Eerie, Indiana

Premise

The series revolves around Marshall Teller, a teenager whose family moves to the desolate town of Eerie, Indiana, population of 16,661. While moving into his new home, he meets Simon Holmes, one of the few normal people in Eerie. Together, they are faced with bizarre scenarios, which include discovering a sinister group of intelligent dogs that are planning on taking over the world, and meeting a tornado hunter who is reminiscent of Captain Ahab. They also confront numerous urban legends such as Bigfoot and a still-living Elvis Presley. Although the show was host to a plethora of jokes, it also featured a serious tone.

After thirteen episodes, one of which did not air during the network run, the series was retooled with Jason Marsden's "Dash X" added to the cast and Archie Hahn's Mr. Radford is revealed to be an imposter, with John Astin revealed to be the "actual" Mr. Radford. The final produced episode was a tongue-in-cheek, fourth wall breaking sequence of events depicting Dash X's attempts to take over as star of the show.

Characters

Recurring characters

Episodes

A total of nineteen episodes of Eerie, Indiana were produced before the show's cancellation. The episode "The Broken Record" was the only episode which did not air before the show's retooling and was omitted during the show's initial run on NBC. The episode aired for the first time on television when the series was syndicated on The Disney Channel in 1993.

The show's producers planned to make an episode entitled "The Jolly Rogers", which featured a group of pirates in search for buried treasure in the Teller house.

* ^ "The Hole in the Head Gang" is the first episode in which the episode titles are shown on screen.

Critical reception

Eerie, Indiana was well received by critics when it debuted on television. Entertainment Weekly gave it a "B" rating and Ken Tucker wrote, "You watch Eerie for the small-screen spectacle of it all — to see the way, in the show's first few weeks, feature-film directors like Joe Dante (Gremlins) and Tim Hunter (River's Edge) oversaw episodes that summoned up an atmosphere of absurdist suburban dread. In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, Miles Beller wrote, "Scripted by Karl Schaefer and José Rivera with smart, sharp insights; slyly directed by feature film helmsman Joe Dante; and given edgy life by the show's winning cast, Eerie, Indiana shapes up as one of the fall season's standouts, a newcomer that has the fresh, bracing look of Edward Scissorhands and scores as a clever, wry presentation well worth watching." In his review for the Orange County Register, Ray Richmond wrote, "It's the kind of knowingly hip series with equally strong appeal for both kids and adults, the kind that preteens will watch and discuss." USA Today described the show as "Stephen King by way of The Simpsons", and Matt Roush wrote, "Eerie recalls Edward Scissorhands and even - heaven help it - David Lynch in its garish nightmare-comedy depiction of the lurid and silly horrors that lurk beneath suburban conformity." In his review for the Washington Times, David Klinghoffer wrote, "Everything about the pilot exceeds the normal minimal expectations of TV. Mr. Dante directs as if he were making a movie, and a good one. In a departure from usual TV operating procedures, he sometimes actually has more than one thing going on on screen at the same time!"

Renewed popularity and spin-off series

In 1997, the show generated a new fan base, when Fox's children's programming block Fox Kids aired the series. The following year, a spin-off series was produced entitled, Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension. The series was filmed in Canada and focused on another, younger boy while still following the concept of the original show. The spin-off lasted one season. The first episode of the spin-off, "Switching Channels", features a crossover between the two shows via a TV set.

In 2012, the entire series was added to the Hulu website.

Reruns of the series began on August 2012 on the now-defunct Fearnet, airing weekend mornings on their "Funhouse" block.

Book series

Following the show's "re-birth" on Fox in 1997, authors Mike Ford, Sherry Shahan, Jeremy Roberts, John Peel and Robert James wrote a number of in-universe paperback books relating to Eerie, Indiana. The books featured new stories, which helped expand the Eerie universe. Similar to the television series, the books focused on Marshall and Simon, as they continue to solve various perplexing phenomena in Eerie.

