New Ghostbusters shirt from Five Below

In our little town, which isn't so little, but pales in comparison to real cities, we finally got a Five Below store.

Tonight marked my third trip in. I didn't really find much the first couple of times, with the exception of decks of Ghostbusters 2016 reboot UNO cards at $5 each. I already have a couple, so I've declined picking them up in favor of things I actually need for my collection.

While I didn't necessarily need yet another Ghostbusters shirt, this one is too cool to pass up, especially for the $5 price tag.

Depicted is the familiar no ghost logo, however the red ring is replaced by a ring on runny slime.

They had a large stack of them available, ranging from small to extra large.

Five Below stock doesn't last long, so hurry in to grab yours.

GB Swag at Krispy Kreme!

We are just days away from the start of the 2014 Mr. Ghostbuster Halloween season where we will look at 31 Ghosts in 31 Days! Cannot believe that it has crept up so fast.

I really tried to be prepared for it by writing and doing things in advance, but that really didn't happen like I would have hoped for, so it's going to be a busy month for sure.

But before all of the Halloween fun, we have bigger fish to fry. Er, doughnuts to fry. Yeah, something like that.

So, let's be honest, Lincoln, Nebraska is the worst possible place that anybody could live. We don't even have a Krispy Kreme here!

Luckily, I have friends in low places, and I was able to score the Ghostbusters doughnut box and plastic pail!

Now, I know I should be stoned with the heaviest of rocks for not at least trying the doughnuts, but in reality, they don't sound good to me at all. I'm sure they are good though, but sadly, I'll never know.

The doughnut box is REALLY FREAKIN' COOL!

Decorated with slime green polka dots, and featuring a wonderful Ghostbusters / Krispy Kreme logo mash up, the box is sure to be an excellent display piece in any collection.

I very highly recommend that if you stop into a Krispy Kreme to get your doughnuts, I'm certain that they would be happy to oblige a request for an extra box.

Trust me, you WILL want to have a clean one for display. Way too cool to pass up.

The plastic Trick-or-Treat pail is excellent. My guy who picked this up said it sold for $3.99. I'm going to assume his information is accurate, but if I am wrong, please let me know!

The plastic bucket features a tremendous Slimer sticker on the lid, with the sides of the bucket giving up the same No Ghost / Krispy Kreme logo mash up as well as the GB30 logo.

While I would love to obtain a few more of these, I'm happy with one, seeing as I didn't think I'd end up with anything at all.

Seriously, though, Krispy Kreme did an excellent job with this. Even if it's just a box and a bucket, I'm more than excited to have these in my collection. Well done doughnut dudes.

See you October 1st!

3 Random Things: STAY PUFT EDITION

Yes kids, it's time for another edition of 3 Random Things here on the blog that nobody knows exists!

Shhh, it'll be our little secret.

This time, we stray away from the normal "look at 3 things from Mr. Ghostbuster's colletion" and put a little twist on it.

This edition of 3 Random Things will be all about our friend, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!

Stay Puft has long been my favorite character in Ghostbusters. He is just so darn cute. How could you not want to give him a big hug? Even when he is sent to destroy all of humanity, you can't help but love him, and have a very soft spot in your heart, to the point to shedding a few tears, when the boys in grey roast him.

Yes, folks, this time we check out 3 Random Stay Puft items in the biggest Ghostbusters collection you will ever see.

1: Singing Stay Puft!!

A few years ago, I was able to score one of these at our local Toys R Us for about $20., which is a real shock.

See, our TRU is typically the last store in the world to get anything good, and if they luck out and do, they get one case of it. Once that case hits shelves, there is nothing but douchey Ebay dealers lined up at the door (every Friday morning at 10am!!!) waiting to get a hold of it to flip it for seven times the retail price.

Push the little blue sticker on Stay Puft's torso and you'll hear roughly 20 seconds of the Ghostbusters theme!

 

2: Stay Puft Plushie!!

I have several of these, but the first one was the worst one to get.

We were down in Memphis, TN on vacation for a week back in 2012. We had gone into Wal-Mart and spotted him trapped inside of the evil claw machine. 

Oh, but he could be ours should we be lucky enough to master the claw at only $1.00 per play!

$1.00 per attempt to watch this fat chunk of fluff fall out over and over and over and over....you get it by now.

By the time he was rescued and in my loving arms, roughly $30 had been spent. I could have done so much more with $30, but I'll never pass up the chance to bring home a stuffed Marshmallow Man.

3: The Stay Puft Army!!

Over the years, I have seemed to acquire 10 of the original Kenner Stay Puft figures.

On average, I seem to gain around 2 of them a year from various sources locally.

I'll never forget the first one. I was about 4 years old, at day care. I was wearing a Ghostbusters 2 logo shirt. 

Some of the other hillbilly kids decided that they wanted to play Ghostbusters. Shit, man, I was down! They quickly turned me away because I was wearing a Ghostbusters 2 shirt. I should be mad about it to this day, but chances are, those little kids, mullets and all, are probably toothless and digging in the dirt, only dreaming to live in the "big town" these days.

