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Spooksville is an adventure/horror series on The Hub. Based on the book series by acclaimed author Christopher Pike, the new kid in town discovers that he holds the key to a battle between good and evil that has been taking place for centuries in a bizarre small town that plays host to a wide array of supernatural and unexplained occurrences. It has a running arc of Adam trying to find his long-lost mother and her whereabouts during her disappearance, but, for the most part, the show plays out like Eerie, Indiana meets Goosebumps (1995) (or So Weird minus the traveling musician angle and mixed with Eerie, Indiana).

The series premiered on October 26, 2013, and is made by the same people behind The Haunting Hour. Because of The Hub's change to Discovery Family and the fact that The Haunting Hour has been canceled, it's safe to assume that this show is not coming back.

Tropes for the book series can be found here.


This series provides examples of:

  • Adaptation Distillation: As expected, some of the stories are trimmed down to make it work in a 22 minute format.
  • Adaptation Expansion: The series adds an ongoing arc about finding Adam's mom that was not present in the books, which were mostly stand-alone.
  • Adaptation Explanation Extrication: In the books, Watch wears his watch to keep track of what time it is where his family lives, as they are spread out. In the show, this is not the case so there's no special reasons for why he wears them.
  • Adaptation Dye-Job: In the book version of The Wicked Cat, Sally is turned into a brown cat, to match her hair, but in the show, she is a white cat.
  • Adaptation Name Change:
    • A mild example: In the books, Sally's real name is Sara, but this is not mentioned in the show so chances are that Sally is her real name in the series.
    • The Howling Ghost changes the ghost's name from Evelyn to Jane.
    • Bum, the town's former mayor, is referred to as The Mayor in the show. Word of God says this is because "in today's climate, we don't name anyone Bum"
    • The cat from The Wicked Cat is named Jessie in the book, but is called Danielle in the episode.
  • Adaptation Personality Change:
    • As noted below, Watch doesn't fully believe in the supernatural, thinking it's just all scientific, while in the books, he was fairly accepting of the supernatural existing.
    • In the books, Bum is fairly well adjusted but in the show, he is a bit nuttier.
  • Adaptation Title Change: A mild example, the episode of Invasion of the No-Ones removes the first part, leaving it as just "The No-Ones".
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Adam having a Missing Mom gives him more emotional baggage than he had in the books.
  • Adaptational Backstory Change: The No-Ones from The No-Ones go from being the souls of humans that come from another planet, to being energy beings from the beginning that are from another dimension, which they destroyed due to their thirst for power. Also counts as an Adaptation Species Change.
  • Adaptational Explanation: The book of The Evil House didn't explain how Marvin using a spell to make him live longer brought him to said house. The episode changes it so that a witch offered him this chance and sent him to the evil house, on the condition that he lure kids into it.
  • Adaptational Jerkass: In the books, Bryce Poole is a heroic, if somewhat egocentric person. In the series, he is a bully. He's also dumber.
  • Adaptational Villainy:
    • In the books, Madeline Templeton is implied to be evil but it's left up in the air how true that is, and she seems fine enough when they see her in ''Time Terror'. In the show, she is portrayed as fully evil.
    • While Ann is complicated in the show and does some shady things, she was nicer and more helpful from the start in the books.
    • Danielle in The Wicked Cat and Tira in The No-Ones were portrayed sympathetically in the book and became good by the end, but are more straight forward villains in the episodes.
  • Adults Are Useless: The adults on the show are usually blind to the weird goings on. Any time they are directly exposed to it they rationalize it away. The one exception, a former vampire hunter, refuses to get involved or help the kids.
  • Age Lift: In the books, Ann was an adult but in the show, she is closer to the kids' age. The kids themselves go from being 12 to being teens.
  • Agent Mulder: Watch and Sally. Played with in Watch's case, as although he believes in the paranormal, he is very rational and even skeptical at times. In other words, he's an Agent Mulder who doesn't believe in If Jesus, Then Aliens.
  • All Guys Want Cheerleaders: In Stone, Adam wakes up in a reality where he's captain of the football team and Sally is head cheerleader. The two of them had apparently dated until Adam broke up with her and started going out with Ann. To add insult to injury, he did this right before the school's Spring Fling. Sally was... not amused.
