June 7th, 1984, "Ghostbusters" had its Hollywood premiere in front of a star-studded audience. The next night, the world got to see it too.

Saturday, June 7th, 2014, join Ghostheads around the world as we all watch the classic together!

Noon West Coast
3PM East Coast
8PM London

How to participate? At 12 noon PST on June 7th, fire up a copy of "Ghostbusters" and join the community online via Social Media!

For further information, visit the following sites:
• https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/12284-ghostbusters-30th-anniversary
• https://www.facebook.com/events/610169702384925

30 years ago, on June 8, 1984, Ghostbusters premiered in movie theaters across the United States. To make the occasion, we here at Spook Central have a whole series of events and updates planned for the entire month. This article marks the first of these special 30th anniversary updates.

----------------------------------

OFFICIAL GHOSTBUSTERS 30TH ANNIVERSARY LOGO
The "30th Anniversary" logo you see at the top of this article is the official logo created by Sony to celebrate the occasion. I have two copies of it available for you to download.
• White Background (2790x1900)
• Black Background (3300x2550) (provided by Salazar Orlando)

----------------------------------

MY GHOSTBUSTERS AUTOGRAPHS
One of the things I used to collect was autographs. In 2000 and 2001, I had a renewed interest in my autograph collecting hobby. I wrote to anybody and everybody that I had an interest in in the hope of adding a signed photo of them to my collection. Naturally, this included a lot of Ghostbusters cast and crew members. I recently sold out the majority of my collection - probably 1,000 photos and items - but still kept a small amount that are the most personal to me. I just scanned/re-scanned in all of the Ghostbusters autographs in my "new" collection, along with all of my non-Ghostbusters autographs. Except for a few script covers that I didn't bother to rescan, all of the new scans are nice and large, and completely watermark-free.

----------------------------------

CAST AND CREW TRIVIA
One of the side benefits to being so passionate about Ghostbusters and autograph collecting (in 2000 and 2001) is that a lot of folks were kind enough to send me copies (and sometimes originals) of episode scripts, art materials, production photos, and other assorted goodies that I have yet to share with all of you on this here website. A lot of the cast and crew wrote me notes and letters answering my questions and providing some insider information about their part in our beloved franchise. On my autographs page is not only scans of signed photos and script cover pages, but also scans of the notes and letters from these various cast and crew members. Below are text transcriptions of the tidbits of knowledge learned from these notes and letters.

Brooks Wachtel (Writer of EGB "The Luck Of The Irish" and "Back In The Saddle - Part 2")
May 9, 2001 - "Ghostbusters was a joy for me to work on. The story editor, Dean Stefan, is one of my favorites. His sense of humor and professionalism helped make it a real labor of love. Frank Squillace, the director, is also an old pal and - very unusually - I was able to keep informed (and give some input) on character design and storyboards. Not that an artist like Frank needs much input. Another unusual aspect of this production is that the writers were invited to the voice-over recording session (and allowed to give comments). All these things have the effect of producing some very happy memories."

Clyde Kusatsu (Guest voice in EGB "Eyes Of A Dragon" and "Fallout")
Circa 2001 - "In 'Extreme Ghostbusters' - 'Eyes Of A Dragon' episode I voiced two parts. The father/uncle (if I remember) and the dragon or whomever the main bad guy morphed from the uncle/father."

Joe Alaskey (Guest voice in EGB "Slimer's Sacrifice", "Bird of Prey", and "Deadliners")
Circa 2001 - "I did a few 'monster' voices for 'Ex' Ghostbusters'. Most had no names as I recall."

Joe Landon (Writer of RGB "Three Men And An Egon")
May 31, 2001 - "You probably realize that Chuck Menville and his partner, Len Janson were responsible for the contents of 'The Real Ghostbusters' series. Chuck died many years ago, and even though we didn't know each other well, I considered him my friend. He was a very modest person, who was extremely generous in the way he worked with other people. The script of the show credited to me was largely rewritten, I presume by Chuck, so any credit should rightfully be given to him and Len."

Joseph Kuhr (Writer of EGB "Eyes Of A Dragon")
July 10, 2001 - "I'm glad you enjoyed the 'Eyes of a Dragon' episode of Extreme Ghostbuslers. I did quite a bit of research into Chinese languages, culture, and mythology for that episode and I think the entire cast and crew did a bang-up job. It's one of my favorites."

Jules Dennis (Writer of RGB "20,000 Leagues Under the Street", "Attack of the B-Movie Monsters", "The Treasure of Sierra Tamale", "Guess What's Coming to Dinner", and "Mean Green Teen Machine")
Circa 2001 - "Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters was the first cartoon I worked on and certainly one of my favorites. (I loved writing dialogue for Egon!) All the episodes I did were co-written with Richard Mueller - there was some misunderstanding between Richard and DIC that resulted in his name being omitted. They were supposed to correct that, but I guess they never did. Richard and I also wrote a Married with Children episode together, then spoofed the Bundy family in the Ghostbusters episode 'Guess What's Coming to Dinner?'"

