#20 Be Afraid – Be Very Afraid!

If you’re looking at this, you probably clicked the link from www.bloggerbeware.com. As explained on the link from there, this explains a few of the references (at least two from Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place) on the blog, as well as some completely obvious ones that only newborn infants with learning disabilites and no eyes wouldn’t already know. If you didn’t come directly from there and haven’t started projectile vomiting yet, use the link up there to read it first and not the one at the bottom of this page, because this is a seriously awful page format I mean why would it put the blogroll/link section at the very bottom of the page that’s usually reserved for stuff like legal disclaimers.

Recently updated!

New explanations not already mentioned in the comments section that you may want to re-read:
Monster Blood III, I Am Your Evil Twin, Still More Tales To Give You Goosebumps, and It Came From Beneath the Sink.

 

#20 Be Afraid – Be Very Afraid!

“Costa-Gavras would be proud, as the book is a celebration of “Z”

Costa Gavras is a renowned and highly political Greek director, best known for his conspiracy thriller Z, a satirical comment on the political climate at the time in Grrrrrrreece.

“They’ve stopped turning, they’re there.”

“Could have been worse, it could have been an excitable Dorf”

Comedian Tim Conway, former second banana of McHale’s Navy, created a series of films about the character Dorf, a Swedish dwarven golf instructor; four words that should never follow each other in sequence.

“In a terrifying scene lifted directly from the very similarly-themed Robin Williams film, one of the kids draws the dreaded Enema Bulb As Clown Nose card.”

One of Troy’s patented switcheroos. Sounds like a reference to Jumanji, but then your expectations are twisted with a whimsical reference to a scenario from Patch Adams!

“Connor decides not to tell his folks about who caused the mess, though as big Hoosiers fans, surely his parents would have believed a story about an angry Knight.”

The Indiana Hoosiers coach, Bob Knight, is notoriously b.i.g in professional basketball circles for his public outbursts, both near the court and away. 

“Mr. Zarwid shows up in a Gorton’s fisherman jacket and tells Conner he knows what he did last summer”

The Gorton’s Fisherman is the advertising mascot for Gorton’s of Gloucester, a seafood company. He wears a bright yellow raincoat with a plastic hood and you’re expected to trust him. In I Know What You Did Last Summer, the teenage hooligans are tormented by a vengeful killer who dresses like the Gorton’s Fisherman.

“52 Pickup.”

Hilarious card gag. A victim is asked if they want to play “52 Pickup”. If they naively answer “yes”, a deck of cards is thrown to the ground, and they’re instructed to pick them up. This is the kind of thing that inspires school shootings and Rip Taylors.

“Connor proclaims that he’ll only play Go Fish from that point on.”

Another card game. Players begin the game with a certain amount of cards, and each ask another player if they have a card that matches one they were dealt. If the asked player has the card, they hand it over. If not, they tell the askee, “Go fish.”, who then takes a card out of the top of the pile.

“Connor keeps the card in his shirt pocket in case he ever has to stop a really really really really really really really really weak really bullet.”

Cliché scenario and urban legend, usually about a deck of cards, a Bible, or a speech.

 “Mr. Zarwid interrupts their B+Eing by being mildly annoyed at their trespassing.”

Breaking & Entering, baby.

“I mean, I always knew Mr. Wizard had something malevolent going on”

Don Herbert, best known for his role as Mr Wizard on his educational shows Watch Mr. Wizard and Mr. Wizard’s World, blinded his audiences with science, winning a Peabody award for his work. Due to reruns, Mr Wizard’s World  is the longest running program in Nickelodeon history, which sounds like more of an accomplishment that it really is! He died in 2007.

“discover a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view. No one to tell them no, or where to go, or say they’re only dreaming (Although…)”

A reference to the song A Whole New World, originally from the Disney movie Aladdin. Troy knows his audience. We’re from Ohio, George. Let the man fool with it.

“”How am I supposed to suspend belief long enough to accept that someone who looks like Olivia Wilde would ever go through the work of becoming a doctor?””

On the forensic medical show House, starring Hugh Laurie, a recent character, “13”, played by Olivia Wilde, entered the show as a contestant to become part of the title character’s medical team.

“If he drinks the poison and dies, he’s telling the truth about being a “kid.” If he floats, he’s a witch.”

During the Salem Witch Trials, one of the primary methods of determining witchihood was by drowning suspects. It was thought that witches would be saved by the Devil by making them float.

“The book ends here. Sort of. See, and this is what some of you were warning me against, on page 86 (Which is too clever to have been intentional)”

86 is slang for a few different things, but mostly used to mean “kick out abruptly” in bars in regards to troublesome patrons. It probably dates back to the Prohibition.

“Um, don’t they realize that nobody beats the Wiz?”

If you didn’t click the link, it’s a link to a clip from the Seinfeld episode The Junk Mail, where Elaine becomes briefly infatuated with the mascot for the New York electronics store The Wiz with that catchphrase.

“I know, Frasier’s on later.”

Frasier, starring Kelsey Grammar and David Hyde Pierce, was a long-running sitcom spin-off from Cheers about the radio psychiatrist Frasier Crane and his family, set in Seattle.

“the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationships:
tl;dr”

Internet abbreviation for “Too long, didn’t read.” There is an unbelievably and suitably long article about it on that Encyclopedia Dramatica wiki!

“Inherit the Wind Alert:”

The second-best film based on the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial at the beginning of the 20^th century (the first being Bedtime for Bonzo)

This is symbolic of over 30 pages of pointless writing

Crazy Ernie’s Emporium of Total Blogger Beware Reference Madness

 

#19 Return to Ghost Camp

“using a magic marker, “the kind of marker that doesn’t wash off”  - Magic Markers are a brand of non-permanent highlighter pens. 

“Dustin stares longingly at Hulk Hogan poster. Hmm, maybe he would like going to prison” – Hulk Hogan is a former wrestler for the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling.

“Dustin is very excited to see a poster of Mark McGwire hanging on the wall of the cabin. Boy, it’s not even subtext at this point, is it?” – Mark McGwire is an American baseball player, mostly for the Oakland Athletics and the St Louis Cardinals. Apparently he has the highest at bats per home run ratio in baseball history. He was dogged by rumours of steroid use throughout his career.

“Comanches… Of course, he’s not half as upset about it as his Uncle Ethan will be.” – A possible reference to The Searchers, a 1956 Western starring John Wayne? In The Searchers, Ethan’s ranch is attacked by a group of Comanches, who take his niece hostage and eventually convert her to their wild, vagabond ways.

“This is already more a sequel to that book than Ghost Camp.” – Why I’m Afraid of Bees, a previous Goosebumps book about, you know it, computers that become sapient and enslave their masters.

“there’s probably a Stay Pukt joke to be made” – The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was an advertising mascot in the Ghostbusters comedy series. At the end of the first Ghostbusters movie, the destroyer of worlds, Gozer, manifests as a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

“Maybe Prop 8 passed…” – Proposition 8 was a ballot proposition in California in 2008 regarding the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

“Return to Ghost Camp defence becomes the new Twinkie Defence.” – The “Twinkie Defence”, as it became known, was a legal defence attempted in the trial of Dan White in 1979 for the murders of George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, claiming that sugar-laden artificial food like Twinkies exacerbated mood swings and impulses. Twinkies themselves were never actually given as an example in the trial.

“I guess Ari doesn’t want to be a victim of a ghost camp anymore than he wants to lose his fifteen percent.” – I think this is a reference to the character of Ari on Entourage, the slick, moody talent agent of the main character.

“Apparently God based the afterlife on Wild and Crazy Kids” – Wild and Crazy Kids (not the Wild and Crazy Guys) was a Nickelodean children’s game show in the early 1990’s. Most of the challenges were physical and goofy, slime was sometimes involved.

 

#18 Horrors of the Black Ring

“Miss Honey” - a picture of the character of Miss Honey, from the 1988 Matilda book, by Roald Dahl.

“that’s funny, I thought this was Jewel’s natural flaw” – Jewel is a pop singer. And that isn’t her only flaw.

“Barbie” – Barbie dolls are a popular doll produced for young girls and confused boys.

“ And Klaus Barbie of course refuses to be judged by anyone but God on his throne.” - Groggy Dundee has noticed that this is a reference to Klaus Barbie, “The Butcher of Lyon”, a Nazi war criminal mostly known for the torture of resistance members in France. He escaped prosecution in the Nuremburg trials by fleeing to Argentina and then Bolivia, where he was eventually caught in 1984. At his trial, he declared “ When I stand before the throne of God I shall be judged innocent” – he was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987, and then died a mere four years later, ruining it for everyone.

“wasps descend upon the WASPs” – WASP stands for White Angl0-Saxon Protestant, a social group mostly seen stereotypically in the New England states of the United States.

“until Moose calls out his name and asks what it is when an elephant sits on his car” – Moose is a character from Archie comics This could be a reference to something else.

“Newman’s Groan” – Newman’s Own is a line of food products philanthropised by the actor Paul Newman, most known for movies like The Sting and Cool Hand Luke. If I remember right, most of the proceeds go to towards charity or the Contras or something.

“Selsun Ew?” – A pun on Selsun Blue, a popular shampoo.

“PETA’s gonna make “RL Swine” masks now” – The People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals is an activist environmentalist group, most known for controversial protests and annoying slogans.

“But to go on with her daily affairs, she can’t really think about that, which is probably why everyone takes the world for granted and why we act so thoughtlessly. It’s very confusing –” - Spurred on by Troy mentioning a reference to it in this entry, Nick has posited that this is a reference to a situation in a Calvin & Hobbes strip involving a dead raccoon, and it’s noted by an Anonymous (number seven?) in the comments section for this entry.  Doing some searching, it’s from the compilation book There’s Treasure Everywhere (page 16) in regards to a dead bird and the frailty of life. Calvin says this almost verbatim. IT IS GOOD TO HAVE CLOSURE.

“Dwight Schrute could tell you, bird funerals can result in smoke too” – Dwight Schrute is an awkward, dorky character on the American remake of The Office. Updated: In the episode ‘Grief Counselling’, the entire staff conducts a funeral pyre and memorial for a dead bird they find. Dwight tries to put it out with a fire extinguisher and the force of the spray sends feathers, smoke, and foam everywhere.

“former Simpson jurors” – The OJ Simpson trial was a seminal event of the 1990’s for some reason. American Football League player OJ Simpson was accused of the murder of his wife, Nicole, and her lover, Ron Goldman. He was acquitted, but then in a separate suit by the family of Ron Goldman, he paid compensation. The question of his guilt is still a polarising issue.

 

#17 The Werewolf in the Living Room

“Madlib fashion” – Madlibs are a game where the player is given several a story with key words missing. The player is then asked to supply nouns, verbs, adjectives and other grammatical functions, usually without looking directly at the puzzle, and then read the complete story.

“Ghost buster and Caddy Shacker” – Ghost Busters and Caddyshack are two films of the 1980’s, starring mostly Saturday Night Live alumni like Chevy Chase, Dan Ackroyd, and Billy Murray. Caddyshack is a terrible, awful, movie about a two average guys attempting to play the rich owners of a golfing club. Except for Rodney Dangerfield, it’s not recommended.

 ”Executive in charge of keeping peanut butter out of chocolate and Executive in charge of keeping chocolate out of peanut butter” – Probably a reference to an ad campaign for Reese’s Pieces, a peanut butter and chocolate cup candy.

“Kielbasa” – a thick type of Polish or Ukrainian sausage.

“LilSmoki” – A regional nickname for a type of sausage.

“Hotdogonabun” – Well, a hot dog in a bun.

“Bratvia” – The name of the country sounds like “bratwurst”, a type of German blood sausage. The previous four were all types of sausages.

“Golden-age Werewolf” – I don’t know if this is a reference to anything in particular, but there was a comic book character called Werewolf during the Golden Age of comic books?

“Wendell Willkie” – American politician, Republican Presidential candidate of the 1940 election.

 ”Eyes measuring the distance between her and the oven” - In one of the versions of folk tale Hansel and Gretel, the two spoiled brats of the title push the hungry witch, merely struggling to make ends meet during tough economic times, into her own oven and brutally roast her to death, cheering all the while.

“having the refrain from Chain of Fools play over his actions in the movie trailer,  complete with the sound of a needle being pulled from the record when the werewolf poorly attempts to dance in a fashionable manner” - Chain of Fools is a song popularised by Arethra Franklin. There are a few candidates for this reference, bu-but it seems to be a reference to the movie Michael, starring John Travolta, where he dances to this song in a roadhouse. I’m not completely confident in this answer!

“Werewolf Skim” – A reference to previous Goosebumps book, Werewolf Skin, and Skim Milk.

“ Ben, Werewolf-Style” – This might not have been deliberate, but it evokes the old vignette-themed TV show: Love, American-Style.

“overly intricate PETA protest” – See previous vaguely negative comment about PETA.

“at Applebee’s” – American restaurant franchise.

“Nine. Oh no, he’s not a werewolf, he’s a Seven!” – a reference to the old joke, “Why was six afraid of seven?” “Because seven ate nine!”. Thank yew, thank yew!

“He’s more into Transformers now” – Cartoon series and toy line adapted from Japan, most popular during the late 1980’s, about two groups of robots, the Autobots and Decepticons. Both the characters and the toys could transform into a secondary form, usually a vehicle like a car, truck, boat, or aircraft. One memorable exception was Megatron, who turned into a giant handgun to be fired by his lieutenant, Starscream. AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE. Wait, wrong show.

 

#16 The Mummy Walks

“without even Bronson Pinchot tearing paper to keep him company” – The Langoliers was a made-for-TV adaption of the Stephen King novel featuring Bronson Pinchot. Story: a group of people on a red-eye flight who remain awake find themselves completely alone in the world.

“before Olivia de Havilland can chime in with a comment” – The Snake Pit was a movie starring Olivia de Havilland as a woman submitted to a mental institution. A strict form of punishment was called a form of solitary confinement called “the snake pit”.

 

#15 Scream School

“Freddy Krueger” – main character from the horror series Nightmare on Elm Street. To this date, there have been 9 movies, one of which was a crossover with Friday the 13^th icon Jason Voorhees.

“Original Recipe, but Original Reci-See?” – Pun on the Kentucky Fried Chicken advertising slogan, Original Recipe.

“ensuring her a long career at Fox News” – Fox News is widely regarded in poplar culture as being a sensationalist, right-wing news program for the American broadcasting corporation Fox. A former slogan was “We report. You decide.”

“Where be your gibes / You ain’t got no alibi / Yorick! Yeah, yeah, Yorick! Wooo!” – In an infamous scene from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet holds the skull of his former tutor Yorick and comments “Alas, Yorick. I knew him, Horatio.” This is frequently misquoted as “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well.” Revised:  also another reference to the lyrics of U.G.L.Y. !

“I think even Gig Young would have had trouble syncophanting it up on this set” – Gig Young was an actor, associated especially with Marlon Brando, who hosted the umbrella series Warner Bros. Presents. During the host segments, Gig would present a behind-the-scenes look at a film production.

“walking around the UCLA campus for fun and going to eat at In-And-Out Burger. What, too busy to see the sign or a palm tree?” – All icons of Los Angeles, and in particular, Hollywood. The University of California, Los Angeles, is a relatively young University that has been steadily growing for the last few decades. It was founded in 1919.

“I guess they never let Stine on the set of the TV series?” – Goosebumps was briefly turned into a TV series in the late 1990’s.

 

Still More Tales to Give You Goosebumps

“if only Jack Chick had thought ahead” – Jack Chick is an evangelical clergyman, most well known for his “Jack Chick tracts” – a series of comics about the various reasons everybody who isn’t Jack Chick is doomed to hell.

“something stronger than Sweetheart Fever”  - Sweethearts are an American candy, but as Troy informs me, Sweetheart Fever is an album by Scout Niblett, a British singer who named her stage alias after the narrator in To Kill A Mockingbird.

“ His older brother pummels the boy and demands Max hand over all his candy. Careful with that ask, Eugene!” – Troy says this is a Pink Floyd joke; there can never be too many of those! Specifically, the song, Careful with that Axe, Eugene, from the 1968 album Relics. An urban legend associated with the song is that it’s referring to Jerry Garcia, who lost part of one of his fingers in childhood and yet still went on to become an ice cream and also some stuff to do with the Grateful Dead, I guess.

“Mimi from the Drew Carey Show is somehow a character” – The Drew Carey Show starred the comedian of the same name. Drew’s semi-nemesis on the show was Mimi, a heavily made-up, heavyset woman with a sassy attitude, played by Kathy Kinney. I think she married Drew Carey’s brother in the show’s continuity, I can’t remember.

“Like when a story is called “Please don’t feed the bears”…” – paraphrase and still of a quote from the Simpsons episode, Round Springfield.

“Now we know why the Olsens always walk away with the most candy every year” – Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are twin sisters who gained fame as children on the sitcom Full House. One of them suffers from a well-publicised eating disorder. The other one probably does too, but it’s not publicised. They have their own line of perfumes.

“the lifesize MTV Video Award” – the MTV Video Music Award are an award given by the music video station and channel MTV. The statues resembled an astronaut on the moon.

“and I’ve read Dean Koontz.” – Dean Koontz is a prolific science fiction author. It’s mostly generic, and considering the rest of the science fiction genre, that’s saying something.

 

#14 Jekyll and Heidi

“Greyhound wasn’t horrible enough” – Greyhound is a model of bus and a company as well. They’re usually pretty cramped.

“Um, wrong Jeckle” – Heckle and Jeckle are a pair of animated crows from Terrytoons. They are twins, but speak with different accents.

“go tour the Ben and Jerry’s factory!” – Ben and Jerry’s is an ice-cream company, icon of Vermont, and franchise that occasionally gives patrons the chance to invent their own ice cream flavour. I guess they offer tours?

