It’s October, and everybody does the Halloween thing. Here at BW Media Spotlight the spooky season just isn’t my thing. Still, I can play along on Saturday Night Showcase. I can do related shows, but don’t expect to get your nightmare fuel here. It’s all about stopping evil ’round these here parts, partner!
When it comes to the mistakes ABC made in the last season of The Real Ghostbusters, I agree with most of the fandom. Changing Janine’s glasses because pointy things are scary to kids? Dumb. Toning down the scares? Why? It was already less scary than the syndicated counterpart, and that wasn’t exactly causing sleepless nights. Having Peter and Slimer get along? Got in the way of their typical association, one of the sources of comedy and you do see that despite getting mad at Slimer for his antics, Peter didn’t hate him, even though Slimer was the first ghost to slime him. Replacing Lorenzo Music with Dave Coulier as the voice of Peter? That one was on Bill Murray, but the rest was pushed on ABC, and thus DIC and the writers of the show, because they hired the wrong consulting firm to keep the show “safe for kids”. In other words the so-called parent groups who probably don’t have kids think kids can handle nothing. It wasn’t exactly Wes Craven territory on Saturday mornings, you know.
Slimer And The Real Ghostbusters also came about because that same consulting firm, proof you don’t need to be woke to be bad at your job, thought they should be pushing Slimer since kids like him. In the original movie he was a one-shot ghost, but he played well in the advertisements and thus became their mascot. This rebrand came with a series of shorts featuring Slimer’s Looney Tunes style adventures with his friends both human and animal. Only one short gave him ghost buddies. Going against the grain, I didn’t hate these. I thought they were kind of fun, and was disappointed that they got rid of them in the last season. They weren’t necessary, but on their own the shorts aren’t bad. Trying to bring the supporting cast, including crazy paranormalist Professor Dweeb, into the main show as supporting cast wasn’t a good idea, though. They fit in less than the Junior Ghostbusters, and that’s saying something for this crowd. Tonight I bring you, courtesy of the Throwback Toons YouTube channel, a sample of this show so you can decide for yourself if the Slimer segments were really that bad.
These weren’t all the supporting cast of friends, foes, and antagonists, but you get the general idea. They have a few more episodes online. It is better apart from the main show.
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