Brain Juice
Brain Juice
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Book information
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Perhaps the most overtly humorous book in the Goosebumps Series 2000 line.
Transcript[edit | edit source]
Front Tagline: A mind is a terrible thing to drink.
(What, no Juice your own adventure?)[1][Note 1]
Brief Synopsis:
Well, as you can tell by the picture of the ejaculating brain[Note 2] on the cover, this week's book was probably never going to be the one that delivered the elusive Newbery Award[2] for Stine. Brain Juice opens with a prologue that sets the stage for hilarity,[Note 3] but forgets to draw open the curtains: Two aliens are hiding in a scientist's kitchen pantry. Morggul and Gobbul provide valuable expository details about their mission on Earth: to kidnap some smart human slaves to take back to their home planet. In the meantime they've chosen the scientist Dr. Frank King for observation, mistakenly assuming that due to his name he must be the King of all scientists. I think we all can all guess the outcome of their next mission to capture a Latifah.[3]
The book thankfully leaves the aliens and focuses on characters who are not aliens... or are they?[4] No, they're not. Step-siblings Nathan and Lindy have come to their Uncle Frank to seek his help. Bookish Nathan and vibrant redhead Lindy have paid this visit because they feel stupid and want to get smarter. The kids feel excluded from the world because they're not good students and they can't build a dollhouse. Please note: That these two could find their way across town to their uncle's house and can tie their shoes still makes them smarter than most other Goosebumps protagonists.
Uncle Frank thinks the kids are plenty smart but decides to slip them a placebo. As his disapproving wife looks on, Uncle Frank slaps a computer paper label on a bottle of grape juice, calling it, you guessed it, Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls.[5] Well, it seems that just putting a label over another label on a juice bottle probably means he's meeting the kids halfway in their intelligence argument.
Unfortunately Frank forgets the first rule of drinking with a group, as he leaves the drink unattended.[6] This gives the aliens an opportunity to slink out from the pantry and swap the fake Brain Juice with real Brain Juice, which is conveniently purple and existent. The aliens decide that the two children would be perfect slaves if only they were smarter. Boy, these kids are so stupid that even stupid aliens think they're stupid. And even that sentence wasn't as stupid as these kids!
The kids take the Brain Juice home and split the bottle. This leads to a pretty cerebral exchange:
"Do you feel any smarter?" Lindy asked.
"Duhhh... yeah," he replied.
That night while they sleep, the aliens come over to make sure the kids drank the Brain Juice. They've never fed Brain Juice to humans before and have no idea what effect it will have. So they decide to test their dangerous potion out on the two people they've singled out to take back with them? Is anyone/anything not stupid in this book? Oh and then one of the aliens climbs into bed with Nathan and watches him sleep.
At school the next day, neither child is smart. But neither is dead from the experimental formula either, so there's the silver lining. Nathan gets teased on the bus by a gang of nerdy kids who mercilessly bully him because he can't do the New York Times Crossword Puzzle.[7] Boy I don't know about you guys but I love reading scenarios lifted directly from real life like this! The aliens spy on the children remaining stupid and decide that since the kids aren't getting any smarter, they'll just eat them instead. These creatures are really impulsive. Maybe if the kids can wait them out, the aliens'll just drive to Vegas.[8]
Before they can be eaten, Lindy and Nathan conveniently get smarter. They ace a math test, which immediately draws the ire of their teacher, who assumes the two cheated. So he throws away their exams and makes them take a retest. I guess it never occurred to him that he might be a good teacher.
Naturally the kids ace the test again. And then they start showing off. It gets so bad that the smart kids start making fun of them for being too smart and their teachers whine to the school board that the kids are too brilliant to be in public school. Finally, social commentary from a man who has never written a Goosebumps book with a black protagonist!
This all leads to an extended passage concerning the kids being expelled for being geniuses and the ensuing media blitz that descends on them in the wake. Being asked to advertise breakfast cereals and sneakers and getting chased by the government for testing would hit a lot stronger if it wasn't lifted directly from How I Learned to Fly. Of course, when you're already ripping off Flowers For Algernon,[9] I guess stealing from a book you at least wrote is the lesser evil.
