History Trivia / TheRealGhostbusters

* ActingForTwo: Of the main characters, Creator/FrankWelker voiced both Ray and Slimer. Welker would also voice a number of antagonists, such as the Bogeyman, Sandman and Samhain. Creator/MauriceLaMarche also voiced a number of roles, too. Lorenzo Music also voiced Peter's dad, with Dave Coulier taking over later. And since Laura Summer (who originally played Janine) is the only voice actress credited, she may well have played every female role in the series until she was replaced by Creator/KathSoucie.

* TalkingToHimself: Creator/FrankWelker (Ray, Slimer, sometimes also voices ghosts -- he's a ManOfAThousandVoices) and Creator/MauriceLaMarche (Egon, and the Umpire in "Night Game").

** A planned episode "Funny You Should Scream" which was about Dr. Teufel (meaning devil) ran a carnival and trapped children in his Fun House a la Pied Piper. The script for the episode was scrapped due to conflict with the animation writers and the Labor Board at the time.
** An early four minute [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN5V2c1nN6s demo reel]] featured an entirely different character design for Peter Venkman (one that came closer to the more blue collar looks of live action Venkman Creator/BillMurray than the chiseled pretty boy design they ultimately went with), the Ghostbusters wearing their beige movie jumpsuits instead of the multi-color coded jumpsuits they wore in the finished series, and Slimer still appeared to be an antagonist rather than a team pet and mascot. Clips from it appeared in some ABC promos ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f6yogvJDGo one for the show]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ubnARStpgQ&t=10m21s one for their Saturday lineup that season as part of their "Together" image campaign that year]]) before the show debuted.

* ShowAccuracyToyAccuracy: Strangely, the Creator/{{Kenner}} toy line had very few ghosts who had actually appeared in the show. Exceptions to this were often lacking in accuracy: the 'Slimer' figure was named Green Ghost and looked more like his film counterpart, having been designed and marketed before the show had even come up with his name; and the original Stay Puft figure is about the same height as the 'busters themselves (the latter was eventually reissued as a plushie that was more accurately sized relative to the Ghostbuster figures- not that it would be physically possible to make a toy of the character to scale with the figures what with the character having been about 100' tall, and even today with a 2' tall Mattel foam figure or Diamond Select coin bank, it's still not quite happened). The likenesses of the Ghostbusters themselves also shares a bit with the early demo reel (as described below) which is why the Ray figure is so fat and why Winston's face is off-model.

** The recasting of Peter's voice actor from Lorenzo Music to Dave Coulier in Season 3 was that [[Creator/BillMurray the real life actor]] complained to the studio that the character sounded too much like Garfield. [[note]]Ironiclly Bill would go on to voice Garfield in the [[Film/{{Garfield}} live action movies]], largely out of penance for this act since he did like Lorenzo.[[/note]]

* EditedForSyndication: When the show was rerun on [[Creator/{{Freeform}} Fox Family]] in the late 90s, they used a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0LXsowvmkM condensed version of the intro]]; the episodes were chopped up in some cases and missing their episode title cards in others (some episodes retained the title cards, but without voiceovers). ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOKrQblHqic The typical logo plastering employed by Sony during the era]] {plastering a Columbia-Tristar logo over the original logo at the end of the show} was also in effect, followed by the CreditsPushback scheme used by FF.)

* MissingEpisode: Every episode was included in the now out-of-print Time-Life DVD set. However, when the rights reverted back to Sony and they released 10 single-disc volumes to promote [[Film/Ghostbusters2016 the 2016 film]], only 111 out of the 173 episodes (counting the ''Slimer'' episodes) were included. Five of the remaining episodes ''did'' become available only for digital download.

* EditedForSyndication: When the show was rerun on [[Creator/{{Freeform}} Fox Family]] in the late 90s, they used a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0LXsowvmkM condensed version of the intro]]; the episodes were chopped up in some cases and missing their episode title cards in others (some episodes retained the title cards, but without voiceovers). ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOKrQblHqic The typical logo plastering employed by Sony during the era {plastering a Columbia-Tristar logo over the original logo at the end of the show} was also in effect, followed by the CreditsPushback scheme used by FF.)

* EditedForSyndication: When the show was rerun on [[Creator/{{Freeform}} Fox Family]] in the late 90s, they used a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0LXsowvmkM condensed version of the intro]]; the episodes were chopped up in some cases and missing their episode title cards in others (some episodes retained the title cards, but without voiceovers).

** Trendmasters would eventually make a toy of Samhain in the Extreme Ghostbusters line... albeit rather off-model to his animated look.

** An early four minute [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN5V2c1nN6s demo reel]] featured an entirely different character design for Peter Venkman (one that came closer to the more blue collar looks of live action Venkman Creator/BillMurray than the chiseled pretty boy design they ultimately went with), the Ghostbusters wearing their beige movie jumpsuits instead of the multi-color coded jumpsuits they wore in the finished series, and Slimer still appeared to be an antagonist rather than a team pet and mascot. Clips from it appeared in some ABC promos ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXMzgR2waCo&t=3m10s one for the show]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ubnARStpgQ&t=10m21s one for their Saturday lineup that season as part of their "Together" image campaign that year]]) before the show debuted.
*** In early storyboards for the promo pilot, Winston Zedmore had facial hair. It was later removed to keep his design simple.

