40 Years of Ghostbusters: The Timeless Classic to Frozen Empire

Des’s Review of OH!CON (The Intro)

Host Cal welcomes back Des. Des is the awesome host of this year’s OH!CON. Des praises the Outer Hebrides Comic Con. He calls it a passion project done by fans. In fact, he compares it to a “beautifully cooked steak meal”—or, for the vegan director Kathleen, “a beautifully cooked bit of tofu”. Cal and Des then quickly transition from comparing cons to a brief tangent on the 2012 horse meat scandal. Afterward, they dive into the main topic. Check out Des’ retrospective of the Back to the Future trilogy

 

40 Years of Ghostbusters: Reviewing the Original Classic

Cal and Des are here tonight to discuss a franchise that has hit its 40th anniversary: the 1984 classic Ghostbusters. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, its icons are ingrained in the popular zeitgeist. This ranges from the No Ghost Logo to the Ecto-1. Furthermore, the host and co-host praise the cast. This includes comic geniuses Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, and Dan Aykroyd. They also discuss Sigourney Weaver in her first big comedic role.

The discussion shifts to the film’s creation. Specifically, they focus on Dan Aykroyd’s “mental” original outline. Aykroyd wrote this 40-page outline. It featured an already-established global Ghostbusters team. This team traveled through time and space. They emphasize Ramis’s role in grounding the script. Cal and Des give the original film a strong verdict. In short, they conclude, “We came, we saw, we kicked its ass.”

 

The Real Ghostbusters and the Filmation Lawsuit

The hosts next tackle The Real Ghostbusters cartoon. Des explains the title’s origin. The movie studio Columbia Pictures did not have the television rights to the name. Instead, a company called Filmation held the rights. Filmation released its own version. Therefore, Columbia’s cartoon became “The Real Ghostbusters” as a petty dig. Des notes the cartoon’s quality dropped significantly after Season 2. That happened when writer J. Michael Straczynski left. This led to an over-focus on Slimer as a marketable mascot. Consequently, they call the cartoon series a “split decision.” They conclude that the later seasons are definitely a “who you’re to call somebody else.”

Ghostbusters Sequels: II, Answer the Call, and the New Era

The episode concludes by covering the rest of the Ghostbusters franchise:

• Ghostbusters II: Des dislikes the film, giving it a “total protonic reversal,” while Cal respectfully disagrees. However, they agree that the immense hype it had to follow unfairly panned it at the time.
• Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016): Des finds the improvising in this movie to be over-the-top. Nonetheless, he acknowledges it does not deserve the anger it received. Furthermore, it has a positive message for its target audience of mothers and daughters.
• Afterlife and Frozen Empire: The hosts believe these films have rejuvenated the franchise. They achieved this by bringing back the original 1984 characters and serving as a tribute to Harold Ramis (Egon Spengler). The hosts agree that the 40 Years of Ghostbusters franchise is in a good place. Yet, they caution the studio against oversaturation.

 

Full Transcript Outline (Quick Jumps)

Cal (00:01.166)
Hello everyone and welcome back to OH!CAST the official podcast of OH!CON I’m your host Callum as always Tonight we’re going to go through another franchise a lot of franchises have had 40 years we had the Oh, I’ve forgotten it already, but we had it was the Terminator franchise and we had 40 years of Elite as well and something else Worthwhile, let’s hit 40 is my co-host tonight

Dez, how you doing?

I’m good, thank you. Well remembered with those movies, because I was about to interject, but you didn’t do my intro, so I thought that would just be rude more than anything else.

I know. Sorry. We’re all talking all over each other already.

I’m just.

Des O’ Gorman (00:47.918)
That’s what happens in a podcast. We just tend to over each other.

But just to remind everyone, if you don’t know who Des was, he was our awesome host this year at OH!CON. And we’ll pick up Des, how was OH!CON for you?

I loved it. I absolutely loved OH!CON. I find that I’ve done many a convention now. Funny enough, I look back at this. I’ve been doing stage hosting now for about nine years. And you get to certain conventions where you can tell that there’s a lot of passion and love behind it. There’s OH!CON. There’s one that I’ve been attached to called Capital Sci-Fi Con.

where you can tell that it’s done by fans and then you sometimes go to a convention, I’m not going to name names, but they kind of feel like it is just a money-making scheme for them and a lot of the passion is very sort of, it’s kind of plastered on like wallpaper if that makes sense. To give like a roundabout sort of way, Ocom was like a

beautifully cooked steak meal where at certain events is like eating McDonald’s dry food. It’s food but you can definitely tell that one has a lot of passion and one is just rushed out the door quickly to make a couple of quid.

Cal (02:11.298)
I’ll pass that feedback on to our head Kathleen. I don’t know how she’ll take to that comparison because she’s vegan.

out there.

Des O’ Gorman (02:20.418)
Well, they were this way. If that ever shows up on a poster or like for a promotion for the event, high praise for OH!CON. It’s like a well-cooked steak, Dez O’Gorman.

I just say like her director’s gonna love that and she’s a vegan as well so that’ll even make it even better.

Okay, I’ll change it up a wee bit then. It was like a beautifully cooked bit of tofu compared to the vacuum sealed Tesco own brand tofu that is available on the market. Does that work better?

Or maybe it’s like a lovely Linda McCartney meal compared to a Tesco vegan meal.

No, I think that one works because I’ll tell you one thing, if you’re having a Linda McCartney meal, there’s definitely no way you’re going to get horse meat in it. I don’t know, that one came up the other day and I just kind of… Oh yeah, we were all eating horse meat and none of us cared.

Cal (03:18.478)
Well, someone did care because I remember during the whole horse meat scan, was there not like a huge upsurge in people getting those panto donkey costumes and walking around their test coats for a laugh?

remember that there, that’s right.

That was happening everywhere. just said, that’s what you love in this country. That’s how we take to the scandals.

Well, that’s one way to introduce any sort of show or convention. Isn’t it talking about a scandal that hasn’t been relevant since 2012?

Yeah, anyway, shall we be are back on topic anyway, so we’re here tonight to talk about something very dear to your heart as well and I think It’s a stage like it was a franchise that kind of went dormant for so so long and it’s only In my opinion, it’s only really become sort of a proper franchise in the past few years the installments have started coming out quickly and that is the 1984 classic Ghostbusters and

Cal (04:16.811)
I don’t know what else can you say about the original. That’s cool.

It’s one of those type of films, and I’ve said this quite often, that Ghostbusters is one of those type of films that has become so ingrained in the popular zeitgeist that even if you haven’t seen the movie, you instantly recognize it from the iconic things of the No Ghosts logo, the Ray Parker Jr. theme song, Ecto-1 or the Proton Packs.

Yeah.

everybody in some way shape or form knows about this franchise and I think you’re right that for the past couple of years it has kind of grown but the fan franchises have kept this franchise going for 40 years. mean there’s been fans from when the first even before the first film came out there has been

huge fans of this franchise that have kept this going for, as you say, for 40 years. And it is so bizarre to think that this film, if you look past the fact that there’s no mobile phones or they don’t reference anything, it is a timeless movie. Yeah, it is set in 1984, but the costuming, the lighting, the story is so

Cal (05:21.698)
Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (05:47.288)
perfectly encapsulated that it does kind of make it timeless.

Yeah, and it’s also the fact you’ve got essentially in the cast you’ve got like three comic geniuses of the era. You captured them at the peak of their their prowess really. Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.

That is very, very true. And we can’t forget the Rick Moranis as Lewis Tully. Sigourney Weaver, who was only known as a serious actress at the time, wanted to try something a little bit different. So this was like her first big comedic role as well. The direction of Ivan Reitman, very, very important in there. But you did mention Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis and

I don’t think people tend to realise how important those two were within the movie.

because they effectively counterbalance each other with their approach to writing. Cause if you look up the kind of pre-production of all this and you’ll find Dan Aykroyd’s original idea for this film, mental. was multiple dimensions, multiple ghostbusting teams. And they say that Dan Aykroyd, he’s a fountain of ideas, but then you need that person who’s a bit more grounded just to reel it in.

Des O’ Gorman (07:01.154)
my god.

Cal (07:16.198)
And kind of focus it down and I think that’s what Harold Ramis was he took it and just said these are the core elements which are which are what’s going with us

Yeah, most people, Dan Ackroyd did come up. I’ll give you just a quick synopsis of this. You already know this, Calum, but for anybody listening, the original premise of Ghostbusters was a 40-page outline. And you have to remember that outlines of that time were at most five to seven pages. So the fact that Dan Ackroyd came up with a 40-page outline was very much out there.

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (07:53.772)
You’re 100 percent right. was set. The Ghostbusters was already established. They had franchises not only around America, but all around the world. And they did travel through time and space to different dimensions to battle ghosts. was a vehicle for Dan Aykroyd and for his then partner, John Belushi. To give you an idea on just how vast this was, the Stapuff Marshmallow Man, which ended the first movie,

appeared on page four. He appeared on page four of a 40 page outline. That has to give you an idea of if Mr. Stapuff was the big thing at the end of the first movie, what other ideas did Danny after that have?

Cause just to go off tangent, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like when Dan Aykroyd doesn’t have someone reining him in, full trouble is, isn’t it?

I know.

Des O’ Gorman (08:53.972)
Nothing but trouble, yeah. Nothing but trouble, was originally called Vulcanvania. If you want to see Dan Aykroyd being his most Dan Aykroyd-o-edist, I don’t know where I was going with that one, it is an insane movie.

Yeah, there’s things in that which like we were talking before we’re going to try and keep this clean but you just have to watch it to think how some of that got past the film make the sensors at the time.

It mostly got biased because around about that time, Dan Aykroyd obviously had done Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters too. So his name was still bankable. And they just felt like if you just give Dan Aykroyd control, surely he could create some of that magic. And we can’t say anything. We can tell you the entire thing of nothing but trouble. You would not believe us until you see that movie.

Yep.

It is one of those type of movies where even after you’ve watched it, you’re like, that, I don’t believe anything that I just saw.

Cal (10:02.4)
Yep. I mean it’s creative as hell and visually impressive but it’s bizarre.

It is incredibly, incredibly bizarre. But you have Dan Aykroyd in there as two different characters. He wrote and directed this. You have Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, John Candy’s in there as well. In fact, this was the fun fact for you here. I know this is all about Ghostbusters, but I found out is that Nothing But Trouble is the first on screen appearance. I don’t know if you know this, Callum.

is the first on-screen appearance of 2-pack.

Des O’ Gorman (10:45.922)
There is a section in the movie where it just breaks it into a music video. And one of the guys in the music video in the band is Tupac before he was known as Tupac. It is just crazy.

So yeah, it is. And I’m not trying to cut you, but like, we’ve got to keep staring back at you. But the thing with the first Ghostbusters is as well, it’s one of these unique films. When you’re a kid, you’re taken in by the ghosts and the proton packs and that. And you think that’s what the code, but then when you’re an adult, you start to realize this is a comedy about starting a business. And it’s very cool.

Yeah, it kind of walked that thin line, which not even a sequel could do of being able to tell a going into business story, but the business just happens to be the removal of ghost homes and businesses. Sorry, go ahead, Cal.

Yeah.

