The funny thing is, the main character Todd Barstow is kind of a meme within the fandom because he’s so weird and unlikable in the book. So they kinda translated his character pretty well in that aspect to the episode.
"Sometimes my teachers read them out loud during silent reading time" _"read them out LOUD"_ _"during _*_SILENT_*_ reading time"_ Okay. Teachers. Come on. YOU HAD ONE JOB.
I had a teacher who’d bring in Twilight Zone episodes every Friday. She’d get away with it cause some had “educational purposes,” but some very much didn’t. There was nothing educational about Shatner freaking out on an Airplane or tiny spacemen attacking an old lady. She was cool.
The science teacher back in my charter high school when I was younger did showed us an X-Files episode, though I did transferred to a different high school sometime later.
@@kenthuang436 , also, several episodes tackle genuinely-important issues like racial prejudice and war, and many could be considered thought-provoking cautionary tales. Given how touchy reactionaries are these days, showing kids the goofy Shatner plane episode would help to throw Karens off the scent when show I Am the Night--Color Me Black.
When I was a kid the scariest Goosebumps book I read was Welcome to the Dead House. It was particularly scary to me because my family moved often so I could imagine us accidentally moving into a zombie neighborhood.
That’s because Dead House was the first horror book Stine wrote for children. He’s stated that he hadn’t started adding the humor he used in his earlier comedic work in the series to soften it up for kids yet.
"Oh nooo, the worms are playing pranks of their own" If you want an alleged "horror movie" to laugh at, look up "Slugs: The Movie", released in 1988. It features carnivorous slugs that successfully manage to somehow pose a threat to humans. ...because I guess none of them have ever heard of table salt.
OMG is that the one where a gardener puts on a glove and there are slugs inside it so he chops off his hand with an axe? I convinced myself that movie was called Slither, but it could be Slugs the movie
To be honest, this was one of the MOST memorable episodes to me. Goosebumps rarely scared me the way Are You Afraid of the Dark did, but for some reason the giant worms in this episode really got to me as a kid! Something about their being so ancient, and being smart, and having giant ones we don't know about... I think it was tapping into the same type of horror I'd experience reading Lovecraft later on in life.
@DankBeans It was a strange experience. At the end of the day I'm glad I went back and finished it but it was really weird and gross at times and I get why it's been mostly forgotten these days, plus my rental of it on Amazon Prime was really bugged out, at one point the audio was slowed down while the picture ran in real time, and that lasted for about 10 minutes. At the same time it does remind me of those days as a kid where we had dumb rules and did weird shit to pass time so I'll give it that
Fun fact: R.L. Stine actually hated "Go Eat Worms". No one knows why. Was it not scary enough for his taste? Was the main character too unlikable? Did he feel he could have done more with it?
Can't believe I've only recently found this amazing channel. 90s horror + your quirky commentary is a combo I didn't know I needed. Even when the topic involves eating worms. Keep it up! :)
In the book: Danny begins a butterfly collection when he wakes up in the middle of the night he sees a giant butterfly with a giant needle in his room. This was a similar ending to a story in "tales to tell at the midnight hour." The TV ending to this episode is similar to an episode of "tales from the crypt keeper "
I watched this episode on Netflix during university in an attempt to binge old shows I grew up with (along with Animorphs and Jackie Chan Adventures.) I remember eating spaghetti during this episode and nearly wanting to yak. Can't do the worm eating. I'm cool with horror and gore and all that stuff, but eating worms is where I draw the line.
As someone who's been reading Goosebumps for *a while*, later series like the "Series 2000" books and a lot of modern Goosebumps really have a problem with mistaking gross for scary, and probably a lot of that can be traced back to this book~
That ending voiceover with the kid and the fish feels like a last minute add-in. I wonder if in earlier drafts the episode just ended with the kid getting pulled into the water, and at some point between filming wrapping and the episode airing, someone pointed out that was probably too scary for kids.
So I've eaten a few earthworms. I was a 90s kid and still am the type who will do weird stuff just to get a reaction out of people. I'm here to tell you that you would *not* notice if you accidentally got a worm in your spaghetti unless you saw it or it had a bunch of dirt stuck to it.
