Slimer Bubble Gum Toothpaste

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slimebubbletoothpost

As a kid growing up in the 1980s I was in the demographic of companies who marketed licensed products with children’s characters on them. This constantly happened with toy companies. Some of our favorite cartoon series were designed to sell us toys. These characters from comic books, video games, and certainly cartoons were on any product imaginable kids just had to have. This also includes hygienic products which isn’t much different from today.

Other The Real Ghostbusters hygienic products included a bathroom set which had a white toothbrush with The Real Ghostbusters logo on the handle. That sounds right. I never owned one because if I had to guess it came out when I was older. I’ve seen them on a popular auction site. It doesn’t seem right to buy a used bathroom set. Their was also this pretend shaving set (which I don’t own, would like to) for when you need to shave your already smooth face. You wanted to be like your dad, he didn’t have the heart to tell you some day having to shave isn’t all that exciting. Their was also Slimer bubble bath.

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I vaguely remember toothbrushes with characters on them. At least I think I do. I know toothpaste companies marketed toothpaste with their own characters for children. Without minutes of unnecessary research I don’t know if their were other licensed character toothpastes. If you had to pick two popular franchises, you can’t go wrong with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Real Ghostbusters. What other cartoon characters from around that time love to eat? True, Pac-Man is based on a pizza with a slice missing. “What about those Italian guys Rich?” Okay, the list can’t be that long.

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Slimer toothpaste (with fluoride, whatever that really is) possibly came out around 1991. I was already in middle school and children based toothpastes were passing me by. I don’t remember if I had even heard of The Real Ghostbusters/Slimer toothpaste at the time. Twenty two years later I would confess if I had ever used this toothpaste. I could have never admitted it in 7th grade. It wouldn’t have been from young peer pressure either.

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Perio Products (today Perio Inc.) from Dublin, Ohio (who makes the shaving cream your dad and barbershops use) distributed The Real Ghostbusters and Slimer toothpaste. It came in three flavors, bubble gum, grape, (just like the gum, please kids don’t eat the toothpaste) and the usual mint. It doesn’t contain any sugar. Yeah, its bubble game flavor, still its toothpaste. Kids didn’t really need a disclaimer.

Slimer, showing how no one really cares about The Real Ghostbusters 😦 and moments earlier having held his iron clad contract then points to his name written in toothpaste. Because of this, the other packaging may have omitted The Real Ghostbusters logo.

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Slimer Fluoride Toothpaste naturally helps to fight cavities from snack cake and cheesy products. None of them are sponsors of Ecto-Containment. If your parents bought you the very specific The Real Ghostbusters Fluoride Rinse, your kid teeth (which will be replaced naturally) reduces cavities by 40%. Notice Perio doesn’t give percentages without using the rinse they made.

The Real Ghostbusters Slimer toothpaste was also sold in the United Kingdom. As Ghoulish Minty Gel. The box graphics are more detailed then its United States counterpart. If you know who made/distributed the toothpaste in the UK, please leave a comment.

Just like any good company advertising to kids a commercial was made to sell us on the fact we could have brushed our teeth with a gel that resembles slime. This could be a separate post, I like how The Real Ghostbusters/Ghostbusters products were animated and told a story. The animation just seemed to work for these products.

You can watch the video on Spook Central. Its near the bottom of the merchandise page.

Ecto•Plazm Grape Bubble Gum

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ectoplazmgrapegum

During the 1980s as the cola wars raged on with adults who had expendable income, another corn syrupy battle was taking place on suburban playgrounds across America. Thanks to a product that could be bought almost anywhere, GUM.

Their were some major players who used the power of marketing and flavor to build brand loyalty during childhood. Bazooka Joe, owned by the trading card company Topps. Hubba Bubba, owned by gum giant Wrigley. Bubbalicious, today a Cadbury Adams division. You don’t get to give kids free gum, become a gum giant or be a part of a division without a lot of children’s quarters. Once in a while a whole dollar.