Cal (11:51.47)
So basically they’re just an extermination business.

Yeah, the whole premise, I think, from what I remember, I can’t remember if it was Harold Ramis or Ivor Reitman that said this, is that they saw this movie as like their blue collar workers. So in this universe, if you will, there would be four emergency services within New York, which would be the police, the fire brigade, ambulances and ghost busting. So that’s how they kind of

saw it and I think for the most part it really does work that way especially like two-thirds into the movie where the the police pick up Lewis Tully they don’t know what to do with him so they just took them to the Ghostbusters because they had no idea what else to do.

Yeah, and there’s also this, in the commentary I heard one of them say this, that the actual city of New York is, they consider that a major character in the film itself.

It definitely because it kind of works within what they were going for in this movie. I actually recently found this out is they wanted New York to be a big, important character in this movie. So whenever they were shooting, they wanted to make sure that geographically it lines up with where they were shooting. To give you an example.

Des O’ Gorman (13:21.006)
At the end of the movie, when they’re at the Gozer temple at 55 Central Park West, which is an actual building, when Mr. Stapehoft appears and he appears down the street from them, that is actually down the street from 55 Central Park West. They didn’t just to a different part of New York. They wanted to make sure that if you go to New York, if you’re at 55 Central Park West staring at the building and then look to your left,

you will see the actual street where Mr. Stapuff appears.

Yeah, yeah, it’s incredible. And here’s the big quit. Is there any flaws to this film?

And I’m and I’m talking from a fan point here. Yeah, there is. There is. it is not a perfect and the story wise, it is perfect. I just think some of the certain elements kind of have not aged as well as most people. And I’m just going to be completely open and honest here. Bill Murray’s character, if you back then

You would just think of him as like this lovable goofball, slovenly. You look at it now, he is super creepy. He’s very unsettlingly. Don’t get me wrong, still funny. know, he still delivers some amazing things, but his introduction is that he’s, I think, if I remember this right, he was like 30. He was in his mid to late thirties at the time he was playing Peter Venkman.

Cal (14:38.242)
Yeah.

Cal (14:43.232)
Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (15:01.676)
That introduction of the science experiment and he’s coming on to Jennifer who at the time of shooting or the shooting strip was 17. And also the whole thing of when he goes to see Dana, he shoots her up with 300 CCs of Thorazine. Which I think it’s kind of become like this inside joke amongst fans that he carries the Thorazine with him. But I think it’s established that Dana

WAP

Des O’ Gorman (15:31.498)
was on that since the whole thing with Zul appearing in her fridge. So it kind of walks that thin line and I personally I don’t think it’s aged that well.

Yeah, but overall, mean, a comedy classic, essentially, a cultural icon as well.

Definitely, definitely everything boiled down to it, right? The marketing with just the no ghost logo brought attention, the use of both visual and practical effects. personally, I still think holds up to this very, very day.

And I’ve got to just say there, and also in recent re-releases of the films, they have resisted digitally altering the film. They’ve left it as it is.

Yeah, because it is it’s one of those things. I say this about nearly every movie is that any movie that you released is a snapshot of the effects, the storytelling, the political climate of that particular time. And I think Ghostbusters, they didn’t or they shouldn’t go the George Lucas route of I’m going to release this, but let me tinker with this a little bit. I think the effects and everything they still hold up to this day. And we still

Des O’ Gorman (16:56.83)
Myself and my fellow Ghostbusters or Ghostheads, if you want to use the proper vernacular. That is the actual term, Callum. I don’t want you sniggering at that. That’s the actual term. Yes, we’re Ghostheads. We still have young fans coming up, four, five, six years old, whose parents have shown them this movie. And they love it. They don’t care about the story. They’re just caught up with the effects, with the storytelling, with the car, with…

No, no,

Des O’ Gorman (17:26.19)
the gratuitous use of slime because, you know, kids love slime. It is one of those movies where it kind of encapsulates everything about the 80s, but yet not in a negative way.

Yeah, you could almost feel like the merchandisers when they saw this film, they were rubbing their hands. They could see.

Yeah, you would think that, but yet there was not a single… mean, the mercenaries were there. They had the pin badges, they had the t-shirts and everything, but they didn’t have the action figures, they didn’t have the toy proton packs until the cartoon series came out. So they were there. If they knew how big this movie was gonna be, they would have made money hand over fist.

And I know you kind of mentioned this in your stand-up show, but I do remember, I’m old enough now to remember a tiny bit of the marketing. I was five or six when this film came out. And I remember my mum getting the shredded wheat, the coast was the shredded wheat.

They came, yeah, and it came with those things. I can’t remember what they were, but they were these big plastic things that you melted in the oven and they kind of made into e-medallions.

Des O’ Gorman (18:47.142)
I think you might be thinking of something different. But hang on.

Am I?

Des O’ Gorman (19:00.12)
There you kind of disappeared on me. So the melting of the things in the oven, I think that was something slightly different. I think if I remember right, the special shredded wheat came with iron on transfers for like your t-shirts or something.

was I remember I just remember we got something my mum got it for me and it was definitely something you had to put in the oven for a while and then I can’t remember what exactly it was and I’ve got a memory of this thing with a slimer on it warping away in the oven and I was watching it what was it and I can’t remember exactly what all that was about

The only thing I can kind of remember was there was a thing back in the day of kids. God, I don’t know if they still do this of of kids putting in empty bags of crisps and putting that in the oven because it would warp and shrink them and they would turn those into key rings.

I it might have been said, but it was like an official thing that came with the shredded wheat. Anyway, we’re all, we’ve gone, we’re now talking about one of the world’s worst.

I Give me, give me one way. my. Okay. You can’t see this everybody. But while Callum was talking, I did a quick Google search and it turns out that you are, you’re right, but you’re not right. Callum. It didn’t come with the shredded wheat, but there is something here. It was called, my God, this is adorable. Shrinky Dinks. It was called Shrinky Dinks where you would get like, it was based on the real Ghostbusters where it would be.

Des O’ Gorman (20:47.63)
and something that you would put in the oven. So you would colour it, cut it and you would bake it into the oven. It’s amazing plastic shrinks from one third original size and becomes nine times thicker. And apparently it came with one of the real Ghostbusters or Slimer. So you were were kind of close with it.

Yeah, I must have just got them the timelines mixed up a wee bit there

little bit but you know that that happens to to gentlemen of particular age and I’m including myself on that one.

Yeah, anyway, think we’ve not really gone over the port of Ghostbusters because I don’t think there’s much point.

I don’t think you to. I don’t think you need to.

Cal (21:34.228)
Everyone knows it. You know this film. think it’s like, even if you’ve not watched it, you’re probably well aware what the story is to this. But anyway, as we said, we’ve come up with a fantastic rating system. So Des, I will let you give the official verdict on the first Ghostbusters.

Okay, so just so everybody knows the verdict is we’re going with a thumbs up or a thumbs down type of thing, Calum, but we phrased it differently for Ghostbusters, isn’t that right?

Yeah. So for something that’s good, we would rank it, we came, we saw, we kicked its ass. And for something that’s bad, we will say that it has total protonic reversal. I definitely think this movie came, saw and kicked major ass.

Yeah, you’re not going to get much disagreement from me. don’t or anyone listening to this I think is going to disagree with that. It might get a bit we might get some disagreements later on the further we go down this franchise. Yeah, I think we can guarantee you we might do so with that that film came out massive hit and then we’re not going to go straight to the output one that I think bizarrely I think most folk outrage holding

of them with more nostalgia is the real Ghostbusters that is held in high esteem I think by people of our age range I think remember it coming out.

Des O’ Gorman (22:57.325)
Real ghost.

Des O’ Gorman (23:04.776)
Yeah, I agree with you. I will have to give this a slight bit of a caveat, though, which is I’m like yourself. I hold real Ghostbusters in high regard until the end of the second series.

Now is that when J. Michael Straczynski left? Yep.

Exactly. Yeah. They kind of went down this route of like J. Michael Krasinski wanted to encapsulate everything from the film. So it had the car in there, New York, the firehouse actor, one, all that stuff. But he wanted to create really well told stories because that’s essentially what Ghostbusters was. It was a comedic, scary movie. And I think the census of the time didn’t.

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (23:52.078)
really enjoy that. So after the second season, you’re 100 % right, J. Michael Krasinski was taken off and it kind of went down this more family friendly kiddies style of things. There’s still some good episodes in it, but I think overall they focused way too much on on Slimer as like this marketable character. Wow. Okay, Cal, that that sigh alone told one in one sound.

Yep.

Cal (24:20.494)
I was always just why was Slimer pushed so hard as being the mascot suddenly? never quite… was it just they thought that’s something we can sell? I don’t know it was…

No, no, it’s, it’s a hundred percent that it was just to sell more merchandise. Essentially, the Slammer was the R2D2 of the Ghostbusters world. was this cute little thing that you could slap on a lunchbox and people would or kids would buy. And yeah, I mean, back in the day, I probably enjoyed, you know, watching Slammer get up to his wacky adventures, but you go back and watch it now, you just think, my, he just, he, that character just.

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (25:03.768)
drives me off. Yeah. no.

the and then and and unfortunately this all bled some of this bled into the second film as well there was there was a lot and also i suppose we’ve got to address the whole because it’s always asked why is it called the real ghostbusters and you’ll know that and that was due to when it was there a lawsuit or were they just kind of avoid a lawsuit i can’t remember

Yeah, it did.

Des O’ Gorman (25:30.107)
I know this story. This was actually in one of my earlier drafts of my one show. So can I just go off on a little five minute tangent here?

Oh, kush. It’s the place for tangents.

Thank you, lovely. That’s what I’m here for. When they were filming Ghostbusters, they didn’t have the rights to the name. So there is deleted scenes that are now out on YouTube where they were recording scenes and they said Ghostbusters. Now they did alternate takes where they were Ghostblasters, Ghostsmashers, other such variations of that name.

The name Ghostbusters was actually held by a company called Filmation who had a live action series in the early 70s that kind of went nowhere and they still held on to the rights of the name Ghostbusters. When they were filming the crowd scene outside 55 Central Park West and the entire crowd started chanting Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters, that’s when they knew that they had to

had they had to secure the rights to that name so they got in touch with filmation so columbia’s essentially their lawyers got in touch with filmations lawyers and they worked out a deal where columbia would be able to use the name ghostbusters for any films that were released but they didn’t have the rights to to television rights because they didn’t think they were gonna

Des O’ Gorman (27:02.176)
So when Ghostbusters was released and it was a huge success, Filmation took this opportunity to revive a series that had not been used since the 70s and they released Filmation’s Ghostbusters. So in order to compete with that, they released their own cartoon series, but as a final flipping the bird to Filmation, they decided to call this one the real.

Ghostbusters is like one last dig to filmation for them.

So it’s just sheer pettiness in end.

I think that just boils down to in Hollywood, doesn’t it? know, just pettiness and money.

Yeah. And I have looked up that, I was going to say the real Ghostbusters. I know that Ghostbusters, the filmation one. That’s the one with the apis in it.

Des O’ Gorman (28:00.15)
That is the one with Tracy Kong and God, I can’t remember that third character’s name. I always blank on the third character’s name. yeah, it is if you want to see something really weird, just go onto YouTube and look up filmations Ghostbusters and you will see something so bizarre.

