The Lawsuits That Killed Goosebumps

you will beware you're in SC Goosebumps for those who grew up in the 1990s the Goosebumps franchise was unavoidable originally released as a horror book series for children Goosebumps quickly grew beyond the world of literature spawning a television series games toys and loads of merchandise by the the mid90s the Goosebumps brand was everywhere raking in millions of dollars for its publisher Scholastic and its author RL Stein but as the franchise exploded in popularity a legal battle would manifest between Stein and Scholastic which would ultimately lead to the franchise's downfall RL Stein began his publishing career

in the 1970s serving as the editor for the teen Humor Magazine bananas which was published by Scholastic press in 198 before the magazine folded and Stein was encouraged by his editors to dabble in young adult horror a literary genre sweeping the book World by the mid 1980s authors like Christopher Pike and Lois Duncan had grown to prominence writing paperback Thriller novels aimed at teenagers Stein took a crack at it publishing blind date in 1986 followed by a string of Standalone teen Thrillers as his work gained in popularity Stein and his wife Jane set up a

publishing company called parachute press the company worked out a deal with Simon and Schuster to publish their new Teen horror series Fear Street with the first installment the new girl being published in 1989 the series was presented in an anthology Style with each installment following different characters within the fictional town of Shady Side the series depicted dark themes like murder hauntings and psychic phenomena and by the early 1990s Fear Street had soared in popularity to become one of the bestselling book series for young adults with Stein releasing a new book every single month around this

time Stein was encouraged by his wife Jane to create a new horror series this time aimed at children rather than teens the result was Goosebumps with Stein lifting the name from an ad he saw in TV Guide like Fear Street the Goosebumps books would be anthological in nature with each installment featuring a child protagonist facing Sinister Supernatural forces Goosebumps Target demographic was children ages 8- 12 and in 1991 parachute press signed a deal with the Scholastic Corporation allowing them to publish the first six Goosebumps books while parachute would own the series trademark the agreement gave

Scholastic control over the book's non-publication rights which would include adaptations merchandise and other licensing deals additionally parachute agreed to a stipulation that said that RL Stein would be the sole writer of each installment in the series the first two books Welcome to Dead house and stay out of the basement were published by Scholastic in July of 1992 more installments quickly followed but with limited promotion the series was not a huge hit right off the bat however Goosebumps would benefit heavily from being included in Scholastic Book Fairs which took place at various elementary schools across the

country Scholastic had begun doing Book Fairs in 1981 in which the company would deliver books to school libraries and display them for a full week allowing students to browse and purchase them the event was designed to raise money for schools and promote literacy amongst grade school children also serving as a valuable outlet for Scholastic to promote its books directly to kids within a year of its publication Goosebumps had become a big hit at Book Fairs with 1.8 million copies of the series in print by 1993 and though RL Stein was already a recognizable name with

teen readers thanks to Fear Street Goosebumps helped him reach a younger demographic delivering his signature spooky Tales to an element School crowd many applauded Stein for creating content that got children reading others expressed concern that the horror themes present in these books were too scary for young readers but regardless of what parents and critics thought one thing was for certain Children of the 9s loved to be scared and goosebumps was delivering the goods Scholastic and parachute press quickly renewed their contract agreeing to publish more Goosebumps books written solely by Stein and through Word of Mouth

Goosebump B's popularity grew immensely with the books in the series consistently hitting the bestseller list in addition to the original series the first spin-off book was released in October of 1994 a short story collection entitled Tales to give you Goosebumps and the series overall was now outpacing sales of Fear Street while Goosebumps had grown steadily in its first few years of publication 1995 was the year that the series exploded in popularity an interactive spin-off book series in titled give yourself Goosebumps was introduced and between the original book series and its spin-offs Scholastic was reportedly shipping

out 4 million copies of Goosebumps books every single month as the series now had over 70 million copies in circulation fall of 1995 would see the premiere of the Goosebumps television series produced by Scholastic Productions the pilot episode an adaptation of the 11th Goosebumps book The Haunted Mask premiered in a prime time slot on the Fox network before moving to its regular time slot on Friday afternoons during the fox kids block the series received high ratings and positive viewer feedback prompting the creation of yet another spin-off book series based on the TV episodes entitled Goosebumps

presents in 1996 Scholastic began releasing episodes of the TV series on VHS and the franchise was now expanding Beyond books and TV with various products being released bearing the Goosebumps logo in July of 1996 Scholastic announced a $40 million deal with the Pepsi company to promote Goosebumps through various Pepsi owned products miniature Goosebumps books would be included in 30 million bags of chips and millions of dollars worth of ads on TV would draw attention to the promotion Goosebumps merchandise was being pumped out left and right and brand exposure was higher than ever the series had

begun as an organic Word of Mouth literary phenomena and had quickly turned into a mainstream multimedia brand and Scholastic is a company had benefited immensely from the franchise reaching $1 billion in sales and being dubbed the Disney of children's book publishing but parachute press was growing increasingly frustrated by their agreement with Scholastic in early 1996 Jane Stein along with parachute press executive Joan wara attended a meeting with dick Robinson the head of Scholastic in which they asked the publisher to give parachute control of Goosebumps licensing along with a $10 million signing bonus Scholastic refused the

