The Wild Battle Over The Real Ghostbusters

[geektalk]

The Wild Battle Over The Real Ghostbusters: How A Studio Almost Killed A Hit

The Real Ghostbusters is a 140 episode American animated television series, a spin-off/sequel of the 1984 comedy movie Ghostbusters that aired from 1986 to 1991.

As a Saturday morning cartoon and a daily series, behind the scenes of the Real Ghostbusters there was a lot more going on.

From a disagreement over the name of the show with The Ghost Busters to ABC bringing in a consulting agency to make over some of the characters, The Real Ghostbusters story is so much more.

 

Toy Galaxy

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after riding the wave of popularity

following two feature films it turns out

you can’t have too much of a good thing

the question is once you’ve realized it

do you double down on what started the

wave in the first place or do you hand

off to a new generation a new

perspective cross your fingers and hope

for the best hi i’m dan larsen and this

is the history of the real ghostbusters

[Music]

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we have previously covered elements of

the real ghostbusters in a video that

focused almost exclusively on the kenner

toy line while it allowed us to touch on

general aspects of the brand it left out

a whole lot of basic stuff we’re

revisiting it here to tell a more

complete story that will unfortunately

barely touch on things like the

ghostbusters movies and the spin-off

series the extreme ghostbusters they

will get their own videos eventually but

not today the real ghostbusters is a 140

episode animated series that ran seven

seasons from 1986 to 1991 kind of a

sequel to sort of a spin-off of the 1984

movie ghostbusters borrowing a lot but

still doing its own thing the series

follows new york’s foremost supernatural

eliminators egon spengler ray stance

peter venkman and winston zedmore in a

world where ghosts and ghouls are a very

real potentially dangerous part of

everyday life the ghostbusters are

simultaneously regular workaday schlubs

like you and me and superheroes with

experimental technology defending the

city the world and this dimension from

the most dangerous threats we could

possibly imagine but take heart nothing

is so terrible that the ghostbusters

can’t resolve it within roughly 22

minutes and there won’t be anything so

earth-shattering that it would impact

the greater ghostbusters franchise long

term because as much as the real

ghostbusters drove the brand on a daily

basis it was never steering the ship the

franchise was of course the movies the

feature filmed ghostbusters released in

1984 was produced by ivan reitman and

written by dan aykroyd and harold ramus

it was produced and distributed by

columbia pictures it starred bill murray

dan aykroyd harold ramus and ernie

hudson as the ghostbusters it earned

nearly 300 million dollars in its

initial run in theaters and more

importantly became a pop culture

sensation the success of the film fast

tracked the production of an animated

series or rather series not just one

series is what i’m trying to say series

is more than one series from more than

one production company because before

there was ghostbusters there was the

ghostbusters a completely unrelated 1975

live-action television sitcom produced

by filmation that ran for a single

season of 15 episodes about a team of

paranormal investigators one of whom

was a gorilla years later during the

production of the 1984 movie

ghostbusters columbia pictures licensed

the name from universal studios the then

owner of filmation’s 1975 the

ghostbusters the agreement did not

guarantee universal or filmation the

rights to create a cartoon based on the

1984 film ghostbusters at any point

regardless of performance that job

ultimately went to deke entertainment

within a year of the release of 1984’s

ghostbusters deke was already racing to

get a series in production and sold to a

network with almost no lead time deke

produced a segment just short of four

minutes long that showcased what a

ghostbusters cartoon would look like the

short was storyboarded on the fly by

eddie fitzgerald and director kevin

altiri working with character designs

that were still evolving producers joe