Cee Jay I once was a 90's kid and I've eaten a worm too, but I swear it was by accident ! 🤣 I was picnicking with my 2nd grade class and a worm went inside the salad pasta box I left on the mud next to me while eating everything else, and when I finally decided to eat the pasta I took that long brown thing for an old slice of red pepper 😭 until I realised it was moving inside my mouth 🤣😭😭🤮 Yep... I'm afraid about every kind of pasta since.
This reminds me of the time when I was maybe seven years old and chased my older sister around the backyard with a handful of worms. She wound up falling and spraining her knee, which made me feel terrible and taught me a valuable lesson about pulling worm-based pranks on people.
“I don’t get a sense of danger from these worms; how is worm death going to occur?” Haven’t you seen that Squirm episode of MST3K, worms can apparently terrorize a small southern community! Just imagine what they can do in the hellscape that is the wooded suburbs!
@@lazyhomebody1356 Hey, they also did one of the Creature from the Black Lagoon movies, and the company a few of them founded that's active today, Rifftrax, did friggin' Casablanca. So it's not all about the quality of the movie.
Fun fact : In the haunted mask episode , the actress who plays Carly Beth, actually ate a real worm ( well I imagine took a bite of one then spit it out but still ew ) it was her idea to use a real worm when eating the sandwich so she could deliver a more realistic reaction
This one of the few books I actually read and it's kinda... chilling... I don't remember much but if I remember it actually goes into Todd's slow decent into madness better? It's a bit fuzzy but it doesn't just go from small worm to giant killer worm. Also the worms dont... plot openly? The whole ending was changed too as Todd goes from worms to butterflies, doing those butterfly pinups. This leads to a Giant Butterfly attacking him with a pin I think which makes sense that they wouldn't show that as like... that would give some very crucifixion vibes
What a confusing episode. When I saw the "you'll be sorry" message I thought briefly the younger sister and her friend were trying to beat Todd at his own prank game and that the giant worm experience was his own mind playing tricks on him, like he tripped on a root network and in the dark, damp earth imagined a huge worm. I'm also still trying to figure out how the fish ending ties in. Why would the fish care about treating him like a worm? Was the giant worm fishing that day? Why would worms care about minnows, a gesture of prey solidarity? Is Danny amused because he bribed the fish to prank Todd in effort to stop him for good? The poor stunt worms in this episode went through a lot it seems. I mean yeah, "just worms," but growing up my understanding of worms was based on Earthworm in James and the Giant Peach (the book, not any of the films) and my own observation of worms dying on hot sidewalks, leading to learning to pluck them up and get them into the grass from an early age if I encountered them soon enough. Although I learned today the salt on human skin will dehydrate a worm, so I better make future attempts quick!
The Danish translation stopped around Say Cheese II, so I finally read the entire series in both languages this year. It definitely got better in most books after the translation stopped.
In the 1970s/80s when I was at school, one of the books we had to read was "How To Eat Fried Worms". I don't remember the exact story, but iirc, a kid had been dared to eat worms so they ended up writing a cookbook. Yeah, that sounds awful. I don't actually remember it being a bad book, though.
Zim voice: "Have you the BRAIN WORMS?" Actually I'd love to see you review some Invader Zim, that show was definitely the perfect balance of goofy and actually disturbing.
You’re kidding me. I was obsessed with the Clue books. I would always get excited for book fairs to find a new one. I’ve never heard of anyone else who’s read them. You have excellent taste, Roses.
Having recently watched this episode, this was absolutely hilarious!! Thanks Roses! 🧡🌹 Also, the ending killed me, how hard would it have been to add a bubbling sound effect over the kids voice 🤦🏻♀️
Guess im in the minority, I really liked this episode as a kid. It was hilarious to me. It sounds like you had a blast doing a review on this one and i love it. Keep up the great work 🍻
I remember that thing that you could make plastic bugs with! I had a dr. Dreadful ice cream machine. It made puke green ice cream. 🤢 Love your 90s videos. Brings up memories.
I remember reading this one and being scared! However in the episode I was rooting for the worms lol. They were so cute. I loved the worms doing ab crunches!🤣🤣
This videos made me realize that despite how hungry the Streaming machine is for content I haven’t seen the news of any platform deciding to get the rights to Goosebumps and do new, more faithful adaptations of the books
In the mid 90s there were Clue chapter books, yes!! They stopped making them long ago but you can still find them around thrift stores and some book shops. They are fun, I recommend them!
