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04/30/2006: Tribute to Stay Puft, and Roy Rogers’ Happy Meals.

I had a dream that I ate a giant marshmallow, and when I woke up, my pillow had transformed into an all-too-long tribute to The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. One love, Stay Puft. We tight.

Fast food chains are more successful in some areas than other areas, and in NYC, the once-great Roy Rogers’ scope has dwindled down to just a few remaining restaurants. I don’t know when Roy stopped being fashionable, but I’d like to kill the person who started that movement because God damn, his chicken was serious business. The breast pieces always came with this little knob of fried fat attached to the edge, and popping those busters is certainly what led to every fried chicken place on the planet coming up with their version of “chicken poppers.” If you live in a city that still pays Roy his due respect, consider yourself lucky and eat some crunchy skin for me.

Roy’s inability to connect with children may have played a part in his slow decline. McDonald’s had Happy Meals and Burger King had constant Happy Meal rip-offs, and Wendy’s had a pretty little red-haired girl on the marquee, but what did Roy Rogers have? Nothing. Roy Rogers had chicken. Roy Rogers has roast beef. But Roy Rogers had no Happy Meal.

Eh, that’s not entirely true. Once in a blue moon, Roy would put aside his convictions about chicken restaurants needing to serve chicken and not pander to the lowbrow crowd who wanted toys with their chicken. I assume this to be the work of his advisors, always in Roy’s ear with more lies about the necessity of a Happy Meal element. I kind of want to spend the next paragraph writing “buckaw” over and over again, but I won’t. One of Roy’s Rare Rappy Reals was called “Power Pullers,” including small action figures that…pulled power.

Essentially superhero-shaped Wacky Wall Walkers, the figures came in four different colors, stuffed in text-ridden picture boxes that went to great lengths to make the toys seem more interesting than McDonald’s Fast Macs. Click here to download the commercial, and note how the song number doesn’t really gel with save-the-world superhero toys. Buckaw buckaw buckaw buckaw buckaw buckaw buckaw buckaw buckaw buckaw buckaw buckaw.

The Stay-Puft marshmallow man is cuter than any baby, ever. If anyone ever tells you how cute their baby is just start comparing their child to the Stay-Puft marshmallow man. Their tears will be sweet gumdrops.

Every time a Roy’s shuts down in the greater NYC area, I lose a little bit of my faith in God.

Man I miss Roy Rogers. And Kenny Rogers Roasters. Apparently food tastes better when served by old singers, specifically Rogers.

So is the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man a ghost or a Marshmellow demon. I remember being quite puzzled to see Stay Puft in the Containment Unit in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon series. My theory at the time was that when Stay Puft died at the end of the Ghostbusters, his ghost (can demons have ghost?) came back and was captured later by the Ghostbusters.

You reminded me of when I was little and … actually, maybe it was Hardee’s, but either that place or Roy Rogers had the MOST KICK ASS roast beef sandwiches ever. A little bit of BBQ sauce, and that roll - that thing was to die for. I could down 2 of those things, and I was just a little kid and hardly ever ate 2 servings of anything at one time - and I still don’t! But, now I’m vegan, so no mo’ Roast Beef for me.

I don’t know how you do it, Matt, but every article you write tops the previous one. Kudos!

To this day, when any one around me gasps or utters an expletive to suggest something is wrong, I ask:

I love me some Roy’s. I mourned the day they closed the one down the way from my high school, but yet celebrated mightly when I came out of Penn Station in NYC for the first time to see that ol’ sunset logo staring back at me. Interestingly enough, they sold their chicken recipe to Hardee’s a while back. There is constant buzz that Roy’s will re-emerge and once again kick KFC’s ass six-ways to Sunday. Which makes me happy. For not only do I adore their biscuits, but that would mean less gas money would be spent going up the GSP to the Turnpike to the rest stop right before the exit for the Lincoln Tunnel.

Awesome article. My brother and I used to be RGB fiends. We had the firehouse, stay-puft, and about 900 other figures. Never got into the weapons, though. I remember my mom would always make us "go out on the deck" when we played with the ecto plazm containers. I still have all the RGB eps on vhs, and I had a marathon last summer when I got my wisdom teeth out. That was a pretty dark show. They had some really weird references, too, like the H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu mythos. I wish they’d bring RGB’s back. And not in the "EXTREME" form this time.

Alas, I’ve never known the joys of Roy Rogers chicken. The closest one to Cape May was (and may still be) at the Ocean View Rest Stop on the Garden State Parkway, about a half-hour from Cape Island.

Ah, yes, I’m also a long-time "Ghostbusters" fan. We never had the toys, oddly enough, since we rented the movies constantly loved the cartoon, but we did used to go around with make-believe proton packs in the dark, searching for one or more of the supposedly hundreds of ghosts who live in and around Cape May.

What was up with that Egon hair? It always seemed formed out of toothpaste to me.
AJ is such an ineffectual wanker.

I went to college outside of Utica, and my grandparents live in Albany, so I’d often drive back and forth between the two of them.

Can’t say that I’ve ever had Roy Rogers. It must not have made it to Kansas or Idaho, or if it ever did, it closed before I can remember.

