Night of the Living Dummy II was the thirty-first book in the Goosebumps book series. It was preceded by It Came from Beneath the Sink! and followed by The Barking Ghost.
It was released in May 1995 and was 188 pages long.
Plot
In this particular story, a girl named Amy Kramer performs with her dummy, Dennis, every Thursday night at her family's little "talent show". Unfortunately, Dennis has become almost unusable with age, and his head keeps falling off. Jed uses it to pretend to be Dennis on one occasion. Soon after, Amy's father buys her a new one at a pawnshop that just happens to be Slappy. They find a moldy sandwich cramed inside his head, presumably the work of his previous owners, Kris and Lindy Powell.
After Amy reads the little card with the magic spell inside Slappy's pocket (karru marri odonna loma molonu karrano), Slappy starts to cause a lot of accidents, including slapping Amy's father on the cheek, ruining a birthday party, and trashing her sister Sara's bedroom. Amy's sister, as well as her younger brother Jed, repeatedly accuse Amy of doing all these things, and Amy's parents believe them. Amy gets punished for all of the accidents. But one night, she hears Slappy breaking out of the closet inside of her bedroom that she keeps him in. She sees the dummy actually walk out of her bedroom to Sara's bedroom and ruin her watercolor painting even further and seeing Slappy paint Amy's name repeatedly on the wall.
Sara soon confesses that she saw Slappy wrecking her bedroom. The two girls decide to prove it, by having their parents see him moving, with Jed disguised as Dennis again in order to shock Slappy long enough for the girls to grab him.
When the lights come on, "Dennis" does startle Slappy and knocks his head into Sara's iron bedpost, breaking it in two. However, when Jed turns out to have been asleep the whole time, it is implied that Dennis himself has come to life to stop Slappy (and he even comments that he's "part of the family again" in the television series).
Trivia
- In this book and all of the other "Night of the Living Dummy" books succeeding it, Slappy is the lead villain.
- According to R.L. Stine's autobiography, he got the idea for the first three Night of the Living Dummy books from reading The Adventures of Pinocchio, when he was young.
- The title of both the book and television episode is a spoof of the classic 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead.
Television Adaptation
- In the book, the girls had already made a plan to take out Slappy by having Jed dress up as Dennis and have the parents hide in the closet. But in the television episode, they did not do this.
- The book ends with them wondering who saved them. But in the television episode, it is made clear that Dennis was the one who beat Slappy.
- Instead of Slappy's head being broken on the bed post, it is the end of the living room fireplace.
- Instead of the worm coming out of his head, it is actually his green spirit.
- Margo's sister is only for the television episode. The little girl is actually the birthday girl at her party.
Television Episode Trivia
- This is the first time that Ron Stefaniuk provides both the puppetry and voice for Slappy the dummy. He would later provide the puppetry for Slappy in the Night of the Living Dummy III two-part story, but Cathal J. Dodd provided Slappy's voice in Night of the Living Dummy III when Stefaniuk was too busy to voice the character.
- Though the book on which this television episode was based was a sequel, the original Night of the Living Dummy book was never filmed as a television episode.
- Goof: When we see a long shot of Slappy about to smash the guitar on Amy and Jed's parents, you can see that he is propped up on a stand. It is easier to notice, if you turn the brightness up and look carefully.
- This television episode was put onto the DVD Night of the Living Dummy.
- This television episode was adapted into Goosebumps Presents Book #5.
- The soundtrack to Jed's video is a remix of the opening theme played with an organ.
- Slappy being a living dummy is much like the two Twilight Zone television episodes, The Dummy and Caesar and Me.
- Caterina Scorsone (Sara Kramer) played Jessica Walters in the only Goosebumps mini-series, Goosebumps: Chillogy (1998).
- Richard Fitzpatrick (Mr. Kramer) played Dr. Richard Hawlings in Season 4's How I Got My Shrunken Head.
- Kerry Duff (Margo) had an uncredited appearance earlier in the first season in Welcome to Camp Nightmare.