“this angry at Heidi since the Raiders/Jets game of ‘68” – In 1968, the Superbowl game between the Raiders and the Jets was slightly pre-empted by a made-for-TV production of the novel Heidi. Meatheads everywhere were outraged.

 

#13 Return to Horrorland

“No, not Silver Dollar City” – theme park in Missouri, affiliated with the city of Branson. Vaguely frontier-themed.

“X-Files” – 1990’s science fiction/horror/drama show, part of the zeitgeist of the era. Starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI Agents involved in a vast government conspiracy. Two movies have been released: one during the run of the series, and one in 2008.

“Tom Selleck” – moustached actor, best known for Magnum PI.

“There’s probably a TMZ = Thirty Monster Zone joke in there” – A “thirty mile zone” is a Hollywood expression used to calculate the zone in Hollywood where most filming is based. Entertainment Unions use it to determine rates and rules they set to their members.

“Ricky Jay he ain’t” – Ricky Jay is one of the world’s most well known magicians and illusionists.

“the tiger vanishes before it can Skin Lizzy” – I’m pretty confident that this is a reference to the band Thin Lizzy.

“I’ve seen Adult Swim programs with more narrative focus” – Adult Swim is an American cable station featuring shows like Venture Brothers, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Squidbillies, and Metalocalypse. As Troy comments, a lot of the shows have wildly divergent plotlines, often without any kind of closure or continuity at all.

“that borrows from Wacky Races can’t possibly fail!”- Wacky Races was a Hanna-Barbara cartoon from the 1960’s about a group of ridiculous characters racing cars. One competitor, Dick Dasterdly and Muttley, would constantly cheat to win the race, usually involving setting ridiculously elaborate traps for the other races. The traps would almost always backfire, and as a result they were the only racing team to never win a race on the entire run of the series. Ironically, a lot of the time, they would have won if they hadn’t cheated. The show was a success, if you consider Stop That Pigeon a measure of high culture.

“The Dentist” – 1992 horror movie about a sadistic dentist who earns his comeuppance at the end.

 

#12 Brain Juice

“elusive Newbery award” – American award for outstanding children’s literature.

“next mission to capture a Latifah” – Queen Latifah is an American hip-hop rapper and actor. Her real name is Dana Elain Owens.

“New York Times crossword puzzle” – a popular feature of the New York Times is the crossword puzzle, which has gained international renown since it was first printed.

“the aliens’ll just drive out to Vegas” – Las Vegas is a city in Nevada, known as one of the world’s biggest gambling and entertainment districts. The city has several famous casinos and landmarks, and is nicknamed “Sin City” for perceived sleaziness and permissiveness.

“Flowers For Algernon” – Flowers For Algernon is an award-winning story in several forms: a short story, a novel, and a feature film, called CHARLY. It’s a stream of consciousness story from the point of view of Charlie, a slightly mentally retarded man who is given experimental surgery to improve his cognitive abilities. He gradually becomes more intelligent, surpassing even the scientists. His intelligence and newfound egotism alienates him, and he gradually reverts to his previous state. The Algernon of the title is a mouse who received the same treatment as Charlie prior to him.

“I always knew Ozzy’s glazed appearance and slurred speech” – Ozzy Osbourne was the lead singer of the hard rock band Black Sabbath. In recent years, he’s completely changed his image into an inept, bumbling, drug adled father on his own reality show, The Osbournes.

“Knight Rider instead of Pushing Daisies on Wednesday nights”- the 1980’s show Knight Rider starred David Hasselhoff and William Daniels as the voice of KITT the car, a crime-solving duo. In 2008 a remake of the series began.

“I’ve seen Good Will Hunting too”  - in the 1998 film Good Will Hunting, the title character’s prodigious mental abilities are discovered when he solves a problem on a chalkboard left by a professor while he works as a janitor at a university.

“Dr King” – Martin Luther King Jr. American civil rights activist.

“OJ Simpson verdict” – see previous comment about OJ Simpson.

“Jeopardy” – Jeopardy is a gameshow hosted by Canadian Alek Trebek. Contestants are given answers and have to guess the correct question that prompts the answer.

“Lusitania”- The liner Lusitania was a passenger ship that was sunk in 1914 by a German U-boat, with a huge loss of life. It was a British ship, but a large percentage of the victims were American, and it precipitated the entry of the United States into World War I.

 

#11 Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls

“about to perform turn-down service” – A turn-down service is a service provided in hotel chains: a maid usually makes the bed. To decline this, guests can hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign on their door.

“this kid could write a book on circling first” – “Circling first” is a baseball term, referring to the first base. As a euphemism for teenage seduction, it means that the person has trouble even getting to first base – the very first stage.

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara” – Quote from an early scene in the original 1968 Night of The Living Dead. Johnny mockingly tells this to his sister, Barbra, when she confesses to hating graveyards.

“in a classic “Oh Cool, I’ve seen Carnival of Souls too” moment” – In a classic scene of the 1960-something horror movie Carnival of Souls, the heroine is set upon by a group of eerie dancing ghouls in an abandoned carnival.

“even Templeton to lose his appetite” – Templeton the rat is a character in E.B White’s children’s book Charlotte’s Web. Rats eat gross things.

“or starring in an episode of the X-Files, as her irises have turned black” – The specific X-Files episode refers to is Black Oil. Alien organisms infected human beings and let their presence be known by clouding the host’s eyes.

“to watch one of those DVDs that show a roaring fireplace instead”  – who could forget these babies?!

“the worst novelization of a Gene Kelly movie” – Gene Kelly was a popular actor/dancer in the Golden era of cinema, best known for Singing In The Rain, Take Me Out to The Ball Game, Brigadoon, and An American In Paris.

“She did class rubbings, she learned you never had to press hard” – a pun on lyrics for the song “Suki in the Graveyard”, by Scottish group Belle and Sebastion.

“only one Chuck I’m Up on” ­­– reference to the character Chuck, from Pushing Daisies.

 

#10 Headless Halloween

“is there a patch for that?” – Nicotine patches are a popular aid for smokers wanting to quit the habit. They deliver smaller amounts of nicotine than a cigarette, with the theory that eventually the user will be able to gradually wean themselves off nicotine completely.

“scuffing his new Air Jordans” – shoe brand produced by Nike, named and endorsed by basketball star Michael Jordan. First sold in 1984.

“like a Mamet film with Rebecca Pidgeon” – David Mamet is a playwright and director, best known for writing Glengarry Glen Ross and Wag The Dog. Rebecca Pidgeon is a Scottish singer and actor.

“Poor Ambrose Bierce gets dragged into this” – Ambrose Bierce was a fascinating author of the last century, best known for his short stories and The Devil’s Dictionary. He disappeared in mysterious circumstances at Pigeon Creek. I think Troy is referencing him because the events that have just occurred resemble the events in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which was adapted for episodes of The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

“Twister” – party game. Players have to co-operate to put their hands and feet on specific colours on a mat at the same time as other players without any other part of their body touching the mat. The colours are selected with a spinning wheel.

“not to be confused with being on the Far Side” – Comic strip series by Gary Larson.

“Brandon braces himself for balled up Kleenexes” – masturbation gag.

“Christina Hendrick’s Emmy Dress” – Actor. She’s been in quite a few things, but most internet people will recognise her from two episodes of Firefly, or most recently on Mad Men.

 

#09 Are You Terrified Yet?

“from Agent Cody Banks” – franchise of teen spy comedy films starring Frankie Muniz, best known for the title character in sitcom Malcolm In The Middle.

“MILRNLHBUIC” – MILF is an acronym for “Mother I’d Like to Fuck”, Troy’s expanded on this.

“The RAND Corporation, In Conjunction With the Saucer People…” – The Rand Corporation is an American government think tank agency, but this specifically references the Simpsons episode Grandpa Vs Sexual Inadequacy, where the children of Springfield believe a convuluted conspiracy is underfoot involving their parents.

“finally, a Lord of the Flies for our generation” – 1954 short novel about a group of children stranded on an island without parents during World War II. They form a society that gradually succumbs to superstition and violence, until the survivors are inexplicably rescued at the end in one of the most stunning dues ex machinas of all time. The whole story is an allegory about the nature of the individual vs society and the inherent savagery of human nature.

 

#08 Fright Camp

 

“FW Murnau” – German silent film director of the 1920’s, best known for Nosferatu.

“FX Toole” – pseudonym of the boxer Jerry Boyd, who wrote the short story that the 2004 Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby is based on.

“DB Sweeney” – American actor. Most commercially familiar film would probably be Spawn. Apparently also starring in current series Crash with Dennis Hopper.

“River Beware” – pun on Goosebumps tagline, “Reader Beware”.

“the first rule of Fright Camp is that they don’t talk about Fright Camp” – reference to movie, Fight Club. “The first rule of Fight Club is: you don’t talk about Fight Club.”

“Mr. Sketch scented markers” – Brand of marker pens, with, as the name implies, different scents for each colour.

“LiveJournal usernames” – Livejournal is or was a popular blogging website.

“Cookie jar, spoiling the song” – popular kid’s rhyme: “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? Was it you?” “Couldn’t be!” “Then who?!” 

“game of Seven Up” – school game known under many different names, the most logical being Heads Down, Thumbs Up. An entire class puts their heads down and closes their eyes with their thumb in the air while 3 or 4 classmates wander around and each push a thumb back down. When the students put their heads back up, the ones with their thumbs down have to guess who put their thumb down. If they guess right, they replace the person. Incredible time-sink used by teachers everywhere.

“Allow Mickey Rourke’s style consultant to dress them” - Actor/boxer best known for 9 ½ Weeks, The Pope of Greenwich Village,  and most recently, Sin City or The Wrestler. I don’t know if there’s a specific event that Troy’s referring to.

 “Trapper Keepers” – paper-holder binder thingy used mostly by students in primary school.

“world’s last hypercolour shirt” – Hypercolour was a line of shirts that could change colours when exposed to different temperatures. Brief fad in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

“Paris Hilton wants to have sex” – refers to a tape of Hilton Hotels heiress Paris Hilton having sex, which was then distributed on the internet.

“Dead person in the water is a common Halloween costume:” – this is a still from an episode of Two Guys, A Girl, And A Pizza Place. The character played by Suzanne Cryer is dressed as a victim of the Titanic sinking.

“Ed ‘Cookie’ Jarvis” – competitive eater.

“Cool Doctor Money” – In the Dee Dee’s Haircut episode of My Brother and Me, Dee Dee wanted a “Cool Doctor Money” haircut.

“Goo Punch” – Song/scene from My Brother and Me, sung by the character Goo. ”Goo Punch, come on now everyone, Goo Punch!”

“Kendall Gill” – retired NBA player, who played for the Charlotte Hornets. Guest starred in an episode of… My Brother and Me.

“Farraday is going to marry Shelly the Cook, live in a mansion, have three children, and drive a VW bug” – a reference to a possible outcome in the childhood fortune telling game called MASH (Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House).

“a Bang Bus, assassinated by the MILF Hunter” – BangBus is a “reality porn video” website. I have no idea if the MILF Hunter is an actual component of the show.

“Fred Flintstone said to stop bothering Wilma”- on The Flintstones, Fred and Wilma lived in a house that vaguely resembled a cave. Because they were CAVEmen.

“Adidas snap-pants” – sweatpants, or trackpants, are a type of pants designed for comfort. The waistbands are made of elastic.

 

#07 Revenge R Us

“for those of you who saw Dirty Work” – Dirty Work was a 1998 movie about two friends who open up a revenge-for-hire business with the aim of earning money for a heart surgery operation. Starred Norm McDonald.

“I kept expecting the Joads to emerge” – The Joads were the family from John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, about a family moving from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression.  

“How’s that for a Kodak moment?” – “Kodak moment” was an advertising campaign for the Kodak company. It became a sarcastic catch-phrase for any overly sentimental moment during the 90’s.

 

#06 I Am Your Evil Twin

“Some redheaded Adamses do alright for themselves” – Amy Adams is an American actor, best known today for Enchanted. The screenshot here is from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, which starred Frances McDormand as the title character. The character played by Adams hires her to help schedule her romantic antics. 

“A jug of cider? Is the twist that they’re living at Silver Dollar City?” – Silver Dollar City is a theme park specialising in frontier life amusements.

“A Pirates jersey” – The Pittsburgh Pirates are a baseball team from Pennsylvania, sometimes also known as the Buccaneers.

“THEY ARE LIVING IN DUTCH COUNTRY” – Areas of Pennsylvania are known as Dutch Country because of the high percentage of German Dutch-descended populace.

“they do that at Discovery Zone” – Discovery Zone was a children’s entertainment chain that went bankrupt in 1999.

“poor Prince Albert stuck in a can” – Asking for “Prince Albert in a can” is a phone prank call gag. Prince Albert is a brand of tobacco sold in tins, and when the prankee replies in the affirmative, the prank caller then tells them that they’d better “let him out”, because Prince Albert was also a person. It’s a phone call prank. They aren’t meant to be funny.

“a Full Monty joke somewhere in all of this” – The Full Monty was a film about a group of working class Sheffielders  who perform a strip show to raise money.

“I’ve heard of Monty Burns” – character on The Simpsons.

“Mirror, Mirror on the Wall” – I think Troy is referring to Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: The Diary of Bess Brennan. At one point in the book, the main character is unable to continue writing and the story is continued from her twin sister’s point of view, like the last few chapters of I Am Your Evil Twin.

“Solaris, Multiplicity, and Solaris too” – Solaris was a science-fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem, and then a film by Andrei Tarkovsky about the general state of the human mind, insanity, fantasy, etc. Multiplicity was a film about a scientist played by Michael Keaton who clones himself multiple times.

 

#05 and #04 Invasion of the Body Squeezers

“Cinemascope of children’s novels” – CinemaScope was a type of anamorphic widescreen developed in the 1950’s and 1960’s that gradually fell out of favour and was replaced by Panavision. The final commercial film produced in CinemaScope was In Like Flint.

“the same sense that Epic Movie is an epic” – Epic Movie is the umpteenth movie in the “Genre” Movie series, a series that spoofs whatever the current fads and cultural memes are popular at the time of release. They’re considered the lowest common denominator in every possible way.

“the series’ own Wiki” – Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia that is entirely created by user-generated content. It offers itself as a temple for any other kind of online encyclopaedia, which are known as “Wikis”.

“his nickname is Saucerman, and not because he takes his tea like a gentleman” – Gentlemen traditionally have cups of tea served on a saucer. I don’t know why I thought this needed an explanation.

“Grace Kelly discovers” – In Rear Window, an Alfred Hitchcock film, the character played by Grace Kelly is sent to riffle through the suspected murderer’s house for evidence of his wife’s murder by the character played by Jimmy Stewart.

“his DeMille moment” – Cecil B DeMille was a director, best known for his flamboyant epic movies, like Cleopatra, Samson and Delilah, The Ten Commandments, and The Greatest Show On Earth. I think Troy is referring to his cameo in Sunset Boulevard, where the delusional character Norma Desmond sweeps down a stairway and declares “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr DeMille.”

“his table at Outback is finally available” – Outback Steakhouse is an American steakhouse franchise with an Australian Outback theme.

“If Petsmart could get their hands on this” – Petsmart is an American chain specialising in pet grooming and training.

“Well, in Florida maybe.”-  I guess a reference to Debra Lafave, an American teacher who was convicted for statutory rape with a student?

“that worked out so well for HUAC” – The House of Un-American Activities Committee was an organisation in the 1950’s that was dedicated to routing out perceived Communism in the House of Representatives, the American entertainment industry and other areas of society. It was functionally abolished in 1975.

“Other than being interrupted by Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine” – a reference to a scene from Sleuth.

“Uh, NWA weren’t saying Hug Tha Police” – Niggas With Attitude is a hip-hop/rap group. One of their songs was called “Fuck Tha Police”.

“M. Night, did you rip off this book too?” – M. Night Shyamalan is a director known for movies utilising twist endings and self-cameos. In Signs, the “twist” is that the invading aliens are deathly allergic to water. One of the single most common substances on the entire planet.  

“5000-Second Rule” – A common clause invoked when food is dropped on the floor is the 5-second rule. The logic behind this is that it takes 5 seconds for germs to contaminate the food. Alternatives are the 3-second rule and the 7-second rule.

“and not just with cooties” – fictional disease transmitted from the opposite sex in childhood. It’s become a synonym for any imaginary disease in childhood.

“Is this their Crash moment?” – Crash was a critically acclaimed 2004 movie about the illegal drug industry and various people involved, on both sides.

“Dr Spock’s fifth rule” – Doctor Spock was a child psychologist who wrote a best-selling book on childcare in the 1970’s. He also won a gold medal for rowing in the 1924 Olympic Games.

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” ­– A movie and several remakes about an insidious alien invasion, who operate by taking over people’s minds one-by-one, usually when they fall asleep. At the time, it was mostly a badly-disguised metaphor for communism.

“The Faculty” – The Faculty was a horror movie about a high school invaded by aliens impersonating teachers who plan to infect the entire school, and then the world. Water is involved.

“The X-Files” – Again, 1990’s TV science-fiction/drama series about a vast alien conspiracy.

“Buses don’t run that regularly in LA” – They do.

 

#03 Creature Teacher

“before Ashton Kutcher” – Ashton Kutcher is an actor and host of Punk’D, a reality TV series about pulling pranks on celebrities.

“bullies modelled themselves on Oscar de la Hoya, not Wilde” – Oscar de la Hoya is a successful former boxer. Oscar Wilde was one of the most well known playwrights and raconteurs of all time.

“strativarious” – a portmanteau of ‘Stradivarius’ and ‘various’. Stradivarius is a make of violen/cello/stringed instrument, considered to be the finest of its kind in the world.