Ryanne, might you be thinking of Arby’s? Their roast beef sandwiches taste pretty good to me. However, they recently came out with an advertising campaign stating that their chicken stuff was now 100% real chicken. It really makes me wonder what it was before. It also makes me question whether their roast beef (the real reason for going there) is 100% real beef or 50% tofu or what. I also question if their french fries are 100% real potatoes, or if the apple fritters contain real apples. The list goes on. Somehow I think this advertising campaign is going to backfire on them.

I went off-roading and camping this weekend. The scenery was usually pretty awe-inspiring. If you ever get the chance to drive or bike the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park you should go.

Also, we visited Arches National Park. I just couldn’t stop snickering. The landscape there MUST have inspired the Roadrunner cartoons. I got some pictures of a formation with the inspired name of "Balancing Rock" that just begs Wile E. Coyote to stand under it with dynamite or something.

Dammit, the80sruled, now all I can hear in my head is
"maaade from the beeest stuuuff…"

We used to have a Roy Rogers on Main Street. After it went belly-up, it sat there as a sad empty tomb for years, now it’s a store for tie-dye shirts and patchouli oil. Stupid college town.

There was this lunch table full of girls back in high school that everyone always referred to as the "Power Pullers" — now I get it! They weren’t making a crude sexual innuendo, they were giving props to Roy Rogers, and now it all makes perfect sense.

This makes me so fortunate to live only a few minutes from the only Roy Rogers remaining on Long Island (on William Floyd Parkway in Shirley).

"I’m just saying that when the library ghost shoved her nasty face up the camera’s crotch, I had trouble sleeping for weeks"–

The Library Ghost is infamous in my life for scaring the crap out of me. I had to cover my eyes every time as a kid because it was just to horrifying. –

On the subject of Roy Rogers. They could have played up the Cowboy angle as a way to market it to kids.
The last Roy Rogers I remember seeing was in PennStation like two years ago. I bought a Hamburger there and it was god-awful. Seriously. No Exaggeration, flat-out disturbing. It’s since closed.

When I was a kid in North Jersey my family went to Roy Rogers so much that when we went to an actual restaurant I couldn’t understand why you paid after you ate and why you didn’t order at a counter first.
I remeber getting a MotU cup at Roy Rogers that you had to hold up to the light before turning the lights out and being amazed my a glowing Skeletor or Scare-Glow or Horde trooper that hadn’t been there before.

Never seen a Roy Rogers. Didn’t know old cowboys even GOT their own restraunts.

Their roast beef sandwiches taste pretty good to me. However, they recently came out with an advertising campaign stating that their chicken stuff was now 100% real chicken. It really makes me wonder what it was before.
I’ve eaten Arby’s chicken before and after the campaign. There’s no difference in taste. It’s the same chicken–evidently it always was natural.

I have had a tramatizing experience related to ghostbusters so I am sorry but I don’t think I could watch both movies until it’s WAY out of my memory, maybe watching it with my kids. MY roommate bought both movies on dvd, and when he was gone I was really bored so I wanted to watch the second movie. Well he didn’t have any scissors, so I pulled out a knife
(this was about 4 years ago) and I was going to rip it open with it, well I ripped open my right hand’s middle finger, standing there with just a sports bra on and cut off shorts (I am a girl LOL) and I needed to goto the ER to get about 6 stitches in my hand. Still have the knife, my roommate refuses to throw away a perfectly good knife (c.cksucker) and the movie. I think the shorts still have the blood on them!! But anyway sorry but I cannot watch that movie again.

Roy Rogers is beyond awesome. On every trip to NYC or north NJ, we only stop at those NJTP rest areas where Roy Rogers is present and accounted for.

They used to have one in downtown Philadelphia at the Gallery shopping mall. I think the logo is still visible (it was carved into the wood). How depressing it was to see a Roy Rogers logo with a damn Foot Locker next to it.

Aw, my (now ex)boyfriend and I used to quote Ghostbusters together… after sex. Damn. Now I’m all sad again. I miss my geek.

Everytime I hear about this chain I think about Tom Hanks burbing while on Letterman and then having the following exchange:

Dear Kahless, chickn, giant marshmallow-men and … err, stretchy things. Truly a day that will live forever in song.

You know what? For the longest time I’ve made fun of marshmallows, writing pseudo-national-geographic articles about the wild marshmallow plant rolling across the planes of the praeries. Then I found out that they did, actually, grow on "trees" once - the mallow plant, which grew in marshes. Heh. Well, that’s less material for me.

For a Ghostbusters fan, I highly recommend trying the Sega Genesis Ghostbusters game that was released in 1990. Mr. Stay-Puft makes a far more impressive appearance in it, and the game is a lot more fun, without the budget balancing. You also get to pick which Ghostbuster you want to play as (with the acception of Winston, scandal!) and each Ghostbuster has his own different strengths. Not the greatest game, but one of the better games released for Genesis I think, and I still get a kick out of playing it occasionally.

Oh man, I loved Roy Rogers. They don’t have them in Philly anymore. They were mostly all replaced by Wendy’s. I went to the one at the rest stop right outside of NYC on the way home from Boston. I was so happy to see it. Mike, I work right above the Gallery, and I would be a very happy man if that Roy Rogers was still there!

