Bill Murray Doesn't Even Look Like the Real Peter Venkman
06.20.2001 by Ming

If the cost of VHS tapes in 1988 were somewhere in the realm of reason, I could have turned–out all right.  Instead I'm here and you're reading this: a harangue that embodies my ever-growing need to express myself and that dictates how I feel about the television program "The Real Ghostbusters."  This need for inner expression is no doubt encouraged by the price gouging of videotape manufacturers in the late 80's.  3M, Scotch and Kodak decided to make 15,000% profit on each 2-hour (six on extended play) magnetic bastion of possibility they manufactured, thus keeping their wares well out of the hands of young, impressionable lads claiming paper routes as their primary incomes.  The same videotapes now selling for $1 at your finest Wal-Mart had cost no less than $5 to $8 apiece back then.  As a result, I only could afford a handful of tapes, the fact that lead to this pair of character-altering elements:

1.) Me turning to such trivial exploits as reading and writing instead of losing brain cells while replaying countless great ghost busting moments.

2.) Great personal discretion while preserving my most prized video memories.

What you're reading is the result of my turn to the written word, yet another point remains: what content was so important that it made it onto my prized collection of 10 over-priced VHS tapes?

On one tape, I had my nudie spots.  Risqué MTV videos, episodes of Club MTV, clips from Remote Control when Kari Wurher wore something particularly special: these were spanktravision for the 13-15 year-old set.  Before the Internet and broadband, monkey-spank video options were limited.  There was only MTV, late-night cable, and the occasional unlabeled porno you found buried under a heap of shameful 70's clothes your Dad tried to hide in his closet.  As a result, you needed at least one of the ten tapes you could afford to act as a catchall for anything sexy you that might come across your TV screen. 

On another tape, there were the home videos made with friends.  Whenever chance would present itself, I would sneak into my parents' room and, Cruise-Mission-Impossible-style, free their $1600 video camera from its confines so that it may chronicle such world-class events as the "Great Lego Explosion of 1987," "Fangoria's Weekend of Horror in 1989" and "Our Neighbor Alyssa: Thank God for See-Through Bikinis."  Thank Christ for zoom lenses.

Eating up a few more of the limited videocassette stash there were the two or three quality flicks that you had to hold stock on.  Your Evil Dead's, your Man With One Red Shoe's, and of course, your copy of the original 1984 science-fiction, special effects-filled comedy classic...

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension.

You were expecting something else?

Fine, it is Ghostbusters week so I'll attempt to get onto the topic of that other 1984 science fiction, special effects-filled comedy classic...

Gremlins!

Okay fine...

Truth be told, the largest amount of grief caused by those money-mongering videotape manufacturers resulted from the decision that I could only allocate three of my videotapes to preserve episodes of the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters, a spin-off of the 1984 science-fiction, special effects-filled comedy classic, Ghostbusters.   I figure that, unless you're Amish, French, or just plain have an aversion to anything great in this world, you already know about this Dan Aykroyd-penned, Ivan Reitman-directed masterpiece that scored the number 28 spot on The American Film Institute's Top 100 Comedies of All Time list.  What you might not know much about, however, is the cartoon series that brought the further adventures of our intrepid supernatural heroes from the big screen to the small screen.

In 1986, two years after Ghostbusters garnered $238.6 million in box office receipts, then-Coca-Cola-owned Columbia Pictures hired the Japanese animation company DiC Entertainment to produce a Saturday morning kids show based on the movie.  DiC was huge at the time, having helped produced many episodes of "G.I. Joe," while being the sole production company on "Inspector Gadget" and long-time childhood favorite, "Kissyfur." Their take on Ghostbusters promised to be great... providing they could find a name for the show.

In the late seventies, Filmation Animation Studios produced a live action show called "Ghost Busters" that featured two bumbling ghost hunters who, for whatever reason, took jobs with a gorilla named Tracy acting as their partner.  Like any self-respecting generation of half-wits, kids of the 70's ignored this pile and embraced classics like "The Banana Splits" instead.  Yet, Filmation had the rights to the name "Ghostbusters" and when Columbia decided to make the movie, they shelled out some serious dough to Filmation for use of the name.

