ExtraComicular Activities #2: Mars Attacks the REAL Ghostbusters!

From the Comixology description:
Something even stranger is in the neighborhood when the restless spirits of some merciless martians are stirred from their slumber to attack again! It’s up to the REAL Ghostbusters to save New Jersey from this angry red threat. Well…if they must. Written by: Erik Burnham with Art by: Jose Holder and Ray Dillon

In 1996, Tim Burton revived Mars Attacks! and brought it to a worldwide audience. I was working at the local movie theater when it was released and it was one of a string of films during that time that I remember loving, but it didn’t seem to catch on. Although it broke even at the box office, it’s largely seen as a disappointment, except to many of us geeks and Tim Burton fans. But, it turns out these aliens have got a lot more to say than just Ack, Ack, Ack!

The inspiration for the movie was a series of controversial trading cards that debuted in 1962. Apparently, alien invaders wreaking havoc was very controversial in the ’60s, OK? Other than merely knowing that the series existed, I never became acquainted with the Mars Attacks! on again off again comic book series that spawned from the trading cards. But, one thing I am vastly familiar with is Ghostbusters! Whether it’s live action, Filmation, or the REAL guys, I’ve been crazy about them since I was a little kid. To have the chance to read a comic book that combines these two entities sounded immediately appealing to me.

Presently, the comic company IDW prints an all new Mars Attacks! series, but back in 2013, they pulled off a pretty epic mini-series consisting of one-shots that pitted Mars Attacks! aliens invading five other IDW comic book properties such as Transformers, Judge Dredd, Popeye, and even my favorite rock band of all time, KISS. The issue I wanted to read even more than the KISS issue though, was Mars Attacks the REAL Ghostbusters.

Released January 1st 2013, Mars Attacks The Real Ghostbusters actually ties in four concepts, not only two as the title suggests. The third aspect of this book includes a recurring War of the Worlds theme. You know what that means: it takes place in New Jersey! Of course, it’s not much of a stretch to have the Ghostbusters drive over the bridge to bust some ghosts in Jersey, but weaving in the Mars Attacks! aliens with War of the Worlds was pretty f’n cool. And last but not least, the nod to War of the Worlds also alludes to my favorite holiday because the historic radio broadcast that they parody here was a Halloween special that aired on mischief night in 1938.

A showdown where our cartoon heroes The REAL Ghostbusters attempt to take down some alien scum instead of a class 5 full roaming vapor might sound weird to you at first, but check it out for yourself because there’s a couple of cool twists along the way. As whacked out as some of the ghosts and villains on the REAL Ghostbusters cartoon were – angry, big-headed aliens in space suits fit right in.

This comic one-shot isn’t too highly rated, and it won’t blow your mind or prompt you to write a thesis on it, but this was a quick, amusing read and I recommend it if you are looking for light comic fare that depicts the REAL Ghostbusters with alien opponents that will only happen in this book and probably never again.

Things to look out for:

– The Mars Attacks! aliens crash land in Elmo’s Hill, NJ. This is a play on Grover’s Mill, NJ the site where aliens crash landed in the War of the Worlds radio broadcast. One part Sesame Street Muppet + rhyming word = parody alien crash site.

– I always loved the REAL Ghostbusters TV bumper where the ghost in the No Ghost sign welcomes us back to the REAL Ghostbusters. He does just that in this comic, a nice little touch to make it feel like an episode of the animated series.

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.79: Ghostbusters 2 Again!

Comic panels from NOW Comics Ghostbusters 2 Adaptation and scanned by www.GBFans.com

This post is actually a sequel to an early installment of NJ’s Great Pop Culture Moments from way back in 2008. Vol.19 is all about the actual film reference and you can check it out right here: http://thesexyarmpit.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-jerseys-great-pop-culture-moments_19.html

For all the negative feedback it sustains, I still feel that Ghostbusters 2 is an entertaining sequel. That certainly seems to be an unpopular opinion though. If you can’t get down with the fact that the the boys in gray came inside the Statue of Liberty and sprayed their ectoplasm all over her insides, thereby getting her suitably riled up, enough for her to walk through the Hudson River to help defeat one seriously ugly Carpathian, who coincidentally materialized out of a rare painting, then you’ve got no sense of humor. It’s obvious that I’m a big fan of the sequel, but what I found surprising is that I’ve never read its comic adaptation.

