For all of those joining me for the first time, welcome to the Return of the 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown here at Branded in the 80s! I had a blast last year, so again I’m counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. All of these monsters come straight from my vintage animation cel collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.
Today’s junk-pile of a villain comes from one of my favorite 1st season episodes (#10, “Take Two”.) The gang flies out to California to take on the role of consultants for the official Ghostbusters movie (which just happens to be the actual live action film that the cartoon is based on for all you meta fans out there.) While the studio is getting the stages ready for filming they let loose a ghost that’s been trapped for decades, which finds a corporal body in a huge prop robot on the lot…
This guy has a major case of the insanes in those big yellow eyes!
One bit of trivia in this episode, when the guys are looking over the casting sheet, cartoon Winston reads out the major players (Akroyd, Murry, and Ramis), neglecting to mention Ernie Hudson, the actor for whom he is the counterpart. It’s just another in a long line of examples where Hudson gets shunned in marketing and promotion for that first film. Oh, and as far as the meta reference above, according to the cartoon universe, they came befre the movie, which is sort of a weird chicken and egg paradox…
You can get an idea of what the original ghost and robot prop look like above, as well as what the two of them merged typically looks lie in the episode. The cel (top) and the screencap below have him in a much more menacing, yet foreshorten-d portrait…
Come back tomorrow for another Real Ghostbusters monster animation cel as I count down towards one of my favorite on Halloween day!
Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the Return of the 31 Days of Monsters countdown, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck, and I’m on the Facebook as well.) If you’d like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year’s Halloween blogging event…
