Los verdaderos cazafantasmas

With completely imaginative stories, and top notch writing, The Real Ghostbusters was far superior to Ghostbusters 2. This show benefitted from an excellent cast (Lorenzo Music, Arseno Hall, and cartoon workhorse Frank Welker,) as well as an incredible cadre of writers, including Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Strazynski, and Star Trek Tribble-meister David Gerrold.

Unlike the lackluster movie sequel, The Real Ghostbusters assumes that the increase in supernatural activity in New York doesn't subside after the banishment of Gozur the Gozerian. Instead, the series assumes that the guys stayed in business. Now, with most kids shows, this would have rapidly devolved into a series of stupid plots and repetitiveness. However, the production team for the first two seasons managed to avoid this. Instead, they dug into the deepest wells and pits of human folklore to find storylines (Indeed, this is the only 'kids' series that I have ever seen which borrowed from the works of HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton, and August Derlith!) Gerrold, Strazinski, and the other writers (many of whom are extremely well known within Science Fiction circles) managed to construct plots which were always funny, exciting, and genuinely engaging, ranging from a spoof of Gerrold's own 'The Trouble with Tribbles (Attack of the 50 foot Slimer) to a top notch tribute to one of the greats of early 20th Century Literary Horror (Collect Call of Cuthulu) Also, the characterizations were top notch (even though Peter Venkman's lecherousness had to be toned down, obviously)

Unfortunately, after the second (?) season, the show underwent a major upheval, and most of the original creative staff left, along with some of the cast (Lorenzo Music was replaced by Dave Coulier, who, while he did a dead on Bill Murray impression, didn't have the ability to give the character as much personality.) And with the staff, so went the soul of the show. The writing went downhill, and, while the show was still above average, it just didn't catch the viewer's interest like it used to. By the time of it's final season (on the heels of Ghostbusters 2) it just wasn't worth watching...

I'm 26.

"The Real Ghostbusters" is as good and as real as an animated TV series based off a popular movie franchise can possibly get. When I was growing up during the early 1990s, "The Real Ghostbusters" was one of four popular cartoon TV shows that helped shape my formative childhood years; the other three cartoons from that time were "Transformers," "G.I. Joe" and my personal favorite, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

Toward the mid-'90s, "The Real Ghostbusters" was ultimately removed from an early-morning TV line-up on USA (that's now channel 35, if you have Comcast cable like I do) that included the other three aforementioned animated shows, which soon left me without a source of entertainment that would spark my wild kiddie imagination. But thankfully, the advent of TV-on-DVD in the last decade has brought this utterly fantastic TV series back from the land of classic TV show entertainment oblivion.

Of course, "The Real Ghostbusters" was spun off the wildly popular 1984 cult supernatural comedy "Ghostbusters," about three unemployed university parapsychologists who become New York City's leading investigators and eliminators of pesky poltergeists. Drs. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) were eventually supplemented by a fourth member, Everyman Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), as they battled an ancient, malevolent, other-worldly entity that had designs on dropping in on Central Park West and laying waste to human civilization.

"The Real Ghostbusters" is a continuation of that exact same storyline with the same classic characters and a new legion of evil ghosts needing investigation and extermination from our four popular heroes.

"The Real Ghostbusters," like its original 1984 film-spawn, is a work of unquestionable uniqueness, brilliance, and originality. "Ghostbusters" was one of the most unique and original comedies to come out of the early '80s (and it's also one of my all-time favorite movies), so it's no wonder why it was the highest-grossing film of 1984 - after a cash-grabbing theatrical re-release one year later in 1985 to beat out "Beverly Hills Cop"; it's also no wonder why it also had a best-selling musical soundtrack, too, which featured the pop culture classic "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker, Jr., and the song is featured prominently on the TV show as well. Also like in the movie, "The Real Ghostbusters" crackles with humor, strong voice-acting performances, action sequences, special effects, and imagination.

"The Real Ghostbusters" is real creativity and imagination from a time when TV shows were still willing enough to be daring and original.

10/10

I wish I could go back and see this show again as a kid even though I do act like a kid at times. I loved the interaction between Peter Venkman and Slimer. The goofy Ray was always funny for his good ol' boy attitude and Winston and Egon were always there to provide insight. This is one of those series I'm going to one day get on DVD so I can feel like a kid again while eating ice cream all day long.

I loved this cartoon as much as the movie (except for the slimer and the real ghostbusters part, with only the ghostmaster's revenge as an exception). I love the dark and spooky theme the first three seasons have. I bet you any amount of money that there are some episodes that would frighten even older people (thankfully not in the gory and bloody manner) like the episode "Mrs. Roger's neighborhood where the customer is a ghost that possesses Peter that the other busters need to make an extremely risky move. I loved the Sandman episode and Egon's dragon. But the one episode I love the most would have to be "Ragnarok and Roll" about a man with a southern accent who gets a flute that can bring about the end of the world and his fiancée and quasimodo partner must convince him and the busters must battle the demon in the sky. Watch this show and have the time and fright of your life!

I grew up watching the Real Ghostbusters, and I gotta tell ya, it blew my mind. The voice acting was great, the stories were very original and the effects were incredible. What made the stories great was that the writers didn't insult the intelligence of the audience and presented it like the movie did when dealing with scientific problems. But what interested me were the episodes written by Michael Reaves, the man responsible for the two Bogeyman episodes. What I still don't know is what gave him the idea to not only reveal the reason why Egon wanted to be a Ghostbuster and why he didn't make the Bogeyman a ghost. Pure genius. Too bad he didn't write a Bogeyman episode for the Extreme Ghostbusters, but I guess that's my job. Well, till next time.