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Real Ghostbusters Ecto-Plazm!

We've seen plenty of slimes plenty of times in our journey together, but for those new to the track, let's review: The Masters of the Universe Slime Pit, The Masters of the Universe Slime Pit Instruction Manual, The New Masters of the Universe Slime Pit, The Harry Potter Slime Chamber, Garbage Pail Kids Tacky Snappers, Rubber Body Parts In Slime, Vending Machine Slime, Jabba the Hutt Slime, Ivan Ooze Slime, Mattel's Original Slime, and God, I bet I'm forgetting a few. Me...you...we love our slime. You know it's true, and you know you're excited, because I'm about to dust off what many consider to be the best slime...of all time. Only on the second proofread did I realize that I've been rhyming this whole timing.

(heavenly hum)

Yup, The Real Ghostbusters "Ecto-Plazm," a canister of neon-colored yucky stuff that no kid could be without. The goop finds its roots in the original Ghostbusters flick from `84 -- the term applies to any gloppy gooey stuff that happens to surface when spooks and specters appear. It's what Bill Murray got slimed with. On the beloved cartoon, Ecto-Plazm was present in nearly every episode, even if they didn't bother to keep pointing out what it was every time a scene called for animated happy snot. It's special stuff, and in toy form, Ecto-Plazm was just an absolutely essential ingredient of childhood.

First off, it's not like all those other slimes. Ecto-Plazm was much looser -- almost watery. While this precluded anyone from fondling the stuff without making a mess, it had the best "drip factor" of any toy slime -- here's an example. Unique in more ways than that, Ecto-Plazm had only a lightly offensive odor -- a rare trait in any edition of nontoxic novelty slime. The gunk came in many colors, because honestly, kids went through six cans a month and we were starting to crave variety. The colors afforded us a bit of extra incentive for repeat purchases, but even more so than that, the cans each contained a mystery ghost figure buried deep in the sludge. The figures were tiny, cheap, one-colored pissants, like this guy, a creature of unspeakable cleavage. Nobody cared enough to complain about the lousy figures. We came for slime...if they wanted to throw in a lousy figure, sure, fuck it, we'd take that too.

I don't know when to halt the gushing on this -- I'm sure Ecto-Plazm is the kinda thing you'd have to have been there for to "get." The Real Ghostbusters wasn't the most popular cartoon franchise of its time by any stretch, but it always felt extra special for some reason -- like the friend who doesn't live near you but remains your favorite to hang out with, or something that sounds even more poetic. This intangible magic trickled down to the toy line. We didn't get Ghostbustering junk as often as the other contenders' wares, but man...it always made our day when we did. Today, we salute a very special slime. I hate when I sound so National Geographyffy.

Posted by Matt on 04/14/2005. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 73 comments

Is Steven any relation to Egon? Is it me, or does Slimer have a Carol Channing ‘do in that picture? Back off, I’m an X-E poster! If I may, let me be the first to welcome the Destructor. He’ll be showing up any time now.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 04/15/2005 11:44 AM

I remember this as a kid. My parents telling me not to put it down the vents like the other poster said. Me just saying fuck it, or the 3-5 year old version of it and pouring this goop all over it and having fun. Then not able to get it off. Still aren’t able to get the damned thing off and its been probably 17 years. Actually not that I honestly tried recently to scrape it off…

Chestnuts roasted by R @ 04/15/2005 12:36 PM

The Real Ghostbusters was my childhood. This is the reason why I love this website – sure, I loved Star Wars, TMNT, MOTU, and ReBoot, and had quite a few toys of all those franchises (maybe not in the case of ReBoot), but none still remain so completely awesome as The Real Ghostbusters.
I had about 20 cans of this stuff, though that doesn’t really count the cans I got with some special slime-based figures. Putting the stickers on the toys was always one of my favorite things to do with any new toy, but the firehouse remained un-stickered for the very reason that I could play with it outside with the slime. I bought two of each of the main action figure characters so that I could have one that I slimed and washed, and one that was pristine. I took apart the firehouse all the time to wash it, but it was all worth it just so I could make action figure movies w/slime effects.

Chestnuts roasted by MadMax1001 @ 04/15/2005 12:40 PM

Dude, Matt, that was such a flashback it hurt. I had many of those tins, all about half-full of course. I also had the Horde Slime Pit, and that instruction manual was probably my favorite book for at least 2 years. I loved the drawing of the kid chasing the slime, I distinctly remember really getting a kick out of that.

Chestnuts roasted by Bryan @ 04/15/2005 1:38 PM

Matt’s article including TMNT Mutagen:

http://www.x-entertainment.com/updates/entries/archives/00000440.html

Chestnuts roasted by HarryLerman @ 04/15/2005 1:47 PM

Hey, Egon. Here’s your mucus.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 04/15/2005 2:51 PM

I bought the Hotwheels Slimecano playset and got a big tub of Lava slime with rocks in it. I haven’t opened it because for the most part, I hate slime. I also have Harry Potter Slime and He-Man slime. Slime surplus even. Mattel slime is so watery and thus, not fun.

Chestnuts roasted by Kennef @ 04/15/2005 4:19 PM

Looks like my Ghostbusters book from the last blog has found a home! I should have waited a day to post about it.

Chestnuts roasted by trajeal @ 04/15/2005 4:41 PM

Hey Matt, right now on e-bay there is a WWE VCR Board Game from the late 80s (Hogan/Andre on the box front). Less than $10…about 3 hours left. Sounds like a golden X-E find.

Chestnuts roasted by Y2JB78 @ 04/15/2005 4:57 PM

Here’s the link if you want it:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1180&item=5184324636&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Chestnuts roasted by Y2JB78 @ 04/15/2005 4:58 PM

One big memory I have of slime was getting a game called Wipe Out for christmas (I had asked for Knock-Out) It was a game with this huge board where you have to have surfers climb to the bottom (or was it the top?) before they were wiped out by a wave of slime.