Man, the library ghost rocks. When I’m rich and bored (next Tuesday, if all goes according to plan) I’m going to buy me a good voice changer and a scramble suit and spend my days haunting library stacks. Crank the camo up to about 75%, just enough for the shelves to be visible behind you, wait for some hapless shmuck to stumble across you, turn slowly to face them, and then scream "Get out!" in a voice rife with demonic reverberation. I just really don’t think it would ever get old.

I remember a promotion Roy Rogers did with Gumby figurines as a child. I got a Goo and my brother received Prickle.

Roy Rogers was sold to Hardee’s in the early 1990’s, and then Hardee’s sold some to Wendy’s and some to Boston Market, they tried turning the rest into Hardee’s, but after that failed they sold those off to McDonalds. The Roy Rogers of my childhood was turned into a Boston Market, and I refuse to step foot in the place because they took away a piece of my childhood.

spaz307 - Nope, I know it was either Roy Rogers or Hardee’s. This was when I was so little we didn’t have an Arby’s… and the only Arby’s we’ve ever had is in our mall, and I remember eating them in the car.

"They used to have one in downtown Philadelphia at the Gallery shopping mall. I think the logo is still visible (it was carved into the wood). How depressing it was to see a Roy Rogers logo with a damn Foot Locker next to it." — Mike F

Holy Fuck! I hadn’t thought about that Roys in years. Every Christmas my sister would take me and my brother to see the Nutcracker, then to Strawbridge’s to see the Dickens Village and go to the candy counter for Swedish fish and fruit slices, and then we’d go to Wanamaker’s to see the light show with the dancing fountains. We’d get Roys chicken before catching the R5 back out to Glenside. I miss Philadelphia in those days.

When the one near my closed down I almost died. Well, not really. But I was SO upset.

There used to be a Roy ROgers near the Virginia/West Virginia Line on I-77. We would always stop there on the way to or from a family reunion. The weird thing is that it wasn’t my family. And that it was in West Virginia.

A few years ago, I went on a road trip just to go to that Roy Rogers restaurant. I drove nearly 2 hours. When I got to that exit, my heart sank and a hearty "Motherfucker!" wrang out as I saw an empty lot where my dear Roy Rogers had once stood. The bastards….

The Goze’ him/herself hasn’t posted yet? I thought I was going to see the name near the top, but no dice. Not even to layeth the smackdown on the Marshie quote. MotherPusBucket!
There was an explanation of why there was a Stay-Puft in the containment unit. I think it had to do with a major spook of some type creating a near-exact copy because the original almost got the RGBs the last time. They managed to trap this one and discovered that it wasn’t evil, just stupid. He became the Ghost of Last Resort.
One of my favorite episodes was when they went to Japan and got to use the amphibious Ecto-Ichi.

there are at least 15 roys here in md, with a few in va and they’re planning to open more up. their roast beef and hamburgers are to die for.

Ahhhh, MAtt, Awesome Stay-
puft article!!
looking at the old toys brought me waaay back, i dont know how weird this is but when you menyioned that slimer came with a pizza watermellon etc. i started to remember how slimer smelled when i first took him out of the box, good times.
had stay-puft too!, lookin at that silly bastard right now in fact, thats one toy i wouldnt let "moms" throw away.
and as for roys chicken, i live in newfoundland(thats canada bitches ;P) so i have never even heard of it and like Ryane I too am Vegan, so even if there was one in my area i Can’t enjoy the fruits of roys labour.
Goin to see alice cooper tonight, WOO!!! awesome update and an alice cooper show, today be a good day….
JoshC

" MY roommate bought both movies on dvd, and when he was gone I was really bored so I wanted to watch the second movie. Well he didn’t have any scissors, so I pulled out a knife "

Hey Goob, just curious as to why you needed a knife or scissors to watch a moooovie!

I had the Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man figure. He was one of my favorites and often did brutal battle with other figures, and ALWAYS WON because he rocks that damn hard.

And you’re absolutely right about the RGB toyline being criminally overlooked by some. I had the proton pack complete with trap. That thing rocked.

Wukong, was that proton pack something you could strap on your back, that came with a gun? I had the slime gun, with the back-strappable slime canisters, and a gun that shot out a pink, spring-loaded plastic tube (it stayed attached to the gun). It was one of the only "firearms" I ever had. While it wasn’t quite on par with Nerf Bow and Arrow, it still kicked ass because it was "SLIME!" (somewhat).

I thought the commercial was funny. Those kids seemed to be trying so hard to make such a banal toy look fun.

The only GB related thing I ever partook, of was Ecto Cooler. I honestly haven’t seen the movie since the 80’s. Maybe I should rent it. I bet my son might even get into it.

kingklash: The Goze’ him/herself hasn’t posted yet? I thought I was going to see the name near the top, but no dice. Not even to layeth the smackdown on the Marshie quote. MotherPusBucket!

I’m baaaaaaaack. Great article. I don’t know why I never realized that Gozer is mostly a female in the movie when I picked this screenname (I’m a guy), but, as Matt said, Gozer isn’t really a girl, but just happens to embody a girl. Since Gozer is awesomist in Stay-Puft form, I’ll vie for that association.

KB, Your son will definetly love it, i cant imagine any kid who wouldnt, its just such an all-around great movie!
and thanks for reminding me that i ahd the ECTO-COPTER!
i gotta look for that motherfucker, still in box, sweeeeeeeeeet!

Since this is pretty far down on the page, I know nobody’s gonna read it, but I just have to comment.

