Ricky Beamer
Portrayed By: Zachary Carlin (TV); Lucky Mangione (Film)
"On Friday and Saturday I ran home a disgrace, a loser, a creep. Tonight I ran home a winner. A champion! A genius!"
The nerdy protagonist of Calling All Creeps! who mistakenly ends up as the leader of a group of reptilian aliens who want to Take Over the World.
- Adaptational Heroism: In the book, aside from turning into a creep on his own to get back at everyone, he does a few unsavory things early on, which leads to the Creeps being attracted to him to begin with. In Goosebumps HorrorTown, this isn't the case. He's a nicer kid who has a few people that like him, and he becomes a creep because Marty pulls a prank on him, as Ricky did an article denouncing bullies.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: He mentions in the book that he has curly black hair, dark brown eyes, and freckles. The actor that portrayed him in the TV episode has straight brown hair, blue eyes, and no freckles.
- All of the Other Reindeer: He's actually surprised when nobody at school picks on him at lunch the day after he writes that message in the newspaper.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: After spending half the book trying to save his classmates from being turned into creeps, he decides that if you can't beat them, join them.
- Becoming the Mask: He pretends to go along with the Creeps’ thinking that he’s their commander in order to ensure that they don’t attack him if they find out that he’s a fraud. However, when he does a Face–Heel Turn, he genuinely views them as his new friends, and passes out the cookies with the transformation seeds to the students. He even discreetly eats one himself, to prove to the Creeps that he’s one of them.
- Being Good Sucks: He tries his hardest to save the school from the Creeps, only for them to blow him off or continue to pick on him. Eventually, he decides they aren't worth it.
- Big Bad Slippage: Ricky inadvertently lands himself as the leader of a squadron of monsters out for world domination. He tries all he can to stop them from the inside, but it's not helped by his ungrateful peers. Then he learns just how easy it is to turn the other cheek, and embraces his new power.
- Bully Magnet: He gets bullied all the time. By the end of the story, nobody note is surprised when he snaps and joins the Creeps.
- Butt-Monkey: He's constantly picked on by his classmates and by Tasha, the head of the school newspaper. Let's just say his Face–Heel Turn at the end isn't entirely out of nowhere.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': When fired by Tasha, he decides to get revenge by putting an insulting ad about her in the school newspaper, which included her name and phone number. But Tasha spots it, and decides to turn the tables on him by putting HIS name and address on the ad instead.
- Cassandra Truth: When he attempts to inform his parents, teacher and classmates of the Creeps' plan, they either make fun of or ignore him.
- Didn't Think This Through: He didn't consider the very plausible possibility that Tasha likely edits the newspaper and would notice he put her phone number there.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: His revenge plot against Tasha is more or less the same idea as writing "For a good time, call..." on the bathroom wall.
- Dork in a Sweater: He's a nerdy Butt-Monkey who gets bullied a lot and in the TV series, he wears a sweater vest.
- Embarrassing Nickname: "Sicky Ricky" and "Ricky Rat".
- Face–Heel Turn: When he learns that his classmates will be his slaves once they've turned into Creeps, he decides that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
- Freudian Excuse: For his Face–Heel Turn. The relentless bullying he faced from his classmates led to him deciding to let them perish and joining the Creeps.
- Geek Physiques: He describes himself as being very skinny, making him represent the skinny geek.
- Give Geeks a Chance: A rare platonic example. Beautiful Nice Girl Iris becomes his friend.
- The Glasses Gotta Go: In the episode, when he bites into a cookie containing a seed that will transform him into a Creep, he takes off his glasses because he assumes that his Creep form will not hold them on his snout. In the 2015 movie, this appears to be the case.
- Idiot Ball: The first night he gets the calls from the Creeps, he simply just keeps hanging up the phone over and over again. When he FINALLY gets the idea to unplug the telephone, it’s two in the morning. This leaves him with no sleep and his parents, who also didn’t get any sleep, furious with him.
- Madness Mantra: In the book once he loses it and decides to join the Creeps, he encourages people to eat the cookies with the Identity Seeds in them and keeps shouting "Free Cookies, Free Cookies everyone!"
- Mistaken for Badass: After his revenge plot goes wrong, the Creeps assume he is their leader.
