[Nate Dawg]

I’d love to read stories people have of seeing the original films in theaters back in 1984 and 1989

Where did you see it? What was the hype like? What was the audience reaction like? Do you remember the movie trailers that played? The atmosphere?

Anything you can remember. I’d love to read it. Thanks

[frankov]

I saw GB2 (or rather, SOS Fantomes 2) in theatre at 8 years old. Although I personnally was hyped, I don't remember a specific vibe in the theatre (like it was just another movie).

No recollection of the previews, but I can tell you nothing exciting happened. Some audience laughs here and there, but otherwise, it was a classic 80s theatre experience.

I didn't know what to make of it when it was done. On the drive back home, I was just a bit bummed out... It didn't give me what I wanted, and it was the first time I ever felt let down from a movie. I appreciate the movie more now, 35 yrs later, but I essentially have the same gripes (hated the logo, the new car, the new Slimer, the silly victory painting).

It DID however retro-actively scared me a bit... Laying in bed that very night, I was kinda haunted by the freakish Vigo heads. So I gotta say, the bad guy made more of an impact this time around, so the movie DID some things right in the end.

Fast forward a few months, I went to see Back To The Future 2 (in the same theatre) and had the exact opposite reaction. Loved absolutely everything about it, and still do. I remember way more about this theatre experience than GB2.

I think, part of the difference, is that I saw GB2 with my parents and saw BTTF2 with my cousins; the after-movie discussions, pre-showing hype, goofing around, might've changed my perception a bit.

I have fond memories of that particular theatre, which was pretty much in disarray in the 90s and closed in early 2000s. It was a small place, with 3 screens, and it was made redundant with the opening of a 10-screen, state of the art (by mid-90s standards) theatre.

[Nate Dawg]

I saw GB2 (or rather, SOS Fantomes 2) in theatre at 8 years old. Although I personnally was hyped, I don't remember a specific vibe in the theatre (like it was just another movie).

No recollection of the previews, but I can tell you nothing exciting happened. Some audience laughs here and there, but otherwise, it was a classic 80s theatre experience.

I didn't know what to make of it when it was done. On the drive back home, I was just a bit bummed out... It didn't give me what I wanted, and it was the first time I ever felt let down from a movie. I appreciate the movie more now, 35 yrs later, but I essentially have the same gripes (hated the logo, the new car, the new Slimer, the silly victory painting).

It DID however retro-actively scared me a bit... Laying in bed that very night, I was kinda haunted by the freakish Vigo heads. So I gotta say, the bad guy made more of an impact this time around, so the movie DID some things right in the end.

Fast forward a few months, I went to see Back To The Future 2 (in the same theatre) and had the exact opposite reaction. Loved absolutely everything about it, and still do. I remember way more about this theatre experience than GB2.

I think, part of the difference, is that I saw GB2 with my parents and saw BTTF2 with my cousins; the after-movie discussions, pre-showing hype, goofing around, might've changed my perception a bit.

I have fond memories of that particular theatre, which was pretty much in disarray in the 90s and closed in early 2000s. It was a small place, with 3 screens, and it was made redundant with the opening of a 10-screen, state of the art (by mid-90s standards) theatre.

Thanks for sharing. 1989 was such a crazy year for movies too. Indiana Jones 3?Batman! Lethal Weapon 2. The Abyss! Back to the Future 2. Star Trek. Pretty sure there might have been a James Bond too. License to Kill?

Yeah Vigo is freaky. Extremely effective villain despite being stationary for 90% of the movie. Thats too bad you had that disappointed reaction

Do you remember how deep in the theatrical run you saw the movie? Would it have been opening weekend? Being so young at the time it’s probably tough to recall

I saw GB2 (or rather, SOS Fantomes 2)

Was this in France? Quebec? Was it dubbed by French actors or subtitled? I imagine dubbing would affect the comedic timing of the actors especially Janosz whose comedy comes from his accent and delivery.


I feel like we may have the opposite opinions on GB2/BTTF2. I don’t think BTTF 2 works very well until they come back from the future(heh). The future scenes, beyond the cool tech and flying cars, felt so over the top. Michael J Fox playing all those roles doesn’t work for me. Griff I find just annoying. Everything feels like it’s been dialed up to 11.

However once they go back to the 1950s the movie really starts working.

I appreciate the movie more now, 35 yrs later, but I essentially have the same gripes (hated the logo, the new car, the new Slimer, the silly victory painting).

See i LOVE the Ecto1A. But I agree with you on the painting at the end. I’ve never been able to make sense of it. The logo holding up the 2 fingers always threw me for a loop too but then I read somewhere someone say it’s meant as a nod to the business opening up again. I don’t know how true that is.

[kahuna900]

I saw both in the theater. Ghostbusters changed my life. Ghostbusters II, not so much but I still enjoyed it.

I was a eighteen when Ghostbusters was released. Saw the film multiple times in the theater. A few friends and I built packs and suited up. One of my friend's dad ran a business in electronics. We were able to build primitive circuit boards to power our packs. Not at all screen accurate by any means, but people back then didn't seem to care. We hit a few events and contests over the next few years and blew everyone away.

Still had the packs for Ghostbusters II, but we had all moved on and were living in different places. I tossed my old gear 15 years ago after it received damage over time. One of my buddies still has his, and his daughter wore it a few years ago to a local event.

I've always been a fan of the films, but didn't think much about it until a few years ago. I spotted a Rubies pack online, and thought it was so cool to finally own a real pack. After getting it out of the box, I quickly realized that it needed some work. I was lucky to stumble onto this site and was very please to find so many options were available to mod this little pack. My love of the franchise grew and now I have Ghostbuster toys, packs, traps, suit and gear.