I remember Roy Rogers! It’s a fleeting memory, because I was very young at the time, but for some reason it’s one of those things that sticks out in my mind. I can recall sometimes having RR’s chicken nuggets, and then I remember just not having them anymore (this is likely because they shut down).

Anyway, that was totally pointless of me to post, but I just wanna say thanks for the blast from the past!

We never had a Roy’s here. Heck, we just got our first Popeye’s a year ago. Plus, that commercial song sucks.

I’m SHOCKED that Peeps has never made a Stay-Puft Marshmallow Peep. You’d know that sell.

How did they get SP into the air as a balloon? Even as a marshmallow man, he must weigh a ton.

I had a whole bunch of those toys as a kid and they ruled. The cartoon itself is a underrated classic (but I didn’t care for it when it became Slimer-centric. Got too cute). I’m still ticked that it didn’t make it onto the VH1 "I Love Toys" series.

I also remember playing the computer game on a friends computer and on my Nintendo. They were horrid.

I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a Roy Roger’s. Do they have them on the West Coast?
As with Gremlins, I was always more familiar with the sequel than the original. I watched the hell out of RGB tho, while many of the other toons of the era (Thundercats, for one) completely passed me by. I picked up the "A Fright at the Opera" ep on VHS awhile back but haven’t gotten around to watching it. My interest is piqued now so I’ll have to pop it in.

There’s a RGB and a Slimer cartoon on the GBII disc in the I&II set I bought at Wal-Mart. "If I must, I must. Although, all things considered…."
The "main" (read:ABC’s Saturday Morning as opposed to the syndicated) ‘toon had some great writing!

Gah! Everytime I see kb post I think it’s just Kidneyboy shortening his name for some odd reason. There’s too many people to keep track of! For a while I could have sworn mtrox and Mike the Great were the same person. There’s too many damn Mikes. And Joshes. And Matts. You all need to think up cooler handles.

Not to be nitpicky, but the "Do Re Egon" sequence was from Ghostbusters 2, when they are in the courthouse

In re: to your earlier comment: How does a post-coitus Ghostbuster quote session go? I’d imagine "He slimed me" is prevalent, but where else do you go with it?

"Not to be nitpicky, but the "Do Re Egon" sequence was from Ghostbusters 2, when they are in the courthouse "
I’m pretty sure that was mentioned in the review. Unless it was changed recently, I don’t know. Besides, I can’t be nitpicky because I’m about to mention something that may have allready been mentioned. I’m not going to check because I’m lazy.
The other Ghostbusters cartoon came first… sort of. It was based on a live action T.V. Show from the 70s. And if you’re daring, check it out. I found an episode through a Yahoo video search.

Also, The Mrs. has 2 of those Stay Puft action figures if you still need one, Matt.

mtrox - I wish I could remember. It was pretty early on in the relationship, so we may have still been going through the "what movies do you like?" stage. Not much else to talk about when you’re parked in a contruction site in the middle of the night. *shrug*

Ha! mtrox, I like that pseudonym. Every time the boyfriend and I discuss Disneyworld, we have to say "Spoodles" 4 or 5 hundred times over the next few days.

It’s a restaurant on the Disney Boardwalk in case anyone wondered. The name is baffling, yet compelling somehow. And also, spoodles spoodles spoodles.

We have a restaurant here called Noodles or something. I always think it’s called Spoodles though. I think that would be a better name.

I heard about that restaurant in Disney, but I didn’t see it. I miss Disney so much. I think I’m having a sort of post-partum depression. I’m already trying to find a way to raise money to go back during Christmas. By the way, it’s not possible to eat as much character related food as possible. I did end up in the middle of the park with ice cream and chocolate all over my face, though. This fat guy stared at me the whole time I ate it. I think he was turned on.

As for lost food.. I can’t think of much. I used to love strawberry Charlston Chews, but they’re becoming hard to find. Of course I miss the original Jell-O Pudding Pops, as does everyone in the entire world.

I remember at Hardee’s we got those little electronic Ghostbuster things. My cousin, who I’m pretty sure was a miniature meth addict, took mine apart. I still hate him for that.

I had two versions, actually. I had one that you strapped on your back, and then the particle thrower/gun had a long foam part coming out that was supposed to be the stream (my memory wants to say it was like a meter long, but it was probably closer to two feet or less.). I had the trap with that one.

The second one didn’t come with the pack itself, and was a far bulkier version of the particle thrower/gun/whatever, but the cool thing was it was basically a projector, so whenever you hit the trigger, it would project this big image of all these different ghosts on the wall. I wish I still had that.

LOL Rebecca the image of giving birth to Disney brings to mind a certain South Park gag.
Speaking of names, is it dumb that I got a major kick out of my (real) name turning up on Sopranos last night? It’s always been pretty rare to hear on telly so I marked out like a total geek.

Wukong - I had the same one and I’d like to think the foam was at least 2 feet. It probably wasn’t.

Squee4242- I know what you mean. The only place I hear my name is in Masterpiece Theatre style period dramas. It feels weird to hear someone say it when they’re not talking to me. I still say it’s better to have an unusual name though, even if you can’t buy sparkly pencils with your name on them from that big dime-store rack.

Ha, found an egg in the article. Let’s just say that you can talk to Murray if you really want to.

