Retro Ranting – The Real Ghostbusters
Last month I was strolling through the Bristol Small Press Expo to support some friends, track down some rare Clive Barker and relish the comparative leisure of not being an exhibitor, as I had the year before. For those of you who’ve never attended such an event, it’s essentially a market wherein row upon row of doe-eyed, eager, aspiring comic book artists make every effort to connect to any of the swarming foot traffic that goes by their stall and make a sale. I’ll make a point of clarifying that I don’t consider myself above them by pathetically including a link to my own comic in this sentence.
I still haven’t ruled it out as a fallback career
Amongst those touting their Xeroxed wares are occasional comic shop representatives selling proper, for-real titles. While leafing through one such vendor’s offerings I overheard a somewhat painful exchange between the merchant and a pretty young female customer he was trying to impress who – having not registered any discernible interest – briefly skimmed one comic titled GhostBusters.
“There’s an interesting story behind that…” the man lied, then proceeding to inflict it on the young lady who he seemed certain would receive the information he imparted with awe and lust; in reality, she’d have been probably more enthused if he had been rattling off a list of his accrued venereal diseases.
See, you gotta know your audience; If it had been me he was trying to hit on he might’ve gotten somewhere, for his story explained a question I’d half-known the answer to but had never felt compelled to follow up on. That being why the cartoon series based on the movie Ghostbusters was illogically titled The Real Ghostbusters.
Surely, thought adorable, literal, five-year-old me, if the film has real actors and the show’s a cartoon, it should be the other way around? As the comic book guy outlined, it wasn’t some modern-day kōan the creators had come up with to blow our young minds, but rather an act of supreme passive-aggression that could only have been allowed to fly in the far-less litigious wonderland of the 80s. The comic in question was in fact a relic from a prior franchise, also titled GhostBusters which dated back to the 70s and had nil relation to the 1984 masterpiece (yes, it’s a masterpiece. If that George Lucas space-muppet movie can be one, this one is too). So when the team behind the first GhostBusters rather justifiably went “Hey chaps, what’s the dilly-oh?” they were essentially pushed down in the sandbox and had their lunch money stolen. As a result we get The Real Ghostbusters, as in “Oh, there was one before? That’s cute. Which one made more money? Exactly. Eat it.”
And so the stronger, more dominant force prevailed. That’s Darwinism, baby.
Now you know the story behind the comic too. Hope you have better luck with it than him next time you’re out on the pull.
I know next to nothing about the earlier GhostBusters other than it had a gorilla in it. The ‘real’ (meow) Ghostbusters were, by contrast, possibly the most important part of my upbringing, just nudging out my immediate family by a lick. Peter Venkman taught me everything a young man needs to know about getting ahead in life as a self-serving douche. And the older I get, the more heartily I approve of his student-electrocution policy. The first film holds up in that rare way films from childhood can – as a kid I loved the spectacle of it, as a teenager I loved the underlying smutty bits and as a sort-of grownup I love the subtleties of what every player brought to the table. One half nod from Bill Murray or eyebrow twitch of Harold Ramis are in and of themselves masterclasses in performance, something all animators can and should appreciate. I’m one of those rare few who likes the film so much I even like Ghostbusters 2 by extension.
Such is the way of the universe, around the 25-year mark the franchise got itself a little booster in the nostalgia regions, with a moderately successful video game released in 2009 and much hubbub about a third film that has circled the same drain of conjecture since the mid-90s. So if you’re one of the few who hasn’t been dragged to a midnight screening or forced to watch the Blu-Ray by the likes of me, the premise is thus: Three parapsychologists – egghead Egon Spengler, earnest Ray Stantz and sex-pest Peter Venkman – are turfed out of their cushy university digs the day they actually encounter their first ghost. They resolve to dedicate their lives to finding more, trapping them and turning a profit. Eventually more ghosts show up, business starts booming, another guy joins them, ghosts ghosts ghosts, guy from the EPA is a sourpuss, more ghosts then marshmallow everywhere “I LOVE THIS TOWN” da-da-da-da-da The End.
Comparing the original pilot pitch to the characters as they’d eventually be known (and heavily merchandised)
The cartoon series essentially picks up where the film ends, disregarding the assumption that by saving the world they’ve rid it of ghosts. In all fairness I suppose it would be kind of a rubbish show if it was 150 animated episodes of procedural drama methodically detailing the ensuing litigation with not a spectre in sight. What we do get is a slightly tweaked serving up of the same premise, albeit with different haircuts, firmer jawlines and more colourful uniforms. The series bible that accompanies the DVD set breaks down the major differences writers familiar with the film need to take on board – like maybe toning down Mr. Venkman’s penchant for blatant sexual advances for the cartoon – though the most explicitly kiddifying element of the show is a stroke of marketing genius, taking Slimer (one of the more memorable ghosts from the film) softening him up and having him now be their ghost pal. It certainly worked on the ungrateful little yuppie larva that was I back in the 80s. The show set a precedent for showing love through consumerism and boy oh boy, did my parents deliver when those commercials told me to whine at them enough. It kept the economy going and made us the close-knit family unit we remain to this day.