Paramus, NJ mentioned on Peter Venkman’s World of the Psychic 

When clicking around GhostbustersFans.com, I realized they had the 3-part adaptation of Ghostbusters 2 from NOW Comics scanned in and available to read. Nowadays, NOW Comics is no more, but, as a kid, I was very familiar with the publisher because I collected The Green Hornet, Ghostbusters, and The Terminator. Their Ghostbusters line was based off the animated Real Ghostbusters since that was the version they had the license for. NOW did an excellent job capturing the essence of the cartoon. I remember owning several issues of it, but I never realized this 3-part adaptation even existed.

Adapting Ghostbusters 2 into a Real Ghostbusters comic is an odd, yet awesome idea. There were always callbacks to the first Ghostbusters film throughout the cartoon series, and when those episodes aired I thought it was the coolest thing. One thing is for sure, if you were around when the RGB was first on TV, you know it was a bit strange and confusing to see various character changes and other minor differences from the live action movie. Minor alterations like hair color were by no means bad choices, but, even then we knew something was up. Back then, no one explained to us kids why Egon or Janine looked different from the live action movie and the whole team wore their own color jumpsuits. As I think about it, it was probably to differentiate their action figures.

After reading the 3-parter, I realized there were a few scenes that were not included in the movie. Since it was based on the movie script, many bits of dialogue don’t coincide with what is heard in the movie. I attribute a lot of that to Bill Murray ad-libbing, and I’m grateful for it. For instance, they didn’t want to print the word SHIT when Peter Venkman is on the stand in the court room scene, so the line in the comic winds up to be “…IT happens and somebody has to deal with it.” In other panels, we also get to see how the Ghostbusters crew got let out of the mental institution as well as when Ray, momentarily possessed by Vigo, drives recklessly in the Ecto 1-A, nearly killing his fellow Ghostbusters.

The style of the characters is exactly how you remember them from the cartoon. This was thanks to Van Hise and Tobias, the same creative team who worked on Real Ghostbusters. Another aspect of this adaptation that makes it unique is the fact that Dana Barrett never appeared in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon so it’s pretty amazing to be able to see how she would look in that universe, directly from the team that worked on the show no less! I always found Barrett’s character to be a bit stuffy, and it’s not that her dialogue changed that much, but here she was drawn a bit more lively and interesting.

I remember NOW’s covers and pages were above average in comparison to some of the other books of the time and that actually brought another dimension to the characters. The colors were vibrant and I especially dug how the creepy Scoleri Brothers were inked and how deranged the kids at the birthday party that Ray and Winston appeared at were drawn.

Conflict arose when my inner voice actors began competing for my favor. Was I supposed to be using Bill Murray or Lorenzo Music/Dave Coulier? Should I have been using Dan Akroyd or Frank Welker for Ray Stantz? Ramis or Lamarche? Decisions decisions. I tried to stick with the Real Ghostbusters voices so I could make the experience as authentic as possible. That was the right move, although it’s hard not to hear Bill Murray explain the many subtle levels of dirty laundry.

My First Mission as a Pint-Sized Ghostbuster

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As a kid, most movies I saw made me want to actually be in the movie itself. This compulsion lead my best friend and I to initiate what’s basically equivalent to role playing our own story lines with complete creative control, but without having to rely on rolling dice. We usually made the stories up as we went along, culled directly from our active imaginations. It’s a practice commonly referred to as pretending. One of the earliest memories I have of one of these sessions was back in the summer of 1984.

We lived our characters. If we “played Batman,” we had costumes and props and if we “played Back to the Future,” my buddy wore his down vest a.k.a his “life preserver.” Aside from Masters of the Universe and Super Powers, one of the earliest memories I have of doing this was the day I became a Ghostbuster. This was way before being a Real Ghostbuster was even possible because it was right after my mom took me to see the original Ghostbusters at Movie City 5 in Iselin, NJ in 1984.

