Matt from Dinosaur Dracula wrote a blog post about a new collection of Christmas Commercials. While this normally isn’t news for Ecto-Containment, a prominent commercial features really case fresh Kenner The Real Ghostbusters toys!
A toy chain retailer of the era, Hills Department Store had a Christmas commercial telling customers they could put 100s of toys on layaway.Read More »
GHOSTBUSTERS™ cereal was already pretty awesome. You already loved Ghostbusters, you loved cereal, how could the experience be any better? Two words that went hand in hand with children’s breakfast cereals, Free Stuff. More known by its less fun name, premium. When it comes to cereal and getting stuff their were different ways kids went about it.
The Real Ghostbusters Cereal Glow In The Dark Door Hanger
This The Real Ghostbusters cereal premium let you know when you were at a grocery store two things: Slimer will upstage the “no ghost” logo whenever he has the chance. More importantly, Ralston lead kids to believe they both needed and wanted a one sided door hanger made out of cardboard. At least it glows in the dark. By way of solar energy! Wow, the cereal industry was ahead of its time.
We gave it little or no thought, (because “why worry?”) how did Ralston make just that one part of the box glow? Was it safe? Was their a hotline our parents could call? I don’t remember or can attest to in front of a jury of my peers how well a box size image of Slimer glowed. I haven’t tried to test a nearly three decade year old cereal box.
Hey Ralston! I’m onto you in my 30s. “Slime zone” with an exclamation point is adult code where the end result is kids cleaning their bedrooms. No wonder this cereal went away. As a kinda consolation, Ralston provided a one sided cardboard “Back Off! I’m A Ghostbuster” badge. To you, this “flip open” I.D badge was important, adults would only play along while you pretended for so long. You knew it was cool and kept it within easy reach by your The Real Ghostbusters stuff.
Note: Originally written for Ghostbusters Inc. in 2014 in part with the realism of the Ghostbusters universe.
With the blockbuster success of GHOSTBUSTERS,™ Ghostbusters Incorporated slowly began to license company trademarks for merchandising. Oddly enough considering what began to make my employers successful products for consumption hadn’t been considered yet. Until a trip to a supermarket by Drs. Stantz and Spengler. The “cereal aisle” was filled with popular characters of the time. C-3PO’s, E.T., Gremlins, Mr. T, G.I Joe, Garfield, Rainbow Brite, and others from a video game console company that may or not have directly ripped us off in years to come. One cereal was missing and it isn’t the obvious one.
After Dr. Stantz accidentally turned a company mascot against humanity the Stay-Puft Corporation almost went out of business. Their business partners had no choice, but to pull remaining stock of all things Stay-Puft, including Ray’s favorite cereal, Mr. Stay-Pufts. A cereal that once contained grains and Mr. Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man (Men?) marshmallows which naturally stayed puffy in milk.
Still feeling bad about what happened, my employers were discussing the void in the cereal industry. Winston Zeddemore was skeptical if kids, let alone adults would eat a Ghostbusters™ themed cereal. After Drs. Venkman and Stantz met with Ralston (today Ralston Foods), Dr. Venkman was willing to stake Spengs’ reputation on people starting their days with GHOSTBUSTERS.™
During 1992 when N O W Comics (Ghostbusters Firehouse) were in their “now better than ever” phase, they began a new run with some new stories for their The Real Ghostbusters title. This could be a blanket statement, outside of the comics their was very little to support Ghostbusters. The hit series had ended a 7 season run a year earlier, Kenner had ended making The Real Ghostbusters toys, and Ghostbusters II™ had come and gone from theaters, at least to people’s homes.
Whether any of that played a factor in Now’s decision to end the RGB comics run I don’t know. They had been looking ahead from the Tobin and the Maze of Time story arc that had been prevalent during volume 2. The next comic, issue 5, originally scheduled a month earlier would have featured an interesting story about a ghost who for whatever reason hangs around the Pentagon and of course threatens the survival of the human race. Or at least it would if The Real Ghostbusters probably couldn’t have “zapped and trapped” in time.
I don’t know how much of issue 5 Barry Petersen, Neil Grahame, and Jim Brozman completed. It wouldn’t surprise me if the script/story is on-line. Checking out the cover, it seems to have a Ghostbusters II influence.
Imagine for a moment if Kenner was around today, similar to Playmates Toys. And that they’re a licensee for Ghostbusters. Still producing, similar to reptiles that became ninja mutants The Real Ghostbusters figures. It stands to reason Kenner (owned by Hasbro) Kenner would update either the figures, card art, or both.
I don’t foresee that happening officially, it didn’t stop me from wondering what that could be like. Canadian artist Phil Postma did more then wonder, he took our imaginations as ghostheads and created new The Real Ghostbusters inspired card artwork for Kenner’s Monsters figure line.
I’d love to share all his The Real Ghostbusters card art, out of respect and a kind of internet etiquette I’m sharing only a small number of his pieces on Ecto-Containment. To see all 13 “Monsters” art, Phil’s other Ghostbusters art, and more of his work, visit his site.
Art Source: Phil Postma
While perusing the ‘ol popular auction site that rhymes with day I came across 4 pieces of ECTO-1 production art used in different episodes during The Real Ghostbusters run. The seller or sellers had a “stack” of The Real Ghostbusters cells listed. A bit oddly enough I don’t own any production art or RGB (its cool to abbreviate) cells. As next year is the 30th Anniversary of The Real Ghostbusters I’d like to collect some of that.
