The Real Ghostbusters Coming To DVD!

TVShowsOnDVD.com has just announced that The Real Ghostbusters is being released on DVD on February 28, 2006. Below is their announcement in full. Click on the DVD titles to pre-order them from Amazon.com for $6.99 each (pricing accurate as of today). Click on the episode titles to view more information about that episode here on Spook Central.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced plans to release The Real Ghostbusters on DVD February 28. Unfortunately they're releasing this in a configuration that fans of the show aren't interested in; volumes with random episodes.

Volume 1: Catch Me If You Can
Contains "Night Game," "Lost and Foundry," "Bird of Kildarby" and "Killerwatt."

Volume 2: Booware of Evil
Contains "Revenge of Murray and the Mantis," "Ghostbuster of the Year," "Drool, the Dog Faced Goblin" and "Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream."

Volume 3: Slimefighters
Contains "Adventures in Slime and Space," "They Call Me Mister Slimer," "Victor the Happy Ghost" and "Slimer, Come Home."

Each disc runs 89 minutes, and carries a suggested retail price of $9.95. Fans will have to decide whether they want to pick these up and show support for season sets, or pass on them because they aren't what they want. We should note that these titles are targeting parents and children, not the adult collector. 98% of the fans who voted for the show on our site would buy season sets, while only 19% of the same group would pick up a collection of individual episodes.

Ok, where should I start to comment...

Yes, it's utterly stupid that they're releasing a few random episodes and not season sets. Maybe they plan on releasing season sets down the road with the intention of doing the "parents & children/adult collector double-dip" that Nickelodeon/Paramount is doing with the SpongeBob SquarePants DVDs. For those unaware, SpongeBob is available in three season sets (as of this writing) as well as a plethora of individual releases with random episodes, with Nick/Paramount continuing to release the episodes in both formats (sets and individually) each year.

If you look over the list of episodes you'll see that volumes 1 and 2 are not entirely random. Each of them are re-releases of VHS tapes from the 1980s, but with one more episode on each.

VHS: Vol. 5 - Bird Of Kildarby And Other Stories (1987) - front & back
Contains "Bird Of Kildarby," "Night Game," and "Lost & Foundry."

VHS: Vol. 6 - The Revenge Of Murray The Mantis And Other Stories (1987) - front & back
Contains "The Revenge Of Murray The Mantis," "Drool, the Dog Faced Goblin," and "Ghostbuster of the Year."

What is most annoying is that the other six episodes released on VHS in the 1980s, all of which were released individually on six videocassettes, are not going to be included on these DVDs. I wouldn't have minded these individual DVD releases if they contained ALL of the episodes from the 1980s videocassettes. So, I'll still have to keep my old videos for now. (By the way, only one of these episodes ["Adventures in Slime and Space"] was released on Region 2 PAL DVD back in 2004. So this isn't a rehash of those DVDs, in case you were thinking about that.)

No information has been released as to whether the Home Video (released on VHS in the 1980s) or TV version of "Bird Of Kildarby" is going to be on the DVD. Also, it has not be stated whether "Slimer, Come Home" and "Mr. Sandman, Dream Me A Dream" will contain the original voice cast audio track or the redubbed (with Dave Coulier as Peter and Kath Soucie as Janine) audio track. Personally I hope it contains BOTH!

If you bought the 2005-Released Ghostbusters 1 & 2 DVD Box Set, you may have noticed that The Real Ghostbusters "Partners In Slime" episode (which was included on the GB2 disc) was apparently transferred incorrectly. When Sony transferred the video to DVD, they played their original master recording (tape, probably) at a slower than normal speed, resulting in slower/long drawn-out audio, audio defects, and a runtime that is considerably longer than that of the original ABC broadcast! I sincerely hope that all of the episodes on these DVDs were transferred at the correct normal playing speed.

Next, let's talk titles. Catch Me If You Can?... Booware of Evil?... Slimefighters? Who in the blue hell thought up such stupid titles?!? I could get any five-year-old to come up with better titles than that. What's wrong with just calling them "Volume 1," "Volume 2," and "Volume 3," and just leaving it at that? It's worked for Family Guy and many other series on DVD. Also, if you look at the artwork displayed at the top of this message, which TVShowsOnDVD.com posted to their site today, you'll notice that Volumes 1 & 2 have different titles: "Spooky Spirits" (for Vol. 1) and "Creatures Of The Night" (for Vol. 2). These are only *slightly* better than the originals (couldn't they come up with something better for Slimefighters?). Of course, your guess is as good as mine as to what the correct titles are for these two volumes.

As for the artwork, I'll just say this: We were all pretty hard on the crappy art shown to us back in May 2005 for the GB1/GB2 box set. The RGB box art makes that one look like a DiVinci masterpiece. The only good one is Vol. 2, which uses original 1985/1986 RGB promo art (slightly redone?) on a decent background. Volume 1 looks especially bad, though the horrible watercolor-painted drawings of the guys on Vol. 3 isn't much better. (I know I've seen horrible watercolor-painted RGB art somewhere before on an officially-released product, but can't remember where.)

If/When I have more information, I'll post it here.