Guess what happens. Go on, guess.
The Goosebumps book about a blob that eats everyone.
Zackie aspires to be a horror writer, and writes stories starring himself and his friends. One day, he comes into possession of a magic typewriter, which causes anything he types on it to become real. This seems amazing at first. Unfortunately for Zackie, he's just written a self-insert story about a blob monster eating people throughout the town. He now has to race back to write himself out of this disaster before it's too late.
It was adapted into episode 23 of the second season of the TV series.
It was reissued in the Classic Goosebumps line in 2015 as a tie-in to the first movie.
The book provides examples of:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Adam somehow thinks the blob that is eating people is a balloon. He gets eaten himself.
- Author Avatar: Alex asks why Zackie keeps putting her and himself in their stories. Zackie says it's because he knows themselves best and that makes for better writing. He comes to regret it.
- Blob Monster: Why yes, the monster is a giant blob.
- Book Ends: The book begins with Zackie's story being critiqued by his friends, and the story ends with the Blob's story, this one, being critiqued by his friend.
- Buy or Get Lost: Mrs. Jack, the owner of the meat market that Zackie goes to, tells Adam, Emmy, and Annie this when she catches them pranking Zackie and making fun of him.
- By the Hair: Apparently happens to Alex when the owner of the antique shop catches her. She and Zackie were grabbed and pulled from where they stood, and Alex's ponytail had come undone, and her hair was wild around her face. This implies that the store owner grabbed her by the ponytail.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: While discussing with Alex about what happened at school that day, Zackie grumbles that he had a hundred disgusting rodents crawling all over his body. She reminded him that there was only one mouse that crawled all over him. He grumbles that it seemed like a hundred. He then does this trope by making her look at a new Blob Monster story that he was typing up.
- Child Hater: Mrs. Jack at the meat market. Zackie mentions that she doesn't like kids, and she groans when she sees him entering. And when she catches Adam playing a prank on him in front of her, she orders him and his friends out. She then keeps glaring at Zackie and following him throughout the rest of his trip even though he was an innocent victim.
- Defensive Feint Trap: Zackie and Alex are discussing about taking the typewriter with them out of the ruined antique store when the store's owner, Mrs. Carter, appears looking for intruders. She sweeps her flashlight beam around the room, looking. She eventually turns the flashlight off, her footsteps moved away, and the front door banged shut. Zackie does a Cathartic Exhalation, wondering if she is really gone. But then Alex sneezes, the woman turns out to have been behind them, and she yells, "Gotcha!" She then pulls the two children out of their hiding place.
- Eek, a Mouse!!: As one of his pranks towards Zackie, Adam takes a white mouse from the science lab and puts it in Zackie's locker. When he opens it, the mouse jumps on him, causing him to freak out and shake around trying to get it off him. Adam, along with Emmy and Anne, find this hilarious and tell the whole school about it, which started more mocking aimed at Zackie.
- Everyone Has Standards: Zackie writes that Adam gets eaten as a revenge fantasy. When it actually happens? He's pretty horrified and on realizing that he is a Reality Warper, Zackie quickly brings him back and makes the monster go away.
- Facial Dialogue: Whilst Zackie and Alex are hiding from Mrs. Carter, the latter turns to the former and motioned with her head, silently asking him if they should step out and show themselves. Zackie shook his head in answer.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The whole plot is about how the blob escapes from the story it was a character in, and starts wreaking havoc in the living world.
- Gainax Ending: All of the book's events are fictional and part of a story being written by blob monsters.
- Hand Gagging: On the day of the mice incident, after school was over, Alex came over to Zackie's house. She started to ask him about Mr. Conklin, the principal of their school who took Zackie in for questioning for said incident, but he slapped a hand over her mouth to shut her up. He then replied to his listening parents that Mr. Conklin was a nice guy.
- Humans Are Cthulhu: While the humans are victims of the monster, the book still gets across the spirit of the trope. It's a novel written by a blob monster, in which poor, defenseless humans are menaced by a blob monster that eats everyone.
- Ill-Timed Sneeze: Alex does this when hiding from Mrs. Carter, which is how she and Zackie get caught.
- Ironic Echo: Alex is telling Zackie that the material of which he's typing in his story on the typewriter is coming true, pointing out the examples that are occurring in the story and simultaneously happening outside. She replies by scoffing, "Oooh. Big word." When she's about to leave that night after their trip to the basement, she agrees that it was a coincidence, to which Zackie replies with the same phrase. Alex responds by slamming the front door behind her.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: This is the exact phrase that Zackie puts on the beginning of his new Blob monster story on the typewriter. Sure enough, the weather outside his house immediately becomes dark and stormy, even though it was just clear right beforehand.
- Magic Feather: Turns out Zackie doesn't actually need the typewriter or the pen to bring his ideas to life.
