I bought this Kenner Ghost Trap in 2011. It had never been open until February 10, 2012. Which is around when I created a photo album using former Ecto-Containment software. When I switched software and hosting companies the album didn’t make the move. I had always intended to share the pictures again. Two years later I have again.Read More »
Last November the individual Kenner The Real Ghostbusters instructions files were uploaded to then Ectocontainment, now Ecto-Containment. I would have always preferred to have PDF files from the start, I didn’t know I could combine multiple PDF files. The instructions as PDFs were a low priority. After working with a program that’s been on Mac computers for years, I finally learned what I wish I had known about a decade ago. The timing was mostly right before further updates to take the instructions I have and make one file for each toy. If a Kenner toy write up has instructions, it’s at the bottom of the page. Highway Haunter and WaterZapper have their decals links at the bottom of their respective pages.
Their are still Kenner instructions I’m looking for. If you can help, please comment below or email me at spengs@ecto-containment.com.
If you were on Facebook (become my friend) yesterday evening/last night or Twitter (become a follower) you were witness to the cluster fudge that was a necessary attempt to transfer ectocontainment dot com fully into Word Press. Automatic rising hosting costs from 1&1 and changes in my web hosting needs necessitated integrating Ectocontainment by the first week of February.
I had been wanting to get to it before the weekend, life around snow storms named after Greek gods put some things on hold. I suppose I could have done this tomorrow, late in Saturday afternoon seemed just perfect. 😀 I was under the impression that WP did all the hard, technical work. If I had taken 30 more seconds to read my part I would have known before posting to social media that I had to press some buttons and manually update “techy stuff” through 1&1. Most of went it smooth until 1&1 servers weren’t playing nice with Word Press. While I knew the transfer might take up to a few hours, it hadn’t worked (I don’t know if it was because its a weekend) and my 1&1 admin panel read in a red text that their was an error with the transfer.
During part of this time the site was down and I tried some workarounds. The WordPress version of the site was never accessible through ectocontainment dot com. Once I fixed something, the site could be accessed from ectocontainment.wordpress.com. Last night I cancelled the original transfer (at least through WordPress) and decided to go to “plan B,” a new domain name with WordPress.
I thought about bringing back an old Ghostbusters site name of mine mostly for the URL. It would have meant “re-branding” and it isn’t necessary. The solution has been there this entire time, Ecto-Containment. In the universe of Ghostbusters, just about anything ecto is followed by a hyphen.
Now instead of just a redirect, the entire site is part of ecto-containment.com. Eventually I’ll purchase a space upgrade. It isn’t necessary early in 2014.
Also because of the botched transfer, I can no longer receive email at my former spengs @ ectocontainment dot com email address. If its necessary to email me, which should be just about 0.01% of the time, my Ecto-Containment email address is: spengs@ecto-containment.com.
Social media links remain the same and information has been updated to reflect the new domain name and email address.
With my Christmas review of Xmas Marks The Spot comes a major ECU Tech update. The Ecto Containment Unit plays a pivotal part during the episode and introduces ghostheads to new technology which Egon seemingly comes up with on the fly. These include a type of Containment Unit “laser” extension, an astronaut like Containment Unit “Suit,” and for the first time (that I can remember) we’re shown the Containment Unit Laser Grid.
These technical screen caps and their accompanying write ups were added to the ECU Tech section.
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.
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 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.
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.
As unbelievable as this seems to me in adulthood I somehow missed the entire phenomenon of Back To The Future in July 1985. When I was older I also missed out on seeing both sequels in theaters. At least I was part of the marketing experience. Pizza Hut “2015” neon sunglasses anybody? I’m not sure why, I even missed out on the 25th anniversary screenings. 
Like with Ghostbusters today, Back To The Future is one of those classic ’80s movies that theaters do show periodically.
I was around 8 when I saw BTTF for the first time. I don’t remember if it had been on TV yet. I do remember ‘ol golden arches selling the movie on VHS for $5! That was a bargain considering I’m old enough to remember within a few years of that retailers were selling VHS movies for $100. I know I saw that at least once. Was the market unregulated?
Regardless of how I first saw Back To The Future I liked it immediately. Sure I didn’t understand everything about it or the deeper nuances of time travel. I liked (and appropriately disliked) the characters, Hill Valley, (which I wanted to visit) and of course the DeLorean, a car because it has stainless steel panels works well enough with the Flux Capacitor to allow people and a dog to travel through time.
