The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps SlappyWorld #16: Slappy in Dreamland

It's March of 2022. Happy two full years of being trapped in a pandemic everybody! And speaking of purgatory, It's time to talk about Slappy again. Now, in fairness, last few SlappyWorld books focused on Slappy have ranged from decent to R.L. Stine smoking pencil shavings and writing The Dummy Meets the Mummy. And of the two confirmed Slappy tales this year, this is the one I'm interested in the most, so maybe it will work. Or maybe I should dream on. It's Slappy in Dreamland. 

And the main reason I'm excited for this book is its cover. Yes, I know. That has almost always snakebit me in the past, but look at it! I've stated before that the movie design lacks any real scariness to it, but Brandon Dorman managed to succeed. Great use of purple and shadows to give everything a very nightmarish feel. Some great work on the light coming into the room. And then there's Slappy who actually does look intimidating with his glowing red eyes and freakish visage. I even like the "SLAPPY IS HERE" etched into the footboard because that best describes Slappy. Evil and egotistical. The best SlappyWorld cover to date and further proof that Dorman was the right person for the job.

In what is a change of pace, our protagonist Richard Hsieh actually starts the book with Slappy already with him. He recently got the dummy for his birthday. And so far Slappy's remained asleep. Guessing for once nobody noticed the note in the pocket. Slappy is Richard's best friend. Wait, that was our last Slappy book. Regardless, Slappy's been a help for Richard who has confidence issues. His dad isn't too fond of his son carrying around a dummy, but his mom is cool with it. What's the worst that could happen? It's not like the dummy is alive or anything. Perish the thought.

Richard's dad works at a hardware store while his mom is a dream doctor, despite the back blurb stating that Richard's dad studies dreams. Okay then, Bob. Mrs. Hsieh takes Richard and Slappy to her sleep lab where patients are being hooked up to have their dreams studied. Richard shows Slappy to Salazar, the assistant of Mrs. Hsieh. He asks if Richard's interested in dreams like his mother, but Richard hasn't a clue. They talk to one of the patients, a man named Mr. Baldwin, as he has electrodes and other good n plenty attached to him so that his dreams can be studied. They can't see the dreams, only that the patients are dreaming.

As Richard settles in, he asks his mother to hook the electrodes on to Slappy. She does so for a laugh, then is shocked to see brain waves being emitted from the dummy. But that's impossible. How can the dummy have a brain. Well, at  least it's not a moldy sandwich up there this time. Richard thinks maybe this means that Slappy is alive like Pinocchio, but his mother doesn't believe him because it's our double whammy of Goosebumps parent and person of science who wouldn't believe such tripe. She chalks it up as faulty wiring and has the system rebooted while Richard is sent home. He's not happy about that, especially because his first cousin Willow is staying at his place.

Willow and Richard are total opposites. While he's more shy and reserved with no friends, Willow's more bouncy and energetic and likes to play pranks on people, including Richard. This includes putting paint all over the ruler of their art teacher Mr. Trevino, who always points to his ruler when he's mad like someone who really wishes corporal punishment was still a thing. As Richard and Willow paint a mural for no other reason than this is a Slappy book and that thing's going to get ruined, Mr. Trevino catches Richard with a blue paintbrush and blames him for it with Willow intentionally getting him in trouble for it. Oh great. She's one of THOSE characters. 

Richard goes to bed and gets his first nightmare. He sees Slappy is moving and talking on his own. Slappy tells him that they have work to do and that Richard is to be his sla-oh wait that's taboo now, his SERVANT. Yes, his servant. Richard resists, but the dummy bites his arm. Richard wakes up and sees Slappy right where he left him, but now his arm is really sore. But he chalks it up to all being a dream and maybe he slept on his arm. They pick Willow up the next day and she again makes some snide comments before Mrs. Hsieh tells Richard to stop picking on Willow. She's got it rough with her parents being gone all the time. Sure, but doesn't excuse her being crappy to Richard.