Goosebumps brand including all of its licensing deals was now responsible for half of the company's profits relations between parachute and Scholastic quickly deteriorated with one former Scholastic employee telling the Press World War 3 began that day and it killed the brand despite their differences the two sides signed a new deal in November of 1996 which gave parachute control over the negotiation of Licensing deals with Scholastic having the right to approve or deny the deals the new agreement would allow Scholastic to publish 106 new books from parachute and would increase the royalty rate that parachute was

to be paid from Scholastic but the new contract also contained an important provision that if any of its terms were breached the agreement would be void and the two parties would revert back to their previous agreements with the Goosebumps TV series entering its second season over 40 Goosebumps licensing deals had been secured and the franchise was hitting a new Peak but by 1997 the Empire would begin to falter as internal and external pressures threatened to tear it apart in February of 1997 Scholastic announced to investors that sales of Goosebumps books were unexpectedly declining which would

result in the company's stock values dropping the drop in sales was attributed to older Goosebumps books not selling as well as they had in the past with over 180 million goose bumps books in print it appeared that the book series had finally reached the ceiling of its success the news hit investors hard with Scholastic stock dropping 41% the company's stockholders subsequently filed a lawsuit against Scholastic charging that it knew about Goosebumps declining sales months earlier but had deliberately concealed the information while Book Sales had dipped the Goosebumps franchise remained strong overall in 1997 as a

Disney World theme park attraction opened and the the TV series was moved to Saturday mornings becoming a top rated show on the fox kids block but by mid 1997 relations between Scholastic and parachute had completely soured the two entities reportedly came to a stalemate over licensing deals with 16 different deals falling through because of their internal disagreements in summer of 1997 Scholastic accused parachute of using unapproved forms to make licensing deals Scholastics saw this as a violation of their contract which they said gave them the right to void the current contract and revert back to

previous terms this would mean that parachutes higher royalty rate which was negotiated in the newest contract was also void with Scholastic halting its royalty payments to parachute in response parachute press filed a lawsuit against Scholastic charging that Scholastic had breached their contract and owed them 36 million in royalties Scholastic counter suit alleging that parachute had breached the contract first by hiring ghost writers to write the Goosebumps books according to the contract made between Scholastic and parachute Stein was to be the sole writer of the original Goosebumps books though the agreement did permit him to use

ghost writers for books in the spin-off series according to Scholastic ARL Stein did write the first 16 books himself however starting with book number 17 why I'm afraid of bees Scholastic claimed that parachute began hiring ghost riters who would be given a 10-page outline from Stein and turn it into a full manuscript of around 120 Pages these ghost writers allegedly made a majority of the creative decisions while Stein would review the manuscripts and make minimal revisions before publication Scholastic claims that Stein was working more as an editor rather than a writer thus breaking the terms

of their contract Scholastic even claimed that the declining sales of the Goosebumps books were a direct result of Stein employing ghost writers as they were not able to add adequately recreate Stein's unique voice RL Stein was releasing 24 books per year and while some questioned how this was possible he had always publicly denied using Ghost Riders joking to the press in 1993 that he's much too greedy to hire assistance but over the course of the lawsuit parachute did admit to hiring writers assistance for Stein starting with book 17 in the Goosebump series in order to

meet deadlines and allow Stein more time to make promotional appearances but but parachute said that the contributions from these assistants were minimal and that Stein was still making a majority of creative decisions including coming up with book titles plots and characters parachute claimed that Stein still had full creative control and was not breaching his contract by using assistance which they said was common industry practice with goosebumps in legal limbo and both sides retaining some ownership of the brand it was unknown how things would continue in October of 1997 Scholastic went ahead and published the latest

Goosebumps book a spin-off entitled Goosebumps triple header the book would include three original short stories being presented by a triple-headed monster named Lefty righty and slim shortly thereafter parachute filed another lawsuit against Scholastic in federal court claiming that the publisher had breached their 1996 agreement and was engaging in copyright infringement with its release of the triple header book despite these lawsuits the two parties were still under contract for dozens of new Goosebumps books in late 1997 Scholastic stated that it would continue to publish the Goosebump series as planned and parachute agreed to deliver new manuscripts

for publication until the courts made their decision other spin-off projects remained in development including a Goosebumps feature film produced by Tim Burton at the time Jane Stein was quoted as saying it is quite unpleasant but we still work with them every day the two companies were still benefiting heavily from the Goosebumps franchise and both had a vested interest in keeping the ball rolling a brand new series in titled Goosebump Series 2000 was launched in January of 1998 with one new book being published each month while sales had dipped from its peak the books were still