I thought I was the only person to be semi-traumatized by the library scene in Ghostbusters.
I can still vividly remember being 4 years old and watching the moving on beta-max with my dad, him asking if I was ok to watch it and me foolishly saying yes.

I’ve hovered over the word Murray and every picture of Murray (be it the Mantis or Bill). Any other clue?

Hmmm…never heard of Roy Rogers. I guess that’s because I’m not from the east coast. Sometimes I wish I was. More specifically, I wish I was from NYC, except for…well…you know.

RGB was my bible when I was a kid. I still have my Kenner Stay Puft Marshmellow Man, and a Marshmellow Man plush doll with glow-in-the-dark facial features.

I also saw a replica(I doubt it was an authentic movie prop) of the Ecto-1 zoom by when I was in the drive-thru at Rax (which I just learned still has open locations somewhere). I practically shat my pants. My dad made a comment like "It’s probably driven by wooden men who go ‘neener-neener-neener!’"
I chalk this memory up either to:
1. I had poor comprehension and memory when I was about five.
OR
2. My Dad’s heavy drinking in those days.

Staypuft is the shit, but honestly… man i miss me some Roy Rogers, they had awesomely delicious burgers and chicken sandwiches, and the ones that are still around (which are far and few between) still have awesomely delicious food. Here’s to Roy Rogers, and one last Rogery chicken hoo-ra!!!

When I was 9 my family went to Universal Studios. Little me saw the Ecto-1 and practically peed herself. Anyone know if it’s still there?

Oh and I was explaining to my friend about my cousin’s obsession with taking apart all things electronic and she didn’t understand the meth addict correlation. So, to clear things up for those of you who aren’t in the know, meth addicts like to take stuff apart. Upon researching this fact, I found this amusing True/False article geared towards at-risk teenagers. Here’s a snippit:

REALITY: It’s true that meth can make you want to clean, but that doesn’t mean your room will be neat and tidy. Meth use is called "tweaking" for the repetitive actions users find themselves doing, like taking apart and trying to reassemble things. Unfortunately hygiene becomes unimportant and addicts often live in filthy environments. Therefore, it’s unlikely that meth will help get your mom off your back to clean your room."

Good God, I hope that there is no one taking meth solely to get their mom "off their back" for not cleaning their room.

As a former tweeker, I can honestly say that I never lived in a filthy environment when I was tweeking and that my apartment was always fucking spotless and my hygiene became a majorly obsessive point for me to avoid things like speed bumps and fucking up my teeth. Even though I don’t do drugs anymore, I hate generalized anti-drug propoganda bullshit.

Oh my favorite current anti-drug propoganda is that radio ad they always play when i’m on the way to work.

"So yesterday my friend Amanda told me to smoke some pot. So I did. Then today she told me to shoplift. And now I have a cupcake down my pants… with frosting. And it doesn’t want to stay there. And the manager is looking at me funny."

If I was ever to get into short films, my genre of choice would absolutely be spoof anti-drug ads. My favorite script so far: a prototypical high school party, with crappy music and rampant stupidity much apparent. Our hero is repeatedly offered drugs and drinks, which he politely declines. After a short montage of such clips, the background music cuts out, and we find our hero sitting on a couch in the middle of a room filled with passed-out high school students. He looks around, pulls out a sharpie, and starts writing on people’s faces. After a few seconds of this, the camera cuts back to the same view of the entire room, now featuring a bunch of stoners with amusing obscenities scrawled across their foreheads. As the hero caps his marker and walks out, the image defocuses and cuts to the end placard. Voiceover: "Being a dick. That’s my anti-drug."

I mean, let’s face it. Which is going to carry more weight with the youth of today? "Don’t do drugs, because it might adversely affect the career you currently don’t give two sacks of llama droppings for because you secretly believe you’re going to be a rock star" or "Don’t do drugs, or you’re likely to wake up with a penis on your forehead"?

squee, all of those pop links have been doing that, especially the date links at the top of the main blog.

Also, I went to a flea market earlier on Sunday, and found the deal of a lifetime: a box full of rare, old transformers for $50! Here’s some of the best stuffs:

-Galvatron, and it works!
-Shockwave!! But it doesnt work and its a bit fragile!
-Perceptor, 2 of them: one in good condition with accessories (the knobs and the microscope tube), and one in bad without em. Which brings my total Perceptors to 3, and the first one was in good condittion, but didn’t have any accessories
-Wreck-Gar
-Blitzwing (sadly, its tank turrent is gone)
-Astrotrain
-Ramjet or whichever of the Starscream clones was red
-the trailer for Ultra Magnus
-Vortex AND Beachcomber with their original blister cards!
-Mixmaster (the cement mixer for Devastator)
*all TFs are G1

plus about 15+ other transformers and other stuff, like a Yellow Voltron lion, a Spider-man in the Symbiote costume, and a MOTU comic/figure guide

Have you guys seen the new ice cream skittles? I thought I might try them but usually wait till Matt does a review

So, is that the same Roy Rogers that did western shows or whatever? Because I live in Portsmouth Ohio, a city that constantly tries to pump the fact that Roy Rogers grew up here, we have an esplanade and even a roy rogers festival, but I have never ever heard of a Roy Rogers Restaraunt. Jesus this city is pathetic.

I’m tempted to go take pictures of Roy’s birds just so you can see what you’re missing.