A nickel bought you a piece of gum, quarters got you a pack with 5 (yes 5) whole pieces. When you’re on the play ground, your choice of gum could define you, until you went home. Any kid could buy those gum brands from the nearby deli. As young ghostheads we could come to school with gum that stood out from the crowd. Gum derived from Ecto-Plazm.

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The Real Ghostbusters ECTO•PLAZM is a grape flavor bubble gum that came from the Amurol Products Company. Today known as Amurol Confections Company, a Wrigley’s brand. It isn’t like we had portfolios in 1986, gum could have been our currency.

Unlike traditional gums of the day, The Real Ghostbusters Ecto•Plazm comes in a tube, that resembles toothpaste. I’d like to think A.P.C wanted a rectangular piece of gum with gel inside. Unless their was a patent dispute, it wasn’t slimy enough. It couldn’t possibly ooze that way. Ironically the solution comes from the product that helps prevents cavities and is recommended by 4 out of 5 dentists.

Out of just about every flavor on planet earth, I don’t know why they chose grape. Yeah, kids like grape. When it came to gum it wasn’t my favorite flavor. Back then I might have wondered how gum could taste like other real fruits, such as watermelon. How about when worlds collided, gum that tasted like soda? That could only have been achieved by wizardry.

The reason we have “slime gum” is because of the purp.., I mean grape ghost that is coming at us in 3D. It could have, if A.P.C knew for sure we could still buy school milk.

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I don’t think they could back that claim up, “Proof Of A Ghostly Encounter.” You know someone got a refund.

For some reason this Ecto•Plazm I bought as a ghosthead and collector was never opened. It still feels like if tens of years of exposed air wouldn’t change the chemical properties it could still squeeze out a gel which then becomes chewable gum.

I’m probably wrong, I feel like opening a 27 year old tube of mint gum will lower its value. Also, in my 5 minutes of research I didn’t see The Real Ghostbusters Ecto•Plazm gum. The Real Ghostbusters Slimer gum (which I don’t own) seems to be more common. If I have rare gum, I’m going to invest in a tech company.

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The Real Ghostbusters Patch

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rgbnoghostpatch

Apologies on the slight blurring during scanning. I tried to take a pic too, the lighting in my office area wasn’t bright enough on the packaging. Of course the bubble chose today (after 27 years) to no longer stick. Can a bead of glue turn to dust?

During 2011 when I was buying and collecting Kenner‘s The Real Ghostbusters toys, every now and then I’d come across The Real Ghostbusters merchandise that may be unique, rare, (I know, subjective) or not seen very much these days. Such as, BooloonBusters. Growing up during the Ghostbusters/The Real Ghostbsuters era I do remember some non Kenner RGB items. Unfortunately a The Real Ghostbusters Patch wasn’t one of them. Oh, I would have definitely remembered as I put together a Ghostbusters costume when I was around 10 years old. If I could have had an official patch, I would have wanted one. Even if it’s 3 x 5.

Before the age of the information superhighway (where my 30 somethings at?) and social media you weren’t always going to know about other licensed merchandise from your favorite cartoons. Even if the iron on patch was sold nationally, I’m not imagining stores always keeping these in stock. Unless you’re a millennial, you may remember “five and dime” stores such as the now long out of business in the United States Woolworth’s. Outside of a mall, a downtown or other shopping area in town may have had a local or similar regional store. These are the types of general stores that probably sold a smaller novelty character iron on patch. I’m not calling the manufacturer, Gordy International, who appears to have seen better days a novelty company. I tried to look to see if they had a website. Until 2011 I had never heard of the then NY based company. I don’t know if you could have, perhaps a more arts and crafts retailer could have carried these too.

Packaging

I don’t know if this was unique to the time, I like how the bubble is shaped to fit around the “no ghost” patch, keeping it snug. The company could have made a round one or something squared, risking it tumbling around, like with Matty Collector’s Retro-Action P.K.E Meter. The front features The Real Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters logo. The back is pretty plain and explains the iron on instructions.