I decided to go off and do my own thing, which I would grow very accustomed to throughout my life. Soon enough, my Dad was there to pick me up and free me from the clutches of the evil day care provider.

In his hands, he had the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!

I could not have been more excited in my 4 years on Earth than I was at that moment. Holy hell, my own Marshmallow Man!

To this day, no matter how many of them I have, I always get just as excited when I get another. Stay Puft always has and always will hold a special place in my collection.

Flashback! My Jennifer Runyon Interview!

Hard to believe that this is creeping up on a year and a half ago now. Back when I had my old website, I did an interview with my good friend Jennifer Runyon. Of course, we talked about Ghostbusters.

The interview even made it to a Yahoo article, a posting about the cast of Charles in Charge and where they are now.

Go ahead, and give it a listen.

Slimer Sours!

I'm only about 3 or 4 years late to the party to talk about Slime Sours candy, but when I got word that our local Bed, Bath, and Beyond had practically a whole damn box full of them, I wasn't going to pass it up.

While I already owned a box, along with several opened and unopened tins, there was just something about the $2.99 price tag that screamed, "Mr. Ghostbuster! Buy all of these! Who cares about bills? We are Slimer shaped sour candies!"

Yeah, it went a little like that.

Or, you could just say there was no voice in my head at all, because I've practically become a robot programmed to buy anything Ghostbusters related when I see it.

The candies come in wonderful white tins with the Ghostbusters logo on them. The tins, while cool, don't serve up much purpose once the candy is consumed, although I could totally see my grandparents using one to take along those all important pills wherever they go.

Hey, it could be a new hipster-ish thing. Keep your pot and Ibuprofen inside your Ghostbusters tin.

The candies themselves are, obviously, shaped like Slimer!

While I'm not a huge fan of sour candy (it's not fine and dandy like you may have been led to believe) there is just something about food shaped like a green gluttonous ghost that draws you to it right away.

Slimer has long been popular with Ghostbusters fans, so it really only made sense to keep promoting him all these years later. Smart move.

While Slimer Sours were initially found in a wide variety of places during the year or so period where Ghostbusters: The Video Game had come out and everybody wanted a piece of the Ghostbusters action, I have still been able to locate them not only at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but at smaller specialty stores as well. They are still out there, so grab them up while you can.

Just don't buy a whole damn case like I did. I'll be enjoying Slimer Sours until I turn 895.

Don't forget, Halloween is rapidly approaching! Here on the Mr. GB blog, I'll be reviewing 31 Ghosts in 31 Days! All part of the Halloween fun with Mr. Ghostbuster! The fun starts on October 1st!!!!!!!

3 Random Things Part II

Before we get into all of the fun of looking at Ghostbusters stuff, notice the new graphic on top. 

Starting October first here on the Mr. GB blog, I will be reviewing one ghost figure every day for 31 days! Talk about having a lot more on my plate huh?

I figured I would put the graphic up now to get the 4 people that read this excited about it.

Marching along now, we continue on in the fun that is looking at 3 more random things from my Ghostbusters collection. I'm not sure how many of these we need to do, but it is a great way for you to check out some of the smaller items in my collection that may not be significant enough to receive a post of their own.

As usual, I'll show you a photo, say a few words about it, and we'll move on.

1: Johnny Lightning Ecto 1-A!

I picked this up a couple of years ago at a flea market. 

They aren't the most rare item in the world, but they are pretty neat to have in your collection. As I recall that particular flea market had a higher than normal yield of decent Ghostbusters stuff.

I walked away with this for $8 and also picked up a box of unopened packs of Ghostbusters 2 cards for $5. Not too shabby.

2: Slimer Bookmark

I bought the Slimer bookmark about a year or so ago from a scuzzbag wannabe antique dealer for $2.

Imagine dropping your spouse off at work before the sun comes up in the early hours of a winter morning, and then driving all the way across town to slip $2 in a dude's screen door while retrieving a Slimer book mark.

Dedication? I think so.

I wonder whatever happened to Billy Davis. Dude is at least 60 and recently fathered a child. 1-888-45-MAURY, remember that.

3: Hot Topic Exclusive Funko Stay Puft!

We decided to eat in the mall food court last night. The mall these days is good for two things. Gawking at weird people who belong in a freak show, and making brief stops to Hot Topic. Yes, brief because too much Hipster shit is TOO MUCH.

The moment I walked in the door, well entry way, it's not cool enough to have actual "doors", I spotted two, yes TWO of these bad boys sitting on the shelf.

I rushed over and snatched one up, looked to my right and saw a sign saying "Entire Store, buy one get one half off" so I decided to take the other one home as well.

I mean, really, would you ever be able to sleep at night knowing you split up twins?

I didn't think so.

If I still have your attention at this point, come on over and "LIKE" me on Facebook. Every like counts, even though I have no goal or anything, it's just cool to have more people to talk Ghostbusters with.

Ecto-Glow Winston!

Holy crap, am I actually updating the site?

In my defense, it's been busy lately. I've had articles written about me in the news paper, been to a showing of Ghostbusters every day for the last 5 days so far, and been working, so it's nice that I finally found a little time to review something on here.

