My kid brother, JD, and I shared a secret for years.
Our folks expected us to be in bed at 11 pm on Friday nights. They thought that this was most generous–a full two-hours past normal lights-out. But we disagreed. Friday nights BEGAN at 11 when KCAL Channel 9, out of LA, would announce the impending arrival of “The Master of the Macabre” and the “Epitome of Evil.” Moments later, Sinister Seymour would stroll onto our TV screen and insult us for being stupid enough to “waste our time watching these stinkers.”
Our parents agreed with him, and felt it in our best interest to keep us away from such classics as The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and The Attack of the Mushroom People.
They apparently thought these flicks would keep us from eating our vegetables. It frankly disappointed my mother that we loved these things so.
But each weekend, JD and I would pretend to go to bed, and then tip-toe back into the family room. We’d fire up the big Magnavox, and watch Seymour lampoon truly terrible films like The Brain That Wouldn’t Die and a string of Japanese Monster flicks. The lip synching was terrible, as we’d watch the characters flap their gums for several seconds, and the dubbed-voice would say simply, “yes.”
When we weren’t in front of the tube, JD and I took off to the River Theater. There, Boris Karloff and Bella Lugosi would kill or be killed, and scores of screaming kids would shower popcorn onto the floor as they dove behind their seats. During one particularly creepy movie, Black Friday, the audience went berserk, diving under the seats, screaming even louder than normal, and generally tearing the place up. The manager stopped the film, walked onto the stage, and commanded: “IF IT’S TOO SCARY, THEN TURN YOUR HEAD AND DON’T LOOK!”
But of course we all did.
Sometimes, though, we skipped the show. Mom wasn’t keen on having us corrupted by Elvis Presley shaking his hips in “Viva Las Vegas,” or Annette Funicello bopping around with Frankie Avalon and looking lustfully at one another in a beach-flick.
This left us to our Friday night conspiracy. So, from middle-school on into high school, Seymour ruled the night. But when then he passed and was replaced with the vamp Elvira, who had more cleavage than the entire cast of Beach Blanket Bingo. Mom and Dad, by this time, had given up the battle of Friday night programming. It was too much trouble for them to wake up at midnight and march us off to our bedrooms. The “Mistress of the Macabre” offered up a true double-feature for teenage boys, we were both titillated and terrified.
Well, maybe not all that terrified.
Now, it’s been years since by brother and I lived in the same town, but I thought of him this last weekend, when I was in San Francisco, and heard Mr. Goosebumps himself, RL Stine, talk about his craft. His job, as he described it, was to write “a book a month that killed off a new cast of teenagers.” This job was a bit easier, he said, because he had a teenager of his own in the house.
His son, though, has never read a single Goosebumps or Fear Street book. Even so, Stine says he took a keen interest in the series, offering up suggestions for the names of victims—those of his classmates. Only later did Stine learn that his son was collecting money from his friends to get their names included in the Goosebumps books.
In a way, Stine’s books demonstrate that little has changed. A key plot element in his stories is that the kids go to the parents, and are ignored. There’s also the fact, according to Stine, that early-on there were parents who protested and wanted to keep the books away from their kids.
Stine admits that he has no lessons to teach. All he’s hoping to accomplish is to “write a scary and funny story that the kids don’t want to put down.” In this, he’s clearly succeeded. He’s also won support from librarians who are thrilled to have children clamoring to read. And, of course, Stine has even won over parents. The children who were his fans 20 years ago are now, in many cases, parents themselves. He remains as popular as ever.
In our own house, all of our children read Goosebumps. The biggest fan was our oldest daughter, Amanda, she remembers coming across her first RL Stine book, Be Careful What You Wish For. Amanda read the book, and was hooked. She then began to lurk in the aisles of Barnes and Noble, waiting for the next installment. Eventually, she had so many books—every one he’d written at the time—that she started a lending library at her middle-school.
Her favorite stories? Welcome to Dead House had moments that, she says, “truly scared her,” and Let’s Get Invisible and The Cuckoo Clock of Doom were both interesting, and disturbing. The weirdest book, in her opinion, Welcome to Camp Nightmare, was a story she likens to the Twilight Zone. Amanda says that many of his better stories are his Fear Street series for teens. Many of these are, as his readers know, quite dark.
Dark or not, Stine still has his sense of humor. His journey to success saw him editing his college’s humor publication, and then writing and editing Bananas at Scholastic Press for nine years. He got fired there, and then tried his hand at writing funny but scary stories for kids.
The best part of his presentation at the writer’s conference was when he shared some of his favorite fan letters. At the peak of his success, he got more that 2,000 a week.
Here’s a few.
“Dear Mr. RL Stine. I am 9 years old and not too bright. You are my favorite author.”
“Dear Mr. RL Stine. I have read more than 40 of your books. Why are they all so boring?”
“Dear Mr. RL Stine. You are my second-favorite author.” (This was the entire letter.)
“Dear Mr. RL Stine. I have read all your Fear Street books and like them very much. But why do the endings make no sense?”
Judging by all the laughter, the audience loved these letters. And I can understand the child who penned the last one. Yet I think I have an answer. So many horror stories I have seen over the years are wonderful, entertaining, and make no sense at all.
But that may be why we love them all the more.
They allow us to enter into a conspiracy with the author, where we are enjoying a tale that has no redeeming value, but that we just can’t put down. The second-greatest thing about RL Stine’s stories is that you don’t have to break curfew to enjoy them.
Best of all, though, is that my brother’s children and mine, though separated by many miles, are enthralled, just like their dads were years before, by their love of these silly stories.
Sorry Mom.
See no evil… hear no screams…. JD and Robb
Robb has enjoyed writing and performing since he was a child, and many of his earliest performances earned him a special recognition-reserved seating in the principal’s office at Highland Elementary. Since then, in addition to his weekly column on A News Cafe – “Or So it Seems™” – Robb has written news and features for The Bakersfield Californian, appeared on stage as an opening stand-up act in Reno, and his writing has been published in the Funny Times. His short stories have won honorable mention national competition. His screenplay, “One Little Indian,” Was a top-ten finalist in the Writer’s Digest competition. Robb presently lives, writes and teaches in Shasta County.