The Patch

One of Gordy International’s selling points for buying this is the “real embroidered stitching.” Considering a machine (most likely) in Taiwan did the stitching, it’s mostly well made. Looking at the “no ghost” patch closely 27 years later I can see slight imperfections, where material wasn’t 100%, mostly on the outlines. People and computers (1980s tech) aren’t perfect. As this couldn’t have cost more then a $1.00 USD, kids probably wouldn’t have complained. I might have noticed if I had a Ghostbusters patch back then. I still would have been happy enough.

A nice little feature for the price is your mom could have sewn or glued the patch to some material to make you even cooler. I doubt the science to accomplish two ways to make a patch stay on was new, even then. “No ghost” patches sold today are made the same way. Obviously I’m not an expert, sewing a patch instead of applying glue would seem to make a patch more secure. And would probably be better for the material.

Graphics

Maybe it looked better on a Macintosh Plus, if they were lucky. The Real Ghostbusters logo is too dark. It appears to be the “Ghostbusters” font. Black on a dark purple doesn’t stand out. I wonder why Gordy International didn’t just use the colors from the series. Other companies, even if they didn’t have the title logo used bright colors.

Have you ever seen The Real Ghostbusters be so expressive? For unknown reasons three out of the four of them appear to be yelling, like they’re angry. Especially Ray. Was mood slime around? Ray and Egon almost seem like they’re defending what they do from government officials. Winston seems like he’s had enough of a ghost and is ready for some ‘busting action. As for Peter, he seems somewhat surprised by what’s happening. He might not know what do about it. Also, where is Ray and Egon’s undershirt?

Overall

I was also reminded (thanks to my memory) that a company (could have been Gordy International for all I know) also made and marketed a Ghostbusters iron on patch from around the same time. That’s probably cooler to have, of course won’t feature the actors portraying the characters. Whether its Ghostbusters or The Real Ghostbusters their are certainly better and larger “no ghost” patches. Which aren’t hard to find. If you’re a ghosthead, collector, and want something a bit different, this can be nice to have.

Archives Complete & Site Stats

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After a month, maybe a little less of manually moving Ectocontainment from it’s previous software I’m glad and relieved to let ghostheads know moving the site is mostly complete. I say mostly for when the time comes to upgrade my WordPress account. As of this afternoon their are 163 (155 before new entries) blog posts with a few “exported” from Ghostbusters International from today dating back to April 2011. You can access any blog entry by typing or clicking any number of tags, searching for a word or words, clicking recent posts, and browsing by day or month in the calendar on the side menu.

Most probably won’t be that interested in this, these are the site statistics which is an accumulation of years of site updates. If circumstances had been different near the beginning, I could have been further along by now.

  • Posts: 163 (once I click publish)
  • Pages: 184
  • Categories: 11 (stopped adding them fairly early on)
  • Tags: 196 (until this post is published)
  • Storage Space: 56% space used.

If their is a blog post or page you want to share from Ectocontainment, their are multiple social media buttons to do just that. You can also receive updates through email or if you have a WordPress site, just click follow. If you have a Facebook and/or Twitter account you can follow or “friend” me just like 193 other people have.

Unlike previous versions of Ectocontainment, the site is truly mobile compatible for your iOS and Android devices. I’ve only been able to test it on a fruit phone. Because of a mobile containment, (yeah) you could view the NOW and The Real Ghostbusters Magazines when you’re not using your computer.

Thank you everyone, whether you live on North America or another continent across the globe who has visited Ectocontainment with its different versions and who has been supportive during the site’s latest changes. I look forward to sharing more updates as they’re completed.

Kenner Instructions Return

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ghostsweeperinstructionspg1

Kenner Instructions Update

After uploading The Real Ghostbusters Magazines and NOW Comics files to WordPress the last major remaining content to upload and create were the Kenner instructions from my collection. I hadn’t uploaded them again partially because of space concerns. Yesterday evening the files were uploaded and I created 20 new pages for each set of instructions and decals. Unlike the previous incarnation of Ectocontainment their wasn’t always a need to approximate instructions that may or may not have existed by showing the back of the box. With WordPress, clicking an image will load its original, full size image. I also didn’t bring over the text from the former pages. The instructions are self explanatory. With the WordPress format, how the toys and instructions are linked in the navigation menu felt right. The “written” links are also on their respective related Kenner pages.