This year we are planning a huge Ghostbusters themed event for our trick or treat guests. I'm even outfitting my truck with Ghostbusters logos, lights and sounds. I'll be wearing my Haslab modded pack, full suit and gear, and FE jacket. I'm also hoping to get one of my other Haslab packs converted to a FE version. I have all the parts, just need to paint and apply.

It's funny to think that these films still affect my life after all these years. I sometimes ask myself what the hell I'm doing, suiting up at almost 60 years old... but it still brings a smile to my face and I guess that's the only thing that really matters.

[frankov]

Do you remember how deep in the theatrical run you saw the movie? Would it have been opening weekend? Being so young at the time it’s probably tough to recall

Was this in France? Quebec? Was it dubbed by French actors or subtitled? I imagine dubbing would affect the comedic timing of the actors especially Janosz whose comedy comes from his accent and delivery.

Opening weekend or opening week for sure, in Quebec. Wasn't as much of a shock to watch the French dubbed version since this was also the way I saw the first one.

Because I stubbornly watched (without understanding) The Real Ghostbusters on ABC 22 Saturday mornings, by 1992 I was fluent enough to watch English shows and movies, so I got to enjoy the original GBs even more.

But I gotta say, I still got a sweet spot for the French dub. It wasn't half bad, and generally Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis had the same voice actors in a lot of movies of the 80s/90s, so there was a familiarity there. Janoz was fine as well, the voice actor used a sort of made up Eastern European accent.

I feel like we may have the opposite opinions on GB2/BTTF2. I don’t think BTTF 2 works very well until they come back from the future(heh). The future scenes, beyond the cool tech and flying cars, felt so over the top. Michael J Fox playing all those roles doesn’t work for me. Griff I find just annoying. Everything feels like it’s been dialed up to 11.

However once they go back to the 1950s the movie really starts working.

Oh it's nowhere as perfect as the first one, but I really loved the future stuff and the fact that they go back to the 50s and I got to kindaaaaa see bits of the first movie in a theatre blew my tiny brain. Can't say I had a great time in theatre for BTTF3, but I remember my dad having a blast, since he was into all the Cowboy/Westerns stuff.

I wish GB2 hit me the same way... I think it's all down to the expectations, and after the cartoon, what we got was something entirely different and I wasn't ready for it. Contrast that to the end of BTTF where we kinda get a glimpse of what's next.

See i LOVE the Ecto1A. But I agree with you on the painting at the end. I’ve never been able to make sense of it. The logo holding up the 2 fingers always threw me for a loop too but then I read somewhere someone say it’s meant as a nod to the business opening up again. I don’t know how true that is.

You know what - I think I wouldn't have had any issue with the 1A if it had the old logo on the doors.

But I talk, I talk, what's you're GB/GB2 experience?

[Nate Dawg]

Do you remember how deep in the theatrical run you saw the movie? Would it have been opening weekend? Being so young at the time it’s probably tough to recall

Was this in France? Quebec? Was it dubbed by French actors or subtitled? I imagine dubbing would affect the comedic timing of the actors especially Janosz whose comedy comes from his accent and delivery.

Opening weekend or opening week for sure, in Quebec. Wasn't as much of a shock to watch the French dubbed version since this was also the way I saw the first one.

Because I stubbornly watched (without understanding) The Real Ghostbusters on ABC 22 Saturday mornings, by 1992 I was fluent enough to watch English shows and movies, so I got to enjoy the original GBs even more.

But I gotta say, I still got a sweet spot for the French dub. It wasn't half bad, and generally Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis had the same voice actors in a lot of movies of the 80s/90s, so there was a familiarity there. Janoz was fine as well, the voice actor used a sort of made up Eastern European accent.

I feel like we may have the opposite opinions on GB2/BTTF2. I don’t think BTTF 2 works very well until they come back from the future(heh). The future scenes, beyond the cool tech and flying cars, felt so over the top. Michael J Fox playing all those roles doesn’t work for me. Griff I find just annoying. Everything feels like it’s been dialed up to 11.

However once they go back to the 1950s the movie really starts working.

Oh it's nowhere as perfect as the first one, but I really loved the future stuff and the fact that they go back to the 50s and I got to kindaaaaa see bits of the first movie in a theatre blew my tiny brain. Can't say I had a great time in theatre for BTTF3, but I remember my dad having a blast, since he was into all the Cowboy/Westerns stuff.

I wish GB2 hit me the same way... I think it's all down to the expectations, and after the cartoon, what we got was something entirely different and I wasn't ready for it. Contrast that to the end of BTTF where we kinda get a glimpse of what's next.

See i LOVE the Ecto1A. But I agree with you on the painting at the end. I’ve never been able to make sense of it. The logo holding up the 2 fingers always threw me for a loop too but then I read somewhere someone say it’s meant as a nod to the business opening up again. I don’t know how true that is.

You know what - I think I wouldn't have had any issue with the 1A if it had the old logo on the doors.

But I talk, I talk, what's you're GB/GB2 experience?

I don’t ever remember a time in my life without Ghostbusters. I wish I could recall seeing it for the first time but I was a huge fan from the moment I could speak.

I love both films. The sequel is not without its flaws but spending time with Egon, Ray, Winston and Venkman can never be a bad thing. The climax is too rushed and I do miss some of the more risqué adult elements but I actually find it far scarier. It also gives the non Venkman characters something to do.

