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The Cuckoo Clock of Doom is the twenty-eighth book in the original Goosebumps book series. It was first published in 1995.

The cover illustration shows a sinister cuckoo bird emerging from a cuckoo clock.

Blurb[]

DON'T BEAT THE CLOCK!

Tara the Terrible. That's what Michael Webster calls his bratty little sister. She loves getting Michael in trouble. Making his life miserable. Things couldn't get any worse. Then Mr. Webster brings home the antique cuckoo clock. It's old. It's expensive. And Mr. Webster won't let anyone touch it. Poor Michael. He should have listened to his dad. Because someone put a spell on the clock. A strange spell. A dangerous spell. And now Michael's life will never be the same again...

Plot[]

Michael Webster has to deal with his annoying, bratty, sociopathic little sister, Tara, who's always lying and getting him into trouble (obviously for stuff he didn't do) with their parents and even laughed at by his friends. Unfortunately, Tara rarely gets into trouble for these kinds of things. One day, shortly after Michael's 12th birthday, his father purchases an antique cuckoo clock from a local store called "Anthony's Antiques", that's supposed to have some sort of error. He had been admiring the clock for 15 years, but Anthony wasn't willing to sell it until recently. It has been said that it was created by a strange old man a long, long time ago, and if anyone can figure out the clock's magic secret, it can be used to go back in time.

Michael looks back on some incidents Tara caused before in the past, such as when she recently ruined his birthday party. She scratched the new bicycle he was given, told his crush, Mona, that Michael likes her, opened all of Michael's presents ahead of him, and purposely tripped Michael while he was carrying his birthday cake, resulting in the cake splattering over Michael's face. Of course, Michael's the only one who gets yelled at, reportedly for not being concerned about Tara's safety.

In the present, Tara fiddles around with the clock, and although she doesn't get into any real trouble, her father gets very upset and warns her that if he finds anything broken on the clock, she'll be severely punished. Tara doesn't realize that this gives Michael an idea on how to get his revenge on her. That night, when the clock strikes midnight, Michael sneaks downstairs and grabs the cuckoo's head to twist it around backwards. He hopes this will get Tara into huge trouble for sure.

The next morning, Michael wakes up and realizes that it's apparently his 12th birthday all over again. He thinks it's because of his wish to re-do his birthday, but realizes that since the cuckoo's head is facing backwards, time is going backwards, too. At midnight, he tries to turn the head back to normal, but he realizes that the clock has not been bought yet. He heads back to bed, and wakes up a few days earlier. He remembers the day was when his frog costume for the play "The Frog Prince" gets its zipper stuck, Tara opens the door, and he's embarrassed in front of Mona. He tries to change events by not going upstairs. However, the girls arrive and although he tries to get out of it, they talk him into doing it anyway.

Michael decides this time to lock the door. Unfortunately, he forgets that the lock is broken because it was fixed on his birthday, and the girls see him in his underwear just like before. The next day is even worse, as he had a bad day at school when he gets beaten up by star athlete, Kevin Flowers, after Tara sneaks Kevin's favorite cap into Michael's backpack. He tries to tell his family about it, but they (of course) don't believe him.

The next morning, Michael is back in 3rd Grade. He finds himself disgusted by how immature his friends are, and goes to sleep, while thinking that he may be erased for real. The next day after that, Michael is now back in 2nd Grade. That afternoon, he heads over to Anthony's Antiques, only to find it closed. He attempts to break a window with a brick, but his father catches him and takes him home, criticizing him for going on the bus all by himself.

The next day, Michael wakes up as a 5-year-old in Kindergarten. He feels bored and inattentive, faced with problems such as tying his shoes. However, since he still has the brain and mind power of his real 12-year-old self, he does it very easily. After school, he attempts to catch the bus to the antique shop again, but finds his mother waiting for him outside the school to take him back home. The next day, he wakes up a year younger, and his 4-year-old self is taken to Nursery School. He initially just sits in the nearest corner of the room in despair, with no intention of participating in any nursery school activities, but his teacher is not keen on that idea, and takes him outside to play with 4-year old Mona in the sandbox. He attempts to socialize with her, but she begins to torment him. Eventually, she and 4-year-old Ceecee goad him into climb up a tree but while doing so, Michael remembers that this was the year that he broke his arm, and this was the incident that lead to it.

The next morning, Michael wakes up in what he thinks is jail, until he realizes he can barely walk. He soon realizes that he's a baby, wearing a diaper. Unable to escape his crib because of his weak muscles, and unable to talk properly, he feels trapped. After having a bottle-feeding, a diaper change and a minute in the baby pen, Michael begins to worry that he'll never get to the clock and that this day as a baby may be his last. Even if it isn't, he'd be too young to do anything on his last day tomorrow where logically, he'd be a newborn.

