Goosebumps (franchise)

Goosebumps
Number of books	240+
First book	Welcome to Dead House (1992)
Latest book	Goblin Monday (2024)

Goosebumps is a children's horror book franchise published by Scholastic Corporation. The books are written by author and creator R.L. Stine. It is currently the second-best-selling book series of all time, selling 400 million books worldwide in over thirty-two languages. During the 90s, the franchise was the #1 best selling book series of all time, selling over 4 million books a month during its prime.

Beginning with the eponymous Goosebumps series in 1992, the Goosebumps franchise has spawned numerous follow-up and spin-off series. The franchise's other forms of media include a television series and feature films.

The series was titled after R.L. Stine had seen an ad for "Goose Bumps Week", a television horror event. The name is also based on the skin condition goosebumps, which is a common symptom of fright.

Books

Main series

The first three books in the Goosebumps franchise, Welcome to Dead House, Stay Out of the Basement, and Monster Blood were published in July 1992 as part of the original Goosebumps series. Sales for the books were initially slow but eventually increased, leading to the books being released bi-monthly starting with book nine, Welcome to Camp Nightmare. By 1996 the series was wildly popular and in high demand, with Scholastic shipping 4 million books to retailers each month. Sixty-two books in total would be published in the original series, ending with Monster Blood IV in December 1997. Due to declining sales, a new series would be created to keep interest in the franchise going.

Goosebumps Series 2000 debuted the month after the original series had ended, with the book Cry of the Cat in January 1998. The series followed the same format as the original series, but it was marketed as being scarier than the original series. The book covers also changed, such as the removal of the slime borders, artwork being darker in tone, and the entire covers being raised rather than only the logo like the original series. By 2000, Goosebumps franchise books were selling 200,000 copies a month, a far cry from the 4 million monthly sales just a few years prior.

Series 2000 and all other spin-off series would come to a halt in early 2000 due to R.L. Stine's contract with Scholastic ending. Several books that were planned to be released were subsequently canceled, such as the twenty-sixth book in the Series 2000 series, The Incredible Shrinking Fifth Grader, along with the planned Goosebumps Gold series, which would've been a twelve-book series that followed Series 2000. The franchise wouldn't see any new mainline books until eight years later.

After receiving requests from fans for the Goosebumps series to return, R.L. Stine and Scholastic launched the Goosebumps HorrorLand series in April 2008, with the books Revenge of the Living Dummy and Creep from the Deep. Unlike the previous Goosebumps series, HorrorLand featured an overarching story, which lasted 19 books over 2 arcs. Scholastic launched the Classic Goosebumps series around the same time, which is a series of Goosebumps reprints that included bonus materials and new cover art by Brandon Dorman. HorrorLand was followed-up by a series titled Goosebumps Hall of Horrors in 2011, which was originally going to compose the third arc of the Horrorland series, but was later separated to become its own standalone mini-series. Hall of Horrors was subsequently followed by Goosebumps Most Wanted in 2012.

Due to the success of first Goosebumps movie, which heavily featured Slappy the Dummy, the Goosebumps SlappyWorld series was created and debuted in February 2017 with Slappy Birthday to You. 19 books were written in the series, with one special edition to celebrate 30 years of the Goosebumps franchise.

This was followed by another book series, Goosebumps House of Shivers, which debuted in September 2023. 2 books have been released, and 5 books have been confirmed. The series will contain an unspecified number of books.

Spin-offs

Scholastic launched the Tales to Give You Goosebumps series in September 1994 with the book of the same name. The series would consist of six books that contained ten short stories each, making a total of sixty tales altogether. Every book in the series came packaged with Goosebumps themed merchandise, which ranged from booklights to even undergarments. The first three books would later be reprinted with no merchandise attached. Some books were based around certain themes, such as Halloween and Christmas.

Another series containing a collection of short stories, Goosebumps Triple Header, was launched in November 1997. Unlike Tales to Give You Goosebumps, the series only contained three stories per book, and were hosted by a three-headed monster, Lefty, Righty, and Slim. The series only received two entries, making it the shortest Goosebumps book series in the franchise. Though a third entry was planned, it was never released.

A "choose your own adventurer" gamebook series titled Give Yourself Goosebumps launched in July 1995 with the book Escape from the Carnival of Horrors. Forty-two books and eight special editions would be published until the series' end in February 2000 with All-Day Nightmare, making it the second-longest running series in the franchise. A forty-third book was planned, but was cancelled after Stine's contract with Scholastic ended. The book is presumed to have had an arctic theme, due to the conceptual cover involving penguins.