I have been lucky enough to see the first film in theaters for rereleases and it’s always a good time. I just wish I could experience the 2nd film in theaters someday. I doubt that will ever be an option.

[BenjaminMarshall]

I am just posting so I can keep track of this thread.

[Alex Newborn]

I saw Ghostbusters for the first time while vacationing with friends in Florida the summer of 1984. I was fourteen. I'd already seen ads for it on television, but my younger cousin Todd from Texas had been to see the full film and told me it wasn't funny aside from one joke where Bill Murray said a guy had no ****. So to be candid, if the family I was staying with hadn't picked the film, I might never have given it a watch.

By my very presence here, you know I actually enjoyed it. I didn't trust Todd's opinions on comedy after that. I saw it twice more on the big screen back home, and I remember that in both Florida and Alabama, you couldn't find any merch for the film, not even t-shirts. In both states, I saw airbrush artists who were stepping in to fill the void with handmade Mooglie templates to churn them out faster. In FL, they were outside vendors, in AL it was a guy at the waterslide.

Christmas Eve of 1985, a very influential moment happened in my life. There was a listing in the Cable Guide for a 'sneak preview' present from HBO. I tuned in out of curiosity, and from the opening shot of the lion outside the NY Public Library, I immediately recognized it was Ghostbusters. The torturous part was that back then I was the kinda kid who would pry into what his presents were ahead of time and re-tape the wrapping paper, and I secretly knew that a VCR and some blank tapes were waiting under the tree for me the next morning, but of course couldn't *reveal* that I knew they were there!

Due to the internal agony of missing the chance to record this very first early airing, I became obsessive about recording anything on television related to Ghostbusters. I am one of the only people known to have (partially) bagged the RGB test/pilot/promo clip when it aired on HBO. I went on to record every episode of the Real Ghostbusters. I mentioned this in a letter to the NOW comics RGB title, and the writer James Van Hise mailed me back asking if I could duplicate certain episodes he needed for research. He would send me cool stuff in trade for these, like the book Making Ghostbusters, the British novelisation of the movie, the script of the film, etc.

Then in the Summer of '89, there was a massive media blitz promoting Ghostbusters II, which I saw twice on opening day and found a copy of the script in my mailbox when I got home, another freebie from JVH.

I recorded about five hours' worth of interviews and commercials. Then life began to happen. College, marriage, divorce, remarriage, kids. Those tapes were shoved under a bed and forgotten about.

In 2011, after my wife bought me the Mattel PKE Meter, I really wanted to revisit my fanciful cosplays from the 80s and make things more movie accurate. I joined the online Ghostbusters community and began exploring. I had no idea there was so much content to discover, or so many like-minded individuals. I started seeking out my old collection, in my parents' attic, etc.

One day I found one of those tapes and began digitizing clips and uploading them to YouTube. The majority of them were incomplete at the beginning, since I'd just start recording once I flipped onto a channel and saw something GB-related. So I added host segments to set them up with whatever missed details I could remember. I dubbed the YT clips "Summer of '89".

I fully expected to be told, "Yeah, we know all about this stuff, and if you'd do your research, you'd realize it can be found on *this* website..."

Instead, the response was instant and enormous. I had well-known webmasters of GB sites make their own playlists of the vids and promote them excitedly because they'd never seen most of those clips before.

I've been standing in an autograph line for Ernie Hudson in another state, talking shop with the mellow buster in front of me, and saw in his eyes when he finally realized why I looked familiar. He stopped mid-sentence and went, "Wait... Summer of '89?" I nodded, "Yep," and he suddenly became as excited as a kid. "Let me shake your hand! Thank you for archiving all of that!"

So if you want to see a few hours' worth of the stuff the cast of GBII was doing in 1989 to hype the sequel, go to YouTube, look for a channel called LextheRobot, and then find the Summer of '89 playlist. I've got a little bit of other GB-related content on the channel too. LOL.

Alex

[Nate Dawg]

I saw Ghostbusters for the first time while vacationing with friends in Florida the summer of 1984. I was fourteen. I'd already seen ads for it on television, but my younger cousin Todd from Texas had been to see the full film and told me it wasn't funny aside from one joke where Bill Murray said a guy had no ****. So to be candid, if the family I was staying with hadn't picked the film, I might never have given it a watch.

By my very presence here, you know I actually enjoyed it. I didn't trust Todd's opinions on comedy after that. I saw it twice more on the big screen back home, and I remember that in both Florida and Alabama, you couldn't find any merch for the film, not even t-shirts. In both states, I saw airbrush artists who were stepping in to fill the void with handmade Mooglie templates to churn them out faster. In FL, they were outside vendors, in AL it was a guy at the waterslide.

Christmas Eve of 1985, a very influential moment happened in my life. There was a listing in the Cable Guide for a 'sneak preview' present from HBO. I tuned in out of curiosity, and from the opening shot of the lion outside the NY Public Library, I immediately recognized it was Ghostbusters. The torturous part was that back then I was the kinda kid who would pry into what his presents were ahead of time and re-tape the wrapping paper, and I secretly knew that a VCR and some blank tapes were waiting under the tree for me the next morning, but of course couldn't *reveal* that I knew they were there!

Due to the internal agony of missing the chance to record this very first early airing, I became obsessive about recording anything on television related to Ghostbusters. I am one of the only people known to have (partially) bagged the RGB test/pilot/promo clip when it aired on HBO. I went on to record every episode of the Real Ghostbusters. I mentioned this in a letter to the NOW comics RGB title, and the writer James Van Hise mailed me back asking if I could duplicate certain episodes he needed for research. He would send me cool stuff in trade for these, like the book Making Ghostbusters, the British novelisation of the movie, the script of the film, etc.

