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The Real Ghostbusters
Complete Collection (DVD)

Release Date: November 20, 2008
MSRP: $179.99
Video: 4:3 Fullscreen and 16:9 Widescreen
Audio: Stereo
Languages: English
Subtitles: No
Closed-Captioned: No
Discs: 25 (including the bonus disc)
Sides: 1
Layers: 2
DVD-Rom Content: Yes (on some discs)
Regional Coding: All
Video Format: NTSC


You can purchase this set from Amazon or TimeLife

PLEASE NOTE: NO MUSIC WAS REPLACED IN THIS SET! To get the facts, read this note that I wrote.

The box set is comprised of 25 DVDs (that includes one bonus DVD), packaged in a specially-constructed firehouse-design box with lenticular panels, containing all 134 half-hour episodes of The Real Ghostbusters (including both 30-minute and 1-hour versions of "Deja Boo") and all 13 half-hour episodes of Slimer!. In total, that's all 140 The Real Ghostbusters stories, and all 33 Slimer! stories. The discs are collected in five separate volumes (each containing 5 DVDs, except for volume 5 which has 4 DVDs), each packaged inside an individual case, with specially-designed cover art. Also included is a 52-page book with episode synopses, trivia, and art. As if that's not enough, there is over 13 hours of bonus material, all of which is detailed below. The bonus DVD alone contains nearly three hours of extra materials, including extended interviews, the never-before-seen promotional pilot (with commentary and storyboards), and more.

Note #1: The five individual volumes were released over the course of three years, starting on March 31, 2009, and ending on ??? ??, 2011. These sets included all of the episodes and bonus content from the individual volumes included in the box set, along with a booklet inside each case. Each volume's booklet contained the same content as the relevant section for that volume of the box set's book, and included the same liner essay (tailored to the individual releases) and credits page as well (so I'm credited in all five booklets). However, the box set is the only way to get the Firehouse box, the complete 52-page book (though individual edited-down booklets were made for each retail volume), and the bonus DVD which contains the promotional pilot.

Note #2: When the DVD box set was first released back in November 2008, the five smaller sets ("volumes") inside were each housed in a metal SteelBook™ case. When Vol 1. was released by itself in March 2009, it retained its Steelbook case from the box set. However, in early 2010 TimeLife begun the process of replacing the Steelbook metal cases with plastic cases that are of the same dimensions. It started with the individual release of Vol. 2 in January 2010, then within a few months after that the Complete Collection box set and the individual Vol. 1 started using the plastic cases, as well. The individual releases of Volumes 3-5 that followed were, of course, in plastic cases.

I, Paul Rudoff, am proud to say that I was involved in the making of this set as a design consultant and as a contributor of research and art/materials. You will see my credits listed as such on the last page of the book and in the end credits of all five featurettes. Plus I received an extra credit in the back of the book for all of my hard work promoting the set. My four biggest contributions that are easily seen in the final product are: (1) It was my idea to use the firehouse for the outer box. (2) The containment unit background for Volume 5's cover. (3) Janine's color scheme on the Volume 2 cover. (4) Nine scripts on the DVD-ROM portions of all of the volumes.

SPECIAL FEATURES


Episode Introductions
The talented people behind the series give you a special introduction to 88 select episodes.


Visual Commentary Tracks
Twenty-one select episodes; featuring producers, writers, artists, voice actors, and other series personnel. Watch the commentary participants as they interact, while inset screens show the episode and a dynamic slideshow.


Isolated Music & Effects Tracks
Twenty-four select episodes have an alternate audio track that contains the music and sound effects, but not the voices of the actors.


Original Series Bumpers
The bumpers are included in every episode that originally had them.


Documentaries/Featurettes:

  1. Ain't Afraid Of No Ghosts: Creating The Real Ghostbusters
  2. Animating The Real Ghostbusters
  3. Who You Gonna Call? The Heroes of The Real Ghostbusters
  4. Something Strange In Your Neighborhood: The Creatures of The Real Ghostbusters
  5. He Slimed Me! The Green World of Slimer And The Real Ghostbusters


Exclusive Interviews
In addition to the interviews in the featurettes, you'll also get extended interviews recorded in June 2008 with Joe Medjuck (executive producer), Michael C. Gross (executive producer), J. Michael Straczynski (writer & story editor), Len Janson (writer & story editor), Maurice LaMarche (voice of "Egon Spengler"), Laura Summer (voice of first "Janine Melnitz"), Kath Soucie (voice of second "Janine Melnitz"), and Kevin Altieri (director & storyboard supervisor).


Image Galleries:

  1. Promotional and Development Art
  2. "Night Game" Design Gallery
  3. Background Art
  4. Headquarters Art
  5. "The Man Who Never Reached Home" Design Gallery
  6. Character Designs of The Heroes
  7. Equipment Art
  8. The Creature Designs of Everett Peck
  9. Slimer! Character Designs


The Original Promotional Pilot
Included by itself, and also with a visual commentary track featuring director Kevin Altieri and artist Dan Riba.


Alternate Textless Series Credits
Two versions of the closing credits without text on top of them.


