To help celebrate the 14th anniversary of Spook Central: The Ghostbusters Companion, one of the longest-running Ghostbusters fan sites currently online, I held a prize giveaway from August 1st to August 7th 2010 to honor the momentous occasion. I reached out to a few of my corporate friends, and dug through my personal collection, to gather up a few prizes to give out to fans. The prize giveaways included a gift certificate good for 2 tickets to On Location Tours' "New York TV and Movie Sites" tour of New York City, free custom sticker sheets at StickerYou.com, a copy of TimeLife's The Real Ghostbusters Volume 2 five-disc DVD set, Gamer Graffix's No Ghost Logo and Ghostbusters Text Logo wall graphics, and more!

The contest was a great success. Below is the full list of winners, along with a brief description of what prizes they won. For more information on the prizes, check out the prize image gallery. For legal and reference purposes, a copy of the original official rules can be found at the end.


2 tickets to On Location Tours' "New York TV and Movie Sites" tour of New York City (valued at $76 USD)
-- Jack Hensley, Belmar, NJ, USA

1 free custom sticker sheet at StickerYou.com (valued at $6.99 USD each)
-- Christopher Rhea, Hampton, VA, USA
-- Tony Stafford, Dovecot, Liverpool, ENGLAND
-- Dan Mattucci, La Grange Park, IL, USA
-- Nathan Bonner, Springfield, MO, USA
-- Scott Silver, Orem, UT, USA

TimeLife's The Real Ghostbusters Volume 2 five-disc DVD (valued at $39.99 USD)
-- Joshua Minetree, Baltimore, MD, USA

Gamer Graffix's No Ghost Logo 19.5" x 17" Wall Graffix
-- Allan Nicoletti, Croydon, PA, USA

Gamer Graffix's Ghostbusters Text Logo 23" x 3" Wall Graffix
-- Samantha Cornell, Millis, MA, USA

Ghostbusters II Homemade Pog (1.5" in diameter) (this is an item I made in the 1990s)
-- Trey Lansford, Amarillo, TX, USA

Filmation's Ghostbusters #4 comic book
-- David Varner, Rothschild, WI, USA

Spook Central retro logo sticker - custom printed at StickerYou.com
-- Lucas Ackley, West Jordan, UT, USA
-- Matthew Rude, Columbia, IL, USA
-- Gary Tabar, Waynesville, NC, USA
-- Delfin Aponte, Philadelphia, PA, USA
-- Andrew Stewart, Beaufort, SC, USA
-- Michael Sedoti, Reading, PA, USA
-- Adam Anderson, Rochester, MN, USA
-- Mike Sopronyi, Miamisburg, OH, USA
-- Brian Rippee, Concrete, WA, USA
-- Matthew Dusing, Lancaster, OH, USA

Ghostbusters 25th Anniversary sticker - custom printed at StickerYou.com
-- Adam Skinner, Kitchener, ON, CANADA
-- Austyn Brown, Bournemouth, Dorset, ENGLAND
-- Daryl Klinger, Sanford, FL, USA
-- Jeremy Neff, Mooresville, NC, USA
-- Vincent Montenegro, La Quinta, CA, USA
-- Jay Wilson, Louisville, KY, USA

OFFICIAL RULES
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. The "Spook Central 14th Anniversary Prize Giveaway" starts on 8/1/2010 and ends on 8/7/2010. The contest is open only to legal residents of the United States, Canada, and all other countries, 18 years of age or older at time of entry. A vaild e-mail address is required for the contest. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

Limit one entry per person and/or e-mail address. Any additional entries will be discarded. All information provided by entrants will not be sold, given away, or used for any other purpose than for this contest - though a winners list will be posted after the contest has ended. Winners will be chosen at random using The Hat random name-selection software. Winners will be notified via e-mail at the address provided in their entry, and will be required to reply to that e-mail and verify their information before the prize will be sent to them. If a winner does not reply within three business days, they will forfeit the prize and it will be given to someone else via another random selection.

No prize substitution or cash redemption allowed by a prize winner. If awarded, prizes will be awarded without any warranty of any kind. Odds of winning a prize depends on the total number of eligible Entries received for the Sweepstakes.

