Retro Action Egon Spengler!

This is my favorite part of the day. Really it is.

The part of the day where I get to take a little bit of time out of my schedule and write about Ghostbusters.

I know that not a lot of people read this, and I know that this little site and my Mr. Ghostbuster Facebook page will never be the biggest in the world, nor will they ever be cared about by the big fish in the sea, but to me, it's fun. It's been 25 plus years of collecting and loving Ghostbusters, and I enjoy sharing it with whomever will listen.

Today's fun comes in the form of Matty Collectors Retro Action Egon Spengler figure!

I know a lot of GB fans, myself included, have complained about how Matty produced and handled the Ghostbusters figures, from the overall quality of the toys to the price, they did the fans wrong.

However, these Mego-style Retro Action figures are pretty sweet.

A couple of years ago, a local closeout store had a couple Egon figures for about $5 each, which compared to their normal almost $20 price tag, was a hell of a deal.

I always kind of had this bond with Egon. The very first item in my collection, at age 3 was a Fright Features Egon figure that I begged hard for inside of the toy aisles at Wal-Mart.

The figures themselves are all pretty much the same as far as body molds go. They all have super highly articulated joints, which is a good and bad thing,

Having so much articulation makes for some awesome poses, but it also makes it hard for them to stand up on their own from time to time.

Egon comes clad in his Real Ghostbusters jumpsuit and equipped with a PKE Meter and Proton Pack.

The Proton Pack design, to me, is a few steps above those from the Kenner line. This one has color to it (other than a plain, flat blue) and the neutrona want hooks in flawlessly. 

Overall, I'd give the Retro Action RGB line a 7.5 out of 10.

The figures themselves are great, decent design, wonderful accessories, and they really bring back the fun of seeing Ghostbusters toys in stores.

The only gripes would be, as mentioned, the fact that there is almost too much articulation, making it hard for them to stand on their own, and also the normal $20 price tag. A little expensive for the average buyer, like most of the Matty items, but enough for collectors to pay it.

Mail Call!!!!

I was in the process of writing about something else for this site when the mail man came a knocking at my door to deliver me all kinds of goodies.

If you're wondering (trust me, you probably aren't) that "other" post will be up tomorrow.

I was pretty excited to see mister mail man today, as I knew that today would finally be the day that I got the items I had ordered online a week ago.

I typically HATE ordering things online as the wait takes forever. I'm one of those weird people who likes to have the item in my hand the moment the money is forked over.

Regardless of me being weird, lets see what today's mail brought!!!!

First up we have the Real Ghostbusters volume 1 DVD set. 

I had this so long ago, and was nearly heartbroken when it got lost in a move years and years ago.

This set, still factory sealed, was scored off of Amazon for around $8 after shipping. Not too bad.

To make things even better, I only ordered it 3 days ago. Boy, they sure are fast. Big props to the seller for being so quick!

The Ghost Spooker!!!!!!

It's a rare day that I get to add a Kenner item to my collection that I do not already own. I think I'm down to about 5 or 6 items now to have a complete Kenner collection.

Seriously, I have no idea what I am going to do with myself when I accomplish this goal. I mean, obviously I will move on to completing the Extreme Ghostbusters set, and then Matty and whatnot, but the Kenner line, as it was the original, is kind of a big deal for me to finish. It's bittersweet, that's for sure.

I'm not going to go into great detail about the Ghost Spooker since it deserves a review of it's own.

The item was not sealed in it's box by any means, so I took the contents out for a photo, but hey, the box IS there, so it makes it that much cooler, right?

And last, but not least, there is the Extreme Ghostbusters Plasma Blaster!

This is yet another item that I did not already have, but to be fair, my collecting focus for many years has been the Kenner stuff, so I have only picked up the EGB stuff when it is readily available, or cheap.

Again, not going into a lot of detail since this item will get a post of it's own at some point, but like the Ghost Spooker, the toy has been opened and played with before, so I had no bad feeling about opening it to take a photo.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good day, when you factor in the Stay Puft pencil sharpener and sealed Ertl Ecto-1A model kit that I picked up locally today.

Can't hate seeing your Ghostbusters collection grow!

I'm thinking sometime after the Halloween season, I am going to ask all of my readers here and on Facebook to show me a pic of their collection, which I will feature in a slide show or gallery here in a future post. It's always fun to see what other Ghostbusters collectors have, and I'll admit, even I sometimes get jealous!

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?