Customer Reviews

The Real Ghostbusters - Creatures of the Night

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What we have here is a mere four episodes of what I consider one great cartoon show. It would be nice if Sony would make a nice, large DVD collection where you get several episodes in one disk. It would also be nice if they were in order as they were broadcast. Sadly that's not the case with this collection. You only get four episodes from the first season, and not in order. It's like that old VHS video release mentality again. You would figure a DVD can carry at least twice the amount of eps as VHS so why be stingy? There are over 70 episodes out there on season one alone. Still that's better than nothing I suppose. Don't expect any bonus features on this collection as the price point just doesn't scream "special edition" at all. Anyway here are the episodes that should be on this DVD according to my sources:

Night Game - Winston plays a game of ball with somebody's soul as the wager.

Lost and Foundry - When a ghost is merged with melted steel, strange things start happening all over town - including the firehouse.

Bird of Kildarby - The boys battle it out in a haunted Irish castle... in the middle of Manhatten.

Killerwatt - A spirit with a taste for electricity takes over a power plant.

I doubt they did any clean up or remastering from the source material. I might sound like I'm dissing these DVDs, but don't get me wrong. I'm glad they are finally being released. It's just the way they are releasing them don't do the show, or a DVD's ability to store tons of content, any justice. Maybe if enough of these get sold we will see a better release later on. Until then here's hoping they make a DVD with episodes like The Collect Call of Cthulu, Don't Forget the Motor City and the Sam Hain episodes.

The Saturday morning animated follow up to the original Ghostbuster movie is here. Problem is there is no complete sets containing all of the '86-91 series, just random selects.

The "Real Ghostbusters" so called because FILMATION had the TV rights for the "Ghostbusters" name back from a live action-low budget Saturday morning show with Forest Tucker and Larry Scorch as bumbling ghost catchers, along with a guy in an ape suit. Filmation revised their concept after the unrelated Ivan Reitman film was a success, so there was briefly competing animated Ghostbuster cartoons. The REAL Ghostbusters succeeded inpart because it had all the recognizable props from the movie, the characters Ray, Egon, Winston and Peter Venkman. But chiefly, it boasted some of the best voice talent in TV animation: the great Maurice LaMarche(with loads of voice credits most recently working on the new FUTURAMA MOVIE for Dec of 2007) Arsenio Hall (so to be TV late night host), Frank Welker (of Scooby Doo fame as FRED) and Lorenzo Music, who is most famous as the voice of GARFIELD was ironicly replacing Bill Murray as Venkman, who would later serve as the new voice for the Cat in two feature films. The series also had some notable writers like Michael J. Straczynski of BABYLON 5 note.
Later after several seasons the series evolved into the SLIMER and the GHOSTBUSTERS show, featuring Slimers adventures before he meet the GBs.

This one features a bonus episode which happens to be the SECOND EPISODE for the cartoon series: Killerwatt.The animation is more polished on this one, more like the opening credits, all the way though. Later the time constraints would make future episodes less remarkable overall, except for Proton pack fights which tended to look glossy. Killerwatt is the story of a ghost who is possessing electrical appliances involving the boys in some dept. store battles and ultimately a big showdown with the power behind the possessions. Introducing the ECTO-2, a ghost-fightin' helicopter, the new bigger containment system and the multicolored GB uniforms (along with hair highlights for the crew, and a rat-tail for Spengler).

Also on this DVD Night Game (Field of Dreams meets Faust), the Bird of Kildarby (NYC castle haunting), Lost & Foundry.

Watch for "Ghosts-R-US" the series pilot, which starts with a shot at the cartoon ghostchasing rivalry by having some ghosts pretending to be "ghostbusters" in order to put the "real" ghostbusters out of business.

Maybe the 40 episodes of 1997 Extreme Ghostbusters will return in DVD form too.

The "Real Ghostbusters" DVD releases have been controversial among longtime fans of the show because they are not season boxed sets and contain only one or two of what are considered the best episodes of the series. Some fans have theorized that the best way to increase the likelihood of boxed set releases is to purchase the DVDs that are already out. What of the episodes themselves?

