FEARSOME FLUSH!!!

Fearsome Flush was awesome in the fact that he was a stand alone toy. 

Unlike the Gooper Ghosts or Haunted Humans, Fearsome Flush was just kind of by himself. Sure, there were others that weren't attached to a particular series. It was almost like an "every ghost for itself" kind of thing. Ghosts that were a little to scary or gruesome to be bundled in with others only to get lost in the shuffle.

Fearsome flush had that special kind of scary to him.

Fearsome Flush always had his own special spot in my Ghostbuster's Firehouse play set. I typically would keep him on the second floor. My reasoning for that was that the main floor was a little too crowded with Ecto-1 (unless of course it was parked outside) and third floor was just a little too far to make it if you really had to pinch a loaf.

Naturally, he had to be kept inside of the Firehouse. I mean, after all, he did have the Ghostbusters logo emblazoned on his seat, right?

 I can't imagine little Johnny down on 10th Street having his very own Ghostbusters toilet.

The concept of the toy is fairly simple.

 Let's use Louis as our test subject, since he is rather small and defenseless. 

Louis has had a long day of doing taxes, pretending to be a Ghostbusters, and hitting on Janine.

 He has been so busy that he forgot to make a bowel movement after lunch, which is a typical thing for him to do.

 Louis likes to run on a schedule.

Little does Louis know, something got out of the Containment Unit and possessed the crapper. 

It doesn't just want your feces, it wants your blood, and will stop at nothing to get it.

Normally, the feature on Fearsome Flush would be activated simply by rolling it, but for purposes of killing Louis, it wasn't

No action figures were harmed in the making of this post.

Ghostbusters Cereal Box!

I should probably start this one off by letting you know that this is going to be one of many posts where we look at old Ghostbusters cereal boxes. This just happens to be the one that was easiest to pull off of the shelf without knocking 200 other things over.

Now, on to what we came here for.

You remember Ghostbusters cereal, right? If not, watch this wonderful commercial and we'll talk afterwards. Don't worry, I can wait.....

Okie dokie, now that we've either been refreshed, or newly introduced to the cereal thanks to the magic of Youtube, let's have a serious talk for a moment.

The cereal itself tasted like butt. While I cannot pinpoint exactly what kind of butt it tasted like, I would imagine it would compare to that of a dead Squirrel.

The downfall of the no ghost logo shaped pieces was overshadowed only slightly by the marshmallows. Marshmallows can seem to help anything taste okay, even dead Squirrel ass. However, from the depths of my memory, which has been clouded by lots and lots of beer, the marshmallows always seemed to be a little on the stale side, but hey, what can you really expect from a company that makes dog food?

Now that I have told you the product inside of the box all but sucked, let's look at the box itself, because it absolutely makes up for the bad taste of everything inside.

One of the ever so popular features on select boxes were the holograms on the front.

 Not all boxes were made this way, so when Ralston-Purina cranked these bad boys out, kids knew they had to be special enough to make mom and dad spend $3 or $4 on it. And believe me, fighting with parents while trying to convince them to pick up a box of breakfast sugar can be one of the most daunting tasks that a child of any age can possibly undertake.

This box features a hologram of resident slob Slimer munching the shit out of the cereal. I mean, if Slimer was down to eat it, we could at least give it a shot, right?

On the back of the box, which to this day is an important place to put advertising and further make any child scream and cry until they get something (as if buying the cereal wasn't enough) we are given an offer for a Real Ghostbusters VHS tape. 

This actually isn't half bad. This might even be borderline genius. What could make life better than eating a Ghostbusters themed cereal while watching The Real Ghostbusters? Perhaps a side of Ecto-Cooler, but that may be overkill, or maybe not enough.

By the way, notice how the family is gathered around, as if staring into a treasure chest discovering a Real Ghostbusters VHS tape. I mean, I'd be cool with that over a box full of gold.

Nutrition Facts are without a doubt the most boring part of any edible product. Nobody in their right mind really wants to know that they are putting total garbage into their body which will surely lead them to a future of diabetes and heart failure, so Ralston-Purina decided to jazz things up a little and put Slimer down at the bottom, chewing away at the information as if to give a big, "Kiss my ass" to the FDA. 

Slimer, you rebel.

Lastly, the proof of purchase. How can you not fall in love with something as simple as a proof of purchase when it's in the form of the no-ghost logo?

