Based on Be Careful What You Wish For, book #12 of the original Goosebumps series.
Klutzy 12-year-old Samantha "Fly Away" Byrd (as dubbed by her bully, Judith) is given three wishes by a witch named Clarissa after helping the old lady find her way home, which give Samantha what she wants at the price of everyone else around her.
The episode contains examples of:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: Samantha doesn't get hit by a wish from Judith; instead, Judith wishes that wherever she goes, for people to gather around and admire her. Clarissa turns her into a statue.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Clarissa the witch is here reimagined as an attractive woman, unlike her elderly novel counterpart.
- Adaptational Karma: Unlike the book where Judith's first wish caused Samantha to get turned into a bird, the former's wish instead causes her to get turned into a statue. This can be seen as comeuppance for all her bullying of Samantha.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While no less amoral than her book counterpart, Clarissa is actually nicer to Samantha here. To the point where it's implied she deliberately sabotaged Judith's wish just to help her one last time.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Samantha and Judith's hair colors, respectively blond and red in the book, are reversed in the TV adaptation.
- Adapted Out: Samantha's father, brother and dog do not appear in the TV adaptation.
- Age Lift: Unlike the book, where she is an old woman, Clarissa here looks much younger, appearing to be in her late thirties-early forties.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Just as the title implies.
- Big "YES!": Samantha screams a "Yes!" when she sees Judith's wish backfire on her.
- Death by Adaptation: Not outright death per se, but where the book has Judith's first wish be for Samantha to become a bird (which she's actually happy about), the episode has Judith wish to be admired by everyone. See a certain trope below for how that turns out...
- Exact Words: Clarissa has each of Samantha's wishes come true, but adds her own twist: Samantha's first wish is to be the best player on the team, so all other players become weak; her second wish is for everyone to buzz off, which causes all the other people to become flies; her last wish is for Judith to be her friend...only for her to become obsessive. Related to this, Samantha tells the obsessive Judith they can study together later, so Judith sneaks into her home in the night. And it just keeps getting crazier...
- Forced Transformation: Instead of wishing for Judith to "go away", Samantha wishes that "everyone would just buzz off". Everybody else turns into flies.
- Mythology Gag: The TV episode ends with a crow perching on top of the statue of Judith, Samantha's bully. The book ends with Sam being turned into a bird (but never revealed what kind) after Clarissa becomes Judith's wishmaster. In both versions, Judith smiles.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In the book version, when Samantha wishes that Clarissa would grant wishes to someone else, Clarissa becomes Judith's wishmaster and Judith wishes that Samantha would "fly away". Samantha is then turned into a bird and is happy that she no longer has to deal with being bullied and mocked by her peers. In the TV version, Judith, after Samantha wishes that Clarissa would grant wishes to someone else, wishes that wherever she was in the world, people would stop and admire her. Clarissa then turns Judith into a park statue where, true to her word, people stopped and admired her.
- Taken for Granite: Judith, after Samantha wishes that Clarissa would grant wishes to someone else, wishes that wherever she was in the world, people would stop and admire her. Clarissa then turns Judith into a park statue where, true to her word, people stopped and admired her.
