CITV Memories – The Real Ghostbusters.

The Real Ghostbusters (1986-1991)

One of the biggest films and cultural crazes of the mid-80s was Ghostbusters, where an awesome foursome took care of things that go bump in the night. I’m not so sure when I first saw the film myself, maybe when it was shown on TV a long time ago, and I might have even rented it on VHS. It was popular enough for there to be a sequel released about five years later, and the themes from the first and second films were also Top Ten hit singles in the UK. 

There was a huge amount of merchandise too, I remember playing the Commodore 64 game and having some of the action figures. There was also a fortnightly comic and some annuals released, and I still have the 1989 and 1990 ones. As great as the film was I must admit that most of my fondest memories of Ghostbusters are based around the cartoon version though which was called The Real Ghostbusters. Yes, they are the real Ghostbusters, accept no imitations! 

The Real Ghostbusters was shown very regularly on CITV throughout the late-80s/early-90s, and it featured animated versions of the quartet Peter, Egon, Ray and Winston who were always available to get in their Ectomobile to go across New York and beyond to eliminate any ghost that they faced such as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man using their Proton Pack. There were a couple of other main characters in the show, the receptionist Janine who was always waiting to take people’s calls, and of course there was their mascot Slimer who was popular enough with viewers to get his own spin-off cartoon. 

There was a huge variety of ghosts, poltergeists, and so on that were eliminated by our heroes. It’s also been noted that Peter was voiced for the first couple of series by Lorenzo Music who would become better known as the voice of Garfield in his animated TV series. I also remember that at the end of every edition the credits ran over a sequence where the Ghostbusters did a dance whilst crowds cheered, presumably after they had just saved the world from creepy things once again. 

The Real Ghostbusters ran for over 100 episodes, and in the late-90s there was a spin-off cartoon called Extreme Ghostbusters. There was a brief revival of interest after a third film was released about a year ago but it was poorly received. I was disappointed to find out that it seems that only the first series has been released on DVD in this country, but thinking about the show again made me realise just how much I enjoyed it when I was younger, and if a boxset of the compete series was ever released I would definitely buy it.