Yeah, anyway, not much to really add about the real Ghostbusters. I would recommend it if you are going to, if you do plan to do, you know, be a completionist with this. There’s definitely a lot of good stuff in there. just, like we say, just for the later season, it becomes a bit more, it becomes very patchy.

Yeah, think of this as like a reverse childhood. That made sense in my head. So essentially the first two series, they do have the humor in there, they do have the spooky, scary elements. And then as the series progresses, you essentially revert back to being into a small child where everything’s all bright and colorful and safe and everything’s OK. It’s kind of like that. But I agree with you. There’s a lot in there.

that if you are a completionist, it is definitely worth your time to go and watch.

All right, so with that, that’s kind of a brief overview because there’s so much to go into with this, but will your overall verdict on real postbusters?

Des O’ Gorman (29:29.948)
God, see, we didn’t think about of a split. I split when it was either a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I need to find a think of a quote that’s right in the middle. I got it. It’s not from the Ghostbusters franchise, but it is said by a Ghostbuster. We’ll use Danny Ackroyd slide from Casper, which is who you got to call?

somebody else.

Yeah, yeah, I think that’s quite fair. It’s a split one.

What is the I think that cater works doesn’t so I think yeah the first two series it is definitely came song kicked its ass but the latter two series is definitely who you’re gonna call somebody else

Yeah, because if you just go look up anything written by J. Michael Straczynski, it is always pretty strong material. He’d had a great run on Spider-Man, I recall, well. And he wrote Babylon 5 as well. He’s got quite a good body of work to his name.

Des O’ Gorman (30:32.11)
He does, he does. And he is one of those type of writers where he can create stories and dialogue that actors can really get back. So J. Michael Krasinski is a phenomenally good writer.

Yeah, so I’m trying to remember, was real Ghostbusters on the air when Ghostbusters 2 started filming?

Yes. Because obviously we’re going to talk about Ghostbusters 2 now. Yes. Can I dig off another anecdote? By the way, if at any point you want me to stop with these anecdotes. Go ahead. OK, so when they were filming Ghostbusters 2, it was 1988 when they started filming. And the real Ghostbusters was still incredibly popular. So when they did the birthday scene,

No, no, go ahead.

Des O’ Gorman (31:23.36)
at beginning of Ghostbusters 2, they actually had to stop the kids from chanting Ghostbusters and tell them to chant He-Man instead. That’s how popular that franchise still was.

Yeah. So, and it was quite notorious that a lot of them didn’t actually want to make Ghostbusters 2. They were kind of dragged into this, weren’t they?

Yes and no. I’m getting a lot of my information. There’s a book that’s out there. It’s called well, there’s a lot of great books. The two that I would recommend for any Ghostbusters fan is there’s a book called A Convenient Parallel Dimension, which written by a Ghostbusters fan. I would definitely recommend that. There’s another one called Wild and Crazy Guys, which talks a little bit about Saturday Night Live and all the comedy movies that came out at the time.

And so there was a section in that where Columbia Pictures wanted to do a sequel, but Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis kind of felt that it was a one and done movie. So they managed to get a Columbia executives managed to get Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman together in a place called, if I remember right, I think it was called Jays Diner, which is a popular diner in New York where

certain deals are met and they all got together. They all had a meal together and they decided that working together would actually be a fun experience. And on the basis of that, another handshake Ghostbusters 2 was greenlit. The only downside to that was that they didn’t know where to take the story or where to take the characters. And we’ll talk more into this, but I think that

Des O’ Gorman (33:19.451)
is one of the things that kind of failed with Ghostbusters 2.

Yeah, um, what’s one of s- they’re not the original idea to have them go to come to Scotland or something.

That was one of the ideas, that they were going to come to Scotland and I think they were going to go against and ban cheese or something. think Danny Ackroyd wanted to take this somewhere a little bit different outside of New York. Yeah. I think that one actually from the sounds of it probably would have been a good idea, but I think it probably would have fallen more into the like an episode of The Real Ghostbusters.

Yeah, it would have been like a more mystical kind of thing than rather than kind of the kind of modern day kind of cynical stuff that was in the original. Yeah.

Exactly. So they decided to keep it all again self-contained in New York. Before we proceed on what’s your take on Ghostbusters 2 Callum?

Cal (34:18.486)
Yeah.

Cal (34:25.069)
I love the first third of the film. When they are washed up, when the shows them as washed up failures, I think it serves their style of comedy so well. I agree. And the film starts to fall apart bizarrely the second they start busting ghosts, which is really weird, I know to say, but that first third is hilarious. It’s just, it’s almost like such natural comedy for them to do.

okay.

Des O’ Gorman (34:38.434)
Yeah.

Cal (34:55.054)
Bill Murray’s hosting a really awful cable TV show with frauds. Macroids got a supernatural bookstore. Egon’s running bizarre science experiments. And I just think, I love that kind of exploration of that side of them. And then just the second, when the court scene happens and the proton packs go on, and it’s just like, it’s all familiar then. It’s all, they’re.

Yeah

Des O’ Gorman (35:07.395)
Yeah.

Cal (35:23.458)
I just feel them going through the motions after that. And it’s kind of this thing, I wonder, a film I saw recently, did you see Alien Romulus by any chance?

funny enough I haven’t but the amount of people that have told me I just haven’t had a chance to see it yet but I’ve heard so many people say that

It’s got that feeling of me of Alien Romulus and it’s actually quite similar to another film in this franchise we’ll get to eventually. But it’s like when it was doing its own thing at first, Ghostbusters 2, I loved it. And then it seemed like Studio Notes came along and said, no, we’ve got to have all the familiar stuff now. So all this interesting stuff has to stop. that was my take. And the other good thing I’ll give it.

It’s a better villain than the first one. It’s like a well-developed I feel you’ve got a really rich backstory to this villain. And it’s like the villains have proper presence in the film, whereas the first one, Zuland goes, it don’t really feature till 10 minutes at the end. You know, that ending sequence. Yeah. So that’s… No, that’s… Yeah.

That’s really interesting. I’ve never heard it described like that before. Because I actually, now that you’ve just put that in my head, I actually really agree with you.

Cal (36:45.646)
I was expecting something else

No, No,

I mean, the thing that just annoys me the most is that how could they still, how could they be washed up and nobody believes in ghosts? Did nobody see the giant marshmallow man walking down the street? Did everybody just forget that in five years?

It’s bizarre because it’s like it makes no sense that they be washed up so soon, but it’s still it’s a really interesting way to take Maybe if it made this like 10 years after or 15 years showing them washed up then would have been you could have made a whole film out of that

That’s a fair point because after 15 years people will be like, oh, that’s something that our parents believe, but that’s obviously not true. That makes sense. putting that aside, again, I still love the movie. I agree with you about Vigil. But if they had just remained washed up and had to do everything under the radar of the police and under the city government, that actually would have been a far more interesting movie.

Cal (38:10.701)
Yeah.

I’m not gonna, I can’t lie right now, you’ve literally blown my mind with that one. I’ve never thought of it in those terms, but as soon as you said that, that 100 % makes more sense and would have been a far better movie.

Yeah, I mean it’s it’s just it’s not Terrible, it’s not awful. just It’s just like that first third is great. And then it’s just we’re doing all this again now Yeah, and it’s it becomes so routine and I think you can even see in the actors faces like they’re just going through especially Bill Murray. He really looks like just wait I am he’s just like paycheck paycheck because like someone pointed out

He barely even puts his Ghostbusters uniform on in this film.

This is another fun wee fact for you is that in Bill Murray’s script for Ghostbusters 2 it was stipulated that he would not be covered in slime in this movie. Which is why when the guys are going under the city to check the river of slime, how convenient that Bill Murray decided not to go with them.

Des O’ Gorman (39:28.992)
It was one those things that was actually in his contract that he would not be covered anywhere near slime in this movie. as much as I agree with you, Bill Murray is folding it in in this movie. But Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson definitely. mean, Ernie Hudson doesn’t get a lot of screen time in either movies, but he’s given a lot more comedic elements in there as well. Harold Ramis.

as Egon in Ghostbusters 2 has two or three of my all-time favorite deadpan deliveries of any actor. And one of them that even got a big laugh on the screen that I went to is when they’re in the courtroom scene and Lewis is delivering that truly terrible intro for defending the Ghostbusters and that he sits there and Egon

just looks over to him and just goes, very good, Lewis, short, but pointless. Even now, just thinking about that instantly puts a smile on my face.

For me, it’s at the start when he’s doing that experiment and it’s, see what happens when we take away the puppy.

He brought these two people in for marriage counseling. He made them wait two and a half hours and the temperature in the room rose 108 degrees. It’s so funny. It is so ridiculous.

Cal (41:06.862)
But yeah, have we gone over the… Well, the plot is, you probably heard it, like the Ghostbusters, they’re washed up and then they get together to fight a threat and I don’t even need to explain the rest of the plot because it is essentially a rerun of Ghostbusters.

It is and that it’s one of the things that certain sequels fall under is that they try and recapture the magic of the first one where they should just be pushing the story forward and unfortunately Ghostbusters 2 it does fall into that bracket.

And it also does the other thing which is, well, they like this big bad from the ending of the first one. Let’s go big R. That’s your liberty with a Nintendo controller, which is, I just, I still sigh every time I see.

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (41:52.904)
I know, I know. The idea is sound, the introduction of the slime blowers as new tech is brilliant. It’s just if the story had just been a little bit tighter and more fleshed out, I think it would have been a far, far better movie. It’s still a good movie. just it’s just it’s nowhere near the first one. The first one’s lightning in a bottle, essentially.

Yeah, it is really. So that’s our verdict. I’m total platonic reversal on this one. Despite all the good things I have, it still doesn’t pass for me.

Mm-hmm.

Des O’ Gorman (42:29.787)
I am going to respectfully disagree and say that… Yeah, and I’m going there. I’m saying that it came at someone and kicked ass.

All right, so I think this one will be left up. We’re going to do the worst thing we could ever do on the internet. Let’s have the common section.

No, no, let’s not. I don’t want to be responsible for age-old friendships being falling apart because somebody doesn’t like Ghostbusters 2.

This is it, destruction of OH!CON is happening.

Well, that’s it folks. If you follow suit, you’re not gonna see me and Rick wrestling in some ready brick. It’s not gonna happen.

Cal (43:07.138)
That’s what’s at stake for you.

No.

So as I recall this film wasn’t a disaster at the box office. It actually did okay but was just the reviews were so… It was really panned which I don’t think it deserved that. I don’t think it deserved to be slammed at all.

I don’t think so. think many reviewers of the time didn’t like it because it falls under the issue that any sequel has is that when a film, hang on. they’re, okay. This film falls under what many sequels have is that when the first film comes out, it’s got nothing to live up to. just has to be as long as that’s a good movie. It works. But when a sequel comes out, it has some

I’ve lost days.

Des O’ Gorman (43:57.642)
it has hype to live up to and many movies don’t rise up to that and Ghostbusters 2 does fall under that bracket. I mean it does it doesn’t help the fact that it was also released around the time of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and it also had to compete with one of the big movies of that summer which was Tim Burton’s Batman.

