Note: Despite its similar antagonists, the setting of Goosebumps Most Wanted #1: Planet of the Lawn Gnomes is unrelated to this book.
Joe and Mindy Burton
Portrayed By: Kerry Segal (Mindy) and Lance Paton (Joe) (TV); Debi Derryberry and Justin Shenkarow (Audiobook)
The protagonists of Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes, two siblings whose father buys lawn gnomes that come to life.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Mindy is blonde in the book, but is a brunette in the episode.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Mindy and Joe are a lot nicer to each other in the episode. When Mr.Mcall is mocking them Mindy tries to comfort him. When she finds out he was telling the truth about the gnomes, she even apologizes for not believing him and getting him in trouble.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Joe is considerably less annoying in the TV episode, and he and Mindy tend to get along much better.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Mindy is embarrassed by her father's obsession with lawn ornaments.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Joe is one of the rare examples who is the protagonist, taking every opportunity to pester Mindy.
- Black Sheep: Mindy isn't as interested in gardening as the rest of the family.
- Character Tic: Mindy has a habit of rolling her eyes whenever she's annoyed. While this is pretty normal for a teenage girl, she does it a lot.
- Crying Wolf: Due to his love of pranks, Joe's parents think he's just joking around like he always does when he tells them the garden gnomes are alive.
- Easily Embarrassed Youngster: Mindy finds the lawn ornaments completely humiliating, especially the gnomes.
- Feuding Families: Their father and Mr. McCall, Joe's best friend Moose's father, are gardening rivals. It's friendly at first, but quickly gets more serious when Joe's father thinks Mr. McCall is deliberately sabotaging his gardening.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Joe is the foolish and easy-going to Mindy's responsible and organized.
- Forbidden Friendship: Downplayed with Joe's friendship with Moose, the son of his father's gardening rival. They're allowed to hang out, but this gets complicated as their fathers gradually become more antagonistic toward each other.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Mindy has blond hair and is the nicest and most mature of the three kids in general.
- Hollywood Genetics: He says that both his parents are blonde, which should make him a blonde as well like Mindy. For some reason, he has brown hair instead.
- Nice Girl: Despite being kind of a stick in the mud Mindy is generally a lot more likable than Joe or Moose (who spend all their time playing pranks and generally being annoying).
- Noodle Incident: It's never really explained why Mindy has Obsessively Organized tendencies, or why her parents don't give her any treatment for it (although it wasn't as recognized in The '90s as today).
- No Sense of Humor: Mindy has little to no patience for Joe and Moose's jokes and pranks.
- Obsessively Organized: Mindy needs to have everything organized, from her closet to her dinner.
- Only Sane Woman: Mindy is far more sensible than Joe and his friend Moose.
- The Prankster: Joe, particularly towards Mindy.
- Shrinking Violet: Mindy is a shy, quiet girl who just wants to be left alone. At one point when Joe is bugging her she just says she's gonna find a quiet place to read.
- What Beautiful Eyes!: Implied with the book version of Mindy, who is said to have "huge green eyes", most people find big eyes attractive.
Lawn Gnomes
Portrayed By: Jordan Prentice (Hap) and Yvan Labelle (Chip) (TV)
Lawn ornaments bought by Joe and Mindy's father that come to life. In Planet of the Lawn Gnomes, they reside on an entire planet with robots.
- Adaptational Badass: While in the book they are more annoying than threatening, in the movie they manage to tie up Stine and throw a knife at the group.
- Always Chaotic Evil: In the episode, anyway. Instead of claiming to be enslaved like in the book, they openly admit that they make mischief simply because “it’s what we do; it’s in our nature”.
- The Fair Folk: Possibly. The book calls them "mischief elves", and while it doesn't explicitly say they are fairies or the like, they fit the "malevolent prankster" archetype often assigned to fair folk.
- The Farmer and the Viper: After they tell the kids the shopkeeper is holding their friends prisoner, Mindy takes pity on them and convinces the group to help them. It turns out to all be a trick; there's a bunch of gnomes waiting to ambush them and do a bunch of messed up things to them.
- Gaslighting: They show signs of being alive in front of Joe and wreck Mr. McCall's plants, causing Joe's parents to doubt him and creating havoc between the families.
- Living Statues: Both of them are ceramic gnome statues which comes to life at night. As are the rest of their brethen. All 600 of them.
- Manipulative Bastard: Hap and Chip tell Joe and Mindy they're enslaved and forced to perform mischief, begging the kids to help free them. It turns out they were lying to lead Joe and Mindy to the rest of the gnomes and enslave them.
- Our Gnomes Are Weirder: Ones that come to life and call themselves "mischief elves".
- Troll: They love causing mischief and wreaking havoc.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Joe blowing his dog whistle causes them to freeze.
Mr. McCall
Portrayed By: David Hemblen
The kids' neighbor and the book's secondary antagonist.
- Adaptation Name Change: His first name in the television version is Major instead of Bill in the novel.
- Adaptational Jerkass: While he wasn't exactly a Nice Guy in the book, the TV adaptation has him reimagined as a Drill Sergeant Nasty ex-military man.
- Age Lift: He's considerably older in the TV adaptation.
- Asshole Victim: In the TV adaptation, he gets turned into a gnome at the end.
- Death by Adaptation: The TV episode ends with him being turned into a lawn ornament by the gnomes.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: The TV adaptation ramps up his army past and abrasiveness.
- Evil Brit: While his nationality isn't specified in the book, the TV adaptation has him played by the English-born David Hemblen. Downplayed in that he's not evil so much as a jerkass, but an example nonetheless.
- No Name Given: It's unclear if his name "Major" in the TV adaptation is a moniker referring to his military service or his actual name.
