I can only wonder why R.L. Stine felt the need to give them both
needlessly creepy names.
"I think you'll find that the answer's right there in the question." |
Anyway, creepy ventriloquil figures.
As if there were any other kind. |
"Ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh!" |
Oh, hey, haven't seen you around in a while. What're you freaking out about?
"That's Caterina Scorsone!" |
Yes. And?
"Uhhhhh, as in Amelia Shepherd M.D. from Private Practice and Grey's Anatomy?" |
"You need to binge. Now." |
"...Whatever, get back to your kids' show." |
Anyway, in true older
sister fashion, Sara's overachieving. Specifically, by having painted a
beautiful picture of their house, which she plans on entering in an art show. The painting, not the house.
Dad: "It belongs in a museum."
Now I just want to watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Now I just want to watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
But the middle child, Amy (Maggie Castle), is less enthusiastic.
Amy: "She showed us the exact same picture last family
night."
Hey, paintings can take a long time to finish.
By the time I'm halfway through one, I have an idea for another.... |
How... embarrassing? |
Dad: "Amy, where's your sense of humor?"
"And I'm sure that saying that will not get flipped around on me ironically." |
A TV show where, instead of America sending in their
funniest home videos, people send in video evidence of their screwed-up family
for money? Must be on TLC.
Just wait a few years, kid. There'll be this thing called
"YouTube." Of course, you'll probably be out of college by then, but
still.
Sara: "How many times do I have to tell you not to try
on my clothes?"
"So that's where it went." |
Amy: "So, Dennis, how was your family picnic? Were you
bothered by any ants?"
Dennis: "No, worse. Termites."
Boy, ventriloquism is easy when the sound guy just dubs your
voice over the footage.
Dennis: "You've heard of the Terminator. Well, we had
to call in the exterminator."
It's funny because... The Terminator was a movie?
Then his head falls off.
Jed: "That's the best part."
Agreed.
Amy takes this opportunity to pout, since her dad promised
her a new dummy. Her dad tells her to look behind the couch, and she finds a
trunk. As she sets it up, he explains that he found him sitting in the window
of the local second-hand shop.
According to the inside of his case, his name is
"Slappy." And he's suspiciously similar in size to a guy with
dwarfism. And yet, they won't use somebody in a costume to portray Slappy when
he comes to life. Well, not in this episode, anyway.
And there's the cause of our nightmares for the next fortnight. |
Speaking of life, Amy finds an odd little card in his pocket
and decides to read it out loud.
Amy: "Karru Marri Odona Loma Molonu Karrano?"
"Honey, call Dr. Alaniz and tell her that Amy's speaking in tongues again." |
Anyway, once they all dismiss the odd gibberish, Amy hugs her
dummy, unaware of what she has just unleashed into the world....
Amy: "It's nice to meet you, Slappy."
"Slappy": "It's nice to meet you too,
Amy."
Amy: "It must be great to have a new home."
Slappy: "Ya got that right, kiddo."
But Sara comes in to distract Amy from her titular living dummy by
telling Amy to stay out of her room. They have a little argument about this,
too.
Sara: "Now go to bed."
Amy: "Don't have to."
Slappy: "Yeah, we don't have to!"
Sara: "Come on. Mom says so."
After Sara leaves, Amy is left alone with only her thoughts
and a ventriloquist dummy that actually spoke.
Amy: "That's weird."
So she puts Slappy next to Dennis and prepares to go to
sleep. Yeah, it's weird that your dummy spoke of its own free will and said
something relevant to the conversation, but whatever. Bedtime.
But when she makes her way back to her bed, Dennis falls on
the floor.....
That night, we get a POV shot of a small figure waltzing
into Sara's room with a paintbrush. And the next morning, we Sara freaking out
over the resulting vandalism.
Because it's not like she could paint over it. Heck, she could claim that it's some statement on the fragile artificiality of the middle class, or some such. |
Sara: "You're always jealous of my art."
Amy: "I didn't. Why would I?"
Sara: "So who did, the tooth fairy?"
Wait a minute. Let me check something....
...
Huh. Did you know that R.L. Stine has never written about an
evil tooth fairy? Evil dentists showed up in a sequel to "One Day at
Horrorland," but no actual tooth fairies. Come on, man! You've cranked out story after story
regarding werewolves, haunted masks, and evil dummies, but nothing about the mysterious supernatural creature that steals teeth?
