“Is spikey black hair growing all over my body?”
Larry “Hairy Larry” Boyd is a twelve-year-old boy with luscious wavy dark blond hair. In fact, he is known for having great hair. Larry is embarrassed easily (he doesn’t like having unwanted attention) but he gets chased by all the stray dogs in the neighborhood frequently. He wonders why there are so many stray dogs? It’s annoying getting chased by dogs in the snow. Larry is also in a rock band with his friends Lily Vonn, Manny, Jared, and Kristina. Their band is called “The Geeks” and they play covers of Eric Clapton, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones, among others.
One day at band practice, he finds an INSTA-TAN bottle at Lily’s house and they all start rubbing it on their bodies for fun, even though the label expired about a year ago. Later, Larry starts to feel ill and has to go to the doctor, however we learn this is nothing new for Larry. He has a problem with his sweat glands which causes him to get over-heated easily, so he gets regular shots from Dr. Murkin every couple weeks.
But shortly thereafter, Larry starts to notice spikey black hair growing out of his hands and knees and face. He desperately tries to shave it off every day but nothing seems to work for very long. He gets embarrassed by it and hides it at school. His yellow-eyed cat Jasper starts behaving strangely around him. Then his friend Manny disappears but his parents and the doctor don’t seem concerned. Then Lily also disappears but he finds a dog that has two different colored eyes, just like Lily, and wearing Lily’s necklace. Did Lily transform into a dog? What is going on here?
The Geeks decide to still perform at battle of the bands, at least so they can show up their chief rival band, Howie and the Shouters. But during the performance, Larry starts suddenly sprouting hair again. He gets extremely embarrassed until he learns that the audience thought it was an impressive special effect.
In the end, Larry learns that it wasn’t the tanning lotion after all. He was growing so much hair because he is actually a dog! Dr. Murkin figured out a way to transform dogs into people and he was providing Larry with the serum every two weeks. At the end of the book, Larry and Lily finally enjoy their lives as dogs again and Dr. Murkin vows not to run this experiment on dogs anymore because it gives the parents such great pain when the serum doesn’t last… but then Larry’s parents bring home a new yellow-eyed baby: Larry’s cat Jasper!
My Thoughts on My Hairiest Adventure
Predictable, boring, awkward, repetitive, My Hairiest Adventure is one of the least scary books in the Goosebumps series. It’s ridiculous, blatant metaphor for puberty is barely even interesting. On the plus side, there is at least a bit of small town ‘90s nostalgia ensconced in a wintry, snowy aesthetic and the local high school’s annual battle of the bands is a fun throwback. But that’s about it with this one.
Corresponding Episode Review
I hate to have to say it but the episode for “My Hairiest Adventure” is even worse than the book. There is just not much to say here, the episode is looks like it was a homemade movie by ten-year-olds: the acting is terrible, the cinematography is shockingly low effort, and the audio is overdubbed in a bizarre manner. I’m not sure what happened here, but it would have fit in well as an episode of Mystery Science Theater.
Stine, R.L. The Hairiest Adventure. Scholastic, Inc., New York, NY, 1994.