Main characters
- Eduardo Rivera (voiced by Rino Romano) is the slacker of the group, of Latin American descent.
- Kylie Griffin (voiced by Tara Charendoff, later credited as Tara Strong) has extensive knowledge of the paranormal and the occult. Unlike the others, she uses a custom proton pistol and carries the ghost trap on her back.
- Garrett Miller (voiced by Jason Marsden) is the athletic, sports-minded member of the team. He was born disabled and uses a wheelchair.
- Roland Jackson (voiced by Alfonso Ribeiro) is the team's tech and maintenance expert, from an African American background.
- Egon Spengler (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) is the new team's mentor and lookout. He wears a ponytail in these later years.
- Janine Melnitz (voiced by Pat Musick) is the team's secretary.
- Slimer (voiced by Billy West) is the pet-like ghost inherited from the original team, who speaks mostly in gibberish.
Equipment and vehicles
The new team carried updated versions of the classic Ghostbusters gear, including the Proton Pack, particle thrower, proton canister, proton pistol, P.K.E. Meter, ghost trap, and the Containment Unit. Kylie also referenced Spengler's Spirit Guide. Field gear added for the series included a Ghost Vacuum, a Field Projector, and a Liquid Oxygen Dispenser Unit.
The team's primary vehicle was the Ecto-1. They also operated an Ecto-Fire Truck, used as a large proton cannon, and an Ecto-Garbage Truck, which functioned as a large ghost trap on wheels.
Recurring themes
One recurring device is that whatever a ghost has done is undone once it is trapped or destroyed. When the demon Gu Mo steals people's bones, his victims get them back after he is trapped. When Lotan destroys all technology in his presence, the damaged devices work again after he is destroyed. After the Vampire Clowns devour numerous people and transform Eduardo into one of them, the victims reappear and Eduardo returns to normal once the clowns are captured.
The series also leaned on romantic tension among the cast. Eduardo and Kylie share a long-running love-hate dynamic, bickering constantly while showing the most concern for each other, with Eduardo often the most distressed when Kylie is in danger. Janine, meanwhile, makes repeated advances on Egon, who remains largely oblivious to her feelings and to his own.
Development
The toy company Trendmasters drove the creation of a new animated series, approaching Sony with the idea of a Ghostbusters toy line.1 Developer Jeff Kline has described shows of this kind as bridges between what came before and what was planned next. The dynamic among the new team was influenced by the coming-of-age film The Breakfast Club.2
The series went through a long design phase. Character designer Fil Barlow did the initial designs of the main characters from his studio in Australia in 1996, working remotely with executive producer Richard Raynis in Los Angeles. An early version of Egon cast him as an ambassador to the ghost realm trying to prevent a war on the other side. "Hell" was rejected as unsuitable for a children's show and the conflict was reframed as a war between ghosts and ghouls. The ponytail on the final Egon design carried over from this concept.
Several team members changed shape during development. The tech expert began as a female character named Julia, then shifted to a male character, Roland, whose dreadlocks were softened to cornrows and finally to a more conservative haircut. Barlow pushed for more than one female character and pitched a wheelchair-using character named Lucy, repeatedly proposing leg braces and crutches as easier to animate than a wheelchair. Raynis insisted on a male "jock in a wheelchair," and the design became Garrett. The Goth member of an early female lineup developed into Kylie; her rejected original costume was reused as one of her civilian outfits on the show.
In early drafts, Janine Melnitz was a history teacher who mentored the four students, and a goblin pet named Gnat was planned alongside Slimer. The principal antagonist in those early pitches was Zool, described as the father of all ghosts, awakening from hibernation to bring about a prophesied Armageddon. The Hollywood Reporter advertised the project as "Super Ghostbusters" in early 1996; by late 1996 the trade reported it under the title Extreme Ghostbusters, commissioned by Columbia TriStar for the 1997-1998 season. Ivan Reitman, Joe Medjuck, and Daniel Goldberg were named executive producers. As development progressed, Lucas became Garrett, Egon was made the professor and lead mentor, and Gnat was cut entirely. The series was greenlit for 40 episodes.
There was a delay in securing Ray Parker, Jr.'s approval to use the "Ghostbusters" theme song; the crew got the go-ahead about thirty hours before the first mix was due.3 The voice cast recorded in the evenings to accommodate Alfonso Ribeiro and Jason Marsden, who were both working on live-action sitcoms during the day.