After seeing Ghostbusters, my path in life was revealed to me. Although, that same summer I also wanted to enter a karate competition and get a black skeleton body suit, but the Ghostbusters gig actually came in handy sometimes.

Some kids are fearless. It would be unnatural to say I wasn’t scared of anything back then, but as a little tyke I was really only scared of Michael Jackson in Thriller when he had those yellow eyes. Nothing was creepier to me. But when it came to the supernatural and ghostly activity, I loved it. I wanted to be around the supernatural as much as humanly possible. Even before I ever saw Ghostbuters, my favorite attraction in Disneyland was the Haunted Mansion. After my first trip there ever, all I talked about was that ride. My parents still tell me how enthralled I was with seeing the hitchhiking ghosts and how supremely amused I was at having sat by an actual ghost (or so I thought) in our Doom Buggy as the ride came to an end. I was the type of kid who loved all the stuff that scared the crap out of all my friends. It may have been all this conditioning that prepared me for my first ghostly experience.

It’s not often that I have to do much in the way of investigative work to formulate a post for this site. Once in a while though, it helps to return to the scene if details in my brain are sketchy. In preparing to write this post, I felt that I needed to jog my memory since what I’m about to let you in on happened so long ago when I was very young.

First, the back story. When I was a little kid, my older sister had a close friend who we’ll call Mary. It was no big secret that I had a major crush on the angelic Mary. Although I would get all weird and uncomfortable if anyone asked me about my dreamy, dirty blonde maiden or mentioned my infatuation for her in conversation, I still didn’t mind advertising the fact that I adored her, it just had to be on my own volition.

Mary’s appearances were rare. Only getting to see her maybe a few times a year amplified the occasions that I did see her. The only sucky part was that she wasn’t there to see me, she was there to hang out with her pal, my sister. When the time came that the two of them would get together, I knew that the time I’d get to be in her presence was limited. And yes, I was the annoying little brother, but I complied when I was told that they needed to hang out by themselves with no interference.

Once in a while, when the situation presented itself, I was invited to hang out with them. Those times were few and far between, but I savored those moments. And it wasn’t just to be able to hang out with the object of my desire, I also loved being able to hang out with my sister too.

Early on, Mary lived fairly close to us, but she moved about 1,400 miles away due to her father’s job. You can imagine how much more rare her visits became. Fortunately, Mary’s grandparents used to live in an old house a few towns away from us, and when she did come to visit, maybe once or twice a year, she’d stay with them. Their development was filled with giant houses built around the turn of the century. As I eluded to, I’m not sure why, but I was invited along with my sister to go to Mary’s grandparents house one day when she was visiting.

When we pulled up to the house in my Mom’s early ’70s Chevy Caprice, a car that felt like a 2-door Peacekeeper missile to a preschooler, I was in awe of the “mansion” that towered before us. It wasn’t an actual mansion, but to me, it sure looked like one. With an imagination as wild as mine was, this place could easily have had 37 bedrooms inside for all I knew. My house had 3 and I thought that was a lot.

Just like plenty of houses built during the same time, the interior seemed to be made of some kind of expensive wood. I’d never been in a house quite as stately before. We were in a middle class town, so the property wasn’t exactly built on a sprawling estate. My feeling probably stemmed from the fact that I was a little kid and it all seemed so grand at the time and different than what I was used to.

Perusing the inside, I noticed the seemingly never ending staircase, which immediately reminded me of the scene in Ghostbusters when they took the emergency stairs to the top of Dana Barrett’s apartment building. Thinking back, the staircase reminds me more of the one in the Bates house in Psycho rather than the scene in Ghostbusters, but I hadn’t scene Psycho yet.

It didn’t take more than a few milliseconds before my curiosity took control of me and launched me up the stairs without any regard for the inhabitants of the house. I sped up the stairs with reckless abandon. What if I’d be walking in on someone getting out of a shower, or waking someone up who was taking a nap? I didn’t care and I finally made it to the first landing. There was an open window adorned with white drapes that were slowly lifting by themselves (or so I thought) due to the incoming breeze. There was something so haunting about the silky, white, almost see through drapes, especially on such an eerily calm day. It was cloudy, warm, and comfortable, but not hot or humid enough to need air conditioning. In fact, it looked like it might storm later that day. As I toured one of the upper floors (there were at least 3 levels and an attic) I noticed that most of the other windows in the house had a similar drape situation as well.