Comic-Con Teaser Trailer
This short one minute trailer was shown at the San Diego Comic-Con in July 2008. It features an interview clip of J. Michael Straczynski interspersed with footage from the series opening. (You can view it in the Multimedia section below.)


Title Card Slideshow
A dazzling slideshow of all 174 title cards for every The Real Ghostbusters and Slimer! story.


DVD-ROM Material (PDF format):

  1. Series Bibles - ABC Season One, Syndicated Series, ABC Season Two-Three
  2. Episodic Scripts - for 29 RGB & Slimer! Episodes
    (copies of the scripts that I contributed, and a few that are exclusive to this site, can be on The Real Ghostbusters and Slimer! script pages)
  3. Storyboards - for 15 RGB Episodes, inc. two for the Promo Pilot

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Notes & Comments

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Defects & Errors

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Missing Alternate Episodes

Although this is the "Complete Collection" in the sense that one version of every episode is included, it is not complete in the sense that every known version of every episode is included. All of the known alternate episodes were left out, except for the one-hour version of "Deja Boo". The full list of missing alternate episodes is below, categorized by type. For full details of each alternate version, click on the episode title to go to that page in the episode guide, where you can also find a video or audio comparison of the difference between the two versions of each episode.

Please don't ask me for copies of these episodes. You can try the forums listed on my e-mail page, and maybe someone there will be able to help you. Thanks.

EPISODE-LENGTH ALTERNATE AUDIO
   * The Boogieman Cometh - Redubbed
   * Ghosts 'R Us - Redubbed
   * Mr. Sandman, Dream Me A Dream - Redubbed
   * Mrs. Roger's Neighborhood - Redubbed
   * Slimer, Come Home - Redubbed
   * Troll Bridge - Redubbed
   * Short Stuff - Production Tape (voices only, no music or effects)

SMALL PORTION OF ALTERNATE AUDIO
   * Knock Knock - Alternate Tahiti Music (AVAILABLE ON VHS: Vol. 1 - Knock Knock, which can be purchased in the Store)
   * Venkman's Ghost Repellers - Alternate Tahiti Music (AVAILABLE ON VHS: Vol. 4 - Venkman's Ghost Repellers, which can be purchased in the Store)
   * A Fright At The Opera - Alternate Series Music
   * The Bird Of Kildarby - Alternate Series Music (AVAILABLE ON DVD: Creatures Of The Night, which can be purchased in the Store)

SMALL PORTION OF ALTERNATE VIDEO
   * Attack Of The B-Movie Monsters - Bridge Version

Note: The "Short Stuff" Production Tape isn't an official alternate version, per se, but since it exists in fan circles, and does provide an audio track different from the final version of the episode, it's considered an alternate version by the fans.

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Multimedia


As given to me on November 19, 2008, this is the EARLY cut of the DR (Direct Response) commercial that was to (or did) air nationally in early 2009 to sell the individual release of Volume 1. The notes I was given on the changes still to be made in this cut were: "sound fx still to be added. text moved up for #800 space. '1980's' reference to be removed. add line, '11 hours of digitally mastered spooky shows.'" This is the two-minute long version. I cut off the last seventeen seconds as it was just a black screen with the theme playing low in the background (this would have been replaced with the ordering information). I was told that a one-minute long version was also going to be made. The voice over is done by Wally Wingert, who also did the narration for the featurettes in the DVD set.

In mid-April 2009, five months after I was given the exclusive private sneak peek at the commercial, I decided to ask Jeff Peisch at Time Life what was going on with it. Volume 1 was released to retail outlets on March 31, 2009, and I hadn't seen this commercial air on television at ANY time in the five months prior, so I thought that maybe Time Life decided to scrap this advertising method. According to Jeff in an e-mail dated April 15th, "the DR-TV spot aired for a few months, but is now off the air." I don't know how I could have missed it. I never saw it on TV, and it's gone completely unnoticed by the community, so apparently no one else saw it either.

TimeLife uploaded the final version (dated 12/11/2008) to YouTube on March 18, 2009. Watch the early cut first, then check out the final to see what was changed.

The ad is pretty cool, but there is one thing that irks me about it. At 1:16 the announcer says, "Digitally mastered for picture and audio clarity", while the on-screen text says, "11 hours of digitally mastered episodes", and the video does a "before and after wipe" showing the unrestored footage which is then wiped into the restored footage. Although I'd hate to call Andy, Jeff, or anyone else a liar, especially since I didn't personally see the masters myself, I have to call shenanigans on the "before and after wipe". In all my years of tape trading, I have never seen copies that looked as bad as the "before" footage, and that includes VHS copies that were MANY generations removed from the original. Heck, the copies that Fox Family aired, which were the most recent airings here in the United States, looked infinitely better than the "before" footage, and I'm sure that no restoration was done on the masters that Sony gave them to air. To better give you a look at the supposed restoration, here are some frames from the original video file I was given. The "before and after wipe" goes from left to right, so that's the "unrestored masters" on the right and the "cleaned masters" on the left in each shot.

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