Gearing up for October 1st. That starts Halloween around here. I am going to be doing a "31 Ghosts in 31 Days" countdown. I've been slowly prepping that, so there has at least been some shred of effort being put into this site, most of which you are not yet able to see.

Now that we got the boring "where the hell have you been" stuff out of the way, let's talk toys!

Ecto-Glow Winston was kind of a big deal for me to own. As far as the actual Ghostbusters (Egon, Ray, Peter, Winston, Janine, and Louis) go Ecto-Glow Winston was the very last one I needed.

I was super excited to buy him off of the evil machine empire called Ebay. While I typically hate the hell out of that site, sometimes I must use it to fill in small gaps in my collection.

Now, I know you're thinking that the whole Ecto Glow concept is a bit silly. You're not wrong. Of course it's crazy.

At this point in the Real Ghostbusters toy line, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were dominating toy shelves around the world. Ghostbusters, in the eyes of many kids, had lost their luster. 

The big shiny new super cool Ninja Turtles were where the toy market was at, and would continue to be until a few years later when Power Rangers took over.

The Ecto Glow line was Kenner's last attempt to keep our heroes relevant.

Large quantities of these figures were not produced, sadly, making them much harder to find than their earlier produced counterparts.

Our pal, Winston, comes equipped with his Ecto Glow uniform, as well as a mask and Proton Pack to bust the Ecto Glow Wrapper Ghost.

I'm seriously trying to think how glow in the dark equipment could fit into catching ghosts. As silly and strange as it may sound, here is what I came up with:

Ghosts are running amok in New York City, destroying everything in sight. A select few were electrocuted by a downed power line, causing a major power outage in the city.

Still with me here? Yeah, I know, stupid, but keep going.

Ready for action, the Ghostbusters are equipped with their all new, top of the line, glow in the dark uniforms and Proton Packs to take care of the power munching spooks.

Again, stupid, but really the only scenario, save for "everybody jumped into a vat of glow in the dark goo" that really could work.

I should note that on the back of the card, the unreleased Ecto-Glow Copter is advertised, meaning Kenner was all into doing it until some big wig saw sales numbers and decided to totally pull the plug on production. Had they held out for another few months, I'm sure we would all still be playing with Ecto-Glow Copters today.

It was clearly a rushed judgement to pull the line on the series as several other items were in the process of being made, such as Egon's Lab and the Backpack Heroes set, among a few other things.

It was a great run for Kenner and The Real Ghostbusters, but it had to come to an end at some point.

I have always wished that the Trendmasters Extreme Ghostbusters Toys would have caught on a lot more along with the cartoon. That could have been the big revival for the Ghostbusters, but I think the 90's wasn't ready for it as the Ninja Turtles were already being revamped to a live action show, and Power Rangers were starting to plateau in popularity. 

While everything big that we have grown up with has been remade at some point (Ie: 2 more Ninja Turtles cartoons and a recent movie, Power Rangers is still on TV, Thundercats, Masters of the Universe, etc) Ghostbusters has yet to really get that type of treatment.

I think if they were to release a new cartoon, based on the same characters, they would do pretty well with it. I can definitely see it being a contender for kids' attention.

And of course, a new cartoon series would mean new toys.

A boy can dream, can't he?

3 Random Things

I thought I would try something a little bit different today.

Instead of taking one bigger item out of my collection and writing about it, I'm taking three smaller items and talking a little less than I normally would about them.

Think of it as my way of somehow justifying having so much Ghostbusters stuff.

Hey, the little shit needs love too, right?

Any who, here are 3 random items I pulled out of my collection to show you.

1: Ghostbusters Key Caps!

I really had no intention of ever putting these on an actual key when I bought them.

I do believe that the sole purpose of purchasing a set of Ghostbusters Key Cap was that they are GHOSTBUSTERS Key Caps. Aside from that, no real reason for needing to have them.

 It gets harder and harder to find anything Ghostbusters related anymore, so when I stumbled across these at the local mall, I couldn't pull out my wallet fast enough.

Though if I ever were to put these on actual keys, I'd for sure be the coolest kid on the block rocking a Stay Puft key.

2: Ghostbusters Energy Drink Can

For a short time I could pick these up at the mall in certain stores (you know, the kind ran by kids who have far too many piercings and like to listen to Phish records?) but all of the sudden they seemed to go away.

Lucky for me, there is a little shop here in town that specializes in weird candy and soda, so they always have them, although I'm not sure if they do anymore since it has been no less than two years since I've forced myself to go in there.

Regardless, I always seem to keep the cans after I drink them. There is just something about throwing a Ghostbusters thing in the garbage that doesn't work well for me at all.

3: Slimer Bike Horn

These may very well have been the best set of toys McDonald's ever offered us.

I can recall the day I found out that Mickey D's had these. The commercial came on TV and it was totally an, "Oh shit! We need to go there NOW, and I don't care if it's not 10:30 yet. Buy an Egg McMuffin but get me the Ghostbusters toy" moments.

I seriously own enough of these right now that I could set them all up and hire a seal to play me a wonderful tune with his nose.

No, I wouldn't buy a seal. My bathtub is too small and I don't like raw fish.

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.