RewolfJ -
Rax? Where?
They had the tastiest burgers. I had the most kickass birthday party there one year.

No Roy’s in Missouri that I ever knew of, but I have somehow always known of the existence of the chain, so I musta seen one somewhere along the line. Maybe it was in Texas. I dunno.

By the way, if anyone wants to play a good Ghostbusters video game - nay, the *best* Ghostbusters video game, look no further than HAL’s "New Ghostbusters 2" for the NES. Forget what you know about Activision’s terrible Ghostbusters 2 that we got here in the U.S., "New" GB2 is a whole different game that was only released in Europe and Japan (presumably because Activision had already secured US rights to the license.) We totally got screwed on this deal. New GB2 is from a top-down perspective and it reminds me a lot of Sega’s Alien Syndrome. It’s good shit, grab an emulator and the ROM and check it out.

I went to Roy Rogers once and the burger was cold and tasteless. And this was my opinion as a ten year old, not a jaded twenty-something health nut.

Man, your bringing back memories!! Loved the Ghostbusters/cartoon/toys and especially the Commodore 64 game, which was impossible to win!! To be a kid in the eighties was great!

I always think of Roy Rogers as the coke and grenidine thing.
And Mystie, I’m sorry, I’m just gonna be kb.

Don’t worry kb I think most careful readers can tell the diff.
Artie got busted!!! Okay, so it was the actor who plays Artie who got arrested…it’s news nonetheless!

Oh, haha, the correlation between Ghostbusters and meth is that I was talking about how I got those little electronic talking things from Hardee’s way back when and my cousin took mine apart (as he did with most electronic stuff) and I called him a miniature meth addict. But my friend didn’t know what I was talking about, so I was trying to explain how when you’re on meth you take stuff apart and put it back together. Voila! We have the Ghostbuster/meth correlation. I’m pretty sure we could connect anything to Ghostbusters if we try hard enough.

Goddamn, that article made me crave for marshmallows, but the stores are closed. I’m dying from a severe lack of marshmallows now.

And yea, I also hate those anti-drug commercials. There’s that one with that girl all deflated and her sister’s talking saying something like "yesterday she tried pot for the first time. now all she does is sit there." Fuck that. I was way more energetic and spontaneous on pot. Me and my friends would smoke a bowl and suddenly the possibilities of what to do were endless. I no longer smoke pot and now all I do is sit on the internet posting comments on X-E and illegally downloading music.

That library ghost from the beginning of "Ghostbusters" scared the absolute holy hell out of me when I was little. Thank God I can finally admit that without feeling really, really silly.

Rebecca interestingly enough, I was looking for a non-spyware, virus filled app to download music. I use to use WinMX but has been shut down for a while. Anyone have a good one?

Mystie I believe there’s only 2 Darths on here. Myself and Poop. We must kill anyone else….

They had been playing the hell out of Ghostbusters a few weeks ago on Showtime. Not that I mind. I must have watched it at lease 10 times.

"What are you guys? Some kind of cosmonauts?"
"No, exterminators. Somebody saw a cockroach up on 7."
"Must be some roach."
"Bite your head off. Going up?"
"No, I’ll wait."

That site wouldn’t work for me earlier, thanks. I can’t believe there’s one in Johnstown, I live (relatively) close in Pittsburgh. Someday I’ll have to find an excuse to taste those delicious, delicious slices of meat…

"So is the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man a ghost or a Marshmellow demon. I remember being quite puzzled to see Stay Puft in the Containment Unit in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon series. My theory at the time was that when Stay Puft died at the end of the Ghostbusters, his ghost (can demons have ghost?) came back and was captured later by the Ghostbusters."

*The only explanation I’ve ever been able to come up with [And keep in mind I am a Ghostbusters fanatic/historian/archivalist all in one - Yes we do exist and "trekkies" and Star Wars fanatics et al don't have the corner on the "uber nerd" market], is that in the "Citizen Ghost" Episode [Where the post-Gozer/movie story is told by Peter via a flashback] the doppelgangers of themselves that they end up fighting were comprised of the ectoplasmic remains of Stay Puft [From the prior battle with Gozer] strewn all over their old flightsuits [Which Peter was suppossed to destroy, but hid behind the Containment Unit instead out of pure laziness], and the energy leaking from the then-newly-reconstructed Containment Unit II…The energy leaking out of the Containment Unit charged the mostly-dormant energy from the remains of Stay Puft, along with the guy’s "psychic imprints" on each of the 4 individual outfits, resulting in thier evil doppelgangers…

They obviously ended up busting them, and with that "charged latter-day Gozer/Stay Puft" energy now in the Containment Unit, to where it wasn’t before it most likely regrouped, and reverted to Stay Puft, being the last big form it took…

"There was an explanation of why there was a Stay-Puft in the containment unit. I think it had to do with a major spook of some type creating a near-exact copy because the original almost got the RGBs the last time. They managed to trap this one and discovered that it wasn’t evil, just stupid. He became the Ghost of Last Resort."

