Piano Lessons Can Be Murder/TV episode

"Piano Lessons Can Be Murder" is the eighth episode of season one of the Goosebumps TV series. It premiered on December 8, 1995 on Fox during the Fox Kids block.

Cast

 * Ben Cook as Jerry Hawkins
 * Barclay Hope as Mr. Hawkins
 * Carolyn Scott as Mrs. Hawkins
 * Aron Tager as Dr. Shreek
 * Géza Kovács as Mr. Toggle
 * Brenda Devine as The Ghost
 * Erica Luttrell as Kim

Blurb
When Jerry finds a dusty old piano in the basement of his new house, his parents offer to pay for lessons. Taking piano seems like a cool idea if it means he'll be able to jam with his cute next-door neighbor, Kim. But there's something strange about Jerry's piano teacher, Dr. Shreek. Something Jerry can't quite put his finger on. What's more, Jerry begins receiving nightly visits from a terrifying ghost who warns him about the music school. When Jerry stumbles upon a secret room at Dr. Shreek's school, it is time for him to face the music.

Differences from the book

 * In the book, the ghost in Jerry's house is described as being a young woman. In the episode, the ghost is an old lady.
 * Jerry's personality is different. In the book, Jerry is a prankster. In the episode, he has an overactive personality and pretends he is an explorer and tends to talk in third-person.
 * Several scenes with the ghost, including the scene where her face melts off, are omitted from the episode.
 * In the episode, Dr. Shreek never comes to Jerry's home for lessons, instead, Jerry goes straight to the Shreek school.
 * Jerry's neighbor Kim is implied to be Asian in the book, but in the episode, she is depicted as African American.
 * Jerry's nightmare of Dr. Shreek making him play faster and faster until his hands hurt is omitted from the episode.
 * Jerry never visits the psychiatrist, Dr. Frye, in the episode.
 * Jerry is never shown Mr. Toggle's workshop in the episode.
 * In the episode, the ghost in Jerry's house used to be Mr. Toggle's strict piano teacher. In the book, the ghost wasn't given a backstory. In the Goosebumps Official Collector's Caps Book, the ghost is said to be a girl named Mara Klane, a student of Dr. Shreek.
 * Mr. Toggle's motivations are slightly different in the episode. In the book, he is more deranged, severing the perfect hands of others to use for his inventions to play beautiful music. In the episode, it's established that he uses those severed hands to play piano because he was too lazy to learn to play the piano himself.
 * In the book, Jerry's parents never see the ghost haunting the piano. In the episode, Mrs. Hawkins sees the ghost exiting the school.
 * In the book, Dr. Shreek flips out because Jerry is quitting, in the episode, he becomes enraged because Jerry is not taking his lessons seriously.
 * At the end, it is just the ghost of Mr. Andrew Toggle's piano teacher instead of several ghosts. But instead of taking him away to an unknown fate, she makes him play the piano forever as punishment for torturing Jerry. In the final scene, the piano teacher ghost says, "This is your punishment for terrorizing the boy! You will practice and practice!" Mr. Toggle asks in a sobbed voice "How much longer?!" The piano teacher ghost replies, "Till....eternity, you laaazy boy!"
 * The piano is found in the basement of the house, not in the attic, nor is the piano moved.

Trivia

 * Andrew Toggle bears physical resemble to former Weatherman Underground leader Bill Ayers, who himself was sloppy at creating what 1960s radicals believed would be the Second American Revolution. despite the fact that his father Thomas Ayers was quite wealthy and owner of Edison Commonwealth.
 * When Mick Foley debuted his World Wrestling Federation Mankind gimmick a few months after Piano Lessons Can Be Murder aired on Fox Kids, the character was deranged and, ironically, portrayed himself as someone who enjoyed inflicting pain with his Mandible Claw submission hold he would use with his hand. Shortly before his WWF debut, Mankind even cut a promo where he alleged that as a boy, his mother had him play a piano to a grueling degree and that he now wanted to create a "symphony of destruction;" this 1996 promo was even featured on the WWE's Mick Foley's Greatest Hits & Misses - A Life in Wrestling DVD extras and is titled "Music To My Ears." Mankind's first exit theme music after winning wrestling matches was also that of piano music.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rib2ZLwYNo
 * Aron Tager, who played the hand-obsessed Dr. Shreek, was noted for his recurring role as the mad scientist, Dr. Vink, in Are You Afraid of the Dark?. On the first occasion in "The Tale of the Phantom Cab", he had a severed, jarred hand on display as the first glimpse of his character's nature.
 * The background music and the music that the ghostly woman, Jerry, and the disembodied hands play throughout the episode is none other than Ludwig Van Beethoven's classic, Moonlight Sonata.
 * Ben Cook (Jerry Hawkins) would go on to play Josh Benson in "Welcome to Dead House", and Marty in "Shocker on Shock Street".
 * This was the first episode directed by William Fruet, who would direct many episodes throughout all four seasons of the series.
 * Kim's actress Erica Luttrell would return to play Drew Brockman in the season two episode "Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns". She is also known for voicing Keesha Franklin in The Magic School Bus animated series from 1994 - 1997.
 * Barclay Hope (Mr. Hawkins) later appeared as the dad in the Haunting Hour episode Checking Out.

Gallery

 * -|Scenes=