Day 1: Mail Fraud!

 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is OFFICIALLY October 1st! Halloween is upon us!

What better way to celebrate the biggest day of the year for all of the Ghostbusters franchises and fans that to review 31 ghosts in 31 days?

Yes, the Mr. Ghostbuster blog is your place to be this Halloween season for all thing Ghostbusters!

I thought, perhaps, I would ease into this one a little bit. It is, afterall, going to be a VERY long month. Not only do I have a job to deal with on a daily basis, but everything else that comes along with being a grown up as well, so if at some point these reviews become slightly half assed, don't say I didn't warn you.

For day one of our long 31 day countdown, we will take a look at MAIL FRAUD!

Mail Fraud, one of the tougher figures to find from the Haunted Humans line by Kenner, is one disgruntled postal worker.

While he doesn't officially have a name, aside from his ghostly alter ego, works for an unnamed post office in an unnamed city. 

We'll pretend his name is Pat, and he is a carrier for the Bronx Post Office? Cool?

Nah.

Anyways, Mr. Postal Worker here deals with fugly (yeah, I used it) housewives and beer drinking welfare men all day long. He is just plain miserable.

 He used to wake up happy, and ready to go to work until he met Gertrude off of East 9th street, who tried to seduce him while wearing her hair rollers and night gown.

 Perhaps he wouldn't have minded so much had it not been for the mole with three dark hairs sticking out right above her lip.

Day after day of lugging around people's bills and those stupid Pizza Coupons that you get ever Wednesday, he snapped and hung himself.

A little depressing, but one person can only take so much.

He came back to haunt all of his old stops, ready to make the hairs on Gertrude's mole jump off of her face.

Mail Fraud has come to unleash holy hell on every person along his old route.

The Mail Fraud figure was a great toy indeed. The Haunted Humans line was one of the best indeed, taking normal, everyday people in blue collar jobs and giving them the perfect mixture of poltergeist and take this job and shove it.

Mail Fraud transforms flawlessly from United States Postal worker to ghost by lifting his torso up.

His stomach suddenly becomes a mouth clad with razor sharp teeth, his neck tie becomes a nose and his shirt pockets become eyes that glare straight into the depths of your soul.

I do no at all doubt that Mail Fraud would gladly scare the daylights out of anybody who gets in his way.

Now, lets just hope he takes out those people who clog up my mailbox with pizza coupons and grocery ads.

Mini Traps!

Ugh, I have so many sets of these. Five of them at the very least.

Kenner's Mini Traps, much like Fearsome Flush, were stand alone toys in the Real Ghostbusters toy line, meaning they weren't tied down to a particular series such as the Haunted Humans or Monsters.

I remember when I got my first set of this. My mom and I had gone somewhere, where it was I do not recall, we'll just say the ends of the Earth because that's about how big the small town I lived in was to me in the late 80's, and when we arrived home, my dad had called from work.

Just being old enough to use the phone was a pretty cool thing. i was pretty hooked on it, to the point where I would climb up on the kitchen table, asking my mom for the numbers of anybody that I knew so that I could call them.

Anyways, my dad had asked me if I had seen what he got me.

Hell no I hadn't.

On the kitchen table, which I recall being super freakin' ugly, was a brown paper sack from Wal-Mart, because, you know, they had those back then before everybody decided to complain and be all environmentally friendly and junk.

Inside of the now defunct brown paper Wal-Mart sack were the Mini Traps!

I have always been a little more partial to the orange one being my favorite. 

I really have no reason for it, other than the horns on the top of his head that perfectly compliment his one giant cyclops eye.

I always liked to think of these as ghostly version of Venus fly traps, just chilling with their mouths open, waiting for their unsuspecting prey to make a landing.

Today we'll use Dr. Raymond Stantz as our test subject.

Ray wanders carelessly around wherever the hell he is wandering. He unfortunately forgot to bring along his Proton Pack, PKE Meter, or Ecto Goggles. He figured he wouldn't really need them where he was going. Turns out, he needs them now more than ever.

All of the sudden Ray makes ones wrong move and is snatched up by the orange mini trap.

How in the hell he didn't notice a big orange thing with teeth on the ground, I'll never know.

Able to finally pull himself free, Ray moves along. A little shaken from the whole experience, but still moving along carelessly. 

Well, for the second time, Ray, not paying attention, is swept off his feet, this time by the purple mini trap.

All Ray can do is lay there helplessly and smile.

Better you than me, Ray.

FYI, don't ever trigger these things with your finger. It hurts like hell when they snap down on you.

Before I end this, I want to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to the Montana Ghostbusters for the wonderful package they sent me! Trust me guys, it means a lot to me! You guys are awesome.  Be sure to hit them up on Facebook.

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.