Hello, Spongey here.

Welcome back to Goosebumps Rip Off Month! This time, we got a more clear example of a similar series, that we’ve actually kind of talked about before. This time we have Deadtime Stories.

Right off the bat, I appreciate that it has a unique title, and they didn’t just up look “Goosebumps” in a thesaurus or whatever. This is one written by A.G. Casone, which is actually just a name for two people, sisters Annette and Gina. Prior to this, they did some YA thrillers that got the attention of Jane Stine who brought them over to write a few Ghosts of Fear Street books.

So I’d say they had some familiarity with doing things similar to Stine’s style. (Also, one of them ghostwrote an Animorphs) They only did two of those (“Attack of the Aqua Apes” and “Eye of the Fortune Teller”, if you’re wondering) and the same year the latter came out, 1996, they started this series. I assume they got sick of that series and wanted to do their own middle grade horror series, with blackjack and hookers!

…This series lasted only 17 or so entries but thankfully in 2011 the book Grave Secrets was randomly turned into a movie. Soon after that, Nickelodeon came knocking and the series became a TV series, and that Grave Secrets movie was cut down into an episode. That explains the pacing problems I had back in the day.

Yeah, I talked about the TV once upon a time, during the 5 minutes it was on the air. Apparently they planned to come back with new entries to give the show more stories but sadly that bombed and none of this happened. That sucks, but now it’s time to dive into the first of the books and see if these were worth turning into TV episodes.

With that intro out of the way, let’s see how the series started.

This, is Terror in Tiny Town

This cover is…Chucky. Seriously, who did they think they were fooling with this design? On its own, the art is pretty decent and eye catching. It doesn’t win points for originality though. Man, who even drew this anyway?

…Huh, sleeping with the enemy, aren’t we? He only did this cover though, the rest were by the guy who did the Ghosts of Fear Street covers. Makes sense.

The book starts with our protagonist Willy Tyler and his friend Zack Miller putting one of his little sister Marget’s dolls on some toy train tracks.

“Too bad we can’t tie Marget to the train tracks instead of this stupid doll”

Oh we’re off to a great start. Especially since they’re intentionally messing with her dolls to piss her off. All this is going down in Willy’s toy town he has creatively named Tiny Town, which he is quite proud of. I’m just waiting for Karl to show up so things can get fun.

Willy especially likes the town’s latest addition: Hurley the Hobo. Sure, he’s got tons of cool figures but for some reason a hobo is the most exciting thing ever. He even has glass eyes that seem to follow him everywhere, oh how spooky.

Hurly was actually a present from Zack, because his mom thinks you gotta get someone a present when you visit them. Uh, I appreciate the gesture but that’s weird logic. Then again, Zack is only visiting him for two weeks in this summer as he moved a bit away some time ago. But whatever, Margret’s coming.

“Tra la la la laaaa!”

Oh wait nevermind, it’s Captain Underpants.

She comes in just in time for them to see the boys turning the train on so that it hits her doll. The train is apparently strong enough to cave the doll’s head in. R.I.P in piece I guess. Mom sees this and sends everyone to bed, which the boys don’t mind since they got even. I hope things turn around before I start rooting for Hurley.

They stay up to watch a monster movie, but a lightning storm puts an end to that. But somehow despite the power outage, they hear the train turning on back in the basement. They creep downstairs to see what is going on but when they arrive, other parts of Tiny Town are turned on, but then everything goes black again.

I was about to question this so I would interrupt the recap to add some substance, but I’m about to be ready to buy a living doll, a living train isn’t exactly far fetched. So…moving on. They notice Hurley is gone but before they look into it, Mom appears to scold them for being up this late.

They tell her about the town turning on but naturally she doesn’t believe anything weird is going on, and just assumes that the power surge made the train turn on. Okay, that makes enough logical sense I guess. Zack isn’t quite convinced though, especially since that doesn’t explain Hurley.

