Before They Were Extreme, They Were Super - Thanks For Asking

When Extreme Ghostbusters was first conceived by Richard Raynis and Jeff Kline, they needed a name for the show. It didn't have to be the final name, just something they could refer to it by while they were working out the details for the show. Apparently, the very temporary placeholder name they used during early pre-production was SUPER GHOSTBUSTERS. (No idea if gamma radiation or radioactive spiders was going to be involved.)

The full-page ad seen below appeared in The Hollywood Reporter: Animation Special Issue, dated January 23, 1996, for Columbia TriStar Television's current and upcoming children's programming and animation, which proclaimed that Super Ghostbusters was "coming soon". This was a full year and eight months before the show premiered on TV.


In an effort to research this previously unheard-of title, MrMichaelT from the Ghostbusters Wiki reached out to series conceptual artist Fil Barlow, and this is what he found out.

Interesting [advertisement], I've never seen it before. I was in Australia when Adelaide Productions was setting up. Obviously the new studio had to promote itself prior to any art being prepared (notice that absolutely NO art was done for the Ghostbusters and Jumanji spots so it was definitely before I was involved). I vaguely remember talking on the phone to Executive Producer Richard Raynis when he was throwing around some names for the new Ghostbusters show. By the time I was doing initial sketches it had the title "Extreme", which I considered a bit dated and corny (I seem to remember trying to talk him out of it, a lot of shows and toys were "extreme" back then), but I would have hated "Super" so I'm glad we didn't go that way. He seemed pretty set on [the "Extreme" title]. I doubt that he would have been interested in Super at all. Still it's a bit of interesting history to see that the "Super Ghostbusters" name was considered long enough to print [in an advertisement].

And here I thought "Extreme Ghostbusters" was a bad title. I agree with Fil; "Super Ghostbusters" would have been MUCH worse!