“Insert jaundice/The Simpsons/fake tan/questionable Asian joke here” – Jaundice is a disease, symptoms include yellow skin and eyes. Characters on The Simpsons have yellow skin. Fake tans often result in an overly orange complexion. In outdated jokes and things dating from before the 1960’s, Asians were called the “yellow peril”.

“Darwinism” – A sociological theory based on the teachings of Charles Darwin, scientist best known for his work popularising evolution (among many other things). Darwinism is usually expressed as “survival of the fittest”, an expression taken to mean that those in the position of power will naturally wean out the weaker amongst them.

“’YOU UGLY’… Paul, who ain’t got no alibi” – Lyrics from U.G.L.Y, a song by Daphne and Celeste.

“Perez… or enjoys drawing squirting MS Paint penises…” - Perez Hilton is a gossip blogger who does exactly that.

“Less is Lorrie Moore Alert” – Lorrie Moore is a short story writer. She won the O. Henry Award in 1998.

 

#02 Bride of the Living Dummy

“resembles Raggedy-Ann, not the Bride of Frankenstein” – Raggedy-Ann is a series of books about a ragdoll called Raggedy-Ann. Bride of Frankenstein is the 1935 sequel to Frankenstein. The bride doll on the cover on Bride of The Living Dummy has a hairstyle clearly based on the titular Bride of Frankenstein.

“and a summer’s day” – “May I compare thee to a summer’s day?” is the alternate title to William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. A summer’s day is compared unfavourably to the subject of the poem.

“keep away from a Rickles show” – Don Rickles is a well known “insult comic”, who was often a guest on the Tonight Show during Johnny Carson’s reign.

“his best Eric Campbell impression” – Eric Campbell was a silent film actor who usually played the villain role in Charlie Chaplin films.

“Dairy Queen” – Dairy Queen is a fast food and ice cream franchise.

“Jillian and Harrison cross over a set of train tracks. “Hello, Pulitzer?” – The Pulitzer Prize, established by newspaper mogul Joseph Pulitzer, is usually awarded to strongly allegorical novels involving social criticism.

“HOLLYWOOD.” – Films from Hollywood are often considered to glamorise and inaccurately depict reality.

“his best Jerry Lee Lewis impression” – Jerry Lee Lewis is a popular rock/country singer, who has been dogged by criticism for his marriage to, and subsequent divorce from, his younger cousin.

“pass a Supercuts” – chain of budget salon franchises.

 

#01 Cry of the Cat

“VCRs, man” – Video Cassette Recordings were the predecessor to DVDs. REMEMBER THEM?

“the Nanny agaaaaaaaain?!?!” – The Nanny was a 90’s sitcom starring Fran Drescher as a Nanny for a wealthy family in New York. Her secret goal was to seduce the head of the household, Mr Sheffield.

“Wait, wrong cat house” – A cat house is another name for a burlesque house.

“The More You Know” – The More You Know is a public service announcement series on the American television station NBC. The logo shown here was used until 2002.

 “some people enjoy having lunch with The Cat” – The Cat was the character played by Cary Grant in the Hitchcock movie, To Catch A Thief.

“begins posting on ONTD” – Oh No They Didn’t is a community forum on LiveJournal.com centred on celebrity gossip.

“page twelve of Judith Martin’s book… that’s loooow rent, ma’am” – Miss Manners is the pseudonym of etiquette author Judith Martin.

“unspeakably traumatic run-in with a Lunchable in the past” – Lunchables are a popular school snack given to kids with a combination of different snacks in a pack, usually cheese and meat. There are many imitators.

 

Even More Tales to Give You Goosebumps: Special Edition #3

“drew many a Joe Boxer enthusiast” – Joe Boxers are an underwear brand.

“Marc Harmon comedy classic/cautionary horror tale Summer School” – Summer School was a 1987 family comedy about a teacher forced to teach a group of slacker doofuses.

“Mr. Grimley, I must say!” – I initially thought that this was a reference to a minor character, Mr Grimley, in Archie comics. But it’s actually a reference, based on the “I must say!”, a reference to Ed Grimley, a dorky, annoying character played by Martin Short on the Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV and later, Saturday Night Live. Given the context, it could even be a double reference!

“esoteric jokes in Disney’s Pocahontas” – Pocahontas was a Disney cartoon film about Pocahontas and the pioneer John Smith. It’s dramatically different from the actual tale of Pocahontas.

“a Lethal Weapon movie” – The Lethal Weapon series had four incarnations, all starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

“ReadyMade modular dwelling kits… No basements = no problems” – ReadyMade is a kind of pre-built house, used to save time, energy, and money in the construction of houses.

“Sardo-type magic shoppe” – Sardo was the name of a magician in an episode of the 1990’s TV series Are You Afraid of The Dark?

“there aren’t any ghosts in Parcheesi” – Parcheesi is a popular board game.

“Oh cool, I’ve seen Jumanji too” – Jumanji was a comedy/adventure movie starring Robin Williams about a magical board game. In the centre of the board was a magic-eight ball type glass that displayed an outcome in the form of a poem.

“the original Odd Couple” – The Odd Couple was a play, film, and several TV series. The film starred Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as Felix and Oscar, who are forced to share an apartment when Felix‘s wife kicks him out. One is messy, the other is clean.

“The Animaniacs” – Cartoon TV series produced by Stephen Spielberg in the 1990’s.

“some Sub Pop band that would have opened for Paw in 1995” – Paw is a band from Lawrence, Kansas.

“any worse than that scene in Garden State” – Seen Garden State, starring Zach Braff and Natalie Portman and directed by Zach Braff, but it failed to leave much of an impression on me. I think it’s a reference to a character who wears clothes that match trhe wallpaper in their house. 

“Stepford Wives” – In the original Stepford Wives film, a “perfect” community hides the secret that the women are secretly killed and replaced by robotic duplicates.

“The People Under the Stairs” – In The People Under The Stairs, a character named Roach escapes from underneath the stairs and hides in the walls.

“I just found a friend for Adam!” – a reference to the main character two stories previously.

“a huge Judex buff” – In the remake of the French serial series Judex, the title vigilante wore bird masks.

“The Shining” – In the Stanley Kubrick film The Shining, based on the Stephen King novel and starring Jack Nicholson, the haunted hotel has an inexplicable giant hedge maze on the grounds.

“Holy Mixed Signals, Batman!” – In the 1970’s live action Batman series and in some incarnations of the comic, his sidekick, Robin, would say things like this.

“Is the twist going to be that he’s either one of these two?” – a still image from the 2005 film The Baxter, about the dull, second male character in a romantic comedy, who is always doomed to lose the girl to the main character.

“that movie that comes on at 4.00AM on TBN about the guy who dreams about the Rapture inexplicably taking place in an airport” – TBN is the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

 

Goosebumps Retrospective

“Alexander Graham Bell” – inventor and engineering pioneer. As stated, he’s generally credited with the invention of the telephone.

“we’d better invent those plastic things on the end of shoelaces in case it ever comes up” ­– They’re called aglets. They probably weren’t invented by Romans, but those guys did come up with a lot!

“POG craze” – POGS were an inexplicable fad of the 1980’s and 1990’s about the trading of stylised bottle caps. POG stands for Pineapple, Orange, and Guava, which was the name of the brand the caps originally came from.

 “Purple Rein” – Purple Rain were the titles of a song, album, and film by Minnesotan native Prince Rogers Nelson, better known as just Prince or The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, although he is once again just known as Prince.

“Snots Landing”- Knots Landing was an American soap opera TV series about a group of married couples. Alec Baldwin is the most well known former cast member.

“Scholastick-ridden mutt” – Scholastic is the publisher of Goosebumps, as well as a lot of other well-known children’s book series.

“Gnomes love you long time, Joe” – stereotypical dialogue of Vietnamese prostitutes in Vietname War-era movies. The 1987 Stanley Kubrick film Full Metal Jacket was probably the first. “Joe” was a slang term for the American soldier.

“action comedy A Gnome Named Norm”  - A Gnome Named Norm is an actual movie starring Anthony Michael Hall.

“elaborate Snorks homage” – 1980’s cartoon series based on a Belgian comic strip about an adorable society of seahorse-esque creatures living under the sea. Elaborate Smurfs ripoff.

“’Tippi’ Hedren could have really been something” – “Tippi” Hedren was the star of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

“Cool Ranch tortilla chips” – Cool Ranch is a popular flavour of Doritos nachos.

“Cracked magazine’s demise” – Cracked magazine was/is a humour magazine,  and competitor with MAD Magazine. The actual magazine went out of print several years ago, but it now has a new life as a humour website.

“Superstitious for most of a McFlurry” – Superstitious was R.L Stine’s first and probably only foray into the adult horror market. The plot vaguely resembles Rosemary’s Baby. McFlurrys are a dessert offered by McDonalds

“Elaborate ploy for Eric Stoltz’s affections” – actor, originally slated to play Marty McFly in the Back to The Future film. A reference to the character he played in 1985’s Mask, Rocky Dennis, loosely based on the true story of the real Rocky’s life.

“entire book is elaborate precursor to Angels and Demons” – book by Dan Brown about an apparent Illuminati plot to destroy Vatican City using anti-matter. Prequel to the popular The DaVinci Code, which recycles almost the entire plot.

“Sienna Miller” – model and actor. Best known for playing Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgewick in Factory Girl.

 “Members of Ice-T’s wife bronzing posse” – Ice-T is a former rapper and actor, best known these days for his roles on the Law and Order franchise. In a career lowpoint, he appeared in Tank Girl. Specifically, this is referring to CoCo, who, based on the pictures I’ve just seen, probably hasn’t just had bronzing done to her.

“rapid weight gain is fine if you’re DeNiro” – Robert DeNiro, in preparation for 1980’s Raging Bull, famously put on almost 30kg to play Jame LaMotta in his slump. One of the few actors to also pull this feat off was Vincent D’Onfrio, who actually gained slightly more for his role in Full Metal Jacket.

“Geico Cavemen have taught us nothing else” – In an advertising campaign for the GEICO insurance company, a group of cavemen are offended by the slogan “so easy that a caveman could do it”. Apparently it has spawned a TV series that is currently in production.

“Underdog had left empty” – cartoon series about a superhero dog, voiced by Wally Cox!

 “Slightly less terrifying than Pleasantville” – 1998 film starring Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, William H Macy, and Don Knotts. Two twins are transported into the black-and-white world of the fictional TV series Pleasantville, a stereotypical naïve 1950’s small-town.

 

#34 Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes

“Phantasm XXXIV” – In the long-running horror film series Phantasm, the henchmen of the evil “Tall Man” are gravity-compressed dwarves.

“a McCall this angry since Gordon wore Casey’s shirt” – In the episode Sally, of short-lived American comedy/drama series Sports Night, Casey McCall leaves his shirt in a woman’s apartment and declines to go back to pick it up. Later in the episode, he recognises Gordon wearing the same shirt.

“I just don’t understand how anyone can hate the Burtons’ dog” – a reference to the short-lived series, Ed, about a man who returns to his home town to manage a bowling alley.

“New Jersey snowglobes” – The state motto of New Jersey is “The Garden State”.

“Truly Madly Deeply cassingles” – Truly Madly Deeply was a song by pop band Savage Garden.

“Joe’s father didn’t marry John Waters” – John Waters directed a film called Pink Flamingoes. It starred female impersonator Divine.  

“Gnome Owners Association” – A Home Owners Association.

“or half-Japanese” – “Hapa” is a slang term for somebody who is half-Japanese.

“Gnome Chomsky” – Noam Chomsky is an author, philosopher, and political activist.

“Gnome N. Clature” – Nomenclature.

“Gnomie the Clown” – Homey the Clown was a character on the sketch comedy show In Living Colour, featuring the innumerable Wayans family.

“Lil’ Gnomeo” – Lil’ Romeo is the stage name of American hip-hop singer and basketball player Percy Romeo Miller.

“Gnome McDonald” – I think this is a reference to Norm McDonald, a Canadian comedian who hosted Saturday Night Live for several years and briefly had his own, self-titled sitcom.

“Kodagnome” – Kodachrome is a colour film format trademark of the Eastman Kodak company. It’s also the name of a Paul Simon song.

“Sean ‘Puffy’ Gnomes” – Sean “Puffy” Combs is an American rapper/hip-hop artist.

“Gnomer Simpson” – Homer Simpson is a character on long-running animated series The Simpsons.

“Why so serious” – a quote by the Joker from the 2008 Batman film The Dark Knight Returns.

“the twist is the gnome is actually Al Jolson?” – Al Jolson was a jazz singer, actor, and all-round performer best known for his starring role in The Jazz Singer. He donned blackface in the role; stereotypical blackface acts involved a love for watermelon.

“everyone’s favourite Emilio Estevez comedy, Men At Work” – Troy tells me that this is a joke about another of Emilio’s films, Stakeout, which involves staking out things, but coincidentally, Men At Work, which starred Emilio Estevez and his brother, Charlie Sheen, as a pair of garbage men who find a dead body, ALSO features a spying scene.

“just like any show on TLC” – The Learning Channel is an American educational cable TV station.

“I was reminded of Planet Terror”- Planet Terror was one half of the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez collaborative double-film Grindhouse, created as a homage to exploitative grindhouse movies.

 

#26 My Hairiest Adventure

“Milkbone dog treats or something” – Milk-bone dog treats are a brand of, well, dog treats, made of meat and milk.

“that time Vampire Weekend rejected any other band name at all in favour of ‘Vampire Weekend’” – Vampire Weekend is an recently formed, alternative rock band. Apparently the name derives from a short film made by the lead singer – who goes by the name of Ezra Koenig – the second strangest portmanteau of Ezra Pound and Walter Koenig I’ve ever heard.

“Isaac Brock is sobbing into a couch cushion” – Isaac Brock is a musician in the band Modest Mouse. He has a uniquely squeaky style of guitar playing.

“they all turn out to be Marilyn Manson or something” – Marilyn Manson, born Brian Hugh Warner, is an American shock musician and singer. He has two differently coloured irises, although I don’t know if they are the result of heterochromia or contact lenses.

“there goes any relevant Degrassi jokes” – Manny was a character on the Canadian teen drama series Degrassi. In one controversial plotline, she becomes pregnant.

“maybe he’s the mysterious fourth Smoosh sibling” – Smoosh is an American pop rock band of three sisters. They have never given out their actual surname in public.

“so close to what teenagers are doing in the bathroom, and yet so far” – Teenagers cluster in bathrooms, away from their parents, to masturbate.

“Dr. Murkin” – Merkin is a slang term for a pubic wig.

“outside of barking ‘Jingle Bells’ in popular Christmas novelty songs, dogs don’t possess musical abilities” – A reference to the barking, gifted, “Jingle Dogs”

“Eric Clapton songbook… with a squeaky-guitar rendition of ‘Cocaine’” – Eric Clapton is a renowned American guitarist, formerly of the band Cream. Cocaine is the name of an anti-drug cover song he played, originally written by J.J Cale.

“luckily he beat Jack Lemmon” – a reference to The Apartment, starring Jack Lemmon as a middle management executive who loans his apartment to his superiors for meeting their mistresses. His fifth superior has an affair with the character played by Shirley MacLaine, and her character, realising the true nature of their relationship, tries to kill herself in Jack Lemmon’s apartment. A scene shows him removing all the razor blades from his bathroom, just in case.

“at least they all end before ‘Needle In The Hay’ can start playing” – Needle in the Hay is a 1995 song by Elliot Smith. In the 2001 movie The Royal Tenenbaums, Luke Wilson’s character Richie Tenenbaum calmly shaves his beard and then tries to kill himself with the razor while this song plays.

“a book report on  a Matt Christopher novel” – Children’s writer, probably best known for his sports-centric stories.

“Bruce Coville” – American author, mostly known for science fiction/fantasy children’s novels like the Aliens Ate My Homework series.

“lots of cool people wear gloves: chauffeurs, elevator operators, Mickey Mouse” – They sure do. Mickey Mouse is a character and logo of the Walt Disney Company.

“they can no longer re-enact Zaireeka on stage” – The name of a 1997 experimental album by The Flaming Lips.

“they’ll just turn into Casiotone For The Painfully Alone” – Casiotone For The Painfully Alone is the name of a one-man electronica music project.

“they’re not the only ones doing it for Lily” – In the series Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell played the title character. A long-running series arc was the discovery of the murderer of her best friend, Lily.

 “I Want To Hold Your Hand” – A 1963 song by possibly the most popular band of all-time, the Beatles.

“huge fans of the Teen Wolf movies” – Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf II were two 1980’s movies about teenagers who discover their lycanthrope lineage. It also inspired a cartoon series.

 

#27 Night In Terror Tower

 

Woody Allen’s Match Point – one of Woody Allen’s most recent films, about a tennis player, set in London. Apparently it is Woody’s personal favourite!

Louis Theroux – British documentary maker, best known for his travelogue videos, books, and radio broadcasts. He’s also done documentaries on unusual subculture groups, particularly in Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends.

Alexa Chung – British model, broadcast host, and columnist. Chung and Theroux do not mix.

Skins – British teen drama set in Bristol. Like most teen dramas, it is chock-full of angst, drugs, sex, and limited amounts of rock and roll.

“Hey Eddie, if you don’t want to get scared, I’ve got just the movie for you” ­– The picture below is a still from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, a “horror” film about plants that release spores that compel people to kill themselves. Spores. The monster is spores. Invisible, floating spores.

Dean Koontz’s The Watchers – Dean Koontz is an American author, mentioned either prior or a few entries down, I’m writing these stupid comments out of sequence. Watchers is a 1987 novel he wrote about a self-aware dog with human intelligence being hunted down by an ape-creature with similar attributes.

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower – Stephen King, author, wrote a best-selling, seven part mythology series called The Dark Tower, about various characters, some as stupidly named as “Randall Flagg”.  