Then in the Summer of '89, there was a massive media blitz promoting Ghostbusters II, which I saw twice on opening day and found a copy of the script in my mailbox when I got home, another freebie from JVH.

I recorded about five hours' worth of interviews and commercials. Then life began to happen. College, marriage, divorce, remarriage, kids. Those tapes were shoved under a bed and forgotten about.

In 2011, after my wife bought me the Mattel PKE Meter, I really wanted to revisit my fanciful cosplays from the 80s and make things more movie accurate. I joined the online Ghostbusters community and began exploring. I had no idea there was so much content to discover, or so many like-minded individuals. I started seeking out my old collection, in my parents' attic, etc.

One day I found one of those tapes and began digitizing clips and uploading them to YouTube. The majority of them were incomplete at the beginning, since I'd just start recording once I flipped onto a channel and saw something GB-related. So I added host segments to set them up with whatever missed details I could remember. I dubbed the YT clips "Summer of '89".

I fully expected to be told, "Yeah, we know all about this stuff, and if you'd do your research, you'd realize it can be found on *this* website..."

Instead, the response was instant and enormous. I had well-known webmasters of GB sites make their own playlists of the vids and promote them excitedly because they'd never seen most of those clips before.

I've been standing in an autograph line for Ernie Hudson in another state, talking shop with the mellow buster in front of me, and saw in his eyes when he finally realized why I looked familiar. He stopped mid-sentence and went, "Wait... Summer of '89?" I nodded, "Yep," and he suddenly became as excited as a kid. "Let me shake your hand! Thank you for archiving all of that!"

So if you want to see a few hours' worth of the stuff the cast of GBII was doing in 1989 to hype the sequel, go to YouTube, look for a channel called LextheRobot, and then find the Summer of '89 playlist. I've got a little bit of other GB-related content on the channel too. LOL.

Alex

Holy shit! Now this was the kind of response I was hoping for.

Wow. I have a million questions but thank you so much for sharing this . I reread your response 3 times I love it so much.

Sorry for all these questions but I have so many I hope you don’t mind sharing.

Which version of the GB2 script do you have? You got sent all this stuff BEFORE the internet. You have a treasure trove of stuff. It’s amazing the comic people didn’t have access to all the episodes. Did you remain in contact with that guy?

Can you talk about seeing the 2nd film in theaters? What was it like? Did the audiences laugh? Was it disappointing? It seems popular opinions has varied on it over the years. It went from “meh” to “horrid” to “it’s okay” to “it’s good”.

So you were 19 when GB2 came out? This is going to be a hard question to answer but a lot of people around here seem to think Ghostbusters was a flash in the pan. That it wasnt really a beloved by the masses the way other big franchises of the day and today are.

What do you think about that? It shocked me when Beetlejuice 2 came out and did so much business and yet Ghostbusters just doesn’t seem to be clicking like it was. I’d never think a BeetleJuice movie would do more than a Ghostbusters sequel. But it did.

What’s your read on this? I’m curious. As someone who was old enough to be there for it all, the original, the cartoon, the sequel. Was the sequel really anticipated in 1989? Was the first movie just some flash in the pan fluke?

I have so many more questions but I’d better stop before I get carried away.

[Alex Newborn]

Holy shit! Now this was the kind of response I was hoping for.

Wow. I have a million questions but thank you so much for sharing this . I reread your response 3 times I love it so much.

Sorry for all these questions but I have so many I hope you don’t mind sharing.

Which version of the GB2 script do you have? You got sent all this stuff BEFORE the internet. You have a treasure trove of stuff. It’s amazing the comic people didn’t have access to all the episodes. Did you remain in contact with that guy?
...

I'd have to check to be certain, but I believe my copy of the GBII script is the final shooting draft. When James Van Hise told me he was adapting it for comic book form, I immediately begged for a copy. He explained about his NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) and how he'd be in massive legal trouble if he shared the script before the movie came out. I was bummed, but figured I'd wait until later in the summer and pester him again. So the fact that he somehow timed it as a surprise in my mailbox the DAY the film opened was mind-blowing. What if the mail had run faster than normal? Good for me, bad for him!

JVH and I corresponded for several years. I've got lots of goodies in my filing cabinet. Scripts of comic issues. Photocopies of inked-but-not-yet-colored artwork. And after he sent me copies of the inks for the GBII adaptation, Columbia made them take out the ending where the busters receive the key to the city at Liberty Island, since it had likewise been trimmed from the film. (Prompting JVH to ask me in a letter, "Where were they when Vigo possesses Ray while driving?"-- a scene cut from the film but left in the comic.) So while the finished comic ran with four pages of ads at the back, I already had photocopies of the b/w line art with the drawn artwork intact. I think scans might be on the spookcentral website, I'd have to look.

I also had the distinction of a credit on the splash page of issue 17 when Samhain returns. That was one of the main characters fans had been requesting, and for which JVH requested a VHS copy of the episode. (Yes, it was a different day and time when a fan could hook up two VCRs and snail-mail someone a copy of an episode faster than they could get it from the studio they were working for!) Back to the credit, I had told JVH in a letter about a dumb pun that I'd used in one of the Ghostbusters role-playing adventures I ran for my high school/college buddies, and he liked it so much that he worked it in as the title of the issue and rewrote a couple of panels to shoehorn it in. It was super cool to wander the Paranormal Gift Shop at Universal Studios Florida in 1991 looking for the perfect souvenir, and spotting that issue on a rack. I opened it to see "title suggestion Alex Newborn" and purchased another copy. He and I both loved puns, though his editor usually made him take them out, so it was great that he was able to sneak it in. The pun was "Samhain Chanted Evening".