The next morning, they walk into the kitchen to see that it is totally trashed, and of course Willy and Zack are blamed for it. Oh god, I really hope this doesn’t just turn into Night of Living Hobo. The reason they are blamed is that their toys are here, but they doesn’t exactly rule out Margret. Wait, she was asleep when Mom checked out her last night and was still asleep this morning.

What about that time in between though? I can’t blame Willy for still thinking it was her though. When he goes to pick the mayor figure, he notices tiny little footprints everywhere, almost like the toys were walking…

Pissed at Margret, they hide some of her toys in some panels in the ceiling, and want to cook up a plan to mess with some of her other toys, like they were doing at the start.

“We ought to do something different with the Weevils. Something that would really drive Marget nuts”

“You mean like running them over with the train?”

“Like that, but much much better”

“What?”

“There’s going to be a hanging in Tiny Town. The whole Weevil family is going to pay for Margret’s crimes”

…Okay, at least they were more provoked this time but Jesus Christ, they revel too much in wanting to mess with dolls. I’m pretty sure these kids are gonna grow up to be serial kids at this rate.

So they hang the doll family, but Margret doesn’t show up to see it like they planned. So were they ready to just wait for hours on end for Margret to show up instead of calling her down here? Well, Mom shows up and says she and Margret are going to the store so they’ll have to wait longer anyway.

They go to get some snacks and when they return, the Weevils are gone. On top of that, there’s a tiny note that reads “Town meeting at midnight. Signed, Hurley’. Where did he get a tiny writing utensil and tiny paper? Wait, why does that even matter?

Out of curiosity, they visit the town at midnight, but nothing happens, even after an extra hour. Man, imagine being stood up by a Toy Hobo. They go to sleep but are woken up by a strange voice coming from the basement. They go back down there and see that the people of Tiny Town were just fashionably late.

…But nothing happens and we just cut to the next morning. I know town meetings are kind of dull but this is ridiculous. Jokes aside, I hope things pick up soon since it’s pretty clear what is going on. They tell Willy’s parents about this but shock of all shocks, they don’t believe them.

She forces them to go outside and play, so they do. But they soon see a bunch of the Tiny Town people scattered around the lawn. Do these toys have a plan beyond “show up in weird places”? At least start messing up the kitchen again!

The Tiny Town people that they found were pioneer people and when they go back to Tiny Town, a castle is in the pioneer part, almost like they were kicked out. I see we’re tackling the scariest subject of all: Gang wars.

Willy picks up a toy dragon, only for it to come to life and bite them! Dang, that escalated quickly. It even draws blood, nice. The dragon pipes up after that though, so they are able to put everything back where it is supposed to be, for now. But then they notice that Weevils have moved into a big house, and and nailed to one of the walls is Dad’s prized Babe Ruth baseball card.

Those guys are sneaky if they were to able to take that without anyone noticing. The kids go to put it back in his office, but the frame carrying it is gone. They find it in Willy’s room, but they also find a new note from Hurley, warning them to stop messing with Tiny Town, or they will be a real war on their hands.

Aside from the dragon, I don’t think there’s much a bunch of tiny toys can really do to them, even in a big group. But we’ll humor him for now.

“Maybe we should call the police”

“And tell them what? That a toy hobo is threatening us?”

“Yes! Threatening people is against the law!”

That was funny until Zack dropped some IQ points there. Actually, that makes it funnier.

Willy gets the idea to use his dad’s camcorder to record Tiny Town at night so they get proof of what is going on. Sure enough, the next morning they watch the footage and see the town come to life. It seems like this is a Toy Story situation where toys are already all alive, and Hurly isn’t special except in how evil he is.

They see Hurly telling the other citizens they need to rise up against the horrible humans. Also, those toys the kids tried to hang are pretty upset about it but the other citizens hate the Weevils so they don’t really listen to them it seems. It’s already kind of implied, but I think it would be interesting if Hurley used the whole torturing Marget’s toys as reason for why they must rebel against them.

