Goosebuds

The Goosebuddies Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole read R.L. Stine's Horrorland 'finale' The Streets of Panic Park . Sixteen (!!) book protagonist kids are globbed together to face the edgelord villain The Menace who hopes to scare the kids so bad they'll jump realities. And in what should be the hypest moment in all of Goosebumps, Slappy leads a group of villain allies! Ca...

We're back to Hark as the Goosebuddies Chad, Paul, and Kevin adventure through the second (and last) of R.L. Stine's sci-fi Choose Your Own Adventure series: The Invaders of Hark . We're thrust into the city of Hark where multiple alien factions fight for control and a beautiful princess. These books are brutal with only one correct path. Will we survive? OFF TOPICS: Paul's adventu...

We gotta escape from Horrorland! Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole read R.L. Stine's Goosebumps: Horrorland:   Escape From Horrorland . A hell of a title. The last ten books have been building up to this; the YA equivalent of Avengers as all our survivng kids team up with original survivors Lizzy and Luke to run around in circles in a paranormal park that isn't even Horr...

Help! We have a new podcast episode! Your hosts Chad Quandt and Kevin Cole check out R.L. Stine's 2009 Horrorland  book Help! We Have Strange Powers . The powers these twin protagonists get are surprisingly easy to categorize: telepathy and telekinesis. Well, technically there's a subset of time power but it's really just a psychic baby ray. Enjoy the episode! Book discussion begins: O...

The Goosebuds Boys check out the 90s sitcom Family Matters ' late series episode 'Stevil'. Brought to life by a casual wish and a bolt of lighting, 'Stevil' is here to kill the Winslows and I guess help Urkel's ventriloquism career? They don't really work on their standup set at all. You know, this was once a sitcom about a blue collar family growing up in Chicago. Then...

S-s-s-so good to be back, Goosebuddies! We were doing a snake thing there-- was that clear? Your hosts Paul Ritchey and Kevin Cole enroll in R.L. Stine's Goosebumps Horrorland book Welcome to Camp Slither. There are rumors of man-eating snakes at camp, but no reports on if they'll eat the other genders. And when we rejoin the Horrorland arc a terrifying ride called the R.I.P.P.E.R. Dipper...

Summer's over, Goosebuddies. How did you spend it? Were you hunting for buried cars at the beach? Attacking the pool lifeguard with psychic damage? Or tracking down a beloved but lonely ice cream man? The Goosebuddies check out The Adventures of Pete & Pete 's classic episode "How I Spent My Summer Vacation", arguably one of the best in the series. And Michael Stipe is there! E...

Behold the glory of the Helmacrons! Your hosts Chad Quandt and Kevin Cole take a Goosebumps break to read through arguably the weirdest Animorphs book; The Suspicion by K.A. Applegate. The kids' war campaign against the Yeerks is interrupted by the arrival of the Helmacrons, miniature space people with giant egos. Enjoy the episode! Book discussion starts: 9:15 OFF TOPICS: Nyx the dog, hard hi...

The Goosebud Boys Chad, Paul, and Kevin face the Horrorland version of R.L. Stine's infamous haunted camera: Say Cheese -- And Die Screaming! That dash is in a weird place, right? It's the wrong pause? Anyway, somehow the rules of these deadly photo predictions have changed since last book. Are the spirits getting more artistic? Or just lazier? And we also try to answer the question: what...

Tighten your shoes and do some stretching, cuz we got a big track meet today! Your Goosebuds hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole check out the Choose Your Own Adventure book Track Star! by R.A. Montgomery. We're a high school athlete with a lot of pressure to run the fastest and longest to get that college scholarship and make dad proud. And somehow all paths lead to performance en...

Holy hells, Goosebuddies. This episode marks our 10th Anniversary of the podcast. We started in 2014 with a mission to cover the works of R. L. Stine and we still have mountains of pulp to go through. But in honor of the celebration we take a look back at the story that started it all: Welcome to Dead House! Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole re-review this 1992 book about a sort...

It's time to morph into a shark! But sadly we're not reading Animophs and fighting an alien resistance, we're a dumb kid trespassing into an ancient temple and cursed by a vague monk! Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole read through the 80s Choose Your Own Adventure  book: You Are A Shark  by Edward Packard. Despite the direct title, it's really hard for us to get...