Jed: "Pretty dumb, Amy. Even I wouldn't try to get away
with that."
Amy: "I'm always blamed for everything around
here!"
Don't worry, Amy. I believe that you'd never go inside
your sister's room and touch her stuff. ...Except her sweater. But it's not
like you'll do anything like that again. Within the next few minutes of screen
time.
But after returning to her room and touching Slappy, Amy
notices something red on her hands that smells like blue paint.
Amy: "Red paint? What's going on?"
It seems as though Slappy has wet red paint on his hands.
Even though it should have dried by now, since he vandalized the art in the
middle of the night.
We then cut to... Family Sharing Night. Wait, is it still
the same day? Did this family just have two Family Share Nights in a row? Is
this a thing normal people do? Am I the weird one?
Um, anyway, Dad Kramer is playing "If you're Happy and
You Know it" on his guitar. Looks like those lessons are paying off. In fact, he gets a round of applause.
"Hey, Slappy, why did the aardvark cross the road?" "I am an affront to the laws of God and man!" |
"Slappy": "It's fantastic, but then my last
family was a pine tree."
So I guess that makes Slappy here a real chip off the ol'
block, eh?
...
Sorry.
Amy: "So, what did you think of Dad's song?"
Slappy: "That was your dad? Well, what a relief. I
thought the cat got stuck in the dishwasher."
Heh.
Dad: "Amy, that's not very nice."
Yeah, but it was actually funny.
Come on, have a sense of humor, right?
Slappy: "And how about that mother of yours? She went
to a store and asked if the clerk had anything in her size, and he told her to
try the freight elevator!"
Ye gods, the dummy's been possessed by the ghost of Don
Rickles! Which is odd, since Don Rickles was very much alive in 1996.
But after the dummy starts insulting Jed and Sara, Amy
starts trying to get the dummy off her arm to no avail. So her whole family
assists her in getting the dummy off her arm, lest her fragile mental state
lead her to become a Batman villain.
Sadly, we don't get to see Mrs. Kramer's cheer routine from high school. |
The next day or whenever, Amy and her friend Margo (Kerry Duff) talk about
boys while coloring in a poster for the Save the Rainforest dance. Margo's
sister, Alicia, gets into Amy's closet and plays with her dolls, leading Margo
and Amy to bond by complaining about their siblings.
Amy: "Sometimes I wish I didn't have any brothers or
sisters."
And if this were a different episode, that wish would come
back to haunt her in an ironic fashion. But this episode already has its
supernatural phenomenon causing trouble, and he's currently locked in a big ol'
chest that Alicia looks like she wants to open....
But Sara comes in and gets after Amy for going into
her room and stealing her markers to make the poster.
Amy: "I didn't steal them. We were just borrowing
them."
I take back what I said about believing Amy. No wonder
nobody believes her about the dummy.
Sara: "You never even asked. I told you to stay out
of my room!"
Amy: "Just stay out of my life!"
I've gotta hand it to this actress. She's got the "I'm in my friend's house and she's having a disturbingly intense fight with her family" face nailed. |
Slappy stops when Mom Kramer enters, but the damage is done.
Amy: "Slappy grabbed Alicia and he wouldn't let
go!"
Mom: "What?"
Margo: "You're such a liar... a big, fat liar!"
Oh, you didn't have to bring her weight into this.
Margo: "I don't ever want to see you again. Not ever."
"Nah, I think it's warranted." |
Amy gets grounded until her dad gets home, during which time
Slappy chuckles with his mouth closed.
When Amy's dad gets home, the family has a meeting in the
living room, where they confront Amy about blaming her own behavior on a doll.
Amy: "Slappy's not a doll. He's a dummy. I can't help
it if he's haunted or something. Why won't anybody believe me?"
There. I made a reference. I don't get it, and I don't even know if it's a reference to the right thing. Happy, Ant-Man? |
"I'm pacified." |
Nobody believes her, and her dad even tries to try and
relate to her a bit by talking about how he knows exactly what it's like to be
the middle sibling. But still Amy protests.
