There were few things that you looked forward to in any given elementary school day: recess, getting to see the cute sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Bull who was a good twenty years your senior, running home from the bus to catch cartoons in the afternoon, and… oh yeah, before it became un-cool to bring your own lunch to school -- lunchtime…

I was among the fortunate who were blessed with a new lunchbox every year, and looking back – it was interesting the gimmicks and devices that were used to sell things to us to occupy those lunchboxes year after year.

I’m sure you already know where I’m going with this: Ecto-Cooler.

But bear with me while I build dramatic tension a bit… Gotta give the people what they pay for. Wait; do I get paid for this? Guys? Anyway…

I could wax nostalgic for pages and pages about all the food stuffs that were available for my school lunch as a kid (Dunkaroos, Fruit by the Foot), but from around 1981 to 1990ish, there was a war being fought on the grocery store shelves.

The war to be the sugar water “drink” of choice in kids’ lunchboxes.

Think about it, Hi-C, Kool-Aid, Squeez-It, Capri-Sun, I could go on and on with the options that were available for kids to implore their parents to buy for them. Each, of course, had some sort of a gimmick that set them apart from their competition in the hopes that maybe leading you to obesity or diabetes in pouch form would be more appealing than the other guys.

I remember, as a kid, the “juice” isle stretched as far as the eye could see, with all sorts of juice box, pouch, and bottle options to choose from. It only makes sense that the marketing folks would spend countless dollars to make you identify their brand above all others. (Now, juice boxes are relegated to an end cap or a small shelf next to the “real” juices… interesting, no?).

But while Squeez-It and Capri-Sun had unique packaging that was immediately identifiable, Kool-Aid and Hi-C stuck to the tried and true juice box format. So what could they do to get notice? Kool-Aid opted for awesome advertising with the oft Seth MacFarlane parodied Kool-Aid Man, who became more identifiable than any of the flavored drinks they sold. Plus Kool-Aid devised the genius idea of Kool-Aid points, which you could redeem packages of their juices for “Kool” (nyuck, nyuck) usually Kool-Aid Man themed gear.

Hi-C, on the other hand, had me sold the minute they developed a Ghostbusters themed beverage in Ecto-Cooler.

It’s a pretty genius idea, actually. When you think about it on the simplest level, the drink has absolutely nothing to do with the Ghostbusters property. The first thing that comes to mind when seeing the mucus-like ectoplasm in the Ghostbusters film and in the animated show isn’t “citrus tangerine goodness.” (Unless there’s something the fan community isn’t telling me?) The drink wasn’t even really the same green color as your favorite paranormal entity and mine. But it didn’t matter, the minute they slapped Slimer on the packaging and named the flavor “Ecto-Anything,” it was sold to me.

This is what Star Wars did to us… but I digress…

Having had parents with a strict “milk once a day” rule – Ecto-Cooler at lunch meant that I had to endure drinking low-fat milk for dinner every night, but I didn’t care. It was worth it. Ecto-Cooler made me feel cool. Like I was drinking an officially endorsed drink from the Ghostbusters. No matter what a dweeb I actually was in real life, I was a Ghostbuster at lunch. Which, okay, arguably still made me quite the dweeb. But endearingly so, right? Right?

I would beg and plead with my mom at the grocery store for Ecto-Cooler like a Mogwai wanting a snack after midnight. When Hi-C stated selling two liter cans of their beverages, the thought of cracking open one of those cans gives me more joy than tapping a keg of the finest brew as an adult today. Ecto-Cooler was the drink of choice when friends came to visit, just like scotch is for the suits in their executive offices. “Hey Brian, thanks for coming over, can I offer you an Ecto-Cooler? Boy, did you see Mrs. Bull today?”

It probably makes me beyond shallow, but Ecto-Cooler became associated with childhood, it became associated with a simpler and more enjoyable time. Much like a generation before me drank YooHoo, I drank Ecto-Cooler.

Of course, once the bane of our existence known as “nutrition” became a concern for families everywhere, the portion sizes of Ecto-Cooler slowly diminished. The boxes went from being monolith-sized, to matchbox-sized. Shortly after that, it ceased to be a juice and became a soft drink. It even suddenly became “An Excellent Source of Vitamin-C” (and pure sucrose by the tablespoon, probably) before eventually disappearing completely. It was missed, but life went on as juice boxes gave way eventually to Kool-Aid Koolers, which eventually gave way to it being cool to buy my lunch and drink school sanctioned milk, which gave way to a soda machine in high school, which eventually gave way to… I don’t know… girls.

There was a time around 2002 or 2003ish that Ecto-Cooler made a quiet and understated return, re-themed and renamed Screamin’ Tangerine. And I’m not ashamed to say that I, Troy Benjamin, at that time about to graduate from college, bought juice boxes by the case full. It was all a desperate attempt to take myself back to that moment in my childhood that Ecto-Cooler reminded me of.

Okay, well and when we discovered how good Ecto-Cooler and Vodka combined; it also became a means to inebriation.

But it’s strange to think that a marketing ploy during a highly competitive era where beverage companies were throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck became associated in such ways.

And it’s funny how much I want it back.

(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on Proton Charging, GB Fans, Ghostbusters.net, and Cross the Streams as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)

Hey there, folks. After a bit of a hiatus so that you wouldn’t get any more fatigued of my gibberish than you probably already are, The Private Sector is back. And this week, I’m going to come clean by getting something off my chest. Something that’s been weighing on me heavily since age eight… try not to hold it against me… all right… here goes… I stole Winston.

Whew… that felt good. Literally confessing your crime to the bajillions of good folks that read these fine Ghostbusters fansites (and most likely my mother, who will be reading this after hearing that her boy is a thief through the grapevine). I guess that a story is in order.

I was eight. And while my family lived comfortably, admittedly it was difficult for my wonderful and remarkable parents to keep up with my hungry appetite for the fine Real Ghostbusters related products that Kenner was releasing en masse. I wanted desperately the Ghostbusters’ trademark firehouse headquarters, but such a luxurious purchase just wasn’t possible at the time (for the record, I built my own firehouse out of spare house siding that was in my father’s garage, probably far more rewarding for my creativity but not for my Dad who had purchased said materials to patch holes before the winter). Even purchases of the individual action figures were very selective and planned out because my parents were able to buy the figures for me so infrequently…

Egon Spengler (the original blue jumpsuit version with Proton Pack) was first. He was my favorite character, so his priority as a purchase obviously was elevated. For the longest time, he was the only Ghostbuster (with the help of Robocop and Batman) to fend off Granny Ghost (whom I had received as a birthday present from a friend) and all of the invisible ghosts in my imagination. Egon was the lone Ghostbuster, breaking the first rule by venturing out into business on his own. Fighting ghosts in lands foreign to New York like an old Fisher Price castle my parents purchased for me several years before… or the bathroom.

