The Big Picture: Two Many Busters

[Frankfurter4444]

I remember watching the TV show and wondering why it was called The Real Ghostbusters because in my mind the real ghostbusters were the live-action movie with real people. In my little kid head, it felt like the TV show was trying to claim itself better than the movie.

Glad to know that is yet another thing I thought as a kid which is totally, totally wrong.

 

[CronoT]

Personally, I think that all lawyers who propagate and profit off of Licensing Hell should be taken out into the City Square and beaten for the good of society.

China may be the world's leader in piracy, but, darnit, they get s*** done. Over here in the Good Old US of A, everyone's sphincter tightens up like a snare drum the second the word copyright gets mentioned.

 

[justblues]

When i first saw the title i thought bob was gonna rant about the ghostbusters being bad or something. Im glad i was wrong and to see just how much he "LIKES" ghostbusters.

 

[NeoShinGundam]

Holy Cr!p!! So THAT'S where that one episode of Ghostbusters I watched came from. I thought it was actually a spin-off of the Real Ghostbusters and had totally forgotten it until today. Thanks MovieBob!

 

[Calbeck]

An excellent rakedown on one of my all-time pop-culture pet peeves.

Superbly researched, too. Kudos!

 

[LazyAza]

Haha wow I remember the original ghostbusters cartoon, I remember going 'wtf is this' as a child back then, at last it is explained! thanks bob.

 

[Dectilon]

Interesting. I never knew about neither the show nor the conflict.

 

[DragonWright]

For content titled 'Too Many Busters', I was expecting more busters. Less vague, the spin-off 'toons of the Real series.

 

[Disthron]

I remember watching both shows back in the day, boy do these bring back some memories. I seem to recall that "the Ghost Busters" was on TV first. Though I can't say for sure, but I seem to remember that the cartoon didn't start showing untill after the second movie came out over here.

 

[ricecracker]

wow... just wow... that explains that movie... thank you bob, see I grew up in Hong Kong, and they didn't supply any english tv, and my parents kept me very sheltered, so they bought me a couple of films, which I would watch religiously... one of them was the ghostbusters cartoon your talking about, it drove me mad that no one else knew what it was!

Just a bit of context of my sheltered childhood as a white boy growing up in china, two of the other 4 films I was allowed as a child were the ewoks films... yes the ewoks films, and I will forever love them for being there... but imagine my surprise while visiting my cousin in scotland who put on the star wars trilogy for me, and me to spend almost three films thinking to myself "this is fucking awesome; but I swear they stole those rebel pilot costumes from those ewoks films..." only to get to the end of the third film and .... O_O mind blown...

the last film I was bought was http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102095/ ... surprisingly enough, no one in school ever got my movie quotes "you know the gum that goes squish..."

 

[GamemasterAnthony]

So...the wacked out cartoon with the ape and the talking car was based on the ORIGINAL versions of the Ghostbusters?!? Holy crap...I did not know that! Kinda puts the series with Slimer in an interesting perspective and...

Bob,
You forgot to mention a couple of 'crossover' episodes the original Ghostbusters did where they had to rescue the Real Ghostbusters. It makes from some laughably bad continuity, but it was amazing that they did it.

Scott Glasgow

*insert tire screeching sound here*

Wait...WHAT?!? There were actually episodes where the two groups MET?!?

I want episode titles, I want episode summaries, I wnt YouTube links if they exist...and I want them NOW!!!

 

[k-ossuburb]

Okay, this is starting to get too coincidental for me to ignore.

Is every future episode going to be something that TGWG already covered? So far we've had the "comic books are weird" pieces which I've already seen done before with Linkara's Atop The Fourth Wall and now we're moving into Doug's territory.

I know that it's next to impossible to be original nowadays, but this is uncanny, I'm half expecting a little rant about the Highlander movies or a short piece on the Ultima games.

 

[Ian S]

I remember J. Michael Straczynski saying that he was doing The Real Ghostbusters as a reaction to his experiences for writing He-Man. A lot of 80's shows at the time (He-Man, She-Ra, G.I. Joe, Transformers, M.A.S.K., Thundercats, Silverhawks and Voltron) were repetitive and formulaic. Nothing ever changed, no one's character ever developed, nobody ever died, every episode centered around the villain's latest hare-brained scheme and the overriding goal of all of them were to be 30 minute-long toy commercials.

JMS knew that kids were smarter than that, and to his credit he really fought to give TRGB a level of quality that hadn't been seen before, and it showed. Many of the scripts were smart and clever as well as funny. I'd say both this and Robotech (and maybe even Centurions) were the best shows to watch at that time.

And of course, another legacy of TRGB was that JMS used his experience there as a showrunner on Captain Power & The Soldiers of the Future, and that ultimately paved the way for Babylon 5!

 

[Thespian]

I used to love this series of Bob's, tackling cool random things.

But is it just me, or has it changed? Right now it feels like every Tuesday I go to meet this lonely geriatric who hasn't spoken to anyone since my last visit and has been dying to tell someone his latest story from when he was a wee lad.
I'm sorry, but I watch the show for his opinion, not for him to recount some random little event that occurred in comic or movie history so many years ago that in the end will garner a "Oh, isn't that funny" from me and nothing more.

Just saying =/

 

[Ickabod]

Now that was interesting.

 

[Grahav]

Good story.

Ghostbusters was one of the best cartoons of my childhood.

And I loved that red-head...

Also: Pirates of Dark Water, Dungeons & Dragons, Saint Seiya, Courage, Dexter's Lab, the Coyote...

 

[CronoT]

Good story.

Ghostbusters was one of the best cartoons of my childhood.

And I loved that red-head...

Also: Pirates of Dark Water, Dungeons & Dragons, Saint Seiya, Courage, Dexter's Lab, the Coyote...

Pirates of Dark Water was good. It's just too bad that by the time the overall storyline finally started to get somewhere, the series got cancelled.

 

[MarsProbe]

Interesting subject there. I dont recall ever actually seeing the "Ghostbusters" cartoon, but the video (and especially the car with the little ghost face on the front they were driving) reminds of the time I was round at a friends house back when I was a kid and saw he had a Ghostbusters clock. Of course, I was naturally puzzled by the lack of Slimer and proton packs, so i demanded an explanation.

Not that I was taking that train of thought anywhere significant, just a totally random memory that cropped up there.

 

[lokiduck]

Lol another thing I know all ready because of watching other online geeks besides you.

CR did it quite a few months ago XD