Again, I say that while the product inside was typically less than wonderful, Ralston-Purina went well out of their way to make the box as awesome as it could possibly be, because everybody knows that when you are sitting at the table, eating Ghostbusters cereal, you probably want to stare at the box as if it's an artifact that only a few will ever lay claim to having seen.

Universal Studios Ghostbusters -- Weekly Post for 7-02-14

Well, been a slow week on the Ghostbusters end of life. There really wasn't much in the way of interesting news or articles floating around the web, and the official Ghostbusters Facebook page still refuses to acknowledge anything involving me, so I figured that this week, instead of trying to dig up news, and instead of pulling out an old toy and telling you the story behind when I got it, we could take a trip down memory lane and talk about the Ghostbusters stage show at Universal Studios Florida.

I sadly came from a family that never vacationed. Their idea of a vacation meant a trip to the Omaha Zoo and possibly a stop at the outlet mall. Deprived fucking childhood.

Imagine just a little bit of my disappointment when I finally did get to take a drip down to Universal Studios Florida. Twenty fucking years too late.

In the above photo, you can see the Universal Ghostbusters Firehouse from back in it's heyday on the left (courtesy of Pop Rewind), and the Firehouse in July 2013 on the right (photo on right taken by myself).

First, let me tell you that while one part of me was happy to have located it inside of the park, there was an even bigger part of me that wanted to travel back in time and strangle the shit out of everybody I've ever known for our family being so poor and never taking a trip to this glorious place when it was at it's finest.

Thanks to the video below, those of us who never got to see it live can see it in grainy 25 year old computer screen form. One thing that has always bothered me just a little, but at the same time intrigues me is the fact that the voice overs being done are those of the voice actors from The Real Ghostbusters.

Gone are the days of paid actors posing as Ghostbusters parading around the park in their uniforms and Proton Packs alongside the Ecto-1.

                                     

Gone are the days of exiting the Ghostbusters stage show and having a giant orgasm while browsing the merchandise in the Ghostbusters gift shop.

                             

Gone is everything good. It's just gone. Long gone.

Depressing, eh?

Of course, Universal discontinued the original Spooktackular years ago and replaced it with the Extreme Ghostbusters / Beetlejuice clusterfuck, but luckily, thanks to the magic of Youtube, the memories live on.

Yeah, a pretty pointless post this week, that's okay though, this whole week has been pointless. Just boring, uneventful day after boring, uneventful day.

I'm going to drink.

See you next week.

Ghostbusters Gumball Dispenser

If yesterday's Puffy Stickers weren't enough proof that at the height of Ghostbusters popularity in the late 80's, our heroes were plastered on anything and everything imaginable, then I give you the official Ghostbusters Gumball Dispenser.

Originally packaged with gumballs, of which I am certain would be long expired, the dispenser was yet another way to make a quick buck off of the Ghostbusters franchise, although in this case, it isn't necessarily a bad thing since the dispenser itself is actually pretty neat.

The "globe" portion of the dispenser is nothing more than a simple rubber sculpt designed to look like the no-ghost logo. While it does it's job identifying what the product is supposed to be, it does weird me out just a little that they gave the ghost a little nose that sticks out. 

I could see this, I guess, being as most renditions of the logo are flat 2-dimensional drawings that don't give us a full range of what our friend trapped inside of the "no" symbol looks like. 

So I guess I'm just finding something to complain about.

The dispenser functions pretty flawlessly. Put a penny in the slot, slide it over, and get your gumball.

I guess, in a way, it's even cooler that it doubles as a bank, although you would have to chew a lot of gum to even receive 50 cents worth on pennies out of it.

                           

While there was supposed to be a key for it, which I'm sure was lost long ago by a child who doesn't appreciate owning the finer things in life, the bottom does twist off pretty easily so that one could collect their money and refill the machine (one freakin' gumball at a time!).

I think I picked this up about a year ago at a yard sale for under a dollar. I had actually been looking for one of these for quite a while at that point.

They really display nice, even though I don't use it to hold any gumballs, but either way, it's a cool item to have in your collection and on your shelf.

Be sure to do yourself a big favor, and go give a "LIKE" to the Mr. Ghostbuster Facebook page. I post all kinds of neat Ghostbusters related stuff on there that you won't see here on the blog.