Toy Fact: The colors of the Fire House don’t match the animated one generally seen throughout The Real Ghostbusters.
Why a Fire House? Simple, Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd of course) loved the building and thought they should sleep there on the first night. It was natural to carry over the Fire House to The Real Ghostbusters cartoon series.
Plus Ghostbusters International. knew they could make a toy from it that kids could play with. Figures and Ecto-1 sold separately.
The Fire House couldn’t completely be like its animated counter part as it would have been too tall for kids and expensive for parents.
Due to the size of the toy Fire House the sign wouldn’t fit above the doors unless it was much much smaller anyway.
Today we wouldn’t consider doors much of a feature for a toy. They’re listed on the box as either a feature or an accessory.
Without the fire house doors the Ecto-1 couldn’t drive in or out of the garage area. Which wasn’t nearly as fast as the movie or cartoon!
Once the “fire house doors” are opened we can see inside the garage to a missing side and back wall. It’s not really missing, if it had 4 walls like a real building, kids and 30 somethings couldn’t really play with The Firehouse.
In the garage area where Ecto-1 (sold separately) sits is The Ectocontainment Unit. Without a basement level, a moveable ECU rests against the side wall, except when Ecto-1 or another vehicle is parked inside.
When you’re 8 it doesn’t bother you (until uh 25 years later) as you’re too busy playing with the figures and ghosts.
The open side of the Fire House features the Ghost Pursuit Fire Pole. Using the bottom of the fire pole the Real Ghostbusters hero figures “spin into action” when they get a call!
How does it work? Each The Real Ghostbuster has holes on the bottom of their feet so they can “hold on” to the fire pole. A switch on the roof allows the sliding action once the platform part is lifted up. You can also pretend the platform is an elevator to the second and third floors since Kenner didn’t build a staircase.
The Real Ghostbusters are severely lacking furniture. I use to place those pizza “table” centers in mine so the figures could use it. Kind of like those all purpose tables from elementary schools.
Goop Grates on the roof allow kids to slime The Real Ghostbuster using a can of Ecto-Plazm which came with The Firehouse. Parents loved this.
Once you slime The Real Ghostbusters and play with the Ecto-Plazm until you really need to clean up you’ll want to trap the ghost or ghosts who did this.
We already know Kenner didn’t make ghost traps for the first series hero figures. With The Fire House they included an ectocontainment sized trap to hold small toy ghosts.
When a ghost is captured the trap has a sliding door as does the actual ECU. If opened about the same time, the ghost trap can be emptied, safely storing the ghosts.
Fire Station, instead of Fire House original box.
Instructions
Ecto-Containment 