Saturday Matinee: the original Ghost Busters, from 1975 and 1986

July 27, 2019 2:56 PM

44 years ago, Spencer, Tracy and Kong were The Ghost Busters (intro), paranormal detectives. The show ran for 15 episodes (playlist), and reunited Forrest Tucker (Kong) and Larry Storch (Spencer) in roles similar to their characters in F Troop (season 1 intro) from a decade prior. Then, with the success of Ghostbusters in 1984, Filmation resurrected the original Ghostbusters (intro), where the tech-savvy gorilla Tracy was now joined by the sons of Spencer and Kong for 65 episodes (playlist) of fully animated fun (VHS cover) in 1986.

Later titled "The Original Ghostbusters" or "Filmation Ghostbusters," the series which kicked off five days before The Real Ghostbusters (Los Angeles Times, 1986), the animated adventures of Venkman, Stantz, Spengler and Zeddemore (intro).

posted by filthy light thief (28 comments total)

Every kid my age in America, sixty seconds into their first episode of Filmation Ghostbusters:

"Heeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyy! These aren't the Ghostbusters..."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:17 PM on July 27, 2019 [34 favorites]

Unwatchable now (and that's coming from someone who owns DVD box sets of live action Shazam, Isis, the TV version of Planet of the Apes, Man From Atlantis, Quark and many, many, maaany more), but I LOVED the original '75 Ghost Busters as a kid. Mrs. Acroyear will freely attest to the fact that a steady diet of shows like this in the 1970s made me, for better or worse, the man (?) I am today.
posted by acroyear at 3:50 PM on July 27, 2019 [4 favorites]

HAD NO IDEA 🦄👀
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:02 PM on July 27, 2019

I clicked that first link and as soon as the song started , I realized omg I watched this!
posted by freecellwizard at 4:03 PM on July 27, 2019 [3 favorites]

The only live-action Filmation production worth remembering is Uncle Croc's Block, with Charles Nelson Reiley, moonlighting from the Match Game panel to attempt to be all four Banana Splits. I eagerly await the Uncle Croc horror-based reboot.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:34 PM on July 27, 2019 [4 favorites]

Then there’s the Bowery Boys film, Spook Busters (1946), changed from the working title Ghost Busters to avoid confusion with the 1940 Bob Hope vehicle The Ghost Breakers.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:35 PM on July 27, 2019 [5 favorites]

I remember this show.
Edit: as soon as I saw the link the song was going through my head.
posted by Max Power at 5:45 PM on July 27, 2019

See also 20 Things You Might Not Know About Ghostbusters.

Dan Akroyd’s father, Peter Akroyd (née Samuel Cuthbert Peter Hugh Aykroyd), co-wrote the book A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Seances, Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters (2009). His great grandfather, Samuel Augustus Aykroyd, was active in the Spiritualism movement in the early 1900s.

Dan’s younger brother, actor/writer Peter Hugh Aykroyd, co-created the Canadian TV sci-fi drama Psi Factor (1996-2000).
posted by cenoxo at 5:51 PM on July 27, 2019 [4 favorites]

I was in a restaurant a couple of weeks ago with a TV playing an old "Wonder Woman" episode with Lynda Carter. In one scene, Wonder Woman had to fight a gorilla (someone in a gorilla suit), and it occurs to me that maybe half of the TV series from the 60's and 70's had at least one episode involving someone in a gorilla suit. It's what the television producers were under the impression the public wanted, so it makes sense one of them eventually said, "Let's just make the person in the gorilla suit one of the stars of the friggin show!".
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:02 PM on July 27, 2019 [12 favorites]

As someone who just busted out their SBox to call up the spirits and scare the shit out of a bunch of 8 year olds at a sleepover, I approve of this post.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:06 PM on July 27, 2019

posted by acroyear

Quality username for the content.
posted by aramaic at 6:09 PM on July 27, 2019 [5 favorites]

I have vague memories of watching two different "Ghostbusters" shows when I was a kid, and I recognized the "Let's go, Ghostbusters!" theme song as soon as I heard it, but.....wow, no memory of the show itself. I mean, one of the Ghostbusters was.....a gorilla? Really?
posted by key lime guy at 6:13 PM on July 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

So what is the original source material these all seem to be riffing one, or is this a case of a genuine standalone complex?
posted by glonous keming at 6:13 PM on July 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

I watched a whole lot of garbage tv in the 70s but even by those standards the 1975 Ghostbusters was awful. Holy crap I forgot all about that out-of-key singing and the whacky hijinks that made Sigmund the Seamonster look like quality viewing.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 6:15 PM on July 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

Amusingly when I was growing up I wondered about why the cartoon with the Ghostbusters was called "The Real Ghostbusters." I had completely missed the other show, not even the slightest breath of it reached my ears. It wasn't until years later I found out about it online and the name finally made sense.

