Bad Hare Day

Bad Hare Day is the 41st book in the orginal Goosebumps series.

Summary
Tim Swanson is an amateur twelve year old magician. He performs tricks from a magic kit for his classmates after school on a daily basis and he also manages to draw a crowd for these tricks. After his peers are amazed at how he can guess their card and separate metal rings, his ten year old sister Ginny comes by and mocks his magic, revealing the secrets to his tricks to the audience, and also karate chops him in the stomach.

After his magic show breaks up, Tim and his best friend Foz decide to stop by the magic shop to look at the new tricks. The owner of the magic shop gives Tim and Foz two free tickets to see Tim's idol, the magician Amaz-O, at a local nightclub the next night. Tim tries to convince his parents to let him go, but they for some reason object to their prepubescent son going to a night club at ten at night.

The day of the big magic show, Tim gives another magic show, this time at his house, where he displays a trick he constructed in the garage: a homemade trick-compartment table for making a rabbit disappear and reappear. He borrows Foz's sister's rabbit and the trick goes awry and the rabbit gets away but is then caught by Ginny, who karate chops a stream to trap the rabbit.

Tim's parents come home that night exhausted and go right to bed. Tim gets the idea to sneak out of the house and go to the nightclub anyways, which he does, but not before being caught by Ginny, who insists on going with him. The two talk their way into a nightclub unescorted, and are seated in front of the stage. Amaz-O comes out beforehand and asks Tim to be his volunteer later in the show. Amaz-O then begins his show. His act consists of doves flying out of his hat, pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and many other tricks.

Amaz-O calls for a volunteer and Tim goes up, is placed into a magic cabinet, and is delivered to what the magician calls the "5th dimension." He falls thru a trapdoor and lands on a mattress in the nightclub's basement. He hears Amaz-O leave the stage and end the show. Tim also finds the basement door locked and he breaks his way out of the room and finds Amaz-O's dressing room. He starts to enter but a voice inside tells him to "Beat it, punk!" Taken aback at being called punk, Tim proves himself to not be a punk by stealing the magician's suitcase of tricks to get back at him. Tim and Ginny evade a cadre of security guards and bike home. Ginny insists on Tim sharing the suitcase with her and the two hide it in the attic, promising to not disturb it until Saturday, when they will have time to examine the contents more closely. Tim does not follow this simple plan and instead opens the magic case later that night, and discovers an amazing array of magic tricks. The suitcase has a sound effect that plays when you open it, a large exploding boom. Inside Tim finds a cup and ball trick, a bunch of mechanical glass snakes, a wand, a jacket, and other things.

Tim closes the case and decides that he must pull himself away from the tricks in the suitcase and go to sleep. In the morning, their parents don't suspect a thing, but that doesn't stop Ginny from telling her mom she and Tim have a secret.

Finally it's Saturday, and Foz has come over to see the incredibly boring magic tricks Amaz-O's kit contains. Tim attempts to perform some of the tricks, but they all go awry. First, instead of disappearing, red balls keep appearing under cups in the cup and ball trick, and keep appearing, until he just throws them all in the suitcase and shuts it quickly. Tim then has doves fly out of his hat, but the doves won't quit flying out of his hat, and the attic fills with doves. The kids quickly leave the attic, taking the kit with them. Tim reasons that maybe they should play with the kit outside, so if there are anymore animals, they can just fly away. Foz and Ginny are interested in not continuing the magic show. Somehow he convinces them to join him outside. Ginny roots around in the magic kit, finds a carrot, eats it, and turns into a rabbit.

Tim and Foz can't figure out how to turn Ginny back into a human, so they decide to return the kit to Amaz-O and get him to turn Ginny back into a human. They break into the nightclub and find Amaz-O's lifeless body on the couch of his dressing room. Upon closer consideration, Amaz-O is actually a large puppet!

A voice in the room begins to berate the children. They discover that Amaz-O's rabbit is the one speaking. He continues to insult them and then explains that he, the rabbit, is Amaz-O, and he was turned into a rabbit by a sorcerer. The rabbit and Tim have a conversation about the sorcerer's name.

The rabbit goes on to explain that he built the puppet to do his stage work while he was stuck a rabbit. The rabbit tells Tim that his sister will change back to a human in less than an hour, and then makes Tim a very interesting offer. Tim agrees to be part of Amaz-O's act, but doesn't realize that he'll be taking over the rabbit portion of the show.

TV episode Trivia

 * The closing credits for this episode were exclusive to it. It was the opening theme with a quirkier feel to it, and some of it was played with a cheap organ.


 * This is the 2nd of 3 episodes on the DVD, Go Eat Worms.


 * Tabitha Lupien (Ginny Swanson) played as Jamie Gold in the season 3 episode, "Click".


 * Unlike the book, Ginny accidentally makes herself disappear (by the magic curtain), not transform into a rabbit.


 * The rabbit is El Sydney (an evil magician) unlike the book, where it says that Amaz-O is the rabbit. Amaz-O had turned El Sydney into a rabbit to prevent him from using magic to take over the world. El Sydney had lied to Tim before, saying that he was Amaz-O's biggest fan, but was conned into being part of the act as a rabbit.


 * The ending of the episode is a cliffhanger; at the rising action where El Sydney is now human and takes over the act by performing a decapitating "trick" on his two new rabbits (who are actually Amaz-O and Tim). When Amaz-O says that he will figure out a way to get out of the situation, Tim replies "What, and quit show business?" The last sound made is a rimshot.


 * This title, both for the episode and book, spoof the phrase "Bad hair day".


 * The scene with Malik pretending to have his hand hit by the blade was cut from some airings of the episode, probably for graphic ratings.