*Though this episode sounds very familiar, and I’ll have to go back and check…

Here’s just a taste of how lame I am:
While I was growing up, I was thoroughly enamored with all things Ghostbuster-related, having seen the movie countless times. Unfortunately, the "edited-for-TV" version of the flick is what I watched over and over again as a kid. My folks didn’t own an actual copy of the film. Rather, I watched an old, worn-out VHS tape containing a version of Ghostbusters that had been recorded off of ABC’s movie-of-the-week god knows how many years ago. The point is, I grew up under the impression that Ray called Peck "Wally Wick" in the mayor’s office instead of "dickless" and furthermore, I had no knowledge of some sexy apparition performing disembodied fellatio upon Ray in a dream sequence. When I finally saw the unaltered version of the film some years later (I think I may have been 18 or older at the time), it BLEW MY FUCKING MIND!!! I felt extremely cheated for unknowingly being denied the true, unfettered Ghostbusters experience throughout my adolescent years. Needless to say, my already steadfast and boundless love for the film increased tenfold after I discovered how raunchy it was.

Matt, if you ever find yourself traveling upstate, they have many Roy Rogers at the NY Thruway service plazas. Only place in upstate I have seen a Roy Rogers, though I think Buffalo had one in a mall once.

Wow. Looks like I missed a lot. Everybody has been here. Shame too because I could have actually commented on this one.
GHOSTBUSTERS remains the only movie I have ever seen from the middle to the end and then from the beginning to the middle IN THE THEATER. Strange? Me, Dad and my brother were kicked out for one of Mom’s social things at the last minute. With no where to go, we ended up at the dollar theater. They let us in even though the movie had already started AND let us stay for the next showing. Doubt that would happen today.
I had the Egon figure, Ray, and the Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man. Stay Puft is in my classroom today. Although everyone thinks its the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Kids today.
Never been to a Roy Rogers

Holy crap Penne Arrabiata got arrested too!
I am saddened by your Pillsbury revelation, Manimal. Kids today indeed, tsk tsk tsk.

What can I say about Ghostbuster that hasnt already been said, both 1 and 2 are pretty high up on my favorite movies of all time.

Once for an exam my teacher asked the question, who sang the song for The Ghostbusters movie? I remember many people were upset because they didnt get it right so they had to live with a question wrong on an exam. boo fuckin’ hoo.

Matt…don’t know if you’re still looking for one on E-Bay, but a quick search provided this result. Looks like he’s still in the holding plastic, although the box is probably long gone. It’s super cheap and no bids currently. Good luck!! Click here!

I totally had that figure…but mine came from a garage sale, so it’s more beat up than I’d like.

LOVE Ghostbusters…used to have the proton pack, the ‘trap’, Ecto 1, Ecto Coolers, a lunchbox, action figures, you get the idea. Still love the movie to death. Due to that movie, Bill Murray was and remains my favorite actor of all time.

There weren’t many things that had IT ALL: Movie, toys, AND kick ass tv show. Often one aspect would suck. Not Ghostbusters- all 3 were awesome…same for TMNT and Beetlejuice- they also had a movie, toys and a kick ass tv show. He-Man too, of course.

Still, Ghostbusters was a huge part of my childhood and I can’t ramble on about it enough.

Manimal: This Saturday is our prom. My hands are full of paint stains, my back hurts and I am dog tired. Those damn kids better appreciate this. I bet they’ll be there an hour and a half before going to get drunk. Bastards!

The Yeti yeah that sound familiar there are lots of movies I didn’t see unedited for years. Like Robocop I had no Idea it was quite as violent as it was until seeing it a few years back. So I definatly have fallen under that one before.

in all this drug propaganda I love that the main idea is that you will be ostracized (sp?) from your friends if you don’t do drugs, and that apparently teenagers all over the country are forcing drugs upon one another.
That’s pretty much the exact opposite of all my experiences with it. Seriously what drug addicts do you know are gonna give up free shit just to maybe hook their friend?
I spent about 4 years, not including high school rolling around in that game pretty deep and with the exception of heroin every piece of drug propoganda I had any knowledge of was proved completely backwards and wrong.

In more X-E related-ness Do you think this blog has the petition like power, Matt pull some network strings if you have any, to try and force the third Ghostbusters into the works?

On topic, one Ghostbusters toy I never had but serrrrriously want is the Ghost Trap. That’s it, and my life will be complete.

Darth Galv - Limewire seems pretty darn good to me for a file-sharing app. I don’t know how "stocked" it is on movies and such, but there’s a good chunk of music on there and I haven’t encountered any "fakes" like you’d run into on Kazaa and WinMX yet.

And whoever was mentioning that they’d only seen the TV version of Robocop for years and were surprised at how violent the uncut version was - you should see the unrated version. If you thought it was violent the first time around… Unfortunately, last I knew the unrated cut is only on the out-of-print and far-too-expensive Criterion Collection DVD…but if you ever run into it at a video store something, grab that sucker and copy it, there’s gotta be at least an additional two or three minutes added back into the running time, all of it gore.

And on the subject of edited-for-TV movies, I think it only aired once but did anyone ever catch the ABC-TV airing of Kevin Smith’s Mallrats? Hee-freakin’-larious. It’s practically like watching an entirely different movie, and to make it even better, whoever they hired to loop in the new "clean" dialogue sounds absolutely nothing like the original cast, particularly whoever was dubbing Jason Mewes.

About the Filmation version of Ghostbusters…I actually bought a tape with three of the live action episodes from the local video store back in March (Only because I couldn’t believe they actually had it.)