It's true, though. They may not have been the first, or even looked particularly like their movie counterparts, but they we're definitely the Real Ghostbusters.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:49 PM on July 27, 2019

> DVD box sets of live action Shazam

that's the thing where sinbad plays a genie, right?

you know, the show with the bit in the opening sequence where people accidentally paint over sinbad's face with a paint roller?
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:35 PM on July 27, 2019 [10 favorites]

Great, now I've got the theme song to The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam! stuck in my head.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:45 PM on July 27, 2019

44 years ago,

When my Gen-X brain reads this, I immediately mentally prepare myself for reading about something in the early fifties or so.

Now, of course, I am in my early fifties or so. How did this happen.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:46 PM on July 27, 2019 [14 favorites]

The best-worn gorilla suit on any silver or TV screen would have to be Marlene Dietrich (SLYT w/audio) in Blonde Venus (1932) singing Hot Voodoo.
posted by cenoxo at 8:51 PM on July 27, 2019 [3 favorites]

Does anyone else remember the awkward year that, when you looked in the back of the Sears Wish Book where all the really great toys were, there was both a selection of "The Original Ghostbusters" and "The Real Ghostbusters" stuff? I distinctly remember seeing both the kooky spooky old car and ECTO-1 on opposing pages.
posted by trackofalljades at 9:19 PM on July 27, 2019 [3 favorites]

Personally, I found the Filmation Ghostbusters to be kind of horrifying. Having nothing to do with the ghosts...
posted by Citrus at 7:01 AM on July 28, 2019

My son and I watched both the cartoon and the live action versions of this a few years ago, I think we preferred the live action version. We revisited many of these garbage shows from the 70s when my kid was a bit smaller, however, most didn't click with the kid,which is likely for the best. You know what did? Monster Squad (no not that Monster Squad THIS Monster Squad). And weirdly Isis but to be honest I kind of understand that one. Lancelot Link on the other hand terrified him.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:18 AM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

I remember when I first saw this on a Saturday morning. “Hey! It’s Sgt. O’Rourke & Corporal Agarn!” I also remember in 5th grade trying to convince my classmates that this existed.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:47 AM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

key lime guy: I mean, one of the Ghostbusters was.....a gorilla? Really?

As a kid, I assumed The Original/Filmation Ghostbusters was somehow related to T&C Hawaii (TIL that those characters were based on real surfers), because of the gorilla.


AlonzoMosleyFBI: it occurs to me that maybe half of the TV series from the 60's and 70's had at least one episode involving someone in a gorilla suit

There's a website devoted to these actors, the Hollywood Gorilla Men (previously).


A parting link, which I should have included in the OP: the Filmation Ghostbusters fandom/wikia has details of both the original 1975 series, and the 1986 cartoon series, plus toys and most impressively, Go-er Chronology, based on both series, plus the First Comics Ghostbusters, which only ran for four issues.

OK, one more tangent: the "real" Ghostbusters had their own "years later" spin-off cartoon, called Extreme Ghostbusters (page on the Ghostbusters fandom/ wikia), which was apparently called Ghostbusters Dark in some TV listings, per Wikipedia. The series features a team of younger college-level Ghostbusters who are led by veteran Ghostbuster Egon Spengler.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:14 AM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

re: gorillas, i remember reading a long time ago (prolly in something posted on some old blue site that no one remembers) that back in the 50s and 60s comic book publishers observed that issues with a gorilla on the cover tended to sell slightly better than issues sans gorilla. after a brief phase where everyone put a gorilla on the cover of every comic book — thereby overexposing the public to gorillas and reducing the gorilla boost — eventually the major publishers converged on printing gorilla covers every couple of months or so.

if i had to guess, i’d say the 1960s/1970s hollywood gorilla trend was an echo of the earlier comix gorilla tendency.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:42 AM on July 29, 2019

god i love saying/typing the word “gorilla.” i’m over here all “gorilla gorilla gorilla!”

gorilla!
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:44 AM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

The REAL Ghostbusters was explained cleverly in the 10th episode, where the four go to Hollywood to consult on a movie based on themselves (Peter is disappointed Bill Murphy will play him). The cartoon asserts that it is the REAL Ghostbusters, while the movies were based on a true story.
posted by riruro at 11:38 AM on July 29, 2019 [3 favorites]

Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon: re: gorillas, i remember reading a long time ago (prolly in something posted on some old blue site that no one remembers) that back in the 50s and 60s comic book publishers observed that issues with a gorilla on the cover tended to sell slightly better than issues sans gorilla

Perhaps this article by Stupid Comics on gorillas in comics? But I'm not finding that specific post in this post about Mister Kitty's articles on Stupid Comics, or an earlier post.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:40 AM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]