But anyway, Hurly brings out a toy monster thing Margret has and uses the sparks from the train tracks to bring him to life. Yes, he wasn’t alive but a few sparks do the trick. This book is about an evil toy hobo sure is getting unbelievable.

They get Willy’s parents to come over and see the tape, but the tape has been shredded. Naturally, they are too pissed to question why the tape is shredded to begin with. The parents leave and they discover some toy soldiers behind the TV, and figured they destroyed the tape.

They question why Tiny Town is only getting weird recently. I figured they just accepted their life until Hurley came in but the boys figure that the storm from earlier did something that made Tiny Town came alive. They also assume that the toys are only alive some of the time, and there’s only so far they can get out of Tiny Town before they lose their power.

…I figured they were alive all the time and only showed signs when they weren’t looking or they…felt like doing stuff. Come on, we don’t need to make this super complicated. At least that gives them an easy solution: Tear the town apart so they lose power.

They start with the train tracks but it shocks Zack. They assume there’s some force field around the town somehow, which makes as much sense as everything else I guess. They put on some rubber gloves and are able to take the tracks apart no problem. Nice to see them do something smart at least.

They take everything apart and pack up the toys, but they notice that Hurley is missing, dun dun dun. That night, Willy wakes up to see that he and Zack have been tied up by the people of Tiny Town. Oh no, 50 Shades of Hurly!

Obvious jokes aside, toys that aren’t from Tiny Town are alive too so I guess that storm either effected them too somehow or they were brought to Tiny Town and just being there makes alive or whatever I don’t care anymore.

“So, how does it feel to be toyed with, little man?”

You are not helping my 50 shades joke. At least Zack isn’t gagged in the closet-oh wait he is, they’re doing it on purpose now! …Man, I can’t wait to find out how the TV episode portrays all this. Anyway, Willy is tossed into the closet along with Zack but after a couple pages of struggling, they are able to untie each other.

They try to leave the closet, only to get attacked by Margret’s monster from earlier. They are able to lock it in the closet, but they are tripped up by one of those trip wire things. Suddenly, tons of other toys come out of some cabinets and launch a full strike on the kid. Some of them are even throwing toothpicks at them!

“These things really hurt!”

Beware, you’re in for mild pain!

Hurley orders the kids to leave or they will be destroyed. I don’t think all this wild pain you’re inflecting on them will destroy them but okay. Then again, that dragon can now breath fire somehow so as weird as that is, there’s that.

They reject the offer and try to make it into Willy’s room to hide. With nowhere else to go, they plan to capture them and lock them so they can’t escape. Some toy knights barge in, and by accident Zack uses static electricity to shock the knights, and now they have their way to stop them.

…Besides I guess lining up with the excuse given for these things being alive, it was actually established early on that Zack liked “zapping” things and threatened Margret with it. So as dumb as this is, it makes total sense for the story so sure.

And the zap did indeed put the knight down for the count so he just has to do it like…10 million other times. Also, Willy tries doing this but it only works for Zack because reasons. They take care of the knights and sneak out into the hallway. They peek into the bathroom to see Susie Sparkle and her friends hanging out, but whoops them being powered by electricity means that trying to jump in the filled tub kills them.

The way this is portrayed makes it seem really dark and messed up even though they are toys and this is really silly. So yeah, now they just gotta see some water pistols to take care of them. But on their way to do so, they discover that spitting on them works as well.

We’re knee deep in “I’m not making this up” territory.

They get to their water guns and fill them up and it doesn’t take them long to take care of all the toy people that are left. Except for Hurley of course. However, they can’t seem to find and only find a note claiming that Hurley is moving out. Well okay then, book’s over!