magic and michael c gross both served as

associate producers on the 1984 film and

made sure that there was a tonal

consistency in the cartoon while the

creators wanted to retain the spirit of

ghostbusters the movie the intent was

not to reproduce the characters

literally deke was intentionally trying

to avoid any issues with likeness rights

that said even in the finished pilot

venkman still looks more like bill

murray than he does in the actual series

deke needed the freedom to develop these

characters independent of the movie

versions keep the voices without using

the actual voices for example ernie

hudson himself auditioned for the role

of winston whom he played in the movie

but lost the part to arsenio hall

venkman was played by lorenzo music who

was also the voice of garfield at the

time egon was played by maurice lamarche

janine was played by laura summer and

frank megatron welker played race dance

slimer the stay puft marshmallow man

mayor lenny cloth and a bunch of other

characters filmation was denied the

opportunity to work on the ghostbusters

cartoon but that didn’t prevent them

from making their own cartoon based on

their 1975 tv show the ghostbusters

which they did they started their race

to broadcast at the same time as deke

the simultaneous development of two

competing ghostbuster themed cartoons

meant that deke had to make it very

clear right up front in the title that

the show they were producing was the one

based on the movie the real ghostbusters

cartoon so they called it the real

ghostbusters filmation’s ghostbusters

managed to air their first episode a few

days before the first episode of deke’s

the real ghostbusters ultimately the

attempt to piggyback off the popularity

of the hit film created far more

confusion for filmation than for deke

despite being older there was little to

no public awareness of their 1975 tv

show with a gorilla filmation’s

ghostbusters was a well executed and

perfectly entertaining show in its own

right with peter optimus prime cullen

playing a feature role but it seemed

like a knockoff attempting to steal a

few minutes of fame due to the naming

similarity the show and thereby the toy

sales related to it struggled filmation

producer lou shimer would later admit

that it was probably a bad business move

from the start abc ordered an initial

batch of 13 weekly episodes of the real

ghostbusters from deke for the first

season but didn’t stop there they also

wanted 65 daily episodes for use in

syndication to be broadcast on network

affiliates at the same time and you know

i won’t go so far as to say that j

michael strzinski is a friend of the

show but i did meet him at a convention

in connecticut once and he said he knew

about our show i was very nervous to

talk to him because he’s kind of a big

deal so i nervously said hi it’s very

nice to meet you then just kind of

walked away whatever that is that’s our

relationship with him and not many

people know this but j michael

strozinski was one of the main writers

and story editors for the real

ghostbusters the additional 65

syndicated episodes presented strzinsky

and the other writers at deke with a lot

more work to do than they originally

thought they had and different

circumstances under which they were

going to produce all those episodes the

13 season 1 episodes that would be

airing weekly on abc were going to be

held to a higher standard for children’s

television content they had to adhere to

strict broadcast standards and practices

tone down the violence the demonic

imagery everybody put a seat belt on

please the 65 syndicated season 2

episodes were almost uncompromised

practically aired as originally

conceived and written demons vampires

werewolves an episode inspired by

cthulhu and samhain itself that’s how

it’s pronounced in the show save your

samhain and sowhen takes for your

halloween parties season one aired on

saturdays from september to december of

1986 a year later in september of 1987

thanks to these 65 syndicated episodes

and in order for 13 more weekly episodes

for season three kids got real

ghostbusters cartoons six days a week

monday through saturday ghostbusters was

hot

[Music]

joey would you please get the real

ghostbusters from the cupboard

[Music]

