Ghostbusters

All I need is a phone call and I'd drop everything to join up.

By far the most egregious error in my ways that I am not a ghostbuster.

My obsessive fanboy personally started at a young age, younger than I probably realized or would own up to. My obsessions run deep, from my undying love of comic books and science fiction, to my rather snooty behavior regarding music and movies (all of which I plan to get into at a later time). But as a child I had only one real obsession: The Ghostbusters.

Being a child of the late 1980s, Ghostbuster mania was probably at it’s peak. The first movie came out the year before my birth, and shortly after a cartoon and a sequel appeared while I was learning to think independently. And somewhere between my cousin’s love of the series and my being able to catch it on Saturday mornings, I became a major fan of the boys in khaki.

Ghostbusters was, in many ways, a hand-me-down obsession. It was in the many visits to my grandparent’s house in Zanesville that I was shown how cool it was by my three older cousins, and eventually I would come to inherit some of their toys, including the firehouse and the Ecto mobile. Combine those with my toy proton pack (my brother got to wear the Slime Pack based on Ghostbusters 2), and the dozens of figures I owned, I think it was fair to say we were ready for whatever came at us, as long as it could be defeated with weapons and imagination.

In retrospect, it was the imagination involved with the property that I look back on as one of my favorite childhood memories. It had been pointed out to me a number of times, in a memory I vividly remember, how enamored I was with a Ghostbusters-branded hygiene kid as a young kid while visiting a family friend. My guess is that we brought with us a mess of games and toys, and yet it was a hair brush with the “No ghost” emblem that had my attention all weekend. And that was not the only time, as I would force every baby sitter to at some point or another, play ghostbusters with me or just spend grand amounts of time (it seemed) playing around with a juice box of Hi-C Ecto Cooler (complete with a picture of Slimer on the box).

I do not know that I distinctly wanted to grow up to be a ghostbuster, mostly because I had always assumed the Ghostbusters themselves had taken care of the world’s ghost issues (it was clearly outlined in the cartoon), but deep down, I still would say that it would be an awesome career choice. Not only did they save the world twice, but they did it with snappy banter with unlicensed nuclear accelerators on their backs. Yes, please.

However, there was a point in my life when I had abandoned the Ghostbusters. In my early teens I had decided, with some gentle nudging from my mother, that it was time to sell off some of the toys. No longer do I have the proton pack, the PKE meter or the Slime Pack. I also sold off most of the figures and the ghosts, although I kept a few I really loved (These were namely Egon and Winston, my two favorites of the series) as well as the house and ECTO. Even though I hadn’t played with them in years, I was a little saddened to see them go at the end of the day. Although the $20 gained was appreciated.

But all things being cyclical, I have definitely come back around to the series. In my later teens a friend and I purchased flight suits for Halloween, which I have since added patches to and will wear from time to time. Today I list the original movie as one of my favorites, even though I probably only watched it a small handful of times as a kid. I was first in line to buy the video game when it hit shelves the summer after college, the summer I also had  the incredible opportunity to meet Ernie Hudson, who played Winston Zeddmore, which was a childhood dream come true.

So, I suppose it’s with a heavy heart that I apologize to 7-year-old me for not making campy commercials letting people know that I’m ready to believe them. But at the very least, I can promise always keep the wonder you had when watching Egon, Winston, Pete or Ray.