Actually for once, I’m right as that’s the end of the main story, leaving only the obvious twist to go. When Willy’s parents come back, they’re pretty pissed that the house is a mess and yada yada. But after some pleading, they allow Willy to stay at Zack’s for two weeks as that was part of their whole deal earlier or whatever.

With that, Willy and Zack hop on the train to go to Zack’s place, all on their own to boot! The bad news is that this is going on the middle of another bad storm, complete with lightning. It bombards the train and they look outside and notice that Hurley is out there, except now he appears to be life-size.

Hurley hops aboard and the conductor’s voice comes on.

“Next and only stop, Tiny Town!”

The End. …Well, I’m confused. Did the storm shrink the train or something? Where did the other people and conductor go? I think I get what is going on here, but it’s a bit confusing and weird. But whatever, to be continued in the sequel. No seriously, a bunch of books later, we got “Trapped in Tiny Town”. I sadly don’t have access to it so I guess we’ll never find out what happens. What a shame,

Final Thoughts:

This one was a mixed bag, especially compared to our last one. Of all the books in this moth, this one feels the closest to the Goosebumps style so I guess that’s why it doesn’t fare amazingly well. Well okay, there’s no fake out scares so I guess that’s not totally accurate.

The protagonists start off as being pretty unlikable and while they do improve, I don’t think they needed to start off so bad so if it wasn’t going to be needed. The reason for why this is all happening is all stupidly convoluted. Yes, it does give them an easy way to stop the toys but it still would have worked better if they were simply just alive without an explanation.

For most of the book, it’s just standard stuff and I was thinking of a bunch of ways this could have been more interesting. Maybe them torturing Margret’s dolls is why the toys rebel, and they gotta team up with her and stuff? Would certainly make the start easier to forgive. Hell, what if if it turned out that Susie was really the mastermind behind all this and Hurley was just her sidekick?

Re-writes aside, this does really pick up in the third act. It drops all pretenses of being scary, which is good because while the build up was getting better, it’s a bit hard for even kids to be scared by these toys. It gets really stupid but the whole war is so much fun. So yeah, it starts off bad, gets decent but too standard, then gets so stupid that it’s fun.

Not counting Spinechillers, this is the one that leaves me the least interested in reading more of these if the others are close to this. That said, the climax is so fun and stupid that I want to read these others if they get close to that level. As long as they’re fun, they can be as standard as they want.

You do have to slog through some “eh” stuff to get to the good parts, but if you have a similar mindset to me, you can have some fun with this one.

Rating: Decent

TV EPISODE:

Something about the show I wasn’t aware of back then is that A and G actually wrote the episodes, meaning they’re likely pretty faithful. This one was, almost boringly so. Almost every beat I just recapped was hit here. They cut out some things, like the baseball card bit and they don’t bring that monster toy to life. There’s no fire breathing dragons or aliens with guns that somehow work and instead the toys just throw stuff randomly at the kids, so them needing football gear (which I didn’t mention) doesn’t make sense here. We explicitly see Tiny Town get shocked so the other toys being alive makes even less sense.

Speaking of which, we don’t see them defeat Hurley in the climax, as I think he slips away but they don’t establish the whole thing with him leaving so the ending is even more confusing. Otherwise, everything is the same and they were clearly just concerned with hitting every beat of the book. It all feels pretty rushed which is somewhat excusable for a more fun story like this one.

Also, Margret is now named Madison for some reason. Oh and at one point they’re watching another episode on the TV. Seriously, the world should have imploded at that moment. The episode is enjoyable and in some ways is improved by cutting the fluff but it’s nothing special and the climax isn’t nearly as fun without some of the wilder/stupider stuff.

It’s about on the same level of the book, so it’s nothing special. I haven’t re-watched the episodes I covered back then but this feels like the weakest of them, just for being less interesting. Eh. Oh and there’s no tying up of the kids, thank god.

Well, that covers Deadtime Stories. Next time…I don’t have a clever transition so…Bone Chillers!

See ya.