[4] The series ran on ABC between September 13, 1986 and October 5, 1991, and was a joint production of DIC Enterprises in association with Columbia Pictures Television and distributed by Coca-Cola Telecommunications.
[5] The series continues the adventures of paranormal investigators Dr. Peter Venkman, Dr. Egon Spengler, Dr. Ray Stantz, Winston Zeddemore, their secretary Janine Melnitz and their mascot ghost Slimer.
The series follows the continuing adventures of the four Ghostbusters, their secretary Janine, their accountant Louis, and their mascot Slimer, as they chase and capture rogue spooks, specters, spirits and ghosts around New York City and various other areas of the world.
Among differences seen in the promo pilot, the Ghostbusters wore beige jumpsuits as in the film and the character design for Peter Venkman bore more of a resemblance to actor Bill Murray.
[12] When he auditioned for the voice of Egon Spengler, Maurice LaMarche noted that while he was asked not to impersonate Harold Ramis, he did so anyway and eventually got the part.
Coulier explained that Joe Medjuck, a producer on both the original 1984 film and the animated series, wanted the character to sound more like Murray.
[15] Ernie Hudson was the only actor from the films who auditioned to play his character in the series; however, the role was given to Arsenio Hall and later Buster Jones.
ABC also went back, and redubbed Peter's and Janine's dialogue in several episodes of the show with Dave Coulier and Kath Soucie, respectively.
Most of these changes were the result of ABC hiring a consulting firm called Q5, in an attempt for guidance on improving the network's low ratings for their Saturday Morning lineup, a move strongly criticized by show writers J. Michael Straczynski, who was a story editor on the series and wrote episodes for every season except 4 and 7, and Michael Reaves.
[20] Many of the changes brought on by Q5 were even criticized by Straczynski as being racist and sexist,[20] such as having each Ghostbuster have a specific role (such as a body, Peter being the mouth, Ray the heart, and Egon the brain) but making Winston (the only main African American character) the driver saying he is "the hands".
The DVD release of Ghostbusters II also included two episodes of the series as bonus features, "Citizen Ghost", a story focusing on events set immediately after the first movie, and "Partners in Slime" (this episode has the original broadcast version and the original end logos—DiC "kid in bed" and Columbia Pictures Television (1988) logos, respectively), which featured the psycho-active slime from Ghostbusters II and a brief mention of its villain Vigo the Carpathian.
[36] That July they allowed fans the chance to vote between two variations of an outer box for the set[37]—one designed to look like the main characters' firehouse headquarters and the other all black with different images on each side.
[43] Unlike the previous Time Life edition, the Sony release is incomplete, missing 29 episodes that were inexplicably omitted, as well as the entire Slimer!
[44] All 10 volumes, spanning 10 discs containing 111 episodes, were released in a slim plastic box set in October 2017 (comprising 80% of the series).
Set several years after the end of The Real Ghostbusters, the series opened by saying the team has disbanded due to a lack of supernatural activity.
The original Ghostbusters return for the two-episode season finale to celebrate Egon's 40th birthday, leading to them reluctantly working together with the younger generation to solve one last case.
The core characters remain the same, though the cartoon is skewed toward younger kids and as such, drops the swearing, the smoking, and the sexual innuendo.
While the Ghostbusters do spend their days vanquishing evil, the monsters and phantoms they encounter are often quite silly (some of them even make wisecracks) and not too scary".