Yeah and was it not Indiana Jones on the last crusade? It was like a packed summer that year I think.

Oh God, no, no, you’re 100 % right. It was Last Crusade. It wasn’t Temple of Doom. was Last Crusade and Last Crusade. You know, that is a solid movie there as well. It had like a lot of competition to go up against. And yeah, the reviews didn’t help. But I think it unfairly gets a lot of slack because it wasn’t the gigantic success that the first movie

Yeah, well I think Roger Ebert said it was his worst film of the year and I was like, ooh crikey. Roger Ebert’s a strange person. I respect some of his views but some things he’s just so wrong about.

Yeah. I don’t

Des O’ Gorman (45:07.618)
But that’s the thing with any reviewer is that it’s just one person’s one person’s opinion. That’s all that it is. You know, you can take it or leave it. But, you know, if somebody doesn’t like something, it doesn’t mean that it’s the be all and end all. It’s just that one person chose not to like something.

Yeah, but anyway, so the curtain fell on this film and then I think this is kind of the start of really the wilderness years in terms of Ghostbusters, isn’t it?

From 1991 the two films that come out, the cartoon series finished in 1991. And then yeah, from 1991 to I think was 1998 I think was kind of as you said the way it was.

Then we have the strangest thing ever, even for Ghostbusters.

Wow, okay, I’m going to wait to see where you’re going with this one.

Cal (46:08.768)
I’ve not watched, I’ve watched one episode in preparation for this and I was just like, wow, this is, it’s fascinating just how strange it is. It’s like they, they just, how Ghostbusters is so quintessentially 80s, but it’s like, it’s naturally and organically an 80s thing. And it’s like someone took it and just said, it’s almost like they had a big syringe of mid 90s and said, here you go, have some of this now.

huh.

Des O’ Gorman (46:27.566)
Mm-hmm.

Cal (46:35.826)
That’s what it feels like. They forced it to be so 90s and it kind of it’s so it’s just like I say bizarrely fascinating to watch. That’s what I think of it.

Wow, it’s almost like I’m hearing myself when you are, because there is a big section in my show where I do talk about. Yeah. It is.

Yeah, I remember.

Cal (47:00.31)
Even just that wee bit when I actually watched it, it’s even more 90s than could ever, and I’m a big, I’ve got big 90s nostalgia, I’m a huge grunge head and all that, and even I was going, wow, this is, they really just amped it up to the 90s max here.

Yeah, it kind of unfortunately fell under this bracket because it’s made by the same people that made, there was a Men in Black cartoon that came out, which I adore. I still love Men in Black, the series, and it was also released, I don’t know if many people remember this, there was a Godzilla cartoon that came out as that Americanized version of Godzilla.

Yes.

Des O’ Gorman (47:46.082)
You remember that?

cartoon was actually okay. Which wasn’t difficult because it didn’t have much to, didn’t have to do much to improve on that film.

That’s a good point. That’s a very good point. But it kind of came out around about that time. And I think it was the same people that produced Extreme Ghostbusters. it does just drip of overly 90s correction, which is let’s just take something that was popular and just make it more, well, it’s in the name, more extreme. Edgy. Yeah, edgy.

dark you like Ghostbusters take it with like 95 % less humor and 5 % more dark and it was parts of it kind of work and parts of it really doesn’t

Yep, I’d say that just from the one episode I watched and that’s all I can say is just

Des O’ Gorman (48:46.062)
Just out of curiosity, can you remember what happened in the one episode that you watched?

No, not really. Really!

You can’t even remember the episode that you watched?

No, no, I can’t. was, I was just more, wow. It’s just kept going wow. You know, it’s one of those weird, you can’t really remember what’s going on, but it’s just, holy crap. This, the nineties was just a strange time.

Yeah, that it was. I mean, it only ran for two seasons and many, many fans, and I’m including myself with this, said the thing that really let it down was not the characters, the development of the characters and having new Ghostbusters in there. That does kind of work. Again, the Ghostbusters going out of business and then coming back again, that kind of work. The one thing that doesn’t work is the animation.

Cal (49:16.632)
Yeah.

Cal (49:39.778)
Yeah.

And the thing that many fans have picked up on, and again, I’m including myself, is that you can tell that the animators were really rushed. And so if you look at many of the scenes in Extreme Ghostbusters, the ghost in the No Ghost logo barely appears on the car or in the uniform because they were trying to save time. And that level of, for lack of a better term,

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (50:10.078)
rushed sloppiness kinda really comes through in the series.

Yeah, I think the only way they could have made this more 90s is if they got Rob Liefeld in to draw it. There’s a thought for you.

my god, that’s a burn. That’s a rare double burn. against extreme Ghostbusters and against Rob Life. that would be terrible. Nobody’s feet would be drawn properly and everybody would have unnecessary ammo pouches all across their body.

Well noted.

Cal (50:47.656)
Yes, and they would have pecs.

my god, that is that that is that is the sickest of birds, and you know what I’m taking that I’m swiping that one.

well, I’m swiping some of your trivia for my next quiz then, it’s a fair deal.

Yeah

So overall I would say you can skip this. You’re not going to gain anything from watching this and it is total platonic commercial from the little I’ve seen.

Des O’ Gorman (51:19.924)
I agree. It is total, again, there is some solid episodes in there, but overall the entire thing, is total protolic reversal. Yeah.

Yeah and so with that there was even… Do we need to mention the game? Should we mention the 2009 game?

I would, you know, I’m just going to quickly go through this is that the video game which came out in June 2009 for many fans, including myself, we considered Ghostbusters 3 because it got all the original voice actors back. It took Dan Aykroyd’s script outline, I think was called Ghostbusters Hellbent.

The man Hilton singing.

So that’s the one, yeah. And it is, I still play it now because I’ve got the remastered on my PS4. The game and the story still holds up. And if anybody who’s listening has not played this, I think it’s like super cheap on the PlayStation or Xbox. Download it and just have four to five hours of just solid Ghostbuster destruction.

Cal (52:23.266)
Yeah.

Cal (52:31.246)
Okay, yeah, I’ve not played it yet, but I did hear from some Ghostbusters fans and they all recommended it.

It’s a really good fun game. That’s all you need. It’s a single player campaign. Just go and have fun with it.

Yeah. So really like from Ghostbusters Xtreme to 2000 was real world in its years. And it was just punctuated. But a few times every year, Dan Aykroyd saying Ghostbusters 3 is definitely happening. I’ve a script. It’s great. then Bill Murray just going no.

Yeah, it’s unfortunate. It’s just one of those things where this is how bad it was. I think when the Blues Brothers was released on Dan Aykroyd discography, it actually had it written down that Ghostbusters 3 was going to be released in 1998. And yeah, didn’t happen. But Dan Aykroyd, like the irony of it, he would not let this franchise die. And so, yeah, he always came out with,

got ideas, we’re going to create something, we’re going to create something, he wouldn’t let it die.

Cal (53:41.55)
I’ve got a script, it’s done, it’s done. There’s rumours that he sent scripts to Bill Murray and Bill Murray was just shredding them instantly.

I think that’s another one of those Hollywood things. Even if Bill Murray had done that, nobody would admit that he would have done that.

Yeah, it’s also worth noting during this time, sadly, we all know about the falling out on Groundhog Day with Harold Ramis and Bill. They had a severe falling out, which kind of ended, which came to a sad end on its own. So it was real wilderness. And it was 2012 Harold Ramis passed away, wasn’t it?

No

Des O’ Gorman (54:19.53)
Yep.

Des O’ Gorman (54:27.278)
It was 2014 if I remember right because he passed away I think it was February and Ghostbusters 30th anniversary was June of that year so he passed away at the age of 69 just before celebrating the 30th anniversary of this amazing and beloved franchise.

Yeah, but I as I do recall Bill Murray did go to see him in his final days and they did kind of make up in the end. I have heard.

Yeah, if again, if there’s another ghost more Ghostbusters fans, another book to recommend is Harold Ramis’s daughter, Violet Ramis wrote a book called My Dad, My Life. So it was a Ghostbusters daughter, My Life with my dad, Harold Ramis. It is this wonderful book where she talks about her connection with her father, not just about Ghostbusters, but.

It’s a real in-depth look about the man of Harold Ramis and it’s all sunshine and roses. They did have a lot of difficulties there, but he just seemed like a genuine supportive down to earth person. And there is a section in that book where I think was like a couple of weeks before how he was passed away, that Bill Murray showed up at their house seven o’clock in the morning with a police escort and a box of donuts.

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (55:52.958)
and Harold Ramis who had lost the ability to speak around at this time. They got together for a couple of hours. I think they mostly spoke about baseball because Bill Murray’s a big baseball fan, but they kind of managed to to bury the hatchet before Harold Ramis had passed away.

Yeah, that’s good to hear. But anyway, I think everyone knows which installment we’re getting to and probably people are tensing up, which is so bizarre because this film, why this film still causes all this is beyond anyone’s recognition.

Yeah.

After all the wrangling, think it the studio eventually decided we’re just going to go with a reboot, wasn’t it?

believe it was. Yeah, they just decided that since Howard Ramis had passed away, they kind of felt that they could not do another movie and the original creative team wasn’t, they weren’t looking like they were going to get anywhere. So they just decided, as you say, let’s just reboot the franchise.

Cal (56:56.47)
Yep and for well for this they chose pulpy, wasn’t it?

It was all fake,

and the writer Katie Dippel this time. I hope I’m remembering these names right. Yeah. And so he came up with the idea of making an all-woman team, which of course people just went, okay, we’ll see how this goes. We’re on with this. No, of course not. We’re living in the Kersh University here, of course.

You’re remembering that right, yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (57:17.486)
Mm-hmm.

Des O’ Gorman (57:28.13)
But we are in the darkest time lane for any of you community fans out there.

Yeah, for whatever reason yeah this from day one and I think this for me is when this whole entitled fan culture of this you’re not Give us what we want. Don’t don’t you be creative now and do your own thing? Yeah We demand we it really this was the real formation of what it’s it had existed But this is like when it really became the force it is now

I agree with you on that, it was-

I mean, it’s hard to even talk about this movie without bringing up all this vitriol, this anger. It is one of those things where no matter what decision they were going to make, it was always going to be wrong. Let’s face it. And Paul Feig, who had done many a movie before that, I believe he had done Brights Mades.

mentioning all of this.

Cal (58:25.005)
Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (58:35.821)
at.

Which is a great film by the way. It’s a wonderful heartfelt film that it’s got a lot of heart and a lot of good stuff. But even when I watched that before I said, I don’t think this is the right… Because Ghostbusters has always been more of a kind of cynical sarcastic style of humor.

break.

Des O’ Gorman (58:57.782)
Yeah, it is. The only way I would describe this, is this is my personal view is I’ve watched Ghostbusters Answer the Call. I enjoyed Ghostbusters Answer the Call. I have never returned to Ghostbusters Answer the A personal thing. It has got nothing to do with the fact that it is an all woman cast, that it’s a different writer, different director. The main thing is, and I’ve explained this to everybody, is that

Ghostbusters, the original 1984 Ghostbusters had a solid script where

You.

