ABC Versus Syndicatated

Ghostbusters Discussion Ghostbusters Cartoons
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After two months, I’m one and a half volumes away from finishing the set, with about 20% of the extras watched.

Some of the ABC episodes have not been seen since original broadcast, minus one or two youtube watchings.

so, what is your opinion on how the show changed?

The Bad:

Ghostbuster Personalities dumbed down. Peter suffered the most. He’s now friends with Slimer and situations that would have gotten him steaming mad before, only register a minor joke now. Winstons character became a bit softer and kinder with Buster Jones as the voice. Egon stays the same, with Ray becoming even more child like.

Slimer - Becomes a major character, ruining an otherwise great second introduction sequence with those minor characters from the Slimer segments getting starring roles..They would have been long since forgotten about had they not been included in the intro..

The Junior Ghostbusters - thankfully, they where not used as much as I thought they where going by memory. But as is, The Halloween 2 1/2 episode should have been Ghostbusters only. I can see them fitting in perfectly with the Boogeyman ep, though.

Dave Coulier - He’s not AS bad as I remember him being…It’s when he goes over the top in his slow motion voice that his rendition of Peter Really annoys me.

Frank Welker as Slimer - Face it. He repeats everything the guys say, goes on every case just to remind viewers he’s there… If Elmo had died, Slimer would be his ghost…

The Good

Buster Jones - Am I the only one who doesn’t mind this voice of Winston?

Kathie Soucie - She gets better as the season goes along, probably somewhere between Robo Buster

Onwards…

Episodes - Some like Robo Buster, Sticky Business, Partners in Slime, are actually pretty good..

The new Introduction - As stated before, where it not for the minor Slimer segment characters being introduced, it would have been a welcome introduction change.

Also, anyone know why they slowed down the music for episodes like Elementry My Dear Winston? It’s really weird sounding, and it’s not just the theme…

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Hmm, I just now finished volume 3 so I can’t relate to everything you’ve said but I’ll say what I can. Coulier’s Venkman isn’t as bad as I remember either, and I don’t blame him really. I mean his voice is slightly annoying, but the change of the character was what really hurt him. I’ve just glanced over the series but I noticed that they tried to make Venkman more lovable, for lack of a better term. But I thought he was lovable in his own right and showed emotion when appropriate (Drool the dog-faced goblin, the thing in Mrs. Faversham’s attic). Plus it was disappointing not to see him hitting on everything in a skirt. Ray and Egon haven’t noticeably changed, aside from making Ray thinner. Although I’ve noticed that they have Ray “translate” for Egon more often, which is getting annoying. I’ve only seen one episode with Buster Jones as Winston, but he seems fine. But I will say that Winston has been criminally underused in the series. I guess they tried to change this around, at least in one respect by having him add wacky new gadgets to Ecto-1 all the time. I’m not really crazy about that, but it’s fine I guess. Janine’s transformation is pretty weak considering she was such a strong female part before. I think Kath Soucie did well with the material she was given, but I would have rather her been a different female character, perhaps bringing her on as Dana or something. Slimer’s increased role and increased vocabulary didn’t do anything for me, and I thought it was weird how the writers constantly used him as a hostage for evil ghosts. Finally, the junior Ghostbusters really serve little to no purpose, although their inclusion so far has been minimal. Hopefully it stays that way. It was odd how they were just part of the series all of a sudden with no introduction episode. Oh also, I didn’t notice the sound slowed down at all yet, but I notice in Sticky Business that both music and voices were sped up just slightly at certain points. But yeah, good post.

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it’s like i said if the stories for season 3 through 7 were well written.then dave coulier would have been more tolerable. however i seen most of the later episodes and found nothing wrong with him voicing peter.besides do you know any other voice actors that can sound like bill murray? if so i like to see it.

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Coulier wasn’t as bad as I remember either, early on I think before a lot of the changes were completed, there were some good eps in there. I’ll admit I watched a lot of later ones too that were enjoyable but I think when they started venturing into really absurd concepts where anything was possible, I think it suffered. When it didn’t seem like it was grounded in reality much anymore. Coulier still sounds like more of a caricature of Bill Murray to me, not so much even Venkman.