Logo

One of the symbols most associated with the Goosebumps franchise is its logo. The logo was designed in 1991 by Hollie Tommasino, known at the time as Hollie Rubin. She was "one of three or four graphic designers in the Young Adult Department" for Scholastic.

The logo became a source of contention for Scholastic and Parachute Press. Scholastic claimed ownership of the logo, but Parachute Press continued to use a logo featuring a "G" inside a spatter of goo. This was one of the exacerbating factors in R.L. Stine's fallout with Scholastic.

In the UK, a slightly different logo is used, featuring a more bumpy design resembling a thick oil, and with different elongations on some of the letters.

Most books released after 2008 feature a new logo for the franchise, while films video games, and comics still seem to use the original logo.

In 2023, the books reverted back to using the original logo, starting with the House of Shivers series.

Other media

Television series

The first season of the Goosebumps TV series debuted on October 27, 1995, with the two-part episode "The Haunted Mask". The episode was a ratings success, receiving over 14.1 million viewers during its original airing. The series received three more seasons, with the show ending on November 16, 1998, with "Deep Trouble". There were seventy-four episodes in total (fifty-eight if multi-part episodes are counted as one), with most of them being adapted from the original series. Other Goosebumps books series were adapted as the series progressed, such as the Tales to Give You Goosebumps series and Goosebumps Series 2000. A three-part episode titled "Chillogy" aired during the third season, which featured a completely original story. Of the 74 episodes, 18 of the most popular episodes were adapted into books in the Goosebumps Presents series.

In February 2022, a second TV show was announced. It aired in October 2023 on Disney+ to 4.1 million people. This show dropped the anthology style of the previous show, instead opting for a continuously developing story. It received relatively high ratings, garnering an average score of 74%. Despite its success, the TV series has received extreme backlash from fans. In February 2024, the show was renewed for a second series, which is due to air in late 2024. The second season will instead follow an anthology style, forgetting the story set up in season 1. Both series of the show are set to be adapted into novels. Each will be around 300 pages long, much longer than regular Goosebumps books. These books will be written by Kate Howard, rather than R.L Stine.

Graphic novels and comics

In September 2006, the first new Goosebumps novel since the year 2000 would be released. Titled Creepy Creatures, the novel was part of a new graphic novel series called Goosebumps Graphix. The novels adapt stories from the original Goosebumps series, which are illustrated by various artists. The series would receive two new books in 2007, followed by eight years without a new entry, until the release of Slappy's Tales of Horror in August 2015, which acted as a tie-in to the film Goosebumps. The book contains colorized versions of previous Goosebumps Graphix stories, and a new story in the form of an adaptation of Night of the Living Dummy.

In July 2017 it was announced that IDW Publishing would be creating comic books based on the Goosebumps franchise. The first comic series to launch was Monsters at Midnight in October 2017, followed by Download and Die! in March 2018, Horrors of the Witch House in May 2019 and Secrets of the Swamp in September 2020. Each series so far has been three issues long and feature original stories and characters, with monsters and villains from the Goosebumps series often appearing.

On 3 September 2024, The Haunted Mask is due to be adapted into a graphic novel by Maddi Gonzalez. Another graphic novel will be released in 2025, by the same artist.

Films

Plans for a feature-length film based on the Goosebumps franchise were as early as 1998. However, plans for the film initially fell through. Columbus Pictures would later acquire the rights to create a Goosebumps film in 2008, and on October 16, 2015, would finally release the film as Goosebumps - starring Jack Black as R.L. Stine and the voice of Slappy the Dummy. The film features an original story, where monsters and villains from the Goosebumps books are unleashed upon the real world. It released to good ratings, and spawned a sequel titled Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (simply known as Goosebumps 2 in home media releases), which released on October 12, 2018. This released to middling ratings.

Games

The first Gosebumps game was Escape from Horrorland in 1996, which was based around the Horrorland theme park first shown in One Day At Horrorland. Then followed Attack of the Mutant in 1997, which was based on the book of the same name. Later, in 2008, Goosebumps Horrorland was released to tie in with the book series, which was new at the time.

Two web games have been released. The Enter Horrorland website was released in 2008, which was based around the Horrorland book series, and was promoted in each of the first 12 Horrorland books, before being discontinued in 2009. The online game Stine-Chillers was released in 2015, which was a game by Nickelodeon released to promote the Goosebumps film.

In 2015, a mobile game titled Goosebumps: Night of Scares was released to tie in with the Goosebumps film. A sequel - Goosebumps: Dead of Night - was released in 2020.

More recently, Goosebumps: The Game (2018) - a prequel to the Goosebumps film - and Goosebumps Horrortown (2018) - a city-builder-styled game - have been released.