  • Ascended Extra: In the books, Madeline Templeton only appears in one book via time travel, as she is long dead. In the show, she attempts to bring her spirit back, and becomes a more prominent element. A smaller example is Adam's father, who only appears physically in the first book but appears more in the show. Then there's Sally's parents, who are only mentioned in the books but appear in the show.
  • Ambiguously Evil: Ann Templeton
  • Battle of the Bands: One of the unproduced Season 2 episodes would have the gang enter such a competition as they suspect one of the groups plans to summon an ancient demon.
  • Becoming the Costume: The Evil House has this happen to the gang after entering the titular house.
  • Beach Episode: Shell Shock
  • Bigger on the Inside: The cardboard box that The Mayor lives in.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: Watch says Sally's catchphrase, "What the what?!", in Fathers and Sons. Sally's parents say it in Shell Shock
  • Bottle Episode: Gnome Alone, which is set only in and around Sally's house. Additionally, Sally is the only character present for most of the episode.
  • Breather Episode: The Dark Corner, which was darker and featured a big change at the end, is followed up by Sell Shock, a goofy story about a pirate-crab monster.
  • Broken Masquerade: Deconstructed in The Wishing Stone, when Adam's dad learns of Springsville's paranormal activity, and almost immediately decides to take Adam and get the hell out of Dodge. In the end, Adam uses the wishing stone to turn everything back to normal and make it so that way the trio never finds the stone.
  • Catchphrase: Sally has "What the what?!"
  • Cell Phones Are Useless: Played for horror in Phone Fear, where answering a phone gets you picked off by a mysterious fog.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Early on in The Wishing Stone, Watch shows off a fake laser gun that had become real during a previous episode. Later on, they use it to stop the debt collector robot.
  • Christmas Episode: The No-Ones. The book it's based on wasn't one though.
  • Cliffhanger: Stone ends with them having subdued Madeline for now, but Adam's mom is still out there and they are determined to stop Madeline for good.
  • Composite Character: Cindy's role being reduced makes it so that Sally will sometimes take the role she served in the original book, such as Sally being the one to become a fairy princess in The Evil House
  • Crazy Homeless People: The Mayor.
  • Cryptid Episode: Fathers and Sons, where Adam, Watch, Adam's Dad, and Officer Duggan run into Bigfoot while on a camping trip.
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    • Sally.
    • Ann gets her moments too, like when Sally asks her to "magic us home" in "Phone Fear". She responds thusly:
    Ann: That's a great idea, Sally. Just get me the hearts of five freshly killed salamanders.
  • Death by Adaptation : In the books, Watch's dad is merely living somewhere else. In the series, he is dead.
    • Jack from The Wicked Cat is an interesting example. In both versions he was trapped in a cave to rot. But in the book, he's still in a weird state of being undead when Adam gets trapped there. In the episode, he is fully dead.
  • Decomposite Character: The Evil House, The Wicked Cat and Invasion of the No-Ones all had Madeline Templeton involved in the villain's backstory. The episode versions change each one into a different Templeton.
  • Demoted to Extra: Cindy Makey. In the books, she was one of the main characters, but in the series, she is only in one episode, for budget reasons. Even in her one episode, she only appears at the beginning and very end. Similarly, Bryce also only gets to appear once.
    • The Mayor/Bum to an extent. In the books he had a bigger role when he showed up, giving the kids exposition on the Monster of the Week but in the show he does not know as much as he has a smaller role overall.
  • Did I Mention It's Christmas?: While The No-Ones is a Christmas episode, it's only apparent at the very beginning and very end, and it isn't too important to the story.
  • Double Standard: Stalking, Female After Male: Downplayed; Sally doesn't stalk Adam, but she makes a lot of comments regarding her interest in him, but no one seems at all bothered by it, even though it technically counts as harassment. Word of God, however, says that Adam was pretty bothered by it.
  • Even Nerds Have Standards: Even Watch makes fun of Stanley.
  • Enemy Mine: Sally and Ann, briefly, in Flowers of Evil.
  • Expy: Stanley, with his cowardly nature, is clearly meant to be a stand in for George Sanders from the books.
    • The Homuncali in Ann's basement seem to be a stand-in for the trolls she had in the books.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Played with, The Mayor is referred to as such even though he only used to be the mayor.
  • Face–Heel Revolving Door: Ann
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Spooksville seems to be under constant attack from everything—- alien parasites, witches, vampires, ghosts—- you name it, it's probably been in the town.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Watch
  • Harbinger of Impending Doom: In The Secret Path, Adam and his father are approached by The Mayor, who warns them to get out of town.