I think they still do this now, is that they would record the script as it was for their first take and then for their second take onwards, they allowed the actors to improvise. So it allowed the actors to have some fun with the scenes and kind of improve the dialogue. Ghostbusters Answer the Call, personally, I think it had a kind of weak script and it meant that the actors…

Yep.

Des O’ Gorman (01:00:02.424)
had to improvise in order to make it better.

Yep and for me was just the improvising was so over the top. There’s no consistency to anything to the characters really then.

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:00:17.492)
No, the two scenes that I always flag up is the one where they’re in the mayor’s office and they went too long with this whole trying to put the cat back in the bag type of a thing. He could have really trimmed that joke down and it could have been a heck of a lot funnier, but it’s not. And the other thing that I always flag up about this, many people disagree with me on this and that’s totally fine. is… God, I’ve forgotten his name now.

Yeah

Des O’ Gorman (01:00:47.054)
Chris Hemsworth. Chris Hemsworth’s character instantly takes me out of the movie because he’s up there with like this Joey from the third series on on France is that a character is so unbelievably stupid that he would not be able to function in day-to-day life and that character instantly takes me out of the movie because

Yep.

Des O’ Gorman (01:01:13.78)
he’s so unbelievably stupid that if this character was real he would not make it until he was Chris Hemsworth.

Yeah. I don’t think we need to explain the plot because it’s just the same. It is essentially a remake of the first film.

Yeah, it’s a remake, but they change certain things where these versions of the Ghostbusters are actually part of the municipal system of New York. They’re not a standalone business. There is a lot of nods and winks to the original movie. So it doesn’t really have a lot of ability to flesh out itself and become something unique.

Yeah.

Cal (01:01:45.059)
Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:01:58.764)
So they have to start up a business. OK, so they meet a ghost. They take stuff about that ghost. Well, how are they going to trap them? Well, they’ve got to have equipment that is strapped to their back because that is an original movie. They have to have some sort of long hearse vehicle because that was in the original movie. They have to have some sort of gigantic creature walking around New York because that’s in the first movie. They have to they have to hit a lot of these essentially check boxes.

Yeah.

to make it a reboot, it’s essentially like holding up, shaking a set of keys to a child. It’s like, ooh, look at this, look at this, you remember this. To use something from another franchise, it’s very remember-berry.

Yeah.

Cal (01:02:44.724)
Yeah. And as I say, it’s a good cast. This is what frustrated me was I thought all the parts were there for this to be good. They just didn’t mesh somehow. Like Paul Fiegg’s a good director. Kirsten Wigg, phenomenal actress and talented writer. And she wrote one of the best comedies ever. And you thought surely she would have some good input into the script and story. was some McCarthy, great actress as well. McKinnon.

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:03:09.271)
I

Des O’ Gorman (01:03:13.206)
Yeah, that’s the best.

Leslie Jones was the unknown, but she stole the show from me.

Yeah, Leslie Jones is was an inspired choice there. I personally, I’m not a fan of Melissa McCarthy because I find her tape of films or comedy. She’s just very, very shouty. And that can become very repetitive very quickly.

Yeah, when she’s used right she’s really good but in this one, and it did get, she seemed to be screaming or screeching her lines constantly. Yeah.

Yeah, she was just always angry and shouty. But Melissa, not Melissa McCarthy, is it Kirsten Wake? Well, Kirsten Wake, she’s really good. Kate McKinnon, that was a Kate McKinnon as Holtzman was an inspired choice because she was phenomenal. One thing, she had a character and she knew what to do with said character. And I think that

Des O’ Gorman (01:04:13.51)
Three out of the four Ghostbusters kinda does work for me. One just kinda does not. But it’s like anything. Comedy or like any other film is subjective. So if you enjoy it, great. If not, you don’t need to just keep telling people about how much you don’t enjoy it.

Yeah.

Cal (01:04:26.882)
Yes.

Cal (01:04:35.598)
Yeah, because it’s mad on Facebook. I follow the official Ghostbusters page and occasionally they’ll do a promo for, the Blu-ray is 20 % off on, and there’s still, and it’s a certain demographic of people, I don’t need to spell it out, you know who it is, still screaming at people about how awful this is. And it’s like, move on.

Yeah

Des O’ Gorman (01:05:03.147)
It’s one of those points where it is just you are just flogging a dead horse and you don’t need to just just move on

Yeah, and it’s just, and like when it came out, I’d heard all this backlash, I’d heard all of it through all. And I kind of remember, I kind of obtained the film through other means to watch it. I didn’t go to the cinema. So we’re not condoning anything. We’re not condoning any kind of activity. no, but I remember I sat and I actually, and sometimes I do this when I hear such controversy over something.

Mm-hmm.

Des O’ Gorman (01:05:27.63)
never

Des O’ Gorman (01:05:31.862)
Definitely not. No, no, no,

Cal (01:05:40.928)
I will sit with a notebook so, I’ve got to make notes. This is going to be something, you know, and I’ll have to have stuff to talk about to my friends. And I just find I didn’t write any notes because the film just, was like, really, this is what’s been at the center of this huge culture war. Yeah. I said, what’s happened? Why did people lose their minds over this? At worst, it’s just a bad forget, forgettable comedy.

Yeah.

It’s not like a film where it’s just miserable to watch. I sniggered a few times, but ultimately I was like, eh, all right, yeah, that was that then.

Yeah, that’s essentially all that it is. is at best a film that you would snigger a little bit at. Worst, it’s a film that you won’t remember 20 minutes after you’ve seen it. And that’s basically.

Yet, internet lost its mind for nearly two years while this thing was being made.

Des O’ Gorman (01:06:38.938)
You were thinking long term, my friend, to this day, I still have people that come up to me and ask me my opinion of that movie. I just get bored of it, you know?

Yeah, and even now like when people probably there’ll be a few folk when this podcast goes up They’re gonna go. Oh, what are they gonna say about 2016? Oh crikey. That’s gonna be oh, know, there’ll be there’ll be uh Tensing up when I know there will be folk tensing up just because discussing this film

They just want us to tear the movie down and agree with them. And I don’t because I don’t think the movie deserves the anger that that movie got.

Yeah, I’ve seen way more offensive films than this that no one ever talks about to this level.

Yeah, let’s knock down that roof though, because let’s keep this one semi-positive.

Cal (01:07:31.118)
Yes, we will do. And final, so your opinion on 2016?

I would say it’s right down the middle of who you’re to call somebody else because it is, I still think there’s a good movie in there, but I also think that it is a positive movie to the right audience member. I’ve met many a mother and their daughters that have seen this movie and loved it because it has those positive reinforcements for female characters.

Yeah, that’s why I do feel bad saying total platonic reversal, but it is with that caveat. I know there’s people who genuinely love this film and I don’t begrudge and I never begrudge anyone what they like.

And it’s we said earlier on about reviewers. This is just their personal opinion. But the only opinion that you really should be looking towards is your own.

Yeah, and it’s good to disagree and discuss these things. For goodness sake, don’t make hate or just something, just your entire personality.

Des O’ Gorman (01:08:39.884)
I’ve unfortunately met a good few of those people and let’s just say they haven’t been in my life for that long.

So with that, and do you think the studio saw the backlash and tried to course correct immediately when they made, when they went for Afterlife?

I think that let’s let’s address this right now. Ghostbusters Answer the Call wasn’t a failure. It did make money, you know, and that’s the thing that studios take is that if something makes money, it means that people want to see that and they want to see more of it. I think that they saw that there was still a lot of potential in this particular franchise and they also did see that

they want the original team. They want those original 84 characters back, which is what the fans were looking for. And I think it was around about that time that Jason Reitman came up with the idea, which eventually did become Ghostbusters Afterlife.

Yeah, so I’ll just quick run down a Ghostbusters afterlife. It’s set with Egon’s granddaughter and their family moving out to… Where is the town? It’s a way out in the middle of the… else. they move out… Oklahoma. So it’s like, oh, it’s even they’ve given a different location. So immediately you say, oh, this is something fresh and different they’re doing here. Yep. And for this time, it makes sense that…

Des O’ Gorman (01:10:05.965)
See you.

Cal (01:10:19.278)
They’ve known Sina ghost for 30 40 years at that point 30 years or something.

Well, I think it’s supposed to be 30 years because I think they’re trying to play into the Ghostbusters 2 element. But many. This is how much fans are. This is how nitpicky fans can be. So the film was due to be released in 2020. But then something happened that year where I think everybody decided to take like a

They essentially decided to have a year long interval where nothing would get done. And we just decided to, you know, all stay indoors, wear pajamas and doom scroll. When the film came out in twenty twenty one. And Paul Rudd’s character, Gary Gruberson, said that there hadn’t been a ghost sighting in 30 years. This is how bad it is.

Fans have now taken that to say that the video game is canon because I know because that came out in it was set in 1991. And if you do, yeah, if you do the maths, that is exactly 30 years and so on and so forth. Personally, I would love if the video game was canon, but you don’t always get what you want, essentially. So, yeah, the the Ghostbusters have just become a distant memory.

The end.

Des O’ Gorman (01:11:47.81)
people either don’t remember what happened or they don’t believe what happened.

Yeah, well, you think, yeah, I’m which I’m still on board with it.

You said you’re not a fan of that thing of. I think if you if I can kind of see where you’re coming from with that, but if you think about it, certain things kind of happened. And if you weren’t around about that time, like Phoebe said, it happened 12 years before she was born. Why would she choose to believe or not believe something that happened back then? Because everything is essentially all centered around New York.

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:12:26.37)
And if you were all the way around the other side of the world or hell, the other side of America, whatever happens in New York, you’re going to be like, well, yeah, that’s clearly something that the New Yorker just made up.

Yeah. So I’ve got a few, we’re going to disagree quite a lot on this one because I’ve heard what you said in your standup, but that’s good. That’s So, yeah, Phoebe, they go to Egon’s old farmhouse. She discovers the the ghost busting equipment. then it’s essentially turns into a rerun of the final act of the first film, basically.

Yeah, it agrees with that. You can’t have a film called Ghostbusters and not see at least one ghost being bought. But I am going to go out on a limb here, Callum, and say you’re not the biggest fan of this movie, are you?

Yeah.

Cal (01:13:25.558)
I am to a point. There’s a distinct point where the film just fell apart. And that’s when Paul Rudwended to Walmart and the mini-stay puffs appeared.

W-okay, woo, okay, right.

It was for me, it was just beat for beat the original film and then I had major problems with the final moments of this film.

Okay, right, let’s,

Des O’ Gorman (01:13:56.878)
I first and foremost calm your opinion is valid and I will not shoot you down for every your opinion. Yeah. Okay. Let’s let’s break this down then. So we’ll say that you said until the last third of the movie. So for the first two thirds of the movie, what was your opinion?

I was loving it. I was liking the idea of this girl discovering the equipment, a small town, and if they had kept it just to that, without the gozer stuff, even if they’d just been chasing that one ghost around the town, you could have had a decent little film with these teenage ghostbusters who are completely in over their heads, but they save the day and the town is thankful. That would have done all right, but it was just that moment I just said,

I agree with you.

Des O’ Gorman (01:14:44.59)
Yeah.

