(A still image of the handle of a PKE meter is seen as the words “The Last Of The Americans” in the Ghostbusters style font slide from left to right and a guitar theme combining the 1994 American Gladiators theme with the Extreme Ghostbusters theme song as a voice sings as horrible movies come from every direction as it cuts to a Studio.)
TLOTA (Singing Audio only):
If there’s something bad on the movie screen, who do you call? If there’s something weird and no it ain’t no good, who do you call?
TLOTA (Audio Only):
That’s right! (Scene cuts to the letters “M,”” O,”” V,”” I,” ”E,” ”B,” ”U,” ”S,” ”T,” ”E,” ”R,” ”S!” in typewriter font and then cuts to a vehicle driving down the road before a demonically possessed image of the “Scales: Mermaids Are Real” poster and James singing “I ain’t afraid of no cheese!” as it cuts to the vehicle driving down the road and then equipment being put together as another voice takes over for one lyric and then joins James in singing)
Rowdy (Singing Audio Only):
If see a dud running through your Head! Who do you call?
TLOTA (Singing Audio Only):
Moviebusters! (The Scene changes to James pulling out a proton pack as James sings “I ain’t afraid of no cheese!” then it cuts to Rowdy as he pulls out a Proton Pack singing “We don’t like bad movies or TV Shows for that matter.” We then cut to the rest of team TLOTA as they pull out proton packs with Chad going for the ghost trap and sucking all the demonic media into the trap as Chad stands in the middle with a grin on his face as if to say “Yeah, it was all me, James had nothing to do with this!” James shoves him to the back as he takes his place where Chad was as it cuts to a slime covered version of “The Last Of The Americans” Logo as slimy font pulls up “Produced by First Choice Productions.”, Then the words “Edited by Eric Kurtzke” and “Written by Chris Lee Moore and James Faraci” and “Directed by James Faraci” as it cuts to James and Rowdy in the main lobby on the Horseshoe couch as James looks at Rowdy.)
TLOTA:
So Rowdy, you know I did a crossover earlier this year.
Rowdy:
With a contest winner, it doesn’t count. So, guess what? We’re talking about something people have been wanting me to do on “TV Trash” since I talked about The Filmation version of The Ghostbusters, both the live-action and animated versions of both series. I have been waiting for the right time when I heard you were going to talk about the series THIS year. It was just the right time, so what do you say? A real crossover with a fellow reviewer.
TLOTA:
Alright, let’s do it! (Cut to clips and stills of “The Real Ghostbusters” as James and Rowdy do voiceovers)
Rowdy (V.O.):
As was previously explained by both Phelous and James in their own reviews or mentioning of “The Real Ghostbusters” after ABC got their hands on it, the series was put into the hands of Q-5. This consulting firm looked more at Graphs, Charts and listened to Test Audiences than common sense and the series suffered for several years until it was put out of its misery in 1991.
TLOTA(V.O.):
But a few years after this series got axed, Execs at SONY were interested in reviving the property partially due to the success of the first “Men In Black” movie and the subsequent animated series that aired on Kids WB! (Cut to James and Rowdy Physically)
TLOTA & Rowdy (In Unison):
The results… (Cut to the title card of “Extreme Ghostbusters,” then to clips of the series as James and Rowdy do voiceovers.)
TLOTA (V.O.):
A sequel series to the Real Ghostbusters animated series. “Extreme Ghostbusters” puts Egon in charge of four new and young Ghostbusters as they pick up where the others left off. Of course, even though some of them look somewhat like their Real Ghostbusters counterparts.
Rowdy (V.O.):
And I already have flashbacks to the Filmation Ghostbusters cartoon. This is going to HURT. (Cut to James and Rowdy physically)
TLOTA:
Let’s get into the “Extreme Ghostbusters” (Cut to clips of “Extreme Ghostbusters” as James and Rowdy do voiceovers.)
TLOTA (V.O.):
It should be noted that this series was not produced by DIC entertainment; instead, they kept it in-house with their own animation studio Adelaide Productions which also did other series for SONY/Columbia produced animated series. Anyway, the series opens with how a pre-Q-5 good episode as we find a crew of people working on enhancing the subway lines in New York City as the crew opens up something they shouldn’t, and of course, Ghosts are unleashed as is a big bad for this pilot.