You know, judging by how Amy's parents are suddenly more
about desperately trying to pinpoint her issues than disciplining her, this
seems uncannily like they're discussing putting her on Ritalin. Trust me; I grew
up during the height of the late-90s Ritalin craze. I know what this discussion
looks like.
Mom: "Amy, if you really and truly believe that Slappy
is responsible for all this, then maybe we need to get some help."
Amy: "You mean like a doctor or something?"
Yep. Called it. They're itchin' to get Amy hooked up with
some pills.
If I may analyze this family for a bit, it's very clear that
they're not exactly the Cleavers. They fight all the time at the drop of a hat.
And it's evident that the parents are at their wits' end.
Sure, I'm exaggerating when I say that they want to pump Amy
full of methylphenidate, but this is a family that has clearly run out of
patience and ideas. They fight all the time, and Amy blaming the dummy is
making the problem worse than it already was.
Of course, the fact that the dummy is doing all this
complicates the issue.
But Amy runs off to her room again, so nothing has been
solved.
Jed: "Can I watch TV now?"
That night, as Amy's parents sleep in front of the staticky
TV, Amy wakes up to find Slappy's trunk empty. And when she goes downstairs to
investigate, she discovers the dummy attempting to smash Dad Kramer's guitar
over his head. But before Slappy can deliver the ol' El Kabong, Amy tackles him
to the ground, both waking up her parents and breaking the guitar. And, of
course, they blame her.
Ironic that Amy could have proven her own innocence by simply staying in bed. |
Dad: "Amy, you mother and I have talked about this, and
we want you to tell us what you think we should do."
"Damn it, Amy, I paid good money for that thing. It may be causing you to act out, but you're damn well keeping it!" |
Mom: "I think we both know that's not the answer."
"Then... a reward?" |
Later that day, Amy walks down the road to find Margo and
her new friend hanging up posters for the dance. They ignore Amy,
but she's on a mission. She's brought Slappy to the side of the road, and...
she abandons him in a storm drain...
Holy crap, I remember this. |
Amy: "There's no point in telling you the truth, 'cause
you think I'm crazy anyways."
As Amy walks away, the camera pans down to show the tiny
footprints Sara's been mopping up. Which go all the way into Amy's room, where
Slappy awaits. And he's given up on the whole "stealth" thing, since
he's walking and talking.
Slappy: "Wasn't very nice of you to dump me in the
sewer like that."
...Okay, fair point.
...Okay, fair point.
Slappy goes on to explain the central idea of the "Night of
the Living Dummy" series: Whoever brings Slappy to life with the magic words
becomes his.
Slappy: "You are my slave."
Slappy, do I need to teach you about the 18th Amendment?
What?
Wait, which one deals with slavery?
Oh.
Shut up.
"No, I know that Prohibition was repealed." |
"The 18th Amendment." |
"Number thirteen." |
"Do I need to teach you about the 18th Amendment?" |
Amy protests, but Slappy insists that he can get her to do
anything he wants, since he's convinced her family that she's nuts.
"Which is why I won't be keeping up the charade that's been working so far!" |
Creepy.
Sara comes in to see what Amy's yelling about, only to find
Amy and Slappy. And unlike the last few times, Slappy is finally willing to
make his sentience known.
Slappy: "Hey, Sara. Wanna play?"
As if that were possible. |
Anyway, the girls hide in the bathroom, and Sara tells Amy
how sore-y she is for not believing her. But int the end, the two realize that
Jed is still out there in the rest of the house. So it's up to them to save
their brother from the evil dummy. They search the darkened house for their brother, finding
only Slappy in the living room chandelier. They grab a broom, but they can't
manage to hit him.
Slappy: "I've seen better swings on playgrounds."
I hope not. Slappy shouldn't be allowed within 500 yards of
a school.
But in the end, even though Slappy drops down and manages to
get on top of Amy, a small figure manages to knock him down and break his head
open, causing green smoke to spill out.
Badly composited green smoke. Of course, I imagine they could only film Slappy's head smashing a limited number of times. |
And it's only now that the adults decide to come in. The
girls quickly explain that Slappy was alive, but Jed stopped him.
Jed: "What's going on? What'd I do?"
And the twist ending comes along as everybody slowly turns
to see Dennis standing on the table.
"That of which you speak does not exist, flesh creature." |
...Dennis sounds like a Goofy impression.
The subtitles even identify it as one. |
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