Spook Central

Oliver Rath's Ghostbusters Artistic Photographs

Spook Central — 2012-02-02T19:22:59-00:00

Renowned photographer Oliver Rath took a series of artistic photographs based on the theme of Ghostbusters, which were exhibited at the Windows Phone 7.5 Hotel Event on December 15, 2011 in Berlin, Germany.

Mr. Rath was kind enough to grant my request for copies of the photos and permission to publish them on Spook Central for all Ghostbusters fans to enjoy. For more of Mr. Rath's work, check out his website (some of the photographs on his site contain nudity, so consider this your NSFW warning). You can also find him on Facebook. (The photos and all information have also been added to the Fan Art page here on Spook Central.)

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What's On The Menu At WienerWald

Spook Central — 2012-01-29T10:38:39-00:00

It all started innocently enough. Two and a half years ago I bought a vintage 1947 Tavern on the Green souvenir photo from a yard sale. I thought it was a nice, unique historical item with a connection to Ghostbusters. I didn't think I would ever have anything more to add to the "unique historical item with a connection to Ghostbusters" collection. Especially not something from another restaurant.

Two weeks ago I identified the Louis Wandering Past WienerWald location from Ghostbusters. The WienerWald Austrian Restaurant he passed was located at 1560 Broadway in New York City - the heart of Times Square. In doing research for that Shot on Site article I came across an eBay listing for a Vintage 1960s Wienerwald New York NY Restaurant Menu. For a mere $21.08 (with free shipping, no less) it could be mine. I figured, why not? So now it IS mine!

In spite of its name, WienerWald is primarily known for selling chicken, not sausage, as evident by their chicken silhouette logo. That said, if you wandered into either of their New York City locations (they only had two at the time this menu was made) and wanted to get some bratwurst, you could get it with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes for $1.95. Better than that, how about a whole sirloin steak with fried potatoes and a mixed salad for $4.95?!? Yes, a whole steak with sides for about the same price a combo meal will cost you at the McDonald's that now resides at WienerWald's old Times Square location. Speaking of hamburgers, you could get one for $1.25... and I'd bet you that it was a lot beefier than the paltry paddies you get on McDonald's dollar menu today. You'll need something to wash down that food, so how about a cup of coffee for $0.20? You're lucky if you can get a cup of coffee-flavored coffee for a buck these days. There's also soda for $0.20 and, for the adults, liquors that range from $0.60 for beer or a goblet of wine to $7.00 for a bottle of Henkell Trocken sparkling wine. Finish your meal off with a nice slice of cheese cake for $0.75, or choose a Viennese pastry from their large selection for $0.65.

The most interesting thing about this menu, aside from how ridiculously cheap everything was 40+ years ago, is the list of WienerWald locations on the back cover. There were 215 in Germany, 2 in Belgium, 5 in Holland, 1 in Canada, 11 in Austria (Österreich), 3 in Switzerland (Schweiz), 2 in the United States (both in New York City [the numbers of the Broadway address are transposed as "1650" on the menu]), and 8 more under construction (im aufbau). By the time Wienerwald declared bankruptcy in 1982, they had 880 restaurants in the United States. That's quite a nationwide expansion. I wonder how many more they had in the other countries by that time. As of 2005 they only had 63 restaurants left, all in Germany and Austria.

Of course, you should know that I'm not going to just talk about this menu without letting you all get a copy for yourselves. I have taken the liberty of scanning it in, cleaning it up, and making a PDF out of it. Click on the cover image below to download it. The scans look infinitely better than the actual item. In fact, I dare say that the menu hasn't looked this good since it came off the printing press back in the 1960s!

Vintage WienerWald New York Menu (1960s)

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Ghostbusters In PlayStation Home

Spook Central — 2012-01-21T05:05:22-00:00

Yes, I know, this article should have been written in June 2009 when the topic at hand was fresh and new. Unfortunately, I didn't get a PlayStation 3 until recently, so you'll have to make due with it being 2.5 years late. With that out of the way...

