“In a new adventure” Filmation’s Ghostbusters mini comic. 1986. France. Fortan/Moran/Schurr/McBride.
The Ghost Busters was a 1975 live-action series about a trio of inept detectives investigating ghostly occurrences. The series, by Filmation, ran for fifteen episodes and featured the characters Kong, Spencer and Tracy the gorilla.
In 1986, following the success of the unrelated Columbia Pictures’ 1984 Ghostbusters film (for which Columbia paid Filmation a fee for the license to use the name) Filmation developed The Ghost Busters into an animated show called Ghostbusters – later changing it to Filmation’s Ghostbusters for their video releases.
Around the same time as Filmation’s Ghostbusters animated series came the unrelated The Real Ghostbusters animated series from Columbia Pictures (based on their film), who added ‘Real’ to ‘Ghostbusters’ to avoid confusion. Filmation had previously tried to work with Columbia on their animated show but the deal fell through.
The Filmation Ghostbusters animated series ran for 65 episodes and starred the characters Jake Kong Jr. and Eddie Spencer Jr. as the sons of the original TV series characters Kong and Spencer, along with Tracy the gorilla (who worked with their fathers) and their speaking team car the Ghost Buggy. Aiding the ghoul-getting protagonists was time-travelling ghostbuster the sorceress Futura, reporter Jessica Wray and the gypsy Madame Why. The catchphrase for the show was “Let’s go, Ghostbusters!”
Let’s Go, Ghostbusters! Image from 1986 mini comic showing Tracy the gorilla, Eddie Spencer Jr. and Jake Kong Jr.
Image from 1986 mini comic showing in the top panel Eddie Spencer Jr. and Jake Kong Jr. in their transformation room. The bottom panel shows Tracy inside the cockpit of the Ghost Buggy car which could talk, fly and travel through time!
Image from 1986 mini comic showing from top to bottom: Futura battling the villain Mysteria; Jake hurling the head of villain Scared Stiff; Eddie with Tracy standing next to the villain Fangster; the villain Haunter throwing his hat, and on piano the lead villain Prime Evil.
The toys
A toy line was released by Schaper and Tyco consisting of ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ action figures and their accessories, along with vehicles and two playsets. The scans below from the 1986 French language mini comic show thirteen figures, three vehicles and two playsets – including the awesome-looking Ghost Command headquarters.
In the final panel from the 1986 mini comic the Ghostbusters are reunited with their dads from The Ghost Busters!Â
So, who you gonna call? Seems we’re a bit spoiled for choice now. Let’s go, Ghostbusters!Â
sources: 1986 mini comic images scanned by TVTA. Thanks to Ghostbusters Wiki and Wikipedia accessed 07 Sept 2018. For the 1984 film Ghostbusters and The Real Ghostbusters see TVTA’s entry here
28/09/18. More toys –Â
Filmation’s Ghostbusters. De Speelboom N°3. 1987. Netherlands.
Intertoys Speelboek Autumn 1987. Netherlands.
The Vintage Toy Advertiser 