Egon was soon joined by the original brown suit release Pete Venkman, and then quite a bit later the Fright Features Ray Stantz (because Ray just wasn’t Ray to me without the Ecto Goggles). A few other ghosts joined them including a Kenner Stay Puft I had fortuitously come across at a neighborhood garage sale, for the then hefty price tag to me of fifty cents.

But Winston, the heart and soul of the Ghostbusters, was always noticeably missing.

By the time another purchase was granted by the folks, the original Winston with proton pack and jumpsuit was long gone from stores – replaced by the horrid Fright Features Winston who always looked like a strange ventriloquism dummy with his unhinged jaw. And why was he in a Formula One racer outfit? Fright Features Winston felt like a fraud to me. An imposter sitting on the pegs among his Kenner brethren. When given the opportunity by my parents to finally pick up Winston, I was stubborn and always passed said Fright Feature figure up.

Until one day… at a yearly check-up at my pediatrician’s office… I was sitting waiting in a patient room for the doctor to arrive. And there he was…

Sitting, surrounded by Fraggle Rock McDonalds toys and a couple Ninja Turtles in a box of toys conveniently placed on one of the exam tables (presumably to distract the patient from the terrifying injection the nurse or doctor was preparing to stick you in the arm with) – was the original teal green suit release Winston.

Now, I was raised Catholic so things that I haven’t even done already unexplainably weigh heavily on me. So the first thought in my head wasn’t “I’m going to steal this thing”, it was actually, “No way! That’s such a rare figure that I can’t find, what’s it doing here?” That figure sitting in the Tupperware tub might as well have been the Lost Ark of the Covenant to me after the couple of years that I had pined for it.

But as much as I eyed the figure, I did nothing during that visit but marvel at its presence.

Until a year later, once again – by chance the same exam room, the same tub of toys, Winston still in there (but noticeably a lot of the Ninja Turtles toys missing). Once again, first thought was, “No way! Him again! How cool!” Nowhere near, “I’m going to deprive dozens of Ghostbuster fan kids at this doctor’s office of a moment of joy getting to play with a Winston figure by stealing it…” And besides, I was (then) eight years old. Do you know what the punishment for stealing is to an eight-year-old kid in the late 80s? No, are you kidding me, man… not a stern talking to or a time out, my God, this was the time when parents weren’t all politically correct and bashful about sprawling you over their knee and beating the snot out of you. Children actually feared and respected their parents instead of dragging them around on a leash. There was no way that this good kid would even think of such a thing let alone do it…

Until the doctor injected me with one of those aforementioned needles in the arm.

Then I wanted vengeance.

They had inflicted pain and drawn blood from me. They took something forcibly from me without my permission. It hurt emotionally and physically and, to quote an immortal movie, “Son of a bitch must pay…”

So I took him.

Teal jumpsuited Winston was smuggled away from that hellish prison where children were tortured with no reward. He wasn’t stolen. He was freed. Or so I told myself at the time… until later when Catholicism kicked back in and the guilt weighed so heavily on me that Winston taunted me. He remained on the shelf because I felt guilty to play with him. I couldn’t sleep at night in fear of the punishment to come for what I had done.

It was a long and difficult year until I had made up my mind that, on next return to the doctor’s office, I would return Winston to where he came from. Just as I had smuggled the action figure from the pediatrician’s office a year prior, I snuck him back in and despite not being in the same exam room that time around, deposited him back into a tub of toys.

And funny enough, there he stayed and remained. Each and every year that I visited my pediatrician (healthy, of course – as they had special quarantined lobbies and exam rooms for the sick kids), Winston would be spotted occasionally.

For all I know, he’s still there to this day.

Unless some new generation of young Ghostbuster fan is considering liberating Winston from his sterile confines…

Don’t hurt me, mom.


(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on GB Fans, Proton Charging, and Ghostbusters.net as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)

Welcome to Part Two of a Very Special Mr. Belved – er… I mean, The Private Sector. In yesterday’s column, I hardly scratched the surface, hoping to present the perspective of the female members in the growing online Ghostbusters community (which I affectionately for some reason continue to refer to as The Girls in Grey). In yesterday’s column, it seemed that many of the women agree on how they were introduced to the fan community, how they participate, and how passionate they are about their fandom. But it was when I started talking about personal matters that parallel lines started skewing.

I’m not going to lie; I get nervous when a member of the opposite sex sees my bedroom. Get your mind out of the gutter (but feel free to snicker at the possible inadequacies as a lover that such a statement might initially invoke, I’ll take the cheap laugh). I’m a fanboy and it shows. We’re not talking “40-Year-Old Virgin” bad, but I’ve got Ghostbusters and Star Wars swag on the bookshelf (which also is home to stereotype inducing comic books, of course). It’s a true testament to any future proceedings with friends or potential romantic links when they find out that I’m a fanboy. But my questioning of the Girls in Grey gave a unique opportunity to hear about the shoe being on the other foot. I realized that I was conversing with ladies that had boyfriends into football, MMA, and watching people get hit in the junk on Spike… while they were in the garage perfecting the cyclotron on their replica Proton Pack.

I decided to ask the Girls in Grey how their friends and loved ones outside of the online community reacted to their fandom. Especially given the great number of proppers and costuming ladies that responded, I was curious to hear their responses. Knowing how the people in my life are either extremely receptive or immediately raise an eyebrow when they hear that I’ve built my own Proton Pack, it was enjoyable hearing the response of Traveler of Games who told me, “People either love you or hate you in costume. With friends, it's a hit-and-miss. It's the same with co-workers and others. Some people tease me, others don't care, but when it comes to co-workers, the majority either love the costume or my ‘courage’ to show what I love in public.”