“a wave of rats move in on the humans, because when you’re already cribbing from a few Stephen King books, what’s one more?” – I think this is a reference to The Graveyard Shift, a short story and filmed adaption about an infestation of mutated rats underneath a mill in Maine.

the man in black. But instead of regaling the youngsters with gravel-voiced country rock – Johnny Cash, American country/rock singer/songwriter, best known for his political and social themed songs like Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk The Line, and Ring of Fire. A nickname bestowed on him was “The Man In Black” for his distinctive stage style: all black, even a long coat. A biopic of his life was produced in 2006, called Walk The Line.

Pier 1 – Pier 1 is an American retail outlet that specialises in furniture.

Joanie Loves Chachi – American TV series, a short-lived 1980’s spin-off of the popular 1970’s look at the 1950’s, Happy Days. It starred Scott Baio and Erin Moran as the title characters, who had moved to Chicago to start a rock career. Happy Days was itself a spin-off from Love: American Style, a vignette-style comedy.

(Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!) – a reference to the opening credits of Laverne and Shirley, another Happy Days spin-off. The two title characters skip down the street and sing this at the end of a hopscotch chant.

“But the twist is: ‘Still from Pickpocket’” – this is a still image from the 1959 film Pickpocket, about a pickpocket who pickpockets. (the previous sentence is was a nominee for a redundant sentence of redundancy award) At the end of the film, he is caught, and he is visited by his lover. The character, Eddy, in this Goosebumps book, is a pickpocket.

 

#56 The Curse of Camp Cold Lake

“cock-block twelve-year olds?” – “cock-block” is a term meaning to deliberately interrupt another person’s attempts to seduce somebody. That sounded so square.

“Camp Cold Lake is revealed to be:” – “Wetter is better” was the advertising slogan for the SuperSoaker water gun in the 1990’s. The ads featured a camp counsellor repeatedly shouting, “WETTER. IS. BETTER!!!!”

“scornfully reminds Sarah that the presidential election of 1840 had already been decided” – James Polk was the running mate of Martin Van Buren in the 1840’s Presidential Election. His wife’s name was Sarah. Beware history! Troy also tells me that a campaign song and slogan for their unsuccesful campaign was “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too”, CEMENTING THE LINK. >:(

“unfamiliar with Virginia Woolf’s personal biography” – Author and feminist Virginia Woolf is well known in popular culture to have drowned, widely believed to be a successfully pulled-off suicide attempt.

“she and her boyfriend George Glass are sure Sarah just drowned for the attention” – On the 1960’s/1970’s American sitcom The Brady Bunch, Jan Brady invented a fake boyfriend named George Glass, named after two things she was looking at, at the time.

 

#57 My Best Friend Is Invisible

“who apparently caught Porky’s on USA Up All Night” – I suppose measuring growth was a plot on the Canadian teen gag comedy film Porky’s, and knowing the reputation of Porky’s, it’s probably the length of something else. USA Up All Night was a long-running series on the USA Network featuring low-budget movies.

“he wittily quotes Shakespeare” – William Shakespeare’s play, Richard III, opens with the title character facetiously saying “Now is the winter of our discontent”.

“and put on the red light” – Roxanne, a song by Sting and the Police, exhorts a prostitute named Roxanne that she doesn’t have to “put on the red light”.

“who needs visibilities amirite” – A play on the popular phrase, “with friends like this, who needs enemies”

“no one tell Jessica Valenti about this book!” – Jessica Valenti is a feminist blogger.

“makes perfect sense only if you’re a cast member of Dallas” – Dallas  was a American soap-opera that ran during the 1980’s and 1990’s. Murder and mayhem were common features of the series, like any other soap opera. It’s particularly known for the plotline “Who Shot J.R Ewing?” and the finale of the 1986 season in which the entire previous season was revealed to have been a dream.

“the ghost is Albert Finney!” – Albert Finney is a British actor. In the 2007 film Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, the finale ends with his character, Charles, suffocating his son with a pillow.

“five paragraphs on Of Mice and Men” – Of Mice and Men is an acclaimed 1937 novel by John Steinbeck about George and Lennie, two men on the run after Lennie accidently kills a woman.

 

Goosebumps Live On Stage: Screams In the Night

“written and directed by Rupert Holmes… Tony-Award winning playwright… Jimmy Buffet’s ‘the Pina Colada Song’” – Like Troy explained, Rupert Holmes wrote Escape, better known as the Pina Colada Song. He also wrote one of the most renowned cannibalism themed songs, Timothy.

“is the twist that they’re really Kelly, Zack, Mr. Belding’s daughter, and Screech?” – characters from the 80’s/90’s sitcom Saved By The Bell.

“…an animatronic gorilla turns into an old man. Oh cripes, don’t tell Ben Stein!” – Ben Stein is an actor/attorney/writer/financial commentator best known for his distinctive “droning, boring” voice. You probably don’t know his name, but you definitely know his voice. He has publicly denounced the theory of evolution.

“like in North… get it, it’s 1998” – North was a movie in 1998, starring Elijah Wood as a boy who runs away from home.

“who aren’t characters in Fanny and Alexander” – Fanny and Alexander is a movie by Ingmar Bergman. Lanterns a re a plot point.

“Dr Barton… openly wishes the kids could be more like their older sister Mischa. The O.C what I did there?” – Mischa Barton was an actor most well known for her role as a puking ghost in The Sixth Sense and Marissa Cooper on The O.C.

“still image of a scene from jean-Luc Godard’s ‘A Woman Is A Woman’” – This is a screenshot fromA Woman Is A Woman, about an exotic dancer who wants to have a child with her unresponsive lover.

“there goes the theory that David Mamet… Stine’s work on Edmond” – David Mamet, as mentioned, is a playwright and writer. Edmond was about a typical white-collar guy in New York who goes on a journey of self-discovery and violence when he buys a switch-blade.

“The Judy Winslow Story” – Judy Winslow was a character on Family Matters who inexplicably disappeared from the series.

“performance of Rumplestiltskin” – folk story (of many different versions), generally about a woman imprisoned by a dwarf until she can guess his name.

“pre-configures both Cube and the Saw movies” – In Cube and Saw, as Troy mentions, characters are tormented by life-or-death puzzles and mind-games.

“’A big truck full of explosives crashed into the base of the bridge,’ Mr Barton explained. ‘Boom! It blew up!’ Thank you Brian Collins” – Brian Collins is a reporter who used the expression, “Boom goes the dynamite!” when sportscasting for a college game. Apparently it briefly became an internet meme and sensation.

 

#58 Deep Trouble II

“like Hedwig, has a maximum length of one inch” – Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a 1998 musical and film about a man turned woman named Hedwig who forms a band called The Angry Inch. The “angry inch” of the title refers to her mutilated genitals.

“the local Petsmart” – As mentioned above, Petsmart is pet grooming and training franchise.

“I hope it’s a peanut butter shark!” – Jellyfish/Peanut Butter Shark go together like jelly and peanut butter.

“way to escargot!” – Escargot is the French term for a cooked dish of snails.

“Dr Ritter lays out his Eight Simple Rules For Discovering My Secret Experiment” – John Ritter was an actor, best known for his roles in sitcoms Three’s Company and Eight Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter. He died suddenly of a congenital heart defect on the 11^th September, 2003, on the set of Eight Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter.

“Move it on the double. ‘Cause if you don’t you’re in deep, deep trouble” – Michael Jackson and the producers of The Simpsons teamed up in the early 1990’s to creature two music videos. One of them, Deep Deep Trouble, contained these lyrics.

“Gull attacks can be thrilling” – A reference to the Hitchcock thriller film The Birds, about bird attacks on a small island. Famously ambiguous ending.

“Rodan-sized birds” – Giant pterodactyl/bird Rodan is one of the many opponents of the famous Japanese monster-substituting-for-nuclear-paranoia, Godzilla.

“a certain ABC Drama” – A clear reference to Lost, a infinitely running drama series set on a deserted island.

“relax and get Eli Stoned” – which is why a reference to Eli Stone, a drama series about an attorney who begins to hallucinate the future, is such an unexpected twist! What a card!

 

Do, A ‘Main, A Web Domain

The title probably refers to the rhyme, “Doe, a deer, a female deer” from the song ‘Do-Re-Mi’ in the musical , ‘The Sound of Music’.

“Tippi Hedren could have really been something” – Nathalie Kay “Tippi” Hedren is an actor who shot briefly to fame in her starring roles in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and Mamie. Hitchcock declined to work with her after these films. She’s also known for her conservationist works and for being the mother of Melanie Griffith.

“The Pope” ­– The Pope (The Father) is the formal title for the head of the Roman Catholic Church. His business address is Vatican City. The current Pope is Pope Benedict XVI.

 

#19 Deep Trouble

“Scholastic would be cutting Universal a cheque” – The tagline for the Steven Spielberg horror/thriller Jaws II was “just when you thought it was safe to enter the water”.

“that other well-respected Dr. D?” – Doctor Demento is the stage name of Barry Eugene Hansen, a popular American radio comic DJ.

“Steve Irwin… the Crocodile Hunter: Collision course” – Australian TV personality and animal hustler Steve Irwin died in a freak accident involving a sting-ray in 2006. Prior to this, he starred in his own motion picture, Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course.

“just say no to reef” – Reef is a slang term for marijuana. Anti-drug slogans frequently admonish teenagers to “just say no”.

“Futurama” – The screenshot here is from Deep South, an episode of Futurama, in which Fry encounters and falls in love with a mermaid named Umbriel.

“the D stands for dinero”- a slang term for “dollar”.

“she’s a member of Wolf Eyes” – Wolf Eyes is a “noise rock” band from Michigan. Presumably the lead singer has a high-pitched, squeaky voice.

“Sea People… Splash… the Little Mermaid… the Thirteenth Year… Aquamarine… She Creature…”  - All are movies with recurring themes of whimsical mermaid adventures… except for She Creature, which is possibly the least whimsical thing that has ever happened. It’s also the name of a 1957 horror movie that was featured on an episode of the American series Mystery Science Theater 3000.

“Troy McClure alert” – The character of washed-up actor Troy McClure on The Simpsons is strongly implied to be attracted to marine animals.

“the children’s menu at Red Lobster” – American seafood chain restaurant. Slogan: “For the seafood lover in you.”

 

More & More Tales to Give You Goosebumps

“that pottery wheel scene in Ghost” – Ghost is a supernatural romance movie starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. In one scene, the ghostly Swayze helps Demi Moore at a pottery wheel my manipulating her arms while they kneed the clay together.

“don’t tell AdBusters” – Adbusters is a Canadian-founded organisation that targets advertising in the media.

“like Degrassi, goes there” – As previously mentioned, Degrassi was a Canadian teenage drama that dealt with controversial topics, like racism, drugs, alcohol, teenage promiscuity, etc.

“a Hype Williams joke here” – Harold “Hype” Williams is an American music video director. I couldn’t figure out the reference myself, but Troy commented that he uses fish-eye lens in a lot of his films. 

“Mr Roeper that it’s okay for them to share a boat with two girls because they’re both homosexuals” – In American sitcom Three’s Company, the main character, played by John Ritter, pretends to be gay in order to share an apartment with two women. Mr Roeper was the name of the landlord, who frequently had to be convinced that he was gay.

“the Money Pit… the ‘Burbs… Volunteers… Cast Away… Splash… Big… Catch Me If You Can… Bonfire of the Vanities… Bachelor Party… Punchline… Turner and Hooch… Charlie Wilson’s War-ning… the Terminal” – All films starring popular American actor Tom Hanks.

“Lisa McFly… Biff Tannen” – McFly is the surname of the main character Marty, played by Michael J Fox in the Back To The Future series of films. Biff Tannen is the name of another character in the series, a scheming bully.

“reverse Nicky Nicky Nine Doors” – Nicky Nicky Nine Doors is apparently the Southern Ontario expression for the prank of knocking on a door and running away.

“cribbed a name from Back to the Future” – See two references above.

“is magically transformed in Lisa Loeb” – Lisa Loeb is an American folk musician who wears cats-eye frame glasses. She’s done some acting.

“microwave burritos and the state of Hawaii, don’t exist” – In 1957, neither of these things existed as we know them! Hawaii did technically exist, but it was not a state!

“where we’re going, we don’t need jokes” – paraphrase of a quote from the aforementioned Back To The Future series! The full phrase is “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!”, referring to the new hovering ability of the time-traveling DeLorean.

“I bet the twist is that she’s a Blythe” – a reference to Blythe Dolls; bizarre-looking dolls with oversized heads that were manufactured only in 1972. By pulling a string on the back, their eyes changed colours. They were the subject of a freakish picture book called This Is Blythe.

“it’s like Fantasia but interesting” – Fantasia is a Disney film with a lot of different, wildly divergent scenes, but one of the most well known is one in which Mickey Mouse, as a sorcerer’s apprentice, bewitches a mop into doing his chores for him. When it refuses to stop, he chops it with an axe, but it causes it to duplicate. He keeps trying to destroy, resulting in more and more mops.

“a new meaning to the Mirror Has Two Faces” – The Mirror Has Two Faces is a Barbara Streisand directed, produced by, and starring film.

“one word for you: Lunchables” – previously mentioned, a brand of quick snack packs sold by Oscar Meyer.

“they said the evil spirit’s name backwards and it disappeared” – various urban legends state this as a fact, like the Bloody Mary urban legend.

“Diane and Robert click their heels” - an act depicted at the end of MGM’s The Wizard of Oz.

 

#54 Don’t Go To Sleep!

“life size cardboard cutout of a Klingon” – Klingons are a race of warrior-losers in the science fiction series Star Trek.

“poor Worf” – the name of the most well known Klingon in the series, played by actor Michael Dorn.

“Biggie Biggie Biggie can’t you see, sometimes your woofs just terrorise Matt” – Lyrics to Can’t You See, a song by deceased rapper Notorious B.I.G.

“at the expense of Anna Karenina” – Anna Karenina is a gargantuan novel by Leo Tolstoy about the lives of wildly different characters in Tsarist Russia. It’s often considered one of the greatest works of fiction of all time.

“or knocking up Manny” – In an episode arc of Degrassi, the character of Manny becomes pregnant.

“the subscription to AARP’s magazine isn’t worth it” – The American Association of Retired Persons is an organisation dedicated to the rights of the elderly.

“RU Slime has nothing on the real deal” – R U Slime was the satirical author name of Gooflumps, a parody of Goosebumps written in 1995.

“Hand to God, Bruce and Wayne” – Bruce Wayne is the alias of the comic book character Batman.

“members of an elite squad known as the Reality Police. This is their story” – Paraphrase of the opening credits of one of the Dick Wolf produced Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

“Abraham Lincoln” – Abraham Lincoln was the 13^th President of the United States. A staple of the “wacky situation” is an inexplicable appearance of Abraham Lincoln, probably originating from the Star Trek episode The Savage Curtain.

“VHS rental of Home Alone” – Home Alone is the first in the Home Alone film series, about a young boy inexplicably left alone to fend off home invasions by groups of criminals. The first two starred Macaulay Culkin, child actor.

 

#06 Let’s Get Invisible!

“the Tommy Wiseau of children’s literature” – Tommy Wiseau is an actor, director and writer who has pursued a wide variety of projects. His 2003 vanity project, The Room, is considered to be an unintendedly hilarious masterpiece.

“X-Force comics” – X-Force comics were a 1990’s spinoff of the X-Men superhero comic series. They were briefly popular during the reign of Goosebumps.

“Ellen Page in Mouth to Mouth”- Ellen Page is an actor best known for the title character in the movie, Juno. In the coming-to-age movie Mouth to Mouth, she has a haircut like that described here.

“the Terminator movie” – in a nutshell, the Terminator series is a science fiction series about androids sent back in time to prevent a nuclear apocalypse.

“Whitey… oh no, don’t tell the brownshirts!” –Most likely a reference to the nickname for the SA, a stormtrooper/terror organisation during the days of Nazi Germany. “Whitey” is slang for Caucasian, sometimes considered offensive.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall” – paraphrase from the Disney cartoon adaption of Snow White.

“Let’s Get Invisible… let me see my body gone” – Let’s Get Physical is a 1981 song and music video by Olivia Newton John. It was also briefly an ad jingle for Physical brand milk.

“Uri Geller must be close by”- Yuri Geller is a famous “mystic” who claims to have psychic and telekinetic abilities. His trademark is a spoon-bending ability.

“and watch Saturday Night Live” – Saturday Night Live is a long-running American comedy sketch show created by Canadian Lorne Michaels. A huge number of popular comedians established their careers on the show, and occasionally a movie based on a sketch from the show comes out. The most well known movie spin-off is Wayne’s World.

“why Brad Pitt was on the cover of People” – Brad Pitt is a popular actor. People is a celebrity gossip magazine.

“sounds like Max’s brother isn’t the only lefty!” – “Left wing” is a term for liberal views.

“it’s better he’s doing this than molesting Kim Dickens” – In The Hollowman, the character played by Kim Dickens is attacked and killed by the invisible, psychotic Kevin Bacon.

“Jacques Lacan Alert” – French philosopher and psychologist. One of his contributions to psychoanalysis was “the mirror stage”, regarding self-identification.

“re-monogram all his stuff” – Monogramming is the practice of inscribing personal property with the owner’s initials.

“Ghandi Alert” – Mohandas Ghandi was an Indian civil rights activist who accomplished many, many things, but is best known for his advocacy of peaceful, non-violent resistance.

 

#16 One Day At Horrorland

“Like Lincoln or William Tell” – Abraham Lincoln and William Tell are figures from history. Lincoln was the 13^th American President, and his reputation is so highly regarded that he is considered by many to be the greatest American President of all time. William Tell is a figure of Scandinavian folk history who rebelled against a cruel king in a series of folk stories.

