Director: Larry Peerce
First aired: 1975
Contains spoilers
The Ghost Busters was a short-lived live action children show that a decade later spawned an animated sequel series called Filmation’s Ghost Busters; the latter cashing in on the more famous motion picture of the same name and featuring the next generation of Ghost Busters. However, in its original form, it followed the misadventures of a company of paranormal detectives and, as far as I can remember, it never crossed the pond – so unfortunately I don’t have rose-tinted glasses to view it through.
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| Tracy and Kong |
It was based on pantomime level absurdist slapstick and this is perhaps not the best type of comedy for me to watch. All in all I didn’t think it particularly good in any way but I recognise some of you might have fond memories of the show. The three ghost busters are leader Kong (Forrest Tucker), zoot suit wearing Spencer (Larry Storch,
the Groovie Goolies) and the gorilla Tracy (Bob Burns,
Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters) a fairly hapless group who get their orders from the never seen Zero (Lou Scheimer).
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| Countess and Count |
The formula of each episode went like this. There is a prologue with the ghosts appearing, opening credits (with the most God-awful theme song sang by the cast), some shenanigans in the office and off in a car to the store to get their new mission (the message contained in any old object, which then self-destructs ala Mission: Impossible) then off to catch the ghost and dematerialise it. The same limited sets for castle and graveyard were used in every episode. In this episode the ghosts that appear are Count Dracula (Billy Holms) and Countess Dracula (Dena Dietrich) – so they are ghosts of vampires but they are looking for blood and can change someone into a vampire (in the later cartoon Dracula appears but is not a ghost).
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| a baseball bat |
Having arrived we get gags such as Dracula in bat form not flying well and crashing before turning back into human form, the discovery of a 'baseball bat', the Count going to the dentist and having his fangs extended and having corks put on his fang another time or getting them stuck in trees. The guys discover that the only things that will scare a vampire are a silver bullet or a wooden stake – cue a beef steak made out of wood gag. Being bitten turns you into a vampire but a second bite turns you back – that logic fails after Spencer is turned (calling Kong a flat-tooth, as he turns against his colleagues) but he bites the countess (or, at least, sucks a splinter out of her finger, as she did with him) and turns back into a human. At one-point Spencer wears a helmet from a suit of armour to protect his neck, a gag that would resurface in
Young Dracula
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| Spencer as a vampire |
However, this was not for me. Too silly, though Kong and Spencer could be personable enough, and too low budget. I was left cold.
3 out of 10 (with the caveat that rose-tinted glasses might help). The imdb page is
here.
On DVD @ Amazon US
On DVD @ Amazon UK
4 comments:
The animated spin-off show had some vampire episodes as well.
Hi Alex, great to hear from you and, indeed - I mention one in the review ;)
Oh, my. This one does indeed bring back memories. CBS had several live action shows that utilized the slap-stick/ blackout skit format, usually starring or featuring former stars of popular network shows. Tucker and Storch made their names on the comedic western series "F-Troop." I guess the board room figured sentimentality would somehow camouflage the poor scripting and low-budget sets. Disappointing on a few levels, but when you're lounging on the couch eating Frankenberry before going to work, it was passable. Cheers.
Thank you for that - the thing reminded me a little of the original series of rent-a-ghost in the UK (on a budget level at least). And as a kid it was watchable. But you're right, sometimes these things are passable at the time
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