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

The online-exclusive 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 a metal SteelBook case, with specially-designed cover art. Also included is a 52-page booklet 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.

Please Note: The five individual volumes will be released over the course of 12-18 months, starting in March 2009, at online and offline retailers. These sets will include all of the episodes and bonus content from the individual volumes included in the box set. However, the box set is the only way to get the Firehouse package, the 52-page booklet (though individual edited-down booklets will be made for each retail volume), and the bonus DVD which contains the promotional pilot.

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.

• Complete Set Breakdown
• DVD Packaging
• DVD Menus

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

Notes & Comments

• Defective Episodes:
  * Partners In Slime (Vol. 4, Disc 2) - plays at a slower than normal speed, resulting in slower/long drawn-out audio (the theme and background music are most noticable), audio defects (the mechanical/echo/hiccupy sound in the dialogue), and a runtime that is considerably longer than that of the original ABC broadcast! Excluding the opening title sequence and end credits, the ABC broadcast runs 21:20 (11:58 before commercial + 9:22 after commercial = 21:20); the DVD runs 24:04 (1:06 start - 25:10 end = 24:04). The DVD is 2:44 longer than the original ABC broadcast! (In case you're wondering, no new footage was added to the episode on DVD.) This is the same exact problem that plagued the episode on the Ghostbusters II 2005 DVD. So either TimeLife used the same DVD/digital master or the original episode master is defective.
  * There might be more defective episodes, as I have not watched all of them yet. If I see or hear something that doesn't seem right, I'll compare it to the original ABC recordings. (For example, Live From Al Capone's Tomb sounds a little slow, but that may or may not be normal.)

• At the end of every episode, the "Columbia Pictures Television" logo is replaced with the new "Sony Pictures Television" logo. I can sort of understand replacing the logo in the early episodes, due to the original bearing the Coca-Cola Company mark, but there was no reason to change it in the later episodes.

Missing Alternate Episodes

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
   * Venkman's Ghost Repellers - Alternate Tahiti Music
   * A Fright At The Opera - Alternate Series Music
   * The Bird Of Kildarby - Alternate Series Music

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.

MULTIMEDIA:

• San Diego Comic-Con Blu-Ray & DVD Panel (Live, Thu. July 24, 2008)
  featuring DVD producer Andy Mangels (his segments are listed below)
  00:37-01:03 - Andy Mangles intro.
  04:10-05:40 - Intros the set. (Andy holding RGB card at 4:23ish, and close-up of card at 4:34)
  13:20-14:07 - Music only tracks.
  23:59-24:58 - Visual commentary.
  42:20-43:20 - Listening to the fans.
  45:24-46:03 - Subtitles and closed captions.
  54:37-55:00 - Complete series sets.
  * Flash (Ning) - Streaming / Download (56:21, 255.6 Mb) (this is the original file, link provided by Andy Mangels)
  I have taken the liberty of editing all Andy's segments together, which total just under 6 minutes. So if you have no interest in watching the hour-long video, you can watch the cut-down at any of these places:
  * Flash (TinyPic): Streaming
  * Flash (GoogleVideo): Streaming / Download

• Comic-Con Teaser Trailer (shown at Comic-Con in July 2008) (0:54) (This is included in the DVD box set on the bonus disc)
  * Flash (ProtonCharging) - Streaming / Download (720x480, MP3 22050Hz stereo 48Kbps)
  * Flash (GBFans) - Streaming / Download (480x360, MP3 22050Hz stereo 64Kbps)
  * Flash (YouTube) - Streaming / Download (with GB.net logo before it)

• Full-Length Trailer (distributed online on October 2, 2008) (1:26)
  * Windows Media (YouSendIt) Trailer & 4 Interview Clips, zipped (78.7 Mb - This is the original file given out by TimeLife) (BEST COPY)
  * Windows Media (RGB Online) - Streaming / Download (29.4 Mb; Video: 720x480, 29.97fps, 2690Kbps; Audio: 44100Hz, stereo, 64Kbps - This is the original file given out by TimeLife) (BEST COPY)
  * Flash (YouTube) - Streaming / Download (from TVShowsOnDVD) (SECOND BEST COPY)
  * Flash (ProtonCharging) - Streaming / Download
  * Flash (YouTube) - Streaming / Download (with GB.net logo before it)
  * Flash (GBFans) - Streaming / Download (altered with his personally-registered url at the end)

REVIEWS:

• Paul Rudoff - Promo DVD Review (10/10/2008)
• Paul Rudoff - First Hands-On Review (11/21/2008)

OUTSIDE LINKS:

• The original press release (dated July 24, 2008) - Not an outside link, per se, since it points to one of my blog posts, but I didn't have anywhere else to put this. Most of this has been changed as production on the set progressed.