“John Barrymore in Twentieth Century” – In the 1934 film Twentieth Century, John Barrymore plays Oscar, an overly flamboyant actor.

“Schroedinger’s Cat situation” – the Schroedinger’s Cat theory is a thought experiment regarding the uncertainty principle. It involves the paradox of a cat in the box with a flask of poison, which can be broken depending on the reaction of a Geiger counter to levels of radiation. The paradox is that an observer cannot tell whether the cat is alive or dead without opening the box, and that theoretically, it is the act of opening the box that determines the life of the cat. Without opening the box, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead.

“they pass three Six Flags parks” – Six Flags is a prolific American theme park franchise, originally established in 1961. Apparently there are over 21 locations in the United States alone.

“they apparently gave Apollonia a ride too” – In the Godfather Part II, Michael Corleone marries a woman named Apollonia. She is killed in an assassination attempt on Michael’s life by a car-bomb.

“plenty of pagers” – pagers are an electronic messaging device similar to BlackBerries.

“ The plot is essentially: Lizzy admits she’s scared of things, Miranda has been skipping lunches and faints” - Ryan W. Mead has pointed out that this is a reference to an episode of the Disney show Lizzie McGuire, where the title character’s best friend Miranda fights a round with anorexia. I’d also emasculate the guy for knowing this, but seeing as how I’m responsible for a picture of Madame on this page, somebody else will have to!

“Still more fun than Superman: the Ride” – “Superman: The Ride of Steel” are a pair of rides featured at two Six Flags theme parks.

“Between reruns of Wings” – Wings was an American series that ran during the 1990’s about two brothers who ran a small air company.

“what’s passed is Evelyn Waugh” – Evelyn Waugh was an author, best known for Brideshead Revisited, a novel about the Catholic aristocracy, but he produced a huge variety of writing, both serious and humorous.

“at least they didn’t park under an Applebee’s ad” – Applebees’s is an American casual dining restaurant.

 

#40 Night of the Living Dummy III

“just like that other street punk” – Where’s Wally/Waldo? is a children’s book series where the reader had to discover the titular character amongst a large crowd of people. It also inspired a TV cartoon adventure series that incorporated a similar premise.

“nicknames him Smiley… his affinity for A Thousand Acres” – A Thousand Acres is a novel re-telling the story of Shakespeare’s King Lear on a farm property in Iowa. The author’s name is Jane Smiley.

“Glass houses, etc” – Aphorism: “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”, referring to hypocrisy.

“Flickr” – online photo-sharing website.

“Humanitas Award for RL Stine” – The Humanitas Award is a film and television award given to writing with strongly humanitarian themes.

“Job well done. All’s Well that ends Well. Well-come Back Mr. Kotter” – All’s Well That Ends Well is a Shakespeare play and general aphorism. Welcome Back Mr. Kotter was an American sitcom starring Gabe Kaplan as a teacher of a rowdy group of students, best known these days for his Poker playing skills.

“archive of Xanga before he made it friends only” – social networking website, like myspace.com or facebook.com

“Nutter Butter break” – Nutter Butters are a peanut-shaped-and-flavoured sandwich cookie sold in the United States. They look and sound delicious!

“C+Ped” – shorthand for “copy and pasted”, a term referring to copying writing from one document and then “pasting” it directly into another.

“Ken Russell isn’t the only one trying to forget the white worm” – Ken Russell is a director. The Lair of the White Worm is a movie he directed based on the Bram Stoker novel. At the time it was critically panned.

 

#31 Night of the Living Dummy II

 

“Jean Seberg, take a huff” – Jean Seberg was an American actor best known for her drug use. She appeared in the musical Paint Your Wagon, and then died from an overdose of alcohol and barbituates in 1979. I assumed at the time that this was a reference to her drug use, but Troy’s corrected me: it’s a reference to her role in Jean Luc-Godard’s New Wave movie, Breathless.

“NPR Parents” – National Public Radio is an American non-profit organisation that helps to syndicate radio programs.

“if hipsters love Zooey Deschanel” – Zooey Deschanel is an American actor and musician, best known for a supporting role in the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous.

“that episode of the Simpsons too” – In The Simpsons episode Krusty Gets Cancelled, character Krusty the Clown attempts to emulate his rival Gabbo by introducing his own dummy on his show. It goes spectacularly awry when the dummy’s jaw falls off, Krusty accidently crushes the dummy’s head, and then throws the dummy directly into a hysterical, screaming audience of children.

“a form of protest against Wal-Mart” – Wal-Mart is a chain of consumer shopping centres in the United States, founded in Arkansas. It is a constant target of protest groups, for various reasons ranging from third world exploitation, commercialism, market oversaturation, etc.

“Maggie’s Farm on his guitar… Dylan and VU… Nico of the Living Dummy” – Maggie’s Farm is a song by Robert Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan, a popular American singer/songwriter known for his folk songs and near-constant popularity over the last 30 years. The Velvet Underground was a short-lived experimental band featuring Lou Reed. Andy Warhol’s collaborator Nico was a member of the band at his insistence.

“the u-bomb” – a slang term for “fuck” is “the f-bomb”.

“Samuel Richardson’s Pamela” – Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, is a 1740 book about a maid who marries her master and then ascends to high society.

“Banana Republic” – Banana Republic is an American clothing chain that originally specialised in travel-themed clothing.

“Party House… Kid n Play arrive and Margot informs them that they’ve transposed the address” – Kid ‘n Play were a hip-hop performance team in the 1980’s and 1990’s with distinctive haircuts that were frequently parodied at the time. The pair starred in a series of movies called Party House.

“I can only imagine the situation plays out like this in his head” – In the 2007 comedy film The Ten, one segment features Winona Ryder falling in love with a ventriloquist’s dummy called Gary.

“down to the Frosted Flakes” – breakfast cereal produced by Kellogs; corn flakes covered in a layer of icing sugar. The mascot is Tony the Tiger, who was voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft until his death.

“Nick and Nora they ain’t” – Nick and Nora Charles were a pair of married sleuths in the Thin Man series of books (written by hard-boiled author Dashiell Hammett), movie, and spin-off TV series.

“Slappy loves the films of Miklos Jancso” – Miklos Jancso is an avant garde Hungarian director who frequently uses symbolism in his films.

 

#07 Night of the Living Dummy

“Betsey Johnson skirt… John Cale’s ex-wife” – Betsey Johnson is an American dress designer. She was previously married to genre-busting John Cale, former member of the Velvet Underground group with Lou Reed.

“SoHo BoHo” –SoHo is short for “South of Houston St”, an area in New York famed for artistic development. Andy Warhol’s Factory was based in SoHo. BoHo is short for “Bohemian”, meaning a hedonistic/artistic lifestyle in this context. 

“the doll is alive with the sound of nuisance” – A reference to the lyrics “the hills are alive with the sound of music”, from the song Sound of Music, of the film of the same title. Based on a musical.

“reading a Stephen King book” – Stephen King is a prolific American author, most well known for his horror stories like Carrie, The Shining, Cujo, and Christine. His stories are often adapted into film and television. He has also written for different genres and under the pseudonym Richard Bachmann.

“GG Allin doll to the concert” – G.G Allin was a shock rock musician and singer who was well known for bizarre on-stage antics and personal life, including, yes, throwing up on stage, and much worse. He died of a heroin overdose.

“Kristy wakes up early and makes her way downstairs… this book will suck all the way to the end” – this is written to mimic the verse of A Visit From St Nicholas (AKA The Night Before Christmas), a poem written in 1823. It established most of the well-known conventions of Santa Claus in popular culture.

“strict conservatives, they refuse to acknowledge the change in the air” – a commonly held belief by strict conservatives is a dismissal of some or most elements of the theory of global warming.

“he loves vaudeville” – dummies and ventriloquism are staples of vaudeville entertainment.

“Wrist-cut-it-outers: A Love Story” - Wristcutters: A Love Story is a 2007 film.

“less Frasier and more Flo” – two American sitcoms that were originally spin-offs from earlier shows. Frasier was a long-running, acclaimed spin-off from likewise long-running and acclaimed sitcom Cheers. Flo was less successful, only running for one year from 1980 to 1981. It was a spin-off from Alice.

 

#45 Ghost Camp

“A Beatles song… ‘Can’t Bus Me Love’?” – Can’t Buy Me Love is a well-known song by the Beatles. Not much more to explain.

“the verbal skill of Busdriver” – Busdriver is the stage name of Regan Farquhar, an American rapper.

“and of course Gak was never cool” – Gak was a blubbery moulding toy made by Mattel in the 1990’s.

“more verses than a Joanna Newsom song” – Joanna Newsom is a Californian folk singer/musician who plays the harp.

“his best Ray Parker Jr. impression” – Ray Parker Jr wrote and sung the theme song for the popular Ghostbusters film series. Sample lyrics: “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!”

“the chanteuse critic Elvis Mitchell” – American journalist and film critic.

“they consult Marion Cotillard” – actor best known for playing Edith Piaf in the La Vie En Rose biopic. She’s also an advocate of a conspiracy theory regarding the September 11 World Trade Centre attacks, hence the “faulty wiring” reference.

“remember when Marv only wanted to capture one boy?” – a reference to the previously mentioned Home Alone film series. Daniel Stern played Marv, one of the pair of home invaders in the first two movies.

“the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley” – Three MILDLY popular music acts.

“Ernest Scared Stupid though still not as frightening as Ernest Goes to Camp” – Ernest Blank Blank were a series of films starring Jim Varney as perpetual man-idiot Ernest. The character was originally an advertising icon for various groups.

 

#17 Why I’m Afraid of Bees

 

“’hilarious bee montage on the Academy Awards telecast” – The Academy Awards are an annual award given out in the American entertainment industry, sometimes called “The Oscars”. I didn’t personally catch the 80th Academy awards show, but there were probably a few jokes at the expense of Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie.

“Evan Ross look like Zack Morris” – Zack Morris was a vaguely dorky character on teen sitcom Saved By The Bell.

“cuter than Amy Adams at the Oscars last night” – Amy Adams is an actor best known as the title character in the 2007 film Ella Enchanted, about a fairytale princess transported to contemporary New York.

“that Gordon Jump episode of Diff’rent Strokes” – On a controversial episode of American sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, actor Gordon Jump portrayed a paedophile.

“he’ll bee right down, he just has to dry his hair” – stereotypical excuse by women to avoid contact with unsavoury callers.

“when… ‘So, did you have any trouble finding the place?” – this a picture of Chris Hansen, host of the derided series To Catch A Predator. “Did you have any trouble finding the place”, Troy says, “is a typically glib response by Chris Hansen.”

“the time I was taking piano lessons that were simply murder on my hands” – A previous Goosebumps book, Piano Lessons Can Be Murder.

“a slightly better business model than Amway” – AmWay is a direct-selling company that is often accused of being nothing more than an elaborate pyramid scheme.

“taco chips, MTV Buzz Bin, Buzz Beamer, Buzz Lightyear, Buzz McCalister” – Buzz Bin was a term for a series of music videos broadcast on MTV. Buzz Beamer is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Hinds. Buzz Lightyear is a character from the Toy Story film series and spin-off cartoon series, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Buzz McCalister

“Stine still embraces WASPs” – White Anglo-Saxon Protestant is a term traditionally referring to a social group in America. They’re considered to be rich, uptight, and out-of-touch with the average person.

 

Triple Header: Book 2

“going to confuse this for Noel Coward” – witty English playwright, probably best known for Blithe Spirit.

“as an episode of Yes Dear” – American sitcom that ran from 2000 to 2006. Bland and inoffensive in every possible way.

“prove he’s a monster by eating dirt…Peanuts so much more terrifying” – Peanuts was a comic strip series written and illustrated by Charles Schultz. Well known characters are Charlie Brown, Linus, Schroeder, Snoopy, Lucy.

“Monster… that it was an award-winning transformation” – In the film Monster, actor Charlize Theron portayed murderer Aileen Wuornos. She drastically altered her appearance for the role.

“Early 90s cultural reference… still of monster kids” -

“a big Van Morrison fan and wanted to go for a couple of weeks!”  - Irish singer/musician Van Morrison wrote and sung a song called Astral Weeks.

“’death to all white sneakers!’… George Wallace’s nephew” – George Wallace was a controversial American politicial known for (amongst other polarising statements) his opposition to de-segregation.

“made like a Lynnfield Pioneer and ascended to the astral-plane” – Lynnfield Pioneer is an American band.

“sends the text message “LOVE” to 74456 to see who his soul mate is” – a popular commercial since the invention of text messaging.

“the Hardy Boys” – children’s mystery series, first written in 1927, about two brothers who solve crimes. They have been written by a huge number of ghostwriters over the years.

 

#49 Vampire Breath

“Air hockey… devolves into an actual hockey match” – Air hockey is an indoor game played on a table that constantly sprays air. The hockey puck floats gently over the jets.

“they’ve found Prince’s clubhouse… they busted Prince’s bong!” – Previously mentioned singer Prince often uses the colour purple in his performances.

“Stephen Hawking, don’t read this book” – Unbelievable. When I first wrote this, I misread the name as “Stephen King”. Stephen Hawking is a world-renowned physicist, best known for his book, A Short History of Time and well-publicised struggle with muscular dystrophy.

“they can use it to zap themselves Back To The Future – hey, that reminds me of a certain 80’s movie classic!” – see previous mentioned of the film series.

“looking for his bottle” – alcoholics drink from bottles. I don’t even know why I thought this needed explaining.

“she’s like Kirsten Dunst in that movie, Marie Antoinette” – actor Kirsten Dunst, probably best known for her role as Mary Jane in the live action adaptions of the Spider Man comic book series, also played a version of French Queen Marie Antoinette. I just realised that in the filmed adaption of the Anne Rice novel, Interview With A Vampire, she played the young vampire Claudia!

“2 fast 2 furious and find it first” – 2 Fast 2 Furious was the sequel to The Fast and the Furious, a drag-racing action movie.

“play Monkey In the Middle with the vampire”  - Monkey In The Middle is a common schoolyard game, where a two or more people have to keep an object away from the “monkey” in the middle. Sometimes also known as “Keep-Away”.

“alert Pitchfork that they’ve indeed had quite the Vampire Weekend”  - Pitchfork Media is a music reviewing website/magazine. Vampire Weekend is a band, previously mentioned.

 

#62 Monster Blood IV

“are Evan’s parents Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the Savages?” – In The Savages, these brother and sister characters travel to Arizona to see their dying father.

“Guys I’ve heard of Spider-Man” – well known American superhero comic-book series, created by comic mogul Stan Lee.

“anticipates Paris Hilton by seven or eight years by realising that the spaghetti he’s being fed is hot” – a catchphrase of previously mentioned Hilton hotel heiress is to refer to things as “hot”.

“How hot is it, Troy?” – A typical question asked to the audience by a vaudeville performer.

“Borscht Belt dialogue” - the Borscht Belt is a slang term for areas around upstate New York, well known for producing comedians.

“Super-soaker fight”- SuperSoaker is a brand of water pistol known for their increasing size and elaborate design over the years.

“Rotten Tomatoes message board” – Rotten Tomatoes.com is a website documenting film reviews. Troy tells me this is also a shout-out, as they were apparently some of the first fans of the blog.

“cribbing from the Peanut Butter Solution” – The Peanut Butter Solution is a family movie about a boy who invents a solution to regrow his hair after an encounter with a ghost causes him to lose his hair. It works too well.

“Robin Williams hands” – Robin Williams is a comedian known for his extreme hirsuteness.

“Watch out, Judy Blume” – Prolific children’s author. Most of her well known stories (‘Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret’, Forever, or Then Again, Maybe I Wont) involve adolescence and puberty.

“Brad Pitt, Super Soakers” – Both have been previously mentioned.

“Blue Fruit Roll in a Barrel” – Roll ups are a sticky confectionary marketed under various fruit flavours.

“Rejoice, our long national nightmare is finally at an end.” – Paraphrase of Gerald Ford, former Vice President and then President of the United States. Upon the resignation of Richard Nixon, he succeeded to the Presidency and uttered these words in regard to the end of the controversy over the Watergate scandal.

 

#30 Monster Blood III

“gets drafted by the Sonics” – The Seattle Sonics are an NBA Basketball team.

“Rosalind Franklin’s lovechild” – Rosalind Franklin was a member of the scientific team who discovered the makeup of DNA. She received little attention for her contributions at the time, and she died in 1958.

“scooped up by Pfizer” – Pfizer is a drug company with a strong research and development division.

“like that girl in Cloverfield” – in the monster film Cloverfield, the character Marlena is infected by the monster and gruesomely explodes.

“like Michelle Williams in Land of Plenty” – In Land of Plenty, Michelle Williams’ character travels around the United States with her war veteran uncle, observing the poverty of post-9/11 America.

“an elaborate Ponzi scheme” – A Ponzi scheme is a general term for an investment scam similar to a pyramid scheme. They’re named after Charles Ponzi, a con artist and fraud from the early 20^th century.

“Andy’s twin sister whom she only just met at summer camp” – A reference to the either of the films The Parent Trap, the original starring Hayley Mills as two twins, or the remake starring Lindsay Lohan. Two twins, separated at birth, meet coincidentally at summer camp.

“Pop and Lock in time to the beat” – Popping and locking is a hip-hop dance.

“her widescreen copy of Mean Girls” – Mean Girls is a 2004 comedy movie starring Lindsay Lohan as a homeschooled girl starting high school.

“series finale of Designing Women” – Designing Women was an American series about four women and a man working at an interior design firm. One of the stars was Delta Burke, who left the show after the fifth season.

“the plot of Aces: Iron Eagle III” – Aces: Iron Eagle III was the third movie in the Iron Eagle series, an action series about an Air Force Pilot played by Louis Gossett Jr.

