The Real Ghostbusters: The rise and fall of one of the coolest cartoons of the 1980s

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-real-ghostbusters-rise-fall-coolest-cartoon-1980s/

Hickey believes The Real Ghostbusters had the potential to run much longer as a series – but it didn’t. Instead, the network, ABC, made the cardinal sin of tinkering a little too much with the original formula.

Eager to improve ratings for its Saturday Morning lineup of shows, they drafted in a consultancy firm called Q5 who from the third season onwards began making changes that altered the makeup of the show entirely.

There was less satire and less of the subtle, sophisticated verbal humor that had made the cartoon such a fine sparring partner for the film.

Janine’s character was rewritten, moving away from the sharp-edged wise-cracker who had more in common with Annie Potts’ version of Janine from the film, and becoming simplified and, to their way of thinking, warmer and more appealing to young female viewers. It could have been even worse with the consultants suggesting at one point that Ray Stantz be written out entirely.

The likes of Strazynski and Reaves objected to the changes with the former stating that the changes were “diminishing” the show while the latter lamented that the show was “not as much fun” as it used to be.

“Janine was a strong, vibrant character. They wanted her to be more feminine, more maternal, more nurturing, like every other female on television,” Straczynski told the LA Times. “I think they [the consultants] reinforce stereotypes–sexist and racist. I think they are not helping television, they are diminishing it…I sat there in dumbstruck shock at what they were saying…

“We [Straczynski and Reaves] just looked at each other and started laughing. We couldn’t deal with it anymore; it had gone so far into the realm of the absurd.”

McCoy and Hickey shared much of the same criticism of the changes, highlighting one other noticeable shift in focus that hindered proceedings.

“They brought in The Junior Ghostbusters and changed things,” McCoy says.

A team of three children drafted in to help out the team on several episodes, while McCoy and Hickey were able to integrate the characters, the new additions coupled with a move, later in the series’ run, to make the increasingly popular Slimer the main focus, hindered the show.

“Sometimes people try to refresh things that don’t need to be refreshed,” Hickey says. “So you get things like all of a sudden the network would add something like the junior Ghostbusters. We made those work. It was cute.”

“There was always this idea that children have to have somebody their own age in their cartoons,” McCoy notes. “But how do you explain watching Bugs Bunny? He was obviously a 25-year-old guy.”

“It’s a fallacy because if you look at the most successful cartoon in the world today and it’s something like One Piece where there are no children and yet everyone watches it,” Hickey says. ”Kids appreciate a good story as much as anybody, and they’re they don’t care if it comes out of an adult space or a kid’s one.”

Had the show continued, then they would have loved to explore other areas of the Ghostbusters universe.

“We always wanted to do a spin off with Louis and Jeanine,” McCoy says. “They’re Ghostbusters, but they’re not Ghostbusters. It would be interesting to have them as a team.”