Well my niece turned seventeen a week ago today and she did not end up getting a car so I am currently thrilled about that. But that doesn’t mean she won’t end up on the road sometime sooner or later and that still scares me beyond all belief. Ya know those people that text while they drive? Well, I’m one of them. Those people that check the internet or talk on the phone while they drive? Yeah, I do that too. Sadly I’m also one of those people that will drive for a good twenty minutes, end up at my location, and have no memory of doing that whole drive yet I made it safe and sound. Imagine all of those things going on at once in the mind of a teenaged girl and holy hell in a hand basket…DANGER DANGER!
Might as well move on because there isn’t a damn thing I can do about that. Hope yall enjoyed my column last week about Disney’s The Princess And The Frog because I worked rather hard on it and was quite proud of my comparisons. I’m a Disney-freak from way back and probably always will be. Like I said before…I worked at the Disney Store for four years, worked at Disney World twice, have visited the parks in Orlando on over one hundred different occasions, and know just about every single thing there is to know about the company. Hell, my senior trip in high school twelve years ago was to Disney World. A really good friend of mine from high school, who I came back into contact with after twelve years, and myself actually were in the parks at the exact same time back in September and October. Good times. Disney is all that is awesome, but I sometimes forget that I curse like a sailor and my fellow IP Movies friend Jenny Alme proceeded to let me realize that with these great words:
“This article should come with a rating. It’s about Disney Princesses, but the language is Rated R.”
Nice eh?
Anyway, this week’s column comes on the heels of a little bit of news I reported earlier this week about Ghostbusters 3. There are spoilers in that piece of news as well as further along in this column so you’ve been warned. There has been talk for some time of a third Ghostbusters movie hitting theatre sometime in the next two years or so with the original cast along for the ride. That would be just so incredibly bad ass so I’m hoping it continues on the right path because the Ghostbusters were some of my favorite childhood toys to play with and cartoons to watch. Right behind He-Man because I was never one that gave so much as a shit about G.I. Joe or anything having to deal with them. That’s my brother-in-law’s department and still kind of is even though the dude is in his mid-thirties.
…………………………love ya Drew! But now I’m going to dissect the television and movie world of the Ghostbusters so we can all see just how they came to be and what the future may hold for them. Let’s show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown.
The live action version of The Ghost Busters is not a series I ever saw one single second of but it was on the air for only fifteen episodes and before my personal being even came into existence. All that I know is two bumbling guys and a big ass gorilla set out to research paranormal happenings. After the success of the original feature film in 1984, an animated series called Filmation’s Ghostbusters was created to bring this little series back to life, but it wasn’t very successful either as it generated only sixty-five episodes. Good riddance too because it really quite sucked. The animated version took place as the “sons” of the original live-action show characters went to work with another gorilla to solve ghostly problems.
Even when not in comparison to the movies of Ghostbusters as well as The Real Ghostbusters, this particular animated version really was awful. It was just not entertaining to me even as a kid so looking back on a few episodes now makes me realize my childhood days weren’t spent wasted thinking falsely. Both of these series have no relation to the franchise that everyone is most familiar with which should be blatantly obvious considering this goofy live-action kids’ show came out almost ten years before Egon Spengler and Peter Venkman donned the jumpsuits. Can’t say much else about the series from the seventies having never seen it, but I’d love to hear from those that did witness it.
I just can’t help but think…a gorilla? Seriously? What on God’s green earth were they smoking when they came up with that idea? I just don’t see the point of the gorilla joining up for the investigations. About as useful as the Wonder Twins were to the Justice League.
There is really not much to be said here yet there is everything that can be said all at the same time. While He-Man may have been what seemed like my favorite as a kid; it was The Real Ghostbusters that kept me entertained more and still does to this very day. The greatest birthday gift I have ever received came virtue of this year on my thirtieth birthday when my parents gave me The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection which is just twenty-five discs of pure awesomeness. Each episode packed so much energy, adventure, horror, comedy, drama, and more into thirty short minutes without ever making it feel rushed or missing anything.
Holy shit, I love this series.
Sorry, it’s just exciting to talk about something that meant so much to me during my entire childhood and still does today. Perhaps my favorite aspect of the entire series was the amount of different ghosts the guys had to battle it out with. All unique and different then the next making sure that no two episodes were ever completely alike. That takes a lot of work considering the series closed in on close to two hundred episodes before all was said and done. Stay Puft, Mr. Sandman, Drool, Poultrygeist, imps, and ghostly versions of our favorite Ghostbusters are just a few of the baddies they battled it out with and kicked the asses of. Each one strange and freakish in their own way and causing the guys to come up with new and interesting ways to bust them. Oddly enough, The Real Ghostbusters was almost like the Saturday morning cartoon version of House.