selling well with the new series quickly becoming one of the bestselling book series in children's literature the Goosebumps TV series also continued to do well with the show expanding to air 6 days a week on the fox kids block but by 1998 the block overall was succumbing to increased competition with its viewership decreasing by 30% the Goosebump series was renewed for an abbreviated fourth season of just Eight Episodes which aired in Fall of 1998 after quietly wrapping up its run on Saturday mornings Fox began airing reruns on its new cable network Fox family in the

fall of 1999 but Scholastic was not happy with this move which they said viol ated their contract Scholastic claimed that it was entitled to the profits Fox made from Distributing this series to other TV Outlets while Fox maintained that fox family was a part of their Network thus not subject to any further fees so yet another lawsuit was initiated with Scholastic suing Fox for copyright infringement and seeking $2.7 million in Damages the TV series continued to air in reruns on Fox family until 2001 and reportedly sold very well on home video it's unknown if the

producers of the series had any plans to continue with the fifth season but with such a high-profile lawsuit between its owners new episodes of the series were out of the question and the show was effectively cancelled meanwhile back in the publishing World ARL Stein continued to work on the Goosebumps books wrapping up his contract with Scholastic as a new young adult series was taking the nation by storm in 1997 Scholastic spent $100,000 to purchase the US rights to a young adult novel entitled Harry Potter and the philosopher stone thanks to positive word of mouth the

fantasy novel became a huge hit in England and the following year Scholastic released JK Rowling's debut novel in America under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone matching its overseas success the book became a bestseller in the US topping the New York Times bestseller list in 1999 two Harry Potter sequels were published by Scholastic that same year and though the Goosebumps franchise was still tied up in court the publisher had found a new Cash Cow to milk RL Stein and parachute press continued delivering Goosebumps 2000 and give yourself Goosebumps books but the writing was

on the wall for the series sales had declined to just 200,000 copies per month as the series had been overshadowed heavily by Harry Potter along with another Scholastic young adult series anamorphs to put it simply in the ever evolving world of Children's Entertainment Goosebumps was old news moving on from scol IC RL Stein and parachute signed a new deal with Harper Collins which would release Stein's new young adult horror series The Nightmare room along with a brand new 12-book Goosebump series entitled Goosebumps gold Harper Collins initially planned to release both Series in the year 200

with the first nightmare room installment being released in August but in late 2000 the release of Goosebumps gold was postponed without explanation artist Tim Jacobus who had created the cover art for most of the Goosebumps books posted a page on his website promoting the Goosebumps Gold Series for release in 2001 the website even gave a preview of the first two installments but the series was canceled before its release likely due to the ongoing litigation between Scholastic and parachute about the rights to the series after the final Goosebumps books were published in the year 2000 the

series would lay dormant for several years Scholastic's Revenue continued to grow significantly with the Harry Potter series now a global phenomena that had far Sur P Goosebump success it wasn't until 2003 that the complex web of lawsuits plaguing the Goosebumps franchise finally came to a conclusion first in January of 2003 parachute press and Scholastic came to a settlement with Scholastic agreeing to pay parachute 9.65 million for the rights to Goosebumps and its trademark and in June of that year Scholastic lost its case against Fox regarding the Airing of Goosebumps on the Fox Family Channel the

irony is that by the time these lawsuits were settled much of the public interest in the Goosebumps franchise had died out as the book series ended in the year 2000 and the TV series stopped airing in 2001 Goosebumps had lost much of the potency that had made it so popular back in the 1990s however copies of Goosebumps books still existed in schools and libraries across the world and new generations of young readers would continue to discover the series for the first time in November of 2003 Scholastic began re-releasing books from the original series with slightly

modified covers Goosebumps continued to sell around 2 million copies per year and the franchise overall received a boost when reruns of the TV series began airing on Cartoon Network in 2007 in 2008 Goosebumps was resurrected as Goosebumps horror land a new book series with RL Stein at the helm the series ran until 2012 and was followed by three more series including Goosebumps House of Shivers which is still being published today and the long awaited feature film adaptation of Goosebumps finally came to fruition in 2015 with Jack Black portraying a fictionalized version of Stein to this

day RL Stein maintains that he wrote all of the Goosebumps books himself saying that he only used outside writers to help with the outlines and while we may never know the extent to which ghost riters were employed it's clear that Stein was always the driving force behind the franchise creating an iconic world that continues to Captivate readers to this day over 30 years after its initial Inception Goosebumps is still going strong pumping out books films and TV series but there's no doubt that Goosebumps Peak as a cultural phenomena was in the 1990s before all the

hype that transformed the series into a global franchise Goosebumps was simply a book on the Shelf able to enthrall young readers through catchy titles imaginative cover art and engaging plots while Goosebumps was never highlevel literature it got kids reading creating a new generation of Book Lovers and leaving a lasting impression on its audience while the lawsuit certainly slowed the franchise down Goosebumps has embedded itself into the fabric of American culture and will not soon be forgotten if you enjoyed this video please hit the like And subscribe buttons and if you'd like to support me on

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