Second to Ghostbusters I watched Back To The Future whenever I had a chance. If it was on TV, our own copy, and of course when a certain bird network aired it with a special when Back To The Future II was in theaters.
Back To The Future II
By the time (really no pun intended) Back To The Future II was out on VHS (and maybe laserdisc) I was into science fiction movies a little more. Some of which involved time travel. I always loved the idea of what the future would bring. I still remember in elementary school reading a Weekly Reader that talked about living on the moon in the year 2000. It was 1986.
I was excited to unexpectedly see Back To The Future II at a family friends house around 1990. Who wouldn’t want to visit Hill Valley in 2015? If Hill Valley were real, it wouldn’t be a big deal to see it now as we’re well into 2013. Hill Valley itself doesn’t technically exist. The Universal back lot, Whittier, City of Industry, Pasadena, CA for example are real places where the trilogy was filmed.
After ghost nabbing felt ghosts and sliming issue 1 I was ready to begin work on the next sets of Kenner Instructions and site updates. I knew I was missing a pivotal one and didn’t have two others. Before making the time to write about it here, which I thought would be sooner then now I took to Ectocontainment’s Facebook page.
I’m hoping with as many Kenner instructions as I am and will be providing ghostheads, somebody will have these instructions and can contribute to the Kenner and The Real Ghostbusters fan base. Instructions should be at least in English. If other languages are included that’s certainly all right. Either way if you have these instructions, please leave a comment or email me.
1. Ecto-Goggles/Ecto-Popper
I’ve always known since I bought my Ecto-Goggles/Ecto-Popper off eBay I didn’t have the instructions. I may not have the decals either. In my searches I never find just the instructions. When the goggles/popper come up for auction/sale every now and then the prices are usually a little beyond my budget. I have asked the sellers, whether the item is mint or not, they don’t want to help out or just sell the instructions. Of course when selling the toy as a whole, I understand.
2. Ecto-Headphones
When i bought mine mint in box or so I thought from eBay I thought it was complete. It mostly appeared to be, I’m missing the instructions. It’s possible it didn’t originally have instructions, (some of the toys didn’t) as their is “some assembly required” I’m guessing their were.
3. Stay-Put Marshmallow Man Plush
Like most fans and collectors who buy Kenner’s Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man plush it is far from mint in box. Mine wasn’t too bad, needed to be washed and dried. It was missing the original box, instructions, (if their were any) and advertisement poster. Attempts to buy/win MIB Kenner Stay-Puft plushes have been unsuccessful. Which for my wallet is probably for the best as sellers often ask $300 or more.
4. Slimer (Green Ghost) Puppet
I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen a MIB Kenner Slimer (Green Ghost) puppet on eBay. However, I have seen pictures of the box. I don’t have a clue if it came with any instructions. If anyone knows about it, has more information, and of course the instructions please leave comment or email me.
Without these “early” instructions I went through the majority of my Kenner The Real Ghostbusters toys to see how complete they actually are and if they included the instructions. I may be missing 2 or 3 others. When we get to those updates I can talk about them. Knowing what I have I went ahead and scanned about half the instructions and cleaned them up.
I have had somewhat of a personal and busy week. As my schedule allows I’ll create the new instructions pages, write about them a little, and get them on the site.
I was going to (and still could someday) add an update to the site (away from the old Tobins Spirit Guide) which would have included Mr. Stay-Puft. C’mon, this is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man! With a refresh underway it was the right time to recall where he came from, what he is and talk about his accomplishments.
Post Update: When I made the decision to evolve Ecto-Containment to an overall Ghostbusters web sites, pages such as the friendly ghosts page were removed.
When I originally moved The Real Ghostbusters sub site to Ectocontainment I didn’t add content that wasn’t part of The Real Ghostbusters first season. Going back to 2008 the idea was I’d add characters, ghosts, vehicles, and equipment as I saw them in a The Real Ghostbusters episode. It sounded ok. Realistically by the time I could and will be able to watch 7 seasons again of the series it could be years before anyone saw those characters, ghosts, vehicles, and equipment added to the site. This won’t necessarily be the case any longer.
In 2012 it begins with everyone’s favorite accountant Louis Tully. Louis became part of Slimer & The Real Ghostbusters during the 5 season episode, Something’s Going Around. Which aired about 4 months after Ghostbusters II had first been in theaters.
Post Update: When I made the decision to evolve Ecto-Containment to an overall Ghostbusters web sites, pages such as the staff page were removed.
Ecto-Containment 
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