Richard finishes up a jigsaw puzzle, then freaks when he misses three pieces. Willow hid them on him to screw with him. At dinner, Richard brings up the nightmare to his family. Willow suggests that maybe putting Slappy in the closet will remedy it. He doesn't do that, and just puts Slappy in his normal spot. The next dream has Richard running through the dream lab before he's strapped to a bed with his mother putting electrodes on him. Then his mother turns into Slappy who turns up the voltage and electrocutes him. 

Richard wakes up and runs into Willow who says that she had a nightmare about Slappy as well. Richard's skeptical, because so far we have no reason to believe Willow about anything, but she seems freaked out. Her dream involves her being on a bus by herself as the bus went faster and faster. Like that movie "The Bus That Never Slowed Down". Eventually she sees the bus driver was Slappy who laughs at her as the bus crashes, being torn apart like a jigsaw puzzle and Willow goes flying out before she woke up screaming. Mrs. Hsieh says that maybe they should put Slappy away and that Richard's dad will do something about it later.

As the kids head to school, Richard sees his puzzle torn apart and he instantly blames Willow, who was joking about just tearing it up. At class, it's biology, which means dissecting frogs. Richard passes out, and Slappy comes up from behind him and grabs his throat, saying that he's going to be Richard's lab partner. He has Richard grab the frog from his desk and eat it. He soon wakes up and it seems as if he actually did eat his frog! No, wait, the frog ended up under his desk. Thankfully no formaldehyde eating in this book.

That night, Willow again suggests putting Slappy in the closet, but Richard doesn't. He then starts work on a paper about zoos, giving us some time for R.L. Stine to play "Mr. Educator" and give us the history of zoos. But in the midst of his work, Richard starts to get tired. So he goes to put Slappy in the closet, only Slappy is alive once again. He forces Richard to head back to school in the middle of the night. Richard refuses, to which Slappy plays a mean game of "Got Yer Nose". He tells Richard to paint the gym. When Richard refuses, Slappy starts throwing paint at him like it's the first intro to In Living Color. Richard wakes up back home. Another nightmare. Willow had a similar one. They check the dummy and YEP. It's time. They find the paper and read the words out loud. So congrats kids, you just made this worse.

But Slappy remains lifeless. Richard is also skeptical, I.e. stupid, and thinks that Slappy can't possibly come to life. It's all just weird coincidences. But they put him in the closet just to be safe. Richard has a hard time sleeping. He wakes up and hears noises in the closet, but nothing happens. He wakes up in the morning however and Slappy's back on his bed. He instantly blames Willow for it, which, in fairness, she has been awful to him in the past. Even if it seems dumb for him to doubt her, he's within his rights here. Willow says that she didn't do anything. 

Anyway, time to change the subject as one of their classmates, Brandy Linker's birthday is coming up and she suggests Richard performs with Slappy at the talent show at the party. The kids head to the school and sure enough, the gym is covered in paint. Richard is still skeptical, but Willow says that this means whatever they dream about, when Slappy's involved, it comes true. Their teacher, Mrs. Deaver, shows up and is upset, but Willow manages to get them out of trouble by BSing that it was all just a big accident with the ladder and the paint. I mean, how do you learn to fall off a 20-foot ladder? Richard then checks Slappy and sure enough, blue paint dots on his hands.

The party arrives and Richard performs with Slappy. And you'd think this would be THAT scene, but not entirely. I mean, Slappy does make insults to Richard, but nobody else. Instead he manages to hypnotize all of the kids and put them to sleep, including Richard. Slappy tells Richard that they have work to do. And that work is to tear up Brandy's presents and smash the cake. He then wakes up back on the stool, but sure enough, the cake and the presents are ruined. Turns out all of the kids had this dream about Richard destroying the presents. Willow tells Richard that this is all the proof they need that Slappy is indeed messing with their heads, but how are they going to stop him? Well we have under 30 pages left, so get to it.