Titles in book series

1. Return to Foreverware (Mike Ford) (October 1997) ISBN 0-380-79774-7: Marshall and Simon get jobs cleaning a strange couple's basement out and discover that they were Forever Ware representatives and also used the infamous Tupperware to keep themselves young.
2. Bureau of Lost (John Peel) (October 1997) ISBN 0-380-79775-5: Eerie's Bureau of Lost suffers a power failure, and all of history's famous figures who went missing and/or died under mysterious circumstances (Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, The Sundance Kid, Amelia Earhart, among others) are on the loose and planning to commit crimes.
3. The Eerie Triangle (Mike Ford) (October 1997) ISBN 0-380-79776-3: Marshall and Simon try to solve the mystery of why Eerie, Indiana's town founder is not mentioned in the history books and if it has anything to do with a possible alien invasion cover-up in the 1950s.
4. Simon and Marshall's Excellent Adventure (John Peel) (November 1997) ISBN 0-380-79777-1: Simon and Marshall suspect a new boy, Jazen, who seems to disappear into thin air as he is about to be caught, of being a time traveler.
5. Have Yourself an Eerie Little Christmas (Mike Ford) (December 1997) ISBN 0-380-79781-X: Marshall and Simon find themselves in a Dickensian London town on Christmas Eve — and discover that they're trapped inside a snow globe and will remain so unless they can find a way out.
6. Fountain of Weird (Sherry Shahan) (January 1998) ISBN 0-380-79782-8: Marshall and Simon find themselves at the Old Fogey's Farm, run by Dr. Beelzebug, who has discovered a way to stop people from aging. But he uses hormones from young people to do it — and he plans for the boys to be his next donors.
7. Attack of the Two-Ton Tomatoes (Mike Ford) (February 1998) ISBN 0-380-79783-6: Everyone in Eerie begins eating a new line of super-juicy, super-big vegetables to get healthy, but Marshall and Simon soon find that the produce is turning the people into plant monsters.
8. Who Framed Alice Prophet? (Mike Ford) (March 1998) ISBN 0-380-79784-4: A mysterious painting leads Marshall and Simon on the trail of an artist who makes her paintings too real.
9. Bring Me a Dream (Robert James) (March 1998) ISBN 0-380-79785-2: When anything the Tellers dream of is delivered to Marshall's door, it's fun at first—until the delivery van starts leaving nightmares.
10. Finger-Lickin' Strange (Jeremy Roberts) (May 1998) ISBN 0-380-79786-0: The new chef at World o' Stuff's lunch counter is a sensation: everybody raves about her cooking, but Marshall and Simon discover why the new chef's lunch leaves people wanting more.
11. The Dollhouse That Time Forgot (Mike Ford) (June 1998) ISBN 0-380-79787-9: Syndi and Mrs. Teller just love the old dollhouse they found at a yard sale, but Marshall and Simon aren't impressed. Still, when they see an interesting doll in a shop window, they make it a present for Syndi. But when Syndi puts the doll into the house, weirdness ensues. And when Marshall sneaks into a real-life house that looks like the dollhouse, he realizes that he's shrinking. What's the connection between all this and the peculiar new girl in school who looks just like Syndi's doll?
12. They Say (Mike Ford) (July 1998) ISBN 0-380-79788-7: Marshall and Simon help an old woman who tells them about The Gathering of They, a secret society behind the myriad of generalizations, advice, and superstitions in society.
13. Switching Channels (Mike Ford) (August 1998) ISBN 0-380-80103-5: In an adaptation of the series premiere of Eerie, Indiana: The New Dimension, two boys named Mitchell and Stanley find their television tuned into another dimension, where two boys named Marshall and Simon are looking for a portal into another reality.
14. The Incredible Shrinking Stanley (Robert James) (September 1998) ISBN 0-380-80104-3: Stanley and Mitchell go to the Eerie Laundromat after Stanley's washer breaks, but when Stanley comes in contact with the laundromat's soaps and powders, he begins to shrink, and unless Mitchell can fix it, Stanley will continue to grow small until he vanishes.
15. Halloweird (Mike Ford) (October 1998) ISBN 0-380-80105-1: Mitchell's dad is planning a special Halloween show on radio station WERD, a spooky story about invaders from Mars. Then Mitchell and Stanley find some terrific costumes at a local shop, and offer to help the proprietor organize a Halloween parade in return for letting them use the costumes for Halloween. Little do they know that they're about to get caught up in the weirdest adventure of all. Because some of the people in Eerie aren't really people—and Dad's radio show might just turn out to be true.
16. Eerie in the Mirror (by Robert James) (November 1998) ISBN 0-380-80106-X: Stanley and Mitchell accidentally break a mirror, but, rather than seven years' bad luck, the mirror creates an inverted reality of Eerie, Indiana. Can Mitchell and Stanley set things right without coming in contact with their inverted selves?
17. We Wish You an Eerie Christmas (Robert James) (December 1998) ISBN 0-380-80107-8: When the Tellers find themselves on the verge of losing their home, Mitchell's Christmas cheer turns sour, and only the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Not-So-Far-Into-The-Future can help him.

DVD release

On October 12, 2004, Alpha Video released Eerie, Indiana: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1. The 5-disc box set features all nineteen episodes of the original series.

Legacy

Alex Hirsch cited the series as an influence on his own Gravity Falls series.