The breeze moving the drapes made me feel like this place had to be haunted. I ran back down the stairs to make sure my sister and Mary were still there. Oblivious to the fact that Mary was standing behind one of the drapes, she jumped out at me and thought she scared the living crap out of me, but little did she know that it was merely a matter of a day or two since I’d seen Ghosbusters so instead of getting scared, I just got excited. “This could be my first job” I thought to myself. Next thing I knew, I was pretending to bust ghosts while upstairs in her grandparents house.

We couldn’t find my sister but I assumed she was hiding to try and scare me too. As Mary and I descended the stairs, my sister seemed to have come out of nowhere before us. That’s when they started getting serious. Keep in mind, the girls were only a few years older than me, but we were all very young at the time. They started telling me that they planned on trying to scare me, but instead they began telling me all about the ghosts that they believed haunted the house. Just as I expected. Janine, don’t worry about ringing the buzzer, I got this one. Sorry about the bug eyes thing, I’ll be checking out Mary, uh, I mean Mary’s grandparent’s house.

It did cross my mind that if this house was haunted, that’s precisely why I was asked to join my sister – to bust some ghosts! Of course! I listened intensely to Mary and my sister describe the array of mysterious occurrences that happened in the house. Mind you, these are stories that were actually reiterated by her grandparents to my own parents, meaning this was the real deal, not just a couple of ball busting kids trying to scare the youngest one.

I heard all about bedroom doors that slammed by themselves and the aforementioned drapes on the windows continued to ripple even after the windows are closed. I knew something was up with those damn drapes. They went on to describe hearing people walking up the creaky wooden stairs, but no one was ever seen.

I believed ALL of it, and I was taking detailed mental notes as if I just accepted a job to eliminate a focused non-terminal repeating phantasm or a class 5 full roaming vapor at the Sedgewick Hotel. I would’ve given off a more professional vibe, but it wasn’t until a couple of years later that Kenner marketed an actual Proton Pack and Ghost trap toy. Armed with nothing but an imaginary proton pack, I swore I would protect the girls if anything happened. It wasn’t about showing off or being brave in front of my princess. It was now about defeating evil spirits who may not have liked us being in their old dwelling playing around. I knew how things worked, even back then and I didn’t need Tobin’s Spirit Guide either.

The fun didn’t end after the girls kept trying to freak me out. That didn’t work because I just kept getting more excited. Another kid might’ve cried and begged to go home. I wanted to stay forever.
As if the day wasn’t overwhelming enough, Mary asked if we wanted to go try on costumes. When the hell could any kid refuse a good cosplay session? I’ve always loved dressing up for Halloween so this was a super appealing suggestion to me. We made our way back up several flights of stairs and then it was time to go into the attic.

The attic was huge. It was a quintessential attic that you’d see in a movie. It was filled with dusty old creepy paintings in ornate gold frames, seasonal decorations, ancient photos, and boxes of random knick-knacks. The Goonies hadn’t been released yet, but if you remember when Mouth, Chunk, Brand, Data, and Mikey were all up in the attic discovering all the cool artifacts up there, this was very similar. There were big old wooden trunks filled with costumes and masks that we tried on. My sister and Mary wore beads and put on crazy hats while trying to act glamorous. I wasn’t part of their little costume party since there was mostly just girl stuff and I was on important business to take care of. I was concentrating on locating the evil spirit and locking it away indefinitely.

My endorphins were off the charts and I didn’t think my imagination could get any crazier at that point, but it did. We left the attic and Mary and my sister brought me over to a small compartment in the wall outside a couple of the bedrooms. Mary opened it and told me it was a trap door. Where the hell was I? This was a haunted house! It was actually a dumb waiter! I thought a dumbwaiter was a secret elevator for kids. Other than Webster, I personally never knew of anyone rich enough in my limited circles during that time to have one of these. At that moment it was so cool and mysterious. In my mind, it very well could’ve been a trap door.