The character was likely changed to suit him better because there’s no way his voice could have pulled off the range of what Lorenzo Music did. I still think where Music’s voice doesn’t sound like Bill Murray, he still sounds more like Bill Murray. :cool: his main disadvantage I think was being the voice of Garfield and doing a lot of voices at the time, all of course are that same great voice. Come to think of it, Frank Welker is great as Ray, but sounds nothing like Dan Aykroyd. Oh Bill.

Imagine Lorenzo Music saying “Now there’s something ya don’t see every day” and “Generally you don’t see that kind of behavior in a major appliance” then try to imagine Dave Coulier saying it. His Venkman to me always sounds more like an impression. There are many instances in GB of Bill Murray being subtle and sly and even deadpan in his humor. Coulier is Bill Murray doing the Lounge Singer or Carl Spackler or Bob Wiley. Not to say Venkman didn’t have his crazy nutty moments because he did. Lorenzo could easily step it up and be that too.

Coulier’s Venkman still falls flat for me to this day. I hate to say it and it’s not because it’s what everyone is saying, it’s what I think. The change in the show had a lot to do with it too still. I do like Coulier, just not on RGB really. :whatever:

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to go of topic for a minute but you almost sound the way fans did when justice league debuted on cartoon network,and found that tim daly who did the voice of superman on the original 90’s cartoon series was replaced with george newbern.fans cryed foul when they hered his voice because it lacked the everyman feel that daly delevered with his superman,but newbern’s superman was better because he made superman sound as though he had more authority true he lacked that reeves-esque like atitude that daly gave to the character,but it was still superman none the less.my point is that even thought coulier lacked the sarcastic dry witt humour that music gave to venkman his voice made venkman sound more badass and more bill murray and less garfield,but that’s only my opinion.

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One thing I think by the later seasons, Egon wasn’t so detached from reality. Like toward the end in some episodes, he’s more just like a scientist and acts like everyone else sometimes.

I guess I still don’t get how Coulier sounded more badass. :whatever: Every time, I hear Joey Gladstone saying “Oh come on, cut it out!!”

The last link being an instance of a comparison. All that said, I still enjoy Coulier’s other work and there are a few episodes I really do like with Dave, “The Copycat” and “The Grundel” being some. :cool:

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I have to agree… But to me, Coulier doesn’t sound at all like Bill Murray or Peter Venkman… He sounds more like Bill Paxton circa “Aliens/Predator 2”. I found myself always flashing back to those movies when I should be flashing back to GB (or at the very least GB2). I cannot - in any way, shape or form - picture Coulier saying those lines and not think of Bill Paxton. Way too comedic and, ultimately, annoying for my taste.

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you have to remember that it’s not garfield that played peter venkman in the movies.it’s bill murray okay even though he did the voice of garfield in the live action films those are two different things plus in coulier’s defense you left out one other episode of rgb go back to spook central and look up the episode attack of the b-movie monsters where he delivers a line that’s sort of remenicent of what murray said after they busted slimer.music try to imagine him saying we came,we saw,we kicked it’s ass.in that sleepy voice of his.true when you hear it it’ll sound more like bill paxton.but i to me coulier sort of nailed it.he also said it different in extreme going we came,we saw,we bowled. in that two part episode back in the sadle,but it was more bill murray-ish.

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Many of the characters in the cartoon didn’t sound like their movie counterparts. There are plenty of instances where he and Coulier both said lines similar to Venkman’s lines in the movie. There were still plenty of instances where Lorenzo Music could do the loud Venkman lines not in the usual ‘sleepy’ tone. Like yelling at the director in Take Two or countless other times. IMO, Coulier’s Bill Murray voice doesn’t sound that much different than his regular voice, that said I think Lorenzo’s voice was basically his own voice as well.

It’ll probably come down to opinion on whether he actually sounds like Bill Murray or not. To me, Coulier had one emotionless cornball sound to his voice when it came to Venkman. His attempt was admirable but hate to say you’re probably in the minority that thought he nailed it. :whatever:

It seemed also funnier to me in the earlier season, Peter was more the self appointed take control leader whereas by the time it got to Coulier, it was more “every cartoon group needs a leader”

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well i’m not saying that coulier is all the way better than music when it comes to voicing venkman,all i’m saying from my opinion that when came down to it coulier was a good replacement for music. i mean sure music delivered the best voice acting.but when it came down to it you couldn’t have asked for a better replacement than a dude who tried to sound like the character from the film,and if i sound like i’m from the minority that agrees than i guess i belong with them.

