Recently started season 2. I think they flubbed in the scene where Dustin and Lucas ask Max to go trick or treating with them. In the scene she mentions they’re wearing Proton Packs. They never say Proton Pack until GB2 though. From my understanding they were called this in the first movies script, but it’s never said in the movie. Was there any info floating around about what they were called as far as the script goes? If nobody knew until GB2 rolled around then they dun goofed.
I don’t know but Real Ghostbusters used Proton Pack before GB2, granted that was 1986.
Yeah RGB did use Proton Pack before GB2, but as you said 1986 which was two years after Stranger Things time setting.
Ok here’s a stretch but:
The boys being nerds got a copy of the script (maybe Bob had some friends in L.A.), and Max overheard them use the term at some point off screen.
There. 
I’m sure the term must have been used on TV spots, articles or interviews at the time.
Given how obsessed the boys were, it’s not hard to imagine that they could have learned it from there.
Oh yeah if there was any info out there floating around about what the packs were called, the boys would know. I just have no idea if such info was floating around. I guess that’s the real question. Were they called Proton Packs anywhere before RGB, around October of 1984 in any piece of promo material, interviews, etc.
Storybooks and movie novelizations that came out at the time used different wording including “proton backpacks”… it’s easy enough that the kids could’ve derived their own nickname for them from that.
Thanks for the vid! Was more or less exactly what I was curious about. So there were indeed some things floating around even in '84 that called them Proton Packs. It may be unlikely she knew but not at all impossible. Thought the instance was interesting since it didn’t dawn on me until like 15-20 minutes after the Stranger Things scene in question.
Venkman does mention a special they are having on “proton charging”. The kids in Stranger Things are pretty imaginative and smart, entirely possible they could have thought proton pack up.
This is exactly why I made that video series, so I wouldn’t have to type all these things out by hand over and over anymore.
Thanks, Coover5 for remembering it and sharing it perfectly here.
Alex
It probably wouldn’t have sounded nearly as cool if they had called them “unlicensed nuclear accelerators” anyway. LOL!
I seem to have stumbled upon the smoking gun.
Alex
Damn good find.
Very good work, Alex. Would it be too much to ask you to upload that People magazine review article? I would very much like to read it. I just love reading/watching old movie reviews to see how right or wrong the reviewers were in retrospect (although I would be shocked if Ghostbusters had any negative reviews). 
It’s somewhat embarrassing, but I posted a version of this online almost two years ago without catching the significance.
I scanned and posted all of the photocopies from my scrapbook into an album on Facebook.
I had forgotten it until just now, but my caption for this particular scan points out that the name Peter Travers is also associated with the reboot from 2016, but I never did discover whether that film’s visual effects director was the same Peter Travers who penned this 1984 review of the original.
Since you’re interested in old reviews, here’s the full album. I don’t think it was universally loved, in particular Pauline Kael’s review wasn’t exactly favorable, but her taste in movies and mine often diverged. (You know the big bad guy in Willow, General Kael? That’s George Lucas’ idea of revenge, naming the villains after folks who had negatively reviewed Star Wars. See also the two-headed ‘Eborsisk’ dragon.)
Notice some of the less legible articles can usually be seen in better quality later in that album, because I tracked down physical copies of several of the photocopied magazines two years ago. This issue of People eluded my search until now.
Alex
Just an FYI Roger Ebert & Gene Siskel LOVED Star Wars, Ebert gave all original films his highest rating of four stars. Infact the only negative review Ebert ever gave for a live action SW flick was for Attack of the Clones. And that negative review seems more directed at the digital projection presentation he attended than the movie itself.
Also…
MY GOD YOU ARE A HARDCORE FAN. Wow. Just wow.
I mean, you have a ghostbusters scrapbook…from College!?! That’s amazing
I think you might be the ultimate GB fan. And I don’t give that up easily. But wow. You did all this to answer a question on an Internet forum. Amazing. Kudos.
You’re also the guy who uploads like every single TV spot and utterance of the word “Ghostbusters” from 1989 when GB2 was being promoted, right? That’s crazy. I’ve spent a lot of time…too much probably, watching those. My god they used the “Mood Slime” clip over and over to promote the film didn’t they?
Thanks very much! I like Travers’s review, although it is strangely backhanded how he labels some of the humour “bad taste.” Then again the 80’s was a time when certain horror-comedies and video nasties like The Evil Dead were straight up banned in the UK, and church ladies everywhere were losing their marbles over the satanic forces of MTV. It seems that yesteryear’s “bad taste” is now respectable and tame family entertainment, in many cases.
