps way, right? You know, every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, no matter how anticlimactic it is. But I can assure you guys

[01:20:41] that we got a pretty big treat in store for you guys for next week, because not only are we going to talk more about Dead Dogs Still Fetch, as well as the contest it was a part of the Brain Juice Terrifying Title Contest.

[01:20:54] But we are also going to talk with the creator of that wonderful title, Braeden Gardner. He will join us here on the podcast to talk about his time as a Goosebumps fan creating that title and having R.L.

[01:21:07] Stein come to his school to make that story in front of all of his classmates. So we're going to talk about that with him next week. We're going to watch the surfaced footage of that assembly. And we're going to have a real good time talking some Goosebumps

[01:21:23] and some Dead Dogs and whether they still fetch or not. So you guys are going to want to join. The title they do. Yeah. Hey, it's a good title. So we're going to talk about it next week. So make sure you guys join us.

[01:21:37] Make sure you subscribe to the Goosebumps crew YouTube channel. Make sure you follow the Goosebumps crew, Bjorn Panlik, Goosebumps Ossi fan and Nick Shaw-Shalin on their social medias and their YouTube's. They always truly deserve it. And of course, give us a sub over here at the Goosebumps crew

[01:21:53] YouTube channel. Follow the Goosebumps crew podcast on our audio platforms, our Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and iHeartRadio and follow the Goosebumps crew on our social medias, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter to keep up with updates on future episodes of the Goosebumps crew podcast.

[01:22:10] Also, don't forget the one weekend at Horrorland Kickstarter is still open and we need your guys' support to make Horrorland a reality. Visit the link in the description below. Share it with your friends and donate to it. You will get some incredible prizes if you donate

[01:22:27] and you'll help to make sure that Horrorland becomes a fright to remember. So make sure you make Horrorland a reality. Help us by supporting us and sharing our Kickstarter. The link is in the description below. We're going to have a new episode next week.

[01:22:43] We're going to talk about Dead Dogs Still Fetched with Braden Gardner. But until then, this has been the Goosebumps crew podcast. And from all of us here, we want to wish you all to take care, stay safe and have a very scary day.