In 2024, plans for a console game titled Terror Tower were announced by Cosmic Forces, but not much is known about the project. It is due to be released in late-2024.

Merchandise

Main article: Goosebumps (franchise)/Merchandise

One of the first instances of merchandising for the franchise was the Goosebumps Fan Club, which began in 1995. Goosebumps books often contained ads for the fan club on the last few pages. Signing up for the fan club would grant you Goosebumps newsletters and merch, such as membership cards and hats.

Goosebumps would be licensed to dozens of companies in 1996 for various products, such as toys, figures, masks, party accessories, staplers, pens, stamps, bed comforting, bike equipment, and much more.

In July 1996, Scholastic and PepsiCo struck a $40 million deal to attach three short Goosebumps stories to various products. It was called "one of the most aggressive campaigns ever to use children's books". The three books, "Bad Dog", "Halloween Game", and "Don't Make Me Laugh" were dubbed "the Goosebumps Thrillogy" and could be found in various Frito Lay chip bags or obtained by sending in coupons found on Pepsi products. Over 40 million coupons, 30 million printed stories, and 52 million newspaper coupon clippings were reportedly produced. The stories would also be released as part of the Goosebumps Haunted Library, which was promoted by Hershey Foods.

It was also reported that the marketing team for Goosebumps had their limits for what could be merchandised. Parachute co-owner Ms. Waricha used "Goosebumps cereal" as an example of a product that would never happen. Despite this claim, Scholastic would later team up with General Mills for Goosebumps Series 2000 branded Count Chocula cereal in 1998.

In recent years, Scholastic has licensed Goosebumps to a variety of online retailers and companies for merchandise, such as Creepy Co., Fright-Rags, Kreepsville 666, Cakeworthy, and Trick or Treat Studios.

Success

The first few books in the original Goosebumps series did relatively well, with around 25,000 books selling each month. Over the following months, the series rapidly grew, soon selling over 1 million copies every month. By 1996, the series was selling 4 million books a month, accounting for over 15% of Scholastic's revenue.

Due to the success the series had received, a TV series was launched in 1995 to massive success - over 14.1 million people tuning in for the first episode. The show ran for 4 seasons, staying relatively popular during its entire run. This further increased the popularity of the series.

Multiple spin-off series were also released. Give Yourself Goosebumps was the most popular of which, having received 42 entries and 8 special editions by 2000, with 18 more books planned. Other short-lived spin-offs included Tales To Give You Goosebumps - which received 6 entries - and Triple Header - which only received 2 entries.

By the end of the 90s, Goosebumps was the best-selling book series of all time. Towards the end of the 90s, sales had dropped to around 200,000 per month, only a fraction of the sales the series had experienced during the mid-90s. To keep sales up, a new series - Series 2000 - was released.

In 2000, the Goosebumps franchise was abruptly put on hiatus, due to a contractual disagreement between Scholastic Inc. and Parachute Press. This forced Scholastic's total revenue to drop by 40%, and cancelled all future Goosebumps merchandise and projects. In 2003, Scholastic obtained the rights to run reprints of the series, which lasted from 2003 until 2005 to moderate success. The Goosebumps franchise returned in 2008 with Goosebumps Horrorland, which was relatively successful upon release.

In 2001, it was reported that 45 books in the original series had sold over 1 million copies, with 2 books selling over 2 million copies. The current statistic is unknown, although it has likely improved, since there have been 2 sets of reprints and several new books since.

Since its return in 2008, 5 new spin-off series have been created, each running for around 10-20 entries. None of these series match nearly the success of the Goosebumps franchise in the 90s, but are still some of the most successful book series of all time, with over 30 million copies of the 5 series having been sold worldwide.

The success of the franchise led to a film being released in 2008, which garnered a relatively good box office of $158 million compared to a budget of $58 million, and had fairly good ratings, with an average Rotten Tomatoes score of 78%. A sequel was released in 2018, which opened to less success, with a box office of $93 million compared to a budget of $35 million, with an average Rotten Tomatoes score of . Plans for a third film were scrapped, in place of a new TV series.

A new TV series was released in 2023. This was extremely popular, with the first episode garnering 4.3 million viewers, and an average Rotten Tomatoes score of 74%. This success has also led to a series of novels based around the show (written by Kate Howard). Despite its success, the TV series has received extreme backlash from fans. It has been renewed for a second series, but this series will take on an anthology style.

The series has experienced multiple dips in popularity over the years, but - even 30 years later - has still remained popular. It is the second-best-selling book series of all time, with over 400 million books having been sold worldwide, in 35 different languages.

See also

• Goosebumps contests and sweepstakes
• List of in-book advertisements
• List of merchandise