When I finally played it with 2 friends, we went crazy with it and tossed it to each other, and some of it got stuck on the carpet, especially on a spot on my stairs. That stain where the slime once was stayed there for years until we got new carpeting.

Chestnuts roasted by Invader Norbert @ 04/15/2005 5:36 PM

http://www.gamerz-edge.com/news/articles/040705Turtles.html">Interview with Kevin Munroe (New TMNT Movie Director)

Chestnuts roasted by ME @ 04/15/2005 5:41 PM

I too went on a Fun-Dip bender as a kid. Me and a friend were at the beach, must’ve been 14 or so, and snorted a bunch of it. Man we went sugar crazy! We were also eating those things like they were…well candy. That stuff (the eating it I mean, we didn’t snort THAT much) kept us up for like 36 hours. The crash was HARSH though. Probably slept for about the same amount of time afterwards.

Chestnuts roasted by jhnnywalkr @ 04/15/2005 5:48 PM

"Real Ghostbusters" was one of the only cartoons I remember watching on ABC in the late 80s. My sister liked it more than I did, but I thought Slimer was funny and Egon was cute (even if I couldn’t figure out how or why he’d suddenly gone blonde). I don’t remember the slime at all. My mother wasn’t crazy about us bringing home the vending machine variety and completely forbid the types sold in canisters for toys (same reason we never had the MOTU Slime Pit).

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 04/15/2005 8:38 PM

N..n…new TMNT movie???? TMNT movies are awesome! I have the first and third on tape. Aww, man.
TMNT was still popular in many a early year of my childhood(90-95). On that, I ask of you all, does anyone remember the Turtles that transformed into cars? I had Leo.

Chestnuts roasted by Tom No Like @ 04/15/2005 9:33 PM

My childhood was Real Ghostbusters, Transformers and Doctor Who. I had a load of the ectoplasm, but managed to save it from getting to the carpet, but yeah, it stained my poof RGB figures something terrible.

Loved the Family Guy article, Matt! I’m so happy I’m going to be on holiday in America when the new Family Guy premiere is!

Chestnuts roasted by Zev @ 04/15/2005 9:36 PM

Mrs. Jenius’s Aveeno shaving cream smells like ecto-plazm.

Chestnuts roasted by Max Jenius @ 04/15/2005 10:26 PM

I loved the Real Ghostbusters. In fact, I can honestly say I’ve never seen an episode of the original He-Man, Transformers, and only caught GI Joe in reruns on USA Network, but I watched every episode of Ghostbusters.(with the excpetion of GI Joe, I’m surprised that cartoon network never showed them) I also remember the slime, but not the monsters inside them or the different colors. I also had the pink color.

One of my earliest Ghostbusters memories was Christmas when I wanted the Ghostbusters Trap because I thought I could catch ghosts. But they were out. So I got the proton pack with a note from Santa Claus saying this. I was the happiest kid in the world. I also had the various figures and monsters plus the Ghostbusters projector that shot showed ghosts on walls and made noise.

Caught a couple of episodes of the updated version a couple years ago. Wasn’t impressed.

Chestnuts roasted by JLAJRC @ 04/15/2005 11:43 PM

BTW, I got the WWF VCR Game. It sucks just like any other VCR game. Although I’ve been loving the DVD games (Scene It and Trivial Pursuit DVD ROCK)

Chestnuts roasted by JLAJRC @ 04/15/2005 11:45 PM

Tom No Like, I indeed have ALL of those TMNT figures. The hardest one to transform was Shredder into a drill, and my favorite one was Splinter turning into the Turtle Van.

Chestnuts roasted by Invader Norbert @ 04/16/2005 1:43 AM

On the subject of both TMNT and toy franchise slimes, i totally remember the TMNT Retromutagen Ooze, the very stuff that made the TMNT what they were. While this stuff may not have actually been able to turn you into some cool mutant or whatever (that’d be so awesome), the stuff DID come with a a little turtle figurine. However, this was no ordinary figurine, unlike what came in the GB stuff. Oh no. This was a GLOW-IN-THE-DARK TURTLE FIGURINE. SWEET MOTHER OF FUCKER JESUS HOLY AND SHIT!!!! You get slime AND a glow in the dark toy! The best of both worlds!

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 04/16/2005 3:36 AM

Now that I think of it, I wonder if they’ve done something similar witht he new line of TMNT toys. Let’s see!

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 04/16/2005 3:37 AM

Whoa- Just last night I was talking with friends about The Real Ghostbusters cartoon, and how I had THE TRAP- one of the best toys ever. Loved the slime as well…..love all slime, really. Never had any TMNT Ooze, although I wish I did- that’s like straight outta the movie, yo!

Chestnuts roasted by Muppet Baby @ 04/16/2005 7:08 AM

Lest not forget the many-a-turtle who died in TMNT "mutagen" slime (as reported on the nightly news when I was 8). This is really a tragic situation because every kid that owns a turtle has one because they are reclusive over-achieving orphan/ single-child who can’t make human friends, and oh do they want a human friend! If only Shelly could talk and run and play! Solution: $5 container of mutagen that even came with a kick-ass glow-in-the-dark turtle already inside- an example of the awesome genetic effects to come! Result: a dead turtle and a kid who killed the only friend he ever had…… who can never love again. And good for him! TURTLES ARE THE BEST!

Chestnuts roasted by Ponsonby Britt @ 04/16/2005 8:37 AM

slime sucks

Chestnuts roasted by gfdgfdgf @ 04/16/2005 10:20 AM

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