It really felt like it was just the three of us. As I made my way up the stairs even further, I remember the house being virtually empty except for “the spirits,” that my sister and Mary told me about. To you, the reader, it sounds logical that my sister may have informed Mary that we had recently seen Ghostbusters and they devised a plan to try to freak me out. A game of “hide and scare,” if you will. Little did they know that I was on my way to becoming an official pint sized junior Ghostbuster and it would only enhance my experience “playing Ghostbusters.”

If you ask my sister about this, she’ll remember the day, but not the details. That’s most likely because it wasn’t as monumental of a time for her as it was for me. Coming off seeing Ghosbusters for the first time ever and getting to hang out with Mary, I was pretty much on a high that whole summer. A young boy let loose in the immense antique abode in the early ’80s, just call me Danny Torrance. Only I was a kid turning the corners of the halls of the house in an imaginary Ecto-1, not getting scared by the Grady Twins, but my big sister and her friend…my first crush.

Real Ghostbusters Ride Into A Ghost Town…in NEW JERSEY!

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New York and Chicago are home to many of history’s “mainstream” mobsters. The fact is though, the mafia has always been heavily attached to New Jersey culture as well. Even if you weren’t aware of that, The Sopranos helped further cement it (cement shoes style) into public consciousness. More recently, HBO was yet again responsible for directing everyone’s attention to Jersey’s criminal affiliations. This time it was Nucky Thompson, a politician and organized crime boss in Boardwalk Empire which is set in Atlantic City during the prohibition era. Sure, you’ve become familiar with Tony and Nucky, but there was also an animated TV crime lord that you may not remember. His name was Boss Poso. Chances are, if you never crossed the streams and drank your Ecto Cooler every morning like a good little kid, you probably remember this big fat tub of purple ectoplasm.

Growing up in Jersey, I knew of so many people who were said to be “connected.” I can’t imagine that there’s heavy mob activity in North Dakota or Mississippi, so, living here in the Tri-State Area comes with the added bonus of real life exposure to organized crime. It was even in the shows I watched as a kid.

Like a lot of you I was religious about watching The Real Ghostbusters. It was one of my favorite cartoons growing up. Seeing that my state was mentioned frequently throughout the series always amused me. I saw both Ghostbusters films in the theater when they were originally released and I obviously realized that they were filmed and set in New York City, but as a kid, New York City seemed like a totally different world. As I got a little older, I realized that New York City was right through the tunnel, or what we used to call “the straw.”

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My queen Janine Melnitz in Poso’s Clutches – very similar to Leia and Jabba in ROTJ

With our close proximity to Manhattan, it was almost a given for New Jersey to get some air time once in a while. Even with all five boroughs for writers to play around with, they still found reasons to send the Ghostbusters over to Jersey. Not much has changed because the Garden State was still the brunt of jokes back in October of 1989 when the episode of Slimer and The Real Ghostbusters “Partners in Slime” first aired.

In the episode, Poso, a Jabba the Hutt inspired ghost, involved in organized crime, wants to become the godfather of all the ghosts and maintain control over them. He figures that the easiest way to go about this is to take over the Ghostbusters operation. To accomplish this, his minions (who resemble 1930s gangsters) pluck Janine and Louis Tully out of a mall (enjoying our minimally lower sales tax while shopping on Janine’s birthday) by trapping them Tower of Terror style in an elevator. Poso then takes them for ransom and won’t let them go until the Ghostbusters fork over their headquarters and their ‘busting equipment to him.

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Shifter points out Ghost Town, NJ but his finger is NOWHERE NEAR NEW JERSEY!

Slimer apprises the guys of the situation. The rest of the episode involves the Ghostbusters orchestrating a pretty elaborate plan to rescue Janine and Louis. The guys release a ghost, Shifter, who used to be Poso’s sidekick. He’s instrumental in their *SPOILER* eventual nabbing of Boss Poso, whose lair is located in Ghost Town, NJ. When hearing the term “Ghost Town,” it might bring to mind a desolate town out west or down south with tumbleweeds rolling across the dirt. Nah, it’s in Jersey and on the Ghostbusters Wiki it’s described as “a run down town in New Jersey.” Gee thanks, not another one! These episodes were only 22 minutes long, so for the sake of time, the Ghostbusters only had to make the trek over the Hudson river to Jersey in a spooky little “ferry” similar to the one Charon paddles around in the original Clash of the Titans.