Eventually the aliens show up. At first the kids don't believe the slimy creatures are aliens, so one of them "proves" it by grabbing a bird and biting the winged creature's head off. I always knew Ozzy's[10] glazed appearance and slurred speech were masking something far more heinous than the residual effects of a lifetime of drug abuse! The aliens tell the kids that they are now smart enough to serve their emperor back on the home planet. The kids are somewhat resistant to the idea of being slaves for hideous creatures from outer space, so they run away.
The aliens catch up with the kids and threaten to eat their little sister, Brenda. The kids agree to be slaves if the aliens will spare Brenda's life. Unfortunately Gobbul already ate her. Luckily the alien hadn't finished digesting her, so he happily throws up the little girl. Well, if that isn't the ultimate vomiting scene in a Series 2000 book, I don't want to read whatever actually is.
Once in the alien's starship, knee-deep in the hoopla, sinking in their fight,[11] the two kids find themselves locked in a large cage. One of the aliens throws them a stack of crossword puzzles to keep themselves occupied on the long trip back to their home planet. Nathan gets Across with them and won't back Down.[12] He tries to tell the aliens that they're no longer smart, that their formula has worn off. He's telling the truth but the aliens naturally think he's trying to outsmart them. The creatures were expecting this, as they told the children that the Emperor is testing the human race based on these two. If the kids fail, the aliens won't bother to enslave Earth. Gee, no pressure.
The two kids try to do the crosswords they've been given, but they can't figure out whether they're supposed to write in the black or white squares. The juice has been zapped from their minds, and what's worse, they've actually been made stupider in the process. This causes them to do stupid things, like mistaking "D-O-G" for "C-A-T" and watching Knight Rider instead of Pushing Daises [sic] on Wednesday nights.[13]
(That last zinger was part of my dual effort to both save the best show on TV and reduce the shelf life of this blog's references. I hope you enjoyed it. Now please watch Pushing Daisies. I'm not even being paid to say this. Barring a miracle, it's pretty much going to get canceled and I'm holding all of you reading this personally responsible if that happens. I mean, viewers are really watching a talking car and a Jay Mohr sitcom[14] over PD at the rate of almost 2:1. Obviously the twist here is that America needs some Brain Juice)
The ship finally lands and the aliens lead the humans through several futuristic set pieces until they finally meet the Emperor. By this point the children are so stupid they can barely walk. The Emperor is furious with Morggul and Gobbul and immediately has them melted. Dude should get upset with a grilled cheese some time, he would totally cut down cooking time. Ah, Writing the Entry at 2AM Jokes, how I've missed you.
The Emperor has his henchmen chase after the stupid children, who have managed to hide in a closet instead of escaping. The Emperor is amused by their stupidity and sends them in a spaceship back to Earth. Once back at Earth, the kids meet up with Uncle Frank. He wants to go to the media, but the kids are tired of the attention. Since they're returned, their intelligence has returned to normal. They just want to be normal.
But the Twist is:
Remember when the book ripped off How I Learned to Fly? Hi. The kids were never stupid, they just very convincingly pretended to be to avoid damning the entire human race. Oh, well I guess I won't stay mad at them. Their con is revealed when Nathan accidentally solves an impossible equation their uncle is working on.
Oh Cool:
I've seen Good Will Hunting[15] too.
the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Nathan and step-sister Lindy, whose little sister disappears into an alien halfway through the novel.
Questionable Teaching:
Usually RL Stine undershoots the curriculum of a sixth grader, but I'm pretty sure he overcompensated for life with the following equation, given to the entire class of twelve-year-olds by Nathan and Lindy's teacher:
x = a - c + 125 (x + y)[Note 4]
No wonder he thought anyone who passed his test was cheating.
Minority Alert:
Stine insists on consistently referring to Uncle Frank as Dr. King,[16] which would be bad enough except that Dr. King's solution to this predicament involves grape-flavored drink.[17] Well, perfect. Of course the worst part of this happening is that it wrecked the "Brain Jews" joke that I'd planned for this section.
UFOh Burn Alert:
"Maybe we shouldn't have landed in New Jersey. Maybe there are nicer places."