“a traditional Mummenschanz routine” – Mummenschanz is a popular Swiss mime troupe.

“banana nut bread” –type of bread/fruitcake made primarily of bananas.

“the highest level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” – The Hierarchy of Needs is a psychological theory by Abraham Maslow. The Hierarchy of Needs is shaped like a food pyramid, with each corresponding need placed on a different level depending on their necessity to a comfortable life. There are five levels, the first being simple physical needs (food, water, oxygen, rest, etc) and the fifth being self-actualisation (creativity, morality , social acceptance, etc). In the 1960’s, Maslow proposed a theoretical sixth level, called “self-transcendence”.

“the Treaty of Taipei on Taiwan’s independence” – The Treaty of Taipei was a treaty signed between Japan and the Republic of China in 1952, years after the conclusion of World War II. Difficulties arose because of problems with identifying the legitimate government of China during the Chinese Civil War.

“Best New Music holds any weight” ­– A ranking of music by previously mentioned record label, Pitchfork.

“the new Mars Volta album” – Mars Volta is an American rock band.

“’the air up there, Kevin Bacon?’” – Kevin Bacon is an American actor, who starred in the basketball movie The Air Up There, about a high school basketball couch who travels to Africa to recruit a player.

 “too large to be David, too small to be Goliath” – David and Goliath are two Biblical characters. Goliath was a tyrannical giant, and David was the future king of Israel, who killed Goliath in battle by knocking him over with a stone from his sling and then cutting the head off the stunned giant.

“where’s his Green card” – “Green card” is a nickname for a Permanent Residency Card, an ID card offered by the American government that gives the similar rights to non-citizens. It eventually offers a chance for citizenship.

“In Chelsea, opens a hip mattress store” – Troy tells me that the Chelsea this specifically refers to is in New York City, a hip and rocking suburb.

“ On a train with an all-woman band, “forced” to dress in drag” – Troy mentions that this was a reference to the famous comedy Some Like It Hot, with I think Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon? To make an excuse for missing this first time around, I just assumed this was a general reference to the premise. It’s been a while. Anyways, this is a good summary of the opening premise of the movie, except they’re doing it to avoid the wrath of mobsters, not a metropolitan police force under the impression that they’re a giant alien. Oh, yeah - Marilyn Monroe and George Ranft, too!

“start reading the Brothers Karamazov” – The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, about three brothers who share guilt for the murder of their father. It’s usually considered his finest book and one of the greatest works of literature of all time.

“Prince Albert in a can” – See above note.

“Pepsi-Cola is the better tasting beverage” – Pepsi is a brand of cola, the strongest competitor to the Coke company. A series of ad campaigns for the brand

“shortsheets Evan’s bed and stifles its laughter from the top bunk” – a common adolescent prank is to “shortsheet” somebody else’s bed by double tucking in their sheets, so they can’t properly get in to the bed.

“beaten up by Rodan” – See above. The giant Godzilla occasionally battled with Rodan.

“zip of Miracle Whip” – Miracle Whip is a tangy mayonnaise spread by Kraft Foods.

“extended Sword In The Stone homage” – The Sword In the Stone was a Disney movie about a boy King Arthur being tutored by Merlin. Towards the end, Merlin and Madame Mim have a magical duel, with each of them altering their shape and size to counter the other’s transformations.

“Two Guys, A Girl, and A Pizza Place” – Two Guys, A Girl, and A Pizza Place was an American sitcom featuring Ryan Reynolds. The title was all you needed to know about the premise, and it changed slightly when the premise did.

“Honey I Blew Up The Kid-aping cover promises” – Honey, I Blew Up The Kid was the 1992 sequel to Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. It starred Canadian Rick Moranis as a scientist who accidentally blows his toddler son to giant proportions.

 

#18 Monster Blood II

“Martin Luther King Jr Day… the most dream sequences” – American civil rights activist. In 1963 he led a march on Washington, D.C, where he delivered a famous civil rights speech that began with, “I have a dream.”

“Ponce de Leon” – Juan Ponce de Leon was a Spanish explorer of the New World, best known for his attempts to find the legendary Fountain of Youth.

“another brave tribute to the slain Dr. King” – Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968 by convicted felon James Earl Ray.

“that barb for the Friars Club” – The New York Friars Club is a club associated with the giants of Broadway and New York comedy, known for its witty celebrity roasts. Jerry Lewis is the current Abbot of the club.

“Genghis Sean” – A reference to 12^th century Mongolian conqueror Genghis Khan, one of the most simultaneously renowned and reviled figures of history.

“Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh, Stella Gibbons, Dorothy Parker” – Oscar Wilde was a famed Irish playwright, previously mentioned. Evelyn Waugh was an author, best known for Brideshead Revisited. Stella Gibbons was an English writer best known for her satirical work Cold Comfort Farm. Dorothy Parker was a writer and raconteur, best known member of the Alquonin Round Table, a famous New York literary club.

“channelling Nostradamus” – Michel de Nostradame was a 14^th century French “prophet” who usually foresaw disasters and wars. It’s commonly and mistakenly believed that his works accurately predict current and future events.

“a David factory in the Catskills?” – The Catskills are a mountain range area in up-state New York. David is a name brand of sunflower seed.

“not a stack of Sassys” – Sassy was an American teen fashion magazine published in the late 1980’s and most of the 1990’s.

“crayon Thundercats drawings” – Thundercats was 1980’s animated series about cat-like aliens land on a apocalyptic future Earth. They fought a demonic wizard called Mumm-Ra.

“making the NBA as Stine does” – NBA can stand for both the National Basketball Assocation, the highest level of basketball playing in the United States, and the National Book Award, an American literary prize given to distinguished writing.

“on a TV in Foot Locker” – Foot Locker is an American sportswear franchise.

“him chanting ‘it’s your birthday’ and believed him” – It’s Your Birthday is a rap song performed by rapper R. Kelly and also the refrain of a song by rapper 50 Cent.

“Day-Glo clothing, Michael Jordan, rap music, cake and ice cream” – Day-Glo is a registered trademark of chemical paint. During the 1980’s and 1990’s it became a fad for teenagers to wear clothes covered in the stuff. Michael Jordan is an NBA player who achieved huge popularity in the 1990’s, even starring in the Looney Tunes crossover live-action film Space Jam.

 

#03 Monster Blood

“Juno, In Theaters Now” – Juno was a hipster film released in 2007, starring Ellen Page and Michael Cera of Arrested Development fame. Troy is also referring to the previous entry, #28 The Cuckoo Clock of Doom.

“the OJ Trial in the mid-nineties” – OJ Simpson was an American gridiron football player previously mentioned.

“like the Bee Girl from the Blind Melon video” – Blind Melon was an American band that disbanded in 1995 after the death of the lead singer. The music video for their song No Rain featured a young Heather DeLoach as a girl wearing a bee costume and glasses.

“what movie Andy would RENT” – This links to a poster for the 1996 Tom Arnold film The Stupids. Unbelievably, it was based on a book series.

“Gak-like” – See previous mention of Gak.

“JNCO jeans and Juggaloed their faces” – these are two attributes commonly associated with fans of the shock hip-hop team Insane Clown Posse.

“what kind of worthless human being hits a girl” – This links to an article about Marty Crandall, musician for the band Shins, who physically assaulted his girlfriend.

“the ‘ASPCA’” – The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a non-profit animal welfare organisation.

“Dennis the Menace look fresh” – Dennis the Menace is a comic book about a vaguely delinquent suburban boy.

“looks like Spellbound compared to what happens next” – Spellbound was an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. An important plot element were the extensive dream/hallucination sequences, which were actually clues to the identity of the murderer. The end scene uses what’s probably the largest prop gun ever constructed.

“all Primer on you” – Primer is a 2004 science fiction time travel film with a convoluted plotline.

“taking place in Mayberry” – Mayberry was the setting of the Andy Griffith Show and the spinoff, Mayberry RFD. It was considered a typical rural 1950’s small town.

“the BUCKET OF BLOOD, the Blood scoops back”  - Bucket of Blood was a 1959 Roger Corman movie about a man who kills people and then covers their bodies with clay to create realistic sculptures. There were no buckets.

“to go lean on some cars” – In 1950’s popular culture, movies often depicted teenage delinquents doing this.

“Indiana Jones, VHS tapes” – Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first in the Indiana Jones action-adventure film series, developed by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford as the title character. VHS is a type of tape recording used by VCRs.

 

#28 The Cuckoo Clock of Doom

YOU KNOW WHAT. JUST CATCH THE MOVIE AND NOD WHISTFULLY WHEN YOU SEE SOMETHING THAT LOOKS FAMILIAR.

 

More & More Tales to Give You Goosebumps

“a Walkman portable tape player”  - Walkmans were a portable music tape-playing device and brand name.

“a blue Kooshball” – Kooshballs are a plastic, rubbery toy ball thing that resemble sea urchins. They’ve been the objects of fads during the 1980’s and 1990’s and can still be bought today.

“don’t feed them after midnight” – one of the three rules for taking care of a Mogwai, the cuddly animal in the fantasy/horror/comedy Gremlins films. If you did, they would mutate into the menacing title creature. The other two rules were to not let it near sunlight, which would kill it, or get it wet, which causes it to multiply.

“Yakov Smirnoff ghostwrote for the series” – Yakov Smirnoff is a comedian and (believe it or not) professor, best known for his “In America, you watch TV. In Russia, TV watches you!” schtick.

 “by Bram Stokeman” – Very obvious reference to horror writer Bram Stoker, best known for the original Dracula novel

“Playbill, which brings in ‘Da Noise and ‘Da Funk” – Playbill is an American periodical magazine about theatre events.

 “Seriously, take my wife – please!” – Old comedy routine. A comedian would usually say, “Take my wife”, implying to be meant as an example. They would then follow it by saying “No, really, please!”, meaning to literally take her away. Apparently British comedian and one-liner impresario Henny Youngman is the original source, who claimed to have unintentionally invented it.

“an aggressive hockey player?”  - Professional Ice Hockey players are dogged by a reputation for violence.

“Santa forgets Occam’s Razor” – Occam’s Razor is a nickname for a logic principle, named after logician William Ockham, usually expressed as “the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation”.

“Michael Bay movie with a similar plot…. Bad Boys II” – Michael Bay is an American director best known for his bombastic, dizzying cinematographic style. He recently directed Transformers, a remake of the 1980’s animated series about giant robots with the ability to transform into ordinary vehicles. Bad Boys II was an action movie about renegade cops.

 

#33 The Horror At Camp Jellyjam

“Space Mountain” – Space Mountain is a roller coaster ride at Disney World and various other theme parks.

“favourite place on Earth is Disney World” – Disney World is the largest of the Walt Disney company theme parks. It first opened in 1971 in Florida and is the most visited resort in the world.

“Scooter… slash fiction” – Slash fiction is a type of fan fiction that applies imagined gay templates to characters.

“a can of Diet Coke” – Diet Coke is a soft drink made by the Coke company. It contains less calories than ordinary Coke.

“take that, Diane Fuss!” – Feminist writer.

“$100 to the NAACP” – NAACP stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. It’s an affirmative action, non-profit group that was originally established in 1909.

“Denim short-shorts, Slurm” – Denim is a fabric used mostly in jeans. Short-shorts are an even-shorter. Slurm is a beverage with a secret ingredient (not people) in Futurama, the Matt Groening cartoon. Futurama wasn’t on the air until 1999.

 

#51 Beware the Snowman

“than the Burl Ives song” – Burl Ives was an American folk singer/song-writer. A lot of his most popular songs included Christmas themes. He died in 1995.

“at a Bulls game” – The Chicago Bulls are an NBA Team. Aforementioned Michael Jordan played with them at the apex of his career.

“watching a White Sox game, eating a hot dog, performing in a titular musical, riding the El, releasing an album on Drag City, and watching a Cubs game” – All popular elements of the city of Chicago. The White Sox are an American Major League baseball team. Chicago-style hot dogs are way of serving hot dogs (with mustard, onion, pickles, andpeppers, without tomato sauce) that originated in Chicago. The “El” or “L” is the nickname for the monorail system that runs around Chicago. Drag City Records is a record label specialising in independent rock. The Cubs are the second Major League baseball team in Chicago, infamous for their losing streak.

“the Edward Burtynskys responsible” – Edward Burtynsky is an Order-of-Canada awarded photographer best known for his environmental landscape portraits.

 “Thumpety thump thump, thumpety thump thump, look at Jacylyn skid into a  jagged culvert!” – Troy says that there’s a good chance this is another reference to Frosty the Snowman.

“it’s a miserable life for nieces” – a line from PS 213 Mini School, by singer/songwriter Matthew Friedberger.

 “a Lisa Frank folder” – Lisa Frank is a children’s artist whose work often appears on school supplies and kid’s clothing. Her artwork often uses cutesy motifs.

“Questionable Grammer Parent” – the character of Martin Crane, the father of the title character played by Kelsey Grammer in sitcom Frasier.

“your own Parson Brown joke here” – Parson Brown is the name of a snowman in the pop ditty Winter Wonderland.

“a third Frosty reference” – Frosty the Snowman is a staple of Americana Christmas. First mentioned in a 1950’s Christmas song sung by Gene Autry, the singing cowboy.

“Calvin and Hobbes” – an illustration from the comic strip series Calvin and Hobbes. Around Christmas time, as a running gag, Calvin would often build excessive numbers of snowmen.

 

#20 The Scarecrow Walks At Midnight

“The Bible” – You guys know this one.

“like a Goth Huck Finn” – Huckleberry Finn is the mischievous, deep southern, title character in the Huckleberry Finn novel by Mark Twain. He also appeared in Tom Sawyer. “Goth” is a “lifestyle choice” that isn’t really worth the time to explain. Even the previous sentence was more than it deserved. And these two sentences are definitely overkill. Three. Was that even a sentence?

“Hey Veronica Mars, it’s called aging” – Veronica Mars is the title character in the American series Veronica Mars, about a teenage amateur sleuth. Previously mentioned.

“H-e-double-hockey-his-name” – To avoid blasphemy, people occasionally spell the word “hell” out loud as “H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks”.

“Simon Says game ever” – Simon Says is a party/schoolyard game in which a group of people must follow the instructions of a designated “Simon”.

“he can chase Frankenstein and go to a lynching” – the climax of the previously mentioned Frankenstein movie, based on the Mary Shelley gothic horror novel, features townspeople chasing Frankenstein’s monster with torches and pitchforks back to the castle he was created in. This scene was not featured in the original novel.

“Walkmen, cassette tapes, Gameboys, Nirvana t-shirts” – Walkmans and cassette tapes were previously mentioned. Gameboys were a handhold gaming device created by the Nintendo electronics company in the 1990’s. They have been superseded today by the Nintendo DS. Nirvana was/is an acclaimed

“straw poles this election season” – a straw poll is a political term, meaning a voting session before a “real” voting session, generally used to gauge the opinions of voting electorate, similar to an opinion poll.

 

#23 Return of the Mummy

“Pyramid Hilton” – Hilton hotels are an international hotel chain established by Conrad Hilton. They have a highly regarded reputation.

“the Holiday Inn Express” – An international mid-range hotel chain, usually catering to families.

“it’s jive, it’s a crutch she uses when she’s judged” – “it’s jive” is a line from Sari, a song by Nellie McKay. This character’s name is Sari.

“handing out canaries” – In mining and spelunking lore, diggers would often bring canaries or other birds into shafts with them. The theory was that if there was a gas leak, the canaries would die from the toxins before the miners, warning them.

“not the wafer” – Nilla wafers are a brand of vanilla-flavoured shortbread biscuit.

“a meeting room… a yellow-eared copy of Who Moved My Cheese” – Who Moved My Cheese: An Amazing Way To Deal With Change In Your Work and in Your Life  is an allegorical book about business and motivation, featuring mice. It’s a common guide to the world of business and middle management for newcomers, which is why it would be seen in a meeting room.

“Riki Tiki Tavi and is afraid she’ll turn into a mongoose” – Rikki Tikki Tavi is a children’s story by The Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling about a mongoose who defends a family from a snake.

“Bart Simpson” – Bart Simpson is a character on The Simpsons, previously mentioned, and probably the most popular animated series of all time. During the early 1990’s, during the early years of the show, Bart was a controversial for his “underachiever and proud of it” attitude and a huge target for bootleg merchandise, like the graffiti on the pyramid in Return of The Mummy.

“frosted Flakes” – Breakfast cereal, previously mentioned. Corn flakes covered with icing sugar.

“the law of diminishing returns” – Economic concept: the output of production in a market used to generate its own succeeding production gradually results in a smaller return with every generation. I think.

 

#05 The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb

“Call me Ishmael” – opening line of Herman Melville’s tale of the futility of revenge, Moby Dick.

“This is the saddest story I’ve ever heard” – opening line of Ford Madox’s depressing The Good Soldier, written in 1915.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” – opening line of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, satirical Victorian romance.

 “Uncle Ben! Aunt Jemima: unable to attend” – American food brands. Uncle Ben is a brand of instant rice and Aunt Jemima is a brand/trademark for breakfast foods. Both featured stereotypical blackface characters as their mascots.

“Bob Harris tries to relax in the hotel room” – a reference to Bill Murray’s character in Lost In Translation. He spends several scenes alone by himself in his hotel room in Japan.

“the Northwest Passage…. Some nice Universal Healthcare” – The Northwest passage is a water-bound route in North America, still infrequently explored today. In Canada, the healthcare system is generally free to all citizens. It isn’t quite “free”, but the distinction isn’t something I’m interested in enough to write more than half a sentence about.

“sulks like an Egyptian” – Play on the lyrics of Walk Like An Egyptian, by pop group The Bangles.

“Frosted Flakes” – Previously mentioned.