Four other great things about this episode:

  • An Undead Hooker
  • Mood Slime returns!
  • Cameos by the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and Samhain
  • A Vigo The Carpathian Shout-Out
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The fact that The Real Ghostbusters wasn’t just a knockoff of the feature film was an element that didn’t bother me. I remember some friends in school not liking the show just because it “wasn’t like the movie.” I doubt the people responsible for the show back then expected 6 year old kids to have such discerning taste. After a really good run of several seasons, the show morphed into Slimer and The Real Ghostbusters. The plots began to feature more of the exploits of Slimer and Janine Melnitz. Each episode became a slightly more goofy and child friendly in nature. Not necessarily worse than previous seasons, just infusing more Slimer. The ghosts weren’t as nightmare inducing, and the major villains weren’t as formidable. But you already know that. Maybe Boss Poso shouldn’t have been lumped in with the likes of Tony Soprano and Nucky Thompson after all!

*Read about The Real Ghostbusters and The New Jersey Parallelogram  and be sure to Take a look at some animation cels from this episode with Shawn from Branded in the ’80s 

Ghostbusters Ectoplasm Energy Drink Review

Ghostbusters Ectoplasm Energy Drink

This Ghostbusters Ectoplasm energy drink jumped out at me from a small refrigerator in Spencer’s in the mall, very much like the terror dog did to Dana Barrett in the movie Ghostbusters. When I got home, I only took a couple of sips of the Ectoplasm and was not really impressed by it’s taste. The green color wasn’t as neon as a I thought it would be, and it didn’t glow in the dark, which was sort of a let down, but probably better for my insides. No ghosts flew out of the can after I cracked it open either. That’s probably a good thing also because I sold my Kenner proton pack and trap a long time ago. I couldn’t pinpoint the smell of the drink, but it was basically a Monster/Red Bull hybrid. It had a sour citrus/melon flavor and left a very syrupy texture in my mouth. The drink was filled with sodium, sugar, and of course, caffeine. Let’s face it, this drink has nothing on Hi-C Ecto-Cooler!

The reason why I mentioned that I only took a couple of sips of it is because I’ve recently kicked my caffeine addiction. Not sure if it was an actual addiction or if I am just being melodramatic, but regardless, I think it was a good move. I was constantly relying on energy drinks like Monster and Red Bull because I constantly felt tired. It made me start thinking that they were actually the reason why I was always tired. WRONG!!! The reason I’m always tired is because of this here blog. I stay up way too late working on posts. editing videos, and cropping pictures when I really should be sleeping. Here’s the indication that you’re staying up too late: You’re sitting at your computer desk but your eyes are shut and you’re completely incapacitated, only to wake up and realize you’re taking screen caps of some stupid movie that mentions New Jersey once. So I not only lack sleep, but a life as well.

Pounding these caffeinated concoctions sure made me alert and amped up, but not without side effects. My heart rate began to skyrocket in simple situations like walking up stairs. I also felt crappy and lethargic constantly. I knew this was from the energy drinks because I run all the time and go to the gym often and consider myself to be in good shape. Within the last month or so I curbed my caffeine intake altogether just to see if the enticing cans were the culprit. Sure enough my heart rate does not surge when I go up stairs and I don’t feel as jittery as I did when I was relying on these beverages. I still feel just as tired though, and every time I go to grab something with caffeine I get decaf because it’s obvious that I don’t need it and that the real problem is my lack of sleep. I tend to get an average of 5 or 6 hours of sleep per night which is not enough for me. I need more like 7 or 8 and I’ll probably still be tired! Have you tried this Ectoplasm yet? Do you think you’re addicted to caffeine too? Let me know, Love, The Sleepy Armpit.

Back Off Man, I’m From New Jersey!

Aside from having tons of rain here in the toxic waste capital of the world, it turned out to be a momentous week since we saw the release of Ghostbusters: The Video Game and the original film on Blu-Ray.