Mark Amato (Writer of EGB "The Ghostmakers")
May 19, 2001 - "Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the original script to send you. Believe it or not, I wrote both of these episodes from the comfort of my home -- and emailed the finished scripts into the producer. I did manage to go to the recording session, which was quite a trip! To hear the words read aloud by the performers. All you can imagine is their celluloid counterparts."

Marty Isenberg (Writer of EGB "True Face Of A Monster")
July 1, 2002 - "It's funny, I was going through old script files recently and thinking how Extreme Ghostbusters was the greatest show that nobody ever saw. It's nice to know there are still some fans out there. [...] It may also interest you to know (if you don't know already) that Bob Skir and I served as story editors on the series, overseeing eleven additional episodes ('Sonic Youth', 'Ghost-Apocalyptic Future', 'Slimer's Sacrifice', 'Seeds of Destruction', 'In Your Dreams', 'The Jersey Devil Made Me Do It', 'Rage', 'Witchy Women', 'Eyes of a Dragon', 'Temporary Insanity', and 'Glutton for Punishment')."

Michael P. Moran (Frank the building superintendent in GB2)
April 26, 2001 - "I wanted to respond to you much sooner and since you are particularly interested in Ghostbusters I wanted to include some photographic material the film had sent me at the end of production. I had unfortunately lost track of where this material was, but I have most recently found it. (See enclosed photographs) I don't know if you have the studio photo of the gang, but here's a copy. Also this is the official cast and crew photo of 'Ghostbusters II' I'm not in this picture, as I was not in California at the end of filming, but did my part in New York early in the production. These are laser copies of the originals sent to me."

Pat Fraley (Guest voice in EGB "The Unseen" and "Back In The Saddle - Part 2", voice of Jake Kong Jr. in Filmation's GB)
Circa 2001 - Q: I know that you were in the Extreme Ghostbusters episodes "The Unseen" and "Back In The Saddle - Part 2," though I can't figure out which characters you provided the voices for. If you can tell me, I'd be most appreciative.
A: Paul, I was covering 'Ray', usually done by Frank Welker, who was unavailable for the two sessions. Regards, P.F."

Rino Romano (Eduardo Rivera in EGB)
November 20, 2000 - "So nice to hear from you - I've seen your name online many times - the GHOSTBUSTERS website rocks! That show was, quite frankly, my favorite. Eduardo was indeed a goof - but a very lovable one with his heart in the right place. I only wish they'd 've done more episodes - then we'd finally see what was to become of him & the elusive Kylie. (I have my suspicions as to the outcome...)"

While most of the cast and crew sent me short letters or notes, three actors sent me very detailed multi-page letters. These have been archived on the autographs page as PDFs. Text transcriptions are below.

Read more »

For the benefit of those of you who haven't been playing along at home, a little history... Due to Hurricane Sandy destroying my old home and leaving my family homeless for over a month (we lived in a Red Cross emergency shelter for six weeks before we found a new permanent place to live), Spook Central went on hiatus for a year until I was a bit more back on my feet. I reopened the site for Halloween last year, and it remained open for three months until my father passed away in late January. For the past four months, Spook Central was back on hiatus, with the only posts being about the deaths of two prominent members of the Ghostbusters community: franchise co-creator Harold Ramis and Ghosthead extraordinaire Doreen Mulman.

Although I still have a lot of personal matters to take care of, I felt that with June being the 30th anniversary of the franchise, it was the perfect time to reopen Spook Central (again!). Thanks to the help of Spook Central staff member Matthew Jordan, I have a flurry of updates to post over the course of the month.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who made donations to my family in the wake of my father's death. I was totally blown away by the generosity of my fellow Ghostheads all over the world. I have been tossing it around in my head over the past few months whether to post a public list of all donations received from family, friends, and Ghostheads. I know that some people who make donations like to be anonymous, but I felt it would be a bit disrespectful of me not to publicly acknowledge each and every person who helped my family in our time of need. I'd like to give a special thanks to Chad Paulson for making a PayPal donation link and image to solicit donations for my family without me ever asking, suggesting, or hinting that it be done. The last thing on my mind after my father died was asking people for money.

