Now Available: The Real Ghostbusters - A Visual History!

Years and years in the making, the day has finally come… The Real Ghostbusters: A Visual History is now available for purchase in your physical or digital bookseller of choice!

It seems like decades ago (even though it was only the spring of 2022) that Craig came to me wanting to pick my brain about a new project. That project, which eventually became this book, was his lifelong ambition of putting together a love letter to the Kenner Real Ghostbusters line that had influenced so many of our childhoods. Craig and I have long been friends thanks to this crazy life we lead in the world of Ghostbusters, and I could tell just how much this meant to him. It wasn’t just a “hey wouldn’t it be cool if” kind of project to him. It was a “hey, I’m doing this and either tie yourself to this wagon now or risk feeling like you missed out on the adventure later” kind of project.

In lightning speed, I helped Craig put together a packet, and started testing the waters with the amazing people at Ghost Corps, Sony, and Dark Horse.

After revisions and tooling and a whole lot of thinking the plane would never get off the ground, in February of 2023, Dark Horse told us they’d love to do the book, but would like to open it up to detail the development and production of the series itself as well. The book should be 50% making of the show, and 50% the amazing Kenner toys. Admittedly, I had been worried about how much I could contribute to a book that focused on the toys alone. That collecting world has a vernacular and expectation that I didn’t quite have a grasp on. But as soon as it became a behind the scenes book, I knew exactly how I could help Craig and the project. It was music to my ears. And thankfully Craig didn’t mind me stepping up and taking a bigger role than just helping him out. In fact, it was graciously at his insistence that I took the first author byline above him. Which felt like sacrilege knowing that this was and had been his baby.

Honestly, I feel like I had a lot to prove on this book. Both to myself and to my fellow fans. To myself, I felt like this is the book that I’d been working my way up to completing. Ever since the first Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Declassified book, the goal was always to replicate my heroes: people like JW Rinzler, Don Shay and Jody Duncan, who had written the making of tomes that I’ve read cover to cover countless times and have been such an invaluable resource to myself and many others. When I was doing DVD behind the scenes documentaries, there were a few of us that looked at what we did as the written record in history of how a film was made. Much like an issue of Cinefex, twenty years from now someone will want to know if that alien creature was a rod puppet, CG character, or a guy in a rubber suit. Sadly, it’s a resource that is dwindling in this disposable age of “content.” Acclaimed filmmakers and artists are sitting down to interviews for their film and answering if a tennis shoe looks like cake or not, instead of giving us an oral history of their work.

And it’s a shame, because the best time to record those thoughts and processes are in the moment. Which is one of the greatest difficulties we had on the Real Ghostbusters book. Development on the series began in earnest in 1985… forty years ago from me sitting here writing this. We’ve lost far too many of the people involved in The Real Ghostbusters who needed to tell the story, some were difficult to track down — and even when we did, some were hesitant to talk to us because it had been so long ago. But those that gave us their time, opened their Rolodexes, and even risked going into the deep recesses of their storage units to find us materials meant the world to us. I cannot express how thankful I am to several of the people mentioned in the extensive thanks in the back of the book for really making this project where it could have been broken. One interviewee, who had passed on talking to us, was reluctantly coaxed into talking to us later on, having heard from a colleague whom we’d spoken to that we were okay people.

Each and every one of the people we talked to on this book is a talented, overwhelmingly creative, and most importantly good human. I cannot believe how warm and gracious everyone we spoke to was on this project. And I think it’s because they all worked their asses off forty years ago and they’re still proud of all the blood sweat and tears. I hope that really comes across in the book. There are still some people we were chasing that I wish we’d been able to have gotten for the book, each and every account helped exponentially. We tried to lean on archival interviews from other sources as sparingly as needed, but in some instances those were the only ways we could have those voices heard.

And then to the fans, I felt an enormous responsibility for this book to not only have a lot of great things to look at, but to tell a great story. Because through our research and through our interviews, it became clear that the making of The Real Ghostbusters series AND the toys were both incredible stories. Filled with creative people who were passionate and wanted to make amazing things. And both were met with hardship and obstacles that were far beyond their control, ultimately leading to their premature endings. If someone were to be writing a Ghostbusters book for me, I threw everything in there that I would have wanted. I wanted this to be the book I’d be counting down the days to buy. Hopefully that ends up being the case for all my fellow Ghostbusters nerds.