All federal, state and local tax liabilities, if any, are the responsibility of the winners. Spook Central/Paul Rudoff shall not be responsible or liable for entries that are entered by other than human means (such as by an automated computer program or any non-human mechanism, entity, or device), in excess of the stated limit, or for entries that are late, forged, destroyed, lost, misplaced, stolen, misdirected, tampered with, incomplete, deleted, damaged, garbled, or otherwise not in compliance with the official rules, and all such entries will be disqualified.

By entering the Sweepstakes, each entrant agrees: (i) to be bound by these official rules and by all applicable laws and decisions of Spook Central/Paul Rudoff which shall be binding and final; (ii) to waive all of his/her rights to bring any claim, action, or proceeding against Spook Central/Paul Rudoff in connection with the Giveaway.

As you've undoubtedly have already noticed... The incredible Tristan Jones has put together a collection of new Spook Central title logos in honor of this site's 14th anniversary this month. There's a whole bunch of them, which should display randomly when you browse throughout the site (or reload the page). If you don't have Javascript enabled in your browser, then you'll just see one image. Though if you'd like to see more of them, Tristan previewed some of them on his DeviantArt account last week.

To go along with the new title is a new site design. Well, it's more of a tweak of the old design, but it's a pretty significant tweak. Since computer monitor resolutions are usually 1024x768 and higher these days (very few people still use 800x600, and much less use 640x480), I decided to give the site content a set width of 900 pixels. To fill in the empty space on the sides for resolutions larger than 1024 pixels in width, there's a background image showing the temple atop Spook Central, pulled straight off of the Blu-ray Disc. People with widescreen monitors will see more of the background image than those without. I was rather shocked at how well the 900 pixel site fit atop the temple background image - right between the two pillars on the sides of the temple doors! The symmetry is perfect. It's like the movie shot and the site were made for each other.

I really hope that this new design displays well on all browsers as I did not get a chance to thoroughly test it. Heck, I probably did a really sloppy job with the coding, as someone with real design skills could probably streamline all of the backend code into CSS and make everything run smoother. If there's anyone out there who'd like to give it a try, let me know.

I originally intended on finding a free pre-designed website template and going with that for the new design, but I couldn't find one that I liked, and I really wanted to get these new title logos up while it was still August (the 14th anniversary month). I'd like to give a quick shout-out to Jason Fitzsimmons from GhostbustersNews.com for the inspiration and encouragement to give the site a set width and use a background image on the sides. I got the idea (and a tiny bit of CSS code) from his site, and when I ran the idea by him a while back, he encouraged me to go for it. Thanks Jason.

Finally, a very special shout-out needs to be given to Raffaele Ruffaldi for providing me with webspace for the past seven or eight years (since either 2002 or 2003), for all the helpful technical assistance, and for putting up with me and the problems I have every now and then.

It was fourteen years ago this month, in August 1996, that I created Spook Central in my rinky-dink Geocities account. It was nothing big - just a picture of the library ghost, on a banana yellow background, with some links below it - but it was a start. To help celebrate the occasion, I've reached out to a few of my corporate friends, and dug through my personal collection, to gather up a few prizes to give out to the fans. The Spook Central 14th Anniversary Prize Giveaway runs from now until August 7th, which should be plenty of time to get your entry in (one per person and/or e-mail address).


P.S. - If you want to see what the actual Ghostbusters 25th Anniversary and Spook Central retro logo printed stickers look like, Jason at GB News just posted a photo he took of the two stickers I gave him.

When TimeLife's The Real Ghostbusters: Complete Collection DVD box set was first released back in November 2008, the five smaller sets ("volumes") inside were each housed in a metal SteelBook™ case. When Vol 1. was released by itself in March 2009, it retained its Steelbook case from the box set. However, earlier this year TimeLife begun the process of replacing the Steelbook metal cases with plastic cases that are of the same dimensions. It started with the individual release of Vol. 2 in January, it will continue with the individual release of Vol. 3 in a mere three weeks (on August 3, 2010), and now the Complete Collection box set and the individual Vol. 1 are using the plastic cases, as well.