I had a feeling that GB on Blu-Ray wasn’t too much different from the previous DVD releases, but it didn’t stop me from ripping open the cellophane on both of these suckers. Straight into the PS3 the game disc went. The video game took what felt like 70 minutes to process its initial 4 GB load, so I entertained myself by actually reading the booklet that was inside the game case. Once I thumbed through the first few pages, I noticed New Jersey reference #1 right here:

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As Ray Stantz began to teach me the art of “ghost wrangling,” I hit the ground running. I’d say I’m not bad at throwing a proton stream, but I still need more practice. It would be a stretch to say that I was as quick a learner as Winston Zeddemore, but I am NO Louis Tully and let’s leave it at that. The rest of the Ghostbusters crew talked to me after I captured a few ghosts in the sub-basement of the firehouse, and that’s when it happened! New Jersey reference #2! It seemed to good to be true, so I captured it on video so you would all have no choice but to believe me:

What’s with the connection between Ghostbusters and New Jersey? Here are some links to my previous posts regarding The Ghostbusters and New Jersey phenomenon:

Sucking Box: A Salute to Ssips!

A recent visit to Beauty and the Robeast, one of my favorite blogs, brought to my attention that Ssips drink boxes feature philosophical quotes. I wonder if Ssips got some inspiration from the underside of Snapple caps? I have always found that an interactive, literary beverage is in fact a more refreshing one. What gives Ssips even more pizzazz, is the fact that they are made in New Jersey by Johanna Foods, Inc.! Throughout my youth, Ssips provided my mouth with many wet, fruity, and delicious adventures, and for that I want to repay them by dedicating a post to them here at The Sexy Armpit.
No matter if you brought a paper bag, or a Real Ghostbusters lunchbox, our school lunches back in the day had one common denominator: The drink box. For you sticklers out there, you know this isn’t totally true since the ritzier kids with major coin always had a shiny silver pouch of Capri Sun. But, whatever, fuck those pretentious bastards. Some kids’ parents went through the painstaking work of pouring an actual drink into a thermos! Now that was luxury! Still, even the most top of the line thermos lacked the ability to momentarily enchant your senses quite like Ssips did. The neat little artwork on your Darth Vader or Dukes of Hazzard thermos didn’t change from day to day, but the drink box DID!
In the ’80s, Ssips drink boxes were all white and featured an animated picture of its fruit flavored contents. The box was an indicator of the copious amount of fruit flavors that Ssips brought to the lunch table. You could suck down different flavors every day, or maybe if you felt more intellectual, an Iced Tea perhaps. It was like opening a pack of baseball cards and getting a card that you didn’t have. Whatever flavor you got, Ssips brought the party.
For the majority of us middle class suburban kids, lunch time was a guessing game. “What did my mom/dad put in my lunch today?” was a question we all asked at one time or another. The game grew dull rapidly, and at some point, we stopped paying attention and just mauled the sandwich, side dish (bag of chips), and dessert (Little Debbie snack cake) while fantasizing that we were really inhaling a big juicy burger or a nice big plate of Chicken Parm.
Now that I’m a big kid, the cliffhangers are gone. Leftovers in a Tupperware leave nothing to the imagination. The rather unexciting simplicity of finding a peanut butter and jelly sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil used to actually be a welcome surprise considering there were times when the contents of the foil yielded a slab of liverwurst in between 2 slices of bread. The real whammy came when you discovered what flavor Ssips was in store for you. 
We all had our little Ssips rituals, didn’t we? I remember some kids would finish their Ssips, then they’d take the box outside, blow into the straw until the box inflated and then throw it on the ground. Then with a powerful STOMP, the box would make a loud pop that would echo all over school property. Kids do some lame things for entertainment, don’t they? As for my Ssips technique, I’d rip the straw out from its confining cellophane, then unbend the flexible part, and proceed to stab the hole in the box with it. Most of the time it went in on the first try, but other times, it took some really furious pounding to get it in if you know what I mean. 
One of my favorite flavors was Grape which was so tangy that it burned my throat going down. It was like the young man’s Johnnie Walker Blue.

