My Favorite Fantasy Television Series

#1

Star Wars Series

#2

Star Trek Series

#3

ET the Extra-Terrestrial

#4

Ghostbusters

• Released in the summer of 1984, Ghostbusters grossed $229 million at the box office,was the second-most successful film of 1984, & was the highest grossing comedy of the 1980s. Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis wrote the screenplay, while Ivan Reitman (director of Stripes, Meatballs, Legal Eagles, Twins, Six Days Seven Nights, & My Super Ex-Girlfriend) directed. Columbia Pictures distributed Ghostbusters, which was their biggest hit ever at the time. The cast teamed SNL alumni Bill Murray & Aykroyd with SCTV stars Ramis & Rick Moranis, as well as Alien star Sigourney Weaver & a virtually unknown Annie Potts. In 1989, the original cast reunited for the thoroughly unwatchable sequel Ghostbusters 2. In addition, a Saturday morning, animated spin-off called The Real Ghostbusters aired from 1986 to 1991. This series showcased about every literary ghoul ever created from Cthulhu to the Headless Horseman. In the first two seasons, Peter Venkman was voiced by Lorenzo Music, who also provided the voice of the animated Garfield. Purportedly, Bill Murray did not like his character sounding like Garfield. Whatever the case, Music was replaced in the third to seventh seasons by Dave Coulier. Ironically, Bill Murray provided the voice of the CGI-animated Garfield in the 2004 & 2006 live-action films.

• Ghostbusters is Lovecraftian in its strange mythology of unknown gods like Gozer & Zuul, its preoccupation with slime, & its citing references, such as Tobin’s Spirit Guide, Spate’s Catalog, & Roylance Guide of Secret Societies & Sects. On the other hand, with its technical jargon (“free-floating, full-torso, vaporous apparition,” “focused, non-terminal repeating phantasm,” & “class five full-roaming vapor”) & high-tech ghost-busting equipment, Ghostbusters is also very hip science fiction. The backpacks carried by the Ghsotbusters are evidently properly called proton packs, although I am relatively sure this name never occurred in the first movie. Venkman calls them nuclear accelerators. Whatever their nomenclature & despite their status as the largest, flashiest, & most often used ghost-busting tool, their function is unclear. The Ghostbusters use them to trap Slimer, the first ghost they capture in the film, only to put the creature in a trap. Why didn’t they just put it in the trap in the first place?

• The Ray Parker Jr theme song took on a life of its own in the summer of 1984, coasting to #1 on the pop charts for three weeks & earning Parker an Academy Award nomination for Best Song.

• In order to use the title Ghostbusters, Columbia Pictures had to obtain the rights from Filmation, because of the 1975-1976 Saturday morning live-action series The Ghost Busters, which starred Forrest Tucker & Larry Storch, who had previously appeared together in F Troop.

#51

Zardoz

• Released in 1974, Zardoz was directed, produced, & written by John Boorman, who also wrote, produced, & directed Excalibur & was director/producer of Deliverance. Zardoz stars Sean Connery as Zed.
  
  Zardoz was Connery’s second film role after departing the James Bond franchise.

• In Superman #281 (November, 1974) writer Cary Bates and artist Curt Swan introduced the alien super-hero Vartox. Vartox’ bare-chested, bare-legged, balding appearance were in fact based on Sean Connery’s appearance in Zardoz, while the hero’s name derived from the title of the film.
  
  The name “Zardoz” itself comes from The Wizard of Oz.