We've made it. The strangest Goosebumps book of the original 62. At least that's how I felt when I first read what might be Stine's thinly-veiled puberty allegory. How has time treated my feelings on this one? Let's relive some fuzzy memories with My Hairiest Adventure.
MY HAIRIEST ADVENTURE
RELEASE MONTH: December 1994
FRONT TAGLINE: It keeps growing... and growing... and growing...
COVER STORY
Oh this cover. this silly, silly cover. Said it before that one of Tim's traits I'm not crazy over is his shocked kid reactions and Larry's is definitely one of the silliest. I like some of this cover, very nice details on the bathroom items and such. But it's Larry with his furry hands and gigantic ears that just make this one really goofy to look at. Definitely never scared me. When the best thing about the cover is how well detailed the crumpled toothpaste container is, you know you aren't dealing with a top-tier cover.
HE'S HAVING A REALLY BAD-HAIR DAY...
Larry Boyd just found the coolest thing in the trash. It's an old bottle of INSTA-TAN. "Rub on a dark suntan in minutes"-that's what the label says. So Larry and his friends do, but nothing much happens.
Until Larry notices the hair. Dark spikey hair growing on his hands and face. Really gross shiny hair.
Hair that keeps growing back even after he shaves it off...
STORY
We open with our protagonist, Larry Boyd, being chased by dogs. Turns out this is a regular occurrence for him. That and this weird condition he has where he doesn't have sweat glands. Before the dogs can attack, they're chased off by his friend Lily Vonn, who's cool, you know for a girl. Larry's words from the episode, not mine. Not in the book though, but hey. She too has a weird condition where she has two different colored eyes and always wears some kind of gold coin around her neck. If I didn't go into this knowing the twist, I'd shrug this off as odd, but regardless. Larry lives with his parents and their cat Jasper.
Larry and Lily are also part of a band currently called "The Geeks" with their friends Manny, Jared and Christina. They aren't very good, but they enjoy playing music and they at least hope they can get good enough to compete in the school's battle of the bands. After practice, the kids notice a dumpster and look inside, because kids in the nineties just really loved playing in garbage I guess. Sadly, no ventriloquist dummies in this dumpster, but an old bottle of "Insta-Tan" lotion catches Larry's eye. The kids decide to put on the lotion, despite it being expired, because they're really keen on the idea of winter tans. Manny pretends his face melted for a stock scare and Larry passes out due again to his sweat glands. He visits his doctor, the "quite the choice there Stine" named Dr. Murkin to get his regular shots.
That night, Larry notices hair on his hands. He shaves it off with his father's razor and goes to bed, thinking it may have just been some weird side effect of the lotion. The next day, he tries to tell Lily, but she doesn't believe him. Larry also run afoul of Howie Hurwin, the smug kid in class. Howie is also in the battle of the bands with his own group "Howie and the Screamers". That's a better name than "The Geeks" at least. As Larry goes to read his book report, he gets tripped by Howie. As he gets up, Larry notices the hair is back on his hands. He puts on a pair of leather gloves to hide them, then reads his report on a Bruce Coville book. Look at Jovial Bob here referencing other authors.
Larry tries to tell his mother about the hair issue, but she ignores him because this is still a Goosebumps book. He shaves his hands again and goes to sleep. But the hair continues to grow overtime. On his neck, on his knees, everywhere. And despite his best attempts it's getting harder and harder to hide. Larry begins to wonder if it was the Insta-Tan bottle that must have entered his system and screwed up his puberty or something to that effect. Although he finds it even more odd that his friends haven't shown any side effects. Speaking of his friends, Manny hasn't been seen for a few days. Even more strange is the house is empty, like his family just moved away without any warning.
Later, Larry finally tells his dad about the hair issue. And his dad actually shows concern over this. In fact, he's in full on panic mode. Dr. Murkin says that the Insta-Tan couldn't possibly be what's causing the hair growth and that Larry should wait a while until there's a better explanation. While at practice, Larry gets mocked by Jared and Christina for his hair issues, while Lily seems more concerned. In fact, she seems to be hiding something herself. But when Larry tries to get an answer, to see if she too is growing hair, she snaps at him and runs off. Time passes and the hair situation gets worse. Larry decides to try and find the Insta-Tan bottle to prove to Dr. Murkin. He heads back to where the bottle was last seen and runs into another dog. This dog seems to be pretty nice compared to the other dogs that usually chase him. Larry finds the bottle, but with no lotion inside, things appear to be a bust.
The next day, Lily is now missing from the group. As Larry heads to her place, he runs into another dog. One with two different colored eyes and a coin on her collar. Thinking it's Lily, he chases the dog to Lily's house where he sees her parents packing up and leaving. When he tries to get an answer, they tell him that there never was any girl named Lily. The Battle of the Bands is still a thing that happens and the three remaining kids compete, with Larry's hair growth going into overdrive as they perform. Now looking like a werewolf, Larry runs home and confronts his parents, asking if they believe him now about the Insta-Tan. And it's there where they drop the bombshell.
TWIST ENDING
It wasn't the Insta-Tan because Larry isn't human. In fact, none of the kids in town are. This isn't even a town, it's a testing lab. You see, the kids in town are actually dogs who were experimented on to become humans by Dr. Murkin. That's why Lily has the two different eyes and Larry has no sweat glands. Everything seemed to be working fine until the effects began to wear off. After some time, Larry is back to being a dog again and seems pretty fine with it. But he notices his owners showing up with a baby. One with cat eyes. Larry wonders if they experimented on Jasper instead.
CONCLUSION
My Hairiest Adventure is a strange book. To the point that I feel that you either like it or hate it with really no middle ground. It's either too strange even for Goosebumps, or its bizarre quirks work just right to fit in with Goosebumps' style. I'm in the latter camp. I don't consider it perfect, but it works as being one of the more unique stories in the series. Its strength is being a body horror story and while never scary in what you'd expect from Goosebumps, it still works in being effectively creepy and gross. Is it also a weird puberty allegory? Perhaps. Or it could have just been an odd book that Stine wanted to make because the idea seemed too good to pass up. And the book does a good job in building the mystery. Yes, it's a case of being too obvious in some ways (Larry's lack of sweat glands and Lily's eyes), but the book does a good enough job being subtle about it until things ramp up for the ultimate reveal.
There's of course the question as to why Dr. Murkin did all this. And my guess is that it was an attempt to help families get around the adoption process. Why go through the rigmarole of trying to adopt a child when you could instead get a dog kid? The lab assistants are likely families who can't have children of their own, so they were brought to this test lab to raise their dog children, until the experiments ultimately fail. It's why despite this being a test lab, the parents seem so broken at the end. Or Dr. Murkin is trying to just play god, like so many mad scientists in these kinds of books are. Although I can't get over the fact that R.L. Stine named a character after a pubic wig. Yeah, that's right. Enjoy that thought.
As for the other pieces of this book, Larry's a fine enough protagonist. Definitely a step up from Skipper from the previous book. As previously stated the scares do work on this one in terms of a gross body horror situation. The book's paced well, though can feel slow in places. And the twist is super memorable, one of the most memorable in the history of the series. Up there with Camp Nightmare in terms of endings that catch you off guard. So, that leaves this book as being one for the win column. it's not perfect, but it's definitely an underrated one. It's not a hair raising experience, but definitely just okay.
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