This video just unlocked a core memory of a TV show which traumatized me as a kid. It was like Goosebumps, and one episode had a plot where an evil lunch lady, and the entire school loved her food. But the secret was it was full of bugs. What really creeped me out was that people didn't just enjoy the food, but they were addicted to it. By the end of the episode, they were fighting over the bug-filled food. The notion that you could unknowingly be eating maggots and insects is disturbing enough (even if it's actually true to some degree), but the idea that you'd be addicted to it is downright insane. I legitimately don't understand how that episode was allowed, and I'm glad that I forgot what the show was even called.
That sounds like quite the wild ride through a tv episode like that, especially as a kid! Sounds familiar tbh buh I wouldn’t know what show it came from either lol
You know, a while back, I figured out why most tv movies or shows based on Stephen King's work, generally miss the mark. The reason is simple; what works on the page, doesn't work on the screen. And this episode suffers the same issue. What I mean is, if you were to read about worms crawling all over Todd's face or taking him down to an underground cave, using detailed words on a page, it might seem effective, because a clever use of vocabulary and wording, might spark the reader's imagination way more than a picture on a screen ever could. But shoot that scene, and it loses all sense of tension. And a lot of Stephen King's work, functions in the same way; much like this episode. It's a case of "the medium not working out for the premise". Or maybe you'll think I'm wrong. I may very well be.
You're both correct, and likely overestimating the work this episode was based on. This one was really written mostly for the gross out moments and fails to be scary. RL got bored of writing horror real quick.
You've quickly become one of my favorite creators. We're probably around the same age, as I also grew up watching Murder, She Wrote, Are You Afraid of the Dark, and until today, completely forgot about watching the Goosebumps TV series. Your content is incredibly well made and your humor is right up my alley. Thanks for all the great work!
I am not going to lie as a kid I LOVED this episode, it was one of my favorites, but I guess I was just into gross out stuff, TOXIC was my fave magazine and that was all about gross characters (had a sentient poo person).
I found your channel just the other week because of a video you did with LGR a while back on the Barbie Adventure game, but this is even better commentary, you rock
So if the worms did it themselves...they were okay with being eaten in the spaghetti? Which worm volunteered for that? Also - oh, MAN, I wanted a Creepy Crawlers set SO BAD as a kid! I'd forgotten all about it!
I'm sooooooo glad you did another Goosebumps episode. I loves me some Murder She Wrote, but these are often my favorite videos of yours because of my personal connection to Goosebumps. Also, I think your a capella Mission Impossible theme was exactly what this episode needed.
Yes I remember skipping this one. This more so reminds me of the weird one where they made the cookies so people turn into those weird creatures with the gross sacs on their wrists and the main kid at the end is just all like "Sorry but if you can't beat em join em!" for no reason.
Love all the cheesy puns that *wormed* their way in there! The bit with the Robin scaring off the giant worm kinda reminds me of the end of “a bugs life”, anyone else? Awesome video, love your stuff Roses. I got back into Murder She Wrote thanks to your vids!
I agree it's not really scary in the traditional sense, but what was scary were the possibilities. Todd had cut these worms in half, frozen them, subjected them to heat etc I was expecting that was what was going to happen when he fell down that pit, before the mack daddy of worms showed up. And even then, what was its end goal? Was it trying to eat him? Incapacitate Todd so his wormy children could enact their revenge experiments ala Saw? And since the worm was scared away, what does he do when he's not attacking children? And Todd clearly didn't learn his lesson and you know what a lot of serial killers have in common.... animal torture in their childhood. Maybe eventually he and the worms worked out their differences and Todd starting enacting revenge on bait shop owners! Possibilities. Scary stuff.
Roses as a fellow writer I love your work and I love your style of film critique with humor. I was hoping you would do more Are you afraid of the dark episodes. Maybe a video about Dr. Vinks episodes? Also please consider doing the goosebumps episode the ghost next door parts 1 and 2 it’s one of my favorites. Also the haunted mask 2 parts 1 and 2 is the less than exceptional sequel to the best goosebumps episode. Just fyi. Sorry this is a lot I have just been waiting for a new video to suggest them. Stay Spooky!