So Richard gets in trouble for supposedly hypnotizing the entire group of kids. He pleads his innocence and says it was Slappy, but his parents don't believe him because... I mean it's Goosebumps parents, we established that, but, like, really? You really think your son just suddenly has the power to hypnotize an entire group of kids? And even considering all of this weirdness happened AFTER the dream machine incident, you still think it's all Richard's doing? Yikes. Mr. Hsieh's had enough and puts Slappy into a trunk in their basement. That proves useless as the dummy is back in Richard's room that night.

The next day, Richard, Willow and their class are going for an overnight at the zoo. Everyone still blames Richard for what happened and he says that he didn't bring Slappy this time. Of course, HE didn't bring Slappy, Slappy invited himself. The zoo trip goes fine for the most part, very cute and easygoing, that is until Richard finds Slappy in his sleeping bag. He stuffs the dummy in the monkey cage and goes to sleep, only to wake up and see all of the kids walking in a trance, winding up in a tiger cage. And just before the tigers go about mauling these children, zoo workers hit them with tranquilizer darts. Everyone's confused, but Richard and Willow have guessed that Slappy is now in the dreams of all the kids, controlling them like his puppets, which when you think about it, that's pretty ironic, huh? But Willow does get an idea.

When Richard returns home, he asks his mother to take him back to the sleep lab, hoping that he knows a way to get rid of Slappy once and for all. Mrs. Hsieh is skeptical, but she agrees. Richard and Slappy are hooked up together, and once inside the dream world, Richard confronts the dummy. He says the magic words before suddenly waking up... in Slappy's body! And Slappy is in Richard's body. Eh, at least there's no talking dog this time.

Well, amazing cover, but otherwise just okay book. Truly the cosmic ballet goes on. Slappy in Dreamland has a lot of neat ideas, but sadly doesn't get much of a chance to have fun with its concept. Aside from the one nightmare with Richard getting electrocuted and Willow's description of the bus dream, the rest of the book just goes back to the Slappy formula. Granted, handled better than normal, but still. You have a world of dreams and the best you can do is have Richard just mess up a cake? Honestly, maybe it's my own fault for hoping that we'd get more of Slappy using the dreams to torment Richard and the others and maybe we'd get something like Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors and have these kids tormented by Slappy fighting back in the dream world. But no. The status quo lives on. 

Richard is an okay protagonist. Aside from being a massive skeptic, he's pretty bland. Willow is unlikable early on but gets better later in the story. Definitely glad it wasn't just a book of her being awful to Richard and Richard getting in trouble. That trope dying fast was a godsend. As for Slappy, it's Slappy. You know what you're getting with him at this point. Which is sad given that after The Dummy Meets the Mummy we've moved on from the more insane stuff involving the character. Like, really Bob? The book with dreams where anything is possible and not even an eye laser or anything? Just hypnosis and that's all? At least the twist was neat. Though I'd imagine the direct sequel would be called Why I'm Afraid of Termites. 

It does continue my "multiple Slappy" theory at least. I mean, all of this is silly baby nonsense and stories written by an evil dummy's point of view, but it does work into my thought that we're dealing with multiple Slappies all over the place. It at least would explain how we're just continuing on to another Slappy adventure if there's a kid trapped in the dummy's body. Again though, this is all just crack theory stuff, kind of in the same vein of trying to connect Goosebumps to a shared universe. And at least it wasn't just the talking dog twist from My Friend Slappy again. 

So yeah. Not really much to say with this one. Not a horrible Dummy book, but nothing that touches the upper echelon of Slappy's misadventures. Definitely as middle ground as you could get with it. SlappyWorld, the further it gets, really feels like it's starting to fall into a mediocre holding pattern. I guess after Slappy turns into Scott Summers, how in the hell can you top that? The answer being "not at all" is both very depressing and also very very on brand for R.L. Stine. Haunting with the Stars is the next one. Stine's usually okay with Aliens, so maybe we'll get something great? 

STORY: GG.5

SCARES: GGG

TWIST: GGG

ENJOYMENT: GG

OVERALL: 2.5 Gs