Shark Bytes

Lorenzo Music does not sound at all like Bill Murray, he sounds exactly like the Garfield voice. The plots stunk, it was a shiftily-animated rip-off of the movie; all they ever did is whip out their proton-packs and that was it. The animation looked exactly like every other annoying series by DiC.

This one's easy. If Peter Venkman doesn't sound like Garfield, it's a "post-Jumped" episode.
Every episode after they fired Lorenzo Music and replaced him with "You Oughta Know" Dave Coulier was sheer torture.

that explanation of the "Gorilla" cartoon was amazing. i had no idea.

It seemed to decline in quality when Straczynsky walked out due to the network changes. Although Janine, You've Changedis a good episode, I would point to that moment where it could no longer be salvaged. Why was there a need for an episode to correct network errors?

Well for me it was when they split half of the show into Slimer's Adventures against that stupid scientist and his dog. I felt like I was watching some Looney Tunes cartoon not ghostbusters. Coulier was okay, it was just way different voice than Lorenzo Music. Plus the Jeanie Changes where weird too.

Like many, this was my favorite cartoon as a child.

I remember the show being smart and interesting. Scientific terms (even if fake), references to the occult ( Samhain, Cthulhu among others) -- the show made this 10-12 year old run to the dictionary or encyclopedia. The show made me feel special for having watched it.

Therefore, I would say the show jumped when the focus became Slimer and those junior Ghostbusters. Either I had grown beyond the show, or the show devolved into something simple and insipid. I think it was the latter, for when I had viewed syndicated episodes 10 years later I was still captivated.

I do understand the feelings concerning Coulier replacing Music. I can distinctly remember watching the closing credits and saying, "Who is this 'Collier' guy? Where is Lorenzo Music?" Coulier's delivery, while attempting to be laid back, came across to me as being somehow artificial. Music seemed natural. He is who I think of when I think of Peter Venkman (sometimes even more so than Dan Akroyd.)

While I do not think that Coulier's replacing Music was the Jump the Shark Moment, I do see how it was the most identifiable change in the show. Still, I think the show was watchable. It was only when the show directed it's focus on a younger audience that it became unwatchable -- almost a betrayal.

Here’s the scoop on the "Gorilla" one:

From 1975-1976, there was indeed a live-action Filmation series called “The Ghost Busters”. This one featured Forrest Tucker as Kong and Larry Storch as Eddie Spencer, as well as a Gorilla (named Tracey). It ran for only 15 episodes. This short-lived kiddie series had nothing to do with the 1984 movie starring Bill Murray and company. With the movie’s success, the fallout was not far behind: When Columbia produced the movie with the title “Ghostbusters”, it seemsed that the studio either ignored or did not know about this TV series. Filmation sued in 1985, and an out-of-court settlement was reached. (In case you were wondering, although “The Ghost Busters” and “Ghostbusters” are titles that differ in wording, in the eyes of US copyright law they are too similar to each other… hence, Columbia cannot use the title without Filmation’s go-ahead).

Not surprisingly, Columbia wanted to produce an animated television show based on their movie. This did not go unnoticed by Filmation. As part of the aforementioned settlement, Columbia had to re-entitle their show “The Real Ghosbusters” (or something to that effect) so as to make their title appear legally different from Filmation’s old TV show. Outside the litigation-zone, Filmation wanted to design and animate Columbia’s show, but the latter decided to go with DiC.

But what cannot be disputed was the success of Columbia’s movie. Filmation decided to take-advantage of this by producing their own animated series, this one based on their own 1970’s show. It was released in 1986 and ran on CBS. It was a ratings hit, despite the fact that the movie-dazzled audience might have been expecting something else. But then, Columbia’s Real Ghostbusters soon came-out out in the same year and it cut-into the Filmation show’s ratings. Altogether, Filmation’s Ghost Busters had 65 episodes, concluding in 1988. Columbia’s show ended its run in 1991.

I hope this answers some questions.

Gotta love show-biz.
---Guest

The problem with the show changes were the gradual straying away from the original charachters, the sudden jump in occult book references that were not clearly explained, and the dissapearance of scientific balance that Danny Akroyd had in the movie.

At least they finally addressed the extreme changes to Janine.

This show was a classic on the 80s Saturday Morning cartoon lineup for ABC (channel 24 WJET). Slimer and the Ghostbusters were portrayed by some classic cartoon voice actors. But there was this episode that didn't feel like a Ghostbusters episode. It was a bunch of ghostly cowboys singing the most tacky parody of "Hit the Road, Jack." It went like this: Get out of town, clown. And don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more. Then it repeats itself and I forgot the rest of the lyrics.

Never liked Slimer, so when they put him front and center as "Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters" was when it jumped the Shark for me. I guess they thought we kids would bond with the little spud or something. Ekkk! Coming close to the ramp but not quite jumping was changing Peter's voice... watching it in reruns now as an adult I can fully appreciate Lorenzo Music's delivery.

I remember sitting there in my Real Ghostbuster PJs, holding my Peter Venkman action figure, watching my favorite cartoon and thinking to myself, "Wait. Egon is a were-chicken!?" What the hell is this? The boys in grey (or technicolor jumpsuits in the cartoon) then had to chase down the "poultry-giest" to somehow make some sort of "chicken's bane" remedy to bring Egon back to his old self. I watched a few more episodes after that - but for me, seeing Egon with the lower half of a foul tainted the innocence of the show. Sigh

Once it became "Slimer! And the Real Ghostbusters" it jumped the shark. Lorenzo Music leaving was a bad omen, though. He was a MUCH better Peter.

This show never jumped the shark. I watched it all the time when I was little, and I remember being fascinated by the characters. Even though I was little when I watched this show I remember it was intelligent. I remember being surprised that a cartoon was so intelligent, because even though I was little, I had known for a long time that most cartoons are just mindless entertainment. I also remember some really gross episodes of this show that were really disgusting, but I guess that's what you get when you deal with ghosts! Some of the episodes really creeped me out when I was little. I do remember that the character of Peter changed. He stopped being smart and funny to just plain stupid and dim-witted. I loved Slimer. Before he became stupid, Peter had a lot of battles of the wits with Slimer, and I enjoyed that. After his character became stupid, though, he just seemed to take up space while Slimer got all the attention.

The Real Ghostbusters jumped shark when they replaced Peter's voice and made him friends with Slimer. I particularly enjoyed the Peter vs. Slimer moments but after Dave Coulier replaced Lorenzo Music he just droned, was not funny at all and lost his edge.

When the Real Ghostbusters was in its prime from approx. 1986-88, it was an all-time cartoon classic. Then they decided to shift the focus of the show to Slimer. Voice actor changes with Peter and Janine didn't help either. By the time they finally pulled the plug on this show, it was almost completely unwatchable.