Let's Play at the Griffins Meg's Nightmare

 

For reaching 4000 watchers, I decided to a homage of Meg Griffin in a book cover I remembered as a kid.  Meg is recreating the cover of Mendal W. Johnson's Let's Go Play At The Adams as Barbara.   Barbara is the babysitter who gets kidnapped by the kids she is watching.  Now she has been bound and gagged and awaits some terrible fate.  I improved on the ropework that was on the book.

Way back in the 80's, I saw this book in our local drug store and I was fascinated by the premise.  I only saw the book once and then I could not find it again.  The image on the book stayed in memory.  I knew that I saw it and read the first page about Barbara the babysitter playing the piano. Then used the image in one of his photo manipulations and had the original book cover and I so good that there was evidence that this book existed.

It was being reissued as part of The Paperbacks from Hell Series, a group of horror books from the 70's and 80's, and I bought a copy.  It had the original cover that I remembered.  The book is a bummer book, the ordinariness of the terror and horror is a little unnerving.  It is a banal evil, where all of the actions follow a logical pattern that kids are testing the limits of their power.  Barbara tries desperately to convince the kids to let her go before it descends into depravity and violence.  It is unsettling because there is no supernatural element to blunt the horror, if there ws a vampire, demon or evil spirit driving the action allows the reader to safely enjoy it.  The reader is literally one of the kids that bound and gagged the babysitter. 

I do recommend this though it is a rough read.  Here is a description of the book:

"They're just kids ... It's only a game."  That's what Barbara, a lovely twenty-year-old babysitter told herself when she awoke bound and gagged. But the knots were tight and painful and the children would not let her go.

"They're just kids ... It's only a game," she told herself again. But the terror was real ... and deadly!

In the decades since its original publication, Mendal W. Johnson's bestseller Let's Go Play at the Adams' (1974) has gained a reputation as one of the most harrowing horror novels ever written, and copies have long been unobtainable except at exorbitant prices. This edition reproduces the original paperback cover art and features a new introduction by Grady Hendrix (Paperbacks from Hell), in which details about this cult masterpiece's enigmatic author are revealed for the first time.
 

Megan, aka Megatron "Meg" Griffin is the oldest child of Lois and Peter Griffin, and the sister of Chris and Stewie Griffin. She is currently attending James Woods Regional High School. Meg explainsers: in "A Fistful of Meg" that her father changed her birth certificate to "Megatron" after her mother had already selected Megan. Despite this, she is still commonly called Megan such as by Mr. Berler in "Let's Go to the Hop".

Meg is a self-conscious and insecure adolscent girl. She is treated unfairly by various people and has numerous insecurities that prompt her to try to be part of the "in-crowd". However, this only results in her getting rebuffed by the many bullies of this circle, particularly Connie D'Amico, the head cheerleader of the local high school, James Woods Regional High School. However, a nerdy student named Neil Goldman is attracted to her.

Meg is usually the butt of Peter's jokes due to her unpopularity and "ugliness"; Peter resorts to outrageous stunts and names. Stewie and Brian tend to disdain her kindness, but they typically do it behind Meg's back. Lois constantly puts Meg down, while boosting her own egotistical image. Lois is usually of little to no help to Meg when she is abused by others; though she is not as abusive towards Meg as Peter is.

While Meg is usually a pushover, she can get angry when pushed too far, though such occasions are usually rare. This can be seen in the episode "Seahorse Seashell Party", where she strongly insults and defames Peter, Lois, and even Chris for their inconsiderate actions toward her. This causes Peter, Lois, and Chris to distance themselves in shame and sends Peter into depression; though she later apologizes upon realizing that the family needs a "lightning rod" to absorb the dysfunction. In the episode "Road to Rupert," Meg assaults a man for insulting her after a fender-bender.

Many of the show's storylines about Meg involve her trying to improve her life, find a boyfriend, being a Russian sleeper agent, and reaching breaking points with her family and others who victimize her.

Out of all the members of the family, her father Peter abuses her the most, however he is shown to actually care about Meg in various episodes, such as in "Meg and Quagmire" when he goes out of his way to prevent Glenn Quagmire from having sex with her, and in "This Little Piggy" where he tries to get Meg out of a foot fetishism business objectifying her for men's sexual amusement. Peter cares about Meg but is not open about it to anyone. In "Screwed the Pooch", while attempting to persuade the court that Brian should have access to his puppies, Peter observes that if he were half the father that Brian was, he would know certain facts about his children, including the fact that "Meg's real father is..." Brian answers, "Stan Thompson." Meg herself does not hear this revelation due to her listening to music on headphones at the time.