If I didn’t have to be responsible I might have or would try to buy or bid on some of the ECTO-1 production art. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t share the not always seen art with ghostheads and plug the seller(s) auctions. Hopefully the favor will be returned by someone when I’m selling again.
I’ve cropped the art some because of the seller’s background and cleaned up the art to make it more newer. The actual art has aged like paper does.
I’m pretty sure “The Real Ghostbusters II” refers to when The Real Ghostbusters became Slimer & The Real Ghostbusters. The art is from third season episode, Baby Spookums.
Damage ECTO-1 from season 4’s The Brookyln Triangle. Notice the production logo is Ghostbusters, not The Real Ghostbusters and definitely not The Real Ghostbusters II.
I still can remember when I first saw Ghost Traps coming out from the sides of ECTO-1. Its clever and makes sense. Although Ecto-Containment’s ECTO-1 features page is real light on content I always liked that as The Real Ghostbusters is a cartoon, ECTO-1 could have more tech depending on the episode plot. Which is also cool as Dan Aykroyd originally wanted ECTO-1 to have “mysterious” supernatural abilities.
This more detailed ECTO-1 was featured in the season 3 episode Halloween II 1/2.
I don’t remember today, ECTO-1 being able to jump with its super duper suspension and jet pads was either really cool or over the top. Similar to when Winston once installed a life raft (Sticky Business) so ECTO-1 could float on water just in case.
This ECTO-1 production art was drawn for the season 3 episode Big Trouble With Little Slimer.
Sketchpad Source: Catherine’s Sketches
Production Art Source: icollect-on-line (eBay)
A long while back I was going through family photos and came across a few photos of 1980s Ghostbusters/The Real Ghostbusters memories. I was going to scan them to share when I had a chance. My “all in one” HP scanner wasn’t quite working with Apple‘s OS X, Version (10.9.3) aka Mavericks. This has been ongoing from HP and the solution for my model was a backwards workaround.
I had been meaning to get back to scanning them with an easy solution, using my graphic software, Pixelmator. Which by the way if you have a Mac, unless you already use PhotoShop you owe it to yourself to spend $30 USD and buy Pixelmator from the App Store.
I scanned these three photos today for Ecto-Containment’s Photo(s) Of The Moment.
I grew up in the same second floor apartment from about the age of 2 until we bought a house in my slightly younger thirties. This room use to be my bedroom and playroom until I was about 5 years old. As I was an only child and the second bigger bedroom was available, my parents gave me the room and that’s a room I’d grow up in, going through life’s various phases.
When this picture was taken by I’m sure my oh so excellent photography skills my former room had become our living room. We use to have a bigger living room, it became our dining room for an overall bigger kitchen.
I don’t know the exact year this slightly edited Polaroid was taken. I’m guessing sometime after April 1987, possibly before Kenner’s Fright Features line was released during 1988.
I don’t remember if other The Real Ghostbusters toys were nearby, I seem to remember Ray was driving and was attacked by a not to scale Slimer and Mr. Stay-Puft who is right up on ECTO-1!
Growing up my parents and I would fly from Newark, New Jersey to Charlotte, North Carolina. Then we’d fly to a smaller airport in the Tri-Cities area of Tennessee. We made this trip about every two years into my teens because my dad’s sister and our family live in the Volunteer State.
I don’t remember bringing a Kenner The Real Ghostbusters P.K.E Meter, there it is. Perhaps like Egon, I had it with me, ya know just in case. When you’re in business, you need a logo. I drew my apparently “alternate” version of the Ghostbusters logo.
Lastly here is a young Spengs destroying my refrigerator (to the right which isn’t pictured) while I stopped to take a picture for my adoring public. 🙂 This was my old old old kitchen in the apartment I grew up in. Until I came across this picture I hadn’t seen or thought about what the kitchen looked like during most of the 1980s. At the dawn of the 1990s we renovated our dated kitchen, bathroom, and made other changes to the apartment. This version of the kitchen beats how it looked when my parents first moved in. From what I was told, the walls were orange and brown. How 1970s. 😀
I’m guessing the time of year was summer, long before we had an air conditioner. I’m wearing my town rec’s basketball team t-shirt, Hawks. I played a spirited game with the best of them at my old middle school. This picture is probably from 1988.
Photo Credits: My parents and I.
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!
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
In May 2014 ghosthead tw1478 posted at Ghostbusters Fans about his custom The Real Ghostbusters figures and ECTO-1. Molds were made of the figures for more and multiple customs!
Other variants include The Real Ghostbusters hero figures from Kenner‘s Slimed Heroes, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II/Power Pack Heroes, and Citizen Ghost.
Custom work was also done to The Real Ghostbusters equipment.
The next project was tw1478’s Kenner ECTO-1 build.
As of the latest postings, custom The Real Ghostbusters slime blowers are being worked on.
To follow the build from the beginning, learn more about them, seeing more build and finished pictures, check out tw1478’s custom The Real Ghostbusters thread at Ghostbusters Fans and check out his photobucket album.
Photo Credits: tw1478
Ecto-Containment 
You must be logged in to post a comment.