I was born in 1981, so I was only three when the first movie came out. It was when I was in grade 1 that I was looking through a TV listings, saw this entry for The Real Ghostbusters, flipped the channel to the one it was on, and the rest they say, is history.
Let’s just say that I’m older than all you youngin’s here. In 1984, I was a theatre manager and the summer film lineup was looking to have potential of epic proportions. The trailer for Ghostbusters was getting great audience reaction and when the film was released it did not disappoint. Audiences were universally excited and one could see how special the movie was just watching people exit the auditorium. I believe I watched it 3 times in the first week and in the interest of customer service, I would check the showings throughout the day to ensure a “quality performance.”
All: I couldn’t have possibly have known then, 12 years later I began working in the movie theater business. I wasn’t a manager, as an older employee I was a supervisor, practically assistant manager.
bishop: Maybe you can answer something I mentioned in an earlier post. Do you remember when (month is fine) Columbia first began advertising Ghostbusters with the teaser poster in theaters?
All: If anyone remembers or knows what was the earliest Columbia began “teasing” Ghostbusters either in theaters or on TV, I’d be interesting in knowing.
Thanks.
I was born in August of '84, so too young to have seen it in theaters. I honestly can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a fan. I don’t remember what came first, the cartoon or the movie, but I loved everything GB from the word go. I remember being so excited to see GB2 in theaters. I played the movies and cartoon to death, so much so, that me cosplayin as a GB surprises no one in my family or any of my friends. Lol. I would literally take my Kenner proton pack with me everywhere when I was a kid. Just about every pic of me as a child, I’m wearing a GB shirt or lugging the pack around…
Whoa, that’s making me think hard (gears grinding & smoking).
I don’t recall seeing anything GB related during the preceding Christmas, not do I recall seeing a “no ghosts” teaser poster in our theatre. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t displayed, just that I don’t remember seeing it. I did see the logo used externally… perhaps around March or April of 1984… but it may have been out there prior and I just hadn’t noticed.
Way back when, advance advertising was uncommon. To my recollection, most of the marketing activity hit in the month or two prior to release. I don’t remember seeing any teaser trailer before April or May or hearing the Ray Parker tune until a few weeks before the movie opened. This was the period when you could feel the buzz & excitement building for the film.
We did display advance one sheets with the photo and tag line “coming to save the world this summer.” Pretty sure those were up in Spring, perhaps April or early May. When the replacements arrived, “they’re here to save the world,” I won an advance in our raffle and I still have it…
Still brings back memories of that summer.
Given the mists of time, not sure how accurate my response is… but that’s what this old man’s noggin’ remembers.
I was gonna make a snarky comment about movie material always giving away too much, but look at the GB2 poster, that woudl give people stuff to talk about, namely guessing what the slime Blowers are or why their outfits changed.
Poster art in the 70’s and 80’s was fantastic. Even the photography based materials were interesting. But I am biased.
There was a good deal of buzz for GB2… but everything going into the summer of 1989 was drowned out by the anticipation for Batman. It was the first movie I had experienced with such high advance awareness. In the weeks before its release, I would make audience greetings before starting our busiest performances. I might mention the Batman trailer was going to show or remind the audience it would be playing AT THIS THEATRE or toss a few bat-logo t-shirts to random guests as giveaways. Whatever I did didn’t matter, the crowd would always explode in hoots & applause. It was kinda amazing.
GB2 opened well but faded quickly. I never understood the disappointment for it. I thought it a worthy follow-up to what is arguably the best movie ever made.
My first introduction was The Real Ghostbusters Cartoon when it first aired back in the 80s. I still remember the time it aired , Saturday at 5:00PM. Years later I’d see the Movie Ghostbusters and I first thought the movie was based on the cartoon and not the other way around so I was confused as to why Egon didn’t have blond hair. Took me two years to see the ending. They showed it twice for Halloween at our elementary school and each time the teacher shut the movie off just before we got to see Stay Puft because it was time to get ready to go home.
Probably the Kenner toys. Got some of the busters and monsters sometime during my pre-school years. Later saw the first movie at a birthday party and a few cartoon episodes at cable tv.
I was born in spetember 84 so I missed out on the movie. But I was all over RGB (I didn’t even know about the movie til later). I tried to ask my father about it some years ago but neither he nor my mom could remember when I first started liking it. Considering I suffered from frequent nightmares as a kid I’d imagine the idea of guys fighting ghosts and monsters with technology was the appealing part for my young mind.
bishopdonmiguel: I’m sorry for making you think that hard. 
Thank you for providing more insight. Some of what you were saying is kinda around the time I thought theaters would have been at least displaying posters.