It was a lot of work. Craig and I were one part archeologists trying to track down assets long lost to time. We were another part investigative journalists trying to track down people and follow leads down rabbit holes that we couldn’t have imagined. And on top it all, we had to become archivists. Taking in all of the materials that people had generously contributed to the cause to create what I can safely say is the biggest archive of Real Ghostbusters production and development material which resides permanently with the good folks at Ghost Corps for the future. And all of this while I was also taking care of two kids, which Craig was immeasurably patient with especially in moments like this, when we were just trying to get shit done on a deadline.

Anyway, I know this is a lot longer than my usual blurb when a new book comes out. And not saying the other books I’ve done to this point weren’t, but this one was extremely special. This is the one the eight-year old me looks into the crystal ball and sees his future self doing and absolutely can’t believe that’s his lot in life.

Most importantly, I hope this is the book that twenty or thirty years from now, scholars of animation, historians of Saturday Mornings and television, even the next couple generations of Ghostbusters fans who I know will exist will be able to pour over and enjoy.

Things to Look Forward to the Remainder of 2023

With Star Trek: Picard and The Mandalorian finished for their seasons, and Ted Lasso coming to a close in a few weeks, I thought I’d jot down some of the remaining nerdy things coming around the bend in 2023 that I’m excited for. You know, a little carrot on a stick for me to keep on keeping on. Ha!

May 5 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

May 10 - Muppets Mayhem

May 12 - Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

May 23 - Gremlins Secrets of the Mogwai, Clone High

June 2 - Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse

June 15 - Strange New Worlds (Season 2)

June 16 - The Flash, Stan Lee Documentary on Disney+

June 21 - Secret Invasion

June 30 - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

July 14 - Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning

August 4 - TMNT: Mutant Mayhem

August 8 - Only Murders in the Building

August 23 - Ahsoka

October 6 - Loki Season 2

November 3 - Dune: Part Two

November 10 - The Marvels

November 29 - Echo

December 20 - Ghostbusters: Afterlife Sequel

Live From Your City: It’s The American Gladiators

Back in 2018, I wrote a ton of fun pieces for the COMET and CHARGE television networks. Sadly, in the transition of the stations being sold, I think some of the pieces were lost in the shuffle. One of those is the below article where I interviewed a contestant on the live traveling show of American Gladiators.

I figured, what the heck. Let’s give Vince his due.

Presented here is an article originally written April 4, 2018 for CHARGE. Enjoy!

At the height of its popularity, American Gladiators was a pop culture powerhouse worthy of its monumental namesake. At surface level, the show seemed exploitative and even kitschy. But the show quickly gained a massive following, and after two seasons spawned spin-offs in the forms of Mattel toys, Nintendo Entertainment System video games, clothing, bed sheets, trading cards, and much more. In October of 1991, the series was riding an all-time high. According to the Los Angeles Times, American Gladiators drew higher ratings in 1990 than the NFL in Phoenix, Arizona.

Perhaps the beauty of the show and why it appealed to such a wide audience was the seemingly achievable feat that anyone to go head-to-head with a Gladiator and win. A steel worker from Ohio, a grade school teacher from Chicago, a former college football player, yes, even a fifth-grade chump out of Franktown, Colorado such as myself: an Everyday Joe or Jane face the Gladiators and be annihilated into dust on the sport court or emerge victorious. A traveling roadshow of the American Gladiators was an absolute natural, fitting square in the sweet spot of the Venn Diagram of what appealed to audiences the most. A live touring show would present the athletic spectacle, the larger-than-life heroes, and the exhilaration of professional wrestling and put them in an arena where audiences by the thousands could scream their heads off amid it all. American Gladiators was, and still is, a phenomenon. And packing local arenas for a series of un-televised live events across the country was a no-brainer. At the height of the show’s run from 1989 to 1996, the Atlaspheres were packed up into a touring van and the show hit the road.