The majority of the Girls in Grey expressed similar sentiments, although it sounded like a good deal of them were used to a reaction of surprise when others find out about their fandom. Indeed, the term “fanboy” does indicate a specific gender. And the common misconception of fan communities is the lonely pale guy in his parents’ basement – so the response of surprise to anyone outside of that stereotype is understandable. But friends, family, significant others all seem to respond differently to the fandom of our female members.

One member, who asked to remain anonymous, informed me that her boyfriend was not only uncomfortable with her fandom, but also was uncomfortable with the fact that she was posting pictures of herself and talking with a group of fanboys. The jealous type exists no matter what the scenario or relationship, but with this particular Girl in Grey, he was jealous of Ghostbusters. “At one point, he told me he felt that I was more into Ghostbusters than I was into him.”

I didn’t think to ask the follow-up if she was still with said significant other, but what’s to be jealous of? It’s just a group of fans, all with common ground, gathering in one place to discuss and explore a franchise they hold dear to their hearts. It’s not like she was getting hit on or receiving marriage proposals… right?

Wait…

Actually, she was.

“In response to one of the photos I posted, I was told that it would ‘look better lying on the floor of (his) bedroom,” said the anonymous Girl in Grey. Another told me that when she was asking for opinions on flightsuits, a member had sent her a link to a choice ensemble from Fredericks of Hollywood. I’m sure that the latter was in jest, but obviously a bit forward. And thanks to my day job being taken over by a large corporation, sexual harassment training has told me that it doesn’t matter what your intentions are, even if it was in jest. Based upon the responses that I received, almost all of the girls (there were two exceptions, and one of which said she had been “indirectly asked if she was seeing someone”) had been hit on or the focus of flirtation at least on one occasion.

For the record I, your humble columnist, have been posting and around the community for (my God) over fifteen years… not once have I been hit on. It’s cool. Just saying.

Despite my complete lack of personal attention, for many of the Girls in Grey it sounds like it’s a frequent occurrence. “O v e r a n d o v e r i n s t r a n g e w a y s b u t h e y , I h a v e t o g i v e s o m e o f t h e g u y s c r e d i t f o r o r i g i n a l i t y ,” Michelle told me. “S o m e private messages h a v e c o m e m y w a y t h a t w e r e d o w n r i g h t c r u d e a n d b a s e d s i m p l y o n t h e f a c t t h a t I f a l l i n t o t h e ‘f e m a l e c a t e g o r y .’”

While it’s unfair to say that every member on a message forum or chat room is guilty of making fandom awkward for the women trying to participate, all that it takes is one person to be overwhelming and unbearable to points that escape is the only solution. Several members told me of one particular instance where a female member had posted a picture of herself on one of the forums and received so many direct and forward private messages and comments out in the open that she eventually felt the bombardment was too uncomfortable to continue visiting and has not been back since.

Again, no love for Troy. Fifteen years. Just saying.

But despite love connections, being a minority, breaking social stereotypes, and the rare exceptions of those that have run for the hills: the Girls in Grey say that they’re here to stay. (Hey, I can make a rhyme every time… coming soon to The Private Sector, Troy’s Green Eggs to Ghostbusters analogy.) Some tell me that they enjoy the fact that they’re part of a small, tight-knit group of females and that it has made them bigger fans of the series and larger fans in general because of the friends and relationships that they’ve made through the online Ghostbusters community. Despite some of the social pressures and nuisances, every response that I received was overwhelmingly positive about the encounters they were having in this ever-growing community. While many still may look at it as “A Boys Club,” and may continue to do so well after these articles have been buried into the recesses of the internets, you can’t deny the fact that there’s a growing group of ladies out there dialing in on their 14.4 modems (that’s what the kids do nowadays, right?), ready to chat about a franchise that they’ve come to know and love and become extremely passionate about over the years.



Special thanks to all those Girls in Grey that took the time to respond to my questionnaire and to those that entrusted me with their honest thoughts and opinions. The Private Sector will be back to form with more of my semantics and gibberish next week, but as always if you have thoughts, questions, found more typos, or you want to break the fifteen year fast and ask me out to a steak dinner, leave them here in the comments section of your favorite Ghostbusters fansite or drop me an email at netsolo@aol.com!


(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on Proton Charging, Ghostbusters.net, GBFans, and via Cross the Streams as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)

A funny thing happened to the online Ghostbusters fan community… back in the early to mid-1990s when Bill Emkow’s Message Board was the only game in town, I could count on one hand (a difficult feat for me) how many female members actively posted and contributed. If memory serves, half that number were the significant others for the male members that posted on the then appropriately titled “Ghostbusters Homepage”. But with the recent resurgence of Ghostbusters in the public eye based upon the new licensed properties, the forthcoming sequel, and the general nostalgia for how things used to be: it’s only natural that there’s a new diversification of those that actively visit and participate in the online community.

According to GBFans.com Webmaster AJ Quick, 10% of the over 13,000 registered users of his site are now female – and on top of that, nearly a third of total visitors to the site are female. It may sound like a lot in comparison to the five folks I remember from the stone age but given these numbers I immediately think of the other 90% testosterone filled, woman crazy, male members and my God, what must these female members think of it all? I mean, there are “Sexy Ghostbuster” calendars on some sites, there are clueless male members posting diagrams as to why they don’t believe the female anatomy is capable of wearing a backpack, and if you’re a lady and post a picture on the message board – you’d better be prepared to fend off the hoards of lonely dudes that will be outside your window playing Peter Gabriel on a boombox… why hasn’t this 10% demographic run to the hills in fear?

So, my dear Private Sector readers, I decided to turn investigative reporter for a two-part column to give the female fans out there a loud and resounding voice. To find out how and if participating in the message boards, comments, and immensely interactive fan community is overwhelming, intimidating or, as I found, if a lot of the ladies out there have learned to take a lot of things in stride. This isn’t meant to be a sociology experiment, thesis paper, or scientific work – after all, this is The Private Sector and my opinion will be dispersed throughout (read: if major news outlets are reading this, they’ll probably hire me to cover politics). More so this is meant to be a glimpse into a different perspective in this crazy community that we call home.

You might recall, several weeks ago at the end of a Private Sector column, I had asked for the help of female members willing to participate in answering some questions. I expected three or four responses… I received dozens. Right off the bat it was clear to me that the number of women visiting the fine sites that publish The Private Sector was well beyond what I had expected. In fact, the response was so overwhelming that it took me a while to respond to them all and actually gave me the opportunity to expand the scope of just what I wanted to know from the ladies in the community.

