“Me Tie Dotie Walker” means something to all of us
Posted by LeftSmile806@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 94 comments
Posted by LeftSmile806@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 94 comments
autricia@reddit
Way back in the day I had the official cassette tape of the audiobook recording. The Hearse Song is the one I remember the most...
This Youtube video I found has all the stories from all the books. Here's the Hearse Song in particular.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=j488ZwXoPLA&t=503s
ForestElvenKing@reddit
Linchy kinchy collie Molly dingo dingo…
saskies17@reddit
The Cats Paw still gives me creeps from the illustration. These books scared me for sure
OriginalButtshucks@reddit
How did this book reach so many people?
Puella-mea@reddit
Oh Lord, these books. Terrifying!
gravesisme@reddit
My mom read this to me for the first time in 1991 during Hurricane Bob when the power was knocked out and she lit a candle and pulled this out for the first time. It did the trick of entertaining me and also left me a little traumatized of spider bites and especially girls wearing scarfs.
post_obamacore@reddit
A decade ago my buddy's bachelor party was a camping trip, and "Me Tie Dotie Walker" is so seared into my brain that even after a bunch of tequila I was able to recite it (mostly) from memory when we did S'mores and ghost stories around the campfire.
ladyeclectic79@reddit
Funny story, I read VORACIOUSLY as a kid but these books? Pass. I still hate most horror, mainly movies but I specifically remember being so skeeved out by this cover that I noped right out of the whole thing.
prguitarman@reddit
The art is really what made it scary. I remember the toe soup story messing with me the most
tehgimpage@reddit
i literally could not look at the creepy dead face. i'd cover it with my hand as fast as i could
IGotOverGreta@reddit
Hard same. I think I may have once made a cover for it out of a paper bag, as was the custom of the time.
Funkdamentalist@reddit
The Red Spot was the one that got me, with all those spiders bursting out of that girl's face. To my young mind this seemed the most plausible.
VashMM@reddit
Yeah, just thinking about that one still makes me itchy.
stations-creation@reddit
The wolf girl got me! Something about a human walking on all fours has always given me the Willie’s!
three-sense@reddit
I definitely remember the art as much as the stories
"... we switched their heads"
JustAnotherJaneDoe33@reddit
I love that this was sold at book fairs at elementary schools 😂
RaygunMarksman@reddit
Yeah, that's where I got mine. Weird merchandising to school children in hindsight but I loved book fair days so much.
yayoffbalance@reddit
Best days ever!
traminette@reddit
My daughter has her first Scholastic book fair next month and I’m so stoked about it, although something tells me it won’t be as good as they were in the 80’s.
JustAnotherJaneDoe33@reddit
It was a great time to be alive lol!
yayoffbalance@reddit
That super thin paper with Weekly Reader!!
folksongcat@reddit
Harold was the scariest one for me. I also remember a story where a girl unknowingly woke up at the wrong time for church and when she got there all the churchgoers were people that had died?? I think it was in this series at least.
AllyLB@reddit
I still have my original copy of both of them!
ttw81@reddit
🎶 the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout🎶
AdventuresOfLinksay@reddit
Recited this to my class in 2nd grade. I don't think it was even Halloween season at the time.
Ok-Bookkeeper-3149@reddit
I immediately thought of that when I saw the book cover. I can't believe someone commented this.
SnickersDickVein@reddit
They eat your eyes, they eat your nose, they eat the jelly between your toes.
sounds_like_kong@reddit
The dead bride in the trunk, man… the dead bride in the trunk… 🫠
Illustrious-Lead-960@reddit
No one to blame but herself.
Illustrious-Lead-960@reddit
WONDERFUL SAUSAGE!!!
Chemical_Shallot_575@reddit
This phrase is still in my head, so many years later. Great book. Scary, scary illustrations…
shooter_mcgavin5@reddit
I just found my of these not to long ago. They're autographed too. Met the guys who did these in elementary school when they visited.
Ippus_21@reddit
The art was what really made it freaky. Some of the stories were just so-so.
There was one, though... about misbehaving children who came back to find their mother had gone and left a glass-eyed doll to care for them. That one is BURNED in my brain. It still makes me sick to my stomach to this day. Every kid who's ever had a vestige of abandonment issues, PLUS the straight-up fear of Das Unheimliche... F- me, that one gets to you...
DStew713@reddit
The Drum. That one was fucked up. The kids wanted that drum so bad they chased their mom and little brother away.
Ippus_21@reddit
That was it. Aaaand
UYscutipuff_JR@reddit
I vaguely recall the new mom having a tail that thumped against the floor
Ippus_21@reddit
A wooden tail. And glass eyes. And WHY TF IS SOMETHING LIKE THAT ACTING ALIVE!?
MexicanVanilla22@reddit
Don't you laugh as the hearse goes by,
Because you may be the next to die.
I bought the set for my kids a few years ago but they were too scared to even let me read it to them. 🙄
SurviveDaddy@reddit
I remember when they changed the artwork, because it was "too scary for kids." Their sales dropped so drastically, that they had to bring the originals back.
a_solid_6@reddit
We were a tough lot
YEMolly@reddit
I can’t remember which stories were in which book, but 2 stories stuck with me: 1) about the guy in heaven playing baseball & talking to his best friend. And 2) the one with the old people in a home (or hospital) and one was in the bed in front of the “window.”
Love these books!!!!
Vast_Yak_445@reddit
“I am the Viper…”
And…
“Room for one more??”
Bushid0C0wb0y81@reddit
The art had no reason to go as hard as it did.
iiooiooi@reddit
Love it! I got this from the Scholastic Book Fair. My version came with a cassette of most of the stories and songs. Nearly wore the damned thing out.