Cal (01:14:48.748)
This is, I don’t like where this is going now. Because there was wholesale lines copied and pasted from the first film, moments as well. the cameo of the original Ghostbusters was so, came from nowhere for me.

Okay.

Des O’ Gorman (01:15:08.91)
I’ll definitely give you that one. Let’s open up something up here before we continue. We’re going to be talking spoilers, aren’t we? Too late, we’ve already done that now.

Snake.

Cal (01:15:20.502)
Yes, of course. Of course.

Cal (01:15:25.902)
Because Phoebe has one phone call with Dan Aykroyd’s character. She’s quite vague. She doesn’t even really say where she is. But somehow the three Ghostbusters just appear in the nick of time. I just couldn’t connect the dots how that happened.

The way that I saw it is that Ray remembers the last time talking to Egon on the phone and he remembered that Egon called from a small midwestern town in Oklahoma. So he kind of remembered where. And we know that Winston, who now has a big finance company behind him, has means.

I think Ray got in touch with Winston to explain what had happened. Winston got in touch with Venkman. They all met up and they all went down to Oklahoma. It would have been nice if that was kind of explained, but the outline is kind of still there. You just kind of have to join the dots up yourself.

Yeah, it was just that they showed up at that specific time at that very specific place in brand new Ghostbuster uniforms with when it was said earlier that Egon cleaned them out of all their equipment.

but you’re-

Des O’ Gorman (01:16:50.838)
Yeah, you know what, I will definitely give you that one. It is one of those things where I think again, you have to look back the lines because Ray did say that Egon took his Collider pack. He took his pack, but he took all the traps and the isotope fuel. he left the guys their packs, but he took his own.

and all the traps. essentially the guys only had 50 % of ghost busting equipment. had the means. It’d snare a ghost, but they had no way to remove it. Yeah.

Yeah. And just going back to what I liked, I just liked the original build up of those characters, the teenagers. And it was one of the best scenes in a Ghostbust when they went through the town with Ecto-1, nearly destroying half the town. I loved that.

That is such a really well done scene. The music is perfect. The idea of a remote control trap. I love that idea. There is one shot after they leave the town and they’re chasing muncher. It’s like a wide shot where you have Ecto to the left of the screen. You have the little RTV at the right of the screen and you have this proton stream just

it’s sneering around Muncher and I looked at that and I just went my god that’s a beautifully lined up shot for this movie it is it is really well done it does I will have to admit yeah the gaze just appearing at the end does kind of just come out of Deus Ex Machina just out of nowhere I’ll definitely give you that

Cal (01:18:21.388)
Yeah.

Cal (01:18:36.846)
It was it like this would be the big triumphant reveal and it just kind of came across as like where did they come from suddenly? And then uh the end and then this is probably where we have the big disagreement it’s when she was she was firing that proton pack and I saw the hand And I was just saying that’s enough stop there Don’t do what I think you’re about to do Which is cgi harold ramus

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Des O’ Gorman (01:19:01.838)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And even then it just said one quick shot, but they kept flipping back and forth. And it just came across as very forced sentimentality. And the reason I have a problem with that was I remember Harold Ramis’s films. He was, he had quite a cynical, dry sense of humor. And they never did any kind of joke about seeing him again like that, you know, using that kind of humor that Harold Ramis would have loved.

Mm-hmm.

Des O’ Gorman (01:19:26.68)
Yeah.

Cal (01:19:36.622)
And it just felt, I’m going to say manipulative, ending. It was like they were trying to extract the tears and the member berries from you then.

That’s fair. That’s fair. can see where you’re coming from with that. I kind of took it the opposite way because, well, you’ve seen my show. You’ve seen how much Harold Remus and the character Egon Spengler meant to me. it did kind of, yes, it sucked out the tears and yes, it does hit the member berries for myself. But I, it just

Right?

Cal (01:19:56.386)
bright.

Des O’ Gorman (01:20:17.26)
got me in that sort of spot where it gave me that emotional punch that I was after. And it did allow me, as I said in my show, for one last time to see all my childhood heroes on screen for one last time. The CGA, I think, was actually very impressively done because they went for the ghost route. It didn’t fall into that uncanny valley.

Yep.

which unfortunately, and lot of people have brought this up as well, when they do things like in Rogue One where they brought back, yeah, you know what I’m talking about there. But I personally think that it kind of got everything that I needed. And I’m glad that Jason Reckman did the right thing of not having the character talk. Because Harold Ramis’ voice,

Des O’ Gorman (01:21:15.63)
And his dialogue is so specifically him that anybody attempting to do an impression of that would have instantly ruined what he was going for. But I know as you were saying that it can be very manipulative in a certain degree. And if it wasn’t for you, I get that. I totally get that. Never take that away from you by just saying, you’re wrong. dare you, you, you’re dead inside. How dare you say these things.

Yeah, because for me, I really wanted Phoebe to solve and save it on her own to so that to show that she’s up to this And I just kind of felt they’ve got to come along and help her at the last minute And I just because I was really rooting for Phoebe and I liked her character so much And I like podcast and I liked all of them. and I would I like to see that them kind of brainstorm a solution to this

Can I twist it in a certain way to help you with that? Okay. So Phoebe realized Egon’s idea of the trap field. She just did not know that it failed for him because the capacitor shorted out. So by having her explain that to Trevor,

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:22:39.918)
Trevor then knew that he did not need to fire a proton stream because the guys had gozer in place. He knew to fire it at the capacitor to power it back up to get the trap field going. actually, Ghostbusters may have made an appearance, but they failed because they only had one trick up their sleeve, which was across the streams. And that didn’t work.

All right, yeah, I’ll take that.

So if by having them show up, essentially all it did was buy time. The Ghostbusters didn’t show up and just like, it’s OK, kid, we’ve got it from here and then took over. They had the one trick that they had, which was cross the streets and that backfired. It did not work for them. They bought time for Phoebe to get Egon’s pack. Egon was there to help her. He didn’t even help her by telling her what to do. He essentially just held on to her to to straighten her grip.

You on the pa-

Yeah, and that’s I would have been fine if all you saw was the hand. You just would have got it then, but it just went on too long. Kind of flipping from the CG. You only needed to see the CGI face and everyone wants. Need the you didn’t need the forced everyone’s reconciling, but was just this is really. It’s really just saying here, come on, let’s squeeze some more fields out of you. Come on, you’ve got some more.

Des O’ Gorman (01:23:47.426)
Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:24:01.922)
That’s fair. That’s fair. You’re right. We’re not going to agree on this, but like I said at the beginning, everybody’s opinion is valid. And if it didn’t work for you, it didn’t work for you. When was the last time you watched the movie?

I watched it in the cinema here where the convention was. And then I watched it again when it came out on Amazon. I didn’t pay when it was like for available for free on Amazon Prime. And I’ve not really revisited that often.

I would say go back and give it another rewatch. think certain movies like that, I found that for certain movies, takes either, get everything in the first viewing. You need the second viewing to really get into it. And some movies, when you have a bit of time to bypass the buildup and hype, if you go back and rewatch it, it improves better with time. So I’m curious, if you go back and rewatch it now, maybe you might get something different from it.

Yeah, I’m little bit of a go.

Always give it a bash, you know, you never know.

Cal (01:25:10.06)
So this will bring us to verdict then. I think that we know what your verdict is.

What’s yours?

I’m so on the, because I just love those first two thirds. I just loved everything with the kids and the buildup to all of that. And it was just that kind of affects the last third. And I’m kind of in the ghostbusters too. But I think I would go the midway on this and I can’t remember what our midway code

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:25:37.344)
Midwood was who you’re to call somebody else.

Yep, you’re going to call somebody else. I’m willing to reevaluate that. So I’ll probably get back to you at some point if I do go back and watch. I’ve got so much in my watching queue at the moment.

Okay, I’m about to.

Des O’ Gorman (01:25:54.526)
totally fair. If you do and you decide to do another follow-up, another episode of this podcast and you want to do a follow-up on Afterlife, you know I’m down for that.

Yeah, we could maybe do a deep dive on it or something like that.

Yeah, happy to do that. And yet mine is definitely going to be Keem Saw and Kick That Ass. I think it was one of those movies where it rejuvenated the franchise and also, in my opinion, gave a tribute to the co-writer and actor that meant a lot to so many Ghostbusters fans.

Yep, and I can agree with that as well. So with that, it wasn’t too long until they went on to the sequel, wasn’t it? I think it almost went straight away.

Yeah, I think that after the film was done, they tallied up numbers and everything and they decided that there’s enough juice in this franchise and so they decided to make a second sequel which was Frozen Empire.

Cal (01:27:01.236)
Yeah, and just to point out this afterlifes numbers are very comparable to 2016’s numbers the box office and the attendance figures and everything were almost level but yet Certain people want to portray 2016 as this miserable failure and afterlife was this rip-roaring success And actually there’s not that much between them statistically

No, there really isn’t. Number wise, like you said, they hit a lot of the key brackets there. But I think they just took not just the numbers, but the reviews of the time. And they just kind of decided to take it from there. And they just thought, all right, well, that just goes to show that we’ve got enough to keep us, keep this franchise going.

Yeah. So, what’s it this year for Closen Empire? What’s the word?

Yes, it was. was this year. Yeah, 2024. Yep.

which I will immediately say off the bat I felt a way I feel much better about this one. It feels like because it finally feels like they’re giving these characters their own thing. The old crew still there and I’m I’m interested to see what this new Ghostbusters crew does completely on their own. I feel kind of fresh but anyway we’ll start with a frozen and

Des O’ Gorman (01:28:11.99)
start there.

Cal (01:28:30.38)
having difficulty remembering the plot because I think there was a lot of plot lines in it.

There was, there was. think the main thing was, well, there’s like a couple of things that many people take away from this one is there’s two stories going on, which is Gyracus coming back after being contained within the orb for so long. But the other is how does Phoebe

cope with trying to live up to a legacy that she really doesn’t need to live up to if that makes sense. I think Jason, well before we proceed do you mind if I ask you a question?

Go ahead.

Many people, this recently came up on one of my, one of the Facebook groups. It was a very succinct question and it was just simply, do you like where the filmmakers are taking the Ghostbusters franchise?

Cal (01:29:40.685)
Yes.

Perfect, that’s all I needed to know. Because many fans were like, no, I don’t like it. It was just like, well, if in that case, then just watch the first movie and then be done with it. But the first movie is so succinct that they had to do something different. Because they tried to do something with the second movie and that failed. So they had to do something different. Personally, I do enjoy where they’re going with this, but it is…

Yeah.

Cal (01:30:05.059)
Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:30:11.822)
it’s completely different from where the first film started. And again, that’s not a bad thing. It’s just different.

Yeah, it is. I mean, that’s the big complete idea. It’s just it’s kind of overstuffed with characters and that. It’s almost and none of them are bad, but there’s just so much and they bring nearly everyone back from Afterlife, which they didn’t really need to do. They could have left some characters and then brought them back later on in another film. Like podcast is here in this one and I don’t really can’t really remember anything he does.

I’m dying.