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Ah I meant to say no hard feelings :smiley: I do agree, I can’t imagine anyone else taking over the role. I am still a Coulier fan and it could have probably been a lot worse. :smiley:

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thanks though it’s like i said before if some of the stories from the later seasons had been written better especially for coulier then he would have probably have a fan base just as large as lorenzo’s.

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As much as I love Ghostbusters, I almost always find Coulier’s voice annoying. Lorenzo was perfect for Venkman and its sad to know they let him go. Even as a kid I remember there being something weird about the later episodes but couldn’t quite grasp it. Even now I tend to watch the earlier eps due to Music and avoid the later ones because of Coulier’s take on it. :cool:

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i won’t front but you do have a point there.when lorenzo left the series. most of the comedy level in venkman sort of dried up a bit, though when coulier stepped in. i’ll say this what the dude lacked in comedy,he made up for in character i mean in the first 2 seasons lorenzo’s peter usually always cracks jokes in somewhat disastrous predicaments,but coulier’s peter is more like the more gung ■■ type in the way that cartoon characters from the 80’s were. so while i will miss lorenzo music a great deal.i feel better that someone like dave coulier stepped in and sort of filled the void lorenzo left.

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personaly i liked Lorenzo’s verision of peter better then Dave - but both of them are good in there own way - i did like dave in the grundel and the copycat - hes still sort of fitting into the role better - the friendship with slimer was what ruined it for me - if he was just a bit more torleant of slimer that would have worked - the friendship thing ruined it.

(they wanted to treat it more kiddie friendly that slimer has a role model and peter is his best friend)

buster jones voicing of winston later on - worked ok, winston didnt really change to much, but the voice change actually worked well for him

(i do remember the first time i saw the new epsiodes with couiler- it was baby spookems - and i blinked and went ‘hang on – something’s odd here what happened to peter’s voice???’

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I just started getting into the ABC Real Ghostbusters cartoons on the DVD set (I watched the syndicated ones a couple times first). You can’t watch “Hole In the Wall Gang” and then watch “Baby Spookums” without noticing a few things:

  1. The animation quality went way up. (At least for this episode. The animation quality started to suffer pretty quickly after this.)

  2. The “enemy ghost” character design became much, much more pedestrian. The ghosts in “Baby Spookums” were basically brightly-colored overgrown gorillas. The monster in “Hole In the Wall Gang” didn’t even have any eyes, and I think it had three rows of teeth, and no neck… really weird stuff.

  3. The writing was profoundly dumbed down. I mean, how can you go from referencing HP Lovecraft to dealing with a baby ghost trying to find it’s Mommy and Daddy?

  4. Dave Coulier says every single line with the exact same inflection, and the character of Peter Venkman has been totally neutered. This was the worst part. Lorenzo Music’s voice had so much more character and subtlety than Dave Coulier’s that it was like the writers gave up on giving Venkman anything interesting in the script.

  5. They turned Janine from a feisty New York 80s chick into a motherly babysitter.

  6. I don’t even have to mention that they went on Slimer Overload.

Even as a kid, I never watched RGB on Saturdays. I stuck to the syndicated version in the afternoons. I thought Slimer was funny, in small doses, and as a foil for Venkman – not like the Ghostbusters’ kid brother, or something. It’s a shame how when something on TV catches on, executives feel the need to step in and “fix it” when it was never broken in the first place. I mean, Janine’s glasses and hairstyle? Gimme a break…

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well stracyzinski mentioned that one of the reasons behind janine’s change was because belive it or not children found her original glasses scary. as for her somewhat supermodel apperance from seasons 3 thru 7 well that’s explained in the season 6 episode janine you changed. hope that clear’s things up.

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That’s how a bunch of adults trying to justify their jobs interpretted it at any rate.

And off-series, an attempt by the network to change her so people would like her after “Mommy” Janine tanked.

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all this and a bag of chips dude.