In 1991, during production of the show’s second season, American Gladiators co-creator Johnny Ferraro teamed with concert promoter David Fishof to conceptualize a live iteration of the popular televised series. Their goal: to book arenas and coliseums across the country and give every market’s local athletes a shot at defeating the colossal Gladiators. According to Dan “Nitro” Clark’s memoir, Gladiator: A True Story of ‘Roids, Rage, and Redemption, “Johnny [Ferraro] knows a thing or two about touring. Before creating Gladiators, he was a successful Elvis impersonator who played some of the world's largest venues. Fishof is coming off a successful Monkees reunion tour, and also Ringo Starr’s tour.” The two put their heads together and teamed with Feld Entertainment (the mastermind production company responsible for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus) and put together a 150-city tour across America, sponsored by 7-Eleven.

Once the dates and venues were booked, next came the audition process to find potential civilians who had the physical prowess to take on a Gladiator. Newspaper ads, posters at 7-Eleven, and local TV spots sent out the wide net casting call nationwide. And the people responded by the hundreds, even thousands, in every city. According to the Hartford Courant, as many as 2,000 turned out in some cities to put their athleticism to the test.

Denver, Colorado, the home-town of the aforementioned fifth-grade chump from a small rural town was to receive the American Gladiators tour in February of 1992 at the Denver Coliseum. Though my ambitions to knock Nitro off the Joust podium may have been a bit fanciful for a kid of ten, several hundred of those Coloradoans who did believe themselves worth of the competition put their physical prowess to the test. According to The Denver Post, the very first physical fitness test administered to would-be challengers was to do fifty pushups on their fingertips in under sixty seconds. That single and first test eliminated nearly 95% of the hopefuls.

Though the rigors of the audition process seemed insurmountable, there were a very select few who qualified and represented their local city in the live tour.

Results of the Denver auditions similarly echoed across the country. Vince Pecchia was one of the competitors who represented Youngstown, Ohio when the event was scheduled to hit the historic Cleveland Coliseum. Having seen an ad in the local newspaper, Pecchia’s girlfriend signed him up to audition, without her significant other being aware she had done so. At the time, Pecchia was juggling working at a steel mill with taking night courses. Fortunately, when his girlfriend (now wife) informed him that he’d be auditioning to battle the American Gladiators, he found the idea amusing and welcomed his girlfriend’s challenge. A month prior to the big show, Pecchia auditioned for the live event at a local auditorium, taking on bodybuilders, lightweight speedsters, boxers, and other local athletes hoping to make the cut. After successfully completing the fifty-fingertip push-up challenge that eliminated most hopefuls, running a forty-yard dash in under 4.8 seconds, a grueling amount of twenty-plus behind the neck pull-ups, and beating out other competitors in one-on-one Powerball and Joust competitions, Pecchia emerged as one of six locals (and two alternates) finally chosen for the Ohio live event.

Qualifying for the big show was a notable achievement, instantaneously propelling Pecchia to the status of hometown hero. Even before the actual event took place. In fact, a speaking point of order at the House of Representatives was for a congressman from Ohio to wish Pecchia luck for the upcoming event.

Having found this remarkable point of order, I decided to seek out Pecchia. Fortunately, I was able to catch up over the phone with him twenty-five years after his live American Gladiators experience. Reminiscing about the experience while seaside at the beach brought an energy and an enthusiasm to Pecchia’s voice that was infectious. And understandably so. Competing against the Gladiators essentially turned him into a rock star. “They brought the six of us to the Cleveland Coliseum for an NBA game and introduced us at halftime,” Pechhia says. “And they made a pretty big deal out of it in our local paper.” Before the main event, there were no rehearsals, no pleasant meetings between the competitors and the formidable Gladiators. Pecchia didn’t come face-to-face with Nitro, Gemini, Laser, and the entirety bevy of the iconic original Gladiators until the Saturday of competition. And that was okay. “They were out to kill you,” Pecchia jokes. “They were the real deal.”

On the day of the main event, the Cleveland Coliseum was packed. Pecchia remembers the massive audience turn out as surprising. And though the Gladiators were all recognizable by name and beloved by fans around the world, it helped to have a few people cheering in the challengers’ corner. “I had everybody there,” Pecchia says, referring to the friends and family that were in the stands. Pecchia and his fellow competitors were put through the wringer, competing in the Joust, Wall, Powerball, and one that was particularly aggravating to Pecchia: the Atlasphere. “Whenever you won an event, you would get ten points,” Pecchia says. “And they took the top two of whoever accumulated the most points to go to the Eliminator at the end.”

