R.L. Stine’s 'The Nightmare Room' Featured All Your Favorite Early ’00s Stars
While R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series ruled the ’90s, his lesser-known series, The Nightmare Room, kicked off the new millennium. Based on his book series of the same name, 13 episodes aired on Kids’ WB, and terrified us children who had finally stopped having nightmares from Goosebumps.
Dolls that come to life, glasses that make the wearer see aliens, and a gaggle of ghosts that just want to be friends forever set the tone for this spooky series. Though the show was short-lived, it hosted plenty of famous guest stars, many from Disney and Nickelodeon shows. To celebrate its 15th anniversary today (August 31), check out which of your faves helped scare the bejesus out of you back in the day.
The Nickelodeon star appeared on the pilot episode, playing a girl trying to save her younger brother from being taken by ghosts.
The Drake & Josh actor discovered a diary that predicted the future, including people’s deaths.
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody’s London Tipton played Drake Bell’s friend and classmate who was almost killed by the evil diary.
Twitty from Even Stevens costarred with Drake Bell and Brenda Song, falling off bleachers and breaking his ankle thanks to that cursed diary.
Even Stevens’s Louis Stevens cleaned out his toys and wanted to give away his childhood doll, Buddy. Except Buddy came to life and started harming his friends so he’d have LaBeouf all to himself.
Cole and Dylan Sprouse
Sharing a dual role as Buddy the doll, the Sprouse twins eventually turned LaBeouf into a doll in one seriously twisted episode.
Tania Raymonde
Cynthia Sanders from Malcolm in the Middle played LaBeouf’s pal, Beth, who was injured by Buddy for getting between him and his “best friend.”
Betsy Randle
Cory and Eric Matthews’s mom on Boy Meets World played LaBeouf’s mom, and she didn’t believe him when she said his doll was coming to life. (Can you really blame her, though?)
Smallville’s Chloe Sullivan was on both the penultimate and series finale episodes, playing a camper who discovered a ghost camp.
The Miracle in Lane 2 and Malcolm in the Middle actor starred in the series finale as a basketball fan who didn’t know who Michael Jordan was. Of course, he was from a different time period, so we’ll cut him some slack.
Before she was Penny on The Big Bang Theory, the Alley Cats Strike star played a mean girl who tried to turn the school against her good-natured classmate.
Michael Galeota
The Jersey lead guest starred on two episodes as the same character, dealing with a ghost teacher and a werewolf.
Jeffrey Licon
The eldest sibling on The Brothers Garcia also guest starred on the same episodes as Michael Galeota, getting attacked by one seriously pissed off ghost teacher.
Lane Kim from Gilmore Girls was terrorized by the same evil creatures as Michael Galeota and Jeffrey Licon.
Lindsay Felton
The Caitlin’s Way star was part of Life Games, a Survivor-like game show, and had to battle an evil witch.
The Don’t Look Under the Bed and Even Stevens actor played a fellow Life Games contestant who helped Lindsay Felton stop the witch.
Tippi Hedren
Melanie Daniels from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds was the evil witch who kidnapped Lindsay Felton, Ty Hodges, and other kids, demanding they release her from her curse.
After telling one too many tall tales, Reese from Malcolm in the Middle discovered his crazy fibs were starting to come true. Whoops.
Josh Zuckerman
Shortly before starring in the DCOM ’Twas the Night, Zuckerman played a kid whose new glasses let him see who’s an alien and who’s human. The episode was a riff on the ’80s cult film They Live.
Brandon Gilberstadt
The 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd actor started suffering bad luck after being assigned locker #13 and came face to face with The Fatemaster. Dun, dun, dun.
Ken Foree
Kenan and Kyra Rockmore’s dad on Kenan & Kel was Gilberstadt’s wrestling coach on the episode “Locker #13.”
Cara DeLizia
Fiona from Disney’s eerie show So Weird found a device that communicated with ghosts — except the ghosts didn’t really want to talk, but rather wanted to possess her and her friends’ bodies.
Jermaine Williams
The Jersey actor helped Cara DeLizia wrangle some ghosts, though he definitely wasn’t too keen on the whole idea.
Robert Englund
Yup, Freddy Krueger himself stopped by The Nightmare Room as Cara DeLizia and Jermaine Williams’s science teacher, Mr. Bell.