The majority of women that responded were actually new to the community, or had joined recently and still considered themselves to be new to the whole atmosphere. The new video game seemed to be the catalyst that inspired many of the Girls in Grey to seek out Ghostbusters online. A couple of the veterans (including one whom I’ve known for quite some time) were also kind enough to chime in with their experiences and perspectives. No matter when they joined, no matter their age, no matter their sense of humor, everyone responded that it was clear the Ghostbusters fanverse seemed like a boys club. In fact, dear friend Michelle whom I have the privilege of knowing from my days running GBHQ commented that it made sense given the characters that populate the franchise. Michelle kindly observed that, “Hey, even Stay-Puft and Oscar are male!”

But the broad appeal to the imagination (and funny bone, obviously) of Ghostbusters is strong and there’s no reason that a female audience shouldn’t enjoy the world and the characters that populate it… there isn’t a startling divide between male and female about Ghostbusters as there is toward a franchise like… oh… I don’t know… Twilight (have you ever seen men more hostile toward something? I mean, honestly dudes, all our blood boils but the ladies love it). With Ghostbusters, the broad appeals makes sense as to why both male and female members would seek fan sites out on the internet and want to share their fandom. But why aren’t there more of these Girls in Grey signing up and speaking their voice?

Interestingly enough, I found that the majority of responses said that they were shy when it came to posting on the message boards and popping into the chatrooms. They lurk, they read, they’ll utilize prop references and discussions without ever actually chiming in. It seemed like the consensus was a resounding shyness toward participating. However, an exception to the rule was recent GBFans Costume Contest Winner Traveler of Games who told me confidently, “If you like something, you shouldn't feel afraid to join in.” She added, “I learned that from being a gamer for many years.”

But why were some still hesitant to chime in? Michelle put it best for those with pause when she told me, “At times, I feel like I am stepping on their ‘male’ time and so I leave them to it.” To me, based upon the responses, the sheer numbers sound overwhelming to our female friends. It recalls the attitude and response a patient and loving ex-girlfriend had toward my friends huddled around playing poker, exuding testosterone, throwing back beer as if water… she holed up in the bedroom with the door closed or left the house entirely. It didn’t matter that she loved poker and could have kicked all our asses. She just didn’t want to be around all the grunts and bodily noises.

It’s absolutely not a sign of weakness or lack of confidence though. Every single response that I received showed that The Girls in Grey had incredible senses of humor, were patient, and most of all – for lack of better term, they sounded like really tough chicks akin to Traveler of Games’ fearless viewpoint. Arizona Ghostbuster Stina mentioned to me that she was selective with her posting and was nervous when she first joined, but took comfort in knowing she was surrounded by fans of something she loved. It sounds to me that silently observing isn’t something our female members are forced to do by a long shot, but rather a choice that they are making.

It’s abundantly clear that the female fans are just as rabid, just as passionate, and as much fanatics of Ghostbusters as their male counterparts. Any adversity doesn’t seem to discourage them in their enjoyment of being a fan, or their confidence in calling themselves a Ghosthead. In fact, when interactions were strictly on a level playing field about fandom, propping, movies, cartoons, you name it – that’s when I could hear the passion exuding from every response.

But when we started talking about personal interactions, that’s when I started to hear the Girls in Grey (digitally) start shifting in their seats uncomfortably.

Join me tomorrow for a special Thursday edition of The Private Sector, where part two of The Girls in Grey gets personal and looks at how those outside of the online community react to their love for Ghostbusters (including boyfriends) and will tackle the question that I know is on everyone’s mind…

How many of these lonely fanboys have hit on you?



(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on Proton Charging, Ghostbusters.net, GBFans, and via Cross the Streams as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)

Sure it’s crowded, it’s dirty, and there’s people here that would just assume step on your face than look at you, but one of the benefits of living in Los Angeles is the incredible wealth of talent, especially when it comes to “movie magic,” that calls such a place like Los Angeles home. This past Saturday, some of the greatest talents in the visual effects business gathered for the Visual Effects Society’s “25th (and 1/2) Anniversary” Screening of Ghostbusters at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood.

The event, which was touted as a screening and Q&A session with “special guests” turned into an impromptu reunion of the Boss Films crew, the former Marina Del Rey folks behind the visual effects of Ghostbusters, 2010, and their final project Alien 3. It goes without saying that the event was memorable - from stories of the complicated process in which the Stay Puft costume was engulfed in flame (“We… uh… put gasoline on him… and lit him up.”) to the wealth of fantastic archival photos by Virgil Mirano, which were expertly (and far too quickly) piloted by fellow DVD producer and visual effects magician Van Ling.

But what I really took away from the reunion/screening was just how fun the process of making movies used to be.

It’s funny seeing the twinkle in Richard Edlund’s eye when he reflects upon his time spent building Boss Studios from the ground up specifically for Ghostbusters and 2010, especially considering that Edlund is one of the greatest proponents of a digital, non-photo chemical, visual effects age. You get the feeling that he, and all of the participants that were on stage at the event, loved the challenge that having to produce everything optically presented. And when you stop and think about it, why wouldn’t they? If given the choice between being on a soundstage and rigging a solid-steel model of a Central Park West apartment building with explosives – then blowing the thing to kingdom come… or sitting and having a team of twelve animators at ILM digitally create the explosion frame by frame, I think the former is quite a bit more exciting than the latter.

There was one point in the moderated panel where the crew was discussing the challenge of animating the “rubberized light” beams that emit from the Ghostbusters particle accelerators. The solution, as described, was that the weapon was actually sucking atoms and particles from the area in which it was pointed so the pyrotechnics that were assembled on-set were made to look more like something “pulling” from the sets and less like the impact of an explosion (and, if you frame-by-frame through the DVD, you’ll notice the actual animated streams actually start on the wall and THEN link back to the proton gun three frames later). Fascinating and fun anecdotes that I had never known, and each person on the panel spoke of the process with a childlike glee.

