Dave Warren is the protagonist of "Awesome Ants", the sixth story in the book Still More Tales to Give You Goosebumps, as well as its television adaptation.
History[]
Dave and his friend Ben are working on their project for the upcoming science fair which involves the study of ants. A package soon arrives for Dave from the company "AWESOME ANTS INC." which includes a gigantic ant farm. The Super Jumbo Awesome Ant Farm, which they've sent to Dave to test out. It also comes with a special feeding gel vitamins for the ants and the instructions explicitly warn to not feed the ants anything but the gel. Ben decides to test that theory by feeding the ants a dead caterpillar which they voraciously tear apart.
Some time passes and the ants continue to grow bigger. Eventually Dave discovers the ant farm is empty. When he heads to school, he can't find any students, or his teacher Mr. Lantz. Suddenly, Dave sees a gigantic red ant that starts to attack him. He rushes home, but gets caught by the ant who drags him inside the ant farm and forces him to eat the gel vitamin. Dave wakes up and sees everyone, including Mr. Lantz, working inside the ant farm, forced to make tunnels for their ant overlords.
The TV adaptation differs greatly. Mr. Lantz is an exterminator who teaches Dave about ants after Dave sees an infestation. He tells Dave to order some "Awesome Ants" from the back of a comic book. Much like the book, the ants arrive in a giant ant farm and Ben feeds them a live worm and a hot dog instead of the required pellets. The ants begin to get bigger and at one point escape the farm and infest Dave's kitchen. He tries to keep them locked in the farm with a cinder block, but returns to discover it broken in half and the farm has the bones of the family's turkey dinner.
Dave calls Awesome Ants, only for the person on the other line to tell him that he's in big trouble before an ant chews apart the phone line. He rushes to Mr. Lantz's office, but instead of finding him, he encounters more giant ants until a van-sized ant finally grabs him. Dave wakes up, realizing it was all a dream. He goes to have breakfast, only to discover that his cereal is all just blue pellets. He heads outside and sees the streets filled with them and remembers that he lives in a giant human farm being overseen by titanic ants. Mr. Lantz shows up wondering what would the world be like if humans were the dominant species instead.