  • Held Back in School: In Phone Fear, Bryce implies that it's his seventh time attending a (yearly) school field trip.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Madeline Templeton is just a human (albeit a powerful Wicked Witch) and is by far the most evil character in the show (indeed, most of the monsters turn out to not actually be evil at all.)
  • In Name Only: While the episodes based on certain books at least try to keep the general story intact, The Dark Corner and Phone Fear keep the title and nothing else.
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: How Adam discovers that he's trapped in a dream world created by Madeline in Stone.
  • Immortality Immorality: Madeline Templeton is immortal due to her magically possessing all her descendants and changing them into clones of herself. Ann only avoids this because she has the Raven Stone.
  • Innocuously Important Episode: Critical Care is mostly just a weird episode about tonsils coming to life, but it also ends with Adam's mother looking out at Shadowmire, which foreshadows the twist that she is actually Madeline Templeton.
  • Journey to the Center of the Mind: In The Maze, Adam and Watch end up in The Mayor's memories, in a place designed like a maze made out of cardboard boxes. His memories start fading as they go on and by the end he has lost them completely.
  • Karma Houdini: Madeline Templeton. While the kids manage to escape her in the final episode, she doesn't actually get stopped or punished in any way. The episode ends with them vowing to stop her and find Adam's mother, and, given that at least another season was planned, they probably did intend for both to happen eventually. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled after the first season.
  • Kick The Son Of A Bitch: In an early episode The Haunted Cave, the team lets Ann get sneezed on by a giant monster and Covered in Gunge after she yells at them, at which point she screams in disgust. While this comes across as pretty Disproportionate Retribution at the time (as from her point of view, she's just getting mad that some people she barely knows are in her garden without permission), considering what she would eventually turn out to be like, she kind of had it coming.
  • Magic Knight: Ann Templeton is both a witch and skilled in swordplay.
  • Magic Versus Science: Ann Templeton for magic and Watch for Science. Ann embraces magic as something beyond science. Watch views it as "weird science" buried under mumbo jumbo. Both are shown to be correct in different ways. The magic is a form of eldritch energy manipulation that does not work according to the principles of modern science such as words affecting chemical interactions. Watch's refusal to initially recognize this nearly gets Sally killed at one point. Often, the only difference is the terminology and worldview.
  • Love-Interest Traitor: Tira in The No-Ones.
  • MacGyvering: Watch tends to do this a lot due to being so smart. Sometimes it almost comes across as a Deus ex Machina. In one episode he makes what's basically a force-field generator out of a broken mirror, bottle, and CD player.
  • Missing Mom: Adam's mother, who disappeared two years before the events of the series. Adam's search for her makes up a major part of the series' Myth Arc.
  • Memory Gambit: Madeline alters her memories to make herself believe that she's Laurel in order to be transported back into her home dimension.
  • Mythology Gag: In Fathers and Sons, the kids are surprised that The Mayor, who is homeless, has a job to which he responds with "What do you think I am, some sort of Bum?". This is a nod to his original name in the books.
  • Named by the Adaptation: Watch is given a last name: Waverly. Also, The Maze reveals The Mayor/Bum's real name on a plaque during a flashback.
  • Naïve Newcomer: Adam
  • Named After Somebody Famous: Well, infamous: The teens attend Lizzie Borden High, named after the Massachusetts woman who used an axe to murder her own parents. The naming subtlety doesn't stop there- before transferring to Lizzie Borden High, Ann attended the Lilith Academy for Young Ladies.
  • New Transfer Student: Ann transfers to Lizzie Borden High School in Flowers of Evil.
  • Nice Mean And In Between: Of the main three, Adam is the nice (being a kind, friendly, and idealistic) Sally is the mean (being rather sarcastic and cynical, but still ultimately a brave and good-hearted girl, and Watch is the In-between (He's not quite as nice as or heroic as Adam but still a decent kid in general.)
  • Non-Malicious Monster: The cave creature in "The Haunted Cave" didn't actually want to eat anyone, it just couldn't avoid digesting them once they literally climbed into its stomach. There's also Bigfoot in Fathers and Sons who was just protecting their kids.
  • Only Friend: Before Adam came along, Watch and Sally were each other's only friend, as the other kids shun them due to their interests in the supernatural.