- Nerd Glasses: Wears this to show how dorky and unpopular he is.
- No Sympathy: Doesn't get a bit of sympathy from anybody except Iris. Is it any wonder that he eventually snaps?
- Odd Friendship: With Iris. He's a skinny and awkward nerd with No Social Skills while she's a beautiful Nice Girl.
- Picked Last: This is the main reason why he chooses to attend the newspaper club. All students at his school have to join at least one club or they will have to attend summer school, and since Ricky is argued over by the sports captains on who should pick him, Ricky decides that the newspaper club will be the next best thing instead of a sports club.
- Revenge Before Reason: He's so eager to get revenge on Tasha that he forgets that as the head of the newspaper, she probably checks over her work and would've noticed his message. Her edit results in the Creeps mistaking him for their Commander. Even before that, during the car wash, he uses the hoses on David's car, not thinking that this will upset them. It does and an ensusing chase is how Ricky wrecks the camera, getting him kicked off the paper.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: He tries hard to not be the cruel Commander that the other Creeps expect him to be. However, when he snaps due to bullying from the students whom he is trying to save, he caves in and has them transformed and enslaved.
- Token Good Teammate: He finds himself as this after being coerced into the Creeps. Unfortunately, this goes right out the window when he finds Evil Feels Good.
- Who's Laughing Now?: When he does his Face–Heel Turn.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He certainly made everyone who picked on him regret it.
Tasha McClain
Portrayed By: Maia Filar (TV)
"That was your last chance. You didn't deserve it. You're just a creep. Why do you think all the kids call you Ricky Rat? Because that's what you are—a little rodent!"
The head of the school newspaper, and the bane of Ricky's existence.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: A redhead in the book, her hair is black in the TV adaptation.
- Alpha Bitch: She hates all sixth-graders, and treats Ricky like a bug she wants to squash. She gives him bad stories that she doesn't publish anyway, calls him names, and threatens to have her rich father sue him when his camera gets wrecked, even though it wasn't Ricky's fault.
- Asshole Victim: She's the first one Ricky gives a cookie to, and it's impossible to feel bad for what's about to happen to her.
- The Bully: She viciously belittles and humiliates Ricky at every turn, even telling him to his face that no one at all likes him. When he's trying to warn everyone not to eat the cookies, she leads the entire school to hurl abuse at him.
- Fiery Redhead: She has red hair, and when Ricky accidentally sends Pepsi spilling on a computer and crashing it, she goes ballistic. She starts screaming at Ricky, pulling her hair in frustration. And she then fired him on the spot.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: When her father's camera is accidentally wrecked when Ricky is using it, she threatens to have him sue Ricky's family over it.
- Hate Sink: She is clearly meant to be as detestable to the reader as possible. The Creeps might be acting like bullies in order to pass for normal students, but she has no excuse whatsoever.
- Jerkass: She's as horrible to Ricky as possible for no reason other than thinking she's superior to sixth graders like him.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: After firing Ricky from the newspaper, she agrees to give him a second chance, but does it in the most backhanded way possible, telling him repeatedly that she only went to him as a last resort. She quickly finds an excuse to fire him anyway.
- Made a Slave: At the end of the book, along with the rest of the students.
- Mean Boss: When Ricky is working for her at the school newspaper she's really mean to him and gives him a bunch of lame assignments, such as writing about dirt patches, which she has no intention of publishing.
- Misplaced Retribution: She fires Ricky from the newspaper for grievances that were his bullies' fault. When Jared, Brenda, David and Wart cause Tasha's computer and camera to get destroyed, she immediately blames Ricky and refuses to listen to his attempts to defend himself.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She gives a pretty brutal one when firing Ricky for the second time.
- Smug Snake: She rubs it in Ricky's face when she foils his edit to the paper.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: By changing the recipient of the "Calling all creeps" phone number, she paves the path to Ricky forgoing all sense of humanity and turning everyone in his school, including her, to mindless Creeps who see him as his leader.
Iris Candler
Portrayed By: Hamille Rustia (TV)
A new student who enters Ricky's class, and makes friends with him.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: She has red hair in the book but is a brunette in the episode. Justified considering that she's been given a Race Lift.
