Filmation Ghostbusters = Merde
by Erin Q. Gillis, Esq.

Yes folks, French-Canadians have a Value Village too. And upon visiting it, I found this:

Ghostbusters in French? Awesome! Wait a sec… those aren’t the Ghostbusters! Well, apparently they are, and there’s actually a reason as to why the cartoon based on the movie is called “The REAL Ghostbusters.” For in the wonderful year of 1986, two Ghostbusters shows were brought to the tube. Having no idea that the Filmation version even existed, my first experience with it was this video. Makes for a good article, n’est-ce pas?

Note: Before I get started, I want to bring attention to something written on the sticker the video’s previous owner had put on its case…

French kids had He-Man too! Anywho, I’ll get on to the video, or at least any sense I could make of it. (Four years of French Immersion and I can still only understand every second sentence in a dubbed TV show… le sigh!) As you can see, the episode was called “Le Train Fantôme.” Literally translated, that means “The Ghost Train,” but thanks to the fact that they didn’t change the English credits, we find out that it’s supposed to be “Rollerghoster.” I guess the French don’t have puns. As could be assumed, the theme song has nothing on “Who you gonna call?” The chorus (for some reason the only part of the song that wasn’t dubbed) consists of “Let’s go Ghostbusters, let’s go,” and actually sounds a bit like the theme from “The Raccoons.” Man I miss the Raccoons. Aaanywho, this version of Ghostbusters also lost in the logo department. Why would an anti-ghost association use a happy ghost as their symbol?

Let’s introduce the characters, shall we?

The Good Guys:


Two men and a monkey dressed like a tourist. There’s also a little boy and a pink bat.

The Bad Guys:


A robot in a devil suit, something that looks like a Wuzzle reject, and a woman who I can only assume is Shrieky grown up.

The one who looks like Shrieky confuses me because she constantly hiccups throughout the entire episode. Is that part of the plot for this one particular episode, or is it a consistent character flaw? Also, why does she keep turning into an octopus? But the main thing I don’t get about the villains is this: I don’t think they’re even ghosts!!!

Whatever the case, the episode mostly takes place at an amusement park (hence the “Rollerghoster” pun). Leaving the robot-devil behind to play his organ, Shrieky and Wuzzle-reject hide out in “Le Train Fantôme.” Very inconspicuous, guys. At one point the little boy goes missing, which means the two men and the tourist-monkey have to kick some serious ghost ass. And how do they prepare for this? The answer is obvious! They run into a random house, the tourist-monkey pulls an inflatable closet out of his backpack, the men run inside and punch in a code, and magically change into their ghostbusting cargo pants. Duh!

They get rid of the Wuzzle-reject pretty quickly. The gadget they used on him made him disappear, so I guess he really was a ghost somehow. Shrieky’s a little bit harder to beat, but she’s weakened when she’s hit in the face with a pie that the tourist-monkey pulled out of his backpack (wow, that backpack has everything!), and is finally defeated when they trap her in a thermos. (I’m not making this up, I swear…)

At the end of the whole ordeal, the kid is given a medal. I have no idea why -- I’m pretty sure he started the trouble in the first place by stealing Shrieky’s amulet. (Because you should always play keep-away with people who may or may not be ghosts but are obviously evil.) Then, much like on “Teddy Ruxpin,” the pink bat and the talking TV give a sort of public service announcement to the folks at home.


Kiddies, never try to make sense of a cartoon dubbed in French.

Oh, but it’s not over yet! As an added bonus, they threw in an episode of “Bravestarr.”

This show is also new to me (as I may have mentioned in other articles, I didn’t have cable), and it was even harder to understand than the Ghostbusters one, but I’ll sum up:

Location: “Nouvelle Texas.”
Concept: cowboys & Indians meets … mutants & robots!

Yup, Marshall Bravestarr is a Native-American cowboy with a robot horse. A combination of magical animal powers and laser-guns makes him unstoppable! I’m pretty sure this episode had something to do with the town’s water supply, but that’s not the point. The point is that whenever they showed the badguys’ hideout, I swear I could see C3PO and R2D2 in the background!

Anywho, I’m still nursing my brain from trying to figure out the video, so that’s about it for this article. For more crappy-Ghostbusters in foreign languages, you can check out this site I found. Wheee!