Des O’ Gorman (01:30:40.3)
Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:30:50.606)
Unfortunately, you are 100 % right with this one, and Lucky were brought back. They didn’t need to be brought back. As much as those characters and those actors are, they are beloveds now. Podcasts will stand out in Afterlife. He’s got nothing to do in this movie. And the same with Lucky. Lucky just appears as like a summer intern in the

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:31:18.638)
underground Ghostbusters management thing that Winston’s built into the aquarium. She just appears. You can get rid of those two characters, the film would stay the same. The same with Patton Oswald’s character from the library.

Yeah, and I was so excited to see him in this. I thought this is a perfect fit for Pat and Oswald, a Ghostbuster thrill. Yeah!

Yeah and they kind of wasted him, he did nothing.

I was thinking he was going to become a ghostbuster because he’d be ideal for the treatment.

I think if they decide to bring that character back, him a proton pack. Get him in as part of the team. What they really have to be focused on in this movie is the Spanglers living in the firehouse.

Cal (01:32:06.07)
Yeah, yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, because at the start when I they’re doing the laundry and all that in the firehouse, I said this actually feels very close and spirited, the original Ghostbusters. Mundane folk doing these incredible things. Yeah.

Because it was that.

Des O’ Gorman (01:32:18.882)
Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:32:24.63)
I think it’s, I can’t remember who said it. was either Gil Keenan or Jason Reitman said that this is the story of a family in a setting where a family should not live. And he’s a hundred percent right. A firehouse as big and as vast as it is, you can’t raise a family in that building. That’s impossible. mean, the business that they’re doing doesn’t work either.

Yeah.

Cal (01:32:54.69)
Yeah.

You know, and I think it does give Phoebe this wonderful arc of where she started to learning to just be herself and to accept that. think that’s a great story arc. personally, and this is just one of these things that is just me is that. They more or less they more or less to say they’re going to do a third movie.

aren’t they? Because they’ve already got like this Netflix cartoon series coming out. If they do decide a third movie, I personally think that it should be the last time that we see Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd in there.

Yeah, I think they need to do a proper farewell for them.

Yeah, Winston, Ernie Hudson, who, by the way, whatever witchcraft he is doing, the man is 78, but yet he looks in his early 50s. but if he wants to stick around with that because he’s now, you know, essentially the money for this franchise. So if he wanted to stick around, I wouldn’t mind that. But Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd, they’re becoming too long in the tooth.

Cal (01:33:54.638)
don’t know what’s unreal.

Cal (01:34:03.522)
Yep.

Des O’ Gorman (01:34:11.054)
And I would like to see them appear front and center in one last movie and then just pass it over to the Spenglers. That’s personally my thing. Don’t get me wrong, seeing them in Frozen Empire didn’t diminish them being there in any way, or form. just, you could kind of tell that. Well, one thing Bill Murray was in like what? Three scenes. Yeah. And that’s all you kind of need there.

Dan Aykroyd, bless Dan Aykroyd, really wants to still be a part of this franchise but Dan just stop Dan, come on.

stop.

Oh, he has enthusiasm to burn. But Dan, you’ve done it. You’ve made your franchise. You’re still in there. They’ll still give you a writer’s credit or or or a consultant. You don’t need to appear in a movie.

If you, you know, if the writers ever need to know what’s some good supernatural legends, Dan Ackroyd is your man to ask because he really believes all this stuff.

Des O’ Gorman (01:35:18.39)
Exactly yeah I mean I still haven’t tried his vodka that has been seeped through crystals to make it more appealing on the palate or whatever the hell it does. It’s just one of those things but I really really enjoyed what they did with Frozen Empire with was it Grace? Grace McKenna? That’s her name the place Fili isn’t it? Yeah

Yeah.

She’s phenomenal as Phoebe. She really has created a character of her own with that. Thin wolf heart. He’s good, but again, he doesn’t get a lot to do in this and in Afterlife.

Yeah, I kind of just feel… Do they just have them in there because, a stranger thinks kids will be good here. It does feel a bit…

Yeah, it does. It just kind of feels like he was in that episode of Stranger Things where they were dressed as Ghostbusters. Let’s just put him in. I would like to see him have an arc in there. But the other cast is they are just just shrink down the cast and really focus on a good story. I mean, you’ve you’ve heard this in my show. The best way to describe Frozen Empire is that it’s

Des O’ Gorman (01:36:39.572)
it’s a live action version of a real Ghostbusters episode. that’s, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think that’s personally a great description for that movie.

Yeah.

Cal (01:36:51.266)
Yeah. See, what I feel this is possibly set up as you could have another Ghostbusters team, Patton Aswalt, Kamil Nanjiani, Paul Rudd and Carrie Coombs as one. I think they would make a great team, just that team on their own. And then you got like, and then you could maybe have Phoebe being the younger, like the cadets or something like that, Ghostbusters cadets. There’s that possibility there. I said, there’s like, there’s a Ghostbusters team.

Yeah.

Cal (01:37:21.462)
Almost ready made for you there.

a fair point if you were to bring those characters in and have them sort of like as a backup team you could have an A story and a B story and then have them both converge together to make a C plot and I think that would be a great continuation of those characters and where this franchise is choosing to go. I still think it needs like a little bit of work here and there

to figure out where exactly they’re going for, but I am enjoying the directions that they are choosing to go as long as they stop doing the remember berries.

Yep. It’s like, it’s like, really feel it’s time they just started doing their own thing, going their own way.

like

Des O’ Gorman (01:38:12.664)
Yeah, I agree with you on that one. One of the scenes that was in one of the trailers and appears next to nowhere in the movie is the return of the library ghost.

Yeah, remember. There was a lot in the trailer that didn’t turn up, wasn’t there?

Yeah, like there was one scene where it showed the library ghost. I thought, oh, great. They’re bringing back Eleanor Twitty. Yes, she’s called Eleanor Twitty. And we learned that in 2009 video game. But anyway, they bring back Eleanor Twitty, but it is just this whole there she is. Dan Ackery sees her. She scares him. And then that’s it. It’s kind of it’s kind of a wasted potential. I think if you’re going to proceed on just

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:38:56.43)
Stop doing the remember berries and just be confident that you are trying something different and just take it in your own way.

Yeah. And here’s one thing. Why did Janine suddenly become a ghostbuster out of this?

I agree with you on that one. think it well one she’s been around long enough. I think she deserves her own flight suit and I think that they just to see they just needed more bodies to help defeat Garakka and I think Janine was just in the right place at the right time and it was nice to see Janine take part as opposed to just answering the phone.

Yeah, there was. But overall, like, I know it’s good, like, and I couldn’t praise enough. I think it’s been a first since Ghostbusters 2, an original villain, a properly fleshed out villain again. Yeah.

And that was good to see. I did enjoy the way that they told Garakas story through that lovely stop motion animation that they chose to do. There’s definitely a lot there. I’m interested to see where they go next with it. I just looking forward to see what happens next.

Cal (01:40:15.566)
Yeah.

Cal (01:40:19.158)
Yeah, one thing like I was thinking, they hinting at some other kind of spin off with that old society they mentioned in New York was called again?

the Manhattan Explorer Society.

Yeah, and I was wondering, is that like some kind of ghostbusters pre-, and again, it’s probably wild speculation on my part, but you never know, there’s some writer who might think of this.

Maybe personally, I didn’t take it as that because if I remember around that time, I think the opening was set in 1912 or something like that. And that there actually was just men societies where they would just go off on adventures and then just come back and tell their mates. I think that’s essentially what that was. You don’t know, they may do.

Okay.

Cal (01:41:09.259)
All right.

Yeah.

forgot. We are talking about the same franchise where at one point, Dan Ackroyd pitched my idea of having the Ghostbusters in college. was like, well, what’s the point? You know, the man will do, I love Dan Ackroyd to bits, but he will do whatever he can as long as he could slap a no ghost logo on something.

Yep.

Cal (01:41:34.062)
And saying that, that’s gotta be one of the great books to publish is all of Dan Aykroyd’s

Give it time. I’m sure he’ll publish that himself. He’ll probably call it like. I mean, yeah.

That’ll be like 10 times the length of all the Lord of the Rings novels, my God, it would be such an interesting read, a bizarre read,

It’d be the size of like three phone books all strapped together.

But it would be so worth a little reading though, just to see what goes on in that guy’s head at times.

Des O’ Gorman (01:42:02.606)
that’s a fair point of my and you know what i i’ve got a bit of time i’m definitely going to go back and rewatch nothing but trouble just to see where what i’m not with the police people what it does it does conversation for circle

Probably the other member Barry stuck in was having Walter Peck come back. I just thought there was no need really for him to be the mayor. And why is he the mayor suddenly? did he? It’s just.

I agree with you, but I do like that he has had an arc that he is just no longer a part of the environmental protection agency. He has now moved up within the political world in New York. He is now mayor, but yet he still has this grudge against the Ghostbusters, even though he was.

was kind of right. He was

proven 100 % right, but at the same time he still caused them frauds even though he was doused with a gigantic ton of marshmallow at the end of the first movie.

Cal (01:43:14.178)
Yeah, and he still says there was no witnesses to any of this.

Really? Did you not hear the crowd chanting Ghostbusters outside that building? I mean, come on, you have to stretch quadruality at some point.

it is like what everyone says about the first film like Walter Peck’s actually completely valid in all his concerns about these people. They’re running around with nuclear accelerators and not caring about the damage they do to anyone.

That’s true, but then he also tells the mayor that they use sense and nerve gas to reduce hallucination. He is right that they’re dangerous, but wrong in thinking that everything that they do is fake.

Yep.

Des O’ Gorman (01:43:59.15)
So, yeah.

Probably the one last part. I don’t know if you could really call it a love story for Phoebe and this. It’s so open to interpretation if that was a romantic thing or not.

I personally didn’t take it as that.

Yep, and some people are taken as they are very, they just became close friends. Other people, of course a certain mob said that’s it, they’ve gone woke suddenly because Phoebe’s friends with a female ghost and you can read it any way you want.

To go off on another wee, a small tangent, I’ve just realised that, God, we’ve been talking for a long time. Recently, myself and my wife here, we had a discussion about Good Omens, the TV adaptation of Good Omens. And we watched the first series and we adored the first series and we’re both big fans of the book. And we both felt that at no point did

Cal (01:44:42.837)
Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:45:04.566)
Aziraphale and Crowley have a romantic relationship. were just friends that had been thrust together into this awkward situation and they became good friends. That was it. And then the second series came along and they just kind of foisted on us this romantic subplot that we never felt was there. And I, in fact, both of us feel the same way is that the whole thing with

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:45:33.992)
and Phoebe in Frozen Empire is that she’s alone. She doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have anybody to talk to because her family are away doing all the ghostbusting. So she’s left by herself. Then she befriends this ghost and they just become friends. They became really good friends because the two of them were alone and they just bonded. Now, if you watch that and you take away some sort of romantic subplot, that’s on that.

you take that and there’s nothing wrong with that. to see it and then take that as like, this is another thing of the woke agenda. Then you’re looking way too far into something that you clearly wanted to see and wanted to hear. I mean, when you’re watching the can, did you take away from it like some sort of romantic subplot?

Yeah.