Do you know what it's like to be considered a beast by your classmates? To be so big but also good at computers? A teenage Hank McCoy? At least one of hosts does and this episode hits hard. Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole cover R.L. Stine's Goosebumps Horrorland  book My Friends Call Me Monster. This is a weird story about monster closets and egg-based horror. Not reco...

This book tasks questions the reader: who is your mother and what do they do? Are they wrapped up in bandages? And are they being used as a fuel source for eternal life? Your hosts Paul Ritchey and Kevin Cole cover R.L. Stine's Goosebumps Horrorland  book Who's Your Mummy? Protagonists Abby and Peter stay with their uncle who has a dark secret: a real tasty stockpile of mummies to eat up....

Get in formation, Goosebuddies! Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole watch another classic The Adventures of Pete & Pete episode, "Day of the Dot". As Big Pete's marching band competes in the Regional Championship, he struggles with affections for Ellen and a tyrannical teacher. Meanwhile Little Pete is trapped on an endless school bus as Bus Driver Stu wrestles wit...

Your Goosebuds Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole read through the 1985 CYOA book The Badlands of Hark, written by R.L. Stine! This is written before Goosebumps, Fear Street, or Horrorland; what sort of sci-fi fantasy world does a younger Stine have in his soul? Turns out it's one with an endless maze. A lot of death in this hellworld of R.L.'s. Can Paul and Kevin survive and find T...

Your Goosebuds hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole review R.L. Stine's Goosebumps Horrorland book Dr. Maniac vs Robby Schwartz where aspiring cartoonist Robby discovers his comic creations come alive to eat squirrels and torture local kids. But also none of this matters as Robby resets the narrative multiple times (it was all a joke, reader!) and it causes an emotional cataclysm fo...

Beware of grues, Goosebuddies! Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole check out another Choose Your Own Adventure book based off one of the first adventure games ever: Zork! This 'What-Do-I-Do-Now" Book is Zork #1: The Forces of Krill by S. Eric Meretzky. Is Krill the Ganon of this world? Would we be shaking in our +1 Boots at the mention of his lizard men if we had played th...

There's a terrifying affliction of fear going around; so we're enforcing a Haunted Mask mandate! Your Goosebuds hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole read R.L. Stine's Goosebumps Horrorland book The Scream of the Haunted Mask . It's been a year since the original story and Carly Beth is worried she'll put the mask back on and become evil. She could just get rid of it,...

This episode is part of a balanced bookfast-! Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole read the third of R.L Stine's Goosebumps Horrorland series: Monster Blood for Breakfast . The iconic green growth slime is back for a fifth time. And somehow this is the least-scary story! Protagonist Matt Daniels deals with the terrifying idea of... being taller and stronger and winning the swim...

The corn state is in trouble, listeners! Small robotic drones designed like metal wasps are terrorizing the youth. They are not being used for war. Let us make that clear: this is not a metaphor about drone warfare at all. Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole cover Johnathan Rand's American Chillers: Iron Insects Invade Indiana . And we're joined by the wonderful Payton Wha...

Giddyup, Pegacorn! Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole wrangle the Choose Your Own Adventure book Flight of the Unicorn by Deborah Lerme Goodman. In a previous episode we had a great adventure in Deborah's Scottish-ish fantasy world. In this book we're the apprentice to some sort of horse-mancer? It involves sewing wings onto cats to turn them into unicorns? There has to b...

We're back in Horrorland, Buddies! Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole cover R.L. Stine's Goosebumps Horrorland book 'Creep from the Deep'. We're reunited with Billy and Sheena Deep and their uncle Dr. D. What sort of doctor is Deep? A water scientist? He does not have respect for the ocean like he should and his children suffer once again because of it. But th...

Just in time for the holidays we have a new Adventure! episode: Sonic the Hedgehog Adventure Gamebook #3 'Sonic v. Zonik' written by Nigel Gross & Jon Sutherland. These two authors watched their kids play Sonic for five minutes and then free wrote a Choose Your Own Adventure baded on that. What? Yes, Sonic is a Christmas character. Every kid gets a Sega Genesis on Christmas pre-package...

Ding dong, Goosebuddies! Your hosts Chad Quandt, Paul Ritchey, and Kevin Cole are back to cover the third episode in the 2023 Goosebumps TV series involving the fabled Cuckoo Clock of Doom! In this Groundhog Day-ish episode a bunch of evil clone James are threatening to... throw kids in pits? Unclear what their plan is. They're also very susceptible to damage. You know that villain Twice from...