https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hsTK7r7y2g
Finally, someone who knows how to make Ghostbusters toys is doing so. So much of the Ghostbusters marketing has been concentrated to pretentious hipsters. This is where it all began. Glad to see Kenner's initial series of the RGB line of toys also being re-released. I like how these toys are creative molds and not trying to "pay homage" to the old toys from 1986 etc.
I'm sick of these Funko toys, Funko's Vinyl Idols, Funko's Dorbz, etc.......just because you put a Venkman or Stantz nametag on a toy doesn't make it Ghostbusters. It's practically plaigarism. H2Ghost and Bad 2 The Bone Ghost from the Kenner line of toys had no direct link to the movie or the cartoon, but the spirit and joy of Ghostbusters was all over those toys. You can't stand before Squisher or Sludge Bucket and not see glimpses of the film and/or cartoon in your mind's eye. Those Funko and Loyal Subjects and even the "film accurate" sculps of the actors dressed in their stuff are not true to the spirit of the film. Yes, the flight suit and proton pack etc are iconic in their own right and if done correctly can really bring out some of the greatness of the film in action figure form. It doesn't necessarily have to be Bill Murray or Dan Aykroyd's likeness. What the actors looked like was not essential to the film. It was their personalities and some of their physicality did lend to the aura of the film, but, really, Dan Aykroyd is not the only actor in the history of cinema that is capable of playing someone very much like Ray Stantz or even Ray Stantz himself. You could have any number of random guys dressed in a flight suit & proton pack et al and it'd be OK!! Maybe not necessarily in the film. There's more to acting than just wearing iconic gear, but an action figure doesn't actually act (ya know?).
CVS and Walgreens are rumored to have some GB:Afterlife candy stick-wand thingies (I've read they're called candy wands). They were supposed to be kind of in conjunction with the movie, but the movie is STILL such a long way off and it probably doesn't hurt to remind people that it's coming out soon ish y, especially this time of year.
I do hope Kenner re-releases the Slimed Heroes and I really do hope they also re issue the Gooper Ghosts and H2 & Bad2TheBone Ghosts. The Screaming Hereos et al are cool but I always felt they were far lesser than the original figures. The Slimed Heroes were just freakin' awesome. I love them more now than I did back then, probably because my life was a little difficult back then, with just about everyone I know attempting to push my love for Ghostbusters to the sidelines. I don't even think I was allowed to watch the cartoon back then although I could be way off on that. I think by the time the Ecto Glow figures came out (1991), I was not allowed to watch the show. I don't specifically remember if I was in 1990 or not. I used to try to say "Well, the original figures are better because x or y", basically just making shit up, but ultimately it's the time they were made that makes them special to me. There's not much like being 5, but being 2 years old is an entirely different thing altogether. Occassionaly I feel sensations that remind me of when I was like 2 or 3 years old, and I feel some strange combination of emotions, not just emotions, but, maybe, but emotions that are so strong they almost feel like something, like, perhaps emotions that I'm not de-sensitized to. Idk. All that has little to do with Ghostbusters. Some aspects of Ghostbusters do bring about those senses from time to time if I'm watching it in the right lighting in the right weather etc.....but overall most of those difficult to describe senses are tied to a song I heard, like various songs from Kate Bush's THE WHOLE STORY, or the synth solo in Genesis' "In Too Deep", or driving along the bridge that leads from Ft Ord, California to Seaside, California and hearing Genesis' "Throwing It All Away", or seeing the old K-Mart logo, before they made it more of an actual logo and it just said "K Mart" on the front of the store (this was before K Mart became a walking punchline), or the back cover art of Toto's IV (1982) or Huey Lewis & The News SPORTS (1983)...or sometimes I even think of the cover art of the VHS of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial that originally came out in 1988, or the 1988 VHS cover-art for MONKEY SHINES by George Romero, or Oingo Boingo's SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET. There is one memory I walk back to sometimes. Once my mom was offering to buy something for me at Toys R Us and I swore I saw H2Ghost sitting on the shelf further down the aisle. She swore it wasn't there and I was mistaken. But she was headed some other direction and wouldn't let me investigate. There may've also been a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man there as well, which she swore up and down she could not find anywhere after 1987 when she threw all the toys I had away because they weren't being picked up. I think this was late 1989 or early 1990 I spotted what I'm just about certain was the H2 Ghost. But just seeing that big wall of Ghostbusters toys everytime at Toys R Us is just exhilerating to even think about. Really something.
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