CannedDuck1906@reddit
I still have these books! Love them!
brokenman82@reddit
I had so many scary books as a kid I don’t remember which was which.
I do remember reading a story while driving from Kentucky to Houston. In 4th grade. It was about a woman that kept seeing a hitchhiker. And mile after mile she saw the same one. And then right before she got to her house the hitchhiker had a 🔪 instead of a 👍. And the story ended with her being found dead in her car.
That was not a fun night to be alone in the backseat of a car at night.
Of course it never crossed my mind at the time that whoever found this poor woman’s body couldn’t possibly know any of the information about the hitchhiker ghost.
brokenman82@reddit
Now I just googled it and others have also remembered this story. So yay for not imagining something 😃
mrspelunx@reddit
My friend’s mom had a major Boston accent and told this story to us Cub Scouts. It was so funny.
goat_penis_souffle@reddit
Linchy kinchy cawwly mahhhly dingo dingo!
Stop laughin ya lil jagoffs!
Altruistic-Tank4585@reddit
You from Pittsburgh, ya jag?
KrangRangoon@reddit
I still use Slithery Dee in my every day vocabulary.
PMMeYourPupper@reddit
I wasn't allowed to read this because "Jesus wouldn't approve".
RockItGuyDC@reddit
Jesus, in fact, really liked these books.
yayoffbalance@reddit
Jesus wept for you.
yodellingllama_@reddit
Did this have the "Green Ribbon" story in it? And/or "In a Dark, Dark Room..."? If so, I told these stories to my kids as bedtime stories when they were younger. From memory.
andiinAms@reddit
The green ribbon that was holding her head on?? I don’t know how I know that but I’m sure it’s what you’re referring to!
CrouchingDomo@reddit
THE GREEN RIBBON WHYYYYY did you remind me that story exists 😂
InterestingTry5190@reddit
Yes both. Those are the 2 I remember best.
johnnyhouston87@reddit
That was a different one. Same guy. That was "In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories"
ThepalehorseRiderr@reddit
"There's room for one more..."
Either-Sentence3652@reddit
Remember that creepy ass one with the little black dog?
UYscutipuff_JR@reddit
The one that turned out to be a big rat?
CrouchingDomo@reddit
No, the little black dog followed the guy around all the time, it came out of nowhere and wouldn’t leave.
I don’t remember how the story ends, and I learned later that “the black dog” is a metaphor for depression and Google is currently telling me that Winston Churchill used to refer to his depression as such. But the weirdest thing about this is I WAS JUST RANDOMLY THINKING ABOUT THIS STORY TODAY AND NOW HERE WE ARE.
Someone tell the guys in charge of the simulation that I would like my dopamine receptors upgraded, please & thank you 😎
Either-Sentence3652@reddit
Nah. The one where they eventually found the guy’s body and it was covered with little black dog hairs
BrattyTwilis@reddit
Not going to lie, this particular story gave me nightmares as a kid. Was also afraid to go near the fireplace at night in case a head was going to roll down my chimney
frooootloops@reddit
That terrified me. I lived in an old Victorian house that had these old, ornate fireplaces. I think I didn’t sleep for a year.
amnicr@reddit
I had the cassette tape with this book and my friend and I would play it in the dark in my room, hiding under my covers scared shitless. Amazing.
CrouchingDomo@reddit
My dude I am about to try to go to sleep, why have you done this to me 😂
Wildtime4321@reddit
I owned that book since I was a kid, I'm sure I bought it at a Scholastic school sale. I was always too afraid to read it. I didn't even like it sitting on the bookshelf.
NewsgramLady@reddit
Omg, I (almost 42) just had a major flashback when I read the title of this post. Me Tie Dotie Walker ...wow. That was stuffed back in my brain somewhere in some long lost file.
0sqs@reddit
Not to me?
mperiolat@reddit
Linchy-inchy… dammit, brain moment for the rest.
ed25ca@reddit
Good find!
limberlegs226@reddit
Omg
PanDaScHem@reddit
That book was childhood trauma wrapped in paperback who else hid it under the bed after reading
Falco_impersonator@reddit
I hope Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is still available to kids. It's something they need to prepare them for life's real horrors... like being thrown into the deep end of the pool to learn how not to drown.
thatlldoyo@reddit
It is. My children have all three of them.
LizF0311@reddit
I am so, so proud of my Gen Z son who saw me looking at this and flipped out yelling, “Yooooo that book was so good!” 😁
kalebdraws@reddit
I still think about those footsteps upstairs...
ComplexImmediate5140@reddit
Fuck this book and their sketches inside it. Scared me so much as a kid!
LindsayDuck@reddit
I read them all every October!
Whatchab@reddit
Whenever I have spider bite, I immediately picture that damn drawing of the spiders coming out of that woman's face. It's still terrifying!
affectionateanarchy8@reddit
Omggg that's the one right there
allisondojean@reddit
YES omg
tracee_@reddit
Trigger warning! Please! *turns on every light in the apartment
Munchkin531@reddit
These were my favorite books in the 2nd and 3rd grade! I loved how creepy the stories were and the pictures were horrible! I need to read these again but I know my kids won't like them.
MrThouu@reddit
The ghost woman illustration for "The Haunted House" caused me to close the book immediately and not open it again for weeks.
omega_red24@reddit
I had that book, and if I remember correctly there was at least one sequel.
Me_meHard@reddit
Love this book, love the illustrations
yayoffbalance@reddit
Loooooove these so much!
crackedtooth163@reddit
Love that book with all my heart.
the_kid1234@reddit
My son got it this year at Halloween!
TheRandomHumanoid@reddit
Wow..yes I do remember this!
usernames_suck_ok@reddit
Nope.