Tag: Kenner

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.

Ectocontainment Spotlight: Mini Shooter

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minishooter

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.

Boo-Zooka™ is a cocoon shaped wormy ghost who was sitting around one day with his smaller ghost buddies, known as Boo-Lets.™ The orange and blue Boo-Lets look up (literally and figuratively) to Boo-Zooka. They want to be like it and listen closely to what it has to say. Boo-Zooka had this idea to start a band. The orange Boo-Let was nervous to ask, but it asked Boo-Zooka, what will we call our band? Boo-Zooka proclaimed “Boo-Zooka with Boo-Lets” Both Boo-Lets were so glad to have their names in the band name, they didn’t question that none of them could play instruments or had any money. Boo-Zooka knows best.

Ectocontainment Spotlight: Mini Goopers

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minigoopers

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.

Kenner’s Ecto-Plazm toys had already reached a crescendo when they created and sold their large Gooper Ghosts. Their’s only so many individual cans of Ecto-Plazm your parents are willing to put up with. In childhood I never had anywhere near as many cans of toy slime as I do in adult hood. I owned more cans of Play-Doh. You know, the less messy play time. They came up with three smaller ghost toys, The Mini Gooper Ghosts,™ Mini Shooter,™ and Mini Traps.™ They could have all come with Ecto-Plazm, but then Mini Goopers wouldn’t be as special.

No Ghosts Escape My Ecto-Vision

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ectogoggleswithpoppers

I’ve owned two Kenner Ecto-Goggles/Ecto-Popper since 2011. Neither were mint in box and it took buying two of them (not the original plan) to make my current and only Ecto-Visors as complete as possible. Neither toy or inserts were in any plastic bagging. I’m pretty sure Kenner once included a paper instructions sheet for them.

What I’ve done is try to recreate a un-boxing experience how I could so we could enjoy Kenner’s Ecto-Goggles, even long after we may own Matty Collector’s version.

I took 14 pictures and scanned each side of the original box. As an added bonus you can print out Mr. Stay-Puft for collectibility or to use with your own Kenner toys and prop replicas.

Kenner Ecto-Plazm

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ectoplazmtop

Slime in Ghostbusters and The Real Ghostbusters is known as ectoplasm. When Kenner produced and sold the first series hero figures, their wasn’t a drop of ectoplasm to be found with them. Unless your parents had also bought you a Fire House.

Then at least you had one 5oz can of what Kenner called Ecto-Plazm.™ Which was mostly purple. Within a year other colors of Ecto-Plazm™ could be bought from your toy store of choice.

Because it is toy slime and not every kid was going to own every Kenner ghost, Ecto-Plazm™ came with different small ghost figures. Knowing it would make a child happy, (our parents not so much) each ghost figure was actually inside the Ecto-Plazm,™ covered in color slime!

I’ve been wanting to write about Ecto-Plazm™ for a long time now. I had fun with this one. Hopefully it’ll bring back fond memories for most of you as well.

Ectocontainment Recognition: Kenner Collector

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kcbanner11

One of the goals of scanning and uploading the Kenner instructions I own was to share them not only with ghostheads, but with Kenner/collector fans too. As I wrote about on July 6, 2012 (Can You Tell Me How To Get To Kenner St.?) Dan Flarida and John Wooten run the largest (and maybe only) comprehensive site about Kenner and for Kenner collecting. One of the features of Kenner Collector are Kenner’s instructions for their various toy lines. Missing from the line up are The Real Ghostbusters instructions. Being that I mostly could, I wanted to help fill in that section.

I wrote both Dan and John about the instructions. As they aren’t PDFs they could use them how they like or let other Kenner fans know about what i’ve been doing here and what I’m still looking for. Coincidentally a year to the day that I shared and wrote about Kenner Collector Dan wrote a blog entry (Ectocontainment.com Looking For Kenner Instructions) about the site, myself, and the instructions.

It’s appreciated. As I told them when I have new related Kenner The Real Ghostbusters content I’d be happy to share that with them and the Kenner community as well.

Photo Credit: Kenner Collector

Kenner Instructions: Ecto-Charger Pack

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ectocharge

When it came to toys based on Ghostbusters II Kenner didn’t fully capitalize on the potential opportunities. Even with a The Real Ghostbusters episode, Partners In Slime which has the most Ghostbusters II influence.

Kenner marketed the Ecto-Charger Pack as the official one The Real Ghostbusters wear. Unless the characters in the series were suppose to wear them and at some point that changed over at Columbia Pictures Television/DIC Entertainment they never wore Ecto-Charger Packs. Maybe that’s the reason a Ghostbusters II decal was included.

I’ve taken the original 4 page Ecto-Charger Pack Instructions, scanned them, and made them into 3 PNG files. I’ve also scanned and included the decal sheet.