Some casting was contentious. Laura Summer, who voiced Janine on The Real Ghostbusters, auditioned for the role and was told she had it before it went to Pat Musick instead. Billy West has said he was misled into taking the role of Slimer, told that Frank Welker did not want to reprise the part. Rino Romano was not cast as Eduardo at first; after two child actors were cast and the production was unsatisfied, he was brought back for a paid audition recording with the cast and ultimately landed the role.
Home video releases
In 1998, Columbia TriStar Home Video released three VHS volumes, all now out of print. Volume 1 collected "Darkness at Noon, Part 1" and "Darkness at Noon, Part 2"; Volume 2 collected "The Infernal Machine" and "Grundelesque"; and Volume 3 collected "Back in the Saddle, Part 1" and "Back in the Saddle, Part 2."
Region 2 (UK) and Region 4 (Australia) DVD box sets each featured the first 13 episodes. A North American complete-series DVD release came out on March 19, 2024.
Merchandise
Trendmasters produced an Extreme Ghostbusters toy line with figures of the main characters and a toy version of Samhain. A Garrett Miller figure went unreleased in both lines, though a prototype later surfaced. Tie-in promotions included a Kentucky Fried Chicken kids' meal promotion in the US in 1997 and a Burger King kids' meal promotion in the UK in 1999.
Several video games followed, mostly developed by LSP: a Game Boy Color title and the PC releases Zap The Ghosts! and Creativity Centre (2001), a Game Boy Advance game Code Ecto-1 (2002), and the PlayStation game The Ultimate Invasion (2004).
Comics
In IDW Publishing's Ghostbusters comics, the Extreme Ghostbusters occupy Dimension 68-E, separate from the prime The Real Ghostbusters universe of 68-R. As in the show, the original team disbanded after supernatural activity ceased, leaving Egon to tend the containment unit until ghosts returned and he recruited his students. The team meets Ghash, who haunts the Bronx Zoo, and later encounters the entity Proteus, who has crossed into their dimension searching for the Real Ghostbusters.
The two teams meet directly when the prime-dimension Egon Spengler sneezes mid-portal and opens a rift slightly off the proper frequency, connecting to 68-E. The Egons agree to collaborate on a paper about the science of luck and treat 68-E as an alternate future of 68-R, noting that the older Egon resembles Roger Baugh, an ex-boyfriend of their Janine. The Extreme Ghostbusters later help trap Connla's Army on Liberty Island and assist in recapturing entities that escaped the containment unit. Back home, they deal with the ghost of Nervous Nelly, an animal-rights extremist who frees the animals of a New York zoo by having ghosts possess them.
Legacy and later references
The animated team's gear and characters have been referenced widely in later Ghostbusters material. IDW's comics are dense with visual nods to the series, reusing Extreme Ghostbusters versions of the Proton Pack, P.K.E. Meter, proton pistol, proton canister, and Spengler's Spirit Guide, along with props, books, and ghosts drawn from specific episodes. The character Roger Baugh, who appears in the prime-universe comics, is visually based on the Extreme Ghostbusters design of Egon and was likewise voiced by Maurice LaMarche.
Concept artist Thomas Du Crest has cited watching Extreme Ghostbusters as a child as an influence on his concept work for the ghost Muncher in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. In April 2023, the game Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed added gear shells for the Proton Pack, particle thrower, P.K.E. Meter, and traps based on the Extreme Ghostbusters versions, along with hairstyles and outfits modeled on the team.
References
-
Greene, James, Jr. (2022). A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever, p. 156. Lyons Press, Essex, CT, USA. ISBN 9781493048243. Jeff Kline: "The toy company Trend Masters may have been the driving force. They came to Sony and said they wanted to make a toy line for Ghostbusters. That's my memory of it. But you know, a lot of those animated shows were meant to be bridges from what came before and what was next."
-
Greene, James, Jr. (2022). A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever, p. 157. Lyons Press, Essex, CT, USA. ISBN 9781493048243. The text notes that the dynamic between Kylie, Eduardo, Roland, and Garrett was influenced by the coming-of-age film The Breakfast Club.
-
Greene, James, Jr. (2022). A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever, p. 157. Lyons Press, Essex, CT, USA. ISBN 9781493048243. Audu Paden: "It got down to the wire. We had maybe thirty hours before the first mix was due before we finally got his okay."