1/23/2014 - XXXX - Citizens Inc. (works with my sister) sent a nice fruit basket.
1/23/2014 - $20 - Rabbi Anchelle Perl (cash)
1/23/2014 - $20 - Alim Gafar (cash)
1/26/2014 - $100 - Chad Paulson (PayPal)
1/26/2014 - $03 - Alfredo Buffone (PayPal)
1/27/2014 - $50 - Ed Mooney (check)
1/27/2014 - $50 - Jacqueline Kramer (check)
1/28/2014 - $59 - Toby Riesterer (PayPal)
1/28/2014 - $50 - Ryan Espin (PayPal)
1/28/2014 - $25 - Ron Daniels (PayPal)
1/29/2014 - $15 - Jeremy Marks (PayPal)
2/12/2014 - $25 - Marilyn "Chickie" Mandrino (check)
2/18/2014 - $25 - Ebony Brown (check)
2/25/2014 - $75 - Nina Fiorito (check)
2/25/2014 - $25 - Robert Vincent (PayPal)
2/28/2014 - $25 - Darold Crotzer (PayPal)
4/30/2014 - $50 - Giuseppe Ganelli (PayPal)
5/27/2014 - $3.89 - Frankie Smales (PayPal)
6/22/2014 - $50 - Raffaele Ruffaldi (PayPal)

If there's anyone listed above who would prefer NOT to be named, send me an e-mail and I'll remove your name from the list.

It is with great sadness that I report that Harold "Egon" Ramis passed away today at the young age of 69. Death must have a fondness for the number 69, but not in the same way that we humans do :-) My father died a little over a month ago at age 69, and his mother (my grandmother) and his uncle (my great uncle) also died at that age.

I knew the day would come when one of the "big stars" of the films would die, but I never thought that day would come so soon...and especially not on the cusp of the franchise's 30th anniversary. If anyone still had hopes for a Ghostbusters 3, this pretty much kills any chance of that happening. Even if they went with a new crew, and the original guys just showed up for cameos, there would always be the loss of Harold hanging over the project. Maybe now we can finally put Ghostbusters 3 to rest and not have it brought up every time one of the film stars is interviewed.

Just a thought: The Academy Awards event is being held this Sunday. I wonder if it's too late for Harold to be included in the In Memoriam segment.

Anyway, Ghostbusters News has an article up with some quotes from Harold's Ghostbusters co-stars and other celebrities paying their respects to the man.

After the jump are a few photos, videos, and interview links about Harold that I gathered from my archives.

Read more »

The Good

That image up there is the new Spook Central Headquarters. Click on it for a look at the full-size image (if it's scaled down to fit your screen, click on it again). As you can see, I have a new 100% working fast computer - and I assembled it entirely myself! You can read the full specs here. That means, computer-wise, I've *FINALLY* recovered from Hurricane Sandy. Normally, I'd be ecstatic to get back to business as usual, and present all of the Ghostbusters updates that this site has lacked for the past 16 months. Sadly, all is not good.

[UPDATE - 4/2/2014]
I finally framed one of the three Dapper Dan Schoening signed art prints I've had for years (the other two have been sold on eBay) and put it up on the Spook Central Headquarters wall. Here's a look at the revised Spook Central Headquarters, and a close-up of the "This Chick Is TOAST" art print.




The Bad

After my father passed away three weeks ago - God, has it been that long already?!? - I knew that I had to stop dragging my feet, get over my worries about screwing it up, and finally buy a new computer bundle while I still had the money to buy it, and while I still had a place for it to be delivered to.

When we lost my father, we also lost his money, which was paying the rent on the place where I'm staying. His entire Social Security check and half of his retirement check was needed for the rent, and now we don't have either. I'm not sure at this moment what the combined household income is going to be starting in March, but I know that it's going to be a LOT less than it was in January. If we can get rental assistance, the landlord is willing to accept it and keep us here. I think he realizes how much we are good tenants, though compared to the noisy, crazy low-class undesirables living below us, cockroaches would be good tenants. In spite of the people downstairs, we like living here, we like the neighborhood, and we want to stay for more than just 14 or 15 months. Plus we don't want to have to pack everything back up, and go through the stress of finding a new place to live and moving everything there.

Losing my father and inheriting all of his DVDs has opened my eyes as to how I have WAY too much stuff that I don't need - thousands of DVDs, VHS tapes, CDs, comic books, trading cards, autographed/signed photos & memorabilia... I was quite a collector, and maybe a bit of a hoarder. Having all of this stuff doesn't make for an easy move. Since I don't need all of it, and quite honestly I've only watched probably 5% of the thousands of DVDs, I will have to start selling or giving away most of it. Ideally I'd like to sell as much of it as possible since I will need every bit of money I can get. To give you an idea as to just how much stuff we have, look at these photos of the boxes sitting up in the attic that I photographed four months ago.