But even taking that “fun aspect” out of it, one could argue that better and more effective work was produced when there was a challenge presented to the filmmakers. Can you imagine Steven Spielberg’s Jaws if the mechanical shark was computer generated and didn’t present any problems? How about Ridley Scott’s Alien film if he wasn’t hiding the man in a suit in the dark shadows of the Nostromo? I’ve vented at great lengths elsewhere (and frequently) about how computer generated effects have freed up (but become a handicap for) visionary filmmakers, so I won’t venture into that territory again. But I think that the point is clear: they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.

That much was abundantly clear in seeing and hearing the former wizards of Boss Films wax nostalgic on their Ghostbusters work. It was challenging, it was stressful, the pressure was insurmountable, and the fate of both their studio and others hung in the balance… yet twenty-five odd years later they are all still able to come together and the result is akin to a family reunion. Because despite all that hardship, they still had a helluva time.

Here’s hoping that the folks already hard at work on a third installment of this famed franchise take into account the challenge, and don’t take any of the shortcuts available in this modern era of filmmaking for granted… well… okay… and that they have a helluva time doing so.

(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on GB Fans, Proton Charging, and Ghostbusters.net as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)

It’s a quick and simple process: go into hotel, destroy ballroom, capture ugly little spud, emerge from hotel, become rock stars with fans that chase you around New York City chanting the name of your company and selling t-shirts with your logo. Pretty quick route to becoming a superstar that’s beloved by the general public, right? But what if an enterprise like the Ghostbusters actually existed in real life, present day? Would they be treated like the rock stars we see in the movies, or would they be treated like any other public service?

These are the things that I tax myself with when I can’t sleep at night, and depending on how you look at it – it’s either incredibly profound or incredibly sad. But bear with me for a moment while I take you through my thought process, because I have a feeling that if Ghostbusters were a real Yellow Pages business here in the so-called “real world,” they might not receive the same reception that they get in the movies. And even more shockingly, I think the public might have a similar reaction to (gasp), Mr. Walter Peck.

Let’s start by breaking it down. Ghostbusters fundamentally exists because of a belief in the supernatural. And, while the widespread belief in organized religion certainly needs no argument, I’d imagine there are quite a few skeptics in the belief of the paranormal out there. Come on, be honest: how many of you have watched a couple of the Dan Aykroyd hosted specials on paranormal and extraterrestrial activities and said to yourself, “No way?” So immediately, the Real World Ghostbusters that exists in the tired and alcohol destroyed brain of Troy Benjamin has quite an obstacle to overcome.

For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll say that ghosts do exist and a real company has found a way to actually track and contain them. Once we’ve come to the conclusion that they exist, they infest your house, they’re a total nuisance and ruin all of your possessions (pun, somewhat intended), they scare the bejeezus out of you, and you yourself have no means of ridding your house of the infestation, who are you going to call? Well, when you have mice, termites, or any other pest you usually call the Orkin man. Right? Do large masses of people follow the Orkin man around selling t-shirts with his logo on it and chanting in unison, “Orkin, Orkin, Orkin, Orkin!” Most likely not. And if so, that would be pretty awesome to see.

I have a feeling that you, as the consumer, would be relieved to have the Ghostbusters arrive to take care of your problem (you might not be so relieved when you see their excessively expensive bill). But given the circumstances and the real world parallels, I don’t think you would necessarily idolize these guys. After all, they have incredibly destructive equipment; one would also imagine they’re covered in ectoplasm that doesn’t necessarily carry all that attractive of an odor. Think about it, when your Waste Management facilitator shows up at your door and takes out the garbage, if you’re Dana Barrett are you in any hurry to plant one on the dude’s kisser? I bet you’re telling him to hop in the shower before you head anywhere near him.

Okay Troy, you’ve got me convinced but there’s this little thing that the Ghostbusters do that you’re leaving out of this equation: they save the world and they put on one helluva light show as they do it (so what if they conjure up a couple hundred foot Marshmallow Men that crush whole city blocks?). Well, you have me there. However the cheesy and perhaps a little sentimental answer is that garbage collectors, exterminators, firemen, all of these public service members are saving the world in their own way. Garbage collectors are preventing the world from turning into the Earth seen in Wall-E (kind of), exterminators are saving us from another plague being spread (what’s the Swine Flu?), firemen and police officers it goes completely without saying. So how come masses don’t gather at four alarm fires and chant, “Ladder 6, Ladder 6, Ladder 6?” Again, I’ve never seen it but if it actually happens out there, I’d love to.

I know I’m completely ruining all the fun of the films by grounding them too much in a reality that, in all honesty – I love to escape in the form of film going in the first place. And surely, the best argument against me is that I have yet to meet a team of Orkin men that are as charismatic and entertaining as Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson.

But don’t you just wonder? If Ghostbusters really existed and was available for me to truly call, how would I react?

(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on Ghostbusters.net, GB Fans, and Proton Charging as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall back in a cozy Columbia executive boardroom circa 1987/1988. I can imagine the conversation started something a lot like this: “That Real Ghostbusters show is really doing gangbusters.” (Pause for a chuckle because of the poor play on words. I should also mention that this voice sounds something akin to a stereotypical newspaper tycoon with a snide accent.) “You know what we should do with this new Ghostbusters picture? We should gear it more toward those youngsters, then we really can’t lose.”

And you can’t blame them; take a look at the result. Ghostbusters continues to be a cultural phenomenon all these years later. However, many of the biggest trepidations toward the second Ghostbusters film amongst the fanboys involve how it opened up to a wider (read: younger) audience. The boys weren’t smoking anymore. They were watching their language. And let me tell you, did Slimer love Fuji Film. I may or may not be remembering that last one incorrectly… hindsight is 20/20.

It’s for this reason, that I’m extremely curious to see how the new Ghostbusters film is going to be directed, marketed and packaged.

Let’s set aside the five digits worth of folks that we call the Ghostheads, just for the purposes of this analysis. You know I love you all, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this. And we can assume that, barring some major disaster like learning Oscar swings from vines with monkeys, each and every registered member on GB Fans, Proton Charging, and GBN are going to be shoe-ins for a movie ticket – you can’t tell me that if you’ve made it to this fourth paragraph in my column on a Ghostbusters fansite that you’re NOT going to buy a ticket to a new Ghostbusters film and all the merch to accompany it. But much as we’d like to be the center of the universe, those numbers are only a fraction of the ticket sales and merchandising sales that need to occur for Ghostbusters III to be considered as big of a hit as its predecessors.

