EXTREME GHOSTBUSTERS - THE COMPLETE SERIES (1997)
Label: SPHE
Region Code: 1
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 860 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: Fullscreeen SD (1.33:1)
Cast: Tara Strong, Maurice LaMarche, Jason Marsden, Alfonso Ribeiro, Rino Romano, Billy West
Extreme Ghostbusters (1997) was a one season sequel series to The Real Ghostbusters, which aired from 1986 to 1991. The events take place years after after the events of The Real Ghostbusters animated series, with the original Ghostbusters crew having moved on from ghost-busting after the spirit world seemed to have cooled down. The only returning original Ghostbuster is big-brain nerd Egon Spengler (voiced by Maurice LaMarche, Futurama), who is now a college professor who lectures on paranormal. He still lives in the Ghostbusters firehouse HQ with his sidekick Slimer (voiced by Billy West, Futurama), and when supernatural activity suddenly resurges across New York he recruits a new batch of Ghostbusters, comprised of four college students; goth-brainiac occult-expert Kylie Griffin (voiced by Tara Strong, Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold), sarcastic hispanic slacker Eduardo Rivera (Rino Romano, Spider-Man Unlimited), wheelchair bound jock Garrett Miller (Jason Marsden, Robot Jox), and Roland Jackson (voiced by Alfonso Ribeiro, Ticks), a black mechanical whiz. Also returning is Janine Melnitz (voiced by Pat Musick, Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School).
This is not a series I caught when it first aired, I was an "adult" by then and the work schedule in an era before DVDR and streaming was prohibitive, though somehow I always managed to squeeze in episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series, Spider-Man, The Savage Dragon, The Tick, Spider-Man Unlimited, Batman: The Animated Series, and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, so maybe it was just the "Extreme" Ghostbuster title sounded sort of annoying and made me think of Mountain Dew and Dorado "extreme" ads. Over the years I managed to catch a few random episodes here and there but never really gave it a bunch of thought. Watching it now I was quite taken with the show, especially considering this is perhaps the first show to feature a senior member if the team handing off the ghost-busting reigns to the next generation, something that we saw more recently with the movie franchise with Ghostbuster: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which is cool.
The animation style reminded me a bit of the Jackie Chan Adventures (2001-2005) animated series, and looking into it they were both produced by Sony's now dormant Adelaide Productions, so that makes sense. The style is vivid and moody with some very cool creature and ghost designs, I was pleasantly surprised just how dark this one goes for 90's kid-friendly animated series, and I am pretty sure if you were a young kid in the 90's this one churned out some future monster-kids for sure, lot of cool creature/ghost designs on display here. Each episode, some of them two-parters, featured a new ghost, goblin, demon, vampire clown, trolls or some other spooky supernatural entity. Egon and Janine take more supervisory positions and do not partake in the ghost-busting all that often, and slimer is related to mostly just firehouse and food-based comedy, annoying the new team, but the ghost-busting action is pretty great. while I was initially not a huge fan of the animation style it's definitely grown on me, as has the series as a whole. At the time I don't think anyone really appreciated that they were doing something different with the franchise that had not been done before. It was a solid idea and it was executed fairly well, the only thing that annoyed me is the new darker version of Ray Parker Jr.'s theme song "Ghostbusters" as sung by Jim Cummigs is pretty dang terrible. It's great to have the complete series at least on DVD, I just wish Sony would have put a little more thought and love into restoring these and offering some extras.
Audio/Video: All 40 episodes of Extreme Ghostbusters: The Complete Series (1997) arrives on 9-disc DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in 1.33:1 fullscreen. I don;t know a lot about the animation process of this show, but it looks to have be digital cell animation and digital-ink, probably preserved on an SD format or some kind, at least based on what I am seeing here. The image quality is fluctuates quite a bit, while colors are generally vibrant and quite pleasing the animation lines at times are blurry or have jagged edges, which is disappointing, and some minor black crush and compression visible. It's just not a consistent or crisp or defined presentation, but it's watchable, but doesn;t appear to have had much love or restoration applied. Audio comes by way of English Dolby Digital 2.0 with optional English subtitles.
All 40 episodes are spread across 9 discs with 4-5 episodes per disc. Sadly, there are zero extras for this set. The 9-disc release arrives in an oversized clear keepcase with 4 flipper trays holding the discs, with a single-sided sleeve of artwork.
Special Features:
- None
