Books on Tape: Bone Chillers: Frankenturkey

I bet you thought we were done talking about this damn Frankenturkey thing, huh? But it's Thanksgiving, baby. You can't just have two helpings. I mean, if you can stomach your uncle at the table kvetching about Hunter Biden, then surely you can enjoy one last helping before the tryptophan knocks you out. So, for the third and final time, let's cover Bone Chillers and Frankenturkey. Oh, and after like a year of delaying it, welcome to the return of Books on Tape as well. Because we're talking about the Bone Chillers TV show.

The landscape of kids media in the mid 90s is insane to look back on. Especially if you were a fan of kids horror. While Are You Afraid of the Dark? really got the ball rolling, it was the success of Goosebumps' television series that really got the ball rolling and got a lot of people noticing. Including the Walt Disney company who would create a television series based on the Bone Chillers books by Betsy Haynes. However, if you were expecting one to one adaptations of the books, that's not what you got here. Bone Chillers instead focused on a core cast of teens who go to school at Edgar Allen Poe High. Where weird and horrifying things always happen. A few of the books would get adaptations that would tie into this new plot concept while most episodes were new stories altogether. 

The show ran for one season on ABC in the fall of 1996 before being cancelled. The series did get three VHS releases featuring almost half of the original series while the remaining seven episodes also popped up online thanks to recordings, so thankfully this isn't a lost media case. All thirteen episodes are available on Youtube (some complete with ads for that added charm). Unfortunately it's looking unlikely we'll get a better quality release on Disney+. And thankfully one of the episodes that made it to VHS was the one we're covering today. So let's see how the TV show handled this plot as we review for the third time, Frankenturkey.

We open the episode with Fitzgerald "Fitz" Crump working on Thanksgiving decorations in his creepy style, while watching a monster movie on TV. 

"Frankenstein's Brother In Law" hosted by a Svengoolie knockoff named Igor Von Goolie. If you want to get the vibe of this show off the bat, this is pretty much it. A real sense of "go weird as possible since it's a kids horror show" vibe. Also, I know it technically does still exist, but I miss the days of weird syndicated horror movie shows with hosts. The cheesier the better. 

After that, we get our plot of the story. Thanksgiving is coming up at Edgar Allen Poe high and they'll be serving a turkey named Gobbles (Oh thank god I don't have to keep writing Gobble-De-Gook). Despite the concerns of some of the students, Principal Pussman is super ready to chow down on this adorable turkey puppet. After Fitz makes a snide comment, he and Brian Holsapple are forced to be the ones to fatten Gobbles up until it's turkey time, before maniacally laughing and saying Happy Thanksgiving.

Arthur Burghardt is so damn good in this and so over the top, you'd think he wouldn't have room for turkey with this much ham.

Our protagonists, Fitz, Brian, Sarah (Yes that is Linda Cardellini thanks for asking) and Lexi all feel that Gobbles doesn't deserve to die, but they seem to be in the minority here as everyone's ready to gobble some Gobbles. So, Fitz comes up with a plan similar to the book in that they should just make a decoy turkey and keep Gobbles hidden until Thanksgiving passes.

They get the maniacal cafeteria worker Carl to help and they bring it to life. Lexi has ethical issues about this, but gets shouted down because it's not like there's a monkey's paw situation in bringing a fake turkey to life. Only difference here is that it doesn't seem like the fake works at first, so they just dump it in the dumpster and move on. A convenient lightning bolt hits the dumpster as Gobbles makes a run for it in the school. As the kids give chase, the Frankenturkey emerges.

And Jesus Aloysius Christ! That is some nightmare fuel. Yeah, if I can give props to Bone Chillers for anything, it knows how to nail it on the creepy monsters. It's a loud and erratic show overall, but like, I don't want to have to deal with that. 

Okay, it's a bit less impressive off the close up, but still. After the kids can't find Gobbles, they run into Frankenturkey who flies off into town. The next day, Principal Pussman is pussed off that Gobbles is missing and tells the school to find him, an extra drumstick to whoever bags the bird. After some searching, Fitz and Lexi find Gobbles. Along with Frankenturkey.

And honestly, I can't think of a better gif to describe this show than this. A good chunk of this show is loud screaming, wild closeups of the monster and running from said monster loudly. This show is feels like half of a show trying to be a living cartoon and half being an effective advertisement for headache medicine.

Eventually, after more running around (including the most intense horror moment involving two turkey puppets ever) the kids manage to trick Frankenturkey into the oven where it dies and becomes the Thanksgiving meal for Edgar Allen Poe High School.

Oh and Gobbles is alive to enjoy it so mega happy ending. Lemme guess, this one going to get hit by a car too?

So, how does the TV adaptation fare? It's really something that's evocative of much of the Bone Chillers show and that there doesn't really seem to be much of a plot. I mean, there kind of is in setting up everything, but the latter half just feels like a lot of running around and loud noises. I can only imagine if you're hungover and your kids were watching this you'd be in hell with how loud and obnoxious it feels. It also feels like it tries really hard to be a living cartoon to the point that it feels forced in its execution. 

But there are things to like. The puppetry is solid, even though there is never a moment that Gobbles feels like anything more than a puppet. But both he and Frankenturkey look great. Super freakish monster designs. And while the cartoonish-ness can be a bit over the top, the hammy acting is endearing. This sense of "well the plot's lackluster, but we can make it fun by just hamming it all the way". So it becomes memorable at that. Twelve other episodes I have to cover to see if there's really a shake off of its worst traits, but this was just okay at best. Books easily win out in that area. Frankenturkey, the TV version, gets a C+. Happy Thanksgiving!