Fuzzbucket is a hairy creature that lives in the swamps of Dead Man’s Marsh — does he know Dr. Syn? — with many other fuzzbuckets and yet here he is, in the life of a junior high kid, creating all manner of hijinks. And yet I demand that you gaze upon him — he’s invisible at times, so you’ll have to wait for a bit — because Fuzzbucket looks like some kind of naked humanoid rat, the kind of creature that one imagines lives beyond the Wall of Sleep, some Lovecraftian menace sent here to take root inside our minds and then destroy them from the inside out instead of a loveable Disney Channel creature.

You know who is to blame? Mick Garris.

Yes, the man who directed Critters 2, Psycho IV and Sleepwalkers got his first directing credit with this Disney film.

I guess that also explains how John Vernon ended playing the principal. And Teen Witch Robyn Lively being in this. And Phil Fondacaro — the voice of Creeper in The Black Cauldron, as well as Sir Nigel Pennyweight from Ghoulies II and Greaser Greg in The Garbage Pail Kids Movie — playing the monster.

All I know is that if Fuzzbucket suddenly appeared in my movie room, after years of speaking to me only as a ghost, I’d react as if there was no God.