Dr. Ritter

Dr. Ritter is an antagonist in the fifty-eighth Goosebumps series, Deep Trouble II, as well as the television series episode Deep Trouble.

Deep Trouble II
One year after Billy and Sheena Deep's adventure in Deep Trouble, they are once again on board The Cassandra with their uncle, Dr. D.. However, this year, they begin to notice something strange going on with the marine life. Tiny fish like minnows and goldfish are now gigantic. Eventually the Deeps are visited by a scientist named Dr. Ritter and his assistants Mel Mason and Adam Brown. He soon reveals to them that he injected growth hormones into plankton beds to increase the size of fish in an attempt to end world hunger. But now that the Deeps know his secret and throws them overboard, only for the Deeps to be saved by giant seagulls who attack Ritter and his assistants.

The Deeps escape on a lifeboat and wind up stuck on an island filled with giant creatures until they fix their boat and return to The Cassandra. However, they get captured again by Dr. Ritter, who tries to force them into drinking his mutated plankton, claiming that if a human ingests it, they'll turn into a fish. Billy drinks it, but nothing happens, as he actually drank iced tea instead. Before the Deeps can stop him, Dr. Ritter escapes into the ocean and drinks the plankton, turning into a fish.

Deep Trouble Episode
In the television adaptation, Dr. Ritter is given a role similar to that of Alexander DuBrow in the original book, as Dr. D's assistant. Unlike Deep Trouble II, Dr. D was the one who had created the growth hormone named D13, and experimented on the plankton, causing the marine life to grow gigantic. However, unbeknownst to Dr. D, Dr. Ritter was experimenting on humans, turning them into half human/half fish hybrids. He lures Billy, Sheena and Dr. D on an island to be attacked by his victims while he steals D13 in an hope to get rich, while putting other people's lives in danger. However, before he can escape, the mutated humans capture him and experiment on him. Dr. D uses an antidote to restore the mutated humans, but Dr. Ritter winds up as a sideshow freak for the rest of his life.

Trivia

 * The book never mentions Dr. Ritter's first name, but the episode reveals it as Jake.

Gallery