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.20: The NJ Parallelogram

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To celebrate the 20th installment of New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments, we’ll be joining the Real Ghostbusters once again! Surprisingly, in both their live action and animated forms, The Ghostbusters have a monopoly on NJ references. What has always appealed to me even more about The Ghostbusters is their seamless mix of humor and the supernatural. Whether they’re talking about particle reversal, ionization rates, or crossing the streams, their ideas always seem loosely based on scientific fact.

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In the episode “Venkman’s Ghost Repellers,” (aired in 1986) a rash of ships have been disappearing into a part of the Atlantic Ocean referred to as The New Jersey Parallelogram. I suppose the writers of this episode thought “If The Bermuda Triangle was closer to New York, where would it be?” Why it’s got to be the most maligned state in the entire country, New Jersey of course! Ships have been floating along, minding their own business, and then BAM! right into another dimension through a wormhole that looks like something right out of Tron. Mysterious fog and “luminous spirits” were reported before the ships vanished. Inside the parallelogram there was no sign of Jimmy Hoffa, although the battleship Bismarck was spotted.

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Also in this episode, Peter Venkman’s con man father pays the crew a visit at their firehouse HQ. He’s been manufacturing ponchos and calling them “ghost repellers.” One old kooky guy, Dr. Mulch, wants to charter a ship directly into the NJ Parallelogram while he and all of his mates wear the “ghost repellers.” They think if they wear the ponchos they’ll be safe from whatever supernatural forces exist inside the parallelogram. Once the Ghostbusters catch wind that the ship has disappeared, and the ponchos clearly don’t work, The Ghostbusters are on the job!

Real Ghostbustin’ in Bayonne

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We Ghosbusters fans have lots to look forward to! Soon, The Ghostbusters will be released on Blu-Ray, the video game will hit stores, and the 3rd installment of The Ghostbusters will begin production! Back in November, I received my shipment of The Real Ghostbusters complete series on DVD and I was psyched. I was waiting for years to get a hold of the entire series since only a few episodes were released on DVD. I had to rely on old VHS recordings of random episodes I had. It was so much fun to get to watch these episodes again. There’s so many memorable episodes, especially those starring the Boogeyman who scared the shit out of me as a kid. There’s one episode that I had to watch as soon as I got the collection in my clutches, and that was “Citizen Ghost.” It’s possibly the most discussed entry of entire series. As a kid, I always looked forward to catching this episode on reruns because it was a true link to the actual Ghostbusters film.

In the episode, while the rest of the crew is doing an experiment, Peter Venkman is pursued for an interview by UBN news’ Cynthia Crawford. For a segment on the history of the Ghostbusters, Crawford talked with Venkman about how the team originated. Venkman tells the story as we follow along via flashback. If you were ever curious as to what actually happens after the Ghostbusters saved New York City at the end of the first film, then you should watch Citizen Ghost! Not only does Peter reveal how it all unfolded, but he also threw in a New Jersey reference in the beginning of the episode!
After a near explosion rocked their firehouse HQ during an experiment:
VENKMAN:
“Nice one Egon, I think you took out most of Bayonne with that one, would you like to try for the Bronx this time?”
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New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.13: Paramus on Venkman’s Show in Ghostbusters 2

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Let’s join Peter Venkman’s TV show World of the Psychic already in progress…

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VENKMAN:
Elaine, now you had another date in mind…
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ELAINE:
According to my source, the end of the world will be on February 14th in the year 2016.

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VENKMAN:

Valentine’s Day…bummer. Where’d you get your date Elaine?
ELAINE:
I received this information from an alien. As I told my husband, it was in the Paramus Holiday Inn. I was having a drink at the bar, alone, and this alien approached me, he started talking to me, he bought me a drink, and then…I think he must’ve used some kind of a ray or a mind control device because he forced me to follow him to his room and that’s where…he told me about the end of the world.

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VENKMAN:
…So your alien had a room at the Holiday Inn, Paramus?
ELAINE:
It might have been a room on the spacecraft made up to look like a room at the Holiday Inn. I can’t be sure about that Peter.
VENKMAN:
Of course not, and that is the whole problem with aliens, you just can’t trust ’em. Occassionally you meet a nice one…Starman, E.T, but usually they turn out to be some kind of big lizard!