Which is the origin of my curiosity… the marketing and licensing folks (not to mention all of our heroes currently behind the scenes building the foundation for the upcoming movie) have a whole lot of masters to serve come Summer of 20----datapacketlost---- when Ghostbusters III is released. They have to appease fanboys, adults, and appeal to kids that may only vaguely be familiar with what Ghostbusters is (if at all).

Want to hear my thinly thought through, nowhere near professional but common sense way of how I’d handle it? I thought you’d never ask…

You’ve gotta get the adults back that remember the first films fondly. Nostalgia will only get you so far (otherwise look at all the remake films that should have been huge hits but tanked like McHale’s Navy), so you have to remind those that grew up on or were already adults for the first two films that the movie was damn funny and entertaining and this one is going to be just as much so. Tag an original filmed in-character commercial with Peter and Ray sitting down to watch the Super Bowl that airs during said event and get a good laugh out of millions of the adult movie-going crowd right away… forget the smash-bang-CGI-filled teaser trailer or TV spot, what’s really going to get the adults into the swing is if they know that this is going to make The Hangover look like a Sunday Mass at the Ol’ St. Mary’s.

But that just gets the old folks in the door. Remember for this movie to be a smash hit you need to have ten-year old kids out on the playground using their backpacks as Proton Packs and being fuelled by the Ghostbusters themed breakfast cereal that you fed them earlier in the morning. So both the film itself and all of the advertising and merchandising needs to find a way to capture that same energy the first Ghostbusters had. It needs to teeter on that edge of the visuals and concepts being stimulating to the little guys, but the adults getting the laugh that the kids might not understand.

And mind you, I said that it needs to teeter on the edge… it should not favor either direction. If you cast a Jonas Brother in a role, you’ve pushed the border well past its limits. That’s not to say that a certain role can’t be appealing to the Teen Beat demographic, they better well make sure that the adults can stomach him or her too. I should mention at this point, to no detriment of his talents or abilities, my parents aren’t big Michael Cera fans. Sorry, Mike. Loved you in Arrested Development, if it heals the sting a bit? My parents also were a part of the rip in the space-time continuum that made Wild Hogs a hit so…

It’s a fact that the change fearing Ghostheads will quickly have to comfort themselves about, it is still called show business and the good business sense tells every party involved that if they can get (dear God, am I really saying this) the 8 to 80 male and female crowd all buying tickets and eating Happy Meals, the Ghostbusters won’t just be saving the world in the summer, they’ll be saving the economy too.

Speaking of the economy and buying things, another interesting quandary is that you have the adult collectors and us Ghosthead Comic-Con going fanboys, which people have written entire dissertations trying to understand, that are wandering the toy isles and pushing little kids out of the way in order to be the first to buy swag. So in order to rake in the sales, you’ll need to set up a merchandise scheme that appeases both the kids and the adult collectors. I’ve really liked how Mattel has been handling Avatar, Dark Knight, and several others of their tie-in properties. You’ve got a line for the kids, but you also have a higher price point collector’s line that caters other needs. Hopefully all of the Ghostbusters merch will follow a similar suite.

Any which way you slice it or listen to me circuitously ramble about it, I’m sure that there’s already several binders filled with statistical data and analysis strategies and plans that have been mapped out for Ghostbusters III. It’s going to be an interesting ride that I can’t wait to witness.

And spend lots of money on.

Happy New Year to you all, looking forward to many more Private Sector columns to come. As always, if you have questions, comments, or just want to point out that you’ve caught onto my drivel, drop me a line at netsolo@aol.com and let me know.

(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on Proton Charging, Ghostbusters.net, and GB Fans as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)

Okay, let’s have a real quick show of hands… how many of you out there in Ghostheadland were first exposed to the original Ghostbusters film not in the theaters, not on home video, but on the original ABC “Sunday Night at the Movies” airing of the film?

The event atmosphere surrounding the national broadcast television premieres of films has all but dissipated in this on-demand, streaming, DVD/Blu-raying, bit-torrenting, digital cableing world that we live in, so even the thought of being excited for a movie to air on ABC might be lost on some of the younger ‘heads out there. But let me tell you, when a new release film was going to air on TV back in the “good-old days”, you were sitting in your family room with the VCR cued up and the remote in-hand to record it. Video rentals, especially in the small remote town in Colorado that I’m from, were a special occasion reserved for weekends or birthday parties. And forget owning VHS tapes. They certainly weren’t as cheap as the home video items that currently populate the five dollar bin at your local Wal-Mart. Waiting for the movie to air on broadcast TV (unless you had a friend or relative cool enough to tape the movie off HBO for you) was the ONLY way that to feasibly own a copy of the original Ghostbusters film.

So, my strong love affair with Ghostbusters insisted upon one Sunday evening (best I can recall circa-1987), where I monopolized the two TVs in the Benjamin household. One to record the movie, and the other for me to watch as I very slowly and deliberately took at least an hour to get ready for bed, much to my parents chagrin. What can I say, Sunday Night at the Movies interfered with bedtime for this then six-year old.

Ghostbusters airing on ABC’s Sunday Night at the Movies certainly was an event that was not to be missed and for me, it was recorded from start to finish on a Memorex tape that has survived nearing a thousand views. That tape and I stood through thick and thin, through attention moving from Ghostbusters to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and then moving to the ladies, the Sunday Night at the Movies version of the film followed no matter where I went. And when Ghostbusters II aired on HBO, and my grandfather was kind enough to tape it for me, the stalwart Memorex tape was joined by its companion. And they endured for years to come…

It’s for this reason that I’m going to come clean and make a true confession that no true Ghosthead should ever have to admit:

I hadn’t seen the true theatrical version of Ghostbusters until my early teenage years.

Yes, yes, I know – that’s about as shocking of a revelation as telling Star Wars geeks that you never saw the first two films but loved Return of the Jedi -- but until I got older and wiser, I never knew of difference between the Sunday Night at the Movies version that I had watched over and over and held near and dear to my heart… and the store-bought VHS version that fate would put into my hands somewhere around 1992/1993.

Getting home from the store that night and popping in the true version of Ghostbusters was like seeing it for the first time. Pete Venkman was a bad-ass bursting out of the ballroom doors at the Sedgewick and not exclaiming a sentiment about joy that I couldn’t make sense of, but informing the world they had kicked some ass. Walter Peck apparently lacked necessary genitalia instead of being “a rodent of some sort.” And my God, there was a whole missing scene where Ray got a happy ending.

