A Tale of Two Logos

Rating: 6/10 (29 August 2008)

The two logos are the ghastly logo for "Entertainment Rights", whatever that is, which looks like Soviet People's Art, and the excellent Ghostbusters logo which doesn't appear on the box but is on the enclosed booklet. As usual, I differ with whoever designed the packaging, since the moaning ghost logo which began and ended the shows, and was used for bumpers (see the special features) was one of the best parts of the show. Ghostbusters was remarkable for about a million reasons. It was a show, as Filmation producer Lou Scheimer notes, in which everything came together. What that really means is that it's a live action show done on the miniscule cartoon budgets that were standard for kids' TV. It was written very fast, as cartoons are. It starred a likable, humorous cast: Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch of F- Troop, who essentially played the same parts as F-Troop and as in their cartoon voice over work. The amazing addition was Bob Burns, who plays the most lifelike gorilla probably ever seen on TV. The show is a ghostbusting take on Gangbusters, with a vaguely '20s feel: Larry dresses the part, Forrest doesn't). As the theme song says, "I'm Spenser, he's Tracy, I'm Kong. You'd think Kong would be the gorilla; he's not. Tracy is the gorilla. Forest is Kong. There are only three sets: a graveyard, a haunted house hallway, and a room in the creepy house. The guest stars read like a whose who of (then) current television. As with cartoon voiceovers, kids' shows are wildly popular with adult actors who get to let out their kid side. Brilliantly, however, the show never played down to its audience. Kids don't need to "get it". They don't need to follow the plot. They relate to the characters and want to be in on the action. This is why it's so tragic that live hosts are gone. They are the natural ones to show cartoons, and form an immediate bond with kids. Ghostbusters brilliantly worked a number of repeating schticks. Every episode Spenser and Tracy would drive their old '20s car to a junk shop to get their assignment, Mission Impossible/ Get Smart style from a different unlikely object, which after playing the tape would self- destruct in five seconds. Tracy would hold it and count down in the repeating gag. Another is that Tracy would don a variety of hats, some relevant to the plot, some not. He never spoke but he grunted in a meaningful way, drew doodles and did charades to get his ideas across, and dragged an assortment of props for visual gags onto the sets. The show's credits say "Tracy trained by Bob Burns," so kids thought he really was a gorilla. Burns is also known for his vast collection of sci-fi memorabilia (see the book Blast Off). One of the best extra features in this set is the interview with Burns, although the interview with Scheimer is also good. One not very great extra is an episode of Filmation's Ghostbusters cartoon, which is unwatchably bad for reasons that many mid- eighties cartoons are bad. Ten years after this 1974-5 Live action show, Ghostbusters, came the 1984 Bill Murray Ghostbusters blockbuster film. I wondered then how the movie could use the same title. The conflict came during the cartoon spin-offs. DIC's The Real Ghostbusters cartoon, spun off from the movie, ran in 1986. The same year, Filmation made a cartoon version of the live action show. DIC's is by far the better cartoon because they had the comic trio from the film (mostly voiced by Arsenio Hall) as cartoon stars. Filmation's show suffered from bland, badly drawn human characters which, for whatever reason, bore no resemblance to Storch or Tucker, nor for that matter, did the gorilla to Tracy. Despite that, the closing titles feature lavish surrealistic backgrounds, testimony to the uneven artistry of mid- '80s cartoons. However, to return to the live action show, in the last episode, the song on the radio is "Sugar Sugar", the number one charting song by The Archies, which came from Filmation's 1968 The Archie Show. But here Filmation started with great human characters: the gang from Riverdale. Those doing Cartoons Without Cable will find Ghostbusters a wonderful change from cartoons. Play one episode along with a favorite cartoon like Garfield and Friends to make a great hour of kids' TV. There are only fifteen episodes, but Ink and Paint has done a great job with this budget set, which consists of two double- sided discs in a slip case with credits and copious notes. There's even a computer ROM feature that enables you to read all the scripts. A blast from the past recalling a magic moment when great hearts made great kids' TV.