Extreme Ghostbusters is an animated television series and a follow-up to the animated series The Real Ghostbusters. It is a part of the Ghostbusters Animated Timeline Canon. The series originally aired in the fall of 1997, and features a team of younger university-level Ghostbusters who are led by veteran Ghostbuster Egon Spengler. The series only ran 40 episodes, but brought many new fans to the Ghostbusters Franchise.
Plot
Years after the events of The Real Ghostbusters, Egon Spengler was the only Ghostbuster who still lived at the Firehouse. After seeing the paranormal events spike after years of no activity, Egon was forced to recruit a new team of Ghostbusters from his class at the college. The new Extreme Ghostbusters team were: Eduardo Rivera, Garrett Miller, Kylie Griffin, and Roland Jackson. Egon trained them on how the equipment worked and how to use it to battle the new ghosts that plagued New York. This new crew battled seemingly more powerful ghosts. Janine also returned as the secretary and Slimer remained at the firehouse as Egon's pet.
Season Guide & Episode Guide
Main Characters
The four core Extreme Ghostbusters members
- Eduardo Rivera (voiced by Rino Romano) was the lazy slacker of the group. He was of Latin American descent.
- Garrett Miller (voiced by Jason Marsden) was sports nut of the group and possessed great athletic abilities. He was born disabled and was in a wheelchair.
- Kylie Griffin (voiced by Tara Strong) was a great knowledge in the paranormal and is an expert on the occult. Unlike the other Ghostbusters, she uses a custom proton pistol and carries the ghost trap on her back.
- Roland Jackson (voiced by Alfonso Ribeiro) was the tech and maintenance man of the team. He was from an African American background.
- Egon Spengler (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) was the lookout and mentor of the new team. He donned a pony-tail in these, the later years.
- Janine Melnitz (voiced by Pat Musick) was the secretary of the Ghostbusters.
- Slimer (voiced by Billy West) was the "pet-like" inherited from the original team and often speaks in unintelligible gibberish.
For the full list of characters go Here .
Equipment
- Proton Pack
- Proton Gun
- Proton Cannister
- Proton Pistol
- P.K.E. Meter
- Ghost Vacuum
- Field Projector
- Liquid Oxygen Dispenser Unit
- Uniform
- Trap
- Containment Unit
- Spengler's Spirit Guide
Vehicles
- Ecto-1 was the prime vehicle they used.
- Ecto-Fire Truck was used as a large Proton Cannon.
- Ecto-Garbage Truck was a large Ghost Trap on wheels.
Locations
Recurring Themes
One notable recurring theme is that whenever a ghost has done something, when they are trapped or destroyed, everything they did is undone. Here are some examples:
- The demon Gu Mo steals people's bones, but after he is trapped, his victims have their bones back.
- Lotan destroys all technology in his presence. After he is destroyed, all technology he damaged works again.
- The Vampire Clowns ate a lot of people and transformed Eduardo into one of them. After all of them were captured, Eduardo returned to normal and all of their devoured victims reappeared.
Another recurring theme is the romantic interest that a number of the main characters have for each other.
Such as Eduardo and fellow ghostbuster Kylie's ongoing love-hate relationship, where throughout the series they constantly have bickering sometimes heated arguments with each other but have also been shown to be the most concerned for each other. For example Eduardo is often the most distressed when something happens to Kylie, often being the one who saves her from life threatening situations and their occasional subconscious flirtations with each other.
Another example is Janine's near obsessive affection for Egon, with Janine often making advances on him in vain as Egon is often completely oblivious to Janine's feelings for him and even to his own feelings for her.
Development
In early drafts for the show, Garrett's name was Lucas and Eduardo had a dream of entering the Olympics. In addition to Slimer serving as the comic relief, there was originally going to be a new pet ghost of the Ghostbusters named Gnat, possibly a new friend or rival of Slimer. Gnat was probably removed from the final version of the show because it was decided that one ghost serving as comic relief was enough. Though not much else is known about what the Extreme Ghostbusters show was originally planned to be, it is possible that there were many other characters and elements that didn't make the final cut.[1]
Home Video Releases
VHS
In 1998, three VHS volumes of the show were released by Columbia TriStar Home Video, all of which are now out of print. The episodes included on the VHS volumes were:
- Volume 1: "Darkness at Noon, Part 1", "Darkness at Noon, Part 2"
- Volume 2: "The Infernal Machine", "Grundelesque"
- Volume 3: "Back in the Saddle, Part 1", "Back in the Saddle, Part 2"
DVD
- Extreme Ghostbusters: The Complete First Season - is a Region 2 DVD Box Set available in the UK. It features the first 13 episodes. This is only planned DVD release currently.
- Extreme Ghostbusters: Season One Volume One - is a Region 4 DVD Box Set available in Australia. It features the first 13 episodes. This is only planned DVD release currently.
Comcast On-Demand
Comcast customers were able to view the show from July 2009 to July 2012 in the kid's section of the Kabillions video on demand "channel". Oddly, it was listed under the name "Ghostbusters Dark". [2]
Hulu
The series was added to Hulu starting March 1, 2016. [3] [4] All 40 episodes are available to paid subscribers in both English and Spanish (listed separately as Extreme Ghostbusters en Español). [5] [6]
Merchandise
- Trendmasters Extreme Ghostbusters Toy Line - which had toy sets of the four main characters (Garrett Miller was missing in both lines, but a prototype surfaced) and it also had a toy version of Samhain. Like the show, the toy line didn't last all that long.
- Kentucky Fried Chicken Kids Meal promotion - six toys that were included in the restaurant chain's kid's meals.
Video Games
- Extreme Ghostbusters Video Game- GBC in 2001 by LSP.
- Extreme Ghostbusters: Zap The Ghosts!- PC in 2001 by LSP.
- Extreme Ghostbusters: Creativity Centre- PC in 2001 by LSP.
- Extreme Ghostbusters: Code Ecto-1- GBA in 2002 by LSP.
- Extreme Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Invasion- PS1 in 2004 by LSP.
References
External links
- Official site (archived)
- GBFans has videos for all episodes of Extreme Ghostbusters on episode pages (must be signed in to GBfans to watch)
Gallery
Images provided by Paul Rudoff with permission from Nora Salisbury of The Ghostbusters Fan Forum, co-run with the late Doreen Mulman