PlayStation Home is a virtual 3D social gaming platform for the PlayStation 3 on the PlayStation Network (PSN). Membership is free, and only requires a PSN account. Home allows users to create a custom avatar, and decorate their avatar's personal apartment with various items. In June 2009, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ghostbusters and the release of Atari's video game, many Ghostbusters items were made available for purchase, including a firehouse personal space. Below is a list of all items available for purchase with the current prices as of this writing. I have also put up a gallery of all items elsewhere on Spook Central. Read more »

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IDW Ghostbusters Monthly Comic #8 Solicitation & Covers

Spook Central — 2012-01-20T15:40:45-00:00

IDW just sent along the following solicitation for the Ghostbusters monthly comic series, issue #8, which comes out in April. You can pre-order any of the regular issues at Ghostbusters Fans (though not all covers are available), and you can pre-order the trade paperback at Amazon.

Ghostbusters #8 (April 2012)
Erik Burnham (w) * Dan Schoening (a) * Schoening, Nick Runge (c)
The spotlight is on Egon Spengler as he tracks down a paranormal entity - one that has ties to his past - to discover the true source of the city's abnormally high PKE levels! The grand finale to the second arc of the hit ongoing series!
FC * 32 pages * $3.99

Variant Covers:
Variant Gabe Eltaeb cover!

Bullet Points:
• Each issue contains two pages of behind-the-scenes Ghostbusters extras, by Tristan Jones!

Here is the A or B cover, along with Gabe Eltaeb's RI cover that I got directly from IDW.

Also, issues #9-12 will have some sort of cross-country "epic" event. The teaser/cover collage has been posted over at Proton Charging and Ghostbusters News.

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Site Update - Deleted Scene Photos Rescanned / Out-Of-Print Music Preserved

Spook Central — 2012-01-19T02:22:58-00:00

A couple of brief updates to the site were done this week. If you follow Spook Central on Facebook, you will already know about the first one.

All of the deleted scene photos from the Making Ghostbusters book that have been on Spook Central for the past 13+ years have been re-scanned at higher resolutions. This is the first step in my plan to eventually re-scan all of the old images on the site. Here's a quick list of the pages containing the re-scanned photos.

Also, the 2006 Ghostbusters Official Score album, which has been out-of-print for almost six years now, has been preserved on the Ghostbusters Score page, along with its bootleg counterpart that was preserved a while back. Copies of the album have been going for well over $100 on eBay, and quite frankly, that makes me sad. Granted, that's what happens to something that was produced in a limited quantity of only 3,000 copies, but still, it's very sad that people who want to hear Mr. Bernstein's beautiful music have to pay such an exorbitantly high price for it - especially when it was originally sold for a mere $19.98. It's been officially out-of-print ("sold out") since May 24, 2006.

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SOPA PIPA Protest Song

Spook Central — 2012-01-18T19:00:00-00:00

If the media conglomerates who bought these poorly thought out, vastly overreaching laws really wanted to stop piracy, they'd all provided a better user experience than the pirates do. In short, that means easier and quicker access for less money. When I can illegally download a movie for free and start watching it right away, but have to sit through forced ads and trailers (and Blu-ray loading screens) just to watch the same movie legally on a DVD or Blu-ray disc that I paid $20 or more for, you know something is wrong with the way the media conglomerates are running their business.

HEY MEDIA CONGLOMERATES - Here's the simple solution to all of your woes, phrased so simply that even the technological-neophytes amongst you can understand it: Look at what the pirates are doing, and do the same thing, only better!

