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 ghoulish ghosty is none other than Karro Zans, a tricker from the other side that is looking to bring over a horde of spirits in the mortal world…
He pops up in episode 123, Ghostworld, in which he cleverly disguises himself as Carl Sans, the owner/operator of the newest theme park in upstate New York called simply enough, Ghostworld. In order to get his spectral friends from the “other side” to the mortal realm he has to find enough vessels, bodies of humans so they can be possessed and used as transportation. To do this he tricks the Ghostbusters into coming to the park, possesses them, and then uses their bodies as goodwill ambassadors to lure the unsuspecting public into the park. Dastardly!
Though he’s not terribly fiendish looking in the cel I procured, he is one heck of a scary monster (as seen in the below screenshot to the left.) Ghostworld is another example of an episode with some decent to great animation, though the episode does have its ups and downs.
There were a couple of other cool aspects to this episode. For one, we’re introduced to Egon’s mother. Also, the theme park actually has some pretty great stuff in it, like a ferry boat constructed of a giant insect that’s pretty darn cool. One of the rides even manages to predict the overall concept behind one of my favorite Disney theme park attractions as well, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. The zapper guns (above) even look strikingly similar to the ones eventually built for the Disney ride…
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…