His mother takes him to see his "daddy" at work, and Michael realizes this is his chance. His parents are heading into Anthony's Antiques. While his parents get into an argument over a new kitchen table, he crawls quickly towards the cuckoo clock. Just as it rings for a 12th time, he grabs the head and twists it forward again, then sets the year dial to 1995, accidentally knocking off an unknown year in the process. In a bright flash of white light, Michael is immediately taken back to the morning of his 12th birthday.

Although it's not quite the present, Michael is still happy to be 12 years old again. However, he notices that Tara is nowhere to be seen. During his 12th birthday without Tara, his bike isn't scratched at all, his birthday cake is actually eaten, and Mona's best friend tells Michael that Mona has a crush on him, which makes Mona blush.

A few days later, when the clock is delivered (again), Michael discovers an error; its year dial is now missing one certain year — the year in which Tara was born. Michael realizes that after that year was knocked off, it skipped the year that Tara was born, which prevented Tara from coming into existence. Michael assures that he'll go back and revive Tara, eventually... Though, given the humiliation Tara put Michael through in his life earlier in the book, the risks which he would be taking by going back in time, and the fact that he narrowly escaped oblivion the first time, it's strongly implied that Michael will never go back in time to get his sister back due to how terrible she was to him.

Reprints and rereleases[]

Book Release date Type Media

2003 - 2007 reprint series


Thecuckooclockofdoom-reprint
September 2003 Standalone Paperback

Retro Fear Collection


Center

September 1st, 2020 Collection Paperback

Classic Goosebumps


Center

March 5, 2024 Standalone Paperback


Differences[]

  • The 2003 reprint of this book changes Tara's birth year from 1988 to 1996. The 2015 e-book, the 2020 Retro Fear Collection reprint and the 2024 Classic Goosebumps reprint rewrites Tara's birth year as 2008.
  • The year dial on the clock changes too. In the 1995 edition, it ends at 2000, in the 2003 edition, it ends at 3000, and in every reprint since the 2015 e-book, it ends at 2050.
  • Additionally, in the 1995 and 2003 editions, Michael figures the clock maker thought the world would blow up in 1999 or 2999, respectively. The 2015 edition changes it so Michael says the clock maker thought the world would simply end in 2049.
  • In the 1995 and 2003 editions, Michael uses the encyclopedia for his homework. In the 2015 edition, he uses the den computer to do research on the Internet. Michael tells his dad he can't take the whole encyclopedia to his room in the 1995 and 2003 editions, while in the 2015 edition he tells his dad he needs the Internet for his homework.
  • The 2015 ebook changes "You look like the Hulk!" to "You look like the Thing!"
  • The 2020 Retro Fear Collection reprint drops the page count from 120 pages to 114.
  • The 2015 ebook changes the part where Michael wears Smurfs pajamas at 5 years old. Instead, he wears dinosaur pajamas.
  • While Mona getting Michael a CD is unchanged, "I put on CD" is changed to "I put on some music", and "CD player" is changed to "stereo."
  • "We played CDs" is changed to "we danced."
  • "cap" is changed to "hat."
  • "clock radio" is changed to "alarm clock."
  • "My pack dropped to the floor" is changed to "My backpack dropped to the floor."
  • "Keep this quarter for a phone call" is changed to "Keep this quarter for a gumball."

International releases[]

Differences[]

  • In the UK, this is the twenty-sixth book in the original series.
  • In Portugal, this is the twelfth book in the original series.
  • In France, this is the twenty-fourth book in the original series.
    • Tara is called "Tania."
  • In Israel, this is the eleventh book in the original series.
  • In the French Canadian release, Michael Webster is named "Michael Rouleau".
    • Tara is named "Sarah".

Audiobook[]

Audiobook Release date Length Narrated by Published by
Cuckoo Clock Audiobook
November 2023 TBA Barrett Leddy Scholastic Inc.

Merchandise[]

  • In 1997, Crystal Craft released a wall clock based on the book exclusively in Australia.

Television adaptation[]

The Cuckoo Clock of Doom was adapted into an episode of the Goosebumps TV series. It is the third episode of season one.

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Artwork[]

Trivia[]

  • According to the Goosebumps Holiday Collector's Caps Book, while signing books in a mall bookstore, a girl walked up to R.L. Stine. Her name was Tara, and she asked R.L. Stine to make her a character in a Goosebumps book. She said that she wanted her character to be bad, so R.L. Stine named the character Tara Webster after her.
  • R.L. Stine has cited this as being one of his favorite Goosebumps books.[1]
  • Michael and Tara's father was mentioned by name in the book: Herman Webster.
    • This name is reminiscent of Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as H.H. Holmes, an American serial killer. It's unclear if this was intentional.
  • This book references The Incredible Hulk, The Frog Prince, The Smurfs, The Duke Blue Devils, and Donatello of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
  • This is one of few Goosebumps books that have a happy ending.
  • R.L Stine's name on the book's spine is written in black on certain prints of the book. This is the only book to feature his name in black lettering. On other editions of this book it is written in yellow. The 2020 Retro Fear Collection reprint also writes it in yellow.

References in other Goosebumps media[]

References[]

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