Ectocontainment Blog Archives

I’ve been working since the last post to bring over the archives, which for Ectocontainment begin in April 2011 and recently end near the end of May 2013.There are sporadic and full month updates from July 2013 and on. Since June 2013 had a lot of those Kenner instructions, I decided yesterday to try (and did) to upload all of those files. I omitted most blog entries that had to do with IDW Publishing‘s Ghostbusters/New Ghostbusters comics as I didn’t always write about upcoming issues. I also omitted some outdated entries dealing with “new details” and information about Matty Collector‘s figures. Mainly because we know the details and those toys have been sold and sold again. Some other, mostly older entries may not have been included for redundancy. As I have time I’ll be adding June’s archives and go from their.

Ghostbusters II VHS Insert

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ecto1agb2vhsinsert

I was 12 when my uncle and aunt took me and my almost four year old cousin (who back in the day loved all things Ghostbusters, I’m sure because of me) to see Ghostbusters II on November 3, 1989. Unless it was always a misconception to me, Ghostbusters II was not playing in northeast New Jersey that past June 16. Pre-internet I followed Ghostbusters II debuting in nearby theaters as close as possible. I had this sticker/scrap book where as far as the “scrap booking” aspect went I’d cut out Ghostbusters II printed material (mainly from our state newspaper) and place it in this once keepsake I’m pretty sure I no longer have. As November 3, 1989 got closer the countdown (daily the paper’s ad would read something like four days until…) was on until the movie premiered, at least in Nutley, NJ.

If you’ve read any number of my Kenner The Real Ghostbusters pages you already knew I was moving beyond the toy lines. As my then young cousin had some Kenner toys I didn’t have (ie: Police Academy) and Ecto-1A I could enjoy them when we’d go to there house. As we inch closer to the 25 anniversary of Ghostbusters II their are a handful of related items I can share through Ectocontainment.Read More »

New Kenner Card Backs

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minitrapsrcardback ectogogspop

With new Kenner toy write ups can come new scans of card backs. While writing about Mini Ghosts and beginning to write about Monsters I scanned all of the Mini ghost and so far two of the six Monsters card backs. I finished adding them last night.

In related Kenner site news the un-boxing experience I created with my Ecto-Goggles/Ecto-Popper from August 2013 has been added back to the site.

Welcome To The New Ectocontainment

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The week leading up to Halloween while waiting to spend “4 big ones” (minus a 0) on my car I had around 7 Halloween related updates planned. I only got to two of them, only one is even worth mentioning in this post. I may actually rewrite the other one because when I wrote it I was really tired. Regardless of the spectrum of writing the web design software I’ve been using since January of this year began to become error prone again. I don’t know if the program wasn’t meant to handle 100s of pages and related blog entries or my 4 year old iMac can’t process the information. Everything else I use my iMac for works the way it should usually. While having to re save, even though those updates were already published, it “unexpectedly quit” erasing the new updates. Between the error prone program, how some things are with the software, and hosting costs rising I decided I needed a hopefully better alternative. This is it.

Some of you may remember in the “Octo-containg” post I talked a little about my personal collecting blog. Which is also hosted through WordPress. I’m usually late to the party (yes I said that) with these things. If I realized how WP could help the site and myself I would have never purchased RapidWeaver. The only mention I’ll give them less then a year later.

Within a few days of October 31 I began manually rebuilding Ectocontainment, working on it as much as possible. Most of the site has been moved with 146 published pages. There are still two Kenner related pages to put up, all the Kenner (that I have) The Real Ghostbusters instructions, I still have to finish uploading The Real Ghostbusters Magazine PDF files, and I guess that one Now Slimer! comic. 😀  With Ectocontainment’s PDF files, particularly the magazine files they take a lot of time to upload. Right now only the Electric Company and The Real Ghostbusters Magazine – Summer ’89 are uploaded. As I have time (and hopefully web space) I’ll get the rest uploaded.

