I tell ya, it is a "fun" series and there's actually some good episodes scattered here and there. It really makes me wonder if, say, they never did the toon and today they made a weekly series and these toons were the "episodes" of it. (There'd have to be some changes to fit with a more naturakistic setting) I think it would've been pretty neat, especially in today's time where the ghost/equipment effects could be done within a TV show's budget. I could see it being a "CSI"-like series only around paranormal investigations and eliminations rather than crime-solving. Ah what could be. Worth noting, too, that retail-releases of the "seasons" (actually volumes) are coming this Spring. So if you don't want to spring for the $200 "Firehouse" boxset you can wait until the volumed releases come out. But the firehouse box is pretty neat, comes with a nice booklet listing out the episodes (and as I said earlier the Slimer episodes are seperated on the last two discs and the "regular" episodes of the hour-long format show are on their own) and some neat bonus features -which I've not watched yet. Yeah, people can keep their GI Joe, their Transformers, their He-Man and Thundercats, etc. The Real Ghostbusters is MY nostalgic "grew up with it" 80s cartoon!. God, I had all of the toys. All of the Ghostbusters, Ecto-1 and Ecto-2 I also had the firehouse playset (which I "expanded" by building an "addition" behind it with Construx to make more living quarters and my own "containment unit."
I wouldn't mind checking this thing out again. Comparing the animated version with the live-action version is always fun. That's what I thought at first too.
Definitely not. It's an outmoded prejudice to assume that if something is animated, it's therefore intended for children. Animation is a medium, not a genre. It can be used to tell stories suited for audiences of all ages. And The Real Ghostbusters was a pioneering show in this regard. Under story editor J. Michael Straczynski (who later created Babylon 5 and wrote the recent Angelina Jolie movie The Changeling), it was one of the first US animated series that broke out of the "kiddie show" mold and raised the bar of American TV animation to a more adult, sophisticated level. True, it was still kept appropriate for children, with violence and sex kept to a minimum, but the stories were smart, witty, sophisticated, often macabre and twisted, sometimes quite poignant. They were literate fantasy, based on everything from Norse mythology ("Ragnarok and Roll") to Celtic mythology ("Banshee Bake a Cherry Pie") to Washington Irving ("The Headless Motorcyclist") to H. P. Lovecraft ("The Collect Call of Cthulhu"). They were written by acclaimed SFTV scribes like Straczynski, Michael Reaves, Diane Duane, David Gerrold, and Marc Scott Zicree. (And they defied cartoon conventions sometimes. For instance, TRG was just about the only animated show I've ever seen which correctly acknowledged that falling into water from a great height would be as fatal as hitting concrete.) True, it did get toned down to a more juvenile level once Straczynski left, and was never as free of censorship in its later Saturday morning seasons as it was in its original syndication season. But those first 65 episodes, and some of the ones that followed, were pioneering stuff for their day, and by showing American audiences and executives that animated shows could be smart and older-skewing, they helped pave the way for later animation classics like Batman: TAS, Gargoyles, Justice League, and Avatar.
Preaching to the choir here man... I was a loyal watcher back in the day, myself. I just figured that he would have "moved passed cartoons" by the point this show was full bore.
Well, as said, I would've been 6/7 when I started watching this show -harldy an age where you're too old to watch cartoons or to play with toys -esp. one as "sophisticated" as TRG was.
I don't understand the concept of "moving past" cartoons. I was 18 when the show premiered, and I was watching it from the word go (although I gave up on it after Straczynski left).
In rewatching it this week I agree with Chris, it's a very "grownup" cartoon from a sense of mentality and execution. Very well done. They just don't make cartoons like this anymore.
I kind of wish the bumpers between the commercial breaks were removed. They kind of break the "flow" of watching the DVDs.
Im 35, female, & I used to love it! does anyone know why Egon looked nothing like the version in the movie? I know they couldnt use the actors likenesses but the other guys at least somewhat resembled their big screen counterparts. His hair always bugged me.
The characters were redesigned and given different hair colors and styles to make them more visually distinctive, easier to recognize from a distance. (That's also the reason for giving them all different-colored jumpsuits.) Egon and Peter both got more slender faces out of it, but somebody had to be blond and it ended up being Egon. Though I can't explain how Egon ended up with that bizarre cylindrical pompadour. Except that it does make him very distinctive. It's been said that the first rule of good cartoon character design is to make the character instantly recognizable even in silhouette.
Egon's "hair" always cracked me up. For a stuffy, brainacal German he sure did have a lot of "style" between the "bizzare cylindrical pompadour" and the red-framed glasses. It's interesting, the cartoon implies that the actors in the movies are the "fake" Ghostbusters and that, well, the cartoon versions are the "real" ones as at one point in the cartoon the Ghostbusters are consulted on a movie made about them and they show some disgusted surprise over the guys "Murray, Akroyd and Ramis" playing them. I guess Winston felt he did pretty good with Ernie Hudson. As Christopher said, their differences in apperance is mostly so they're distinctive looking not only for the visual effect of the cartoon, but also when shown in silhouette and in a cartoon even three distinct looking men like Ramis, Akroyd and Murray could look similar I also suspect some likeness/rights issues were in play too. Making cartoons after the likenesses of the real actors would probably entitle them to some royalties.
"Sounds like a law firm." (Ohh, please tell me Netflix has this set. I'd love to see the show again.) I think that's a very elegant way to reconcile the discrepancies between the film and the show. There are always discrepancies when a movie becomes a TV series, but usually you just have to ignore them. Here, they came up with a perfect explanation for it. Actually I think the "real" Winston would've been miffed by the movies, since in the films, Winston was relegated to second-stringer status, getting less screen time than the other three. In the animated show, Winston was a full equal, and was the most competent, level-headed member of the team. Yes, I'm fairly certain that was a factor too. Filmation's cartoon adaptations of TV shows like Star Trek and Gilligan's Island generally used the actors' likenesses, but they usually had the original actors playing the roles anyway, so they were getting paid already. In Gilligan, the only character who didn't resemble the original actor was Ginger, because Tina Louise wasn't involved. They changed Ginger into a ditzy-voiced Marilyn Monroe clone. On the other hand, I've always felt that Filmation's Lone Ranger looked a lot like Clayton Moore and their Tarzan looked a lot like Buster Crabbe. So maybe likeness rights are not universal and it depends on the actor's contract. It's probably become more common to include them in contracts over time, what with the increasing prevalence of merchandise using actors' likenesses.
Peter (to the director): I bet Redford was just dying to play me, wasn't he? As far as I know this box-set is only available through Time Life, it isn't even in stores. But "season" sets are due out this year for general release which would put them in Best Buy and likely in NetFlix.