After the monster success of the motion picture, however, Filmation wised up and started playing hardball, not allowing Columbia to buy the name no matter how many bottles of New Coke the movie studio offered.  As a result, DiC and Columbia decided to simply name their animated series "The Real Ghostbusters." Filmation was left with their heads spinning by this stunning legal move, and did what any right-minded animation company that produced "He-Man" would do: they ripped-off the movie Ghostbusters concept and, inexplicably, tossed in that Goddamn ape Tracy to spice things up.  Kids wanted a fun, entertaining cartoon, not David Lynch logic, so in their saddened confusion all ignored Filmation's attempt and clicked en masse over to the station broadcasting "The Real Ghostbusters."  Like their cinematic counterparts, the animated Ghostbusters followed a very particular parapsychological credo:  "They came.  They saw.  They kicked (some animated ape) ass."

"The Real Ghostbusters" debuted to blockbuster ratings on Saturday, September 13, 1986.  It would run concurrently on ABC Saturday mornings as well as in syndication until the show bowed on September 2, 1992, meaning there were a butt-ton of episodes swimming around for six years (over 140.)  In that time, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, Peter Venkman and Winston "I'm always listed last because I'm the black man" Zeddemore took a ride on the space shuttle, saved New York City from being turned into a desert, went inside the ecto-containment unit and never once dared to explain why Egon's hair looked like some crazed version of a German pastry gone horribly wrong.

Strudel anyone?

In effect, "The Real Ghostbusters" delivered where many feel Ghostbusters II fell short: it allowed audiences to see these great concept heroes tackle all manner of different ghoulish bad-asses while at the same time letting people to get to know the Ghostbusters themselves better.  In one episode we got to visit Ray's hometown, and, true to the movie, he always remained the heart and enthusiasm of the group.  In another show, we met Winston's father, Winston consistently being the everyman on the team.  Countless episodes repeatedly showed Peter getting gunned down by women other than Dana Barrett, thus continuing and deepening his trend as the Ghostbusters funny yet charismatically impaired mouthpiece. And yes, we even got to watch a little romance bloom between the Ghostbusters receptionist Janine Melnitz and the always-serious Dr. Spengler, a little subplot that played behind several episodes featuring Egon's wits saving the day.

Some things never change.

In addition to the mainstays, "The Real Ghostbusters" also delighted in allowing supporting characters from the original film to develop, or at least pop up, on the TV show.  Yes, Janine did finally earn some reciprocation on her advances toward Egon, but she also managed to put on her own pink Ghostbuster jumpsuit and power up a proton pack for a few episodes.  The green ghost reportedly based on John Belushi that left Bill Murray on the wrong end of a slug trail in the first movie ended-up becoming the Ghostbusters pet, appropriately named Slimer.  In one episode, EPA villain J. Walter "Dickless" Peck tried to exact some revenge on the Ghostbusters.  Even the geeky Louis "I taped a 20-minute workout and played it back at high speed so it only took ten minutes" Tully played by Rick Moranis in the films managed to make a few appearances as the Ghostbusters' in-house accountant, just as he did in GB2.  Of course, on the show he was made into some ghastly anime version of Senator Paul Simon, sporting a sinister bow tie while wearing Sipowitz-style button-up short-sleeve shirts.  Just how character designs were constructed is beyond me, but when you go Japanese, you get some pretty strange results.

Apparently they looked in a mirror.

While some of the character design - and animation in general - left a bit to be desired, (especially in the syndicated episodes) the one area where the makers of "The Real Ghostbusters" almost always got it right was in the writing of the episodes.  Though the show was geared for children, writers often saw opportunities to explore some pretty macabre areas, resulting in episodes that dealt with The Boogeyman, a demon searching for eternal Halloween named Samhain, and even an episode based on the HP Lovecraft tale of Cathulu.  This was pretty mature stuff happening on Saturday mornings, but with great sci-fi writers like Chuck Menville, Michael Reaves and "Babylon 5" creator J. Michael Straczynski at the wheel, they didn't shoot too far over kids' heads.  Mixing just the right amount of action, mystery and wonder, the writers on "The Real Ghostbusters" treated the characters created by Aykroyd and Raimis with reverence while also exploring all manner of different themes and ideas.  The result was a cartoon that worked on every level. Sometimes scary, sometimes funny, always engaging, "The Real Ghostbusters" managed to pull off the seemingly impossible: it actually continued and improved upon the original concept.

Yeah... they pretty much rule.

