I was waiting for this episode in particular and then the combination of other offerings and my huge YouTube backlog got it buried.
By now the history of the Ghostbusters franchise is known to the die-hard fans. Originally intended to be titled Ghost Smashers, Dan Aykroyd was inspired by his interest in the supernatural to create a horror comedy starring himself and fellow Saturday Night Live alum John Belushi. Belushi died and co-writer Harold Ramis was brought in as an actor as well as another SNL alum and former co-star of Ramis’, Bill Murry. They also wanted Eddie Murphy as Winston but when he couldn’t make it Ernie Hudson was a perfect replacement to the point I couldn’t see Murphy in the role.
The name was licensed from the Filmation live-action series The Ghost Busters, a vehicle for F-Troop show-stealers Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch. When the movie was a hit Filmation decided to return to the old series with a new cartoon featuring their sons, forgetting that the kids of that time wouldn’t know the original series. Still, this put Columbia Pictures in a pickle when they decided to do an animated spinoff of the movie. Thus The Real Ghostbusters was born, with a promo pilot that was a bit different from the full series. The show would air primarily in ABC’s Saturday morning line-up though a season was also produced directly to syndication, which featured slightly lower-quality animation but could amp up the creepy factor without ABC’s “standards and practices” concerns.
The first episode is frankly kind of weak, a standard show at best. The episode I was waiting for is “Citizen Ghost”, episode 11 of the first season. In it we learn what happened to the Ghostbusters after defeating Gozer and repairing the damage caused by Peck taking the containment unit offline and releasing the ghosts inside. As we know, one ghost decided to stick around, and it’s a good thing he did when the uniforms from the movie turn deadly.
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