** The recasting of Peter's voice actor from Lorenzo Music to Dave Coulier in Season 3 was that [[Creator/BillMurray (the real life actor)]] complained to the studio that the character sounded too much like Garfield.

** Ghost was also less human and more monster like due to the network though kids can't handle death. Demons were also cut to not expose them to demonic theme and to avoid offending anybody's religious sensibilities.

** An early four minute [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN5V2c1nN6s demo reel]] featured an entirely different character design for Peter Venkman (one that came closer to the more blue collar looks of live action Venkman BillMurray than the chiseled pretty boy design they ultimately went with), the Ghostbusters wearing their beige movie jumpsuits instead of the multi-color coded jumpsuits they wore in the finished series, and Slimer still appeared to be an antagonist rather than a team pet and mascot. Clips from it appeared in some ABC promos ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXMzgR2waCo&t=3m10s one for the show]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ubnARStpgQ&t=10m21s one for their Saturday lineup that season as part of their "Together" image campaign that year]]) before the show debuted.

* ExecutiveMeddling: Despite its runaway success, Creator/{{ABC}} decided they needed to "fix" the show and hired a consulting firm named Q5 to take a look at it. According to Creator/JMichaelStraczynski, the head writer at the time, Q5 didn't do any audience research or focus testing but demanded changes based on what they themselves believed would made a cartoon successful. Janine was changed to be more feminine and meek, and received round glasses because it was claimed her pointy ones could scare children. More changes were forced upon the writing staff starting with Season 3. The Junior Ghostbusters, a group of [[KidAppealCharacter recurring child characters]], were added. More focus was placed on Slimer, who spun off into his own (doomed) cartoon in Season 4. The consultants also wanted fixed roles for the four main characters with Egon as "The Brain", Ray as "The Hands", Peter as "The Mouth" and Winston as "The Driver" (the [[UnfortunateImplications racist implications]] of which the Straczynski and the writing team rightly called Q5 out for). This was enough to make Straczynski leave his position after Season 3 (though he wrote some later scripts for the show as a free-lance writer).

** The recasting of Peter's voice actor to Lorenzo Music to Dave Coulier in Season 3 was that [[Creator/BillMurray (the real life actor)]] complained to the studio that the character sounded too much like Garfield.

*** In Early Storyboard for the promo pilot, Winston Zedmore had facial hair. It was later removed to keep his design simple.

** The recasting of Peter's voice actor to Lorenzo Music to Dave Coulier in Season 3 was that [[Creator/BillMurray (the real life actor)]] didn't think he sound like hem.

* MissingEpisode: Every episode was included in the now out-of-print Time-Life DVD set. However, when the rights reverted back to Sony and they released 10 single-disc volumes to promote [[Film/Ghostbusters2016 the 2016 film]], only 111 out of the 173 episodes (counting the ''Slimer'' episodes) were included. Five of the remaining episodes ''did'' become available only for digital download. Every pre-''Slimer'' episode was also recently made available on Netflix.

* MissingEpisode: Every episode was included in the now out-of-print Time-Life DVD set. However, when the rights reverted back to Sony and they released 10 single-disc volumes to promote [[Film/Ghostbusters2016 the 2016 film]], only 111 out of the 173 episodes (counting the ''Slimer'' episodes) were included. Five of the remaining episodes ''did'' become available only for digital download.

* MissingEpisode: Every episode was included in the now out-of-print Time-Life DVD set. However, when the rights reverted back to Sony and they released 10 single-disc volumes to promote [[Film/Ghostbusters2016 the 2016 film]], only 111 out of the 173 episodes (counting the ''Slimer'' episodes) were included. Five of the remaining episodes ''did'' became available only for digital download.

* MissingEpisode: Every episode was included in the now out-of-print Time-Life DVD set. However, when the rights reverted back to Sony and they released 10 single-disc volumes to promote [[Film/Ghostbusters2016 the 2016 film]], only 111 out of the 173 episodes (counting the ''Slimer'' episodes) were included. The others became available only for digital download.

* MissingEpisode: Every episode was included in the now out-of-print Time-Life DVD set. However, when the rights reverted back to Sony and they released 10 single-disc volumes to promote [[Film/Ghostbusters2016 the 2016 film]], only 111 out of the 173 episodes (counting the ''Slimer'' episodes) were included.

** Creator/ErnieHudson (Winston in the movies) auditioned for his own character.

* ExecutiveMeddling: Despite its runaway success, Creator/{{ABC}} decided they needed to "fix" the show and hired a consulting firm named Q5 to take a look at it. According to Creator/JMichaelStraczynski, the head writer at the time, Q5 didn't do any audience research or focus testing but demanded changes based on what they themselves believed would made a cartoon successful. Janine was changed to be more feminine and meek, and received round glasses because it was claimed her pointy ones could scare children. More changes were forced upon the writing staff starting with Season 3. The Junior Ghostbusters, a group of [[KidAppealCharacter recurring child characters]], were added. More focus was placed on Slimer, who spun off into his own (doomed) cartoon in Season 4. The whole team ended up taking on fixed roles: Egon was "The Brain", Ray was "The Hands", Peter was "The Mouth" and Winston was "The Driver" (the [[UnfortunateImplications racist implications]] of which the Straczynski and the writing team rightly called Q5 out for). This was enough to make Straczynski leave his position after Season 3 (though he wrote some later scripts for the show as a free-lance writer).