After a while, both fans and the creators actually began to lose sight of just why the characters were called "The Real Ghostbusters", and in one episode entitled "Take Two," the guys actually show up on the set of a movie being made about them.  One of the best lines ever written for the show was delivered when Egon was handed the script to the film version of their confrontation with Gozer the Gozarian.  Mouth turned into a frown, our blonde egghead stated matter-of-factly "Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis?  It sounds like an insurance firm."  At the end of this same episode, Peter wanders late into the movie's premiere, a scene from the actual film Ghostbusters playing on a screen in the cartoon.  Peter, upon seeing Bill Murray asides, "Oh man... that guy doesn't look anything like me."  In some weird twist of reality, "The Real Ghostbusters" suddenly became more real than their real-life Hollywood counterparts.  Never saw "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" pull that off, now did you?

In another odd twist of reality, check out poor Annie Potts's hair in GB2.  Dyed fire engine red and styled into a Beatles-inspired bowl-cut, It's obvious that someone was trying to make her image in the flick more simpatico with the red-haired receptionist from the TV show.  Interestingly, Janine's anime hair in the show slowly calmed down over several seasons, and shortly after the movie came out, she looked the same way her character in the movie did.  Since animation is often done long before it's ever seen on television, one must wonder, was Janine's mop-top something that TV was heading toward that the film producers wanted to synch up with?  Perhaps.  Like the grassy knoll, we may never know, but we certainly can theorize.

Annie Potts, eat your heart out.

The fact is, even for someone as long-winded and arrogant as me, the legacy left-behind by "The Real Ghostbusters" cartoon series is one so great that it is actually daunting to try and do it any justice in just one article.  One could spend 3000 words just talking about the great vocal talents behind the show, a cast-list that included names like Arsenio Hall (Winston in the syndicated episodes), Dave Coulier (later seasons Peter), Frank Welker (Ray and Slimer) and even Walter "Chekov" Koening - who played, you guessed it, a Russian cosmonaut on a five-year mission - for an episode that had our heroes busting ghouls in Zero G's. 

In addition to this, you could start getting even deeper, discussing what were the best episodes (the Samhain ones, "Standing Room Only," "Baby Snookums," "The Grundel") the worst ones ("Ghost Busted", "Afterlife in the Fast Lane") and why (the writing).  There are literally dozens of sites sitting around the world-wide-web waiting for visits from "Real Ghostbuster" fans eager to share their views on the show.  People have written fan fiction.  There was a comic book published by Now Comics for several years in the 90's even after the program went off the air.  Hell, the show even managed to spawn two spin-off's of it's own, the miserably infantile "Slimer!" and the apparently Mountain Dew-fueled "Extreme Ghostbusters."  If we're lucky, maybe Filmation will come out with a variation on that theme featuring a bungee-jumping gorilla, God love the miserable fools.

Last I checked, you can't currently catch "The Real Ghostbusters" on television.  For whatever horribly illogical reason, the Cartoon Network fails to see that "Ed, Edd and Eddie" is an inexcusable waste of time, effort and ink, and thus they have yet to clear a spot for Venkman, Stantz, Spengler and Zeddemore on their roster.  If the Sci-Fi Channel execs could pull their heads out of Traci Lords's "Third Wave"-starring ass for two seconds, maybe they could understand just how much better their prime time ratings could be with a little animated Ghostbuster action.  (Oh, and don't tell me that Traci doesn't still take it up the butt now that she's gone "legit."  Once a K.Y. sweetheart, always a K.Y. sweetheart.)

Alas, no...  All I can do if I want to watch my favorite childhood cartoon is reach deep into the back cabinet containing my dust-covered VHS tapes and withdraw those three volumes of episodes I recorded in extended play back in 1988.  Scanning through dreadfully old RIF (Reading is Fundamental), Forest Service ("Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute") and Boy Scout ("Be Prepared!") commercials, I'll find about 30 half-hour installments of pure joy.  But for every episode I have, I'm reminded of one that's not in the collection, and once again we return to the greedy videotape manufacturers of the late 80's with their overpriced cassettes.

Yeah, I could've saved-up for videotapes instead of buying seemingly endless amounts of Willy Wonka Bottlecaps candy, but come on... What kind of a kid can foresee the end of his favorite television program?  I just figured the show would be on forever; if not on ABC, then somewhere in syndication or on cable.  I mean, it was really good, so it would have to be on TV somewhere, right?  Quality always proves to win out, doesn't it?

Oh, Tomb Raider is number one at the box office this week, doubling the gross of Atlantis, huh?  And the number one show on TV is "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"

Neither I, nor The Real Ghostbusters were made for this time.