The Bullseye Halloween Spectacular: R.L. Stine, Monét X Change, and Ana Fabrega

25th October 2022

We’re celebrating the season with our annual Bullseye Halloween Spectacular. We kick things off with an in-depth, funny conversation with R.L. Stine, creator of the Goosebumps series. Stine talks about how he got into writing, how he comes up with titles and why he wishes he never dreamed up an evil ventriloquist dummy. We’ll hear about the craziest day in the wild, storied career of drag queen Monét X Change (Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Hulu’s Huluween Dragstravaganza). Also, an interview with Ana Fabrega, star and co-creator of the great TV series Los Espookys.

Episode notes

Our annual Bullseye Halloween Spectacular is here! We talk with R.L. Stine, the creator of Goosebumps, Monét X Change of RuPaul’sDrag Race, and Ana Fabrega of Los Espookys.

R.L. Stine, creator of Goosebumps

(Photo: Macmillan)

R.L. Stine is the creator of Goosebumps, the series of kids horror books.

Stine has written over 200 Goosebumps books, selling millions of copies. His books have inspired TV shows, movies, and even video games. He’s written about ventriloquist dummies that come to life, haunted garden gnomes, and even wrote a book about giant hamsters. 

Stine can never resist a good title. Say Cheese and Die, Werewolf Skin, and Go Eat Worms are just a few that stand out from his Wikipedia page. His latest book has a clever title as well. It’s a play on his last name called StineTinglers. It’s a collection of 10 short horror stories for kids that’s out now. 

R.L. Stine joins the show to talk about how the phenomenon that is Goosebumps came to be. He shares how he comes up with the storylines for each book and how he got into writing children’s horror. Plus, he talks about his time as a comedy writer for a magazine he worked on during college.

Monét X Change on the Craziest Day of Her Entire Career

(Photo: Hulu)

Monét X Change is a drag queen. An icon in that world. A legend on Ru Paul’s Drag Race. She is also the co-host of the 2022 Huluween Dragstravaganza on Hulu. Monét and her co-host, Ginger Minj, get stuck in old haunted Television. Of course, the only way out is to host a hilarious, larger than life variety special: sketches, musical numbers and cameos galore!

Monét joined us to talk about the craziest day of her career. She throws us back to one of the most wild nights she’s ever had while touring her live show. Monét still hits the road, click here for more info on when she’ll be near you.

Ana Fabrega on Los Espookys

(Photo: Pablo Arellano Spataro / HBO)

Ana Fabrega is a comedian, actor and writer. She’s worked on the Chris Gethard Show, had great parts on High Maintenance and At Home with Amy Sedaris. She’s probably best known as a star and co-creator of HBO’s Los Espookys.

The show is about four friends who love horror. They run a company where they go around town and bring scenes from horror movies to real life. They’re often hired for gigs to fool and scare other people. Together they use special effects to scare folks into believing in demonic possessions, sea monsters or creepy aliens.

But it’s not really a horror show, it’s very funny. It’s also a very sweet, goofy, kind of surreal show about friendship, identity and carving a place in the world for yourself.

Ana joins us to talk about the latest season of Los Espookys, and how the show came to be. The show just wrapped up its second season, you can find it on HBO.

In this episode...

Senior Producer
Producer
Maximum Fun Producer
Maximum Fun Production Fellow

Guests

  • R.L. Stine
  • Monét X Change
  • Ana Fabrega

About the show

Bullseye is a celebration of the best of arts and culture in public radio form. Host Jesse Thorn sifts the wheat from the chaff to bring you in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture.

Bullseye has been featured in Time, The New York Times, GQ and McSweeney’s, which called it “the kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world.” Since April 2013, the show has been distributed by NPR.

If you would like to pitch a guest for Bullseye, please CLICK HERE. You can also follow Bullseye on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. For more about Bullseye and to see a list of stations that carry it, please click here.

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Senior Producer

Producer

Maximum Fun Producer

Maximum Fun Production Fellow

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