Rowdy (V.O.):
And that leads to the opening theme, which tells me the creators were so desperate to not have Huey Lewis file another infringement suit they just hired the first guy who would re-work the entire music beat of the original. We then find ourselves at NYU, where we meet our four heroes Kylie Griffin voiced by Tara Strong, Eduardo Rivera, voiced by Rino Romano. Garrett Miller, voiced by Jason Marsden, and finally, Roland Jackson voiced by…ALFONSO RIBEIRO?! (Cut to James and Rowdy physically)
Rowdy:
So the voice of Max from A Goofy Movie, The voice of Raven from Teen Titans, CARLTON FROM THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR, and… Who’s Rino Romano? Is he related to either Ray or Christy?
TLOTA:
No, but for a while, he was the voice of “The Batman”
Rowdy:
You mean Batman.
TLOTA:
I mean “The Batman,” as in the first series since the Bruce Timm Batman Animated series. It came out around the time of “Batman Begins.” Before the Robert Pattinson movie. Let’s move on! (Cut to clips of “Extreme Ghostbusters” as James and Rowdy do voiceovers.)
Rowdy (V.O.):
Their professor in their shared course is Egon Spengler, voiced by Maurice LaMarche, and also joining them is Janine Melnitz, this time voiced by Pat Musick. Back at the firehouse, Slimer, this time voiced by Philip J. Fry himself, Billy West, with the blessing of original voice actor Frank Welker, discovers activity on the PKE meter.
TLOTA (V.O.):
Slimer rushes to the University to tell Egon, who, against his better judgment, takes the students to the firehouse as they see Ecto-1 and The Firehouse. And instead of taking the kids with them, Egon goes out on his own to investigate. The mayor of New York, also voiced by Billy West, takes Egon being there in stride. (Cut to the clip of The Mayor denouncing Egon Spengler and The Ghostbusters as frauds. Cut to James & Rowdy)
Rowdy:
I can’t wait for this guy to get his comeuppance. (Rowdy turns to James) He doesn’t get it, does he?
TLOTA:
Nope, as a matter of fact, The Mayor, in all his appearances, denounces them, and since we don’t see him getting voted out, and since the show never got more than the forty episodes, if the show had continued, it would’ve meant more time with him saying “Those Ghostbusters need to be stopped because they 2+2=4! I So smart because I know…”
Rowdy:
Getting off-topic.
TLOTA:
Sorry. (Cut to clips of “Extreme Ghostbusters” as James and Rowdy do voiceovers.)
Rowdy (V.O.):
Equipped with only his Proton Pack, which has seen better days, and Ecto-1, which also looks like it has seen better days. Egon goes at it alone and winds up getting attacked by the big bad of the pilot. Meanwhile, Kylie picked up a Ghost Beacon from The Firehouse to see if she can talk to her grandmother’s spirit, which doesn’t end well for Kylie! (Show clip of the big bad of the pilot as it possesses Kylie. Cut to the end of the first part of the pilot as James and Rowdy do voiceovers.)
TLOTA (V.O.):
The next day is when Eduardo, Garrett, Janine, and Roland discover Egon is in less than good shape. Janine tells Egon that he’s not in any form to get back into the Ghostbusting business. Garrett and Roland volunteer, and then Goad Eduardo into joining. Ending the first part of the pilot. (Cut to the second part of the Pilot as James and Rowdy do voiceovers.)
Rowdy (V.O.):
It’s here that Egon starts to slip into the role of Mentor for the new team, and in this series, he’s on the same page as Gosei from Power Rangers Megaforce and Super Megaforce. Meaning he’s barely able to give useful information to the new team! EGON FRIGGIN’ SPENGLER IS THE BRAINS OF THE OPERATION! WHAT THE FRACK IS WRONG WITH THE WRITERS?! ARGH! At any rate, the others discover Kylie possessed by the big bad of the pilot and decide that hitting Kylie with their Proton Packs is a smart way to dispossess Kylie of the big bad. One more battle, and the team decides it’s time to make newer Proton Packs and Traps because things are going to the Extreme! Not Kidding! After this pilot, they answer the calls with “Extreme Ghostbusters, how may we help you?” And for what it’s worth, these new Packs and Traps may look cool but seriously, what was wrong with keeping an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on your back to capture ghosts! Janine has to use one of the older packs in a later episode when the new stuff can’t get the job done! Which isn’t surprising? The old equipment’s power source had a half-life of five thousand years!
TLOTA (V.O.):
Are you suggesting the creators didn’t watch Ghostbusters 2?