  • Our Gnomes Are Weirder: In Gnome Alone, Sally gets attacked by her mother's garden gnomes because she accidentally broke their leader and hid him to avoid getting into trouble.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: The vampires in this series have most of the standard weaknesses (garlic/holy water/wooden stake to the heart), though sunlight is a major exception to this.
  • Parent with New Paramour: In Fathers and Sons, Officer Dugan has been dating Watch's mom and Watch is not happy about it, especially since Dugan is a bit hard on him at first. He naturally warms up to him later.
  • Police Are Useless: Officer Dugan, and the entire police force, really. It's the main reason why the fate of the town rests in the hands of teenagers. Hypothesized to either be a spell or a subconscious survival mechanism that causes the police to avoid anything out of the normal.
    • It may actually be entirely conscious- in Fathers and Sons, Watch mentions that Springville police protocol is "safety first." The officers' safety, that is.
  • Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: Ann always acts nice to Adam but is a literal witch who almost always has ulterior motives, while Sally is rather rude and sarcastic but actually does care about Adam, and is usually completely right in distrusting Ann.
  • Properly Paranoid: Watch and Sally.
  • Retired Badass: Blood Drive reveals that Principal Blackwater used to be a vampire hunter and retired after she accidentally staked a human.
  • Promoted to Love Interest: Subverted in The No-Ones. In the book, Watch and Tira's relationship is platonic and in the episode they seem to have a thing for each other. But due to her being a villain as noted above, it turns out she was just using him and she has to be defeated.
    • It's downplayed but Critical Care reveals that Watch likes Cindy, which was not explicitly clear in the books, although there's at least one Ship Tease.
  • Scary Black Man: Moorpark, Ann Templeton's guardian/mentor.
  • Shout-Out:
    Sally: The only thing I'm afraid of on a plane is snakes.
  • Sixth Ranger: As of Phone Fear, Ann seems to more-or-less be accepted as part of the gang now. Turns out to be a Sixth Ranger Traitor. Kind of.
    • If Season 2 had happened, Cindy would have been promoted to one.
  • Soap Opera Disease: Marvin in The Evil House was put under a spell in order to avoid dying from a sick-ness, and said sickness is not identified. (The book specified that it was pneumonia)
  • Spared by the Adaptation: The monsters in The Thing in the Closet are all killed off by the kids in the book, but survive in the episode. Same goes for the debt collector robot in The Wishing Stone, although at first it seems like he is dead before he gets back up.
  • That's No Moon: The titular cave in The Haunted Cave turns out to be a creature, and they went right into its stomach.
  • Team Member in the Adaptation: Due to being aged down, Ann is able to be an official part of the team in some episodes,
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Happens with Sally and Ann every time they have to work together.
  • The Tonsillitis Episode: Critical Care, where Watch has to get his tonsils out and they come to life.
  • Trapped in TV Land: One of the unproduced Season 2 episodes would have the gang getting sucked into a bad 80's slasher movie.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: The Mayor really likes pie.
  • Twisted Christmas: Christmas in Spooksvlle involves some deliciously twisted versions of Christmas carols.
  • Vampire Episode: Blood Drive
  • Wham Episode: The Dark Corner. Adam successfully finds his mother, seemingly achieving the Series Goal in just 11 episodes, though there are still some loose threads about Adam's mother's disappearance that need to be tied up.
    • Run. Scratch the above. Turns out that Adam's mother was really Madeline the whole time.
  • Weirdness Censor: Everybody in town "knows" that spooky stuff happens in town, but finds ways to either ignore or rationalize it away.
  • Wild Card: The best way to describe Ann after the events of Run and Stone.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Ann Templeton pulls one off in The Fire Inside. She discretely casts a life-threatening curse on Sally and offers our protagonists a cure in exchange for the Raven's Eye. However, knowing that they would refuse and in fact break into her home to retrieve the cure themselves, she eventually helps them save Sally, all in a ploy to gain their trust and leading them to believe that she's merely an Unwitting Pawn and that Moorpark's the true mastermind. It later comes to question whether the latter is a lie or the truth.
  • Your Vampires Suck:
    Adam: Wait! Vampires don't sparkle, do they?
  • Zombie Apocalypse: In The Dark Corner, the gang and Ann are transported to an alternate dimension Spooksville with most of its inhabitants turned into zombies.

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