Today's cartoon intro is from Ghost busters, also known as Not That Ghostbusters, The One With The Ape. I never saw an episode of this show but I was aware that it existed. I think it aired at a time I couldn't watch it.
Our intro starts with the logo for Filmation. I think Filmation was the HB of the 80s, churning out cartoons left and right. Filmation is responsible for He-Man, which I watched recently and was shocked to see how limited the animation was. It's drawn ok, but watching He-Man sloooowly swing his sword is laughable. I don't know if Filmation deserves a reputation for being bad or not, but I'm putting this cartoon on notice now.
Eh, I'll never watch an episode so I guess it doesn't matter.
The Not Real Ghost busters logo appears on the screen as the theme starts. It's the kind where they repeat the same phrase over and over.
Let's go Ghost busters.
Let's go.
Let's go!
Seven words, many of those seven repeated. At least the song isn't annoying.
After the logo we immediately see the ape ooking along to the theme. This establishes him as the Scooby character. Despite being a friggen ape, he'll probably spend the show being scared of everything. We see a picture of our heroes afterwards. The ape is looking more thoughtful, so maybe he's the Velma character combined with Scooby. We also have our two humans, one a tall blond and the other a shorter fatter pilot. Who decided that pilot goggles was a great idea for cartoon characters to wear? If there's anything that distinguishes these two guys, I won't know from the opening. The ape is holding a spatula and the guys are holding two-handed hair driers.
Then to further drive home the poin that Scooby is one of the most influential cartoon characters, this is followed by the ghost busters being chased by a ghost. If you were running for your life, would you run with your arms held in front of you as if you were trying to cop two feels?
Following this we take a look at Ghost buster HQ, which is in a mansion. So these ghostusters at least make enough money to avoid working in a firehouse. Or maybe we're not suppose to think about these things. Inside the mansion we see a skullaphone. This skull talks and the keys are on its teeth, so you can tell that this show has wacky ghouls hanging around the office of Stately Ghost buster Manor. Blond picks up the phone handle, which is a bone of course, and a ghost bursts out of the receiving end. So, does this show differentiate between good ghosts and bad ghosts? Or was that a jerk ghost pranking him, thus causing his own doom (so to speak)? This leads to the trio to shout their trademark ghost busting phrase, "BUSTED!" They then jump 20 feet in the air and high five. That should be cool. Should.
Also, the ape looks more ridiculous now. He has a hat and a camera. For some reason, he reminds me of Magilla Gorilla, but maybe that's just me.
The guys jump into a closet in the middle of the room that presumably an elevator to the basement that keeps their car. Their car is a jalopy that moves in exaggerated cartoon fashion.
We get to take a look at bad guy hq. Yes, this show has a head villain and a rotating cast of henchmen. I guess each episode the villain comes up with a plan and our heroes bust it and the episode's main henchmen. Naturally, the henchman gets away and we go back to square one each time. Before we see these ghouls the ape ooks again. Because it's so funny!
Our head villain has a giant organ (I mean for music!) He's actually a boring looking ghoul with a cape. I guess he's supposed to look a bit like Skeleton and his costume looks like fire, but he's pretty underwhelming. The henchmen range from a golden goofy cyborg skeleton, a wolfman, a safari man, a Morticia Addams lookalike (always have to have a girl even when they're useless), and a zombie Genghis Kahn. A rat ghost screws with the gold cyborg skeleton to further show that it's the joke henchman. It probably gets pushed around by the villain before he chooses a good henchman for each ep.
At this poin the intro runs out of ideas, so we see more running around, followed by the title. We finish with the rat worm ghost smacking the cyborg skeleton.
Now a trip to ye olde wiki entry. And boy is it a ridiculously long entry. The Ghost Busters cartoon is a spin off of a tv series from the seventies that was made after the popularity of the Ghostbusters movie. Ghost Busters was first, but people didn't care until Ghostbusters. The characters in this show are sons of the original cast of the tv show, except the ape. The ape is still the same. Prime Evil, the main villain, uses his organ to open a whole into another dimension to take over the world. I doubt the original series was anything like this, so I guess they felt the needed to up the ante to sell this show to kids. Our heroes had to get help occasionally from a reporter and a ghost buster from the future. Hey, it's tough to make 65 episodes and not add a dozen supporting characters!
Seriously, check out the article. It has a whole section on good guys and bad guys. It's good for people who are doing research on the show but it totally defeats the poin of a online ENCYCLOPEDIA.
If I could quit my job and work full time on this blog, I would watch crap like this and make dumb posts about it. The reason I would watch this show is to see if it tried to one-up the Real Ghostbusters at any poin. In other words, did they merely churn out 65 episodes or did they try to create their own Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and put him in a few episodes? Probably just a series of scaredy ape jokes.
Now I'm going to watch the music video for the Ghostbuster movie. That theme is the best song of the eighties, bar none. Too bad Lita knows that I'm aware of this song, because it's cheesy enough to be an entry for next July.
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