Kingpin;157418
…I'm even inclined to believe that the intro sequence was done by a different studio, based on the higher quality of animation.

That's actually quite common for animated shows.

Speaking of overlooked details though… I have yet to figure out where the power gauge shown in the XGB intro is supposed to be located on the packs.

StayinPuft;157426
I also think it was a plot device… Having unlimited ammo (like the original packs)

Having a piece of equipment that makes up the entire basis of the show (ie ghostbusting) with an infinite power supply makes it harder and harder to write new episodes.

They had a lot of ‘ammo’, but they were never unlimited. The Proton Packs still had to be charged.

However, if a lot of your plots had to involve the Ghostbusters running out of ammo, then the plot writing doesn't seem to be very original, or of any real depth…

People who know what they're doing shouldn't be running out of ammo part-way through a job, it'd be unprofessional.

Every episode of RGB would just be the GB's going to catch a ghost, they get there, and catch the ghost. That would lose interest pretty fast.

Yet it didn't. You don't have to run out of ammo in order to make each bust unique and varied from the other, that's where strong writing for the ghosts/monsters and the particular circumstances where they came to be comes in… not to mention the human element of those citizens who are being haunted.

Funny you mention Star Trek actually, because the TNG presented the alternate problem: The Enterprise computer was always going offline, or being hacked because it had absolutely no apparent protection (and because it was a overused plot device).

They kept having to invent ways to keep the stories fresh by separating the GBs from their equipment.

And it provided some of the interesting RGB episodes, Dairy Farm… Citizen Ghost (part of), Who you calling two dimensional?.

I think they really struggled to explain why the old packs (which had unlimited power) were inferior to the new ones, eventho they were used to bust ghosts in that episode…

Because the basis for the new equipment had always been flawed.

Cosmic-Riptide;157431
Speaking of overlooked details though… I have yet to figure out where the power gauge shown in the XGB intro is supposed to be located on the packs.

Good question, I can only assume it's meant to be somewhere on the backpack portion…

The new equipment could've done with a few more dials and lights.

devilmanozzy;157423
That sounds like the best answer, and come to think of it, did the packs ever overheat in Extreme Ghostbusters?

Anyways, it makes the packs safer is my guess, which while not making more stories is a more practical reason.

So I'm guessing then that the packs are more like the engine that amplifies the stream and focuses it.

I'd have to say…this right here.

I read something on a promo sheet or advertisement that Egon developed a new Proton Pack that required less power from the pack itself as he felt the old RGB-era packs were getting a bit dangerous. A “low-power pack,” it was called, and it apparently reduced the amount of destruction the Ghostbusters caused.

Kingpin;157432
They had a lot of ‘ammo’, but they were never unlimited. The Proton Packs still had to be charged.

I don't recall an episode where they had to recharge the packs… Can you name them? I also don't recall an episode where they have to rush back to the firehouse and recharge their packs because they ran out during a battle with a ghost.

Kingpin;157432
Yet it didn't. You don't have to run out of ammo in order to make each bust unique and varied from the other, that's where strong writing for the ghosts/monsters and the particular circumstances where they came to be comes in… not to mention the human element of those citizens who are being haunted.

Again, the GBs losing their packs was a constant device used in RGB to complicate storylines. Just sitting here, I can think of a few episodes like this. The one where they are shrunken down. The one where there is a blackout or something and they had to make that big contraption to catch the ghost. The one where they go to Hollywood to film the movie and they have to run around the studio and find their packs. Even in the Sandman one, didn't Winston get seperated from his pack and then he had to dream about someone busting the Sandman?

Obviously I'm not the biggest RGB fan, but I know that in 99% of the episodes, it's not just as simple as them going to a location, busting a ghost and then case closed the credits roll. 50% of the stories involve the packs not working/them losing the packs or some other problem with the packs. The other 50% involve them having to build some trap or thinking up some clever way to capture a powerful ghost. This is what writing is about, thinking up conflicts and resolution. I know you may want to think it's as simple as just having a call, driving the Ecto to the location, the GBs busting the ghost, Venkman making a witty remark and then the DIC logo comes up on the screen… I don't know what episodes of RGB you watch, but none of them are like that. There is usually one complication before the first commercial break, another complication before the second commercial break, and then the resolution before the end of the episode.

Just sitting here and saying “No! It WAS as simple as that!” or it was because the production company that did the opening credits was different from the company that did the show is really unproductive… If I had EGB on DVD I'd go and look up all the episodes where they ran out of ammo (or where about to run out of ammo) and had to think up an unconventional way to bust the ghost. It's probably about as many as there were episodes of RGB were they get separated from their packs.

Simply seeing them bust ghosts with no complications is NOT entertaining. This was even a part of Dan Aykroyd's script for GB1 and a plot point that made it into the movie… Ghostbusting became like a pest extermination business. Really repetitive and boring. This is the problem that GB TVG had! After you blast the first dozen ghosts, it gets REALLY boring! You have to keep adding problems and complications to keep it entertaining.

