Overdue

Ep 725 - The Haunted Baby (Choose Your Own Nightmare #13), by Edward Packard

October 20, 2025

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  • The hosts of *Overdue*, in the episode "Ep 725 - The Haunted Baby (Choose Your Own Nightmare #13), by Edward Packard," are dedicating this Spooktober installment to a *Choose Your Own Nightmare* book, a mid-90s spin-off series by the original *Choose Your Own Adventure* creator, Edward Packard. 
  • The *Choose Your Own Nightmare* series, which ran from 1995 to 1997 with 18 books, launched shortly after R.L. Stine's *Give Yourself Goosebumps* series, suggesting a competitive response in the children's spooky interactive fiction market. 
  • The reading of *The Haunted Baby* immediately revealed structural innovations in the book, including a path that allows the reader to preemptively choose an ending, and a path that loops back to an earlier choice, leading to a recursive nightmare scenario. 
  • The hosts discovered a narrative loop within *The Haunted Baby*, which they managed to escape after exploring several paths, noting that the book seems designed to be more economical and less prone to dead ends than typical *Choose Your Own Adventure* titles. 
  • While the baby is presented as potentially evil, the hosts speculate that the mall taxidermist, Mr. Harper, and the recurring motif of the white cat might be the true source of the supernatural elements in the story. 

