6. The Writing Was Trying to be Smart
The first two seasons of The Real Ghostbusters were overseen by script editor J. Michael Straczynski. This is prior to JMS becoming the stalwart of science fiction with Babylon 5 and a comic book guru with Amazing Spider-Man, Thor and other titles. JMS’s background in 1986 was primarily television, his biggest credit at the time being He-Man & The Masters of the Universe. With Ghostbusters you get the sense JMS was already forming his own version of this science fiction universe as he explored the implications of how a ghost-busting organization would function on a day-to-day level. We see how their co-habitation operates, the demands on their time, and how their interests and their relationships with each other actually unfold. More importantly though, actual cool concepts were being floated right way. The FIRST regular episode of the show was called “Ghosts R Us” and featured a trio of escaped ghosts who set up their own rival ghost-busting service. Whaaat? The first episode tries to invert the premise of the show? Now, that’s what I’m talking about!
3. The Cartoon Asserts a Meta-Fictional Shell Around the Films
Before I explain to you how it is possible to reconcile the continuity of The Real Ghostbsuters cartoon with the events of the two films, consider the following: the character of Peter Venkman is played by Bill Murray in the movies, but voiced by Lorenzo Music in the cartoon. Now, Lorenzo Music is slightly more famous for providing the voice of Garfield in the Garfield cartoon. But, when a feature film of Garfield rolled around, Bill Murray did the voice. So, clearly a dimension doorway is swinging between cartoons and real life already.
The real reason the show is called “The Real” Ghostbusters is because there was another cartoon called Ghostbusters which had nothing to do with anything. The producers wanted kids to know this was the “Who ya gonna call?” guys and not some posers. And yet. They are kind of posers, right? I mean, they don’t actually look anything like Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, or Harold Ramis. (Interestingly, Annie Potts’ portrayal of Janine in Ghostbusters 2 looks more like the cartoon version of Janine than she does in the first film.)
So what’s the deal? Well, the in-universe explanation for this discrepancy is that the Ghostbusters of the cartoons are the real Ghostbusters and the films exist within their fictional world as films based on their lives. Think of the Ghostbusters movies then as the published Watson adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and the Ghostbusters cartoon as the actual, raw source material.
While some of this is alluded to in “Citizen Ghost,” the straight-up metafiction all goes down in an episode called “Take Two” which involved a movie being made about the life of the Ghostbusters. Cartoon Winston believes the names “Ramis, Aykroyd, and Murray” sound like a “law firm.” After a good deal of antics, the boys end up attending the premier where Peter complains movie-Peter looks nothing like him.
1. Arsenio Hall Played the Voice of Winston for Three Seasons
Yep.
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