Fright Camp

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Fright Camp
Fright Camp.jpg
Book information
Number 8 (Series 2000)
Released: August 1998
Blog date: September 9, 2008 (~16 years ago.)
Preceded by: Revenge R Us
Followed by: Are You Terrified Yet?

One of Troy's famous quiz installments.

Transcript[edit | edit source]

Front Tagline: Where the wild things are... out of control![1]

I gotta say, just when I think this series can offer no more surprises, along comes Fright Camp, a book so derivative of past books that it makes I am Your Evil Twin look wholly original. I can say with no exaggeration that if you've read (the books or the entries) for Welcome to Camp Nightmare and A Shocker on Shock Street, then you've read this book. Don't believe me? Take the quiz below and discover for yourself just how familiar Fright Camp is.

Brief Quiz

01 Protagonists Andrew and Tyler's parents start the summer right by telling their children
A They're adopted
B Their parents were adopted
C They're not invited to the family vacation
D Off, those lousy stinking kids

02 The book flirts with self-reference as Andrew's parents enroll him and his brother in a summer camp run by the "Scariest Man Alive,"
A FW Murnau[2]
B FX Toole[3]
C RB Farraday
D DB Sweeney[4]

03 On the bus ride to the questionably named Fright Camp, the siblings get excited by
A The prospect of an Arts and Crafts Cabin From Hell
B The likelihood of a horror camp's bug juice being made from real bugs
C The bumps the driver hits in the road
D RL Stine's newest acquisition to his fleet of yachts, 'River Beware'

04 Once arriving at the camp, the children are
A Greeted warmly by the caring staff
B Immediately dissed in the staff's slam book[5]
C Handcuffed to an electroshock generator
D Reminded that the first rule of Fright Camp is that they don't talk about Fright Camp[6]

05 All of the bunks, cabins, and attractions at Fright Camp are named after
A US Vice Presidents
B Mr. Sketch scented markers
C Characters and locations from RB Farraday's films
D LiveJournal usernames[7]

06 The campers are warned by the counselors against playing in the awkwardly worded
A Knife Pool
B Eight-lane-highway Trail
C Bottomless Quicksand Pit of Screams
D Scary Raccoon Trash Can Book Cover Fun Area

07 One jokester scares his fellow campmates by pretending his hand is caught in a
A Hunny pot, only to be mauled by an angry bear[8]
B Cookie jar, spoiling the song for everyone by revealing who then[9]
C Wasp nest
D Lie. Why, that's really his foot!

08 RB Farraday shocks the children by
A Clearly peeking during their game of Seven Up[10]
B Using ironic racism[11]
C Calling them prisoners
D Actually shocking the children, with electricity

09 RB Farraday has directed 35 horror movies and believes the best way to terrify an audience is to
A Show them how hot dogs are made[12]
B Drop a loud book while they're taking a test
C Scare them using real terrors
D Allow Mickey Rourke's[13] style consultant to dress them

10 In order to begin the horror for the children, Farraday's helper Alonso does what terrifying act?
A Brings out his Horror-Beginner Machine
B Shows their parents the campers' secretly whiteout-defaced Trapper Keepers[14]
C Wheels in a caged gorilla
D Dons world's last hypercolor shirt,[15] draws "Boo!" on chest with finger

11 Andrew notices cameras all over camp. He figures they're there
A In case Paris Hilton wants to have sex somewhere[16]
B Because they are free-range camcorders in their natural habitat
C For surveillance on the campers
D Because RB Farraday set up Fright Camp in order to film a documentary on terror. Whoops, ***SPOILER ALERT***

12 Andrew goes swimming and is grabbed by an underwater zombie who looks just like a missing camper. This sounds familiar because
A What am I talking about, this is a fresh and novel turn of events
B Andrew was already warned about this happening in the brochure
C Oh cool, you've read the Curse of Camp Cold Lake too
D 'Dead person in the water' is a common halloween costume--

Titanic450 Substitute.jpg[17]

[The original image is broken. The image above is a substitute, but it comes from the correct source.]