real ghostbusters ghostly pasta in a

delicious tomato sauce

this ghost is history

you ghostbusters love real ghostbusters

new from heinz

if you said that today in 2021 your

network was number three in the ratings

that would actually be okay there’s a

ton of networks and entertainment

choices beyond television but in 1987

with only three networks to choose from

in many markets third place was last

place and somebody’s gonna get fired abc

reached out to a consulting firm called

the q5 corporation q5 was a collection

of psychology phd’s marketing

advertising and research professionals

according to that same article in the la

times from 1987 their objective was to

quote determine product payoff the level

of product payoff is the degree to which

a product and its attributes match the

needs and wants of the consumer

essentially they compiled statistical

data from scientific studies that they

stored in computers and then developed a

recommendation respective to the

specific product and the intended

customer they had worked with companies

like hallmark marvel productions 20th

century fox mattel and fisher price if

you had a problem they claimed they

could solve it

abc was looking to q5 for insight into

how they could improve their saturday

morning performance overall against nbc

and cbs some of that guidance landed on

the real ghostbusters season three was

when things started to change some of

the character designs were modified

subtly some drastically rey was a bit

slimmer slimer got a tail aesthetic

things that didn’t really affect who

they were janine on the other hand

janine got a full makeover out with a

spiky hair and in with a softer-spoken

more reserved character overall the

result was a janine melnettes with

softer features smoother hair big round

glasses and no jewelry knee-length

skirts instead of minis as drazinski put

it in 1987 q5 wanted us to knock off all

the corners janine was a strong vibrant

character they wanted her to be more

feminine more maternal more nurturing

like every other female on television

the writers weren’t on board feeling

that q5 was trying to engineer

creativity instead of employing

imagination and challenging the audience

that q5 wasn’t trying to match the

tastes of the youthful audience but that

their methods were practically letting

kids create the show q5 recommended

eliminating rey altogether as in their

opinion he served no purpose

jeannie tryus vice president of

children’s programming abc countered

reassuring everyone that q5 was just

another objective voice in the room and

that a lot of what q5 recommends is just

reinforcing what they already knew about

their products and customers and besides

they aren’t necessarily going to act on

it anyway rey isn’t going anywhere

legend has it that bill murray didn’t

like venkman sounding like garfield and

that he pressured producers to recast

whether it was murray or q5 abc did

recast both janine and venkman replacing

lorenzo music and laura summer with dave

coulier and kath soucy furthermore they

re-recorded the dialogue for both

characters from the previous season for

consistency the reality is that the

changes q5 recommended were only

intended for the weekly abc episodes and

did not affect the episodes that were

shown in syndication which was the bulk

of the series trezinski would get the

last laugh in an episode during season

six called janine you’ve changed that

episode directly addresses her change in

appearance and personality by the

characters in the story janine was both

under influence of a demon and had

attempted to start a relationship with

egon by becoming what she thought he

would be interested in

that is

change would be a constant with the real

ghostbusters the longer any series goes

the more they will have to adapt to

quickly shifting tastes of the audience

and developments behind the scenes some

characters will inevitably be more

popular than others season four saw

arsenio hall leave the show to be

replaced by buster jones it also brought

a change of episode format and series

name in 1988 the real ghostbusters was

changed to slimer and the real

ghostbusters episodes went from a half

hour to a full hour that hour was one of

eight new regular episodes teamed up

with a series of either two or three

shorts focusing on breakout character

slimer a total of 33 slimer shorts

broken into 13 episodes introduced a

host of new characters tangential to

slimer’s adventures independent of the

ghostbusters themselves and the new york

firehouse in 1989 columbia pictures

released ghostbusters 2 the real

ghostbusters had done a fantastic job

keeping the franchise alive long enough

for a sequel to hit theaters but that

didn’t necessarily help the performance

of the film itself it took in just over

215 million dollars which resulted in

colombia dismissing it as a financial

and critical failure i can say now from

the future that it was the definitive

end of the movie franchise for the next

three decades but the real ghostbusters

wasn’t done yet and also didn’t need the

movie franchise to keep its audience

coming back 21 season 5 episodes take

place after the events of the second

film airing from september to december

of 1989 a sixth season would add 16 more

episodes in 1990 and a seventh season

would finally finish out the original

series with four more episodes in 1991.

ghostbusters was a pop culture

phenomenon and incredibly popular with

kids we absolutely can’t cover

everything that was produced heck we

can’t even cover all of the toys that

were produced kenner released a line of

action figures vehicles playsets and

role-play toys beginning in 1986 the

designs and packaging were aesthetically

tied to the animated series but

obviously could also work as toys for

the films themselves all of the

ghostbusters were represented as were

characters like janine melnitz luis

tully slimer the stay puft marshmallow

man and all the ghost zombies monsters

mutants and specters you could need the

firehouse came with a containment unit a

working fire pole parking for the ecto-1

sold separately and vents at the top

that facilitated slime interactivity

green ooze dripping down through the

entire facility canter’s ghostbusters

toys were an immediate hit beginning

with the holiday season in 1986. each

character featured in their cartoon

colors jumpsuits with a proton pack and

neutrona wand with a stream of energy

emanating from the tip each figure

packed with a ghost accessory so they

have something to catch subsequent waves

would introduce fright features with

engineering that elicited exaggerated

expressions of fear from each of the

characters when you squeeze their legs

together screaming heroes that screamed

when you wound them up and attached

their ghost accessory super fright

features that doubled down on the

expressions of terror from the previous

fright features characters power pack

heroes slimed heroes and even

glow-in-the-dark ecto-glow an astounding

10 waves were officially released but

kenner had plans for even more by 1991

not only had the series come to an end

with no more movie sequels in sight but

kenner was also purchased by hasbro

shifting priorities and consolidating

budgets the real ghostbusters hit comic

shelves in 1988 through now comics and

marvel uk now released 32 issues a 3d

special and two annuals in 1989 when the

second film hit they released a

three-issue mini-series called real

ghostbusters starring in ghostbusters 2.

