Next years marks the 40th anniversary of what I’d consider to be one of, if not the greatest screen to television adaptations of all time. Coming two years after Ghostbusters hit theaters during the summer of 1984, The Real Ghostbusters arrived on ABC on Saturday mornings in September 1986. While the main characters – Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zedmore – didn’t look exactly like their big screen inspirations, the creative minds behind this animated series managed to not only nail the right vibe of the live action Ghostbusters, but they also expanded the world and its lore.
The Real Ghostbusters was something special, a Saturday morning cartoon that at times was genuinley scary, celebrating horror icons like Edgar Alan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, while also creating visual interpretations of some of the great mythological creatures of the genre; the Boogeyman, Samhain, the Sandman – the Real Ghostbusters took them all on.
Released this past summer, The Real Ghostbusters: A Visual History (Dark Horse Comics) pays glorious tribute to not just the animated series, but the action figures, comic books and other merchandise it spawned. As a long time fan of the original films, the animated series, and the three recent movies that hit theaters, I was very excited to be able to ask authors Craig Goldberg and Troy Benjamin about their book over email. It’s a true labour of love and for fans, it’s a must have this Halloween season.
Andy Burns: Troy and Craig – I know it’s been out for a few months now, but congrats on putting together an incredible book in The Real Ghostbusters: A Visual History. It’s a treat for fans. First question: how did you meet?
Craig Goldberg: I knew of Troy as far back as 1997 or 1998. I’ve told the story many times, but as soon as my family got the internet, I think I was in maybe 7th grade, I started searching for any and all information on the possibility of Ghostbusters 3. I found Troy’s website, Ghostbusters HQ, and was immediately a fan of what he was doing. Fast-forward to 2016 and both of us are running Ghostbusters podcasts, and we actually met for the first time that year.
Troy Benjamin: I don’t know what Craig is talking about. There’s no way I’m that old, am I? But indeed, the Ghostbusters fan circle is closely knit and a lot of us have known and been talking to each other since the days of dial-up and your parents picking up the phone and kicking you offline. My first real chat with Craig was about the time that he proposed to his insanely cool now-wife, Abbey. He had worked with Ghost Corps to help concoct a fake trailer for the upcoming Ghostbusters film that cut to Ivan Reitman, who then assisted in proposing to her and filmed the whole thing as a “trailer reaction.” It was a wonderful moment that I then had the two of them come on my podcast the Interdimensional Crossrip to talk about. And from that point, we became close friends.
Andy Burns: Could you talk about the process of putting The Real Ghostbusters: A Visual History together? When did you two start talking about it, and what were your initial thoughts?
Craig Goldberg: I knew that I wanted to try and write a Ghostbusters book, and had pitched the idea of a toy guide or Kenner Ghostbusters encyclopedia. It only made sense to bring Troy onto the project, because he has so much experience writing these types of hardcover books. Dark Horse was really receptive and helped shape the project into a more all-encompassing guide to the Real Ghostbusters animated series and toyline.
Troy Benjamin: Craig has an impressive collection of Real Ghostbusters toys in his vault that has always made me jealous. And his knowledge of the toys that were released (and those that weren’t) is second to none. So when he came to me with the idea of putting together the ultimate Real Ghostbusters toy book, I was very excited to learn everything he knew and then some. As most of these books do, after conversations with Ghost Corps and Dark Horse, it evolved into half of a toy book and half of a behind the scenes production book on the making of the show, which is more of my bread and butter. Once we had a structure in place, we started one of the most difficult parts of creating this book: tracking everyone down. We put together a laundry list of names of cast and crew from the show, network executives, experts and historians, and as many people we could identify from the Kenner side that we wanted to interview. Then there was a lot of sleuthing to find ways to get in touch with all of them and convince them to talk to us and share their stories. As you can imagine, after forty-some years, many of these people have switched careers, moved to far off places, or sadly have passed away. One of my favorite stories that we hint toward in the book is getting in touch with Herman Rush, who may have been solely responsible for The Real Ghostbusters existing as the President of Columbia Television. The 94-year old television pioneer was understandably tough to find information for, so I reached out to the Television Academy and told them I was desperately trying to get in touch with him. After some back and forth, I eventually started email correspondence with him. He told me that he was currently in rehabilitation after some health issues, but Ghostbusters was near and dear to his heart and knew there was a good story to be told. We worked to find a time to chat with one another between his medical check ups. Suddenly, he stopped responding. He had sadly passed away that Christmas. But I think it shows the enthusiasm and the passion that everyone involved in this project had — that he was in such a state but despite that, still trying to find the time and energy to talk to Craig and I for the book.
Andy Burns: There’s so much great behind-the-scenes “stuff” – pictures and concept art – how did you go about finding everything?
Troy Benjamin: Just as difficult as it was to track people down to interview and be a part of the book, finding material was a bit of an archeological expedition as well. The studio had very minimal materials in their archives. And famously, animated shows in the ’80s notoriously fed mountains of production materials into the dumpster when they were finished. For the materials to accompany the production of the show, we really had to lean on the cast and crew who had some items buried in their garages or as part of their portfolios. And a lot of materials came from individual collectors, who had been amassing cels and line art and other materials over the years. We also had a research team that dove into what remained of Andy Heyward’s papers from DIC at a university in Wyoming to see what they could find for us. But ultimately, our Rosetta Stone for piecing together the timeline and the story were Executive Producer Michael C. Gross’ papers that had been meticulously arranged and kept since 1986 by his assistants over the years. Eric Reich and the team at Ghost Corps were kind enough to entrust us with these materials which really helped place milestones in the sand for us, and provided quite a bit of anecdotal evidence.