"Night Game" is the best "Real Ghostbusters" episode currently available on Region 1 DVD. It is a joy to behold as that great rarity: an episode focused largely on Winston, the least-utilized Ghostbuster. Especially praiseworthy is the scene in which a white security guard runs away from a supernatural situation in panic while Winston strides directly toward the problem. The animation quality of this episode is also much better than usual for this series. This episode's only real flaw is that it's a little too obvious that the Umpire creature is being voiced by the same actor as Egon (Maurice LaMarche). But listen out for the Umpire's big monologue, possibly the most philosophically rich dialogue ever written for Saturday morning television.

"The Bird of Kildarby" is a more ordinary episode, but an enjoyable one. It provides the movie character of Mayor Lenny with one of his welcome animated appearances, and it's heartwarming to see Ray become no-nonsense and bossy in negotiating with the ghosts for Peter's release.

"Killerwatt" and "Lost and Foundry" are both very good episodes, but their plots are so similar that they tend to blur together in the mind. The decision on Sony's part to release them on the same DVD seems questionable, to say the least. A noteworthy moment in "Killerwatt" is a scene in which Janine blows Egon a kiss and is then kissed by Slimer: the same action occurs in the show's opening title sequence, and yet the animation is not identical to that in "Killerwatt".

"Creatures of the Night" has the only good piece of cover art of the three "Real Ghostbusters" DVDs; on the other two the characters don't even look like themselves. Overall "Creatures of the Night" is a better collection of episodes than "Spooky Spirits", but not quite as good as the third "Real Ghostbusters" DVD, "Slimefighters".

I don't like 'best of' DVDs because they never include all the best episodes and even if an episode is only average it should still be on DVD.


I only want the first 2 seasons of the Real Ghostbusters(RG) on DVD. During the first 2 the show had great plots, funny and witty dialogue, and great chemistry between the characters. Everything worked. Then the show really did a 180 quality wise after season 2. The show lost Lorenzo Music (Venkman) and Arsenio Hall (Winston). Also the plots and dialogue were not up to the standards of the first 2 seasons. Last but certainly not least Slimer became the star of the show.

In short after season 2 the RG became just the average Saturday morning kiddie cartoon show. In fact Filmation's Ghostbusters cartoon was actually much better than this show after season 2. That's how far this show slipped.

Anyway Sony, release season sets 1 and 2 and I'm there. Until then I'll pass.

I hope that Sony decides on doing boxed sets with The Real Ghostbusters. I also hope that they take the time to clean up the video because as it is, it looks almost like old VHS tapes. Other cartoon's from the 80's (some that were much inferior to RGB in both quality and popularity) have had very decent DVD releases.

While the shows on this DVD are all pretty good (specially Night Game and Lost and Foundry), there are many more, great episodes that must be put on DVD.

There is a complete series box set that even has the original pilot episode and the entire slimer and the real ghostbusters series in it. Time life got a hold of it, it's about 140.00 to 150.00 dollars but it's got a metal case for all four disks of each season, concept art drawn in each case and a collectible firehouse shell for storing each of the box sets in. Go to [...] and do a search for The Real Ghostbusters, you should be able to find the box set. This DVD on the other hand, has one of the best episodes and I think one or two of the real flop episodes on it, I wouldn't suggest it, it really isn't worth it compared to the other 2 dvds that were released around the same time.

These cartoons are a lot of fun. My neices like the fact that they are a little spooky.

I really enjoyed watching this it still is such a good dvd to watch even at 27 years old! Anyone can watch this dvd and it definitely keeps your interest. Super fast shipping also!

It wasn't the set of episodes I thought they were, but they were still good. I just hope they release more.

I loved the Ghostbusters, but these DVD's don't seem to have the best episodes or that many of them at all.
If you like the show though, you won't be disappointed because they still are The Real Ghostbusters