I, for one, am glad that they made the change to the plastic cases. I wish they would have used them all along. The new cases (which are the same dimensions as the Steelbooks) have each disc on its own page with NO overlap (unlike the Steelbooks). I suggested this packaging to Jeff Peisch (producer of the DVD box set, and head of TimeLife's video division) back in January 2009, after I saw how well it worked in CBS/Paramount's Petticoat Junction - The Official First Season set. One of my major complaints about the Complete Collection box set, other than the slow or sped-up episodes in Vol 4, is with the Steelbook cases. I hate the disc-over-disc storage inside the cases, and the disc locking mechanism, which has absolutely no give and upon repeated use will cause the inner ring of the disc to crack. I've had this happen with my Ghostbusters 1999 DVD, and that case's disc locking mechanism is a bit better than the Steelbooks - but not by much. So I'm quite happy that TimeLife decided to take my suggestion and replace the Steelbooks with the plastic cases, though I'm sure it's the cheaper cost of the plastic cases that really spurred their decision.

If you'd like to see for yourself why the plastic cases are better than the old metal ones, check out this comparison/review that I just wrote up using the individual Vol. 2 release.

As several people have already reported buying the Complete Collection box set from Amazon and getting the plastic cases inside, instead of the Steelbooks, I decided to ask Jeff Peisch about it. Not only did I want to confirm the reports, I also wanted to find out if it's only Amazon that's selling the new plastic case sets, or if other retailers (online and brick-and-mortar) are selling them too - including TimeLife.com.

He told me, "All configurations are now in [plastic cases]. NO Steelbooks at all. So those original sets are collectors' editions!!"

Since TimeLife has been manufacturing the set with Steelbook cases for at least a year (probably a year and several months), I wouldn't be quick to call the Steelbook cases "rare". "Collector's Editions" - sure, I would say that, but certainly not rare. Still, don't be surprised when you see them popping up on eBay at exorbitant prices with the word "rare" prominently displayed in the listing.

In an effort to help out the fans as much as possible, I asked Jeff for a little more information - particularly the answers to these two important questions regarding this matter.

1. Since some of the Steelbook "Complete Collection" box sets may still be out there in the wild, is there any way to tell from the outside packaging (the firehouse box) if there's plastic or Steelbook cases inside? Like maybe a different UPC/item/part number, a new/removed/different logo on the bottom, a change in any of the text on the bottom, or something else?

For the individual sets it will be really easy to see what case they're in, but for the "Complete Collection" box sets, the cases will be inside the sealed firehouse box. So that's why I'm asking if there's any small clue on the firehouse box of the new "plastic case sets" that could let the buyer know that there's plastic cases, and not Steelbooks, inside.

    -- Jeff's response: "There shouldn't be any of the Steelbook complete sets out there, since we just duplicated several thousand more of the new versions; and we wouldn't have made new ones if we had old ones in inventory."

2. Are there any plans to make a set of the new plastic cases (with the high-quality paper liner artwork) available for purchase to whomever may want to buy them to replace their Steelbooks?

For a fair amount of money (like $10 for the set), I know that there are folks who would buy them. That would be an extra source of revenue for TimeLife, without having to invest in anything new - you just do the same as you're doing now, but leave out the discs and firehouse box. Maybe you can bring this up at the next staff meeting, or mention it to whomever would be in charge of approving such things (if it's not you).

    -- Jeff's response: "Not at this time."

And for those of you who have been collecting the sets individually, I asked Jeff if the release dates for the individual releases of Vols. 4 & 5 have been determined yet. He said, "We'll definitely release next year." So you can rest assured that, as things currently stand, you'll be able to complete your collection before the end of 2011.

I'd like to publically thank Jeff Peisch for graciously answering all of my questions and putting up with my pestering.