I can't believe that I have to explain something so simple! It's almost as annoying as the “print is dead means that Egon was foreseeing the decline of the newspaper industry 25 years into the future, and not the much more logical explanation that he was just stating that print is not a living organism and doesn't interest him as much as ”spores, molds and funguses“ which ARE ALIVE as was the context of that conversation with Janine!” argument. Just because you don't like me, don't think everything I say is wrong and you have to refute it.

Kingpin;157432
Funny you mention Star Trek actually, because the TNG presented the alternate problem: The Enterprise computer was always going offline, or being hacked because it had absolutely no apparent protection (and because it was a overused plot device).

I'm a pretty hardcore TNG fan and I don't think that's true about the computer always going offline… All of the security safeguards seemed pretty useless and could be easily overridden by anyone and they could always bypass or alter something seemingly at will… Another plot device that was used a lot more in TNG (and later Treks) was the Prime Directive… It just seems like every episode of TOS involved the transporters not working which got pretty lame.

In conclusion, the use of “ammo limits” and lost equipment made both series more interesting because they added complications to the stories.

On that note, I think I might throw an RGB dvd in the player… I got a hankering for some RGB now.

RE: StayinPuft

“The Haunting of Heck House”: The boys win a huge sum of money if they spend a night in a haunted house without their equipment.

There's one where the Proton Pack doesn't work on a dog-like creature from Celtic mythology because it can only be dealt with using a four-leaf clover or shamrock…It's been a while since I saw the episode in question.

I see you mentioned Citizen Ghost already.

As a forward, it seems that things have gotten confused in regard to ‘ammo’ and ‘the equipmet’.

I'm not critiquing when the equipment was knocked out of action, or stolen. I'm critiquing the point of the energy canisters.

StayinPuft;157441
I don't recall an episode where they had to recharge the packs… Can you name them?

Citizen Ghost is the most notable one I can immediately recall, where the only Proton Pack which hadn't been stolen by the ghost clones, only had ‘half a charge’.

The Packs also ran out during the battle at Dunkeld, in Bustman's Holiday, and as Peter and Ray battled Boogaloo in The Halloween Door.

It was usually after significantly long periods of use, such as several straight hours, like in those latter two episodes, which completely drained the Proton Packs. Normal, shorter busts wouldn't require the need to vanish back to the Firehouse for a recharge.

Even in the Sandman one, didn't Winston get seperated from his pack and then he had to dream about someone busting the Sandman?

No, he retained his. Janine dreamed she was a Ghostbuster, but still made use of a real Proton Pack.

50% of the episodes? I don't see that being accurate (like your feeling that all TOS episodes had the Transporter fail, I think the impression you've gotten has been significantly inflated), I'd say that closer to 80% of the episodes had them using their equipment without major incident (major being being unable to use it at all), and only 20%, if even that, involved the equipment going missing. (So it could be argued somewhere between 20% and 50% is probably the true number)

I don't feel that building a new specialist device counts towards ‘equipment loss/failure’.

I never said that everything had to be simple and straightforward, I simply don't feel the canister development was an improvement on the design, but a retrograde step.

Just because you don't like me, don't think everything I say is wrong and you have to refute it.

My opinion of you has not had any affect on, or been the basis of the points I've been making. My disagreement is not based on our past history.


I'm a TNG fan as well, but it still seemed to happen a lot on something that was meant to be the Federation's flagship.

Just to throw in my two cents…

It seems to me like the (creators') motivation for the ammo/canister system was merely a superficial way of making the show more “extreme.” Visually speaking, there is something kind of “extreme” and “cool” about the process of loading these ammo canisters into some (wannabe) badass proton gun. And as I recall, that kind of action/weapon badassery was becoming pretty popular among boys at the time, with shoot-em-up videogames and such. Slamming ammo clips into your cartridge slot just before you mow down some nasties - that sort of stuff. There's a primitive sorta coolness to it. I think the creator's were probably just appealing to that. Although, granted, they didn't make much use of that cool-factor outside the intro sequence, as Kingpin noted - rarely did they “reload.” The Trendmasters toys however (which were made before animation, correct?) - they certainly had that going on.

As for fabricating some suitable explanation to explain their presence within the actual GB universe; I'm willing to buy Zombie's theory that it was for safety purposes, so the packs don't overheat. That's not very GB though IMO, the Ghostbusters are all about dangerous, experimental, haphazard equipment. …The idea that the canisters produce more concentrated albeit ephemeral ion streams would also work for me, except that the old packs performed just as good as the new ones in Back in the Saddle.

(*winston)

Nix;157444
RE: StayinPuft

“The Haunting of Heck House”: The boys win a huge sum of money if they spend a night in a haunted house without their equipment.

There's one where the Proton Pack doesn't work on a dog-like creature from Celtic mythology because it can only be dealt with using a four-leaf clover or shamrock…It's been a while since I saw the episode in question.

I see you mentioned Citizen Ghost already.

The episode you are thinking of is “The Scaring of the Green” which had a very funny scene with Egon , some lions, and that Bogghound thing. lol

devilmanozzy;157484
The episode you are thinking of is “The Scaring of the Green” which had a very funny scene with Egon , some lions, and that Bogghound thing. lol

Yeah, I couldn't think of the title! I saw it around 1996/97 or so, when Channel 50 or something was broadcasting it. I saw that and “Headless Motorcyclist.”