In the upcoming movie adaptation of the famous children's horror series Goosebumps, Jack Black plays a version of the man responsible for such classics as The Haunted Mask, The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena and The Horror of Camp Jelly Jam: R.L. Stine.
Of course, to have a character based off of you in a major motion picture means you're probably kind of a big deal, and Stine is. Goosebumps' status as a best-selling series that has spawned a movie, '90s TV show and several spinoff book series shows that Stine knows a thing or two about horror. However, Stine, who was born on Oct. 8, 1943, began his writing career on a much lighter note.
After Stine graduated from Ohio State University in 1965, he moved to New York to begin his writing career as a humorist. He wrote under the delightful-sounding pen name Jovial Bob Stine, which had a children's birthday party clown ring to it. Now that I think about it, perhaps that is still a perfect name for a future horror writer.
Stine's early works included such kid-friendly titles as Miami Mice, Gnasty Gnomes and The Cool Kids' Guide to Summer Camp, which he co-wrote with his wife, Jane Stine. The author also had kids covered when it came to the yuks, providing the lolz for topics ranging from video games to vacation to the school cafeteria in various joke books. Stine said that he wrote "maybe a hundred of" these joke books during the early part of his career.
"Yes, I was a funny guy for a long time. When I started out, I just wanted to write humor," Stine later said in an interview with Reading Rockets.
The author would then go on to start and serve as editor of the teen humor magazine Bananas, which he described to Reading Rockets as "sort of Mad Magazine, but it was all in color." Scholastic, which publishes Stine's Goosebumps books today, began publishing Bananas in 1975 and continued releasing new issues of the magazine for about 10 years.
The cover of the first issue of Bananas featured illustrations of Freddie Prinze and Jimmie Walker holding bananas in their hands, naturally, as their characters from two major TV shows at the time, Chico and the Man and Good Times, respectively. In addition to this cover story on the stars, the magazine featured activities, comics and satirical advice columns. Subsequent issues continued to feature the biggest TV stars of the day, including David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser of Starsky & Hutch, Suzanne Somers of Three's Company and Farrah Fawcett of Charlie's Angels.
Stine finally got into the horror game in 1986 with his first teen horror novel Blind Date. However, Stine didn't completely abandon his more wholesome side. He co-created and served as head writer of the children's show Eureeka's Castle, which aired from 1989 to 1995 on Nickelodeon and followed the magical adventures of the titular sorceress and her fellow puppet creatures. Eureeka's Castle was actually Stine's first foray into TV, and it was definitely a hit with me as a kid. The series was colorful, musical, whimsical, goofy and altogether a far cry from the horror Stine would go on to create. However, as you should have probably realized by now, Stine is no one-trick pony.
The author's relationship with Nickelodeon didn't end with Eureeka's Castle, either. Stine went on to become the first editor of Nickelodeon Magazine, he said in a 2013 interview with The AV Club. So, yes, Stine really is responsible for all of your childhood memories.
Stine penned his first Goosebumps novel Night of the Living Dummy in 1992, which would help forever cement his place in horror history. Of course, Stine might not have ever become the beloved children's author he is today without first building up his humor writing repertoire.
One of the reasons why Goosebumps became such a successful children's book series is not only because Stine was able to spin some memorably creepy tales to chill children but also because they all had a sense of humor to them. This was not only apparent in his writing but was also present even before you opened each book with over-the-top covers featuring velociraptor teenagers, sarcastic taglines (from How to Kill a Monster: "Step 1: Run. Step 2: Run faster") and cheeky titles (Say Cheese and Die!). After all, who wants to be crying and screaming all of the time?
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