For the past two years Chris Stewart has been writing a series of Shot On Site articles over at Proton Charging that document the little-known Ghostbusters filming locations, usually with diagrams showing how he was able to determine the locale in the movie by comparing it to the way it currently looks in real life. With his permission, I am going to build upon what he started for my own series of Shot On Site articles. In honor of posting my first Shot On Site article, I completely revamped my Filming Locations page to include thumbnails of all locations, and all of the new locations that were found by Chris Stewart, Nick Carr, and Chris Buchner. I also added all of the history text and some of the photos from Chris Buchner's defunct NYGB Tourguide site, with his permission. On top of that, I have also created an Unidentified Filming Locations page to serve as a checklist of the locations that still need to be identified.

Read more »

Scribd is a free service that allows anyone to share any type of document (including PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel) with the world. A "Ghostbusters" search brings up 45+ pages of results - most of them crap. I spent a few hours skimming through the results to find the best stuff, and here's what I found. (If you want to download any of the PDFs on Scribd, you'll need a free account. You can get some public logins at BugMeNot.)

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I finally had a chance to spend some time with the Ghostbusters Blu-Ray that was released last year. If you have not yet picked it up, you should. In lieu of writing a full-on review of the Ghostbusters Blu-Ray, here are a few notes that I made.

• There are too few chapters in the movie. There's only 16 compared to the DVD's 28. Slimer Mode, on the other hand, has too many chapters: 71 of them.

• In regards to all of the grain, it doesn't look too bad on my 22" 1080p HDTV, but it'll probably look much worse on a bigger TV. Still, it doesn't look good. Surely a better print of the movie exists. If the print for the 1999 DVD were this grainy, we would have definitely seen it, even in the standard definition of the DVD images. So why didn't Sony use that print - unless they lost it!

• The GBVG Making Of featurette would have been a great unlockable video on the PC/PS3/X360 copies of the game. It would have been nice for the PC version to have a real unlockable.

• I could have done without all of the "this is archival footage from an old DVD release" that precedes just about all of the old DVD bonus features that's included. Sony didn't put up any such notices on the archival DVD bonus features on their Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse Blu-Ray releases (those are the only other Sony Blu-Rays that I have) - and those bonus features look more standard-definition than what's on the Ghostbusters disc.

• If I had to recommend this disc for one reason, and one reason only, it would be Slimer Mode. I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by all of the people they got to sit down for interviews. I wish they would have included some of the full-length interviews as full-screen bonus features.

I also took the time to add a lot of stuff from the Blu-Ray to Spook Central. For starters, I completely updated the GB1 Blu-Ray page. A gallery of scaled-down menu shots are on that page (link in the Multimedia section), and there are four new subpages on which lots of multimedia has been added: Slimer Mode, Ecto-1 featurette, Ecto-1 Restoration Gallery, and Making of Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

Since I don't care for the quality and look for the film print used on the Blu-Ray, I didn't bother recapturing all of the screen captures on the Ghostbusters Multimedia page. However, I did recapture all six magazine covers directly from the Blu-Ray in order to take advantage of the higher resolution picture. You can actually, barely, read the text on the USA Today and New York Post covers. And who knew there was a slight blue drop shadow behind the yellow text at the bottom of the photo on the Time cover. We also now know for a fact that the movie takes place in October 1984. Thanks to an error in the now semi-readable text on the USA Today cover, we can tell that Mike McWillie put the covers together on or around March 6, 1984. The USA Today cover, dated Oct. 8, 1984 lists an obituary for Thin Man actor William Powell, who actually died on March 5, 1984. Mike probably used the actual March 6th USA Today cover as the basis for his mock-up.

All of you deleted scene and Ecto-1 lovers will want to take note of a few new stills that were added to the Fort Detmerring exterior page showing the Ecto-1 pulling up to the fort, which were taken from the Ecto-1 featurette and Slimer Mode. This essentially gives us the car's entire procession from the fort entrance to the guys getting out.

And finally, since I know that someone, somewhere will undoubtedly ask me at sometime how I did the captures from the Blu-Ray, I have put up a very extensive page detailing how I do still and video captures from VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray. I also compiled some lists detailing where the content on the various digital releases of the various Ghostbusters productions can be found.