Rebecca: Ecto-1 is still at Universal. Although it’s used in conjunction with a new set of Ghostbusters…There’s a whole "show" based on it, and for an added treat Beetlejuice shows up.

I had that Ghostbusters game when I was a kid.
It was fun and frustrating at the same time.
I could always get a couple of ghosts and it was fun to drive around the city, but I could never figure out what it was that I was supposed to be doing in order to advance in the game.
It would have been nice to get to buy one of the more expensive cars.

The only game I ever had that was as frustrating as Ghostbusters at the time was the Thing and Human Torch game on the C64.

Thanks a lot Matt, after reading your Stay-Puft tribute I had no choice but to order both Ghostbusters movies. Goodbye money!

Actually the Ghostbusters C64 wasn’t that hard. After a while when on the map the ghost start flying really fast you have to use ghost bait when 4 ghosts are headed towards a certain spot on the map. If you don’t Marshmallow man will form and destroy a building which YOU have to pay for. (makes no sense, ey?)

After a while the bottiom screen bar reads "go to zuul". When you go there you will find the dancing MM as seen in the review. If you are able to get 2 GBs in the building you win and get to see a very disappointing cutscene.

I have vague recollections of playing a Ghostbusters game, though not on the C64. And yes, the back-pack toy was way cool. Mine got stepped on a few too many times though.

I was fortunate to get Stay-puft for my birthday, I remember all me and my friends being in complete awe of him … like someone said before about the slimer action figure .. he smelt amazing and I seem to recall pumping his stomach and sniffing at the air hole in his foot. Unfotunately Ive got no idea what happened to him, but I do recall that his pristine white body soon became smudged with general grime.

I never thought Gozer actually was the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I always thought Gozer was just the chick and Mr. Stay Puft was just someone Gozer summoned to kill the Ghostbusters. Although, I can’t say I know the RGB episodes too well with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in them so they may or may not reveal more info on him?

This site is terrific. I discovered it recently and your writing style really cracks me up.

Stay Puft Man, Krang…you know the stylish bad guys when you see them. Well done.

There’s a Roy Rogers at most of the travel plazas along the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76), and as far as I know, the ones in the rest areas on the New York State Thruway (I-87) are still there. I’ve been to the one on the PA Turnpike near Carlisle a bunch of times (why do the buses always stop there?), and it’s kind of overpriced (even by rest area standards), and their bacon cheeseburgers are bun shaped balls of grease wrapped in foil. The fries aren’t that good either.

I’m such an impressionable asshole. I went and bought a rubber Stay Puft on ebay. Fuck!

Argh! I’m away five minutes and there’s an article and 90 feet of blog on one of the greatest screen stars ever. Ghostbusters may well be my all-round favourite film of all time.

That catalogue of ‘busters toys took me back - I really wanted the yellow ectoplasm-garglimg ghost - think his name was ‘Sludgebucket’. Ah well, at least I managed to get hold of Stay-Puft.

Ghostbusters rule! I’ve loved that movie since the first commercial I saw for it. Even when all the movie posters didn’t have a name, just the tagline "Coming to save the world this summer." Looking back now, the second one was a disappointment even though I loved it then. I used to hope that they would make more sequels but I know now that it was probably for the better. The cartoon was awesome and much better than that ripoff GB. Thanks for another great article to reminisce by. BTW, I have that "rare" Stay-Puft toy you were referring to. A friend of mine was cleaning out his parents’ house and gave it to me because he knew what a huge fan I was.

I just found a man with an equal respect and fascination for Stay Puft. I loved that movie so hard (because of Stay Puft actually), that I got my parents to buy me the soundtrack in a LP record and then had them record it into a cassete, so that i could go breakdance the ghostbuster’s song in my kindergarten… True story, I still have the LP.

hey matt if you still want the stay puft marshmallow man figure from the ghostbusters toy collection then you’ll thank me for this.

Dude, I was fucking obsessed, OBSESSED, with Stay Puft. I drew him at least 5 or 6 times a day there for a while. That movie is still hi-larious. I showed it to my girlfriend, who had somehow missed it in the 80s because she thought it looked stupid or something(!), and she promptly fell in love with it. Anyway, I’m glad to see that I am not the only one who was warped by Gozer the Destructor (”He will appear in one of the chosen forms…that of a very large and moving TORB!” - classic dialogue sequence…)

Also, to give ’nuff respect due, your writing style is really great, very funny. This was the first article I’ve read on this site (I linked here through wikipedia) and I look forward to reading more.

damn I think I’v seen that stay puft figure at a pawn type shop it was 13 bucks damn I should have bought it sorry matt

i loved stay-puft as a kid. he was my sole reason for liking ghostbusters. he was like….my favorite character at a time when it was absurd for a GB the movie character to be your favorite celebrity but….he was. thanks for the stroll down memory lane. all those beers couldn’t block out the Stay-Puft marshmallow man. my favorite “big monster” of all time. yes, even ahead of the classics. i loved that he showed up on the cartoon. it was like a surprise christmas or something. good shit indeed. i’ve been reading this site for a few years but that was really something to comment on. or i’m just not AS wasted as i usua;;y am when reading. either way, good job dude.

I feel like a total n00b posting this stay puft comment for one reason. i bet you have that 1984 marshmallow man already but… if not i thought i would supply this link from ebay.

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