Segments

Audible and Mint Mobile Sponsorships
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(00:00:02)
  • Key Takeaway: The Overdue episode is sponsored by Audible, promoting their original performance of Pride and Prejudice, and Mint Mobile, advertising their $15/month wireless plan.
  • Summary: The Audible Original Pride and Prejudice stars Marisa Abela and Harris Dickinson and features an original score. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless service for $15 a month on the nation’s largest 5G network, requiring upfront payment for new customers.
Introduction to Spooktober Book
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(00:03:46)
  • Key Takeaway: The hosts officially begin their Spooktober theme, which centers on scary babies, by reading The Haunted Baby, Choose Your Own Nightmare #13 by Edward Packard.
  • Summary: This episode breaks the usual Overdue format of reading one book, as both hosts read this interactive title. The Spooktober theme was established after a previous episode on Ray Bradbury’s Dark Carnival.
Choose Your Own Adventure Series Context
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(00:06:51)
  • Key Takeaway: The Choose Your Own Adventure main series comprised 184 books ending in 1998, while the Choose Your Own Nightmare spin-off series was shorter, running for 18 books between 1995 and 1997.
  • Summary: The Choose Your Own Nightmare series is noted as a mid-90s response to the popularity of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps. The first Choose Your Own Nightmare book launched in April 1995, three months before the first Give Yourself Goosebumps book in July 1995.
Acquisition Story and Book Details
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(00:10:47)
  • Key Takeaway: The physical copy of The Haunted Baby was expensive (around $25-$30) and its acquisition involved a delivery mix-up with a neighbor, leading to a brief, awkward interaction.
  • Summary: The book is short, containing only 85 pages and promising more than 15 terrifying endings. The cover art depicts a raven delivering a baby stamped with ‘BAD’ and a skull and crossbones bow.
Reading the Back Cover Blurb
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(00:25:25)
  • Key Takeaway: The premise involves babysitting a two-year-old named Katie Harper for $7.50 an hour, where Katie is angelic when parents are present but frightening when alone.
  • Summary: The hourly rate of $7.50 is noted as being slightly above the current 2025 minimum wage in Pennsylvania ($7.25). The back cover explicitly states the reader controls their fate through choices leading to over 15 endings.
Initial Choices and Taxidermist Encounter
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(00:29:26)
  • Key Takeaway: The first choice leads the protagonist to visit the parents’ home after learning the father is a taxidermist who jokes about stuffing humans, prompting an immediate desire to avoid the house alone.
  • Summary: The protagonist chooses to visit the Harper house alone (Page 17) rather than calling a friend named Lisa (Page 9). The taxidermist’s shop contained a stuffed kitten, reinforcing the unsettling atmosphere.
First Encounter with Katie and Computer
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(00:33:47)
  • Key Takeaway: Upon meeting Katie, the protagonist skips the instructions and follows her to a room where she uses a computer program that shrinks a cartoon person, causing the protagonist to feel drained.
  • Summary: Katie, described as a toddler, exhibits unusual strength and uses a computer program that says, ‘Blink and shrink,’ which drains the protagonist’s energy. The protagonist chooses to skip Mrs. Harper’s instructions (Page 7) to follow Katie’s lead.
Dollhouse Trap Scenario
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(00:39:37)
  • Key Takeaway: Following Katie’s insistence, the protagonist enters the dollhouse replica, only to find that looking out the windows reveals they are physically trapped inside the miniature environment.
  • Summary: The protagonist chooses to explore the dollhouse (Page 12) instead of playing outside or taking a stroller ride. Katie confirms they are ‘in my room in the dollhouse,’ and looking out the windows confirms the environment has changed to match the dollhouse interior.
Inception Loop and Truck Death
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(00:43:53)
  • Key Takeaway: The path within the dollhouse leads to an ‘Inception Dollhouse’ scenario where the protagonist is forced to choose between staying with Katie in the smaller dollhouse or running out, leading to a fatal truck accident.
  • Summary: The protagonist chooses to stay with Katie in the smaller dollhouse (Page 24), which results in Mrs. Harper returning, paying the protagonist, and then shrinking the protagonist to place them back in the dollhouse permanently (Page 60 ending). Another path resulted in being ‘smushed’ by a truck (Page 38 ending).
Caterpillar Tunnel and Loopback
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(00:51:10)
  • Key Takeaway: Choosing to play in the yard leads the protagonist into a caterpillar-shaped tunnel that transports them back to their own backyard, prompting a choice to return to the Harper’s house or attempt to wake up.
  • Summary: The protagonist chose to play in the yard (Page 34) and crawled through the tunnel, which unexpectedly opened up at home. Choosing to return to the Harper’s house (Page 31) reveals the house is abandoned and for sale, leading to a loop back to Page 17.
Formality and Book Structure
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(00:57:55)
  • Key Takeaway: The Choose Your Own Nightmare series, unlike the original Choose Your Own Adventure books, features complex structural elements like narrative loops and inline choices.
  • Summary: The hosts noted that The Haunted Baby contained a loop, a feature they hadn’t seen mapped in other Choose Your Own Adventure volumes. They observed that the book uses formatting tricks, such as inline choices, instead of simple dead ends. This structure made the book feel tighter and more economical than many others they have read.
Navigating the Lisa Choice
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(00:59:19)
  • Key Takeaway: The choice to involve the friend Lisa immediately leads to a negotiation over payment, where Lisa demands a higher split, leading to a potential loop on page 17.
  • Summary: The narrator rereads page three to re-ground the story before calling Lisa on page nine to split the babysitting money. Lisa demands $4.00 an hour, which is more than half of the narrator’s $7.50 rate, threatening to end the deal and send the reader to the loop page 17 if refused.
First Babysitting Encounter
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(01:02:06)
  • Key Takeaway: Upon meeting the child Katie and Mrs. Harper, the babysitters are presented with a seemingly sweet child who quickly exhibits disturbing behavior, including biting and playing with glass eyes.
  • Summary: Lisa and the narrator meet Mrs. Harper and the sweet-looking child, Katie, before Mrs. Harper leaves. Lisa is immediately charmed by Katie, but the situation escalates when Katie bites Lisa, causing her to drop the baby. Katie then plays with a bucket of glass eyes, which the narrator cleans up, angering the child.
Mouse Incident and Bonus Pay
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(01:05:13)
  • Key Takeaway: The bizarre sequence of events, including a mouse appearing and disappearing, concludes with Mrs. Harper rewarding the babysitters with a dollar bonus despite the chaos.
  • Summary: Katie pounces on a mouse that scoots under the sofa, an event witnessed by both babysitters. When Mrs. Harper returns, she praises them as good babysitters and gives each a dollar bonus, leading the path to page 8 to discuss returning the next day.
Second Day and TV Horror
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(01:06:30)
  • Key Takeaway: Returning for the second day, the babysitters encounter supernatural phenomena involving running water upstairs and a television that cannot be turned off, displaying graphic horror content.
  • Summary: The hosts decide to return for the money, leading to page 37 where they find a large wet spot on the ceiling from running water upstairs that stops on its own. When they return downstairs, the TV is playing graphic horror movies—monsters strangling people and waves of slime drowning victims—and cannot be turned off because the plug is already pulled.
The Haunted Babysitters Ending
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(01:08:28)
  • Key Takeaway: The path involving the uncontrollable television results in the final ending where both babysitters succumb to the influence and begin laughing at the horror, becoming ‘haunted babysitters.’
  • Summary: The narrator fails to unplug the TV, and Lisa joins Katie in laughing at the screen, leading to page 58. The ending confirms that both the narrator and Lisa become ‘haunted babysitters,’ unable to stop enjoying the horrific imagery on the screen.
Post-Read Analysis and Lore
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(01:09:17)
  • Key Takeaway: The hosts conclude that The Haunted Baby is structurally interesting and question whether the baby or Mr. Harper is the primary source of the haunting, noting unresolved lore threads like the white cat.
  • Summary: The hosts express surprise at how much the book explored the form of the narrative, citing the loop, inline choice, and the choice to end the book as unique features. They debate whether the baby is the source of the evil or merely a victim, pointing out that Mr. Harper remains a creepy, unresolved character.