Goosebumps #028 “The Cuckoo Clock of Doom”- I Said “CLOCK!”

Nugs: This book was mailed to me with another one of Sara’s hilarious notepad greetings:

Lor: Well now you guys are just pushing it, aren’t you?

Nugs: Any excuse for innuendo, Lor.

ANY excuse.

I also love how we all scour the kids’ section of public bookstores in order to find the most inappropriate shit that might actually get us questioned and/or locked away. #stripsearchftw.

Lor: Last time I was buying a Gbumps book I was with my friend who is scruffy and 6 feet tall and really just screams, “pedobear.” I mean, if you don’t know him and stuff. Plus we were having a conversation about how fucked up “the Brave Little Toaster” is and how the Goosebumps book I bought was probably all about oral sex. Stay tuned for that recap.

Nugs: I originally signed on to snark The Cuckoo Clock of Doom because honestly? Just look at this shit. The title and the cover are so ridiculously stupid:

Then while I was reading I got super excited because it was, in fact, ridiculously stupid.

Lor: We celebrate stupidity here at Childhood Trauma. It’s a hard job, but some one has to do it.

Nugs: The idiot kid in “Cuckoo Clock” is Michael, a twelve year old (of course) man-child, who has a really annoying jackass of a sister, Tara. You are immediately introduced to how stupid Michael is because as soon as the bird comes out of the clock he starts crying like a little bitch and screaming that it’s “alive.” Oh fuck, I have like another hundred pages to go through. Begin slow blinding process now.

Lor: Why are all Goosebumps families made up of two negligent parents, one stupid kid and their annoying-ass sibling? Do these people not have more than two kids or do they keep killing off a kid due to negligent parenting?

Nugs: In the history of Baby Drew Bumps books, Michael’s obnoxious little nugget of a sister might be the grossest sperm malfunction yet.

Usually when RL describes the “pranks” that the sets of siblings play on each other I’m always like, “I can do way better than that.”

However, Tara really makes me want to smash a brick in her face. Her two worst offenses are pretty fucked up- she ruins Michael’s birthday by letting the girl he has a crush on walk in on him in his underwear (Lor: LOL.), and then frames him so he gets his ass kicked by the school bully. Wow, really? I know she’s only seven, but that is seriously fucking cunty. I hope Kristyhas to babysit for her sometime. That would be amazing.

Lor: Holy shit, she’s only seven?! I take my LOL back.

Nugs: Starting early, I guess.

“Cuckoo Clock” has both a Negligent Father and Mother of the Book who blame Michael for being mean to his “little sister.” You know, I really can’t blame this kid for hating life. #Ismellfuturealcoholism

Lor: Actually, I think that might be me. I always bring my alcohol to these recapping parties. Whoops.

Nugs: Anyway, the basic plot (?) (Lor: HA.) of this book occurs when Michael’s father Herman, which BTW is like the most unsexy name in the history of unsexy names, brings home said cuckoo clock and warns the kids not to touch anything, as it supposedly has a “flaw” (cue dramatic music). We all know what this means: STRIPPERS JUMPING OUT OF A CAKE!

Lor: Sorry. A “flaw” in a Goosebumps book to me always means that the kid is actually a dog. “My Hairiest Adventure” scarred me for life.

Nugs: To get back at his sister for being such a bitch, Michael decides to fuck around with the clock so his parents get mad at her. He sneaks downstairs and twists the bird’s head around, and in doing so, messes up the space-time continuum and actually travels back in time. He wakes up the next morning and it’s his birthday all over again.

Huh. That’s actually pretty awesome. You all know by now that I’m a sci-fi junkie, so as much as I desperately don’t want to admit it, I was fairly intrigued by this plot. Way to go, RL- two in a row.

At first Michael seems to be enjoying reliving his birthday all over again, because he can predict occurrences before they happen and therefore control and prevent them. However, as he goes further into the past, he gets younger, and his parents start making him do embarrassing shit like hold their hand while crossing the street and wear diapers.

Lor: I hate when my parents make me wear… Never mind.

Nugs: It’s OK, Lor. At least you’re not Claudia.

The part where Michael toddlers up did have some funny moments, like when his mom dressed him in cowboy shirts and Smurf pajamas and he was properly humiliated. I think all our parents sufficiently mortified us until we could come to our own defenses, or at least before we were old enough to pull a Claudia and deem ourselves fashionably responsible.

I seriously hate her fashion choices.

CHILDHOOD TRAUMA, yo (and now it makes sense).

Lor: Dude. My parents love making fun of me because as a dumb kid, I used to love wearing this one dress over and over and over again and I called it my hello dress. But. BUT. THEY LET ME. I WAS A KID.

Nugs: I had one of those, too! I forget what I named it, but I seriously destroyed that shit for like, three months. In a related story, I currently have been wearing the same pair of jean shorts for like a week and a half.

Lor: Any-we-probably-need-a-little-bit-of-therapy-ways, 

Nugs: Michael whines for a few chapters about how much his parents’ behavior sucks while he’s trapped in ages four through infant, and I had no sympathy for him. Come on, dude- just wait until you’re our age and you have to get a job, an apartment and the only mail you get are bills and collection notices. You’ll be PRAYING for feetie pajamas. I’d love a pair of them now, actually. Those are fucking comfortable, yo.

Finally Michael realizes that eventually, he’ll go so far back in time that he’ll cease to exist, (Lor: Deep. ) so while he is enjoying life without his sister (who disappeared due to the time change), he needs to set the clock ahead. Unfortunately, he’s now trapped in a baby’s body, and his parents don’t even own the clock, so uh, whoops. Conveniently, his family wind up at the exact same antiques store, so Michael is able to change the date back because the NPotB get into a fight and forget to pay any attention to their FUCKING BABY who is wandering around an antiques store all by himself. It works, and Michael returns to his normal, loser, twelve year old self.

Lor: Paying attention to your baby is about as over rated as paying attention to your time traveling 12-year-old. Who has time for that?

Nugs: This apparently is when you hire the Baby-Sitters Club to do the work for you. There are so many potential cross-overs here, Scholastic! Seriously, why are we not getting paid for this???

Of course this wouldn’t be an RL Stine melodrama without a “twist” ending that I actually didn’t see coming, but still didn’t lose any sleep over- the clock’s new flaw is that 1988 is left off the dial, therefore erasing the year his sister was born and wiping her from existence. Michael, in true asshole fashion, decides to just leave her off the planet.

Lor: No. Stop it. Really? 

Really, really?

Nugs: ANOTHER DEATH! OK, technically, not really; if she was never born in the first place. But let’s just go with it because I’m hoping this is a pattern.

Lor: What the hell?! I actually think wiping the sister out of existence is CREEPIER than just killing her. Jesus.

Nugs: OK, so I didn’t totally hate this one. It was kind of Dr. Who-y with the time travel and all that, if Dr. Who were dumb and contrived and written by apes in the Congo with Speak & Spells; and at least somebody died, which is always fun.

Congratulations, RL.

Lor: Since my commentary was totally unnecessary in this post (Nugs: Not even. Lor is way funnier and more literate than I am), I figured I’d just add in some extra useless shit: Looking at Nugs’ title for this post, I thought, imagine if one of our CT business ventures was making erotic fiction based on the titles and “plots” of Goosebumps books! I mean, “The Cuckoo Cock of Doom?” Best. Seller. 

Nugs: Goosebumps porn? OHMIGOD that is the greatest idea we’ve come up with yet.

But we all helped.