Movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas and its sequel force you to ask yourself if it’s a Halloween or a Christmas movie, but besides seeing some Jack O’Lanterns with Santa hats because X-Mas arrives to stores during mid October there aren’t many other movies that mix both holidays but I found one and well I just had to watch it so have a review of Casper’s Haunted Christmas
Continue reading Looking back on.. Casper’s Haunted Christmas
Halloween is here and to celebrate this edition of Music Match we’ll feature 3 spooky music videos to go along with the holidayso enjoy the music recommendations and awesome music videos for a playlist to listen and watch through with your friends at a party.
Ozzy Osbourne – “Bark at the Moon”
Combining the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde along with the WOlfman and a bit of Dracula for this music video that only Ozzy himself would be able to pull off without many people questioning the decisions. The music video really is something to behold while the song I don’t find it my style at least for a metal song it is easy for pretty much anyone to listen through as it
Continue reading Music Match Halloween – 3 Halloweeny Music Videos
After the original run of Goosebumps ended as sales were slowing down they continued immediately with Goosebumps Series 2000 to capitalize on the marketing for the year 2000 coming up. This series ended after 25 books, partly because kids had been outgrowing Goosebumps but mostly because of a several lawsuits between Scholastic and Parachute Press which lead to R.L. Stine’s contract not being renewed and everything Goosebumps related to be cancelled, including the Goosebumps Gold series that was due to launch at the end of the year 2000.
Ironically because of this only one Goosebumps Series 2000 book came out in the year 2000 as it had already been scheduled for January of that year. We know of the 26th book that would’ve been released in February of that year called “The Incredible Shrinking Fifth Grader”. Thanks to Tim Jacobus we got the cover art for that book that never came out. Or did it not?
A book called “The Adventures of Shrinkman” came out shortly after the cancellation of Goosebumps without any relation to Goosebumps. This book which emphasized that it was from R.L. Stine was not the only one as there were a total of six stand-alone novellas that were published that year and the following. The book mentions that it’s inspired by “The Incredible Shrinking Man” which was the play on the title the Goosebumps book had not to mention that one of the scenes of the book closely resembles what is pictured in the cover art of the Goosebumps 2000 book.
Here is the Synopsis:
When Danny Marin isn’t playing basketball, he spends hours drawing Shrinkman, his favorite comic-book superhero, or watching Shrinkman movies. His hero can shrink to the size of a bug. But, whoa—wait. Suddenly, Danny finds himself shrinking, too! His parents are horrified, his friend Megan thinks it’s funny, and his doctor is baffled. With each passing hour, Danny gets smaller and smaller—until he’s the size of a sparrow. Soon he’s fighting for his life against a grasshopper, a colony of ants, and even his own dog. He isn’t safe anywhere. He has to find a cure—before he shrinks away forever.
Funny and terrifying and filled with BIG surprises, The Adventures of Shrinkman proves that it takes more than size to overcome impossible hurdles.
As you can see the story seems right up Goosebumps alley making this the 26th Goosebumps 2000 book that was never released. But here’s the thing, the other 5 junior novels also feature stories that seem straight out of Goosebumps, featuring a young kid getting into a spooky or weird situation only for things to turn out fine until a twist ending comes. So It’s clear that all these other books that were released were originally intended to be Goosebumps Series 2000 books before it was abruptly cancelled and to not let those stories that were already drafted go to waste he published them with another publisher.
Goosebumps Gold was due to come out in October of that same year, marketing had already begun and there was no reason for Series 2000 to finish and leave a gap as one book was constantly published every month. Counting January’s book was released that left us with 8 series 2000 books that would’ve been published before moving on to Goosebumps Gold. While only 6 of these novels came out that likely meant the other 2 hadn’t even been drafted which made sense the Goosebumps Gold books had also not been written yet, only some ideas thrown around.
So let’s take a look at the other rare Goosebumps Series 2000 books that were published without the Goosebumps name and their synopsis not counting the one already mentioned. Thankfully they’re all easy to get through Amazon even though they are somewhat rare. It’s also worth noting that Goosebumps artist Tim Jacobus is credited as being the artist of these books as well, keeping the connection back to Goosebumps tighter even if it’s not exactly the same style.
Continue reading The Lost Goosebumps Series 2000 books
Halloween has a long convoluted history of the tradition evolving quite a bit until it reached the commercial holiday it is today. The traditions date back to many catholic and pagan holidays as much as many countries like France and Mexico prefer to ignore that fact. La Toussaint or All Saints day is celebrated instead on November 1st which is a public holiday and the next being Le jour des morts. I’m no expert on the subject but below is a great video that has the history of this holiday which has subtitles and a translation so its easy to follow.
As mentioned in France Halloween is rising slowly in popularity but like in Mexico it is not seen as something good that its happening despite the fact that all traditions change over time. Halloween is more common in Canada with it having a much larger influence by the US and likely all these french halloween songs were made in Quebec. Unlike Dia de Muertos in Mexico La Toussaint isn’t really such a holiday where the dead are celebrated in a way to show the appreciation of those who’ve left us but instead a more traditional way of honoring the dead. Which is better is really up to the person I guess.
I asked my French teacher what her thoughts on Halloween where and they mostly backed up with whatever you can find about Halloween in France on the internet which is that it’s not really celebrated since they have La Toussaint but you see more and more things about it nowadays. Halloween is used in Mexico to promote interest in learning English so it doesn’t surprise me that apparently the same is done in France.
If you enjoyed the article or have any thoughts let me know by commenting below or by tweeting at me. You can also share the article or hit me up an email with your thoughts, it’s nice to hear from other fans.
Coming from flash animated webisodes, some which have now been lost to time, Villanos was able to get a shot at making some shorts or miniseries for Cartoon Network Mexico’s app and so we got ten different episodes around a minute or so. These became rather popular and renamed Villainous for other markets, while the original name would be translated as just “Villains”.
I started seeing a lot of these characters so I was tempted to check them out and so I did including the webisodes. The webisodes for the most part look like your normal flash cartoons that you’ve come to expect from the internet, the main thing going for them is the character designs as most of the humor falls flat.
Continue reading Looking back on.. Villainous Shorts
It’s been difficult trying to find a Halloween themed French Friday post since Halloween is not really popular in France. However I was able to find some french halloween songs. The songs were all made for french learners since there appears to be no real halloween songs but that doesn’t mean they’re bad, in fact I would add them to any halloween playlist. Since they’re for people learning French they’re easy to follow, include lyrics and a great way to learn spooky vocabulary, check them out.
Matt Maxwell – C’est l’halloween
Continue reading Some Raving French Halloween Songs
Goosebumps was a huge hit in the 90s but as the years went by the franchise started to slow down a bit and to re-energize it the original run ended and was immediately replaced by Goosebumps Series 2000 which sparked a bit more interest into the series though the trend of Goosebumps slowing down as their original target audience kept growing up. Still, Scholastic had no intention of letting go and they had planned for a new series to take over Series 2000 in October 2001 with Goosebumps Gold.
R.L. Stine’s contract was ending and Scholastic was in a legal dispute over Goosebumps with Parachute Press, add to that the declining sales and the scheduled Goosebumps Gold series was cancelled and not seen again for a few years. But what exactly was Goosebumps Gold going to be like? Besides a few press releases what we mostly have to go by is the artwork of the first two books as well as the title for the third from Tim Jacobus’ website.
Continue reading Whatever happened to.. Goosebumps Gold ?