More to come!

Alex

[d_osborn]

There's a term for people like Alex. Legend.

[Alex Newborn]

Can you talk about seeing the 2nd film in theaters? What was it like? Did the audiences laugh? Was it disappointing? It seems popular opinions has varied on it over the years. It went from “meh” to “horrid” to “it’s okay” to “it’s good”.

So you were 19 when GB2 came out? This is going to be a hard question to answer but a lot of people around here seem to think Ghostbusters was a flash in the pan. That it wasnt really a beloved by the masses the way other big franchises of the day and today are.

What do you think about that? It shocked me when Beetlejuice 2 came out and did so much business and yet Ghostbusters just doesn’t seem to be clicking like it was. I’d never think a BeetleJuice movie would do more than a Ghostbusters sequel. But it did.

What’s your read on this? I’m curious. As someone who was old enough to be there for it all, the original, the cartoon, the sequel. Was the sequel really anticipated in 1989? Was the first movie just some flash in the pan fluke?

I have so many more questions but I’d better stop before I get carried away.

On opening day of GBII, my neighbor Craig and I were 19 years old and 15 years old respectively. One thing that's germane to this next story is that I didn't yet drive, and Craig wasn't old enough. Plus, this was a day and age where no one that I knew had a mobile phone yet. (That happened for my family just two years later, when my parents got these giant car phones that were housed in a black fabric case with lots of velcro. But the story of why I know precisely when they got those phones is another tale altogether.)

So what you had to do back then was make plans ahead of time for where and when you'd be picked up. We got dropped off at the movie theater behind the mall in a town just across the river, with the gung-ho plan to attend the noon AND 2pm showings!

I definitely remember not enjoying the sequel as much as I'd liked the original, so there was a tiny moment of "oh, we're going to watch it again?" but the die had been cast. We were gonna be there until 4pm either way.

I have long maintained that the edit I saw twice back-to-back, and then immediately got to read in script form before the day was out, was not the same edit that was released on home video. The differences were in the montages, and before anyone asks, no, I didn't see Slimer fly out of the Statue of Liberty at the end. Leastwise not that I remember. Too bad I wouldn't own my first videocamera until graduating college in 1992, or I'd probably have been tempted to bootleg it.

With no other way to record my memories, I took a small notepad with me and scrawled notes in the darkened theater. I looked that notepad over a couple of years ago and the most profound thing I found was me wondering why they didn't dedicate the film to the memory of Gilda Radner, who had just passed away about four weeks earlier.

I've told these stories a few times, if they sound a bit pat and perfect. But actually, I just unlocked a memory that I don't recall ever sharing here before. So if you'll indulge me, let's follow a fun tangent about Craig.

Remember I talked about how I would run the Ghostbusters role-playing games for my buddies? I always tried to make each session memorable. One time I told them they'd all been dosed with radiation, and needed to get into their radiation suits (which was one of the equipment cards) but to really immerse them in the game, I handed out paper painter's jumpsuits that I'd found somewhere or other. My classmate Doug in particular LOVED stuff like this. He'd been playing D&D since he was eight years old, so more than half his life, and I recall him grinning ear to ear as he shucked into the white paper 'radiation suit' saying, "Now I feel like a Ghostbuster!"

As I think back, I'm not sure we realized this back then, but it seems like rather than each of us owning every RPG, we sort of carved out niches for ourselves. One guy might have the Star Wars supplements, another all the D&D books, I had the Ghostbusters RPG, and Craig? Craig was the one who bought TOON.



Although I misremembered TOON as coming out sometime *after* Who Framed Roger Rabbit's popularity in 1988, I looked it up and in actuality TOON, like the first Ghostbusters movie, was also released in 1984.

So when the RGB episode "Who're You Calling Two-Dimensional" aired in 1987, Craig and I concocted a Looney idea for a role-playing session. The guys all came over to my house, we began a standard Ghostbusters game with them playing their normal characters, but at one point they get sucked into a portal to a cartoon dimension and...

I reached under the bed and hit play on my CASIO keyboard, onto which I'd previously recorded myself playing The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down and then looped it at ever-faster speeds. From under the other side of the bed, Craig pulls out the TOON game, with all-new character sheets we'd made up the day before for the guys as cartoon animal versions of their regular human 'buster characters. I was even in that game as a playable character, taking the spot in the group left absent by Craig switching over to the game master.

Once again, it was Doug who exulted, "You guys put a TOON game in the middle of a Ghostbusters game! I love it!"

Now back to your questions...

I was personally left unsatisfied by GBII. The RGB cartoon had shown just how many good stories could be told within that universe. Citizen Ghost literally picked up right where the 1984 movie ended (well, in a flashback) and showed the guys taking on fresh new villains week after week in a New York City that believed in ghosts.

GBII zeroed the counter on all that. And even with the episode Take Two providing the perfect alibi, that the cartoon was the real people and the movie/s were fictionalized Hollywood productions based on their lives, it was still a giant mental disconnect at the time, and not a pleasant one for me. The quartet had disbanded and gone their separate ways? No ghosts appeared after Gozer was defeated? People forgot about that giant marshmallow man? They could have done so MANY possible stories that continued with them in business, but instead-- and everyone in the world has made this observation-- they tried to repeat the same story beats of the first film almost note for note.