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Shot On Site - Yes, It's True, This City Has No WienerWald

Spook Central — 2012-01-16T22:30:00-00:00

My first post of the new year is going to be one of my long-overdue Shot On Site articles. I have several locations identified and waiting to be written up, and hopefully I'll get to more than one a year. Read more »

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The NYGB ComicGuide Resurrection

Spook Central — 2011-12-28T04:42:04-00:00

For most of the 2000s, Chris Buchner ran two sites: the NYGB Tourguide and the NYGB ComicGuide. The former focused on the New York City filming locations from both movies, while the latter focused on all of the Ghostbusters comic books ever published. When I say "all" I mean ALL! All of NOW's books, all of 88MPH's books, all of Marvel books released in the UK (and their derivatives), and even all of First's Filmation books! Not only did the site cover all of the issues, it even went very in-depth with each one, giving you the credits, story synopses, trivia, bloopers, character photos, and more!

Unfortunately, on October 31, 2008, AOL shutdown their AOL Hometown web hosting service, and thus both sites left the internet, along with other AOL members' websites. Luckily for the Ghostbusters Online Community, I had saved copies of both sites. With Chris' permission, I've incorporated a lot of the Tourguide information into Spook Central's Filming Locations pages, though you can find some archived copies of the original site on the Internet Archive.

A few days before the shutdown, on October 28, 2008, I downloaded all of the ComicGuide files. Due to the way AOL handled their web hosting service, the site was actually split across a few different user accounts. I attempted to merge all of the download files into one computer folder... and let's just say that the results weren't pretty. Because there were a lot of files with the same names, they couldn't all be put into one folder "as is". I had to rename almost all of the files, which also meant that I would have to go in and edit every html file so that all of the new file names are referenced in links and the such. I didn't have the time to do the task, so the files sat untouched on my hard drive for a few years.

Around this time last year I saw a post by Fritz Baugh on the GB Fans forum where he mentioned the ComicGuide site by name and lamented over the loss of the invaluable information it contained. Seeing that he had an interest in the site, I contacted him to see if he'd also be interested in fixing up all of the files I saved a few years prior, with the intention of making it all available to the public again. I figured that he'd turn me down, as the files required a lot of work, and it would be a very tedious task. Surprisingly, and much to his credit, he accepted my offer.

So, now, three years and two months after AOL took it down, I am proud to present... The Resurrected NYGB ComicGuide (last updated September 10, 2008, archived October 28, 2008). FYI: Don't expect to find any of IDW's books on the site, as they all came out after the site went into hibernation.

MAJOR THANKS to Chris Buchner for creating the site and giving me permission to host the old copy here on Spook Central, and especially to Fritz Baugh for doing the time-consuming and labor-intensive task of fixing up all of the files and making the site whole again.

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IDW Ghostbusters Monthly Comic #6 & #7 & Trade Paperback Solicitations

Spook Central — 2011-12-22T14:35:42-00:00

IDW just sent along the following solicitations for the Ghostbusters monthly comic series, issues #6 and #7, along with a trade paperback that collects the first four issues (the first story arc), all of which come out next year. You can pre-order any of the regular issues at Ghostbusters Fans (though not all covers are available), and you can pre-order the trade paperback at Amazon.

Ghostbusters #6 (February 2012)
Erik Burnham (w) * Dan Schoening (a) * Schoening, Nick Runge (c)
Thanks to the contract they signed, the Ghostbusters are temporarily barred by Walter Peck from taking any work (without his express permission) in New York City. The Ghostbusters skirt the edict by taking a job in Schenectady. It's a simple haunted amusement park upstate - what could possibly go wrong?
* Retailers: See your order form for incentive information.
FC * 32 pages * $3.99

Variant Covers:
Variant Tristan Jones cover!

Bullet Points:
• Each issue contains two pages of behind-the-scenes Ghostbusters extras, by Tristan Jones!

Ghostbusters #7 (March 2012)
Erik Burnham (w) * Dan Schoening (a) * Schoening, Nick Runge (c)
It's a nasty case of possession by a greed-driven ghost, and one of the Ghostbusters is its new vessel! It's a battle of wills on the mental plane in this latest issue of the hit ongoing Ghostbusters series!
FC * 32 pages * $3.99

Variant Covers:
Casey Maloney variant cover!