- Misapplied Phlebotinum: After Zackie finds out that the typewriter can make anything he writes come true, he inexplicably never thinks to write "And then Adam disappeared", or "and then a bag full of diamonds appeared next to me", or anything like that. All he does is use it to uncreate the blob monster he accidentally created.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Zackie uses the typewriter to write that the Blob eats two police officers. When the Blob shows up and really does eat two innocent police officers who save him, Zackie is appalled.
- Nested Story Reveal: All but the final chapter is revealed at the end to be a fictional story written by a monster. The writer's friend criticizes the Anticlimax ending, which to us would seem like a happy ending, since we're not monsters. It Makes Sense in Context.
- Never Trust a Title: The blob does not eat everyone. Although to be fair, The Blob That Ate Three People isn't as catchy. Well, actually it does, but only due to the Nested Story Reveal.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: The Blob is one that guns for Zackie immediately. We find out it's not just because of the book; Zackie has the power to make the Blob go away.
- Ominous Knocking: Setting the scene for a horror story, Zackie writes that there's a storm, so it starts storming. When he writes that there's an ominous knock on the door, the same thing occurs... but nobody's there. He didn't write that anything in particular was behind the door, after all.
- Perp Sweating: After catching Zackie and Alex sneaking and hiding in her damaged antique store, Mrs. Carter shines her flashlight in their faces while questioning them. Whether she's doing this because of this trope, because she needs it to see in the dark, or both, is unknown.
- Police Are Useless: Not for lack of trying and zigzagged. Two police officers rescue Zackie from the blob... who proceeds to eat them in turn. Zackie goes Oh, Crap! and My God, What Have I Done? since he wrote that into his story.
- Pronouncing My Name for You: Zackie mentions in his narration that people have trouble with his last name, not knowing how to say it. He tells the reader that it's pronounced "BEECH-am." This is absent in the episode, as shown when Alex is calling for Zackie's father around the house, and she pronounces his surname just fine.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Mr. Conklin turns out to be this. When he hears that the escaped mice from the science lab were in Zackie's locker, he told him to come see him in his office right now. Zackie instantly thinks that he's in big trouble. But the teacher was actually nice about it, just telling him to keep live creatures out of his locker.
- Rewriting Reality: The magic typewriter allows Zackie to do this, until it's revealed that Zach is a Reality Warper after being shocked by the typewriter. And then it's revealed that the whole thing is actually a story, and none of it was real.
- Schmuck Bait: On the door of the antique store that Zackie and Alex come across, which was struck and destroyed by lightning recently from a storm, there was a sign on the door. It was large, yellow, and declared in big black letters: "DANGER - KEEP OUT". Zackie immediately ignores this and goes inside. That's when he comes across the typewriter.
- Show Within a Show: Zackie's horror stories, and also the entire book except the final chapter is actually a novel written by a blob monster for his blob friend.
- Slipknot Ponytail: When Alex gets yanked out from her hiding place by Mrs. Carter, her ponytail comes undone, which leaves her messed up all over her head.
- Small Town Boredom: Zackie outright admits that Norwood Village, the town that he lives in, is a boring town. When he and Alex can't think of anything to do, they collect weird-looking weeds, bugs, and odd-shaped leaves. They once collected stones that looked like famous people, but since they couldn't find much of those, this didn't last long.
- So Long, Suckers!: Adam says this when he manages to type into Zackie's typewriter that there was a blob monster in his basement, waiting for fresh meat, and he then runs out of the house.
- That Came Out Wrong: After the mice incident in Zackie's locker, he and Alex are heading to class, and then Mr. Conklin comes around a corner asking who let the mice out of the science lab. Alex starts to explain that they were in Zackie's locker, but Mr. Conklin interrupts her right there, thinking Zackie was the culprit who did this. He instantly orders him to come to his office. Fortunately, he was reasonable enough when Zackie explained it all to him there.
- There Are No Coincidences: Zackie brings up coincidences as an explanation for the strange events happening around them tonight, and explains to Alex what it means, and reasoning that this is what's happening now. She is unconvinced. He is forced to agree as subsequent events unfold. And then, it's Double Subverted.
- Trickster Twins: Emmy and Anne, two friends of Adam's. They are red-haired and are so identical that everyone has trouble telling them apart. They aid Adam in teasing Zackie and pulling pranks on him.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: An almost literal example. Adam put a live mouse in Zackie's locker to scare him. After that, Mr. Conklin comes along saying that someone let the mice out of the science lab. Adam only put one mouse in the locker, so what happened to the others?
- When It Rains, It Pours: Part of the enormous thunderstorm that Zackie conjured up from his story.
- With Friends Like These...: Adam spends all his time belittling Zackie's stories and playing pranks on him. Why are they friends?