Rowdy (V.O.):
Fair point.
TLOTA (V.O.):
The new kids zap and trap the baddie from this episode. Egon tells them that they’re gonna have to get over a lot of their differences to make it as Ghostbusters and that they’ve just begun.
Rowdy (V.O.):
And from there, we get thirty-eight more episodes of The Extreme Ghostbusters, having to overcome some of, if not the most disturbing creatures the writers can think of. I mean, we have a GOLEM in the third episode! The Extreme Ghostbusters had to take on the Cenobites from friggin “Hellraiser”! Then they take on The Sphynx in the penultimate episode before the two-part finale. More on that finale later. And while we do see some callbacks from the past, like the Grundel, it would’ve been nice to see Samhain return for a Halloween episode instead of the brief look at him in the opening credits.
TLOTA (V.O.):
And honestly, some of the episodes were dark! I’m talking about people died in early episodes; however, I think SONY had a mandate after some people complained about how that was happening. But some original ghosts and problems are less creative, and some are more than enough. In one episode, showing that the showrunners decided it would be best to hit the restart button on Egon and Janine’s relationship, Janine decides to meet a man named Gregor, who just so happens to be a big bug and transforms Janine into an insect and by the end, Janine sucks Gregor into the trap and Egon admits he’s just playing hard to get!
ROWDY (V.O.):
So Janine went back to having the hots for Egon in this thing? What happened to her relationship with Louis? Oh, good fracking night; they really DIDN’T watch the second movie, did they?
(Cut to James as he holds Rowdy’s Louisville Slugger as Rowdy tries to brain himself. Cut to clips of “Extreme Ghostbusters” as James and Rowdy do voiceovers.)
Rowdy (V.O.):
We might as well talk about the new characters. While yes, Eduardo does look like Peter Venkman as a Latino and has a mouth that gets him into trouble. For the most part, he has a good heart and is loyal to Egon and the others. In an episode centered around him as he says to Egon, while the Firehouse is getting fumigated, that Egon can stay with Eduardo and his family. However, his brother, an officer of the NYPD, anglicized his name to get in and denounced Eduardo, who has been taking on stuff that would turn his brother’s ass white! But the fact he was goaded into the role of Ghostbuster makes him seem stupid at times! He made a wish that Kylie would show him respect and wound up inside Kylie’s cat! Speaking of Kylie, yeah, she looks like a Goth in the makeup department, but she had always fought that stereotype. When asked by a coven of Wiccans in an episode later on, she sounded interested, but ultimately she declines. While talking about Kylie, She’s the only one who has to deal with carrying the trap and has a little handheld zapper. WHY? That seems kind of discriminatory to what she could do! I mean, we do see in an episode she doesn’t mind the responsibility of taking care of the trap and that she can handle a pack of her own!
TLOTA (V.O.):
Then we have the two that look like Ray and Winston in the forms of Garrett and Roland. Garrett has been in a wheelchair since a baby, but that never hindered Garrett. In the aforementioned episode with the Golem, Garrett had some friends he hung out with that were secretly Anti-Semitic! This is one of the few episodes where those guys should’ve been killed by the Golem before the Ghostbusters, and the Rabbi saves the day, and we get a lesson of hatred only begetting more hatred, but what can you do? Then we have Roland, who drives Ecto-1 for the rest of them, but he is also coming up with more ideas for equipment for the Ghostbusters to use. So, in a way, he’s much like Egon in a sense as well. (Cut to James and Rowdy physically)
Rowdy:
So if they had such good stuff in it, why did it end after forty episodes?
TLOTA:
Around this time, another series had begun that had a similar idea but a different way of conveying the story, and it dealt with Batman again. (Cut to the pilot of “Batman Beyond” as James does a voiceover.)
TLOTA (V.O.):
Around the time “Extreme Ghostbusters” came out, Bruce Timm and company created “Batman Beyond” as a sequel to The Batman Animated Series. It takes place in the far future and tells the story of Terry McGinnis as he took on the mantle of Batman, with Bruce Wayne becoming the mentor to Terry and Terry becoming his own version of Batman. Kind of familiar if you ask me. But whereas “Batman Beyond” had the resources to tell this story properly, “Extreme Ghostbusters” did not. Also not helping was the Syndication market was over-saturated with other series that had either rerun series that had ended or were not viable on a network, and of course, the toys and video games weren’t selling. Whatever the reason was, the show had little ground to stand. I think everyone was lucky to have the forty episodes. (Cut to James and Rowdy Physically)
TLOTA:
And now, we come to the two-part finale.