- Give Geeks a Chance: A rare platonic example. She's a beautiful Nice Girl who becomes the friend of nerdy and unpopular Ricky Beamer.
- Heel Realization: When Ricky is showing her around the lunchroom and he gets tripped by his enemies, he notes that she is one of the people laughing at him. However, when she sees Ricky being treated like garbage and fired for something that wasn’t his fault, she realizes just how awful his life at school is, and she wants to be his friend.
- Love-Interest Traitor: Subverted. Initially she appears to be on the side of the Creeps, even pretending to be their commander's second-in-command, but she's really just a genuinely nice girl who only wants to help out. Amazingly, she manages to fool the Creeps, who don't ask her to change to prove it.
- Nice Girl: The only character in the entire book to show any sympathy for Ricky's plight.
- Only Friend: Is the only one at school willing to hang out with and be friendly with Ricky. By the end of the story, this isn’t enough to prevent him from joining the Creeps' side.
- Race Lift: Described in the book as having a round face, blue eyes and blond hair, she's Filipino in the TV adaptation.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: In the book, she inexplicably disappears during the last act and isn't present when Ricky tries to prevent the students from eating the spiked cookies that turn them into Creeps. In the TV adaptation, she begs Ricky not to go through with the Creeps' plan after he finally snaps; it's not indicated if she also gets turned.
The Creeps
Brenda, Wart, and David
Portrayed By: Matthew Lemche, Tonya Johnson, and Travis Kutt (David, Brenda, and Wart) (TV); Ashton Lee Wolden (Wart) and Katie Lumpkin (Brenda) (Film)
"Humans are the past. Creeps are the future!"
An unpleasant group of lizard-creatures masquerading as human school bullies.
- Adapted Out: Jared doesn't appear in the TV episode.
- Aerith and Bob: Their names: Jared, Brenda, David... Wart?
- Aliens Are Bastards: We don't know just what they are, but they fit every other criteria.
- And Then John Was a Zombie:The entire student body by the end of the book, including Ricky.
- Assimilation Plot: Creeps are created when special "identity seeds" are consumed by humans. The main four plan to disperse these seeds among the student body.
- The Bad Guy Wins: A rare example that benefits the protagonist.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Of Calling All Creeps!
- Blind Obedience: They are relentlessly loyal to the Creep code, to the point where all it takes is someone claiming to be one of their leaders to make them submissive and obedient.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Like most creatures in the series, the Creeps have very twisted and strange customs.
- Child Soldiers: The main four, though it's unclear how old they are.
- Crazy-Prepared: Ricky "accidentally" drops their bag of seeds in an attempt to escape them? No worries, they've got a spare one on hand.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: It generally does not matter who is assimilated into their ranks. In the episode, one of the most prominent Creeps is the black female Brenda.
- Evil Phone: How they contact Ricky.
- Gang of Bullies: As humans, they solely exist to make Ricky as miserable as possible.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: It's hinted that they're only acting like bullies to blend in with everyone else. Of course, they're still planning an alien invasion...
- Jerkass: They take every opportunity to get Ricky fired from the newspaper.
- Kids Are Cruel: Also in their human forms, along with the rest of the school who bullies Ricky.
- The Lad-ette: Brenda, the only female, is no less ferocious than her comrades.
- Lizard Folk: Huge, purple lizard/raptor kids. The cover makes them look oddly adorable.
- My God, What Have I Done?: They're mortified when they "discover" that their Commander is the one they had been bullying, and apologize to Ricky for how they treated him.
- Pet the Dog: Their loyalty toward Ricky, their supposed leader, seems surprisingly genuine. At the very end, they give him the extra push to take revenge on the cruel student body as he's being mocked.
- Purple Is Powerful: In the book, their color scheme is purple, and they're ferocious, domineering creatures out to take over humanity.
- The Smurfette Principle: Brenda's the only female member of the initial group of Creeps.
- Take Over the World: Their plan is basically "today the middle school, tomorrow the world".
- Teens Are Monsters: Both figuratively and literally, they're eighth graders who love to torment Ricky and are revealed to be the Creeps calling Ricky.
- True Companions: A villainous version, all of them are quite close friends and don't treat their own kind the way they treat humans.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: If Ricky isn't really their Commander, then where's the real one?