Having said that, they hype for the movie was arguably more fun that the actual film. Give that playlist a look if you haven't already. The tie-ins with Hardee's. Nick at Nite running lots of Murray and Aykroyd-centric episodes of classic Saturday Night Live. SCTV reruns were heavy with Harold Ramis episodes. Mtv gave the premiere lots of coverage.

The cast were interviewed by everyone on every conceivable channel who owned a microphone and a camera. Nighttime talk shows: Carson interviewed Aykroyd and Murray again, having likewise had the two on together in '84; his guest host and someday successor Jay Leno interviewed Sigourney Weaver; newcomer Arsenio Hall (formerly the voice of Winston on the cartoon, now turned late night talk show host) interviewed Sigourney too, and Harold Ramis on a separate episode. Daytime talk shows: Crook & Chase; Good Morning America; Oprah Winfrey had the entire cast on and she herself marveled saying "We never get the WHOLE cast!" Sitting in the audience is then-unknown Chris Farley and his fellow castmates from Second City, including an actor who would one day share the screen with Murray in a scene of the Ramis-directed Groundhog Day. (A perfect film, in my opinion.)

I'd been salivating for the movie ever since a People magazine in December of 1988 showed the cast and director Ivan Reitman on location in New York.



I couldn't get enough. I read every article I could find. Murray saying "We'll burn in hell if we call it Ghostbusters II," then suggesting they call it "The Last of the Ghostbusters" so a third one couldn't be made. It always made me chuckle that they had indeed gone with the title he disliked.

As for the success of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, I can't speak to that, because I haven't yet seen it. I did see the Beetlejuice/Ghostbusters mashup at Universal Studios Florida in 1991, though.

I don't know that I'd call the first Ghostbusters film a 'fluke' or a 'flash in the pan'. I'd say they caught lightning in a bottle.

(Or pushed smoke into a bottle with a baseball bat. IYKYK.)

But that lightning was put in that bottle by a small group of extraordinarily talented people, all playing at the top of their games, helmed by a director with a judicious sense of what worked and what didn't. When they were given a nearly impossible deadline to meet and the pressure was on, they rose to the challenge and turned a lump of coal into a real diamond.

Why they couldn't repeat that success five years later is fuel for a debate that will never be fully resolved.

Alex

[Nate Dawg]

Can you talk about seeing the 2nd film in theaters? What was it like? Did the audiences laugh? Was it disappointing? It seems popular opinions has varied on it over the years. It went from “meh” to “horrid” to “it’s okay” to “it’s good”.

So you were 19 when GB2 came out? This is going to be a hard question to answer but a lot of people around here seem to think Ghostbusters was a flash in the pan. That it wasnt really a beloved by the masses the way other big franchises of the day and today are.

What do you think about that? It shocked me when Beetlejuice 2 came out and did so much business and yet Ghostbusters just doesn’t seem to be clicking like it was. I’d never think a BeetleJuice movie would do more than a Ghostbusters sequel. But it did.

What’s your read on this? I’m curious. As someone who was old enough to be there for it all, the original, the cartoon, the sequel. Was the sequel really anticipated in 1989? Was the first movie just some flash in the pan fluke?

I have so many more questions but I’d better stop before I get carried away.

On opening day of GBII, my neighbor Craig and I were 19 years old and 15 years old respectively. One thing that's germane to this next story is that I didn't yet drive, and Craig wasn't old enough. Plus, this was a day and age where no one that I knew had a mobile phone yet. (That happened for my family just two years later, when my parents got these giant car phones that were housed in a black fabric case with lots of velcro. But the story of why I know precisely when they got those phones is another tale altogether.)

So what you had to do back then was make plans ahead of time for where and when you'd be picked up. We got dropped off at the movie theater behind the mall in a town just across the river, with the gung-ho plan to attend the noon AND 2pm showings!

I definitely remember not enjoying the sequel as much as I'd liked the original, so there was a tiny moment of "oh, we're going to watch it again?" but the die had been cast. We were gonna be there until 4pm either way.

I have long maintained that the edit I saw twice back-to-back, and then immediately got to read in script form before the day was out, was not the same edit that was released on home video. The differences were in the montages, and before anyone asks, no, I didn't see Slimer fly out of the Statue of Liberty at the end. Leastwise not that I remember. Too bad I wouldn't own my first videocamera until graduating college in 1992, or I'd probably have been tempted to bootleg it.

With no other way to record my memories, I took a small notepad with me and scrawled notes in the darkened theater. I looked that notepad over a couple of years ago and the most profound thing I found was me wondering why they didn't dedicate the film to the memory of Gilda Radner, who had just passed away about four weeks earlier.

I've told these stories a few times, if they sound a bit pat and perfect. But actually, I just unlocked a memory that I don't recall ever sharing here before. So if you'll indulge me, let's follow a fun tangent about Craig.

Remember I talked about how I would run the Ghostbusters role-playing games for my buddies? I always tried to make each session memorable. One time I told them they'd all been dosed with radiation, and needed to get into their radiation suits (which was one of the equipment cards) but to really immerse them in the game, I handed out paper painter's jumpsuits that I'd found somewhere or other. My classmate Doug in particular LOVED stuff like this. He'd been playing D&D since he was eight years old, so more than half his life, and I recall him grinning ear to ear as he shucked into the white paper 'radiation suit' saying, "Now I feel like a Ghostbuster!"

