I've been wondering about this for a while, just never got around to asking you, my fellow nerds, () about it.

I know that in the movies, most of the increased ghost activity was caused by the underlying plot threads/causes (Coming of Gozer/Mood Slime River), but what about the cartoons??

What suddenly sparked off the sudden wave of ghost/paranormal activity that the Busters dealt with on an almost daily basis??? I mean besides script requirements. :p

Just wanting to know any possible theories…

A lot of the RGB cases dealt with dormant spirits being disturbed (either or man or lesser spirits)… some dealt with entities being deliberately summoned… others were entities out for revenge against the GBs… and many of the cases took place outside of the city / state (so it wasn't a ton of activity in one spot, but rather activity spread out over larger areas).

Still, New York seemed to have a lot spiritual activity… I suppose there may have been a lot of spiritual energy left over from the Gozer and Vigo incidents.

A good chunk of the activity could have also been stirred up from the initial containment breach and/or the (yet to be discovered) river of slime.

Cosmic-Riptide;165093
A lot of the RGB cases dealt with dormant spirits being disturbed (either or man or lesser spirits)… some dealt with entities being deliberately summoned… others were entities out for revenge against the GBs… and many of the cases took place outside of the city / state (so it wasn't a ton of activity in one spot, but rather activity spread out over larger areas).

Still, New York seemed to have a lot spiritual activity… I suppose there may have been a lot of spiritual energy left over from the Gozer and Vigo incidents.

A good chunk of the activity could have also been stirred up from the initial containment breach and/or the (yet to be discovered) river of slime.

The game filled in a lot of these loopholes in the initial “spawning” if you will of the ghosts. It had to do with the mandala used to channel ghosts from the ghost world to empower Gozer if I'm not mistaken. The ghosts are forced through this mandala and they pretty much cover everything you need to know if you look it up on youtube to get the full explanation. Playing the game really fills in a lot of the gaps.

Regardless, in RGB some of the answers have already been touched on, but RGB as a whole isn't really considered to be canon to most people worried about the integrity of the GB lore and timeline. Iin RGB/XGB the disturbance of dormant spirits often causes mayhem, other things like eclipses, summoning gone wrong, and curses represent most of the other occurrences of paranormal activity.

To paraphrase Egon from the game: People die every day.

Nuff said.

StaypuftX;165090
What suddenly sparked off the sudden wave of ghost/paranormal activity that the Busters dealt with on an almost daily basis??? I mean besides script requirements. :p

Just wanting to know any possible theories…

My theory? There wasn't a sudden wave of paranormal activity. The ghosts that the GBs captured in the montage were always around. People either tried to ignore or deal with their presences. Ghostbusters was the first company that could actually do something about the ghosts, and all of a sudden, the calls started pouring in.

JamesCGamora;165100
To paraphrase Egon from the game: People die every day.

Nuff said.

That's always how I interpretated things, even before the game. As the Ghostbusters rose in popularity, people felt more comfortable reporting the creepy things that happen in the world.

It's also why I hate the franchise going back to the well repeatedly by putting the Ghostbusters out of business (GB2, EGB).

Nix;165186
My theory? There wasn't a sudden wave of paranormal activity. The ghosts that the GBs captured in the montage were always around. People either tried to ignore or deal with their presences. Ghostbusters was the first company that could actually do something about the ghosts, and all of a sudden, the calls started pouring in.

Agreed. I think that's also implied with the research materials they reference (Tobin's Spirit Guide, etc.). These phenomenoms have been occuring long before the Ghostbusters were around.

Edge;166123
That's always how I interpretated things, even before the game. As the Ghostbusters rose in popularity, people felt more comfortable reporting the creepy things that happen in the world.

It's also why I hate the franchise going back to the well repeatedly by putting the Ghostbusters out of business (GB2, EGB).

Agreed. I firmly hope that movie III begins with some sort of indication of “the guys are still on the job, and getting too old for this sort of thing” rather than the tried and true “out of business/back in business” method.

I actually find it to be an unfortunate flaw of the franchise. They had this great original concept, which I felt RGB captured very well, and then they spent the subsequemt years trying to change the formula (later seasons of RGB, GB2,EGB).

The video game took things back to the core again, which is something I liked.