How have I not posted about Eerie, Indiana before?
I am huge fan of this show. I’ve watched the entire series, the sequel series, and am currently reading through the fiction line.
If you’re not familiar, here’s the idea: Eerie, Indiana is the center of weirdness for the entire planet. Nobody in Eerie sees this except for Marshall Teller, recent transplant to Eerie, and Simon Holmes, born and raised, who spend their time exposing bizarre happenings and building a collection of all the weird things going on in Eerie. A group of kids sees a bunch of strange things that everyone else appears oblivious to. Sound familiar?
The fiction line delves deeper into explaining why Eerie is the way it is and spotlights some of the throwaway gags from the television show, turning them into recurring jokes, and all this rounds out the universe to make for a less random, less zany whole but enough ideas can be drawn from the core series that nothing is required beyond that.
The show focuses more on oddity than horror but you can easily adapt Eerie, Indiana‘s premise to your Little Fears game. The characters are kids set to expose Closetland, to build an argument that will convince adults of what’s happening, which leads them to seek out danger, look closer than others when a kid goes missing or even when a bike is stolen under mysterious circumstances. You already have leeway to adjust the tone of the game but hanging all this under an Eerie-style umbrella, a kidnapping mystery one episode and perhaps a mischievous fairy making trouble another, gives illusion to everything fitting into a single, cohesive universe.
The sequel/spin-off/reboot series, Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension, covers a lot of the same ground as the original, taking place in an alternate Eerie featuring similarly-named protagonists who are clued into the place’s weirdness via satellite signal sent by Marshall and Simon from their reality’s version of Eerie. A long way to hand off a premise but it works as much as it needs to.
For those interested, both the original and its reboot/spin-off/sequel over at Hulu.com or watch (only) the original via Netflix mail or streaming.
No matter how you watch it, Eerie, Indiana is solid fun and can easily inspire some lighter-hearted Little Fears fare.
(Thanks to Chrissy for the reminder about this show—a massive oversight on my part. If anyone else has a television series or movie they recommend, send me an email at jason(at) this domain or via the contact form found here.)
I was just watching this show again not so long ago, it was an awesome little lead up to the X-Files; silly by comparison now, but at the time I could still well remember what it as like to be that age and made it part of my “must see” weekly schedule. (and, surprise surprise, I’ve always had a thing for kids’ horror (esque) films/shows)