The Night of the Living Dummy series has the children being blamed for things that the dummies in each of their respective books have conspired. But the one that fits this territory the most is easily the second book. The protagonist, Amy, is The Unfavorite one of the family, and towards the second half of the story, she gets accused of vandalizing her sister's room and her family immediately believes she's crazy. It doesn't even end there either. During a three-year-old's party, Slappy injures the former's hand and ruins the party by frightening the other guests, causing Amy to break out in tears as she runs back home. Keep in mind that this was a day before she was accused of painting her name on her sister's bedroom wall and gets blamed for it again! Not only is she double punished for something she didn't do, her family even go as far to get her a doctor, thinking she needs help. When you begin to think about it, Slappy is torturing Amy psychologically by having her whole family turn on her and believe she's gone nuts, causing her to alienate them. It's rather depressing really. Fortunately Amy has the honor of being the first kid in the living dummy saga where the parents find out the truth about Slappy and their name is cleared.
There's also a sub-plot about how all throughout the book Amy is jealous of Sara for being The Ace. At the end we find out Sara is in fact jealous of Amy since she doesn't have to prove herself all the time, which is why she didn't tell the truth about Slappy at first. At the end the two of them have a tearful moment where they hug and forgive each other.
Poor Alicia getting her birthday party ruined by Slappy not letting go of her hand and instead tightening his grip, it causes all the other small children to get scared into tears when they see her cry. Amy herself is utterly heartbroken at her first gig going so horribly wrong, and vents out her frustrations when she gets home and cries to her mom about it.
The TV episode contains examples of:
Unlike in the book, Amy’s friendship with Margo being effectively ruined by Slappy. Because he had grabbed Alicia’s hand when Amy was trying to keep him away from her friend’s sister, Margo believes that Amy willingly hurt Alicia. It’s unknown if Amy’s friendship is ever fixed or if Slappy managed to successfully ruin one of Amy’s relationships.