Craig Goldberg: The vast majority of the toy photography came from my own personal collection and we also had a ton of help from our friends at Hasbro. They were able to get into the archives and find so much incredible stuff, it was mindblowing. We traveled out to a few collectors homes who were luckily very willing to help us out with providing examples of some of the rare prototypes and other hard to find toys.
Troy Benjamin: I’d really love to see a traveling road show series of Craig and the Yes Have Some podcast crew road tripping to all of the places they went and talking with the collectors that they did, wouldn’t you? The other thing that we found was that the engineers and designers at Kenner were still so proud of the work that they had done on The Real Ghostbusters that a lot of them had kept certain things as mementos or parts of their portfolios. We were talking with engineer Marian Ihlenfeldt and during her interview we saw a lightbulb go off in her mind. She swiveled around and pulled out this giant architectural tube and pulled out the engineering schematics for the Highway Haunter toy. Craig and I tried to play it cool but we knew we had to get that into the book somehow, even though it was this giant five-foot poster-sized document.
Andy Burns: My favourite episode of the series has been and always will be “Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream.” It creeped me out as a kid and still haunts my dreams. What are your favourite episodes and why?
Craig Goldberg: My absolute favorite episode is “Play Them Ragtime Boos.” I wore out that VHS as a kid. There’s something really cool and magical about the Ghostbusters leaving New York and heading down to Louisiana. The music and the overall aesthetic of that episode are so memorable. Not to mention the fact that for a brief moment the team turns into the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is just amazing.
Troy Benjamin: It’s tough to narrow it down to just one but I love “Ghostbuster of the Year,” “Citizen Ghost,” “Knock, Knock,” “Night Game,” so many of them. Honestly, throw a dart at any of the first 78 shows and it’s probably one that I love. I think my favourite episodes were the ones that really dove into the characters’ nuances and gave us a better idea of who they each were as individuals. And then the episodes with such biting humor that is probably responsible for a lot of my tastes as an adult.
Andy Burns: Working on the book, what sort of discoveries did you make that really may have shocked or surprised you about The Real Ghostbusters and its history?
Craig Goldberg: I wouldn’t say that it surprised me, but it was really fun hearing from all of the old Kenner employees. They all seemed to have so much reverence for that place. It was like a college dorm filmed with some of the most talented engineers, marketers, and artists in the world, and they all came together to put out this innovative toyline. It was a true phenomenon.
Troy Benjamin: I think what surprised me the most was how both the show and the toyline hit similar walls in 1991. As a longtime fan, we had all heard about a company called Q5 getting involved with the development of the show and turning it into a toothless shell of what it was, but what we learned in interviewing and researching was that it wasn’t just Q5 responsible for the show fizzling out after such a short meteoric run. And the fact that the Kenner toys shared a similar trajectory was absolutely fascinating. Also, I can’t believe we cold called Ray Parker Jr. just to finally ask him once and for all who sang the theme song. You’ll have to pick up the book to find out who it was, but it certainly wasn’t someone named “John Smith.”
Andy Burns: I often say that Dark Horse puts out the most gorgeous hardcovers, and The Real Ghostbusters: A Visual History is no exception. How did you wind up working with DH, and how awesome was it to finally hold your book in your respective hands?
Craig Goldberg: It was definitely one of those situations where the project started bubbling up at the exact right time. Dark Horse was just about to start producing the new Ghostbusters comics, so there was already a good relationship there between the publisher and the studio. They were the first and only publisher that we approached and were super enthusiastic and helpful from the start. I can’t say enough good things about our editors and the design team at Dark Horse. Holding the book for the first time was like a dream come true, and it really is beautiful.
Troy Benjamin: Craig is absolutely right, I can’t stress enough how wonderful Dark Horse was from moment one on this book. Ian Tucker, Jennifer Wurtele, and Anastacia Ferry were so patient and really helped us elevate the book at every turn. And then when it came to the design of the book, they had amazing ideas — including making the deluxe edition resemble the Kenner version of the Fire House. The attention to detail, the design, layout, finishing, everything is just absolutely top notch. Dark Horse doesn’t hold back. I have to say that Craig and I were pinching ourselves sitting at the Dark Horse booth doing a signing at San Diego Comic-Con, where Dark Horse founder Mike Richardson was kind enough to come up to the table and thank each of us for being there. Just a joy and an absolute dream come true from start to finish.
Andy Burns: Finally, if each of you had to choose one episode of The Real Ghostbusters to give to someone who only knows Ghostbusters from the various films, which would it be and why?
Craig Goldberg: I don’t think you can go wrong with the first episode, “Ghosts R Us.” It really sets the tone for what the show is, has some really fun and spooky ghosts, and some great character moments as well. When you see Egon and Ray flying around in the Ecto-2, you realize that the Real Ghostbusters is on a completely different level than the movies, though I would have loved to see Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd take to the skies of Manhattan.
Troy Benjamin: Craig stole mine. So I’d have to say “Chicken, He Clucked.” Really put your friend and your relationship with them to the test right out of the gate.
Thanks for Troy and Craig for taking to the time to talk to us, and to Kaitlyn Nash for helping make it happen. The Real Ghostbusters: A Visual History is available now from Dark Horse (be sure to get the Deluxe Edition!)
