Goosebumps is a children'shorroranthology television series based on R. L. Stine's best-selling book series of the same name. It is an anthology of stories involving children and young adults in otherworldly situations. The series is centered around the same supernatural or occult elements featured in the novels, with most episodes being direct adaptions of the books.
Production
Goosebumps was filmed largely in Ontario, Canada, with different houses and historic properties in Toronto, Markham, and other outlying rural areas serving often as the sets for each episode rather than constructing artificial houses and buildings. Ontario also provided a more affordable filming location and an aesthetic that could double as American while maintaining ambiguity in terms of location and setting.[1] Props for the series were designed by Ron Stefaniuk and Alan Doucette, while Stefaniuk retained many of the animatronic props at his own studio after Goosebumps was cancelled.[2]
In other countries, Fox Kids both in Australia in 1995 and in the United States starting on 27 October 1995 and ending on 16 November 1998, with reruns on Fox Family lasting until 6 September 1999 and 3 September 2001 respectively. Every October from 2007 to 2009, Cartoon Network aired the episodes. From 6 September 2011 until 5 October 2014, The Hub broadcast the series. From 2013 onwards, Netflix has streamed all 74 episodes of the TV series on its online streaming service. In the United Kingdom, it aired on Children's BBC from 1997 to 1999, with repeats aired until 2001.[3]
Marketing
To coincide with Fox's release of several tapes from the series, a Halloween 1998 tie-in marketing campaign with General Mills promoted the video series on 10 million packages, and included with each videocassette coupons for products like Fruit Roll-Ups and Gushers.[4]
Reception
According to Billboard, some of the VHS releases were among the best-selling children's videos in November 1998.[5]
This episode is the only one given a 12 certificate in the UK due to its moderate, supernatural threat and heavy themes/depictions of animals being hunted and killed.
Beginning in 2004, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment began releasing the series on DVD in individual volumes containing one two-part episode per disc, but later changed sometimes two separate episodes per disc. Later releases included either two discs or multiple episodes on one disc.
Original releases
(With two episodes per disc, except for Chillogy):
Starting in 2008, new DVD sets were released to coincide with the Goosebumps HorrorLand revival books. These DVDs were a big upgrade from the previous releases, with menus and enhanced audio and picture quality. Unlike the original releases, these sets include three to four 22-minute episodes, instead of two. They also feature new cover art, as opposed to previous releases which used the cover art for the corresponding series book. Many of the previously released titles have been re-released as well, but only new releases are included in this list. Out of all of these DVD releases, 69 out of the 74 episodes have been released on DVD in the United States, excluding "The Haunted Mask" Parts 1 and 2, "Werewolf Skin" Parts 1 and 2, and "The Cuckoo Clock of Doom". "The Haunted Mask" and "Werewolf Skin", however, were previously released on VHS.
On 26 November 2012, Revelation Films started to release season sets of the series in the United Kingdom (DVD region 2). These releases contained the episodes' mostly uncensored versions as presented on the defunct UK Fox Kids channel (albeit still truncating the ending of "A Shocker on Shock Street"); a description on the back of the DVD cases mentions the heavy censoring the episodes were subjected to when they aired on CBBC. Unlike on Fox Kids, all six hour-long specials from across the first and second seasons are presented in their entirety, rather than being split into two-part episodes. Curiously, all the episodes of Season 4 have the Season 2 opening, though their end credits retain the Season 3–4 theme.
On 2 April 2014, Madman Entertainment released the entire series in four DVD sets as well as a "Most Wanted Collection" in Australia and New Zealand (DVD region 4).
The series is available for streaming on Netflix (United States, United Kingdom, and Canada).[71]
Goosebumps Presents
The books in the original Goosebumps series that were made into episodes of the Goosebumps television series were subsequently re-released in a series called Goosebumps Presents. The main difference between the books in this series and their original publications is that the Goosebumps Presents editions contained photos from the corresponding episodes. Eighteen books were released from 1996 to 1998.
Telling so many tall-tale monster stories that she is disgusting her friends and family, Lucy Dark does not know what to do when she discovers a "real" monster in the summer reading program librarian.
Deciding to get even with his bratty little sister, who always gets him in trouble, Michael Webster fiddles with their father's antique clock, planning to blame Tara, and accidentally sets time backwards.
Billy Harlan enjoys the days of baseball, archery, and swimming at Camp Nightmoon until a series of strange accidents plague his fellow campers, and Billy begins to suspect that he will be next.
Full-color photographs from the television show illustrate the Egyptian adventure of Gabe and his cousin Sari, who find themselves trapped in a mummy's tomb while the mummy is somewhere outside.
Slappy, the evil ventriloquist dummy, comes to the home of aspiring young ventriloquist Amy and proves to her that he can walk, talk, and make plenty of trouble all by himself.
Larry and his friends slap on some tanning lotion found in the garage, believing that they will get great tans (despite being expired), but Larry begins to sprout hair, his friends start to vanish one by one (with their parents denying that they ever existed), and dogs chasing Larry more so than usual.
Deciding to go ghost hunting in Hill House, a seaside house said to be haunted, two friends encounter a strange boy who may be the ghost of a boy who was beheaded by a deranged sea captain.
Sick of being bullied and being a total klutz, Samantha is granted three wishes after helping a strange lady in black find her way home, but Samantha discovers that the wishes granted to her have a nasty way of backfiring.
Tim Swanson loves Amaz-O the magician so much that he steals a bag of the performer's tricks, and soon Tim's life is taken over by a talking rabbit with an evil mind and shameless scruples.
Discovering a strange, magic mirror that enables them to become invisible, Max and his friends are delighted until it becomes increasingly difficult for them to become visible again.
Skipper Matthews adores comic books, especially those featuring the evil supervillain Masked Mutant, until he is drawn into a terrifying adventure and must save the world from the sinister schemes of the Masked Mutant himself.
Exploring a cave by the beach, Jerry and his sister Terri ignore the warnings of local kids Sam and Louisa that the cave is haunted until they find out that the ghosts on the beach are closer than they think.
Eddie and his friends set out to scare show-off Courtney – but the town's legendary mud monsters (mud-covered zombies of the town's drowned settlers) have plans of their own to make Eddie and his friends scream.
Evan and Andy find themselves in a sticky situation when they find a can of "Monster Blood" in an empty room of Evan's aunt's house – and the slime begins to grow to frightening proportions.
Drew Brockman notices that an eviltransformation seems to have come over her friends Shane and Shana after they dress up like monsters with pumpkin heads for Halloween.
Nerdy Ricky Beamer's plan to get back at the girl who kicked him off the school newspaper turns into a plot to enslave humanity when a group of reptilian aliens begin calling Ricky after hours.
Pink flamingos, plasticdeer--Joe Burton's dad loves lawn ornaments and does not want to lose to his militant neighbor in the annual lawn contest. But when he brings home two little front yard gnomes with red stocking caps and shiny eyes, the terror begins.
On 28 April 2020, it was announced that a reboot live action TV series was in the works by Scholastic Entertainment, Sony Pictures Television Studios and Neal H. Moritz's production company Original Film, who produced both the 2015 film and its sequel.[72] In March 2021, R.L. Stine stated that the series had found a producer and a director.[73] In February 2022, it was announced that the series would be heading to Disney+.[74] It was also revealed that the series would not follow the anthology format of the first Goosebumps series, but will instead be a 10-episode series with a storyline inspired by the films that follows a group of five high schoolers who unleash supernatural forces upon their town and must all work together –thanks to and in spite of their friendships, rivalries, and pasts with each other– in order to save it, learning much about their own parents' teenage secrets in the process.