Sure enough, out of the six competitors (seven, technically as one of the civilian competitors suffered a concussion during the live event and had to be replaced by an alternate), it came down to Pecchia and one other challenger in the renowned obstacle course, the Eliminator. “And he actually had more points than me, so I had a five second penalty to start,” Pecchia says.

But the five second delay proved easy to overcome as Pecchia raced through the Eliminator and ultimately was the victor of Cleveland’s American Gladiators live show. “Oh yeah, I crushed him,” Pecchia says with a wry laugh. Among the prizes awarded for being the grand champion of the day was a medal awarded at a ceremony following the event, an at-home American Gladiators themed gym, a watch, and a few other parting prizes. But most important to Pecchia was the bragging right that he had faced the American Gladiators and won. Friends and co-workers still love to bring up Pecchia’s day in the spotlight all the time. “I laugh about it a lot too. It was a goofy event but nobody else could do it. They made a big deal about it here,” Pecchia says. “Youngstown is a pretty small town and it made the paper for a month. There was a lot of press from the moment I tried out until the event. When I won, they asked me to go around and talk to the kids in schools. It was a very nice thing.”

Enter the Time Vortex

My parents insist that after the birth of a child, time speeds up. And, in part, I think they’re right. It seems like it’s been the blink of an eye since the meeting my daughter in the fall of 2017 to her walking, talking, and spinning around like Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman in the living room.

On the other hand, I also have non-scientific belief that we are caught in a time vortex. One where the laws of time and space have completely been defied. Time, as we perceive it, has been forever altered because of the current landscape of popular culture and how we’re consuming media as a whole.

In short, binge-watching culture has put us into timey-wimey-wibbly-wabbly territory that would make even The Doctor’s head spin.

Here’s why:

In August of 2014, on this very blog, I laid out all of the pop culture goodness that was to come from 2015 through the year 2020. Much of that has been shuffled around, cancelled, finally defined or did indeed happen. In fact, I had no idea at the writing of that particular article that a new Ghostbusters film was right around the corner in 2016. Let alone that a second Ghostbusters film would be entering pre-production as I write this now. Both of which would have been shocking revelations to that schedule.

But what I didn’t anticipate was what an abundance of riches would do to my consumption of popular culture. Not only that, but how I would perceive the passage of time. Let me take a few steps back. Sitting here in March of 2019, it’s difficult to believe that Marvel Studios released Black Panther just over a little than a year ago. It’s even more difficult to recollect that Thanos snapped half of the MCU out of existence a little less than a year ago in Avengers: Infinity War. Further still, Ant-Man and the Wasp feels like it was released ages ago. When in reality, it’s only been about seven months ago. Three movies in the same serialized storyline released in the same year was absolutely unheard of. I remember as a kid sitting and calculating the time between Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989 and Batman Returns in 1992 and hypothesizing that it would be at least another three to four years before we’d find out what happened to Batman in a third film. And it turned out, I was right. As, for better or worse, Batman Forever was released in 1995.

That was seemingly the norm for what felt like my entire childhood and adolescence. Movie comes out. Wait a few years, follow-up movie may or may not be behind it.

That’s completely changed.

Captain Marvel hits theaters this Friday. Avengers: Endgame is a little over a month away from being released. Though it’s felt like forever since the cliffhanger last year, the wait has relatively been small. Hell, I feel like the wait for the next chapter in the Skywalker Saga, Episode IX has been excruciatingly long. But, as I mentioned at the top of this article, Star Wars: The Last Jedi was released just a month after my daughter was born. Remember how I said that felt like the blink of an eye?

We’re living in a renaissance age that would have blown ten-year-old Troy’s mind. Marvel, Star Wars, Ghostbusters movies hitting one right after the other. The time in between films and television shows (not to mention streaming media where you get ten episodes plus at a time) has been reduced to nearly microscopic levels. In the scheme of things, waiting five years from 1984’s release of the original Ghostbusters to 1989’s release of Ghostbusters II didn’t feel like that much time at all. But having to wait a whole year from the announcement of Jason Reitman’s new film since having just seen a Ghostbusters film in 2016 feels like an eternity. We want everything. And we want it now.

If we’re not in some sort of time warp, it means we’ve all transformed into Violet Beauregarde. And I’m not sure I’m cool with that.