Rowdy:
Thank goodness for that! So what exactly happens. (Cut to the Finale as James and Rowdy do voiceovers)
TLOTA (V.O.):
Part one opens with Egon and Janine going on a date on Egon's Birthday. When they make it back to the firehouse, Egon notices something isn’t kosher! What happens is the return of the other three Ghostbusters. Ray Stantz once again played by Frank Welker, Winston Zeddemore again played by Buster Jones, and Peter Venkman again played by UGH, Dave Coulier!
Rowdy (V.O.):
I can see why Lorenzo Music liked playing Garfield more. I'd never return if I were replaced on TV Trash by Dave Coulier. But from what I saw of the finale, half the time, they wrote Peter like Lorenzo’s version, and the other half definitely had the Q-5 stink from it!
TLOTA (V.O.):
The Extreme Team soon meets the originals, and tensions soon emerge. We also find that Ray has become a car salesman, Winston became a pilot, and Peter…is Peter! There’s soon a call where the original team tries the new equipment, but it takes them a while, but they capture the Ghost. Despite some minor aches and pains, the original team feels like they’re back however, the tensions soon get worse as the ghosts multiply. The originals help the kids. The Extreme team soon heads out as more ghosts keep coming like flies. The original team soon finds themselves over their heads as Janine goads the Extreme team to rescue the originals. The two teams decide to put their egos aside to stop the self-replicating ghosts. However, the ghost may have been stopped, but the teams can’t shake that the worst is still ahead, ending the first part of the finale.
Rowdy (V.O.):
The second part of the finale begins with Peter and Garrett going fishing.
TLOTA (V.O.):
Illegal in November; just saying as an outdoorsman.
Rowdy (V.O.):
As I was trying to say, a demonic fog is rolling in just as Ray and Winston decide to head out. That is, until the demonic fog keeps both teams in NYC. Realizing that the self-duplicator that they busted and the fog have the same PKE readings. The problem is worse because the demon fog came from The Bermuda Triangle. With no option, both teams must find a way to stop the entity in the fog before it chows down on Manhattan. It eats the Statue of Liberty like it was nothing. Roland comes up with one last idea to save Manhattan from being destroyed, and most of the other Ghostbusters are on board with the biggest Proton blaster and Containment trap they can come up with, and it works, sucking the ghost up like a vacuum. While the clean-up happens magically and the thousands that were lost get a second chance at life, and the teams get together for a Happy Thanksgiving, but in traditional Ghostbusters style, Slimer eats the meal. (Cut to James and Rowdy physically)
Rowdy:
So the second it starts to do better is when the show gets cancelled. Just how EXTREME-ly horrible was it for those who were just getting to enjoy the series. (Cut to clips of the series as James and Rowdy do voiceovers.)
Rowdy (V.O.):
What can I say? It’s everything you’d expect from a show from the 90s with “Extreme” in the title, and that ain’t good! I said at first I was reminded of the Filmation series, but upon further review, you know what it reminds me of? The Red Sky Years of the first Ninja Turtles series! It’s pretty much the same format – many people thought the first cartoon was too comical and goofy and felt they needed to make something EDGY. Never mind that the original Ghostbusters movie was always meant to be a comedy! The result is a bunch of new characters who don’t have nearly the charm of their predecessors and plotlines that seem like they were trying way too hard!
TLOTA (V.O.):
Yeah, kinda have to agree with you for the most part. A lot of it did come off as trying too hard, the “Extreme Ghostbusters” looked like rebooted versions of their predecessors, and a lot of the original plots were better than the Q-5 crap, which is saying very little in the terms of the quality of the episodes. However, it feels like it was SONY’s long-awaited apology for what happened in the later years of “The Real Ghostbusters” series, and had it gotten more of a chance, it would definitively show that The Ghostbusters, Extreme or Real had more ground to cover. But as is, I thought it was okay at best. Not a turkey of a series but not exactly the shot in the arm the franchise needed. (Cut to James and Rowdy physically)
TLOTA:
And since the finale was centered around Thanksgiving, I think I will do a double review of the day of Turkey.
Rowdy:
How? You talked about Thanksgiving stuff already. What else is there left to review?
TLOTA:
You let me and Alton Brown deal with it. I’m James Faraci The Last Of The Americans and That’s my opinon!
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