Ultimately it’s the overall merchandising of the show that makes up my own nostalgic fondness for it – save for the opening credits I really didn’t remember much of the episodes themselves. Several years back Time Life produced a mammoth, swanky box set of every season which I eventually got my hands on once the price dropped enough for my frugality to be beaten down by my geek within. That was nearly four years ago, and I sh*t ye not, I’m still working my way through it. I mean, I’m definitely on the last set of discs (there are 25 of the effing things) so I can comment on the show fairly enough, but it’s felt a bit like a homework assignment at times.
Holy crap.
The sad truth of the matter is – and I take no pleasure in writing this – it’s hard work. There’s something lacking in its cohesion that a show really needs to stand the test of time, and in this instance I found myself struggling to put my finger on what that something is, precisely. The stories are certainly inventive, with dialogue that could easily be imagined coming off as impressive and witty on paper. The characters and environments are visually original, though the needless detail both dates the design style and forces huge limitations on the animation itself. The voice cast is a truly impressive roster, headed up by Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche and the late Lorenzo Music, a man whose monotone delivery and utter lack of vocal range oddly translates as being hugely charming and a perfect choice to fill Bill Murray’s deadpan boots. Yet more often than not, dialogue gags that are pretty well constructed tend to fall flat when delivered.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some genuinely funny moments and the odd episodes here and there that fit together rather well, but they’re largely buried in a sea of just-passable content. In truth, some of the truly funny bits here and there are accidental, either in their earnestness, weirdness or randomness; In all likelihood said instances wouldn’t have even been intended to be played for laughs. What I appreciate now as much as I appreciated then was the far better treatment of Winston Zeddemore (Arsenio Hall, later Buster Jones), the everyman ‘fourth Ghostbuster’ who always received equal attention as a member of the team but got far less screentime in the films themselves.
At the end of the day there’s a comfort to be had, I suppose, of having it on in the background. That particular collection of voices, the assortment of heavily rotated music cues and sound effects all fondly spark off little synapses. It also starts to become apparent as I work my way through that li’l me actually bailed on the show shortly after the second season and its massive syndication run. I remember being put off by the changes in the voice acting, most notably with Lorenzo Music as Venkman being ousted for Dave Coulier, a man whose major cultural contribution would be indirectly giving the world Jagged Little Pill, so I suppose I can forgive him. Watching the later episodes now I can concede they’re having fun with the way things are progressing – one later episode metaphysically addresses the inconsistencies in the character design of secretary Janine, chalking it down to supernatural intervention, naturally. I also had no recollection of Rick Moranis’s neurotic accountant character Louis Tully (played by Rodger Bumpass in the show) whose entire characterisation seems predicated on jokes about thriftiness, something I’m not sure would play too well in today’s hypercautious era. What the show explains more than anything is the rather noticeable shift in tone between the first and second films – Ghostbusters 2 seems to have been informed by the series and its potential audience in a large way, certainly playing more as a live-action cartoon than the original ever did.
Meh
The only out-and-out unwatchable development is the later seasons in which the original cartoon is paired up with its own spin-off Slimer!, centered on the titular phantom and his own adventures in a completely different cartoon style, aimed at far younger kids. I suppose it must have made sense but from a scheduling point of view it seems a little illogical if they’re catering to different audiences. Later incarnations of the show include a late-90s revamp, the rather embarrassingly-titled Extreme Ghostbusters which, although surprisingly watchable, reeks of tampering from non-creatives attempting too hard to update the premise to that era’s hipper yoof culture innit; It essentially becomes the Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie show of the Ghostbusters franchise. There are also various ongoing comic book series I’ve noticed but I’m a little loathe to pick them up and leaf through them. Sometimes the past can stay the past, it’s not a bad thing.
So with the episodes themselves strangely lacking in appeal, the animation geek in me winds up being sated far more by the impressive collection of supplemental featurettes, mini-docs and extras on each disc. Clearly the folks in charge of the DVD releases worked hard to please the ageing dullard children of the 80s who like their home video releases chock-full of ultimately inconsequential trivia and insight into the cartoon universe that so entranced them as young’uns. I certainly fall into that camp – for all its said lack of consequence, some of it is pretty interesting. One featurette stands out as being particularly fascinating as it indirectly addresses my issue with the show, the one I’d been struggling to pin down: Every department head takes it in turn to rather vaingloriously credit themselves as the director, in spite of – or, very possibly, the cause of – the show’s fundamental lack of direction. Predicating their logic on the rest of the production being dependent on them (such is the nature of…well, everything to do with film and TV), either it’s a case of too many cooks or no cook at all.
Photo courtesy of the esteemed Matt Walker Collection
Whatever personal gripe I have with it now apparently didn’t seem to register at the time. It was – and, I suspect, remains – one of the most popular animated adaptations of a pre-existing property of all time. It provided a gateway for us young’uns to experience some fantastic and engaging cinema in the movies, and the toylines made for some blisteringly fun rainy days. Hollow plastic gadgetry, supernatural noisemakers to enrage parents with, slime that stained furniture and carpets alike, no doubt containing toxins that would be banned in any household now – these are the ingredients of a truly satisfying childhood. To end what’s been a somewhat less-than-complimentary article on a positive note, here’s a photo of my good self visiting the only building I’ve ever owned as a playset:
The first season of The Real Ghostbusters is available in the UK. The Complete Collection is available in the US.
Items mentioned in this article:
![The Real Ghostbusters Season 1 [DVD]](https://www.skwigly.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/The-Real-Ghostbusters-dvd.jpg)