“a Yakov Smirnoff routine” – previously mentioned comedian and psychology professor.

“Walter Freeman-esque process” – Dr Walter Freeman was an American doctor best known for pioneering lobotomy techniques.

“Steve Martin’s ‘King Tut’” – King Tut is a song released by comedian Steve Martin in 1978 that parodied the Treasures of Tutankhamun travelling exhibit. Lyrics include, “Buried with my donkey, he’s my favourite honkey!”

“score a quarter-bag” – a quarter bag either a bag used in gaming arcades to hold spare change, or a bag that holds a quarter pound of material, depending on the context. Troy tells me it’s also drug slang.

“no sets of footprints in the scorpion pile” - from Troy himself: “a reference to the cliched Christian concept of “Footsteps”– when times get rough, Jesus doesn’t walk beside us, he carries us, leaving only one set of footprints in the sand”

“a non-Virgin Killer-occupied area” – Virgin Killer is an album by the German band Scorpions. Although not relevant, the front cover has been controversial.

“Indiana Jones, Super Nintendo, Game Boy” – Indiana Jones and Nintendo Gameboy have been previously mentioned. Super Nintendo was a fourth-generation entertainment console released by the Nintendo company in the early 1990’s.

 

#48 Attack of the Jack-O-Lanterns

“Sprite and Pixie Stix” – Sprite is a lemonade brand. Pixie Stix are a coloured sugar snack sold, prepackaged, in straws.

“Chuck Norris jokes” – Chuck Norris is an martial artist, “actor”, and author best known for b-grade action movies and the American series Walker: Texas Ranger. He was briefly an internet meme.

“Ninja, LOL Cat, and Franklin Pierce jokes” – All inexplicable internet memes, except for American President Franklin Pierce, which is the joke. I mistakenly assumed at the time of writing that Frank Pierce was also the name of “The Tron Guy” or “The Leave Britney Alone Guy”.

“Klingon outfit” – alien race, from the American science fiction series mentioned, Star Trek.

“the Dark Knight – so racist” – pseudonym for the comic book vigilante, Batman.

“as they were all Baptists” – Baptists are a fundamentalist sect of Christianity, deriving from the Anabaptists. They’re especially prominent in the American Deep South.

“of the ‘Kashmir’ riff” – Kashmir is a 1974 song by the band Led Zeppelin. Troy says that this was a specific reference to the Puff Daddy song Come With Me, which samples the riff.

“Candy references” – Too many confectionary references to go into detail here.

“the back-cover of Yanqui UXO” – The back cover of Yanqui UXO, by the Canadian band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, has an arrow chart diagram linking different record label brands to each other.

“Adbusters for Kids” – previously mentioned.

“Hershey Starburst and the Sponsors From Mars” – a play on Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, a concept album by David Bowie alter-ego Ziggy Stardust. I’m ashamed to have missed this first time around.

“Silver Surfer, Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Star Trek, Klingons, Pepsi”  - Silver Surfer, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman are all comic book superheroes. Silver Surfer is a silver-toned character with cosmic powers that heralds the coming of a planet-devouring being called Galactus. Wonder Woman was created by William Marston, a feminist psychologist who also invented a type of lie detector.

 

#37 The Headless Ghost

“underwritten by the Paper Warehouse” – The Paper Warehouse is a defunct arts and crafts supply franchise. There’s a similarly named but unrelated website.

“they had to appear on the Tonight Show” – The Tonight Show is a long-running American late-night talk show. The most well known host was comedian and magician Johnny Carson, but it has also been hosted by Steve Allen and Jack Paar. The current host is Jay Leno. On most talk-shows, guests are kept during the taping in an off-stage room called “The Green Room”.

“one of Brunswick’s GhostHead balls” – The Brunswick Corporation is a manufacturing company best known for their bowling products.

“into Laughter: The Best Medicine” – Featured section in Reader’s Digest, an international magazine. Readers send in “true” and “amusing” stories or situations in their own life that are featured in the magazine.

“Mickey mouse watches, Walkmen tape-players” – Mickey Mouse is a character and logo for the Walt Disney Company, previously mentioned. Walkman was also previously mentioned. Troy also says that Mickey Mouse watches were a fad in the late 1980’s-early 1990’s, given to upper-middle class kids as a “classy” gift.

“Famke Janssen… House on Haunted Hill remake” - Actor, best known for playing Xenia Onatopp in the James Bond movie Goldeneye or blandly named psychic/telekinetic superhero Jean Grey in the X-Men movie series.

 

Tales To Give You Goosebumps

“Juliusssss Caesssssssarr” – Historical figure: politician and later dictator of Ancient Rome. In his early life he became well known for his campaigns against Gaul. He was assassinated by fellow Roman senators.

“Bridge Night” – Bridge is a popular card game.

“alcoholic father Iron Man” – the comic book superhero, Iron Man, has constantly and consistently struggled with alcoholism during the run of the comic.

“she pulls a Michael Vick” – Michael Vick is an American gridiron football player who has had several controversies in his career, but this is a reference to allegations of his participation in the bloodsport of dog fighting.

“Axel and Foley” – Axel Foley is the main character, played by Eddie Murphy, in the Beverly Hills Cop action-comedy film series.

“Click” – movie starring Adam Sandler, based on the tired premise of a television remote control that can also control time. The story in this Goosebumps book is the same story. The premise probably dates back to a Twilight Zone episode and has featured on children’s series Round The Twist, as well.

“the price of a Bedazzler” – a Bedazzler is an infomercial appliance from the 1970’s, used to apply decorations and rhinestones to clothes.

“Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me” – 1987 song by band The Cure, a popular song stereotypically listened to by Goths.

 

#14 The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

“Topical Eve joke” – Troy says that by this, he was literally referring to the then-topical “Eve” – a woman who was kept under house arrest by an ankle bracelet at the time he wrote this. I couldn’t find out exactly who “Eve” was, so I assume it was a pretty localised issue at the time?

“not being Colin Meloy” – Colin Meloy is the lead singer for American band The Decembrists. One of their songs was called The Crane Wife.

“follow that bird” – 1985 motion picture Follow That Bird, about the long-running educational children’s puppet show, Sesame Street, character Big Bird trying to get home.

“cervical spondylosis” – form of degenerative arthritis.

“Emily’s story of how a black and white-checked bird flew in the open window and broke the lamp” – reference to a Berenstein Bears picture book.

 “a lot like the Crucible” – popular Arthur Miller play and later, film, about the Salem Witch Trials and general social allegory for the McCarthy red scares in the 1950’s.

“MacGuyver talents” – Angus MacGyver was a character played by Richard Dean Anderson on the TV series of the same name in the late 1980’s-early 1990’s. A character trait of his was his creative, improvised inventions that he often used to save the day and foil the villains.

“WOLF’D” – reference to previously mentioned TV reality series PUNK’d.

“to head FEMA” – American government agency (Federal Emergency Management Agency) designated to respond to natural disasters in the United States. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s affect on New Orleans in 2005, it was widely criticised for a perceived ineffectual response.

 

#30 It Came From Beneath the Sink!

“to Samuel Fuller’s White Dog” – socially critical novel and film about a man who comes into possession of a dog trained to attack blacks. After vigorous re-conditioning, the dog no longer attacks blacks on sight – in a twist, it now attacks whites.

“a handyman character in Gasoline Alley do the same” – turn-of the century American “Sunday newspaper” comic strip series.

“the release of Home Alone” – film series, previously mentioned.

“ Kat walks back to class from the nurses office, where she helped what became of the broken-handed, who she had helped but now departed, Kat knows she’s got to find some kind of peace of mind, and she might have been searching everywhere were it not for Daniel running up to her in the hall.” - a reference to the lyrics of What Becomes of the Broken Hearted, a soul song first released by Jimmy Ruffin in 1966. It’s also been covered by Diana Ross and featured in Fried Green Tomatoes, this time by Paul Young.

“and more attractive cousin” – General popular belief, and possibly an attempted reference to an episode of The Simpsons, Lisa the Iconoclast, where a character founds a town based on the principle of marrying cousins.

“confusing mushrooms and sponges… she can’t smoke it” – dried “mushrooms” are a psychotropic drug. “Smoking” is referencing a habit of hippies to attempt to smoke anything in the quest for a high.

“like mercury” – the element mercury (Hg) has had a colourful and interesting history in various professions, like hat-blocking! But as Troy mentions, constant exposure to it can lead to brain damage and death.

“four turtles with superhuman powers into aiding them” – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a comic strip, animated series, live-action film series, and second animated series created in the 1980’s. It’s been consistently popular for the last 20 years, but the peak was probably in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s.

“Super Soakers” – water pistol trademark, previously mentioned.

“No Sponge Left Behind Act” – The No Child Left Behind Act was a 2001 federal law enacted to reform public schools in the United States. The name refers to making sure that a child learned enough in a school year to be properly prepared for the next. 

 

#39 How I Got My Shrunken Head

“a YouTube sensation” – streaming video website founded in 2005. In the last few years, most internet memes have had some origin or link to www.youtube.com

“solitaire” – card game played by, as the name implies, one person. The object is to pair up every single card or something. Solitaire has been a staple game of home computers since the early days, and apparently is still played widely as a time waster in offices.

“at B. Dalton’s and moved over to the Boxcar Kids section” – Book retailing franchise, also known as Barnes & Noble. The Boxcar Children is an American children’s adventure book series about a group of orphaned children who live in a dilapidated boxcar.

 “VG instead of NM…. A++++ Would Buy Again from him” – reference to the general writing style of traders and buyers on online trading sites like eBay.com

“Red Baron pizza box plane” – Red Baron is a frozen pizza brand.

“a pregnant woman and needed to kill a rabbit” – the rabbit test is an early pregnancy “test”. The urine of a pregnant woman is injected into a live female rabbit, and several days later, the ovaries would be secreting a human hormone because of the presence of pregnancy in the human woman. The test itself did not actually kill the rabbit – at the time, the only way to examine the rabbit’s ovaries were to kill it. I have no idea what kind of trial-and-error they had to use to discover this test.

 “a ‘jungle fever’ joke” – Slang expression referring to a white person romantically seeking a black person. It usually assumes the white person is a man and the black person is a woman.

“polynominials via the Tschirnhaus transformation, a time of the Battle of Ringgold Gap… David Livingstone” – inexplicable references to: the Tschirnhaus transformation, a field theory used to map polynomials, in the algebraic sense. The Battle of Ringgold Gap was a short battle in the American Civil War, won by the Confederates when they successfully retreated. David Livingstone was a Victorian-era explorer of Africa.

 “he just got PUNK’D” – Reality TV series starring Ashton Kutcher, previously mentioned.

“two blinks: slow pitch curve” – reference to habit of baseball/softball coaches way of advising batters without verbally giving away their game plan.

“Koosh balls, the name Kareen” – previously mentioned.

 

#46 How To Kill A Monster

 “the concept of lateral moves” – a lateral move is a weather phenomenon.

“container upon container of Gak” – previously mentioned.

“the primary thesis of Rousseau’s Emile” – 1762 novel, (Emile: or, On Education) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau about raising a theoretical boy from birth to adulthood. After the French Revolution, it was used as a template for the revised educational system.

 

#08 The Girl Who Cried Monster

“analysts only exist in Woody Allen films and to quit calling him” – Woody Allen is an actor, comedian, writer, and director best known for his New York-centred comedy films and unusual personal life. They generally vary from screwball (Sleeper) to dark comedy (Match Point), and he’s also known for clarinet skills.

“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein… homoeroticism” – one of the best known of the Gothic horror novels, previously mentioned. As Troy says, there are strong themes of homo-eroticism in the story between Frankenstein and his rejected creation.

“White Fang” – novel about the tale of a ¾ wolf/dog hybrid becoming civilised during the Yukon Gold Rush in Alaska. It has a happy ending.

“Anne of the Green Gables” – 1906 popular novel about a red-headed orphan accidentally adopted by a couple who then decide to keep her. Widely read at primary school level around the world.

“Groundhog Day of Goosebumps books…. Fewer toasters in the bathtub” – comedy film starring Bill Murray as a man forced to perpetually re-live the same day over and over again. After tiring of being able to do whatever he wants without any long term consequences, he tries to commit suicide several times, one of which is by dropping a toaster into the bath-tub.

“post the photo on MySpace” – popular social-networking website favoured by self-absorbed teenagers.

“an entire Hungry-Man XXL Meal, including the dessert cake” – Swanson Hungry Man Meals are a brand of ready-to-eat TV dinner. The dessert cake is usually a brownie muffin.

“those one-person Frisbee things with rubber band attached” – yeah, they were real.

“Dorothy Parker alert” – previously mentioned writer and raconteur, known for her wit.

 

#49 Legend of the Lost Legend

“from Eight Below” – Disney film starring Jason Biggs, of American Pie fame, about a group of sled-dogs struggling to find their way back to their Antarctic Ice Station home.

“or actually, better yet:” – Jason Biggs.

“Ark of the Covenant. Wait, wrong globetrotter” – reference to the first Indiana Jones film – Indiana Jones was searching for it (it is a real Biblical paraphernalia). Don’t open the thing!!

“to spin a basketball on his finger…. Still wrong Globetrotter” – The Harlem Globetrotters are an “exhibition basketball” team in the United States best known for their on-court antics and near-constant domination over the Washington Generals. One of the best known is their habit of spinning basketballs on their fingers. The team theme, Sweet Georgia Brown, is widely known, and they’ve even earned an animated cartoon series.

“Ghost Dog joke” – film starring Forest Whitaker as a modern-day ninja. See below.

“The Wild Child” – As mentioned, 1970’s French film directed by Francois Truffaut, about a boy discovered living in the wild, who is then attempted to be re-habilitated into society.

 

#02 Stay Out of the Basement

“Arnold Schwarzenegger… so it is obviously Junior” – Austrian bodybuilder, actor, and current Governor of California. The plot of Junior was Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming pregnant. It’s popularly believed that the baby belonged to the character played by Danny DeVito, BUT THAT IS A BELIEF FROUGHT WITH

“a marijuana joke” – THC is a popular psychotropic drug that goes under many nicknames (dope, Mary Jay, hash, etc)  that book report writing students should be ignorant about – but they probably aren’t!

“beat Jurassic Park… Spielberg influenced Stine or vice versa” – Jurassic Park was a novel by Michael Crichton adapted to a best-selling film by acclaimed director Steven Spielberg in the early 1990’s about a theme park populated by dinosaurs grown from DNA harvested from ancient mosquitoes trapped in amber.

“a Dodgers cap” – The Los Angeles (formerly Brooklyn) Dodgers are an American baseball team.

“Artful Dodger-type hat” – the Artful Dodger is a character in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. He is a street-wise pickpocket urchin who ends up being transported to the penal colony of Australia for his crimes. He wore a battered top hat.

“California Frisbee Council” – probably not a real organisation, but considering there’s an Asperger’s Syndrome Rights Movement, I wouldn’t completely rule it out.

“Stay Out of the Organic Hairclub For Men” – The Hair Club, sometimes called Hairclub for Men, is a company specialising in hair replacement therapy. It was founded in 1976.

“a third has pride” – A reference to the novel series, musical, technicolour film, and general cultural phenomenon The Wizard of Oz. The character of the Cowardly Lion, played by Bert Lehr in the film, intends to ask the Wizard for pride.

“Robocop… Sassy” – 1987 science fiction/action film about a police officer who is killed and then turned into a cyborg for the purpose of subduing criminals. Sassy was a teen magazine, previously mentioned.

 

#36 The Haunted Mask II

 “that scene in Big, only less frightening” – Tom Hanks film about a boy who wishes to “be big” on a robotic booth fortuneteller and wakes up one morning to discover that he’s been turned into a popular actor! : O

 

#11 The Haunted Mask

 

“Mrs Caldwell shouldn’t expect a call from Mr. Blackwell” – Richard Blackwell was a fashion critic who usually just went by the moniker “Mr Blackwell”. He was the originator of the sniping “10 Worst Dressed” list, now a staple of gossip/fashion magazines worldwide. He died in 2008.

“if John Waters wore a cape” – John Waters is an American film director, best known for Pink Flamingoes. A trademark of his appearance is a closely cropped haircut and a thing moustache.

“Cat Woman” – character; foe, occasional ally, and constant fence-sitter to Batman in the previously mentioned Batman comic series.

“Star Trek, Freddy Krueger, ‘Mutant Ninja Turtles’, Cat Woman, Indiana Jones, gorilla masks” – Star Trek, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cat Woman, and Indiana Jones have all been previously mentioned. Freddy Krueger is the sociopathic dream-invading serial killer in the horror film series A Nightmare On Elm Street, played by Robert Englund.

 

#24 Phantom of the Auditorium

“Guys and Dolls” – musical play about a group of gangsters and gamblers originally performed in 1950. It’s pretty intricate and definitely above the capabilities of most 4^th grade classes.

“the Cuban Swimmer” – The Cuban Swimmer is a short play about a long-distance swimmer who wants to impress her 1^st generation Cuban immigrant father.

“This sounds familiar… what does it sound like… hmm” – The play is a blatant thievery of Victor Hugo’s Phantom of the Opera.

“upset a greeting card writer!” – “Home Sweet Home” is an aphorism, I guess occasionally seen on greeting cards!?!

“RL Stine’s the Jungle” – The Jungle was a socialist novel written in 1906 by Upton Sinclair about the poverty and injustice in the labour system of the American working classes who were tricked by a search for the “American Dream”. The main character worked in a meat-packing plant, and the initial publication of the book led to a widespread reform in the meat-packing industry.

“that Phil Collins video about the homeless people… Anti-Collins” – Phil Collins was the drummer for the band Genesis. He left the group in 1996 and went on to have a moderately successful solo career. One of the things he’s known for is his social activism, like his involvement with PETA.