Kenner Instructions: Ghost Grab-A-Meter

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When it came to The Real Ghostbusters toy weapons and tying them into Ghostbusters II their was only one you could say is directly from the movie. That’s the Ecto-Charger.

The Ghost Grab-A-Meter on the other hand while not exactly based on equipment from Ghostbusters II reminds me of a Slime Scoop merged with a Giga Meter.

When Kenner came up with the Ghost Grab-A-Meter they opted to make it more interesting then just another claw toy that can grab an object. With only one The Real Ghostbusters weapon/action toy to go, Kenner was all in. That’s because the Ghost Grab-A-Meter is also a missile launcher!

I’ve taken the original 4 page Ghost Grab-A-Meter Instructions, scanned them, and made them into 3 PNG files. I’ve also scanned and included the decal sheet.

Looking For Kenner Instructions Part 2

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kennerwereallydocare

On June 6 I wrote a blog entry about the Kenner instructions I was (and still am) looking for. I made due with what I had next, provided the majority of vehicle instructions, and provided what I consider rare instruction gems, all four Gooper Ghost Instructions.

I knew from there I have and will be able to share a few more instructions. Unfortunately I don’t have them all, if their were instructions for the rest of them. I’m reaching out to other ghostheads and the Kenner communities. if you have any of these instructions, please leave a comment.

1. Ghostpopper

These rarely come up for sale, I’ve seen less then 5 on eBay in the last 3 years. When I was a serious collector in 2011, I was able to buy one from a toy business out of England. It isn’t fully complete, I do have the toy in a European Kenner box, and some foam poppers. Decals had been previously applied. I’m assuming its instructions are long gone. Before this, I hadn’t owned a Ghostpopper since I was a kid.

2. NutronaBlaster

I thought the one I bought as a collector was complete, it isn’t. It’s pretty basic, the toy is complete.

3. WaterZapper

Its possible even when Kenner originally made them and they were all mint in the box the WaterZapper didn’t come with paper instructions. After all it is a squirt gun one fills with water. The instructions are sorta on the back of the box.

4. Ecto-Blaster

I thought the one I bought as a collector was complete, Where have we heard that before? I have a complete toy and its box, that’s about it. I feel this “complex” The Real Ghostbusters toy would have had instructions.

As I’m updating the site I’ll try to make “sorta instructions” with the toys boxes. Naturally I would prefer to have scans of the paper instructions that came with the original toys.

If you can help or know someone who has these instructions, please leave a comment. It would be very much appreciated.

Kenner Instructions: GhostZapper

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Before Kenner sold the real ghostbusting essentials ie: proton pack, ghost trap they came out with a projector toy. Which seemed more common in the 1980s then today.

GhostZapper is a “creative light and sound” toy. How could a kid (without a proton pack yet) not like a toy that resembled a nutrona wand, project ghosts, and make sounds that had to bother anyone older then eleven?

GhostZapper also included a film cartridge. When the cartridge wheel is inserted into GhostZapper 6 ghost images (one at a time of course) could be projected onto pretty much any surface. Ghosts included Slimer, Stay-Puft, Gozer, (yes Gozer, sweet right?) Terror Dog, a large skull head, and get this Slug!

If projecting Gozer onto a wall wasn’t enough, the GhostZapper included a small button you could press back and forth to animate each slide. Mainly the mouth or eyes.

A knob on the side of GhostZapper can be set to one of four “zapping” sounds. When the trigger is pressed the ghostly images appear and the zapping sounds are heard.

I’ve taken the original 4 page GhostZapper Instructions, scanned them, and made them into 3 PNG files. I’ve also scanned and included the decal sheet.

While the GhostZapper film cartridge can’t exactly be duplicated I’ve included a high resolution photo of a brand new, straight out of a mint in box one.

Kenner Instructions: Gooper Ghosts – Green Ghost

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In 1988 Kenner released a Green Ghost Gooper Ghost.

I don’t know why Kenner was still calling Slimer Green Ghost in 1988. Like its carded figure the box reads “known as Slimer in the TV series ‘The Real Ghostbusters’.”

Gooper Ghost: Slimer has a modified proton pack (why did he need one?) with two rotating Nutrona Blasters™ and a large plunging button.

When slime (Ecto-plasm) is emptied into Gooper Ghost: Slimer it can slime a hero figure by pushing down on the proton pack.

I didn’t own a Gooper Ghost: Slimer around 10 years old. The one I own as a fan and collector was won through a popular internet auction site. This Gooper Ghost: Slimer was originally sold in Canada. The instructions are in English and French.

I’ve taken the original 4 page Green Ghost Instructions, scanned them, and made them into 3 PNG files. I’ve also scanned and included the decal sheet.