It was that moment, seeing the first film for the “first time”, that really got be back into the franchise that I loved as a kid but had waned away from as I hit junior and senior high school. Combined with a visit to Universal Studios in Florida shortly after, the purchase of the first Ghostbusters movie and my rekindled interest was the main reason that fate steered me to Alta Vista the moment that I ventured onto “the internet” and discovered the Ghostbusters Homepage.

And here I am, another Private Sector column waxing nostalgic again. It’s hard not to venture into the past during the holiday season, and especially as I’m sitting in my old bedroom, visiting my folks for Christmas… and the old die-hard Memorex tape of the Ghostbusters Sunday Night at the Movies showing sits directly in front of me on the shelf…


Happy Holidays from myself and from the fantastic proprietors of the websites in which you’re reading The Private Sector. The column will be on hiatus next week as I take a much needed vacation (and finally get to researching and interviewing folks for a long-planned column) but we’ll be back in 2010 with all-new ways for you to kill time at your favorite Ghostbusters websites. As always, if you have questions, comments, or need a sponsor as you venture into a fierce hot dog eating competition, I’m always here for you by emailing netsolo@aol.com.


(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on Proton Charging, Ghostbusters.net and GB Fans as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)

There was a time when patches were only things sewn onto the worn elbows of your jackets, and us “gamers” definitely weren’t waiting around for them. Let me take you back to a time when floppy discs were king, joysticks were modeled after the Atari, and when I wanted to throw my damn Commodore 128 out the window…

My grandmother was one of the most technological people that I knew and, as a Christmas gift, had purchased the family a Commodore 128. I remember it took my parents several nights to set up and to figure out how to even turn the thing on. But aside from a few novel game cartridges like Frogger and Toy Bizarre, the Commodore didn’t really garner much attention from me.

That is, until a chance encounter at the software isle at K-Mart revealed a new treasure: the Ghostbusters game for the Commodore.

I’m pretty sure that I begged and pleaded and all but promised to complete chores until the day I died for free to get that game. In fact, now that I think about it, I probably am still indebted for all the promises I made there in Isle 5. Finally, my parents relented, and it was in the shopping cart. I was transfixed for the duration of our shopping stay at the department store – unable to take my eyes off the screenshots on the back of the box which promised Ghostbusting adventures to come.

And then, as often happened when we departed a store with a toy that I couldn’t wait to tear open, we left the store and my parents stopped for us all to get dinner. Torturous is the time that you have to sit as a kid waiting to get home, and I knew that the Ghostbusters game was out there in the car taunting me. It was one of the longest dinners of all-time.

When we finally made it home, I couldn’t get upstairs to where the Commodore was housed fast enough. In went the five and a quarter inch disk. I typed in the command to run the program per the beautiful black, white, and red instruction pamphlet (which to this day still has some of my favorite line art of Slimer ever rendered)…

The game load screen game up – a multi-colored text card with Activision’s 8-bit rendered logo and credits for Ray Parker Jr.’s now infamous title song. The anticipation was killing me during the five to ten minutes the disk drive was working overtime, sounding like a pencil sharpener with every click and hum…

…the drive noises stopped. This was it, this was definitely it!

…and the game did nothing.

It just sat. On the load screen. Nothing. I waited for ten minutes, which became a half hour. A half hour became two full. Finally my parents came upstairs telling me that it was time for bed and I couldn’t believe it. After all the hype, after all the expectations, THIS was the reward? A title screen that did nothing and the parents calling for bedtime?!?

I was pissed. I was cursing David Crane, Activision, and anyone else’s name that was on that initial loading screen including Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio Music. How dare they tease me like this? I was hurt, offended, and whatever other range of emotion a five-year old kid could truly convey at that point.

Subsequent days, I tried and tried the game again. Nothing. Nothing. More nothing. We even returned to K-Mart to exchange the copy of the game for another. And after another tortuous dinner following and a journey back out to the middle of nowhere Colorado, it didn’t work again.

Eventually I gave up, and the Ghostbusters game sat in the desk drawer collecting dust. In the pre-internet days, there wasn’t a whole lot that you could do for support. I had even written a letter to the Activision address on the packaging, hoping for some sort of reply (which I still wait for to this day). I thought that I was cursed by the video game gods, and would never get to play it… that was, until one faithful day when I realized that my Commodore 128 strangely had this “Go 64” command.

Wow, I typed in the command and everything turned blue. What a strange and different world this was from the usual green-bordered screen that I was accustomed to. I don’t know what prompted or inspired it, but I decided to try loading the Ghostbusters game one last time. Maybe this blue screen made things different.

Load “*” ,8…

An error message.

But that’s what the instructions in the beautiful booklet told me to type! But wait, one of my other video games that worked always required you to add the number 1 to the end of that command…

Load “*” ,8,1…

The game started to load… the load screen came up… the disk drive sounded like it was about to die again… then… the disk drive noises stopped. Seemingly nothing happened, and my heart sunk again. I looked away for a split second…

“GHOSTBUSTERS! BWAA HA HA HA HA HA HA!” Yelled a strange and robotic voice from my Commodore as the no-ghost logo appeared and an unforgettable 8-bit rendition of the theme song began to thrum.

I hooted so loudly that you’d have thought the astronauts had landed on the moon for the first time again. The bouncing ball appeared. The lyrics to the song presented themselves. Every time I hit the space bar, the computer shouted “Ghostbusters!” It was like Christmas morning to me.

To this day, the Commodore 64 version of the Ghostbusters game remains one of my favorites. The emulations don’t seem to capture the graphics quite the same and building up the ridiculous amount of account money that I still think I have to code for remains one of the fondest memories of being a child fan of Ghostbusters that I continue to hold on to. Maybe it was because there was also a certain feeling of accomplishment that came with finally getting to play the game, because I had to deduce how to actually make it work in the first place on my own. Maybe the time spent without getting to play it made it that much sweeter.

But there’s one thing that I know for sure, when I hear folks still complaining about a lack of a patch that allows them to get one of seven hundred trophies on the new (and so fantastic that I can NOT stop singing its praises) Ghostbusters: The Video Game, I can’t help but smile.