“Friday the 13^th” – the first in the Friday the 13^th slasher horror film series. The main character, the towering, silent, immortal, hockey-mask wearing killer Jason Voorhees, is not the killer in the first movie. It’s his mother.

“his cultural stereotyping right” – Hispanics are stereotyped as many things, not usually boring: violent, drug-users, lazy, dirty, flamboyant, etc.

“my high school’s production of Auntie Mame” – Auntie Mame is a comedic novel about a boy sent to live with his eccentric and flamboyant aunt who teaches him to him again! It was adapted into a stage musical starring Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur, and there was also a film production starring Lucille Ball.

 

#55 The Blob That Ate Everyone

“IAROCCI is like HAGS or LYLAS” – HAGS is an acronym, short for Have A Good Summer, commonly written in American yearbooks. LYLAS is another acronym, short for Love You Like A Sister, used in a similar situation between sistas!

“the Cosby Show of minor Goosebumps characters” – The Cosby Show (1984 to 1992) was one of many shows featuring comedian Bill Cosby. In the show, limousine driver Bill Cosby reigned over a functional, loving family in New York. It featured an all-black main cast.

“Quantum Leap’s blue auras” – Quantum Leap was a 1990’s science fiction series starring Scott Bakula as a scientist trapped in a constant loop of inhabiting the body of a person in another time and place. At the end of every episode, he would “leap” out of the body he was currently inhabiting and into the next body with a special effects blue flash that the show was shamefully proud of. The best was the one where he was Dr Ruth.

 

#50 Calling All Creeps!

“whoa whoa whoa there Charles Dickens” –  Beloved Victorian era novelist, best known for Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield. His stories were usually satirical (by the standards of the time) and carried strong social themes.

“that faggot Christopher Pike” – American thriller/science fiction/horror author, probably best known to the average product of the 1990’s generation for his Spooksville series. He’s also written a lot of vaguely incoherent science fiction/horror novels with romantic themes.

“The Weather ChanneL” – American cable television channel launched in 1982. Most countries have a local variant.

“Mission: Impossible-style” – 1960’s/1970’s American TV series starring Peter Graves as the head of a secret agency. It’s been remade several times, and in the 1996 film version, starring Tom Cruise, his character dangled on a wire from an air duct over a computer while the theme music played. This scene is a popular source for parody.

“Pepsi” – cola soft drink, close rival to the Coke-Cola company.

“one and a half George magazines” – short-lived magazine partially founded by John F Kennedy Jr in the late 1990’s. It attempted to stylise and sensationalise politics in a format similar to popular gossip magazines.

“the Star Spangled Banner” – current national anthem of the United States, sung to the tune of a drinking song. It was written during the confusing War of 1812.

“Saran-wrapped” – Saran is a brand of plastic wrap, used for various things. But mostly food. Plastic wrap was accidentally discovered in 1933.

“Chips Ahoy” – chocolate chip cookie brand in the United States sold in giant bags.

“time to eat some KFC!” – Kentucky Fried Chicken (franchise established 1952) is one of the best known American fast-food franchises, specialising in deep south fried chicken. The founder and icon of the franchise is Colonel Harland Sanders.
“Lars von Trier” – Dutch avant-garde film-maker and director affiliated with the Dogme 95, probably best known by American audiences for what the first two films in his self-labelled “American Trilogy”: Dogville and Manderlay, vaguely Samuel Beckett-esque films, right down to the minimal set design.

 

#32 The Barking Ghost

“underwritten by Coldwell Banker” – Coldwell Banker is a real estate franchise, part of a mogul empire with Century 21.

“Ashton Kutcher… PUNK’d Brainstorm legal pad” – previously mentioned.

“the Changing Room” – most clothing stores and franchises have “Changing Rooms”, where customers are entitled to try on clothes they’ve selected before they buy them. Most usually enforce a rule on how many items the customer is allowed to take in.

“the POGs of this generation” – previously mentioned.

“Ghost… Dog?” – Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a 1999 film starring Forest Whitaker as an enigmatic samurai hitman. Parts of the story are homage to Rashomon.

 #61 I Live In Your Basement!

“like OJ Simpsons… fleeing in the white Bronco to go turn himself in” – OJ Simpson, previously mentioned. When first charged of murder, he failed to turn himself in to the police and escaped in a White Bronco FWD driven by a friend. Eventually, he gave himself up.

“Ballpark frankly” – pun on the food, Ballpark Franks. A type of hot-dog/sausage-in-bread sold at baseball parks.

“Frosted Flakes, Corn Pops, Milky Ways” – Frosted Flakes, previously mentioned. Corn Pops are another breakfast cereal, similar to giant Rice Krispies. Milky Way is the name of two unrelated chocolate bars, depending on which country you’re in.

 

#13 Piano Lessons Can Be Murder

“Play it again, hands” – a reference to an-often misquoted line in Casablanca, one of the most well-known movies of all time. Drunken Rick, despairing, tells his piano player, Sam, to “play it for me”.

“the Other Sister-type story” – A 1999 film starring Juliette Lewis as a mentally disabled woman falling in love with a mentally disabled man. In one scene, she bursts into tears when he unintentionally blurts out their sex life to an entire party.

“turns into Reefer Madness” – The drug “scare” film, Reefer Madness, contains a scene where a group of marijuana smokers gather around a piano. The man at the piano keeps playing faster, hysterically shrieking “Faster! Faster!”

“Akira Kurosawa’s Ran” – Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese director, known for a huge variety of work, including Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, The Hidden Fortress, The Idiot and Ran. He died in 1998. Ran was one of his final films, a re-telling of the Shakespeare play King Lear, about a king who banishes his one loving daughter in favour of the deceitful older sisters.   

“an episode of SVU” – Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, previously mentioned, usually focused on the victims of sexual crimes, often towards children.

“doesn’t have a Green Card” – previously mentioned.

“Bonkers, those cat clocks with the moving eyes” – Bonkers was an animated series based loosely on Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. The main character was an anthropomorphic police officer cat who teamed up with a human (also animated) to solve crimes committed by cartoon characters. Those cat clocks with the moving eyes are creepy no matter what year this is.

 

#44 Say Cheese and Die – Again!”

“and not, y’know, Cheetoes” – Cheese curl chip brand.

“”Flesh Gordon-cribbing” – Flesh Gordon is an erotic parody science fiction film released in 1974, full of campy sex jokes.

“RL Stine’s Columbine/Elephant moment” – Elephant is a 2003 film set on the day of a school shooting. Most of the film is set before the actual shooting occurs. Bowling For Columbine is a 2002 documentary film by Michael Moore on the topic of a similar school shooting in Colorado in 1999. Troy is probably just referring to the school shooting itself.

“Honda Civic” – Honda is a Japanese corporation known for mostly for cars. It’s the sixth largest car manufacturer and producer in the world. The Civic is a popular line of compact cars sold by the company, particularly in the West.

“Orson Welles alert… F for Fake” – Orson Welles was an American actor and director, best known for his pioneering cinematography techniques on Citizen Kane, which he both directed and starred in, as well as The Magnificent Ambersons. His final completed motion picture, F For Fake, was based on the life of Elmyr de Hory, an art forger. The film itself contained deliberate hoaxes. His final role of all time was Unicron, a planet-eating magic eight ball, in The Transformers movie (1986).

 

#04 Say Cheese and Die!

“lol at SUVs not existing yet” – SUV is an acronym for Sports Utility Vehicle. They are a controversial make of car, or technically, light truck.

“the last ten minutes of Fat Girl” – 2001 French film about a young girl who is seduced and then rejected while on vacation with her family. The last ten minutes is a car ride on the way back home with her mother and sister, but they are interrupted and killed by an axe murderer. The titular fat girl is raped, but survives.

“Cup Holders” – In the mid 1980’s, built-in cupholders became a common feature in cars. For several years they were the fodder of comedians for various reasons. The excitement eventually wore off.

“without use of Occam’s Razor” – previously mentioned.

“a Scooby Doo episode” – Scooby Doo is a Hanna-Barbera American animated series that has aired almost continuously in various versions since 1969. It stars a Great Dane, Scooby Doo, and a gang of mystery solving teens. In most episodes, there would usually be a comedic chase scene from whatever the monster or spook of the day was, before the true identity was unmasked.

“Spidey” – Spiderman, previously mentioned. I haven’t read the book in a while, so I can’t remember if the nickname the kids give to him is based on Spiderman, but until the day I dig it out !

“from Square Pegs” – Square Pegs was a comedy American TV series in the 1980’s that starred Sarah Jessica Parker. It was about a group of high school teenagers trying to both fit in and not fit in. Imagine an entire high school full of kids dressed in what was popular in the 1980’s.

“Dairy Freeze… the X-Force… Polaroid” – X-Force has been previously mentioned. Polaroid is a brand name for a kind of plastic sheet that develops automatically when exposed to light, used in disposable instant cameras, which also go by the same name. It’s a patented term.

 

#41 Bad Hare Day

Reference free, from what I could gather. Except that magic is boring, which is an important cultural fact.

 

#52 How I Learned to Fly

“Terminator” – science fiction film series, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Previously mentioned.

“Jack Johnson – How I Learned To Fly” – boxer.

“rescues mainland China from the wrath of Rodan” – Rodan is a nemesis and occasional friend to Godzilla. Previously mentioned.

“Twister” – party game, previously mentioned and badly explained.

“National Book Association of America” – The NBA, previously mentioned.

“the band Purple Rose” – not a real band, invented by R.L Stine. Confusion: dispelled!

“Fear of Flying” – Fear of Flying is a feminist novel by Erica Jong, full of themes of sexuality.

“serious social issue of Beach Rats”

“Beethoven symphony” – Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer, whose music, usually for pianos, is still hugely popular today. He lived from 1770-1827 and led an interesting life: he adopted his brother’s son when he died, in favour of the boy’s mother, and in most of his later life he was completely deaf.

 

#01 Welcome to Dead House

 According to my notes, another reference free entry!

#53 Chicken Chicken

“Sharpie” – brand of permanent marker, mostly seen in the United States.

“God” – Big guy in Church circles.

“Album by the Group” -

“Quantum Physics moment” – quantum mechanics are a beyond-microscopic branch of physics.

“Bagger Vance sideplot” – The Legend of Bagger Vance is an excruciatingly boring golfing movie by Robert Redford. It only runs for 2 hours, but it feels like much, much longer. Based on a novel by Steven Pressfield.

“Discman” – portable, battery-powered music device that succeeded the Walkman before MP3 Players became available. It played music CDs and are still generally available.

 

#21 Go Eat Worms!

“Raiders cap” – The Oakland Raiders are an American gridiron football team currently based in California. Their insignia is a pirate wearing a football helmet.

“Christopher Robin” – main human character in the Winnie The Pooh children’s book series written by A. A. Milne and the Disney adaptions. A young boy who advises Pooh and his Hundred-Acre wood friends.

“a grunge” – “Grunge” is a term usually used to describe a type of rock and roll music that became popular in the early 1990’s, best expressed by the band Nirvana and Seattle-based contemporaries. But the use of it as a noun doesn’t really make sense.

 

#15 You Can’t Scare Me!

“an Abbott and Costello movie” – Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were an American comedy team who had their biggest popularity in the 1940’s and 1950’s, being featured in radio, television, film, and print. Their movies were full of slapstick and wordplay, and they are today best known for their comedy routine usually called, “Who’s On First?”

“Loch Ness Monster… Bigfoot” – Two urban legend monsters in popular culture. The Loch Ness Monster is an aquatic monster said to live in Loch Ness in Scotland; several purported photographs have been exposed as fakes. Bigfoot, AKA The Sasquatch, is an ape-man said to live in the north-west regions of North America, similar to a yeti. Bigfoot is also generally believed to be a hoax.

“My Brother and Me” – American 1994 comedy tv series, previously mentioned in passing. The main characters were the young Dee Dee and his older brother, Alfie.

“an impromptu production of the Great Gatsby” – The Great Gatsby is the best known work by troubled author F. Scott Fitzgerald, set in the roaring 1920’s. The main character befriends the rich Gatsby of the title, and they spend their time frolicking and frivolously playing games and throwing parties. It sounds boring, but there’ s murder and suicide and yellow cars.

 

#38 The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena

“Pasadena, California” – suburb of Los Angeles, California. Home of the Rose Bowl.

“a popsicle” – brand of flavoured, frozen ice on a stick in the United States and Canada.

“in a Scooby Doo episode” – previously mentioned.

“California Energy Crisis” – In 2000 and 2001, California suffered a serious loss of electricity due to rising electricity prices caused by the de-regulation of energy companies like the now-infamous Enron. The crisis continued until mid-2003.

“Super Soakers, snow” – Super Soakers have been previously mentioned.

“Hardy Boys” – The Hardy Boys are a crime-solving duo of the book series of the same name. I think they’ve been previously mentioned. They were nearly all written by various ghostwriters.

 

#59 The Haunted School

 

“It Came From Ohio” – R.L Stine’s personal biography, written in a similar format to Goosebumps. In it, you find out his terrifying secret: he worked on a puppet show! :O

“Me And You and Everyone Else We Know” – a reference to the film Me and You and Everyone Else We Know. Characters in the movie use “< >” as a shorthand expression for “an act best left unrepeated”, according to Troy. If that isn’t an irresistible invitation to look it up, I don’t know what is!

“a boombox.” – a nickname given to portable stereo radios. They ran on batteries but could be plugged into electric sockets. They were the subject of a “cool” fad in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and maintain a reasonable popularity today.

“Ray Bradbury stories… twist endings” – Prolific American author, best known for Fahrenheit 451 , the dystopian book-burning society book, and his short story collections, like Something Wicked This Way Comes.

 

#09 Welcome to Camp Nightmare

“the physical characteristics of Art Garfunkel” – folk singer/songwriter of the folk team Simon &  Garfunkel. The duo has had several falling-outs since their rise t o popularity, and he has a huge shock of curly orange hair.

“Running” – Running is fun, isn’t it!

“an SVU episode” – Law and Order: Special Victims Unit has been previously mentioned.

 

#43 The Beast From The East

“April Fools” – tradition usually celebrated on the 1^st Day of April every year in Western society. The object of the tradition is to pull well-meaning hoaxes and pranks, and there have been several well-known international hoaxes on the day, like the infamous Spaghetti Tree hoax pulled by the BBC in 1957.

“basically normal Tag rules” – schoolyard game. Players must run and hide from another player, who has to catch and “tag” a replacement. There are many different names and variants of the game.

“Gameboys, baggy jeans, skater shirts” – Previously mentioned.

“a game of Calvinball” – In the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, about a boy and his imaginary friend tiger, they occasionally play a game called “Calvinball”. An interesting feature of the game is that Calvin can change the rules and method of the game any time he wants.

 

#35 A Shocker on Shock Street

“Jurassic Park” – Previously mentioned.

“the log flume at Magic Mountain” – A log flume ride is a ride often seen at amusement parks: you ride in a log, and it usually goes through a water slide and off a waterfall. Magic Mountain has been previously mentioned.

“another homage to Jurassic Park” – In Jurassic Park, there are a group of spitting dinosaurs that attack and kill Newman from Seinfeld.

“The Street They Call Shock” – a reference to the lyrics of the song Straight Street, by the Fiery Furnaces. I think previously referenced singer Matthew Friedberg is a member of the band.

“Focus On The Family” - Focus on The Family is a non-profit organisation in the United States (founded 1977) that stresses the importance of family values in society. It has several international equivalents, and it indeed stresses a value on two-parent families.

 

#60 Werewolf Skin

“It’s a Full Moon… Do You Know Where Your Werewolf Is?” – a reference to a long-running American public service announcement about child supervision.

 

#25 Attack of the Mutant

“a Leopard and tries to eat the Gazelle” – in the wild, leopards commonly prey on gazelles.

“Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, shoes with pumps, shoes with lights” – Spawn is a comic book series about an undead revenant vigilante. During the 1990’s, pumps and lights were a popular gimmick on shoes.

 

#10 The Ghost Next Door

“DayGlo neon colours” ­– previously mentioned.

“Reinforcement of negative stereotypes alert:” – post office workers are sometimes stereotyped as being gun-toting, vigilante nuts. This is mostly due to a series of shootings, and is the origin of the phrase “going postal”.

“these are some James Dean-level shenanigans” – James Dean was an American actor best known for his roles in Giant, East of Eden, and Rebel Without A Cause. His characters were usually disenfranchised youths. Shortly after he finished Rebel Without a Cause, he died in a car crash in his Li’l Bastard, a nickname for his car, cementing his reputation as a misunderstood rebel for the rest of time.

 

#22 Ghost Beach

“merely the northern lights” – Another name for the Aurora borealis, a lighting phenomenon. 

 

#12 Be Careful What You Wish For…

“Bewitched-induced haze” – Bewitched was a long-running American sitcom about a witch and her human husband trying to live in a typical suburban neighbourhood.

“that scene in Spielberg’s War of the Worlds” – Director Steven Spielberg remade low-budget science fiction movie War of the Worlds in 2005, starring Tom Cruise. In an early scene in the film, his character does something similar when the extraterrestrial invaders first appear. I don’t remember a sandwich, but then again, I only saw it once and I didn’t really CARE for that Tom Cruise and his shenanigans. >:(

“Doc Martins, the Orlando Magic, Troll dolls” – Doc Martins are a brand of shoe with a colourful history. Orlando Magic is an NBA team that gained popularity when Shaquille O’Neal joined the team in the 1990’s. Troll dolls are hideous dolls with colourful hair originating from Denmark. Every decade or so they seem to fade in and out of popularity.

“tiddlywinks or Parcheesi” – Tiddlywinks is a children’s game, with the goal being to flip “winks” onto an opponents “winks” or into a cup. Parcheesi has been previously mentioned.