Note: Originally appeared at my personal site, iRich.
The Funko Pop! Movies Stay-Puft has arrived!! No 30th Anniversary Ghostbusters celebration would be complete without the marshmallow man. Is he a man though? After all he’s made of marshmallows. At some point the philosophical questions had to be thought about.
Note: Originally appeared at my personal site, iRich.
In March 2014 Funko, a collectible toy company announced their Ghostbusters Pop! Movie Vinyl figures were coming for Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary. Previously I wasn’t too familiar with Funko products. When it came to vinyl figures, I knew more about Mighty Muggs from Hasbro. I found out about them for the first time a couple years ago. When I saw Mighty Muggs at US toy retailer Toys ‘R Us and bought two retailer exclusive licensed Marvel Iron Man 2 figures.
What’s the difference in brands? Mighty Muggs are a bigger scale and seem to have decal graphics for clothing, skin, and hair. Pop! Vinyl Figures generally are 4 inches in size, look more realistic, are known for their circular black eyes, their heads can move, more detailed skin, hair, and clothing. Depending on the figure, will come with its known accessory that isn’t removable.
Both companies did or do share similar licenses that include characters from Marvel, DC, and Disneyfor starters. Pops! are meant to be collectible and continue with licenses for classic and more recent television shows. Of course movies too from back in what I like to call the day to present.
When they were announced most of the pop vinyl line would be available in May. The Winston Pop! Movie figure would be available with the Pop! Movie ECTO-1. For most retailers product 109 continued have its release date moved. The item may be available at the end of August. I’ve seen an on-line retailer through Amazon list an October release.
Not surprising I’ve liked these figures almost immediately. They’re the vinyl figures I would have wanted from the beginning and didn’t even know I needed. When they became available closer to the end of April I was getting ready for vacation. Between travel expenses and things like bills I knew I’d have to wait until June. With the LEGO Ecto-1 Ghostbusters set coming out, at the time I felt I’d have an easier time finding the Pop! figures during the summer.
Near the end of July while on a trip to the nearest Barnes & Noble (one of two national chains, the other being Hot Topic that I know of that carries Funko Pop! vinyl figures) they had Dr. Venkman, (104) Dr. Stantz, (105) and Egon. (106) Slimer and a different size Pop! would come from Amazon first week of August.
Pop! Dr. Venkman was unavailable as he was looking for a non existent Dana as Gatekeeper Pop! Pop! Dr. Ray was more then happy to help a ghosthead and collector out.😉
LEGO, the plastic brick masters who produced this summer’s ECTO-1 with mini figures set made a very large Stay-Puft marshmallow man which will be on display at next week’s San Diego Comic Con. Keep in mind should Lego decide to produce a Lego Ideas Stay-Puft, it’ll probably be closer in scale to what Brent Waller created.
Photo Sources: Lego
Note: Originally appeared at my personal site, iRich.
If you’ve long lost track of how many times you’ve seen Ghostbusters in 30 years, you might want to try a different way to experience Ghostbusters phenomenon, through the printed word. That would be physical print, not computerized robot text. When Ghostbusters was in theaters the first domain hadn’t even been registered yet. That wouldn’t happen until the Ides of March in 1985. If you’ve been a ghosthead for three decades or nearly as long, you’ve probably owned a Ghostbusters book, magazine, or comic.
If you were old enough you could have joined the Official Ghostbusters Fan Club (GBI) within a month of Ghostbusters June ’84 release. I wasn’t, sadly missed out, and wouldn’t remember the club until my twenties. Ghostheads which do include myself are trying to get that printed material to put on-line, if it exists. 4,000 years from now we’ll have an answer.
Note: Originally appeared at my personal site, iRich.
The music I made my own most of the ’90s had changed directions and my tastes were changing. Around 1999 I got back into talk radio, to the point I was accepted into broadcasting school. In an age before podcasts, it wasn’t that hard really. A bit of a regret today, I either gave or threw away CDs I thought I didn’t a care about. It wasn’t to embrace the new way to buy music, by downloading it. Around thirteen years of people doing that, and something began to happen. Or at least it went mainstream as music will.
A need to physically hold and listen to recorded music, have new experiences you don’t get from MP3 files, to relive good and bad times with a no laser vinyl. More commonly known as a record. You can’t hold MP3 files. You can’t really look at cover art and liner notes. Until music appears more out of a cloud then it does now, you can’t collect gigs of recordings.
I wouldn’t come to that realization with either CDs or records well into adulthood. Looking back to the late 1980s and during the 1990s I associated vinyl and one of my area record stores as a place with aging hippies and possibly stoner types.
This record store I’m thinking of was run by a Jerry Garcia looking guy who would play similar music. He seemed knowledgable enough, I’d go there to perhaps buy a new popular artist on CD. What I couldn’t appreciate then was guys like him, shops like his were going to go away. Its that way with any subject and knowledgeable people. Its more then just the information, its the experiences. Reading about them sometimes isn’t enough.
Note: Originally appeared at my personal site, iRich.
Intro
The movie GHOSTBUSTERS (which was the highest grossing comedy until Home Alone
) had a numero uno song to accompany it. Before it made some Halloween sampler in the coming decades, Ray Parker Jr. wrote and sang “Ghostbusters,” which remained #1 on some Billboard charts for 3 straight weeks. Apparently Tina Turner was tired of everyone asking “Who ya gonna call?” and wanted to know “What’s love got to do with it?” Did she not understand love and a lot more had everything to do with “Ghostbusters” success?