What would those people have done back in 1985 when faced with the challenge of busting ghosts in a totally different age?


Thanks as always for your feedback on the articles, everyone. The response to last week’s “What’s the Criteria” was fantastic and you should expect a follow-up soon. I also received a great response to the upcoming article about the female demographic in the fan community, so look forward to reading about them in the near future as well. Have a question, or hope that I’d talk about a certain topic? The email is always open for you and for all of the spam bots that rampage within it! Drop me a line at netsolo@aol.com and say hi!

(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on GB Fans, Proton Charging, and Ghostbusters.net as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)

Hey there, people of the Private Sector. Hope that those of you who so observe had a great holiday weekend and that it was filled with football, food, and becoming increasingly annoyed with your Uncle Fred’s deviated septum noises.

This week is going to be another column on the interactive side of things. As some, none, or most of you may know: part of my daily job description is creating all of the bonus content that gets sandwiched on the DVDs and Blu-rays that you know and love. Ghostbusters fans were recently treated to another home video release of the film that started it all on the most recent format of Hollywood’s choice. Despite there being a whole lot of new content on the Blu-ray release, the general consensus was a want for more… let’s face it, Ghostbusters is one of Sony’s long-standing evergreen properties, and if one of their franchises deserved the royal treatment (akin to the Alien Quadrilogy, the Ultimate Matrix set, or the Blade Runner Final Cut set), this series of films is it.

So, under the disclaimer that this column and any further discussion therein is being done outside of my professional life, by myself as a fan (ie. NOT as a representative of the wonderful folks over at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), I wanted to set a foundation for what our end-all-be-all, super-awesome, everything-but-the-kitchen sink HD release of Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II would contain. Think of this as the Alien Quadrilogy for Ghostbusters. What would you like to see?

If I was in charge (and I hardly ever am, so sadly don’t get any ideas), had an unlimited budget, and the stars aligned to get everyone and everything, here’s what the box set would contain…

The Ghostbusters Compendium (a three-disc Blu-ray set)

Disc 1 – Ghostbusters

- Feature Film (with optional deleted scenes branched in to create an extended cut)

- Theatrical Teasers and Trailers

- 1999 Commentary with Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, and Joe Medjuck

- 2010 On-Screen PiP Commentary with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and Sigourney Weaver

- Slimer-Mode (Carry Over from Previous Blu-ray Release) on Theatrical Version

- Interactive Isolated Score (including unused and spotted tracks)


Disc 2 – Ghostbusters II

- Feature Film (with optional deleted scenes branched in to create an extended cut)

- Theatrical Teasers and Trailers

- 2010 On-Screen PiP Commentary with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and Sigourney Weaver

- Slimer-Mode (Newly Created Content to mirror previous GBI Blu-ray Release) on Theatrical Version

- Interactive Isolated Score (including unused and spotted tracks)


Disc 3 – Bonus Features

- “Making Ghostbusters: v2” - Newly Created, Two-Hour Retrospective Documentary Tracking the Ghostbusters Films from 1983 to Current. Breaking down Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production, and Release Response for Both Films, along with a glimpse behind the scenes of the development of Ghostbusters III.

- Ghostbusters SFX Team Documentary (1999 Carry Over)

- Ghostbusters SFX Multi-Angle Feature (1999 Carry Over)

- Compilation of Ghostbusters II ILM Home Videos, Test Footage, and newly filmed interviews for a Ghostbusters II SFX Team Documentary

- Comprehensive Stills Gallery for Each Film – Includes Production Images, Storyboards, Miniature and VFX Images, Promotional Materials (Poster Art Explorations, Logo Explorations), etc.

- Raw Dailies, Visual Effects Shoot Footage, and Unarchived and Restored Material from the Cutting Room Floor (also incorporated into new retrospective documentary)

- Full Criterion Laserdisc Archives (Includes all bonus material, production notes, photographs, video, etc. authentically and accurately recreated from the original laserdisc release)

- Full Original Spec Screenplay for Ghostbusters as Written by Dan Aykroyd (intended for Aykroyd and Belushi, accompanied by exploration imagery created to sell the script)

- Full Shooting Script Screenplay for Ghostbusters as Written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis

- Full First Draft Screenplay for Ghostbusters II (Ghostbusters: The Seed) as Written by Dan Aykroyd

- Full Shooting Script Screenplay for Ghostbusters II as Written by Dan Akyroyd and Harold Ramis

- Ecto-1: Resurrecting the Classic Car (2009 Blu-ray Carry Over)

- Fan Documentaries: “Cleanin’ Up the Town” etc.

- Full 1984 “Making-Of” Promotional Featurette for Ghostbusters

- HBO First Look: Ghostbusters II

- Hollywood One-on-One with Scott Patrick (Ghostbusters II Promotional TV Airing)

- Full June 1989 Oprah Winfrey Show – Promoting Release of Ghostbusters II

- Full Promotional Video of “Ghostbusters: Spooktacular” from Universal Studios Florida

- Archival Photographs, Concept Drawings, and Storyboards for the Ghostbusters: Spooktacular Attraction

- Audio Archive (includes radio advertisements, original 1984 radio interviews, etc.)

- TV Archive (includes TV spots for both films, Hardees commercials, Kenner toy commercials, Fuji Film tie-in commercials, Ecto-Cooler commercials, cereal commercials, alternate “TV/Airplane Version” censored takes of scenes from both films)

- 1999 Promotional Featurette with Ivan Reitman on the Advent of DVD


Okay, I know I’m leaving a ton out. So now is where you come in… what archival materials would you like to see on the super-awesome definitive home video release of Ghostbusters? Feel free to chime in here on one of the excellent Ghostbusters websites kind enough to host the Private Sector, or drop me an email at netsolo@aol.com and let me know what I left out, and we’ll come back to revisit this in a later column to mark a definitive guide to what the fans are clamoring for on home video.

No letter this week, instead I’d like to put out a call to all of the female Ghostheads out there in the webs (I know, I know… don’t get any ideas all you hounds out there). If any of you are interested in answering a few questions for an upcoming column of the Private Sector which will be discussing being a female in what’s predominantly a boy’s club, I want to hear from you! If you’re interested in participating, drop me a line at netsolo@aol.com. Until next time!

(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on GB Fans, Proton Charging, and Ghostbusters.net as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)