Columbia Pictures’ Goosebumps film, out this Friday, brings with it a hefty amount of nostalgia for anyone who grew up in the 90s. For those people, (myself included), Goosebumps is what got them into horror when they were kids. Had R.L. Stine not written this beloved series of books, who knows if I would have gotten into the horror genre (probably so, but it would have been a delayed realization). I’ve been thinking about how Goosebumps shaped my childhood a lot this week and I’m sure many of you have unique stories as well. I’m curious to know how all of you were introduced to this seminal franchise. I’ll get the ball rolling with my own story.
Understandably, I wasn’t allowed to watch R-rated movies when I was six years old, and when the Goosebumps TV series began airing on Fox Kids, I wasn’t allowed to watch that either since I was just under the recommended viewing age of the TV-Y7 rating (and I had had a bad experience with Beetlejuice a few years earlier). Of course, all of my friends were watching it so I begged my parents to let me as well.
After my parent’s didn’t want to hear it anymore (I was kind of a whiny child), my mother told me that if I could read two of the Goosebumps books and not get scared, then I could watch the TV show. My mom took me to the book store and I picked out issue number 19, “Deep Trouble,” and issue number 21, “Go Eat Worms.”
Much to my mother’s disappointment, I read both of them and provided a detailed enough summary of each to merit watching an episode of the show. I don’t think my mom thought I would follow through with her task (I hated to read at that age), but she still required that I watch the episode of the show with her and my father. So my first episode of the show was the adaptation of issue number 8, “The Girl Who Cried Monster.”
Needless to say, it wasn’t the scariest episode to get started on, but it was a tame enough episode for my parents to allow me to read and watch all the Goosebumps I wanted.
That’s my first Goosebumps experience! Wax nostalgia with me and tell me yours in the comments below or Tweet me!