Okay, so this is sort of a bit of content recycling of stuff I’ve shared almost a decade ago here at Branded, but in the spirit (pun fully intended) of the new Ghostbusters flick debuting today I thought it would be fun to share my collection of Ghostbusters stickers again. Besides, it gives me an excuse to dig out all of these from my archives and stare at them again for a bit…
First up, I want to go way back to the first Peel Here column at Branded and take a look at one of my favorite kinds of sticker merchandising from the 80s, the Antioch sticker storybooks! These slim small books were released in the mid to late 80s and had a mix of heavily picture-driven adaptations of movies and TV shows. Each book also featured a sheet of 12 stickers at the back of the book that were meant to be applied to each page as a sort of accomplishment for reading through the book. My all time favorite Antioch book is the adaptation of the first Ghostbusters flick…
Man, I love the cover design of these books so much, in particular that “12 Stickers” rainbow badge. That always got me jazzed. Here’s a look at the copyright page that has one of my all time favorite pieces of Ghostbusters artwork…
How badass is that illustration?! Here are the stickers that accompanied this book…
Now these were covered in the first Peel Here column. When I tracked down the book to share here at the site, I was a little curious about the stickers that were included, as I seemed to remember ones that weren’t on the sheet that featured speech bubbles with Ghostbusters quotes and taglines. It wasn’t until a year or so later when I found a picture online of the sticker sheet that I was thinking of. Since there isn’t really a resource on 23 year-old sticker storybooks, I sort of made an educated guess, figuring that there were probably variants of the books, one with more traditional stickers of the actors, and one with the GB quote stickers.
Well, it turns out that I was wrong, and I was actually combining memories of two separate Ghostbusters books, both printed by Antioch in 1984. I believe I had both, but for some reason I seem to remember the book portion of one more and the stickers of the other. Memory is such a weird thing, and it makes me wonder how many of mine are muddled like this; my brain picking and choosing the best moments to combines into a pleasant recollection of the past. It’s funny; I think this same phenomenon has also led a lot of people to remember things that didn’t exist at all, one of the best examples of which is a finally plot-resolving episode of the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. The people who believe it exists, fervently believe that it exists, as they have specific memories of events in the episode, in particular a plot point in which one of the main characters was reunited with someone they came across in the realm. I’ve seen every episode of the cartoon, and there is no final episode (well at least not one that was filmed), and honestly the best explanation I can think of is that they are remembering various parts of separate episodes, combining them in their memory into an amalgamated final episode. Like I said, memory is a really weird thing.
Anyway, I eventually managed to track down a copy of the second Ghostbusters Antioch sticker/storybook from 1984, the Official Ghostbusters Training Manual: A Guide to Catching Ghosts…
Here is a scan the stickers that were included with that book…
What’s fun about tracking down older books like this, especially ones that came with disposable components like stickers, is that sometimes you can get a feel for how the owners felt about it. Typically, if you found this book in a used bookstore or on eBay the sticker sheet would be lost or used up with absolutely no evidence as to where they ended up. In the case of Antioch, a lot of their books were designed with a page at the back that the owner was supposed to stick the stickers on, and in this particular book’s case, the stickers were designed to be applied on every other page. Luckily there was only one sticker missing from the sheet, and it ended up in the book, so technically it’s still sort of entirely intact.
Unlike the other GB book, which was a straightforward concentrated version of the movie story, this book is actually something new, a training guide to becoming a Ghostbuster. According to this manual, after only ten short lessons (well 9 lessons and a graduation day celebration) anyone who is looking for a change in their life can become a ghost hunting fool. There is of course the matter of making sure you apply the correct sticker to the correct lesson page, but thankfully there are silhouetted hints to help with this.
For sake of ease I’ll paraphrase for those of you clicksters in the go that can’t be slowed down with reading an eleven-page book…
Lesson 1: Buy a cheap run-down, possibly condemned building for a headquarters…
Lesson 2: Acquire some large, eye-catching, yet amazingly cheap form of transportation…
Lesson 3: Build your own proton pack if you don’t have access to a nuclear accelerator (it’s easy)…
Lesson 4: Acquire or build a foot pedal operated ghost trap (handy schematic provided for construction purposes)…
Lesson 5: Procure an Ecto-Containment Unit, probably the most daunting task as we’ve learned from the film that the EPA really hates unauthorized machinery located in rickety buildings, operated by people who build things like proton packs and ghost traps…
Lesson 6: Grow a set of solid brass balls…
Lesson 7: Know a slimer when you see one (as well as being prepared with old cold anchovy covered slices of pizza for bait)…
Lesson 8: Learn to be weary of all statuary…
Lesson 9: Final exam (i.e., pissing off a demigod while waiting for them to summon a giant piece of American iconography to test your mettle)…
Lesson 10: Sign the certificate and start booking birthday parties because you’re on your way!
Since I believe anyone who has made it through my cliff’s notes is just as capable of handling nuclear equipment as anyone who read the book, I’m also providing a cleaned up version of the certificate so that you too can bust some ghosts…
There was also a book that adapted the second film…
Here are the 12 stickers that came with this one…
As much as I love these Antioch sticker books from the 80s, one of my recent passions has been collecting a bunch of bootleg stickers from popular movies and TV shows. There’s just something amazingly fun about how bad these knock-offs can be. Case in point these Ghostbusters puffy stickers. You’ll know why I love these so much by the time you look at the last sticker on the sheet…
That’s right, stare into the face of the ultimate doom that is…a panda?! Much scarier than a terror dog right?
Last up for today I have my collection of some way more official puffy stickers from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. There were 4 of these sets made, but to date I’ve only managed to track down three of them…
Last, but certainly not least today are my collection of the sticker cards from the subset of the 1989 Topps Ghostbusters II card set. There is some really great pre-production art on these…
And of course, here’s a look at the puzzle poster from the back of the cards…
So, anyone have any other favorite Ghostbusters stickers from the 80s in your collections? Share pics or links in the comments section, I’d love to see them…