Late '90s Cultural References:
The negative effect of the Juice being let loose is clearly a scathing reference to the OJ Simpson[18] verdict.
Early 1900s Cultural References:
The kids prove their intellectual prowess by watching Jeopardy, resulting in what is likely the first and last instance of the Lusitania[19] getting name-checked in a children's horror book. Oh and this scene ends with one of the aliens providing this witty observation:
"Final Jeopardy. Yes, I think that describes what these two humans are about to face."
Out of Context Text Alert:
He stood very erect, sweat rolling thickly down his emerald body.
Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 4/5
One of the aliens thinks their concoction has killed Nathan. Only it turns out that humans breathe through their faces. Whoa, sure you don't want to go back and make that the final twist, Stine?
Great Dialog Alert:
"Owwww! My heart!"
Great Prose Alert:
The class grew even silenter than silent.
Conclusions:
Based on the number of times some variation of the word "stupid" was used in Brain Juice, the target audience must have been Andy from Monster Blood.
Comments[edit | edit source]
An annotated list of blog comments that received official replies can be found here.
Notes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Troy occasionally makes parenthetical comments prior to the "Brief Synopsis" section. Since they're exceptionally easy to miss, we've made a note to draw your attention.
- ↑ In actuality, the juice seems to be falling and splattering onto the brain, not erupting out of it.
- ↑ A keen observation on Troy's part. In interviews, Stine has revealed he loves this book for its humorous elements.
- ↑ In the book, the equation trails off, meaning it's ostensibly even more difficult than what Troy shows here.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ A reference to the Choose Your Own Adventure books. (Like Goosebumps, it was a successful series of paperbacks for kids.)
- ↑ An achievement for the best children's literature.
- ↑ A reference to Queen Latifah, the stage name for rapper and actress Dana Elaine Owens.
- ↑ A surprisingly common twist throughout Goosebumps. Spoiler alert: see this or this.
- ↑ An easy bait-and-switch.
- ↑ Troy alludes to a very good piece of advice. When people tell you not to leave your drink unattended at a social gathering, it's to prevent anyone from slipping drugs into your drink without you knowing.
- ↑ Shockingly, the book actually references The New York Times crossword puzzle. Troy has revealed elsewhere that he's fond of these puzzles.
- ↑ Las Vegas is known for its casinos, making it a tourist trap for the impulsive.
- ↑ A story about a retarded man who undergoes an experiment to make him smarter; it works very well, making him even smarter than the scientists who took him in. After some time, he eventually regresses back to his old intelligence.
- ↑ Ozzy Osbourne, former lead singer of Black Sabbath and drug abuser, allegedly once bit off the head of a bat at a 1982 concert.
- ↑ These are lyrics from "We Built This City", by the rock band Starship.
- ↑ Across and Down are terms associated with crossword puzzles, indicating the two directions words can be placed.
- ↑ In September 2008 (when this entry was written), a 2008 remake of Knight Rider aired on NBC in this timeslot, while cult classic Pushing Daisies aired at the same time on ABC. (Despite Troy's efforts in the next paragraph, it was cancelled the next year.)
- ↑ Specifically, this refers to Gary Unmarried (2008-10), where Mohr starred as a recently divorced man pursuing a new life while sharing his kids' custody with his wife. It aired on CBS on Wednesday nights, completing the trifecta of TV stations from earlier.
- ↑ In this 1997 film, the titular man's prodigious intellect is discovered when he solves an equation on a professor's blackboard while working as a janitor at MIT.
- ↑ A name used to refer to famed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who had a doctorate in theology.
- ↑ Racist stereotypes of black people often have them enjoying grapes.
- ↑ A former football player who had a lengthy trial for killing his wife, which eventually ended with him being declared not guilty.
- ↑ A passenger ship sunk in 1914 by a German U-boat. While it was British in origin, many of those on board were American, and it precipitated the country's entry into the first World War.
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- Pre-release, Troy hinted that this entry might be a "special" review. He later decided to save his plans for a less interesting book.
- He might have been planning a quiz entry (which he'd do for The Werewolf in the Living Room a month later). He could have also been planning a musical entry (which he'd do for Full Moon Fever more than a year later).