13 Yes, Fright Camp fulfills the unwritten requirement that every Series 2000 book must contain vomiting. What induces the act this time?
A A poorly-timed visit to the Swift Kick To The Midsection Cabin[18]
B Bunk Three decides they can take on Ed "Cookie" Jarvis[19] in the camp's hot dog eating contest
C An out of control amusement park ride, which for some reason is on the campgrounds
D Page 73, which features a pop-out finger to literally induce vomiting in the reader

14 What other regular Goosebumps fixture makes a cameo appearance?
A Cool Doctor Money[20]
B Goo Punch[21]
C Werewolves
D Kendall Gill[22]

15 After things get more and more dangerous, RB Farraday hires
A A new ghostwriter for the book he appears in[23]
B An efficiency expert, so he can streamline the danger
C Armed guards to prevent the children from escaping
D Illegal immigrants, in a confused attempt to frighten the campers with UFOs[24]

16 The threat of being shot doesn't deter some campers from attempting to leave, so Farraday has the staff remove what?
A The hats of the children, who are then put on permanent Pledge of Allegiance notice[25]
B The letter 'F' from the sign, in the hopes that the children will stop if they think the camp is correct
C The campers' shoes
D All of the children. What isn't there can't escape

17 While attempting to confront Farraday, Andrew discovers a note written by the director which reveals
A Farraday is going to marry Shelly the cook, live in a mansion, have three children, and drive a VW Bug[26]
B Farraday is going to kill himself, and he bequeaths his collection of bottled sand art to Alonso[27]
C Farraday can't handle the terror of the camp he created and has abandoned the campers
D Farraday dots his I's with evil hearts[28]

18 One camper's mom comes to rescue her son but fails. How does she meet her sad fate?
A Is driven off the road to the camp by a Bang Bus,[29] assassinated by the MILF Hunter
B Tries to drink gallon of milk straight from the jug in under five minutes[30]
C Is sucked into quicksand pit
D Trips and falls in the parking lot, figures "Screw this," turns around and heads back home

19 Unbelievably, RL Stine thinks kids don't retain anything they read and the first of three (!) twists is revealed to be that
A The camp is throwing with its right hand
B The camp put on its sister's halloween mask
C The camp is really a project to gauge the response of children to stress and terror
D This is the one where the camp turns out to be a dog or something

20 Twist two finds Andrew and his upset friends tricking RB Farraday into thinking some of the campers really have gone missing into a dark, forbidden cave. The kids lead him into a dark cave and then reveal their revenge-fueled trickery, only to be told by the fearful director that
A Fred Flintstone said to stop bothering Wilma and he'd kick his ass if he ever came back into his cave again[31]
B He picked the wrong day to wear his Adidas snap-pants[32]
C The cave is forbidden because it is a giant wasp nest and once they slip inside, the walls are coated with wasps, preventing their escape
D This gives him a great idea for his next movie: The Director Who Murdered Four Jerk Kids In A Cave

But the Third Twist is:
Andrew notices a speaker emitting the sound of wasps buzzing and RB Farraday reminds him that Fright Camp doesn't end for another two weeks. PSHEW, that was almost a good ending, thank God we dodged that.

Selected Filmography For RB Farraday:
RL Stine reveals that Farraday has directed 35 horror movies. Here is every project mentioned by name in the book:

the Beast With Three Brains
Carnival of Disgusting Horrors
the Cavern of No Return
Conquerers of the Gorilla Planet
Crab Monsters vs. the Leech People
Go-carts From the Evil Kingdom
Kunga, the Animal Vampire
Night of the June Bugs
Nightmare House (TV series)
the Revenge of Dr. Cruel
Vacation of Endless Doom

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 9/10
I didn't talk about it much, but the gorilla from Question Ten breaks loose and starts hugging the strapped-in Andrew. Pretty much any chapter unfortunate to break at that point in the story earned this one.

Great Prose Alert:
Another kid sent a balloon of yellow vomit into the air.

Conclusions:
How can there possibly still be two more books set at camp in this series[Note 1]

Comments[edit | edit source]

An annotated list of blog comments that received official replies can be found here.

Notes[edit | edit source]

  1. Troy was mistaken. The only other camp book in this series is Return to Ghost Camp. Evidently, the torture of these books was getting to Troy's brain.