Also, I don’t think he quoted the movie correctly; “Freeze, potato face!” was definitely not a line of dialogue . . . but it should’ve been! 
I am well aware of the General Kael and Eborsisk references, too. It’s amazing how hit-or-miss Ebert especially was. Some of his reviews were spot on, but his views of films like *Gladiator *and Blue Velvet were astoundingly idiotic. Can’t win 'em all, I s’pose.
[quote=RichardLess post_id=4937589 time=1596013483 user_id=47215]Just an FYI Roger Ebert & Gene Siskel LOVED Star Wars, Ebert gave all original films his highest rating of four stars. In fact the only negative review Ebert ever gave for a live action SW flick was for Attack of the Clones. And that negative review seems more directed at the digital projection presentation he attended than the movie itself.
[/quote]
Duly noted. I wonder what they did to tick him off to come up with Eborsisk? Or it might’ve been the brainchild of someone else involved with Willow. As I recall, the character Cherlindrea was named after the wives/girlfriends of Ron Howard, George Lucas, and maybe the screenwriter? Cheryl + Linda + Andrea = Cherlindrea
[And the Linda in question was Linda Ronstadt, I believe?]
I guess we’ll have to check their reviews of THX-1138, American Graffiti, and all of Ron Howard’s prior films.
[quote=RichardLess]I mean, you have a ghostbusters scrapbook…from College!?! That’s amazing
[/quote]
Yep. I didn’t utilize Collier Library’s microfiche catalogues to do very many research papers, so I was usually checking out books on ghosts and as many GB-related ads and articles as I could track down. I even had some faxed over from other libraries.
I amused myself other ways in that library too, but I can’t discuss those without incriminating a woman now married to a church deacon, so…
I made an earlier video on the contents of the scrapbook. The link’s in the description of this new video, but here’s a direct link too.
[quote=RichardLess] You did all this to answer a question on an Internet forum. Amazing. Kudos.
You’re also the guy who uploads like every single TV spot and utterance of the word “Ghostbusters” from 1989 when GB2 was being promoted, right? That’s crazy. I’ve spent a lot of time…too much probably, watching those. My god they used the “Mood Slime” clip over and over to promote the film didn’t they?
[/quote]
Yes that’s me, and yes they did.
And I thank you for the kudos. The past couple of years I’ve sort of appointed myself to combat the popular ‘mythconceptions’ about Ghostbusters. At times I’ve felt like a single stone in the river of erroneous claims, being worn down by the onrush. But every so often people tell me how much they appreciate my search for independently verifiable factoids, and that makes it all worthwhile.
[quote=ghoulishfright post_id=4937590 time=1596029987 user_id=2936]Also, I don’t think he quoted the movie correctly; “Freeze, potato face!” was definitely not a line of dialogue . . . but it should’ve been!
[/quote]
Someone made a similar comment in my scrapbook scan album on Facebook the other night, so I looked it up…
“Freeze, Potato-Face!” is actually from p. 47 of the September script of Ghostbusters. The reviewer must have been given a copy by someone.
I presume it was a precursor to the “ugly little spud” line which survives in the finished film.
I’ve seen reviews of various films over the years that ‘quote’ lines that don’t appear in the actual movies. I guess in the rush to get an article to press, they used whatever resources they could lay hands on, but what’s so hard about going and taking notes at a screening of the movie you’re claiming to have seen?
Oh well, I have a distrust of journalism which also dates back to college. By dint of drawing the political cartoons for the campus newspaper, I was inducted into the Society for Collegiate Journalists and it was the one and only club to misspell my name on my acceptance certificate.
Can you say irony?
Alex
Please anyone correct me if I’m wrong or confirm if i’m right but I remember my dad first telling me how Siskel and Ebert didn’t like Star Wars in their original review back in 1977. They claimed right after the film was a huge hit that they actually liked the film and They praised the sequels and re-release in 1997. I do remember on the very early morning “ABC World News” program in 1997 they aired their original review and I saw for myself that they didn’t like the film and thought it was silly.
I’ve wondered why nobody mentions this? There’s nothing on YouTube but a clip of Gene Siskel defending Star Wars and their 1997 review. It seems they managed to purposely erase their original review from existence after they realized they hated one of the greatest movies ever made? Ebert’s Chicago Sun Times Review online gives Star Wars a good review but it’s dated January 01 1977 but wasn’t the release date May 25 1977?
EDIT: I’ve spent the entire day searching for proof for what I remember and all I come up with is nothing but good reviews, Gene Siskel’s review in the Tribune was positive so I must be wrong.