The Future

Normally, having a new fast computer would mean that Spook Central would permanently be removed from hiatus status and operations would resume as they did before October 29, 2012. Spook Central will remain on hiatus for the time being. The next post, or bunch of posts, will be listings of items I've put up for sale to raise money for rent ($1,475), electric ($204), cable/tv/internet ($140), food, transportation, laundry, medicine/medical, and other assorted living expenses. (If you ever need proof that life enjoys crapping on me, the electric bill went up $50 this month, and the cable bill went up $20 last month.)

Some listings will be on eBay, and I may try to list a few directly here using PayPal (since eBay limits 50 free listings per month). There will be a bunch of Ghostbusters stuff for sale, such as full sets of comic books, some toys, some t-shirts, an original Ecto-1A model I assembled in the early 1990s in a GB-esque display case, a few copies of the Real Ghostbusters Complete Series DVD set in various conditions (some are disc only), and maybe a few other things as I find them. There will also be a huge lot of complete sets of Garbage Pail Kids cards from the original Series 1 to the All-New Series 5 (or maybe it was 4). Some autographed Wrestlemania plaques signed by Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, and The Undertaker. The last issue of WWF Victory magazine and the first issue of WWF Magazine from 1983/1984 (Victory was a two-issue series that ran before it officially became "WWF Magazine"). Not to mention lots of DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, and out-of-print VHS tapes. I have a LOT of stuff, and I know that some of it is quite valuable.

The first listings may go up sometime next week. That's the plan right now, though I've learned not to plan too much because shit happens that I couldn't possibly predict.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the PayPal donation button that was created for me to help my family. You can donate by clicking on that image, or you can wait until I have my stuff up for sale and donate by buying my stuff. Either way, if you've enjoyed anything you've found on Spook Central over the past 17.5 years, please help the guy who brought it to you. Thanks.


If you want to share this button, here's the html code:

<DIV ALIGN="center"><A HREF="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=DF49KXRPNVLDN" TARGET="_blank"><IMG SRC="http://www.ghostbusters.org/static/img/rudoff-donate.png" WIDTH="250" HEIGHT="153" BORDER="0" ALT="Donate Now"></A></DIV>

Yesterday my family and I went into the City to celebrate my parent's 38th wedding anniversary. We visited Times Square and Rockefeller Center, and I figured it would be a good opportunity to take some photos of the Ghostbusters spots at those locations - especially since most of them were unknown to me when I last visited on April 22, 2003. Sadly, between the overcrowding and the set-up for New Years Eve, I couldn't take the exact photos I wanted. I did manage to get a few shots, which have been added to the Times Square and Rockefeller Center pages.

Read more »

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!

Thanks to Tim Kloske, frames from the Ghostbusters "Mastered In 4K" 2013 Blu-ray have been added to the Ghostbusters Home Video Comparison page. The original full-size Blu-ray frames have been added to the Ghostbusters on Home Video page.

This is what Tim had to say about the 4K 2013 Blu-ray: "For the most part, the 2013 Blu-ray release might now be the best. It's the most honest to the original film (similar to the 1999 DVD) while still being color timed to bring life into the film. The 1999 copy is really dingy and purple. Not only that, but the 1999 version is stretched a little bit. You got more picture in 1999, but everything was stretched. I think whomever did the color timing for the 2013 Blu-ray made some great choices, for the most part."

I don't own the 4K 2013 Blu-ray because I didn't feel that the double-dip so soon after the 2009 Blu-ray was worth it - and the lack of bonus features on the new Blu-ray also put me off (it allocates that space to providing the film with a higher bitrate) - but after seeing the improvements in most of the shots, I'm seriously reconsidering. Of course, with the 30th anniversary upon us in seven months, there's a chance Sony *may* release a Blu-ray set containing both films, so I'm gonna hold off on the double dip until I see if that happens or not :-)

If you don't want to hold off, you can buy the Ghostbusters "Mastered In 4K" 2013 Blu-ray from Amazon.

The following article was written by Matthew Jordan...

Over the course of the ongoing comic series Erik Burnham has written many characters into the series from previous canon and other interesting media. But somewhat new/original characters seem to be overlooked most of the time.

Read more »

IDW has over the last week started leaking out tidbits about the new Arc called "Mass Hysteria!". Among the details known is that it is a eight parter that starts up after (Volume 2) Issue #13. It will begin in February of 2014.


Among the first things one can notice from the second tease that includes a gang of Ghostbusters battle a octopus type monster is that both the original team and the "new" team are in it. However, it also includes the three nice ladies from the Ghost Smashers and the Rookie.

Other notes... Erik Burnham is teasing that 'there may be a return of an accountant' meaning perhaps Louis Tully is not restricted from the comic series anymore. He also notes that the shorts on the ladies is not planned for the story arc and maybe the artist was going by the cover art to (Vol 2) #1. (Thanks Mrmichaelt for passing this along!)