The Real Ghostbusters - Sea Fright

Yaaaar! It be Pirate Week! Due to time constraints ye be getting an episode review this time around. This episode of the Real Ghostbusters is one that I remember well from my childhood having taped it off of the tv onto a vhs one day. Due to this, it is one of the few episodes from this series I remember quite well and thus enjoy a fair bit due to the larger exposure to it. Also, it has pirates so how could you not enjoy this? After their treasure is found and placed in a maritime museum, Captain Jack Higgins and his skeletal pirate crew invade New York City on their pirate ship and promptly begin to plunder it before striking out to find their stolen doubloons. The Ghostbusters however are on the job and after a few encounters with the wily pirates, including an attempted ambush, finally manage to trap them. This episode was actually a bit fun because the pirates themselves seemed to provide a challenge to the heroes, managing to get the better of them a couple times before they were finally subdued. Watching the pirates interact with each other, and with the modern day city was rather fun including a part where two of the skeletal ghosts mistake mannequins for real women who they assume are not afraid of them. All in all this is an enjoyable episode to a great series.

X-Mas Marks the Spot

Ghostbusters and Christmas, despite sounding like an odd combination actually works out rather well especially when it works in the elements of "A Christmas Carol"

The Ghostbusters, while driving out and about are sucked through a time hole and wind up back in the days of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Busting in at the shouts of ghosts, our heroes accidentally capture the three ghosts, not quite realizing what they are doing or the way it will affect things. Upon arriving back in present day they find that Christmas is no more thanks to Scrooge who never learnt his lesson.

While Egon dives into the machine that houses the ghosts to try and rescue the Christmas Ghosts, Peter, Raye and Winston go back in time to try do what they can to teach Scrooge his lesson. This of course largely means Peter dressing in a disguise as he attempts to do the Ghost of Christmas Pasts job and actually learns a lesson from it all himself. One highlight of this episode is actually getting to see inside the realm where all the stored ghosts are kept, including getting cameos from various ghosts already caught most notably Samhain. Definitely worth looking into for any casual Ghostbusters or Holiday fan.

When Halloween Was Forever

The Real Ghostbusters is a favorite of mine, and even though they deal with the spooky and supernatural every episode it's still rather fun to get to see a Halloween themed episode from them.

It seems that with Halloween happening, all the ghosts are even more active than normal. Two little goblins (I think they are goblins) however break into a museum and unleash the evil known as Samhain. This results in the essence of Halloween wanting to create eternal night, as he takes over a clock tower and threatens to make time stop so that Halloween lasts forever.

Thankfully, Egon as usual has a rather genius plan to weaken Samhain, the apparent master of the night, with several bright lights just long enough to zap him with their guns and capture him. Once the pesky ghost is caught, all is well as time returns to normal and Halloween ends.

There are several things I enjoy about this short, part of it is the general atmosphere. I also really enjoy the use of Samhain and his visual appearance even if it may come across as a tad plain. But then, more elaborate designs can distract and don't really make the character fully enjoyable if they are boring. Another thing I enjoyed was getting to see the numerous minion ghosts circling and covering the clock tower. Then again I am a fan of the villains and such.

In the end, When Halloween Was Forever is a great watch both as a Halloween themed episode and as a Ghostbusters episode.