marvel uk put out nearly 200 issues

along with four annuals and 10 special

issues it was published weekly and even

rolled in some of the previously

published stories slimer got his own

series with both publishers as well most

of these books have been collected into

trade paperbacks for easy reading you

could play as the real ghostbusters in

the arcades thanks to 1987’s the real

ghostbusters a shoot em up style game

released by data east in the us it’s

actually a re-skinned japanese game

called may q hunter g but that shouldn’t

diminish your enjoyment of it at all it

still sings the ray parker jr version of

the theme song the real ghostbusters was

also adapted for home systems like the

amiga the amstrad cpc commodore 64 and

zx spectrum but you’d have to wait until

1993 for another home system game based

on the cartoon that’s when chemco

released the real ghostbusters for the

nintendo game boy yes it’s another

reskinned game that depending on the

international market you’re in might

feature peter venkman mickey mouse or

garfield but again that shouldn’t

diminish your enjoyment of the game

especially since the ghostbusters

version has 10 more stages than the

others that said it was not without

controversy according to game developer

traveling bits the real ghostbusters

game design and mechanics along with the

alternate versions featuring mickey

mouse and garfield are stolen from their

1991 game

pp hammer and his pneumatic weapon

and it is entirely unauthorized don’t

ask it’s on the list ghostbusters and

the real ghostbusters were the

inspiration for licensed merchandise

across the spectrum of consumable goods

from sleeping bags to watches to

walkie-talkies to bubble bath to color

forms backpacks handheld games from

remco a board game from milton bradley

and literal consumable goods like slimer

and the real ghostbusters cereal

episodes of the real ghostbusters were

released in 2004 and 2006 there were

even a few episodes included on the dvd

for ghostbusters 2 in 2008 time life

released a comprehensive set in 2016

sony began re-releasing the series in

batches of 10 to 12 episodes however

nearly 30 episodes and the slimer shorts

were left out in 2017 those same

episodes were released again in a still

incomplete collection as of this video

56 episodes are available to stream for

free on crackle.com or you can purchase

it digitally from google play or amazon

prime some episodes are available at the

ghostbusters youtube channel and others

can be purchased six years after the

last episode of the real ghostbusters a

new series attempted to carry on the

bustin legacy 40 episodes of extreme

ghostbusters pick up years after the

team has gone their separate ways

leaving only egon and slimer to care for

the firehouse the containment unit and

the last of the petty cash egon is back

teaching at the university where he

recruits a new team of teenagers with

attitude to fight back against the

recent influx of spectral activity as

the ghostbusters taught us from the

beginning nothing stays dead forever not

so long as there is value in the license

and especially if there’s a movie to

create spectacle the real ghostbusters

is not immune to that the children of

the 80s are adults now many with kids or

grandkids or cats of their own the

nostalgia for the media and toys we grew

up with and the desire to share it with

the next generation has ushered in the

return of so many brands that had

languished and it has been very good for

a variety of businesses not that there’s

anything wrong with that in 2015 idw

comics published a four issue

mini-series featuring the ghostbusters

characters that had been in their

ongoing comics since 2011 crossing over

with characters inspired by the real

ghostbusters the mini series called

ghostbusters get real saw a collision of

two universes worth of ghostbusters

teaming up to fight against a villain

called proteus in 2018 diamond select

released a set of real ghostbusters

figures built on the previously existing

bodies and accessories of their

movie-inspired series of ghostbusters

figures each individual figure had a

cartoon-inspired head and paint deco and

came packed with a piece of a firehouse

diorama in 2019 they released a san

diego comic-con exclusive box set that

featured those same characters repainted

and molded with translucent green

plastic as the spectral ghostbusters an

homage to the episode citizen ghost

which explains how slimer came to live

with the ghostbusters after the events

of the 1984 film as well as the

reasoning for the new ghostbusters

uniforms hasbro purchased kenner in 1991

and has since owned the real

ghostbusters as part of the marketing

push for ghostbusters afterlife the

second sequel to the 1984 film currently

scheduled for release in november of

2021 hasbro released kenner classic the

real ghostbusters toys that were modeled

almost exactly after the original

vintage figures and packaging surely

there is more planned for the future

afterlife box office notwithstanding

ghostbusters exploded into pop culture

in 1984 inevitably inspiring a cartoon

related action figures as was the way of

the 80s reaching an audience larger than

anyone could have predicted even

surviving the meddling of analysts and

consultants it was one of the longest

running most popular cartoons of all

time even after the movie franchise

itself had burned out it’s likely that

many fans of the show especially in

later seasons didn’t even know or care

about the movies their ghostbusters were

the ones they spent six days a week with

the ones whose adventures they followed

in the comics and created for themselves

with the toys to them it wasn’t just a

cartoon about the ghostbusters it was a

cartoon about the real ghostbusters

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down below if you are troubled by

strange noises in the middle of the

night

do you have feelings of dread in your

basement or attic have you or any of

your family ever seen a spook spectre or

ghost do you believe in ufos astral

projections mental telepathy esp

clairvoyance spirit photography

telekinetic movement full transmediums i

didn’t read this at a time the loch ness

monster in the theory of atlantis my

uncle thought he was st jerome

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