Blog-o-ween 2026: Playin' Chicken with Stephen King's Christine — Day 25

Free Day:

There Are Other Worlds

Than These

Whelp, Blog-o-weeners, here we are — our last “Free Day” of Blog-o-ween 2026. It’ll be a quick one today. As I write this on Saturday afternoon, I am trying to mentally and physically prepare myself for the American Cinematheque’s Horrorthon at the Aero Theater. Starting at 7 p.m., it’s gonna be 12 straight hours of horror movies, absurd A.I. generated filler, killer washing machines, candy (from Randy) thrown into the crowd, riffs (from the audience) shouted at the screen, and all of it hosted by such luminaries as Telly Savalas, Juan Bear-enguer, and, of course, Corn Gorn, the Living God.

Pray for me.

As I said, this is our last “Free Day.” We’ve rounded the last curve, Blog-o-weeners, and from now until this Saturday, we are on the straightaway to the finish line. Let’s hope we make it to the end in one piece.

For our previous free days, we’ve looked at the place that cars have in the world of teenagers, the influences on King while writing Christine, and the adaptations that others have made of the novel. Today, I thought we’d look at a few of the places where Christine has reappeared in King’s work. You can’t keep a good killer car down, after all.

Now, I am going to be honest with yinz — I am not a fan of so-called “Easter Eggs.” Whether it’s the painted variety hidden in the backyard for children to find or the dumb, winking-at-the-audience kind modern filmmakers love to pepper throughout their work, I got no use for any of it. The ecstasies that some viewers go through when they catch sight of these visual echoes just leaves me scratching my head. But… to each his or her or their own, I suppose.

Many of Stephen King’s own works — be they characters, places or things — act as “Easter Eggs” in his own writings. Most of these eggs are laid at the foot of The Dark Tower. The quest of Roland the Gunslinger to find the Dark Tower comprises 4,250 pages spread over eight novels and one novella. The adventures of his ka-tet (ka-tet being a High Speech term for a group of people drawn together by ka… ka being the will of Gan… Gan being — ahhh, fuhgeddaboudit… it’s weird High Fantasy shit, okay?!) take place mainly in Mid-World (which is a reflection of our world… sort of), but also in our world (which is also the world of Stephen King and his novels).

Again… it’s weird High Fantasy shit, so just go with it.

Characters move between books in The Dark Tower series, as does their author himself. (Keep repeating, “It’s only weird High Fantasy… It’s only weird High Fantasy…) Some of the books that breakthrough into the Dark Tower are It, The Stand, ‘Salem's Lot, Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis, Black House, The Eyes of the Dragon, The Shining, and Cell. For instance, Father Callahan, the disgraced clergyman who fails to stop Barlow the vampire in ‘Salem’s Lot, reappears in The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla.

It isn’t only The Dark Tower series that draws King’s creations to it. Sometimes, a character from one book will just pop up in another for no particular reason. Dick Hallorann, for example, was first introduced in King’s novel The Shining. Later, in It, he is mentioned as being one of the founders of The Black Spot bar in Derry. Why? Why not?

Christine, like Mr. Hallorann, motorvates from place to place, from book to book. Why? Well, I think you know the answer to that one, Blog-o-weeners.

One of the books that Christine makes an appearance in is It. The corpse of Belch Huggins drives a Plymouth Fury to pick up Henry Bowers so he can reach the hotel where the grown-up members of The Loser's Club are staying.

...and with Charles Grodin as "Jack Torrance."

It is also mentioned in The Shining that the car Dick Hallorann drives away from the Overlook is a Plymouth Fury, albeit a beige and not a red and white one.

Throughout the novel 11/22/63, time traveller Jake Epping sees the same car — a Plymouth Fury from the mid- to late-1950s — sitting in a lot when he goes back in time to 1958.

In 1978, Stephen King's novel The Stand was published. At 823 pages, it was his longest work to date. Originally, it was to be much longer, but publisher Doubleday told him that that the book's size would make it too expensive for the market to bear. So, he cut nearly 400 pages from his manuscript. In 1990, King was the “King of Horror.” The market, it was discovered would bear whatever he wanted to publish. So, a 1,152 page, unabridged edition of The Stand was published and called The Complete and Uncut Edition.

Take that, Doubleday!

Within that unabridged edition, we get a moment where Stu Redman and Tom Cullen, on their way back to Boulder, CO, from Las Vegas, NV, find a Plymouth Fury. Inside, they find the keys to the car attached to a keychain with the initials AC engraved on them.

My favorite “Easter Egg” (ugh), however, happens in the novel Christine itself, and it has nothing to do with the car.

We haven’t gotten to this moment yet, but soon Dennis will take a drive over to Jimmy Sykes’s house. Jimmy, if you remember, worked at Darnell’s Garage. With Darnell dead and the garage closed, Jimmy (always a little on the slow side, kinda like Tom Cullen in The Stand) is out of work. But, he has the hopes of future employment:

“I guess I’ll go for bein a janitor, or somethin like that. My Uncle Fred’s a janitor up to the college, and he says there’s an op’nin, because this other janitor, he disappeared, just took off or somethin…” (449)

That janitor may be the one who found a crate under the stairs of the science building at Horlicks College. He seemed to think it was filled with old issues of National Geographic, but I’m not sure if that’s true. I wonder what was in there…

All righty, Blog-o-weeners, it’s time to call it a day. I’m a little nervous now that we’ve established that it’s pretty easy to slide back and forth between books when you’re dealing with Stephen King. I’m going to make sure the map we’re using doesn’t all of a sudden send us up to Derry, Maine, or down to Duma Key, Florida. Contending with a killer car is enough for one trip, don’cha think?

While I’m plotting our route, why don’t you read Part 3: Chapter 47? It’s another short chapter with a lot happening in it. For one thing, Dennis and Leigh are eating fried chicken in a KFC parking lot. (And that is not a euphemism for anything!) Unfortunately, Arnie and Christine also get a hankering for the Colonel’s secret recipe.

I’ve said this before, but… oh, Dennis… oh, Leigh… you two lovebirds had one job: stay outta sight of Christine. Let this be a lesson to all of you Blog-o-weeners out there. If you are gonna engage in hanky-panky behind your friend’s back, don’t do anything that is finger-lickin’ good in a public place. Thankfully, we have Dennis and Leigh to show us why that’s a bad idea, and, as always…