Bullet Points:
• Each issue contains two pages of behind-the-scenes Ghostbusters extras, by Tristan Jones!

Ghostbusters [Volume 1] (March 2012)
Erik Burnham (w) * Dan Schoening (a) * Nick Runge (c)
Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night? Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic? Have you or any of your family ever seen a spook, specter, or ghost? If the answer is yes, call the professionals! Psychokinetic energy is on the rise again, business is booming for the boys, and Ray is troubled by what could be a prophetic dream... Is this an ill omen of an upcoming apocalypse, or just a little indigestion?
TPB * FC * $17.99 * 104 pages * ISBN 978-1-61377-157-0

Bullet Points:
• "If you're a fan of the movies then this will definitely hit all the right buttons. The charm, humor and witty banter that made them such a treat is here in full effect." - IGN
• "The story has a bounce swagger to it quite like the first movie. This is a new story that has the feel of the original, and it's quite a wonderful tale." - Comic Book Resources

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Put On Your Yarmulke, It's Time For Chanukah

Spook Central — 2011-12-20T17:00:00-00:00

For the past few years I've been posting an unusual holiday song each December. This year Matthew Jordan (of the Ghostbusters Wiki) offered to make me a little image to use for this now-annual tradition, and I thought it would be a great way to connect all of the posts, old and new. So, this year is the first year that the awesome title banner above is being officially used, though I retrofitted all of the old posts with it.

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. This is the holiday that Jewish people typically celebrate in December, though sometimes it occurs in November (it all depends upon where the Hebrew calendar lines up with the regular calendar each year). Hanukkah is an eight-day holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE. For the non-religious and the non-Jewish, think of Hanukkah as the Jewish Christmas :-)

Hanukkah is not as popular in terms of mainstream music as Christmas is, so there really aren't any well-known Hanukkah songs. "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" and "Chanukah, Oh Chanukah" is about as well-known as it gets. Adam Sandler wanted to change all that in the mid-1990s with the release of a song that he appropriated titled, "The Chanukah Song". Available on his 1996 comedy album "What The Hell Happened To Me?", it's not so much of a song as it is a list of people who are Jewish. Still, it became really popular and is pretty much the only mainstream Hanukkah song there is. If you tuned in to see The Real Ghostbusters in the Winter of 1998 on the then-new Fox Family channel, you would have seen Sandler's live concert performance of the song, as it was constantly shown during commercial breaks. A few years after the original was released, Sandler made a revised version, changing a few lyrics and updating the list of Jewish people. This version, cleverly titled "The Chanukah Song, Part II", was recorded live at Brandeis University for his 1999 album "Stan and Judy's Kid". Because having two versions of the same song wasn't enough, Sandler released a "Part III" in 2002 on the Eight Crazy Nights soundtrack (MP3 album), this time featuring vocals from actor Rob Schneider and the children's choir The Drei-Dels.

Adam Sandler - The Chanukah Song (Live) (1996)
Adam Sandler - The Chanukah Song, Part II (Live) (1999)
Adam Sandler - The Chanukah Song, Part III (Live) (2002)

Of course, why stop at only three versions when you can have FOUR!!! No, Sandler didn't put out a "Part IV" (not yet anyway), but someone did do a cover version... and it's someone whom you would never have expected to do a cover version of an Adam Sandler song - NEIL DIAMOND! Off of his 2009 "A Cherry Cherry Christmas" album, this version is more melodic, relaxed, and "adult contemporary" than Sandler's version - and it's probably the "safer" version if you want to listen to the song with your parents. An animated music video was created for the song (below), along with an online ecard that you can give to anyone you like - or hate, depending on their preference for Neil Diamond.

View on Youtube
Neil Diamond - The Chanukah Song (2009)

For the complete list of Spook Central's holiday song posts from years past, click here. Thanks to Matthew Jordan for making the "Unusual Holiday Songs" title banner that appears at the top of this post.

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