Everyone really loved “Ghostbusters”, except for Huey Lewis. You would think he understood the power of love which was way stronger then a new drug he wanted in January of the same year.
That wouldn’t have stopped Ray Parker Jr. Columbia Pictures, and Arista from releasing both “Ghostbusters” and the complete soundtrack on various media of the era. Within and outside the US, the Ghostbusters single and the soundtrack were available on various vinyl sizes, cassette tape, and eventually compact disc.
Note: Originally appeared at my personal site, iRich.
Yesterday I started working on my 30th Anniversary Lego Ghostbusters set. I documented the build for iRichard Roy and my related Ghostbusters sites.
LEGO decided that ultimately to build 4 Ghostbusters, their proton packs, a trap, and of course their Ectomobile 508 pieces are needed. I don’t build Lego sets often, none that can be pricey, or complex. Building Lego Ecto was going to be a challenge. It’s Ghostbusters, it’s the 30th Anniversary, (my 6 year old self would have wanted to build this from Duplo) and the first and only official Ghostbusters Legos.
In recent years I’ve talked about and described Season 1, Episode 11, Citizen Ghost. Which is The Real Ghostbusters sequel to Ghostbusters. This is a favorite episode (even with Slimer 😉 ) that gives additional history of The (Real) Ghostbusters and how Slimer came to live with with guys who bust ghosts for a living, and received the name Slimer.
After reviewing the filming of Ghostbusters with Take Two this past week and to honor Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary at Ecto-Containment I really wanted to review Citizen Ghost. I spent a lot of time writing today, put my passion as a ghosthead into my review, and had fun, arguably more fun then writing about Take Two.
Enjoy Citizen Ghost for your Ghostbusters 30th ( and The Real Ghostbusters 30th during 2016) anniversary!
Note: Originally appeared at my personal site, iRich.
The idea and physical creation of Ghostbusters Legos is by no means new. Talented people with far more technical skill then I have been creating custom Ghostbusters toys for years. They’ve included Ghostbusters mini figures, equipment, ECTO-1s, Firehouses, (exterior and interior) Stay-Puft, and not for the faint of the heart, Gozer’s roof top temple or “55 Central Park West.”
I grew up during a different era, the ’80s. While it makes perfect sense to make Lego sets from a popular cartoon or movie franchise in this era, it would have been unheard of in 1984. Ghostbusterswasn’t made to be a children’s movie. For its humor about the supernatural and two years later a spin off cartoon, The Real Ghostbusters. Kids loved Ghostbusters. I was one of them. It would have ruled along with my Lego City sets if Danes had come out with fun The Real Ghostbusters Lego sets.
About thirty years later time, generations, the internet, pop culture, and nostalgia made GHOSTBUSTERS “a legitimate phenomenon.” Without Ghostbusters LEGO communities would still have thrived, including Lego Ideas. Formerly Lego Cuusoo.
Two separate custom Lego fans/builders and ghostheads had ideas to propose and create possible Ghostbusters Lego sets. If I remember, one wasn’t necessarily for the upcoming 30th Anniversary. The second one, from Brent Waller was. Eventually the projects merged to see if 10,000 LEGO and ghostheads would support and eventually buy a Lego ECTO-1 set with 4 Ghostbusters mini-figures.
Not only did (over) 10,000 people, including myself support official Ghostbusters Lego sets, the Lego Council (which should meet at LegoLand) approved the first official Ghostbusters Lego set, an ECTO-1. With Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary coming for June 2014, the timing couldn’t have been better.
It wasn’t originally clear that the collectible Lego set wasn’t going to be sold in non Lego stores. I pretty much assumed I’d order one from an on-line retailer at retail price, not “gouging the consumer prices” because its rare or hot from third party retailers and eBay sellers.
If they’re in stock, the physical Lego stores are carrying them. Globally they can be ordered from Lego’s web sites, Amazon, (which last I checked was sold out) in the US Target‘s web site, and Ghostbusters Fans shop. I would think at least for a time these will be sold in physical stores that sell Lego sets, such as Toys ‘R Us. That information hasn’t been confirmed.
The release date was June 1, 2014. Ghostheads were reporting they were in Lego stores sometime Saturday and were available (in high demand) from Lego’s on-line store. I would have preferred to have driven to a Lego store, it wasn’t really practical.
Heading into Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary I wanted to pay tribute to the beloved film in a The Real Ghostbusters way. Two first season episodes related to the film immediately came to mind. Episode 10, Take Two and Episode 11, Citizen Ghost. I debated for about 11 seconds which I should review. It seemed a little more fitting to watch and write about Take Two, written by J. Michael Straczynski.
It wasn’t quite meant to be this way, the review format is a mix between the way I originally reviewed episodes and the way I scaled them back in recent years. Either way for the amount of times I watched Take Two, I could have watched Ghostbusters more then once.
If my schedule allows, I’d really like to review Citizen Ghost before Ghostbusters actual 30th Anniversary. Either way its the next episode I’ll be reviewing.
Ghosthead Maverick 1983 picked up a Kenner The Real Ghostbusters Proton Pack and decided to customize it more like its big brother movie version as much as possible. I only recently saw he’s working on this project by his thread on Ghostbusters Fans.
This project is continuing with the Nutrona Wand customization and possibly lights for the pack. To follow the build from the beginning with build pics, check out that message board thread.
Photo Credits: Maverick 1983
Ecto-Containment 
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