"Worms on the brain!" I've noticed recently that the episode has been listed as one of the worst and I don't get it at all to be hon est. I think as far as the show goes, this is a good one. Not great but for their standards, it works. The mom is iconic. Now, this is mostly due to the book. The book itself was bad, even R.L. Stine had admitted as much. Seriously, he loves to bash on it. It was a loose mess with no real story and a lot of pointless and aimless scenes. Te episodes however,, really tried to fix it. They tightened it up by removing a lot of the filler and making it flow better as a story. Todd's whole thing of being an asshole victim is more clear here, they added the scene of his friendship with Danny being broke up to add some slightly deeper stakes to it all. The ending of a book involved a butterfly with a pin about to stab him. The episode's ending is kinda funnier in practice though. According to writer Rick Drew, Todd was meant to die a the end there but the network didn't want that so they forced to put in that forced ADR. This bit isn't in the original script or the Goosebumps Presents book so that checks out. The new ending is more ambiguous and weird. Worms don't gross me out so neither version was effective in that way but there's a bit more of that in the episode and in the least the story is tighter so it works on that front. It's not the deepest but the revenge angle gives it more of a purpose than the book had. The episode hasn't been historically seen as the worst so I feel like the recent reception is just the book rubbing off on it, since the book is seen that way, the episode has to be viewed like that too. I respect the clear effort Rick Drew made here so I don't wanna belittle that, especially compared to the book with how Stine admits it was a more rushed/low effort one. So yeah there's that, I feel Awesome Ants was a better animal revenge type story.
I wonder what the standards are practices were for handling worms in the 90s. I know they are just worms, but worms aren’t bad at all, and I hope they weren’t mistreated.
@@Dragonatrix It didn't look like a gummy worm! I could totally see the director telling a child actor, Eat that worm or you'll never work in this town again
I was a Are You Afraid of the Dark? kid whether than a Goosebumps fan. Also, I was a PBS' Ghostwriter and Clue chapter books fan, too. 💖📚🕵🏾♀ I love your Mission Impossible rendition, Roses! Watching your videos is as always, a treat! Thanks for all of your hard work and I can't wait for the next video! 🥰💻
Another GREAT video, Roses! Growing up, “The Headless Ghost” scared the LIVING CRAP out of me! I think it took three times for me to finally see the ending! 🤣 You should review it!
I really miss watching the good ol' Goosebumps, no cap when I first saw it when I was younger as the intro started I got freaked out and run into my room until it's over
I watched this at around 6 years old and oh my worm, the worm spaghetti has haunted me ever since. I am well into my 30s now and yeah, still checkin' me 'sketti for them worms.
Could you please consider covering the Chillogy episodes? Goosebumps were a big part of my childhood. These episodes in particular were the first horror shows I remember feeling genuinely disturbed by. I feel like they’re some of the best episodes, but I’d love to hear how you feel! I adore your channel and all of your videos!!!
First time youtube algo has recommened one of your videos in AGES!! I know you never left, but great to see your content again! (I've been watching a ton of the goosebumps episodes on netflix).
I am SO happy that you read the Clue chapter books growing up too Roses! Those books are still today a goldmine of comedy. Also that "Welcome to the Rainforest Cafe" made me hoot out loud 😂
Wow, thanks for the review. So this is the "movie" that I remember seeing as a kid, that irreversibly caused my lifelong fear of worms. I tried searching it up, but with no luck. I had no idea it was just a silly Goosebumps episode. Gosh, how many nightmares I've had with worms my whole life.
Admittedly, I wasn't much into the Goosebumps fad when it hit my school. I'd borrow a few whenever they became available from the constant exchanges between classmates, but didn't feel all that impatient waiting for my turn. Now, the Animorphs fad, that was the one where I eagerly saved up for to buy books with my allowance-something I didn't feel the need to do with Goosebumps-and participated actively in the borrowing exchanges to get my hands on books I didn't. By the end of the series I personally owned around 2/3rds of the original books and half the special Chronicles-type books. None of the Alternamorphs, though. Just felt weird to my kid self to essentially "restart" the Animorphs stories as a Choose Your Own Adventure copy.
when me and my sister we young we used to read this book called "How to eat fried worms" about a boy that gets dared to eat a bunch of worms. they made it into a movie, though i never watched it. it always reminded me of this book
