The Depths: Barf-O-Rama #01: The Great Puke-Off

CONTENT WARNING: PRETTY MUCH EVERY GROSS THING FROM EVERY ORIFICE. YEAH, DON'T READ WHILE FULL OR IF YOU VALUE YOUR SANITY.

Well, we've officially passed 100,000 views for the blog! Hooray! Though how many of those are mine from checking up on the blog, I don't know, but the fact remains that 100k in under five years for what is a pretty niche blog concept is still really good. Unfortunately, I did set myself up for an unfortunate promise were I to make it to 100K before the 5th anniversary. And that would be the open up the floodgates to the worst of the worst. The gross books, the abhorrent, the hard to read books. A subsection of the blog I refer only to as The Depths. And, oh boy, is there no better book to start with than the Barf-O-Rama series of books.

Released in 1996 in the midst of the Goosebumps boom, instead of going in on the kid horror craze, Daniel Weiss Associates would instead go for the gross. How gross? As gross as humanly possible. And the world was given Barf-O-Rama, a, holy shit, SEVENTEEN book series which focuses a lot on practically every kind of gross out bit you can go. Farts, boogers, belches, barfing, piss and a lot of shit. The books were written by one Pat Pollari, which is the pseudonym for Katherine Applegate. Yes, THAT Katherine Applegate. As in Animorphs K.A. Applegate. Given how disturbing Animorphs can get this hardly should surprise me. 

So, given that these books will likely fall around D-F in rankings, I'll instead rank these using my patented PAIN-O-MATIC Scale: Rating how hard it was to read through this book on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the weakest and 10 being pure suffering. So let's get delving into the depths and talk about The Great Puke-Off.

So, yeah. You can kind of see off the bat what we're dealing with in terms of taste. And by taste, I probably mean the taste of whatever you just ate before viewing this blog. And, oh yes, that is the work of our old friend Tim Jacobus. Because all our friends are here. As is a burrito filled with bigs that was eaten by our cover kid with a perfect reaction to be honest. Would you believe me if I told you this is probably on the tamer side when it comes to Barf-O-Rama covers? This endeavor's gonna fuckin' kill me.

Mark Fine opens the story by telling us that he has never seen his friend Lester Peebles get sick. It doesn't matter what depraved level of grossness he and their friends Allie Hogan and Zoner Russo (Heh. Hogan and Russo. Can that count as my one wrestling reference per blog or does that not work for you, brother?) have often done. Namely in the battle with their foes, twins Darren and Debbie Chapman and their friends Willie Leroux and Sara "Skank" McPhee. Yes, we're calling a fifth grader "Skank" for an entire book. Two pages in and we're not even starting with the gross out stuff and I feel like tapping out. But Mark says that Darren and Debbie get away with everything in the school because their father is the principal. A school authority figure named Chapman in a K.A. Applegate book. If I had a nickel...

While Mark is a known prankster, he's often the one getting blamed for all of the pranks going on at the school, including when the twins clogged the toilets with beans which broke the sewage system and soaked everyone. Rat-a-tat-tat, didn't take long for the scat. He then mentions the "great burrito barf" which saw Willie swap the regular burritos on burrito day with ones filled with roaches, evoking our cover. However, despite everyone retching over the bug-ritos, Lester just picks the bugs away and keeps on eating. I mean, they can't be worse than a Diberito, the Dilbert Burrito that gave people violent shits. Mark gets the blame for it by Mr. Chapman, mainly because it was Mark who yelled out about the roach-ritos and because it was conveniently only Mark and his friends who got the Franz Kafka happy meal.

Mark and the others run into Darren and Debbie who mockingly claim their innocence, but Mark and the others swear revenge. To find a way to out-gross the Chapman twins. Oh, and Willie and... I really have to call her it the entire book? Fine. And Skank. Zoner and Lester join in, Lester having damn near his whole fist up his nose because boogers funnee. They think about what to do, with Lester farting because at this point this guy's entire shtick is he's a gross motherfucker. But they ultimately decide to go with making Darren and Debbie puke, with their substance of choice being diaper gravy. Namely that of Mark's baby sister Krista. Yep, a book about baby shit. 100,000 views all building up to this. Though thankfully I'm a fifth done with this book, but it's still a long ways to go.

The next day, the kids learn they'll be going on a trip to Adventure Land. I guess as a make good for the trauma of the puke-a-thon due to the roaches. Mark and the others try to trick Darren, Debbie, Willie and... God dammit Katherine.. and Skank by swapping their bag lunches with bags full of worms, but they get caught pretty quickly. Though Skank seems to be cool with all the worms. Shame though, we almost got more eating of worms than in Go Eat Worms. But that was plan A. Plan B is the diaper gravy, which the kids extract from dirty diapers and put into a bucket. 32 pages deep and I'm physically unwell. So mission accomplished I guess. This made it to seventeen fucking books...

