Ghostbusters Cast Spotlight - Tyren Perry's TV & Music Career

Welcome to Spook Central's special "Summer of Spotlight" event. Throughout the Summer, I'll be posting Ghostbusters Cast Spotlight entries every Wednesday at Noon (Eastern). Click here to view the current schedule. Each entry in this series will showcase a cast member of the Ghostbusters franchise - Ghostbusters 1 & 2, The Real Ghostbusters, Slimer!, Extreme Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters: The Video Game, and maybe even Ghostbusters 2016 - in a role that you may not be familiar with. Maybe it will be from a long-forgotten movie, a television appearance before they were a Buster, or some really weird bit part that I'm sure they no longer include on their resume! There is a HUGE SPOILER WARNING if you read this article, as I am highly likely to go into plot details.


Tyren Perry and Tonya Townsend made up the duo Tahiti, who performed all of the pop songs on The Real Ghostbusters soundtrack album. Most of these songs were needle-dropped into the early Season 1 (network and syndicated) episodes, sometimes replacing the standard series music. The soundtrack is a curiosity, as the songs were never needed for the series, and other than a brief screen during the end credits (which most kids wouldn't have bothered to read), the soundtrack was never promoted in any real capacity.

You have to wonder who came to whom with the idea. Did Columbia Pictures think that their cartoon needed a pop soundtrack, something which no other cartoon of the time had? Did Polygram Records, wanting to promote their new act (Tahiti), whilst grabbing a piece of the hot Ghostbusters branding, convince Columbia to shoehorn a pop soundtrack into the series? The most curious thing of all is that The Real Ghostbusters soundtrack is the only album Tahiti ever released. So, it didn't exactly do the group any favors. That's not to say that the songs contained therein are bad. Quite the contrary. They're the type of fun, catchy, bubblegum pop you don't see anymore in today's overproduced music scene. But I'm not here to talk about the soundtrack...

Tyren Perry is whom this article is about, and before she teamed up with Tonya, she had herself a little bit of a career in television. It was no fluke that she appeared as Jennifer in two episodes of the hit sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, starring Gary Coleman. In the Season 7 episode "Arnold's Strike" (October 27, 1984), in order to impress Jennifer, Arnold (Coleman) becomes the ringleader of a student strike formed to protest the new school dress code. However, things take a turn for the worse when he is the only one suspended from school.



In 1987, Jimmy "J.J." Walker returned to television as the lead in Bustin' Loose, a long-forgotten series that only lasted one season. Jimmy portrayed Sonny Barnes, an independent and care-free foster father to a group of kids, including Trish Reagan (Tyren). In the cast promo photo below, which comes from Sitcoms Online, she's in the top left above Jimmy.


A few years later, she would make an appearance on her sister Jaimee Foxworth's sitcom, Family Matters. Jaimee was a Kiddie Funk Singer (children's chorus) on The Real Ghostbusters song "Movie Star", along with Tyren and Jaimee's other sister, Jania Foxworth. Jaimee's character, Judy Winslow, would succumb to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, but not before Tyren would pop up as Shirley in the Season 1 episode "The Party" (February 2, 1990). (Watch on DailyMotion)



Tyren had a few more acting gigs after this, but pretty much stopped acting in the early 1990s. On the music side of things, her work on The Real Ghostbusters soundtrack led to Columbia Records signing the then-16-year-old and re-teaming her with producer Ollie E. Brown (one half of disco duo Ollie & Jerry). Ollie not only produced the The Real Ghostbusters soundtrack, but he also co-wrote all of the songs AND had a cameo in Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters" music video. Tyren's first and only solo album "Don't Rush It", was released in 1989. Unfortunately, none of the singles off of the album - which were "I Get Butterflies (In My Stomach)", "What's Up", and "You Are My Everything" - had much of an impact, with only "What's Up" peaking at #92 on Billboard's Hot Black Singles chart, staying there for only 3 weeks. A few selections from the album are available below, and if you like what you hear, go buy the CD at Amazon.


Eight years after Tyren was dropped by the label, she joined her sisters Jaimee and Jania to form the group S.H.E. They were noticed by basketball star Shaquille O'Neal, who featured them on his second album, "You Can't Stop The Reign", in 1996. He signed them to his vanity label T.W.IsM. Records (a sub-label of Interscope), and they released their first single, "My Secret Is" the same year. Though the single got little attention, they still managed to release their album "3's A Charm" the next year. They also managed to get a track, "We Got Heart", on the soundtrack to the movie Steel, starring Shaq. Unfortunately the trio didn't stand out from the numerous other R&B girl groups of the time and they were dropped. For more on their history, see The Isle of Failed Pop Stars. A few selections from the album are available below, and if you like what you hear, go buy the CD at Amazon.


Tyren, Jaimee, and Jania remained out of the spotlight after that, which put a strain on their family, and it was rumored that their parents declared bankruptcy. Jaimee was affected the most and ended up battling substance abuse. In a desperate attempt to make some money, she ended up in porn under the name Crave. In 2008, Tyren was the lead singer of the heavy metal group Kai's Army (Facebook, YouTube). For more on Tyren, go check her out on Facebook.