As I think back, I'm not sure we realized this back then, but it seems like rather than each of us owning every RPG, we sort of carved out niches for ourselves. One guy might have the Star Wars supplements, another all the D&D books, I had the Ghostbusters RPG, and Craig? Craig was the one who bought TOON.



Although I misremembered TOON as coming out sometime *after* Who Framed Roger Rabbit's popularity in 1988, I looked it up and in actuality TOON, like the first Ghostbusters movie, was also released in 1984.

So when the RGB episode "Who're You Calling Two-Dimensional" aired in 1987, Craig and I concocted a Looney idea for a role-playing session. The guys all came over to my house, we began a standard Ghostbusters game with them playing their normal characters, but at one point they get sucked into a portal to a cartoon dimension and...

I reached under the bed and hit play on my CASIO keyboard, onto which I'd previously recorded myself playing The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down and then looped it at ever-faster speeds. From under the other side of the bed, Craig pulls out the TOON game, with all-new character sheets we'd made up the day before for the guys as cartoon animal versions of their regular human 'buster characters. I was even in that game as a playable character, taking the spot in the group left absent by Craig switching over to the game master.

Once again, it was Doug who exulted, "You guys put a TOON game in the middle of a Ghostbusters game! I love it!"

Now back to your questions...

I was personally left unsatisfied by GBII. The RGB cartoon had shown just how many good stories could be told within that universe. Citizen Ghost literally picked up right where the 1984 movie ended (well, in a flashback) and showed the guys taking on fresh new villains week after week in a New York City that believed in ghosts.

GBII zeroed the counter on all that. And even with the episode Take Two providing the perfect alibi, that the cartoon was the real people and the movie/s were fictionalized Hollywood productions based on their lives, it was still a giant mental disconnect at the time, and not a pleasant one for me. The quartet had disbanded and gone their separate ways? No ghosts appeared after Gozer was defeated? People forgot about that giant marshmallow man? They could have done so MANY possible stories that continued with them in business, but instead-- and everyone in the world has made this observation-- they tried to repeat the same story beats of the first film almost note for note.

Having said that, they hype for the movie was arguably more fun that the actual film. Give that playlist a look if you haven't already. The tie-ins with Hardee's. Nick at Nite running lots of Murray and Aykroyd-centric episodes of classic Saturday Night Live. SCTV reruns were heavy with Harold Ramis episodes. Mtv gave the premiere lots of coverage.

The cast were interviewed by everyone on every conceivable channel who owned a microphone and a camera. Nighttime talk shows: Carson interviewed Aykroyd and Murray again, having likewise had the two on together in '84; his guest host and someday successor Jay Leno interviewed Sigourney Weaver; newcomer Arsenio Hall (formerly the voice of Winston on the cartoon, now turned late night talk show host) interviewed Sigourney too, and Harold Ramis on a separate episode. Daytime talk shows: Crook & Chase; Good Morning America; Oprah Winfrey had the entire cast on and she herself marveled saying "We never get the WHOLE cast!" Sitting in the audience is then-unknown Chris Farley and his fellow castmates from Second City, including an actor who would one day share the screen with Murray in a scene of the Ramis-directed Groundhog Day. (A perfect film, in my opinion.)

I'd been salivating for the movie ever since a People magazine in December of 1988 showed the cast and director Ivan Reitman on location in New York.



I couldn't get enough. I read every article I could find. Murray saying "We'll burn in hell if we call it Ghostbusters II," then suggesting they call it "The Last of the Ghostbusters" so a third one couldn't be made. It always made me chuckle that they had indeed gone with the title he disliked.

As for the success of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, I can't speak to that, because I haven't yet seen it. I did see the Beetlejuice/Ghostbusters mashup at Universal Studios Florida in 1991, though.

I don't know that I'd call the first Ghostbusters film a 'fluke' or a 'flash in the pan'. I'd say they caught lightning in a bottle.

(Or pushed smoke into a bottle with a baseball bat. IYKYK.)

But that lightning was put in that bottle by a small group of extraordinarily talented people, all playing at the top of their games, helmed by a director with a judicious sense of what worked and what didn't. When they were given a nearly impossible deadline to meet and the pressure was on, they rose to the challenge and turned a lump of coal into a real diamond.

Why they couldn't repeat that success five years later is fuel for a debate that will never be fully resolved.

Alex

Awesome. Thanks. That’s a shame you weren’t big on the 2nd film. I love it. The people not believing in ghosts and not remembering Mr Stay Puft use to bother me quite a but until I read a back and forth on here anwhile back and someone made a great point. It’s weird when you sit and think about it. Why is it we are assuming people don’t believe or don’t remember? We see people cheering the busters on. We only see 3 maybe 4 people say they don’t believe in ghosts. And think about the world we live in. Where the moon landing is said to be faked. The first time we hear about people not believing is more of a joke with Jason Reitman and it’s used quite well to lead us into the scene where Ray and Winston talk about the old days. Then there’s the judge who is crazy and Hardmeyer who was ulterior motives.

Anyways, thanks for sharing. You aren’t the first person I’ve read online saying they may have seen an alternative edit. There’s got to be a bootleg around somewhere. That use to be a thing back then. They even made a Seinfeld episode about it.

Have your feelings changed about the 2nd film at all? How would you rank all the films, including 2016?