After doing that, Zoner uses his computer to hack into the school's computer and check the school records, which includes their teacher Miss Grady dancing in a fountain with other people. Is.. is that Friends reference or has this book already destroyed any rational thought I have remaining? Either way, they get their info on their foes. This includes I guess getting their locker combinations, then filling balloons with baby shit, which when the twins open their lockers, they get squirted in the face with shit which causes them and Willie to vomit. But not Skank, because I'm beginning to suspect Skank's like Lester in that "Oh she's that kind of fucked up" way. 

Later, Mark and the others think they're due to go to Chapman's office, but as they head out, they see what looks like money and chase after it, only to end up in a closet to which Darren and Debbie lock them in. T'was all a ruse. Oh, and there's a small hole cut into the wall. Thankfully no, it's not what you think it is but given everything in this book so far could you blame me for thinking glory hole? No, it's a hole made by Darren and Debbie who ate beans and deviled eggs and then follow up by farting into the hole. Seventeen books. Then Skank farts into the hole those are words I just typed out I think I'm having a fucking aneurysm. And we still have half a book to go folks. 

A few days pass and the kids are shaken after the fart closet incident and still need their revenge on the twins, Willie and Skank, who I think is interested in Lester and vice versa. Which would be cute if, again, we weren't calling a CHILD Skank. Skunk would have been fine, come on! Anyway, the twins are having a birthday party soon. Oh no. And it'll be a pool party. Oh double no. They put crisco in the water which makes things slippery and dump bags of dog turds in the pool. This coming after threatening to blast a squirt gun full of piss at someone, which they later squirt at Darren, Debbie and the others. There are still like forty pages left. SEVENTEEN BOOKS. 

Mark and the others get in trouble with Chapman for the pool incident, but Mark lies and claims innocence, which almost causes the twins to admit to some of their past transgressions. So, with things as escalated as they are, the twins propose to Mark that they settle this with one final challenge. Their grossest champion vs the twins' grossest champion. First to puke loses. Mark picks Lester, and thinks it's Willie, but the twins choose Skank, which Mark notes that he fell victim to sexist stereotypes by thinking the boy would be picked. No... no Applegate you don't get to pull that in the same book that I'm calling a child SKANK. But the stage is set for the event that entitles this book. Mark trains Lester by having him watch gross commercials and eat expired foods which might be the tamest joke. They celebrate with punch, which Mark jokes about pissing in, causing Zoner and Allie to puke. But not Lester. That boy's stomach seems iron-clad.

The day arrives with the kids all now at Adventure Land. The challenge is between Skank and Lester, which starts with them eating a whole bunch of food and drinks before heading to the rides. But the roller coaster doesn't work. They try another ride which causes the two to fart, but not puke. They then have them eat more food, including a milkshake with Willie's zit pus in it because I knew we were missing something. But nothing. Hell, Lester even starts putting his mouth over Skanks nose to suck out her snot SEVENTEEN BOOKS. But nothing. Instead, it seems like the two are now in love. And it's when they kiss that the pair finally projectile vomit which gets the Chapman twins and their father. But time passes after this whole incident and now everyone's getting along since I guess grossness of that magnitude can bond some people. But Mr. Chapman is traumatized and seems to be gone from being a principal, or a sane member of society ever. Hey, I'm right there with ya, pal.

Well we made it. First Barf-O-Rama book done. And yeah, that was a rough read. But thankfully a rather short read at about 103 pages long (not counting a glossary for a lot of the gross terms used in the book). And if you want gross, you're definitely getting it from every orifice. Puke, piss, farts, shit, puss, you name it. It's there. And it definitely gets to the point where I was ready to tap out. Though honestly, given everything, the payoff at the end was pretty weak. I mean it was gross and all, but felt like it moved way too quick and had less impact than, you know, the fart box or the dog turds in the pool. After all of that I was expecting bombastic and got more basic. I mean, massive puke ending and all, but this book already had balloons of baby shit. Law of diminishing returns in action. 

Mark is an okay protagonist. Very Bart Simpson-esque in his prankster bad boy try-hardedness. Only if Bart's pranks focused on turds and piss. Like Mark would probably have had Debbie and Darren literally eat his shorts and not just a veiled threat. Allie and Zoner mostly exist as the best friends while Lester is our main gross-out lord. On the villain side Darren and Debbie work fine as obnoxious foes and Skank is a horrible name for a child character but she works fine as a counter to Lester. Willie wins the Superfluous Clay award for really adding nothing aside from the zits and roach burritos. He fell so far into the background I kept forgetting he was even in this book.

So there isn't much to say about this when it gets down to it. It's a hard read, but if you enjoy crazy grossout humor, it'll work for you I guess. Or maybe you'll feel there's a definite sense of trying too hard to be as wild and gross as possible. To the point that I can't even gather how you follow up on this, let alone for sixteen other books without running out of ideas. But I guess as long as kids will laugh at poop I guess you can just keep going for as long as possible. So, realistically as a rating, I'd probably go with a D. Not as F level bad as it could have been but a lot of stuff still in there I can't really forgive, like, again, calling a child SKANK. So with that, my final PAIN-O-MATIC Scale comes to a 7. Painful, but I made it through. Will I make it through other Barf-O-Ramas as unscathed? God I hope so.