Ok I have a question for some big RGB experts. With Season 4 being shown around the same time as Ghostbusters II the animators started changing the colour of the proton stream from yellow back to red to match the original movie. While they did this for a while they eventually stopped and went back to yellow. I wondered does anybody know the episodes which had the red streams in them, when they stopped and why they stopped and reverted back to yellow?
Yeah Season Four when the show became Slimer and The Real Ghostbusters. The episodes started showing Red proton streams in the Episodes: The Jokes On Ray, Poultrygeist, Robo Buster, Short Stuff, Follow That Hearse, Flip Side, Standing Room Only, and The Brooklyn Triangle. These aired in 88 just before Ghostbusters 2. Then in the following season they changed the streams back to yellow and other colors. But these 8 episodes are the only ones where the proton streams were exclusively red. I couldn’t tell you why they made the change though. 
Thanks for the info, I thought Season 4 was shown in 89. Season 4 looked like it had the most money spent on it but not sure why they made that change. Looking at the air dates for episodes on wiki and it says that Season 3 was actually shown with Season 2? Really?
Lol!! Yeah it was a very interesting time. There was the syndicated season 2 going on at the same time as the network season 3. The syndicated episodes would play Monday to Friday on Fox and then on Saturday on Channel 7 a season 3 episode would air. All I knew as a kid was I was getting Ghostbusters almost everyday of the week. It was a wonderful time.
There has been some disagreement over the years as to what seasons mean which–the 1986 stuff on ABC is the only one not in dispute–it’s Season 1
1987 Syndicated: Has been called both part of Season 1, or more commonly Season 2
1987 ABC: Has been called both Season 2 and Season 3 (Season 3 is more common at this point)
(The 1987 episodes basically aired concurrently; it wasn’t until “Janine You’ve Changed” that we had an in-universe statement that the Syndicated episodes took place first.)
1988 ABC: Season 3 or more commonly Season 4
1989 ABC: Season 4 or more commonly Season 5
1990 ABC: Season 5 or more commonly Season 6
1991 ABC: Season 6 or more commonly Season 7
I used to favor the former set of options, and GBN used it, but the latter has basically won out in the consensus–it was used on the Time-Life set and the GBWiki. But some sources may still use the less common notation.
The change in stream colours may’ve been the result of a new technique for rendering them coming into play, or something resulting from the change in animation studio.
Technically from the 1990 season both “You Can’t Teach an Old Demon New Tricks” and “Spacebusters” also had the red proton streams but didn’t use the nice effects they did in the 1988 season.
Oh yes absolutely, sorry what I meant was the 1988 season used a technique on the proton beams that appears completely different than any of other seasons. Heck even the animation to that season seems a lot darker in contrast to earlier seasons. I mean the evoloutin of the show is really fun to see as you progress through the seasons.
I call it Seasons 1-7, it’s easier that way and makes more sense to me.
You mean good animation? I just saw clips from your examples, the beam effects looked rushed.
I wonder if it’s possible to find out who did the animation for each season. EDIT: I looked up IMDB and it’s quite revealing.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090506/companycredits?ref_=ttrel_ql_5
Lists various companies for Season 6 including A.C. Productions and Sei Young Animation Company although some of this info may be wrong as a lot of these credits contradict each other. Would be nice to find out who did the animation for Season 4 as that looked great due to an increase in budget that year.
Janson and Menville would refer to the years 1987 and 1988 in their series bible as season 2 and and season 3 respectively, and Straczynski has always referred to the first year in production as “The first 78 episodes”. Trade Magazines such as Broadcasting and Variety have also stated, when they were first writing about the show in early 1986, that the initial order was 78 episodes.
That’s interesting.
I wish we had more clarity on which animation studios did what.
I wonder if there’s any canon explanations to why the proton streams change colour. I know Transformers Generation One is constantly doing gymnastics to make logical sense of its many lore and animation inconsistencies and errors. I’d probably say in-universe it’s because of equipment modifications.
I don’t know behind-the-scenes stuff but maybe Season 4 consistently being red was some sort of creative decision (maybe to make it look more move-accurate) that they went back on for whatever reason. It could’ve even been the animation studio doing their own creative liberates. I doubt it was a result of a different rendering technique since Season 4 could do yellow and blue lights together (like in “Short Stuff” for instance). Not a bad suggestion though.
I cobbled together an image showing different proton stream colours and when they were used. Might not be super-accurate (I haven’t watched all RealGB episodes, or even any of Slimer! and ExtremeGB), but it’s a starting point.
