The Goosebumps Series 2000 book in which Slappy wants a bride.
Jillian Zinman is constantly terrorized by her twin sisters Katie and Amanda. They have a doll named Mary Ellen which they use to annoy her, acting as if the doll is alive. One day she and her friend Harrison take them to a ventriloquist's show. Sometime later the ventriloquist's dummy, Slappy, ends up in their home. The usual strange things start happening but this time Slappy seems to want a bride. But it may not be as it seems...
It was adapted into episode 16 of the third season of the 1995 TV series.
It was reissued in the Classic Goosebumps line in 2018 as a tie-in to the movie Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween.
The book provides examples of:
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Just as Jillian, her sisters and Harrison think it's all over, the latter reads in Jimmy's diary that Slappy is capable of Body Surfing into the person that was the closest to him in case he gets destroyed. Cue the Cruel Twist Ending in which Jillian starts vomiting green ooze like Slappy.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Jillian has two, in the form of twins Katie and Amanda. However, it turns out that Mary Ellen was forcing them to do all those annoying things to her.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: Slappy intended to make Jillian his bride while Mary Ellen wanted to marry Slappy.
- Ballroom Blitz: Slappy and Mary-Ellen utterly trashing a birthday party while duking it out counts as a variation of that trope.
- Birthday Party Goes Wrong:
- When Jillian and Harrison try to entertain a crowd of preschoolers during a birthday party, their jokes fall flat, their gadgets don't work and in the end they accidentally hurt two kids in the eyes with a whipped cream pie that turns out to be filled with shaving cream, at which point they're kicked out of the party without getting paid. Later Mary-Ellen turns out to be the one who sabotaged the party tricks.
- The final confrontation takes place in the basement of Jillian's house where they're holding the birthday party for a small child named Eddie. When the brat complains about not finding the ventriloquism act funny (despite the rest of the kids enjoying themselves) Slappy furiously starts vomiting green mush all over the place before getting off Jillian and taking Eddie hostage demanding to have his bride. Then after Slappy claims that Jillian is his bride, Mary-Ellen finally reveals to be alive and fights him to death in a basement filled with terrified partygoers.
- Bowdlerise: The 2018 reprint removes a part where Slappy hits Jillian and claims it is only a "love tap". It also tones down the prior scene of Slappy wailing on Mary Ellen.
- Call-Back: Slappy vomits a disgusting green liquid like Mr. Wood did in Night of the Living Dummy.
- Cassandra Truth:
- When Slappy seemingly releases Jillian's pet lizard, she accuses Kaite and Amanda. The twins maintain they're innocent, but their parents believe Jillian.
- When Jillian and Harrison briefly encounter Jimmy O'James outside of the magic shop and tell him that they have Slappy, he turns pale and runs away after yelling that they must get rid of that dummy.
- Chekhov's Gun: It is established that Jillian's dad does woodworking, and in the climax Slappy and Mary-Ellen are destroyed by falling into the table-saw.
- Covers Always Lie: Downplayed, Mary Ellen's hair looks nothing like the Bride of Frankenstein's, for the rest her appearance is pretty on-point with the book's description.
- Demonic Dummy: Slappy's back and no less evil. And Mary Ellen is at least as bad.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: In the ending Harrison reads from Jimmy's diary that Slappy can possess people if he gets destroyed. Gee, I wonder what's gonna happen next...
- Foreshadowing: Early on, Slappy insults Mary-Ellen, so it seems weird when he starts seemingly wanting her as a bride. This hints at the fact that Mary-Ellen is the one behind those messages and brought Slappy to life later on after Jimmy put him to sleep.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Mary-Ellen and Slappy end up getting sawn in half by the table buzzsaw.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Slappy uses Jillian father's table buzzsaw to kill Mary-Ellen, but with her remaining forces she grabs him and causes him to get bisected by the saw as well.
- Idiot Ball: Jimmy is aware that reading the words on the piece of paper kept in Slappy's outfit can awaken him, yet he doesn't consider taking it out before trashing the dummy separately. Unless the ticket just magically re-appears in the dummy's pocket even if you get rid of it, it makes Jimmy look dumb for not taking that small extra step to ensure no one can bring Slappy back to life again.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Harrison brings Slappy to Jillian's home after finding him dumped in the trash behind the theater, assuming that perhaps Jimmy threw him away because he was broken and hopes her dad can fix him. Later we learn that Jimmy had managed to put Slappy into a dormant state and threw him into the trash hoping that no one will find him and read the magic words to awaken him once more.
- Non-Ironic Clown: Jillian has an interest in becoming a clown entertainer, but after her first gig goes terribly wrong, she decides to focus on ventriloquism.
- Origins Episode: In this book, we learn that Slappy was made by an evil sorcerer from the wood of a coffin to serve as a vessel for his soul. This backstory stays mostly consistent for the rest of the series. Even if the dummy is destroyed, he can still possess other objects. Or people.
- Red Herring: Jillian and the more savvy readers will assume that Slappy is giving signs of life and is ruining her life except it turns out that Mary-Ellen did all the bad things to have her revenge on Jillian resenting her, and she read the spell that brings Slappy to life right before the birthday party.
- Revenge of the Sequel: Bride of the Living Dummy.
- Unexpectedly Abandoned: Jillian and Harrison try to visit Jimmy O'James at his house, but they find it abandoned and in an extreme state of decay, filled with dummy body parts and Harrison retrieves his diary where they discover info about Slappy's origins.
- Unholy Matrimony: Mary Ellen intends this, but Slappy finds her repulsive. Even Slappy himself wants to do this with Jillian.
- Wicked Toymaker: Jimmy's diary states that the evil sorcerer who created Slappy also created toys and dolls that would steal from and harm the people he sold them to.
