Production
At the same time The Real Ghostbusters was being created, Filmation was making a cartoon revamp (Ghostbusters) of their 1975[11] live action series The Ghost Busters, due to disagreements with Columbia over animation rights.
A short pilot episode was produced, but never aired in full. The full 4-minute promo was released on Time Life's DVD set in 2008. Scenes of the pilot can be seen in TV promos that aired prior to the beginning of the series. Among differences seen in the promo pilot, the Ghostbusters wore beige jumpsuits as in the film and the character design for Peter Venkman bore more of a resemblance to actor Bill Murray. The character designs by Jim McDermott were dramatically different, with color-coded jumpsuits for each character.[12] When he auditioned for the voice of Egon Spengler, Maurice LaMarche noted that while he was asked not to impersonate Harold Ramis, he did so anyway and eventually got the part.[13] LaMarche also noted that Bill Murray had remarked off-handedly to producers that Lorenzo Music's voice for Peter Venkman sounded more like Garfield (who was also voiced by Music at the time). Murray went on to voice Garfield in Garfield: The Movie and its sequel in the 2000s after Music died in 2001.[14] Dave Coulier took over the role of Venkman from Music starting in the third season. Coulier explained that Joe Medjuck, a producer on both the original 1984 film and the animated series, wanted the character to sound more like Murray.[15] Ernie Hudson was the only actor from the films who auditioned to play his character in the series; however, the role was given to Arsenio Hall and later Buster Jones.[16][17][18]
Although the Ghostbusters concept was tinkered with, the finalized show does feature many tie-ins from the films. In the season 1 episode "Take Two", the Ghostbusters fly to Hollywood to visit the set of a movie based on their adventures, which is revealed to be the 1984 movie at the end of the episode. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man makes numerous appearances. During the third season, Walter Peck, the Environmental Protection Agency antagonist from the original film, reappears. The uniforms and containment unit are redesigned, and Slimer is changed from a bad ghost to a resident and friend, events which are explained in the episode "Citizen Ghost" that flashes back to what happened to the Ghostbusters right after the film's events. Gozer is mentioned repeatedly throughout the series, usually in comparison to a ghost they are currently battling (e.g. "Cthulhu makes Gozer look like Little Mary Sunshine").
In the third season, some of the character designs were modified. Ray's character design was slimmed down to give the character a less overweight appearance and Slimer was given a tail instead of the formerly rounded bottom (he reverted to a stub in Season 6). The biggest change was to the character of Janine, whose hair was completely changed from being short and spiky to long and straight. Her short skirts became longer and her small pointy eyeglasses were changed to big round eyeglasses. Her overall design was softened, as was her personality. Her voice was also softened with Kath Soucie taking over the voice role from Laura Summer. ABC also went back, and redubbed Peter's and Janine's dialogue in several episodes of the show with Dave Coulier and Kath Soucie, respectively.[19] Changes to Janine's character were eventually addressed in the season 6 episode (#118) entitled, "Janine, You've Changed".
Most of these changes were the result of ABC hiring a consulting firm called Q5, in an attempt for guidance on improving the network's low ratings for their Saturday Morning lineup, a move strongly criticized by the show's writers J. Michael Straczynski (who was a story editor on the series and wrote episodes for every season except 4 and 7) and Michael Reaves.[20] Many of the changes brought on by Q5 were even criticized by Straczynski as being racist and sexist,[20] such as having each Ghostbuster have a specific role (such as a body, Peter being the mouth, Ray the heart, and Egon the brain) but making Winston (the only main African American character) the driver saying he is "the hands".[21] Another example would be stating how the character of Janine needed to be "more nurturing", dressed in more "dress-like outfits"[22] and made "less harsh and slutty".[20]
At the start of the series' fourth season in 1988, the opening was completely redone to center around Slimer. Eventually the episodes were expanded from their original half-hour format to last an hour, and the overall feel of the show was changed to be more youthful, with episodes having a lighter tone to be less frightening.[23]
By season 5, Louis Tully was added to the show following the character's appearance in Ghostbusters II.
Voice acting and animation
Recording for the show took place in Los Angeles, California. The cast always recorded together, instead of separately as is custom.[22] After recording of the dialogue was completed, sound tapes, storyboards, backgrounds, and character designs were then shipped to Japanese animation studios for animation and filming. South Korean studios were also used during the final two seasons.[24]