Cal (01:46:27.606)
I just thought they’re leaving this up just up to the individual. I think it was just done in that way where it’s up to you what this thing is between them. I only had one criticism was that Melody the other ghosts, she’s from the 1800s and I thought it would have added to her if she had 1800 sensibilities and spoken in 1800s manner to Phoebe.

Did she say your-

I think she’s definitely from 1800s I think

I could have swore that because her dress style and the way that she talked, I felt it was more 1950s.

Right, but but anyway if she’s from that different period she still spoke more like a 2020s teen And had those kind of sensibilities and I thought it just been quite interesting if she presented Whatever time period it is if she’d spoken like that And phoebe and then bonding like that’s kind of being outsiders in their own time periods Yeah, could I give a little bit more meat to that relationship? think

Des O’ Gorman (01:47:34.966)
Actually yeah, I Yeah! Yeah, no I could, yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:47:45.046)
Actually, it just says here I’ve just I actually got it here and it says that at age 16 Melody died in an accidental fire at a tenement after she lit the last match in a Melody diner match book near Washington Square Park. Now it says tenement so that means tenement building, but it doesn’t actually say when this happened. given the fact that she says that it’s a tenement building and she does recognise

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:48:14.744)
both the diner and the firehouse for what they are. I think that it’s like very temporary. So it’s definitely in the late 20th century that I think she passed away.

Yeah, but even then just having her be more like that and Phoebe, obviously the current 18 and then just the bonding and the things that you could have had like their outcasts in their own times in different ways. I just thought, oh, that was a wee bit of a missed opportunity there.

Yes.

Des O’ Gorman (01:48:48.718)
I give you that one. do. Yeah, if it had been like a completely different time period, I think that probably would have worked. But given what was presented on screen, again, I didn’t. First of all, I felt that the relationship they had was really sweet, but I never took any romantic.

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:49:14.072)
feelings towards each other away from that. I just got that they were just really good friends and that’s all that I personally took from it.

Yeah, and I also think just how you see it will also depend because I do have some queer friends and they definitely saw it in that kind of lens. So again, it might just be your own experience. I think it’s just they left it. It’s just up to you what was going on there.

Yeah, I agree with you on that. think everybody’s going to take away something different from. But isn’t that the whole point of movies is that you could take away something that somebody else doesn’t advise versus it doesn’t mean that one person is right or wrong. It just means that you each take away something different.

Yeah, and that’s completely fine as well. But yeah, that’s the only catch. But that is I just I do have some queer friends and they did view it through a queer lens that there was undertones. They said it was just nicely, subtly done, but it wasn’t like totally, you know, over the top. But I I I thought I wasn’t sure. just I think there’s some kind of element of attraction there, but maybe they’re not recognizing it and they’re just going with the friend. They just.

Maybe they’re both too awkward to confronted with each other or something. That’s what I viewed it. Maybe. Because they’re both awkward teens.

Des O’ Gorman (01:50:38.966)
exactly. again, that also means that it’s there. It just means that maybe neither of them wanted to act on that. yeah.

So, again, because again, that goes back to my point, they had the melody ghost, if she’s from that other time, she would definitely want to hide that because that’s what she grew up with. So and then there’s kind of maybe things you could explore, but then we’re getting too much into the aspect of the film. yeah, but overall, was this was decent and just cut a few things out here and there.

Yeah

Cal (01:51:19.726)
It was just a bit on the bloated side in the end.

I think another Passover on the script and some merging of characters would have helped tighten the script up a little bit. But it’s still a fun movie. I personally think that this has been a movie where Bill Murray actually cares about what’s going on. even in like Afterlife, he was there for a short wee bit, but I think he’s kind of

wanted to come with a bit more energy because he respects both the film directors and the new cast. He really gelled well with the younger actors and he really wanted to be there for them. And I think that came across, doesn’t it?

Yep.

Yeah and I think like you say it’s just now the next film give Bill Murray and all them the send-off they deserve. I’m sure they can come up with something good.

Des O’ Gorman (01:52:14.402)
Yeah, let’s… I think so. I think they have reached the… Let’s put it this way. We don’t want to have another Harold Ramer situation where they pass away before they can tie everything up. Let’s just have these characters bow out. Peter can go off with Dana because they’re now married and maybe Ray could head off with…

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:52:43.202)
Hatton Oswalt’s character to go off with some relic hunting maybe in Scotland who knows maybe they can actually do nothing when they go looking for banshees in Scotland and and then you just have Winston if he wants to could just stick around New York funding the new team and let’s see where the the story goes from there

Yeah, but yeah, overall, I would definitely say this came, we came, we saw, we kicked its ass. What’s the exact line again? All right, so for the first time. came, we saw.

No, that’s- you- you got that, you know, we-

we kicked its ass. I mean, it’s a lot better than one of Bill Murray’s other takes of that line.

Yep. But yeah, think that’s looking optimistic now, think.

Des O’ Gorman (01:53:28.788)
I think so too. think so too. The one thing I probably would say is that now that the franchise is kind of up and back again, don’t over saturate. If that makes sense. Maybe, let’s see, the latest movie came out this year. Let’s give it like two, three years, really build up a good story, a good send off for Venkman and Stans.

Yeah.

Des O’ Gorman (01:53:58.838)
and just kind of take it from there. If you plan to release a movie every couple of years, it might over saturate it like they kind of did when Disney took over Star Wars. It might kind of over saturate a little bit, but really take your time to flesh out stories and characters and then come back with something solid.

Yep.

Cal (01:54:21.324)
Yep, I’d agree with that. So there we are. We’re at the end of the Ghostbusters franchise.

covered a 40 year franchise in almost two hours. I’m telling you, there’s at least three episodes that you can edit and release now. You don’t need to put this out of the water.

Yep.

Cal (01:54:41.292)
I think I will put it as a warning because people are…

Okay, wow, alright!

But myself and Kenny covered the whole Alien franchise in one episode.

How long was that?

think we did that in two and a half hours. Because there was one or two films where we just said a sentence each about it and then just we wanted, we didn’t want to talk about it. Like our Alien vs Predator Requiem review was…

Des O’ Gorman (01:55:08.35)
God, you know what? I completely forgot about those movies until you said that just now. Wow.

Yep. And we covered the Terminator franchise in about the same time as well.

Yeah, that’s fair. Me personally, the Terminator franchise stopped after the second movie.

Anyway, we’re going off on time.

We are, are. But still, that was very impressive. What was that? Five movies, two cartoon series and a video game in about two hours. We didn’t even cover the comic books, but let’s not, let’s not go down that route.

Cal (01:55:43.15)
Yep, so any final thoughts, Stes? Well, and where people can find you if they want to hear more from you in England.

fantastic. Well, final thoughts. We’ve covered everything in this franchise. I’m excited, like we both said, I’m very excited to see what’s coming up next. Intrigued to see what this, I think it’s a Netflix animated series. I’m intrigued to see what that’s going to become. Yeah, my one man show.

still ready to believe you. I’ve got a few dates lined up for next year, just working out final details. But if anybody was interested to have me host at their comic conventions or put my one man shows on, you can find me at my website, which is desorgorman.co.uk or I am on Facebook at

It’s the Dez O’Gorman, that’s the same for Facebook and on Instagram. But yeah, no, I’m still a big fan of the Ghostbusters and 40 years is quite a milestone for the guys. But as soon as December is over and January begins, I can put the Ghostbusters aside and then focus on the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future.

yeah because yeah yeah because that turns 40 next year in 2025.

Cal (01:57:16.544)
Yes, that might be a retrospective show for us next year as well.

I mean, if you need to have another chat with somebody about this franchise, you know who to call.

yes, that’s what you did there.

Thank you very much, But yeah, no, I think we covered a lot here, Calum. it was this has got to be we did cover a lot here, but it was nice to talk to somebody that like like you said, with Afterlife, you were very open about things that worked and did not work. But your opinion or what you took away from Ghostbusters 2 really did. Really did.

Yeah.

Cal (01:58:01.868)
Alright.

Again, 35 years since that movie came out, I have never heard anybody describe it in the way that you have. And that has literally blown my tiny little mind. So I’m taking that one and there’s got to be a lot of milling about in the brain of that one.

fucks with that.

Cal (01:58:21.864)
Okay, and just to let everyone know Follow like and subscribe us in all the links below and we do have a whatsapp group now so you can Follow the chatter of what’s happening with ocast and what’s coming up and leave us voicemails and all that kind of nice stuff

Please be nice because you may be listening to everything that we have said here and you may disagree with something. We do not respond well to poorly worded criticism. If you wish to have a discussion, we could definitely do that. But if you’re just going to call it every naughty name under the sun, we will basically dose you with positively charged, secular, magnet, ethyric, ectoplasmic residue and then treat you feeling like a million bucks.

and make it with shredded wheat.

You monster! No, it will make you eat semi-warm ready-break. yeah.

or we’re going to force you to watch that live stream of Rick and Des wrestling in Ready Brick.

Des O’ Gorman (01:59:22.722)
Hey, how dare you sir, that’s only on our OnlyFans and you know it!

If anyone’s listening here, Richter probably doesn’t have any clue. Just go into Rick’s stream and just start asking him about ReadyBreak constantly and just like see the utter confusion that’ll be on his face. There’s your takeaway. Go and troll Rick with us now.

Now that’s Rick Caranza. So if you find him on Instagram, I think he still does Twitch streams and things. But just mention when is the Ready Brick fight going to happen? And I want to see if we can build this up over the space of like six or seven months. So when he comes back to OH!CON and somebody brings it up, I just want him on stage to go, what is everybody talking Why does everybody keep going on about Ready Brick? What is this happening for?

Yep, I think that’s a plan now. We are going to troll the living.

But whatever you don’t highlight this podcast. If he asks about the whole Ready Break thing, just say you know what we’re talking about and then never bring this podcast or anything up.

Cal (02:00:31.124)
So that’s what’s come out of this. We’re waging a war of terror, a psychological war of terror on Rick now.

This is really bad because I was his groomsman at his wedding and now I feel like I’m really throwing him under the bus.

Well, throw him into the ready breakfast.

There it is!

So thank you, Jess. Thank you so much. It’s been fantastic. I’ve really enjoyed this.

Des O’ Gorman (02:00:55.788)
This has been an absolute pleasure, Calum. I’m really happy you asked me to do this, man. This has been a lot of fun.

All right, so thank you everyone for listening and we’ll hopefully speak to you soon and hopefully O’Connor she’ll see Des at some point in the future, hopefully.

fingers crossed we’re gonna have that fight somehow. Yeah I was just gonna say like Callum said make sure you like and subscribe for the for the old cast is it old cast?

Nothing else.

Des O’ Gorman (02:01:27.854)
And where’s the details that people can find for the podcast and for the WhatsApp group? Because I think I spoke over that whenever you were talking about them.

There will be in the description of this.

There we go. So, yeah, look toward the description. Make sure you give Callum a wee thumbs up because he He works very hard on these podcasts. Yeah. Make sure whenever you see him, you give him a lozenge because he’s been talking a lot and I’m sure he’ll the throat lozenge for that. And remember Rick Carranza, ready, break, fight. That’s all you need to say. All right.

Give it.

Cal (02:02:02.286)
Thanks everyone and we’ll see you soon.

You take care folks, bye for now.