The Real Ghost Busters

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'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

The Real Ghostbusters is the animated spin off to 1984's kick-ass classic movie "Ghostbusters" which deals with four ghost eliminators (Peter, Egon, Winston and Ray) catching all sorts of poltergeists and saving New York from destruction while at the same time not losing it's nerve to be a comedy. What's different about The Real Ghostbusters after the first movie's release was how they make the character of Janine Melnitz more developed and making her not afraid while adding the character of Slimer as the group's mascot. The highlights of the show were things that people of today wouldn't handle from spooky music; bringing in mythical creatures, classic fairy tales and spirits in the cartoons such as The Bogeyman, The Sandman, even a revised version of The Headless Horseman on a motorcycle was awesome. Even though the series doesn't come on cable anymore, The Real Ghostbusters was a real guilty pleasure in my childhood where every Saturday morning i would wake up to see the cartoons along with having my action figures to recreate the scenes.

That's a memory.

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!

Like most animated shows, The Real Ghostbusters got off to a bit of a shaky start and things really improved soon after. Like the movie, there's more to it than just silly stories. The writers took many of their ideas from works of HP Lovecraft and made up their own wild but imaginative plots.

There were some slight changes made to the characters. Peter Venkman became younger, Ray Stantz shorter, fatter, ginger and more enthusiastic, Egon Spengler became blonde with round, red glasses, Winston Zeddemore looks nothing like Ernie Hudson, Janine Melnitz become hotter and Onionhead/Slimer became good instead of malevolent. And they also had different colored overalls. Why? Because kids respond better to colors.

Though it did bug me that there weren't many references to Gozer, why Dana and Louis disappeared and how all of a sudden the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was good.

Animation fans will be unable to not think of Garfield or Fred from Scooby Doo whenever Peter or Ray talk as they are voiced by the same guys and sound exactly alike.

The show did go on for a good while and spawned a new generation of Ghostbusters toys and merchandise. There have been many bad animated TV shows made out of movies (The Mummy, Evolution, Ace Ventura, The Mask…I could go on) but The Real Ghostbusters ain't one of them. Extreme Ghostbusters followed in the mid-90's, but it didn't catch on too well.

I do wish Columbia would release season box sets on DVD but for now there are ultra-cheap 4-episode DVDs available from Columbia only in Britain. They'll do for now.