References[edit | edit source]

  1. A reference to the classic picture book Where the Wild Things Are.
  2. A German silent film director in the 1920's, most famous for Nosferatu.
  3. Pen name for the boxer Jerry Boyd, who wrote a book of short stories that was later adapted into Million Dollar Baby.
  4. An American actor whose work includes Spawn.
  5. A "slam book" is a notebook compiling insults about a range of people. They're typically made by teenagers, and camp counselors are often around this age.
  6. The first rule of Fight Club, in both the novel and the film of the same name, is that "you don't talk about Fight Club".
  7. LiveJournal was a very popular blogging site around the time this post was released.
  8. A trademark habit of Winnie the Pooh was eating honey from a pot mislabeled "hunny".
  9. The traditional children's song in question goes as follows: “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? Was it you?” “Couldn't be!” “Then who?"
  10. A traditional children's game also known as "Heads Down, Thumbs Up", used as a time-filler in classrooms. Certain children are selected to stand up, while the rest put their heads down and a thumb up. The selected few then walk around the room and push down one thumb each. After this is done, the sitting children have to name the person who pushed down their thumb; if they're right, they swap places with that child, and the game repeats.
  11. Shock comedy occasionally employs "racist" jokes to critique racist thinking. (The value of such satire is often debated.)
  12. Believe it or not, this is probably a reference to a specific piece of media. The television show How It's Made showed audiences how hot dogs were made. Note that Wikipedia lists the episode's air date as less than a week prior to when this blog was released. (The clip has since gone viral online. As the comment section reveals, people were pretty disgusted by the process.)
  13. An actor and boxer. Around the time of the entry, he'd been dressing like a bum, and then with a gaudy shirt and tie.
  14. Trapper Keepers (a type of loose-leaf binder) became very successful in the 90s amongst kids. White-out would have been a perfect tool for vandalizing them, since schoolkids have easy access to it.
  15. These shirts would change colors depending on the temperature, and somehow became a fad in the late 80's and very early 90's.
  16. A reference to 1 Night in Paris, Hilton's leaked 2004 sex tape.
  17. This image was from the Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place episode "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Psycho Halloween", wherein the character Ashley dresses up as a Titanic victim.
  18. The "Swift Kick" wording might be a reference to this strip of Calvin and Hobbes. This connection may be tenuous, but note that Troy also referenced Calvin and Hobbes on three other occasions. 1, 2, 3.
  19. A competitive eater.
  20. "Dee Dee's Haircut", an episode of the 1994-95 Nickelodeon sitcom My Brother and Me, has the titular character requesting a "Cool Doctor Money" haircut.
  21. Another My Brother and Me reference: "Goo Punch" was a song devised by main character Milton "Goo" Barry.
  22. A former NBA player (more specifically, the Charlotte Hornets). He guest starred in an episode of My Brother and Me.
  23. Troy uses Farraday to allude to Stine, joking that the book was poorly ghostwritten.
  24. The joke is that "alien" can refer to both a nonresident alien or an extraterrestrial alien.
  25. Americans are expected to take off their hats for the Pledge of Allegiance.
  26. One of the possible outcomes of "MASH", a childhood fortune telling game that would determine your spouse, living area, number of children, and vehicle of choice.
  27. Summer camps in real life often encourage kids to make simple art projects (like bottled sand art). The joke here is that a collection of bottled sand art is exceptionally boring, especially for someone in a Goosebumps' book.
  28. Dotting I's with hearts is something young girls often do. Like with the previous two references, the joke is that Troy is making Farraday seem childish.
  29. A reality porn video site. (It isn't really real, by the way.)
  30. A reference to milk chugging, a popular challenge that involves drinking a high quantity of milk (typically a gallon) in a short period of time. Due to the capacity of the stomach (typically less than a gallon), this challenge usually results in vomiting. Troy might be making a joke about how common vomiting is throughout Goosebumps Series 2000.
  31. The Flinstones, America's favorite cavemen.
  32. Snap-pants are pants that can be quickly torn away, which is useful for athletes who want to remove their sweatpants quickly. I suppose wearing these pants would make you especially vulnerable to pranking.

Trivia[edit | edit source]

  • In the previous entry's comments section, Troy implied this entry would be a quiz by telling an anonymous person "Better study while you can and get your No. 2 Pencils ready".