*Update* Thanks to Matthew Jordan, Ectocontainment associate and webmaster of the Ghostbusters Wiki he’s already been working to reduce the mega sizes of The Real Ghostbusters Magazine. It seemed like a good idea in 2008. :O

Speaking of web space I knew going into this version of Ectocontainment that I would need more. When its feasible I want to do two things, transfer the Ectocontainment domain and upgrade to a premium account. I also knew this month I would have to pay the quarterly web hosting. Which is a reason I need to wait. In the meantime I’m going to direct ectocontaintment.com to https://ectocontainment.wordpress.com.

I’ve organized the site hopefully for the better and eliminated redundancies that were probably necessary with Ectocontainment this year. If you’ve supported Ectocontainment through its ups and downs (which sometimes were my hardships) I appreciate it. I look forward to sharing more ectocontaining updates.

Afterthought: Yeah, I knew I’d forget something. I also want to rebuild the archives. I may not go all the way back to April 2011, as some of the posts during 2011 and 2012 had to do with the same content.

Kenner Monsters: Frankenstein

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monsters

In 1989 the creative freedom Kenner exerted pretty much brought a line of figures that had little to nothing to do with The Real Ghostbusters. They’re not hero figures nor are they even ghost figures. They’re literally Monsters. Kenner in no certain terms made sure we knew what our parents were buying. Classic, perhaps vintage horror characters based on either literature, film, or both.

I feel like I would remember if I had any of the six monsters in childhood. I was around 12 then and the days of my parents buying me figures were waining. In adulthood I’m trying to use logic to understand why Kenner produced these in The Real Ghostbusters line. Maybe with the license some highly respected Kenner employee wanted to make them. I can imagine children having there The Real Ghostbusters hero figures battle one or more of the Monsters. What could the end result be? You can’t really use the Proton Packs and they can’t be contained.

The fun in each of these monster figures are their actions, what they can do to scare and frighten say Fright Features The Real Ghostbusters.

The next monster we’re looking at in this Ectocontainment™ Feature is Frankenstein.

Kenner Monsters: Dracula

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monsters

In 1989 the creative freedom Kenner exerted pretty much brought a line of figures that had little to nothing to do with The Real Ghostbusters. They’re not hero figures nor are they even ghost figures. They’re literally Monsters. Kenner in no certain terms made sure we knew what our parents were buying. Classic, perhaps vintage horror characters based on either literature, film, or both.

I feel like I would remember if I had any of the six monsters in childhood. I was around 12 then and the days of my parents buying me figures were waining. In adulthood I’m trying to use logic to understand why Kenner produced these in The Real Ghostbusters line. Maybe with the license some highly respected Kenner employee wanted to make them. I can imagine children having there The Real Ghostbusters hero figures battle one or more of the Monsters. What could the end result be? You can’t really use the Proton Packs and they can’t be contained.

The fun in each of these monster figures are their actions, what they can do to scareand frighten say Fright Features The Real Ghostbusters.

With this Ectocontainment™ Feature I’ll be taking a look at each Monster, beginning with The Dracula Monster.

Ectocontainment Spotlight: Mini Traps

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minitraps

In 1988 with the larger first series ghost figures and larger Gooper Ghosts already on the market Kenner created and sold smaller Mini ghosts. Which are different, separate, and more affordable ghost figure sets. At $4.99 USD, (1980s dollars, nice) even your allowance money made these obtainable toys.

Out of the three mini ghost toys I can remember having Mini Traps.™ Before I owned them again as a collector I vaguely remembered what they look liked, not really their purpose. I grew up in suburbia, grocery stores in practically every direction within a mile of me. If we had to set traps, it was to catch irritating bugs or on a rare occasion a mouse. Usually because of neighborhood construction. So I wouldn’t have totally understood how clever Kenner employees came up with mini traps. Cincinnati, Ohio must be close enough to the woods that perhaps there were traps made from iron to trap animals who can cause the outbreak or want to eat us. I’m not judging Kenner employees, they did what they had to, to survive on Kenner St.