Halfway through the series’ run, the format changed a little bit and also underwent a name change to Slimer And The Real Ghostbusters. This was done to make the series a bit more kid friendly and it worked by bringing in more viewers and it worked as the series got a few more years to run. Essentially each hour-long episode was split into two parts with Slimer getting his own segments to joke around and battle some funny ghosts while the rest of the time was devoted to the guys and letting them do their thing. Trust me that after a few episodes, I was completely Slimered out. He went from being humorous comedy relief that helped out in dire situations to being an annoying bastard spud that I wanted to feed to a terrordog.
Really gotta shut up or I’ll never stop talking about this series. It rocked. It still does. Enjoy it.
Here is an interesting take on the Ghostbusters as well something that rarely happens in the animated world of cartoons. First there is the real time advancement instead of doing a rehash and making a totally new series with the same characters. The original team of Ghostbusters have all gone their separate ways except for Egon who still hangs around the firehouse to keep an eye on the containment unit and teach a paranormal class at a university. Peter, Ray, and Winston all live elsewhere now and have taken on new jobs thanks to ghostbusting getting a bit slow. As things heat up again, a new team of Egon and his students get together to bust the frightening spooks that once again haunt New York.
This series didn’t last very long at all and one of the main reasons in my eyes is because of one huge flaw that others probably found as annoying as me…diverse equality. Our new team of Ghostbusters consisted of Eduardo who was a Latino know-it-all slacker, a goth genius chick named Kylie, a black machinist named Roland, and Garrett who was a white athlete confined to a wheelchair. Every single ethnicity and personality seemingly needed to be represented here for some reason or another and that usually hurts a series rather then helping it. We can’t all avoid the overall subpar quality of every other aspect of the series. Hell, the only truly good episode was the two-part finale “Back In The Saddle” where Ray, Peter, and Winston showed back up for old time’s sake and busting.
And one last thing. While it isn’t overly horrible to me, a lot of other hardcore fans of The Real Ghostbusters may have completely objected to the bastardization of the original theme song by Ray Parker Jr. Considering these Ghostbusters were “extreme;” there obviously were going to be a few changes and boy were there changes.
You’ve had to have seen this movie by now and if not then you need to get off your happy ass and watch it. I’m going to start out here by telling you why this is an excellent flick besides the main reasons of awesome actors, phenomenal storyline, great effects for the eighties, wonderful music, a hell of a plot, and so much more. Ghostbusters does what a lot of other movies don’t do and that’s make us care about the characters. It is one of the main things I bitch about in my reviews because so many films jump right into the story and don’t let you know a thing about the characters you see on screen. Here we get to know Ray, Egon, and Peter right away while even getting some background on them. We know what they are going through in school. We know what they do in their spare time. We know what gets them started in the art of the paranormal. Hell, we even know how they get the money to purchase the firehouse and start their business. THAT my friends, is paying attention to detail and making sure we not only have a hit in front of us, but a well made hit.
Let’s look at the star power in the movie as well and you’ll see names such as Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, Hudson, Weaver, Moranis, and so many more. It would be virtually impossible to go wrong with a cast like that and they didn’t. Each star played off the talents of the others and made this one of the most brilliant films of the last fifty or more years. All of these great actors are at their absolute best and fill the iconic roles as you would feel only they could do. There is just not a single thing that can be pinpointed in this movie that I would ever change because it just comes off as so absolutely perfect. Throw Ray Parker Jrs’ toe-tapping and overly catchy theme song in and you’ve got a movie that can be enjoyed by any and everyone.
Might as well throw some of my favorite quotes from the movie up right here because I have actually used most of them in everyday conversation:
~ Peter: “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.”
~ Winston: “Ray…if someone asks you if you’re a god…you say YES!”
~ Mayor: “Is this true?”
Peter: “Yes, it’s true. This man has no dick.”
~ Ray: “I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something that I loved from my childhood. Something that would never ever possibly destroy us. Mr. Stay-Puft.”
So the guys had saved the entire city of New York, but five years have passed and they were out of business because all the ghosts had sort of been capture. They had been downgraded to performing at children’s parties and working odd jobs just to make ends meet. But a big old baddie from the real olden days is back in the form of a painting and looking to take over the world thanks to the help of a tiny foreign guy and some super-evilized pink slime. Not a bad storyline for a sequel that came out five years later, but it didn’t really live up to the hype I’m sorry to say. Please don’t get me wrong because I love Ghostbusters II even though it followed the same formula that ninety-five percent of all sequels do and that is underperforming to the original.