Boston America recently released the latest in their line of Ghostbusters consumables^* - Slimer Sours Candy. The little green Slimer-shaped sour watermelon-flavored candy (1.5oz [42.5g]) comes in a white metal tin with a slightly embossed No Ghost logo on top. The sourness of the candy leaves a little to be desired - they're more tart and tangy, than sour - but they're not bad. Kinda addicting, with an odd distinct smell. They're hard with a slight chalky residue on them that reminds me of a candy I used to get in a vending machine a long time ago.

Anyway, you're not really buying it for the candy, you're buying it for the metal tin. The tin measures roughly 3 inches in diameter and is roughly 3/4 inch in height. As previously mentioned, the logo on the lid is embossed, which is a nice touch, though the logo is pushed to the left a bit too far instead of being centered. (You can see this in the photo above.) The candy inside is not separately wrapped, so there will be chalky residue inside the tin that you'll need to wipe away with a damp paper towel when you're done with the candy.

I've searched around and the cheapest price I've seen the candy going for is $2.99 a tin + $1.95 shipping from ToyWiz via Amazon. (They were also selling it by the display/case [18 tins] last week, but that listing has since been deleted.) New York residents take note that $0.43 in sales tax is charged (ToyWiz is located in NY), which makes the total cost for one tin: $5.37. It's interesting to note that the shipping for TWO tins is $4.95, with tax being $0.96, so the order total is $11.89. It's actually cheaper to place two separate orders for one tin each ($10.74 total) than it is to buy two in the same order (you'll save $1.15).

If you want something to wash down the candy, I suggest a can of the Ghostbusters Ectoplasm Energy Drink (previously mentioned on this site). And to counteract the stinky sour breath you might have afterwards, get yourself a tube of Stay Puft Toasted Marshmallow-Flavored Lip Baum. Then you'll complete the trifecta of Boston America's Ghostbusters products. (Note: I don't work for Boston America, but I'll be happy to accept free samples if anyone from BA is reading this.)

For those who may benefit from this information, here's the ingredients list for the candy. For the nutritional facts, you'll have to contact Boston America - though, really...if you're that interested in the nutritional value of candy, you shouldn't be eating candy.

Ingredients: Glucose, Modified Starch, Magnesium Stearate, Tartaric Acid, Artificial Flavor (Watermelon) and Colors (FD&C Yellow 5, Blue1).

* Yes, I realize lip baum is not a consumable, but since it's flavored, and thus obviously meant to be tasted, I'm lumping in into the "consumables" category.

I've covered Ghostbusters references in mainstream media here and there, now it's time to take a peep behind the red curtain at the references and parodies in the world of adult entertainment. Although I'm trying my absolute best to keep this clean, and there will be no human nudity (I did a lot of censoring), and you will not find any hardcore imagery involving real people in this post (only drawings), this is NOT A POST FOR THE KIDDIES. By continuing to read this article, you hereby state to me that you wish to read about and view such content and will not hold me libel for any damages that may occur to your psyche or anything else if you proceed any further.

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[UPDATE 1/1/2010 - Click to page 2 for an article and videos about the closing.]

The legendary restaurant Tavern on the Green, where Louis was refused entry because they don't allow pets, will have its last seating on December 31, 2009 after 75 years of service. In September, the LeRoy family, who has owned the restaurant since 1974, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, due to the financial crisis and New York City's decision to give the Tavern license to a new operator, Dean J. Poll. As reported by the New York Times, the LeRoys' license has been extended to February 14th to allow the family enough time to remove the items it owns and to conduct an auction of the restaurant's famous interior and exterior fixtures and topiaries. The auction, which will be conducted by Guernsey's auction house, will be held on-site in the Crystal Room on January 13th and 14th (though you can also bid in absentia via telephone, e-mail or internet). Previews will be held on-site January 6-12 from 12-8 PM each day. Poll, who takes over in February with his new 20-year license, plans to renovate with green technology. However, he may not be allowed to use the Tavern on the Green name. The LeRoys and the City are embroiled in a trademark dispute over the name, though Poll has registered Tavern in the Park as an alternative.

It is unknown when Poll's new Tavern will open, but even if it retains the name, it certainly won't be the same place that everyone has known and loved for the past 35-75 years. So if you want to celebrate the real Tavern's last Christmas or New Years, make your reservations right away.

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