[RealGhostbusterJay]

I saw GB2 in theatres. I was in the midst of my GB love. The toys, the RP toys. My dad made a custom firehouse that was so detailed and big I had to bring it for show and tell 3 times so kids could see it who missed it. I remember the theatre back home, long closed now and the smell of the pop corn, the posters on the wall for other shows coming and also playing but it was one screen so one time would be one show, another time would be another show. Batman, Indy 3, Trek 5....I remember not being as s cared save a few moments with this film. the dead heads...Yanosh's headlights...

On our own...I to this day have GB2 as my favorite GB film. Not because I think its a better film but because of the dreaded word...Nostalgia. I remember my dad taking me and he didn't get to go to movies with me a lot so I suppose that's why. I still generally wear a GB2 tan flightsuit or the charcoal at most events.

[Nate Dawg]

I saw GB2 in theatres. I was in the midst of my GB love. The toys, the RP toys. My dad made a custom firehouse that was so detailed and big I had to bring it for show and tell 3 times so kids could see it who missed it. I remember the theatre back home, long closed now and the smell of the pop corn, the posters on the wall for other shows coming and also playing but it was one screen so one time would be one show, another time would be another show. Batman, Indy 3, Trek 5....I remember not being as s cared save a few moments with this film. the dead heads...Yanosh's headlights...

On our own...I to this day have GB2 as my favorite GB film. Not because I think its a better film but because of the dreaded word...Nostalgia. I remember my dad taking me and he didn't get to go to movies with me a lot so I suppose that's why. I still generally wear a GB2 tan flightsuit or the charcoal at most events.

That’s great. I’m glad u mentioned nostalgia because it really ticks me off when nostalgia is demonized as some sort of lesser emotional reaction. Sure it’s easy to manipulate but it’s as valid as anything else. There are movies I love that I know really aren’t great films but the relationship I have with them, seeing it with friends, renting it from a video store, buying theater tickets ETC. Hook is a big example. That movie is nostalgia porn for me. Or Wild Wild West. Terrible movie. But I saw it in theatres as a younger kid and loved the big CGI Spider. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 is another big one. Awful movie. But damn it. I can’t help but feel like it’s a warm blanket during times when I get down.

I’ve watched a few reaction videos of people watching Ghostbusters 1 and 2 for the first time and it’s surprising the amount of reactioners who prefer GB2. It’s not insignificant.

Thanks for sharing.

[One time]

I saw GB1 in 1984 when I was around 7-8 years old.

I think the age you are when you see it first can change your perception of it.

I was just learning to speak English as a 3rd language back then, so most of the dialogue and jokes went over my head.

Being 8 I was just starting to make sense of the world. For example, I knew what policemen and firemen, or people in uniform were. People in uniform represented authority and seriousness. To see these men in uniforms see Slimer in the hotel and be so surprised by it, had me as a kid believing it was real. I mean, I knew it wasn’t real, it was just a movie, but in my mind back then ghosts -could be- real. That scene between Ray and Slimer (to my mind back then) wasn’t a complete fantasy.

That meant the proton packs were real too. I had never seen machines like that, but had no reason to believe they could not exist. They looked like incredibly detailed black machines in a backpack form. I was fascinated by them. Most of all by the labels and decals (which were too small to read on screen). Those decals and labels to me were the proton packs’ connection to actual reality. There wouldn’t be instructions and warning labels on them if they weren’t real right? If I could just get a glimpse of a moment in the film where I could read one of the labels clearly, I thought I could work out some part of how it actually worked. (The beautiful mind of an 8 year old )

In the years that followed I remember pausing the VHS over and over to get the perfect sharp frame on the proton pack and tracing it out with an A4 sheet of paper over the CRT tv. The scene where Ray is running to Peter in the hotel (2 sequences of sharp frames, people who’ve done it will know what I’m talking about.)

So for me it was about the equipment and how it worked. I didn’t understand the whole thing with Dana and Louis, keymaster and gatekeeper, it made no sense to my 8 year old mind. The army escorting the Ghostbusters towards the end of the film reinforced my (8 year old kid) belief that it (could be) real, that this was serious. The terror dogs scared me a lot. The scene where they take Dana had me terrified. Gozer not so much, I just thought she was weird and a little scary. I didn’t understand the whole “ancient God” angle. I didn’t even know what a “God” was. Staypuft I remember as scary and strange. I didn’t understand that Ray conjured it up by trying to think of something harmless. That massive giant monster looked far from harmless to me.

The very end of the film had me fascinated with the city of New York.

[zeta otaku]

I was born in 1981, so I was too young to see the first movie in theaters. My dad recorded the movie off of HBO and when I was older, I'd watch that tape so much I broke it. Good times. I was also an AVID fan of the cartoon until, well, the changes. Anyway...

I saw the second film in theaters. I can't remember the town or the theater name, but I know it was a HUGE theater for it's time. I remember months before, my dad had mentioned seeing them film a scene in New York, but didn't see Ernie Hudson. I was CONVINCED that he'd show up in the Ecto-2 since I had ZERO context of what they were filming at the time so my dumb kid brain assumed it was an outdoor action scene. As for my theater experience, we're going back over 30 years so it's spotty. I remember having fun, but knowing I didn't like the film as much as the original or the cartoon. It was awesome to see my heroes in a new adventure, but the movie just FELT different.

Decades later, I'd have the opportunity to finally see the original film on the big screen. There were no touch ups or restorations, just the same, aged film from 1984 and it was great. Something about having all the grain and film wear from age up on a big screen just made the experience better. The theater was enthralled and were having as much fun as I was. The only time I can remember an entire theater vibing like that was seeing Avengers: End Game's final battle. Different energy, but same synergy if that makes any sense.