Beyond Saturday Morning - The Real Ghostbusters
The Boogie Man. Art by Mike Olguin
Who you gonna call?
Because everybody loves nostalgia, I bring you, "Beyond Saturday Morning."
If you are as old as I am, then you probably awoke bright and early for cartoons on Saturday morning. The one ray of hope in the dark time known as "back to school" was waking up for the new cartoons of the season.
It was always so exciting as all the networks touted out the latest franchise characters. It wasn't just the TV show; you knew it would be toys and possibly a movie, too.
If you want to trip out on nostalgia, I suggest going into Youtube and looking for your favorite cartoons. They're available on all the big providers, without commercials.
The commercials, in my opinion, were part of the fun though.
Saturday morning had the best commercials for toys and the big brand cereals. Watching these shows without just doesn't feel quite right.
One of my favorite cartoons back in the day was "the Real Ghostbusters."
I loved the Ghostbusters movie, and I felt this one captured the spirit of it better than some of the other cheesy shows that came out after big movies.
Just like the film, it's cartoon is funny, but also a little frightening. The grim customer above was from an episode called "the Boogie Man Cometh." It aired in 1986 for the first time and endlessly for about 10 years after in syndication. This guy is the Boogieman, and in the episode, it's revealed that Egon had an encounter with him when he was young. It was the reason he wanted to battle the paranormal in the first place.
The voice acting on the Boogieman, I'm pretty sure is the same voice actor as Starscream in the Transformers cartoon, although I don't know if I knew that at the time. He does the voice incredibly creepy.
I've watched it recently, and it's a nightmarish high pitched yet somehow raspy growl that he brings to this character that's scary. Between the voice and the amazing artwork that was done in Japan, makes for an incredibly compelling yet shockingly frightening kids program. This shit would never fly today.
So do yourself a favor and look up this cartoon or your favorite one on Youtube. And watch the commercials!
You'll be taken back to a time when the most on your mind were Push-pops and Nintendo. I'll be dumping more Nostalgia on you soon! with more "Beyond Saturday Mornings." And, "It Came From Back Then!" -Mike