There were some really some good moments in it but the entire successful campaign that made Ghostbusters so damn good is taken aside here and beaten like a red-headed stepchild. More lame humor is thrown in rather then letting the true comedic expertise of the actors take over and make the jokes work. The few frightening moments from the first movie are nowhere near being found here as things keep a much more light-hearted approach. Vigo is one evil looking shim (she-male) that knows how to take over and be one bad ass mo’fo, but he doesn’t even begin to compare to the devilishness of Gozer the Gozerian. My favorite part is when Ray actually gets possessed by Vigo near the end of the flick and turns all evil himself, but it doesn’t even seem to faze the rest of the guys. They automatically know what to do and that cool plot twist ends before it even really begins. Had they let that bit go on for the second half of the movie and forced Peter, Winston, and Egon to come up with ways of saving Ray without having to kill him, then it would have made it a bit more serious and not so HAR-HAR funny.
Alright, enough of my bitching and complaining because I’m being a total hypocrite. Every single time Ghostbusters II comes on television, I’m right there watching it and I know every single line by heart. It just bugged me a bit because it was a golden opportunity and yet was wasted when the success of the first movie wasn’t carried over into the second. Maybe that’s why it has taken so long to even begin talking about a third film. Speaking of…
Just a heads up, but the poster you see here is more then likely fan made.
Alright, so it’s been twenty years since the guys were together busting ghosts and who knows exactly where this movie is going to put them or take them. Rumors have been flying for years now and it seems that things could really go in any direction. A few things have been confirmed and the biggest one is that we’re getting all the original stars back for the movie including Murray, Ramis, Aykroyd, Hudson, Weaver, and Moranis. Not sure if Annie Potts is coming back to reprise her role as Janine Melnitz, but that would be awesome. Doubt she’s doing much of shit anyway. Ivan Reitman is also coming in to possibly direct, but at least be involved in some capacity or another. Not a bad start to a movie that has a script out there, but we know nothing about just yet.
Weaver recently did an interview (link up above) in which she spoiled some plot points that could go down and they seem really damn interesting. Here are a few of the things so far that could make up the plot of Ghostbusters III:
~ The original Ghostbusters come back together to save the city.
~ A new team of Ghostbusters is created under the guidance of the original team as they save humanity from the Nether World.
~ Peter Venkman (Murray) is a ghost. (This is what Weaver revealed in her most recent interview)
Any of those would honestly pretty good as far as storylines go, but the thought of Venkman as a ghost intrigues me most of all. I mean what would he do in his ghostly form? Would he help the remaining Ghostbusters or would he be against them? Hell, what happened to make him a ghost anyway? So many possibilities, but I’m also torn because I’m not entirely sure that having Murray in any role but that of the wise-cracking Dr. Peter Venkman is a good idea. All that is certain here is that I couldn’t be more excited for this movie and my only hopes are that it is done right and without shamefully being made for nothing but money-grubbing. I have a big feeling though that all of those involved are doing this for one reason and one reason only…to make the best damn Ghostbusters movie yet.
Only time will if Ghostbusters III is going to be as good as we all hope it will be and that time should come about sometime in 2011 or 2012. It’s still a good distance off, but it’s got to be worth the wait. It’s got to. One just has to wonder if the guys are going to get back into shape for their roles or they’re simply going to let their ages show because I don’t know if any of yall have seen Harold Ramis in recent years but…dude is not the Egon Spengler beanpole anymore. Oh well, I don’t really care because ghostbusting is coming back and there better not be a single damn thing that gets in the way of it and takes my dream away.
That’s all I’ve got this week everyone, but I’ll be back next week. Yes, I will have a column go live on Christmas day and it will be yet another Christmas themed article dealing with another set of movies. It’s going to have a bit more of a traditional feel though as opposed to my random “Christmas Favorites” column you’ve already read. I’d like to quickly touch on the fact that my New Orleans Saints are 13-0 heading into a home game battle tomorrow night against Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowgirls. Let it be known that while an undefeated season would be awesome; a Super Bowl victory is most important. And you fair-weather bandwagoners that have jumped on this season and will probably disappear once the Saints have a down season…you can all be on your way and bite my ass as you leave. Fans like you we don’t need.
Enjoy your weekend everyone. Get that last minute shopping done because before you know it…Ho-Ho-Ho’s will fill your home.
Wait…
