Based on "Teacher's Pet", the tenth story in Tales to Give You Goosebumps (the first short-story collection from the Tales to Give You Goosebumps anthology series).
Becca and Benjy think the instructor at a local nature center is weird, and soon discover he's actually a mad scientist experimenting with animal DNA.
The episode provides examples of:
- Adaptational Job Change: In the original story, Mr. Blankenship was the new science teacher at school. Here, he's an instructor at a nature reserve.
- Adaptational Villainy: Mr. Blankenship is far more malicious in the TV show than the book. Whereas in the book he didn't try to harm Becca and Benjy outright, here he attempts to murder them in cold blood so no one will discover his research.
- Body Horror: Near the end, a girl mentions she had been getting some weird insect bites, then we see that patches of her arm are starting to resemble snake skin. It’s because Mr. Blankenship, who by this point is now a human/snake/fly hybrid, bit her.
- In Name Only: "Teacher's Pet" retains the basic concept of the original short story, but otherwise goes in a completely different direction with it.
- Never Trust a Title: Mr. Blankenship is changed from a teacher to an instructor at a nature reserve, making the title inaccurate.
- Production Throwback: Becca sees a cute rabbit and reaches out to pick it up, only to scream loudly in terror. A very similar scene occurred in an earlier episode, "The Werewolf Of Fever Swamp", featuring the character of Emily Tucker. The difference is that Emily screamed when she realized the rabbit was dead, whereas Becca actually picked up the rabbit and then noticed that it was half lizard.
