Not sure how to react to this (Ghostbusting in 1905)

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1

Stop me if you’ve heard this one:

A city is having a serious ghost problem. A guy with science know-how and some business sense figures out a way to create a back-mounted throwing device that can subdue angry spirits so they can be contained in small canisters. He advertises his services and makes a name for himself as an anti-ghost expert. All goes well, and he makes a ton of money. He invests in a “haunting on demand” service (a home haunted while you wait! Great for parties!), ghost grenades, and he sorts and classifies the different kinds of spirits in boxes with attractive colored labels.

However, one of his clients, a health spa for people with anxiety disorders, refuses to pay. So he re-releases all the ghosts he captured on the premises. The sudden appearance of so many spirits cures quite a few nervous people of their maladies, so “Ghost shock therapy” would probably have been a promising new supply of revenue for our protagonist, had all the angry spirits he freed not swarmed him and, (it is implied), torn him to pieces.

…Ok so maybe the ending is a little dark, but still, wasn’t that a cool story? It was a ghostly comedy short called “The Ghost Extinguisher” that was published in Cosmo. In 1905.

Yes, really. Read the whole thing here: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/6671/the-ghost-extinguisher

(Before you ask, no, I don’t think Dan, Harold, or anyone else “ripped off” this story for the premise of their movie. It’s just not well known enough. Not that it would matter if they had anyway, since it’s public domain. )

This exists. It’s a thing that happened.

So what do you think?

2

Interesting, I’ll have to read this when I get the chance to, thanks for sharing!

3

Forgot to mention the story also has a very serious comedic tone and heavy emphasis on fictional technology. Also there is radiation.

Really, get some water or something and take a drink every time something sounds familiar, just to confirm how drunk you’d be if you’d used booze.

Fair warning: this story WAS written in 1905, and the first section features some characters calling some Asian characters by an unpleasant name. It doesn’t last long, and the character using that language is less then a good guy, but I thought I should mention it anyway just in case.

That PDF site is kind of a pain, so here’s an audio recording if you’d rather just listen. It takes 24 minutes to read the whole thing.

4

Do they reboot it in the 1930’s with all women?

5

You know, I don’t think they ever did specify the gender of the protagonist…You’d GUESS male but it is just a guess…

6

If you look back on the older drafts of the script you can tell it wasn’t originally that similsr.