Those of you who know me, know that I'm a bit of a hoarder; especially digitally, where I have almost a Terabyte of stuff going back over 20 years. A lot of it is personal stuff, like AOL Instant Messenger chat transcripts with my friends, multimedia of all sorts, and saved message board posts. It's that latter category which is the reason for this post today.

I was digging through my files and came across this old Ghostbusters Central Message Board post that I wrote 18 years ago today. It recalls the time I bought a second copy of The Real Ghostbusters soundtrack album, and got more than I expected!

Topic: RGB Soundtrack, I'm So Happy
Author: spookcentral
Posted: 12-12-2000 04:11 PM (Ghostbusters Central Message Board)

Greetings All

I hope you don't mind if I share my little tale with all of you. I'm so happy that I just have to share this with someone.

A month or so ago I noticed that MediaPlay.com had an RGB soundtrack cassette tape for sale (you'll notice that it's no longer available - I bought the only one they had). I put the URL aside so that I could buy it at a later date. Since I already have one, my intention was to buy all they they have, presumably a dozen or so, and resell them on my site for a higher price (so I could make a profit).

Well, this past Friday I fired up the web browser, went to their site, and placed an order for 8 of them (the most I could afford at that time). I got a message back telling me that they didn't have 8 in stock, they only had 1. So, I ordered the 1 cassette for $6.63, plus $4.99 for Priority Mail shipping (they had a cheaper shipping rate, but I don't want to wait 4-6 weeks for my package).

I figured that I'd keep the cassette as a spare, in case the one I have gets worn out (even though I've already burned a copy to CD). Quicker then Santa Claus, the package arrived today (4 days later - including weekend!) I didn't think that it was my cassette because the package was a bit large (like letter size).

When I opened it up and saw what was inside, I was nearly in tears. Instead of receiving the standard cassette, like the one I bought almost 10 years ago (via special order from my local record store - which isn't in business anymore), I received the one designed for the kiddie market, which is the same one Doreen (from the GBFF) bought many years ago. The kicker is that it is STILL FACTORY SEALED!!! As you can see in the scans below, it not only includes the cassette and the cardboard cover art/liner notes, but also a little storybook with stickers inside.

This is clearly worth a lot more than the $6.63 that I paid for it. I'm pretty sure that this album is harder to find than most RGB toys, and you know how much they're worth factory-sealed. I'm guessing that this is probably worth 10 times the amount I paid for it. As much as I'd like to open it to fully view the liner notes and book & stickers, I'm gonna keep it sealed.

I am absolutely ecstatic over this. I just can't believe what I bought!
-----------
Yours Truly,
Paul Rudoff

It's been almost a year since I reviewed the last IDW trade paperback, Ghostbusters 101. It was our first look as how the female Ghostbusters from the 2016 film would fare in the hands of a more capable writer. You know, someone who wasn't Paul Feig. The ladies returned in their own spin-off series of five issues, which IDW has collected in the Ghostbusters: Answer The Call trade paperback that was released this past June. Yes, it's taken me five months to finally write this review. That's quick compared to other things on my To Do list. So, how well are the ladies handled this time? Read on to find out...

Read more »

This year's Halloween Treat is something really special, and it's something that a lot of us fans have been waiting over 30 years for. Exclusively on Spook Central, you can now find the call sheets from The Real Ghostbusters recording sessions. They have been given to Spook Central by James Eatock, who got them as a gift from voice director Marsha Goodman when he interviewed her back in 2008 for the TimeLife DVD set. For the past 10 years, he's kept them locked away in his secret vault with his stash of Ecto Coolers and rare He-Man condoms ("He held aloft his mighty sword and said, 'I have the power!'").

Thanks to these call sheets, we now know that the first episode recorded was "Ghosts R Us" (on May 6, 1986) and the last was "Attack of The B-Movie Monsters" (on May 6, 1991). We also now know when Dave Coulier and Kath Soucie redubbed Peter and Janine's voices in those alternate episodes: September 27, 1987; January 27-29, 1988; and February 1, 1988. It's surprisingly to find out that Maurice LaMarche voiced Peter in "The Grundel" and filled in for Arsenio Hall as Winston in three episodes: "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Ghost?", "Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster", and "The Ghostbusters in Paris".

What's more surprising is how many well-known actors have appeared in the series. Since the early seasons only credited the main cast, and the later seasons mass-credited the guest stars, we never truly knew who graced the series with their presence. Now it can be told! If this were a Buzzfeed listicle, it would be called, OVER 50 ACTORS YOU NEVER KNEW WERE IN THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS.

Read more »

Pages: 1· 2· 3· 4· 5

Normally I cover non-Ghostbusters stuff on The Corner Penthouse, but Ready Player One (2018) is an exception because there IS a Ghostbusters connection present on the Blu-ray disc, and the movie itself is tailor-made for the audience that loves Ghostbusters. Read on to find out more...

Read more »

For those of you who have been living under a rock with Patrick, back in 2015 Ivan Reitman and company formed a group called Ghost Corps, under the Sony banner, to handle all future Ghostbusters projects. The company is headquarted on the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, California. Although I've never had the honor of visiting the place - maybe they'll fly me out there next year for that Fan Fest thing - I've seen photos of the place, and the entrance is made up to look like the entrance of Hook & Ladder #8 in New York.


On the most recent episode of the Showtime series Kidding - "The New You" (Oct. 7, 2018) (s01e05) - Jeff Pickles (Jim Carrey) walks out of a writer's meeting. His producer/father Seb (Frank Langella) follows him and they have a chat outside.


They're actually on the Sony lot standing outside of Ghost Corps headquarters. You don't see the name, of course, but it's instantly recognizable in the background.


The No Ghost Logo sign above the entrance is seen, though they digitally-erased the logo and replaced it with "FO", seemingly the name of the "restaurant" where the meeting took place (even though it didn't look like a restaurant inside in the previous scene).


I have to wonder if Jim or Frank visited the Ghost Corps crew. They couldn't have missed the logo sign, and maybe wandered in out of curiosity.

Anyway, Kidding is too new to be available on Blu-Ray or DVD, but you can watch it through Amazon with a Showtime subscription. It's not a bad series, but I will admit that it's not for everyone. If you're expecting wacky Jim Carrey and a laugh a minute, don't bother, because this is more of a serious show with a tinge of wackiness. Jim plays a Mister Rogers-like children's show host, but its NOT A SHOW FOR KIDS! If you've ever wanted to see Judy Greer or Ginger Gonzaga topless, DO check it out! Having seen Judy topless in What Planet Are You From? (2000), I have to give her credit for keeping herself in great shape.

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). 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.

Read more »

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). 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.

Read more »

When you've been doing this for as long as I have - last month marked Spook Central's 22nd anniversary - you tend to become intimately familiar with historical Ghostbusters photographs. I've seen the same images over and over again in various publications from 1984 to the present. So, I tend to notice when they've been altered. Starting sometime between 2009 and 2014, Sony's lawyers decided that historical Ghostbusters photographs now need to be altered to blur the faces of background extras and to remove any commercial branding on objects, no matter how slight or illegible they may be. The reasoning, we assume, is because they don't want to pay for likeness rights or licensing. Bear in mind, these same photos have appeared in print and online in their original unaltered form for 25 years (from 1984 to 2009). I'm sure that Columbia and Sony never paid anything to anyone for their use all that time.

I first became keenly aware of the issue in November 2015 when I reviewed the Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History book. At the time I thought that Insight Editions blurred the photos. I would later come to realize that Sony blurred the photos before they gave them to the publisher. A few months later, in February 2016, the Ghostbusters.com website was updated with a new photo gallery. I actually posted a list here on Spook Central of which photos in the new gallery were altered.

A few years ago, I thought this whole issue was a small, limited affair that could be easily covered by a small section I added to the Ghostbusters Wiki's page for the official website. Unfortunately, that won't be enough to cover the matter anymore. Recently, I've had a discussion about the matter with several other members of the Ghostbusters Online Community (trademark pending), such as Alex Newborn and Matthew Jordan - and they, in turn, discussed it with several others. We've each discovered "new" altered photos that each other was not aware of. Alex covered a few in his latest Pet Peeves video (also embedded at the end of this post), and I'll cover a whole bunch here after the jump.

Read more »

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). 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.

Read more »

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). 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.

Read more »