After the success of the original Ghostbusters and its animated spin-off, Columbia Pictures pressured the producers for a sequel. Bill Murray wanted to call it Last of the Ghostbusters, so there'd be absolutely no chance of a third installment, proving that him being a dick about Ghostbusters 3 is nothing new.
Five years after their public debut, Dr. Egon Spengler
turned to experimentation with human emotion as an alternative to studying ghosts and the paranormal. Luckily for New York, he returns to the Ghostbusters just in time.
His "experimentation" was some pretty twisted stuff. Not evil, per se, just... wildly inconsiderate. Like making a fighting couple wait two hours in an un-air-conditioned room to meet with a marriage counsellor, or taking away a little girl's puppy. He takes a very "soulless" approach to science, caring more about acquiring new knowledge than in finding any practical use for his discoveries. You know, lack of empathy is one of the signs of being a serial killer. Just sayin'.
This figures is identified as "Ghostbusters 2 Egon Spengler," which means he's wearing the darker jumpsuit from that film. Only problem with that? They didn't really wear these suits that much. Most of the time they were in the normal tan outfits, only donning the grey ones for a total of about 10 seconds. The mold is the same, just done in a new color. He does get a new, more "Egonish" hair piece, though.
In addition to the standard proton pack and energy blast, Egon has a yellow radio [actually, a Lifeguard II PASS Alarm,
a device that emits a high-pitched sound if its wearer lies motionless for more than 30 seconds; it's a device normally worn by firefighters in case they get knocked out in a fire --ed.] on his belt, and a giga meter he can hold in his hand. While the more familiar PKE meter is all about locating ghostly emissions, the giga meter measures them. Finally, there's an active Ghost Trap - shame it doesn't have a big swirl of energy bursting out of it.
Finally completing her ill-fated 1912 voyage to New York,
the RMS Titanic was summoned to New York by Vigo along with her Captain and over 1500 ghostly passengers.
Well that's just a frustrating bio, isn't it? they tease us with a hint of the mythology behind this character, but then don't follow through. What was so "ill-fated" about the voyage of this clearly fictional ship with no real-world counterpart? I mean, if it were a real ship, we probably would have heard of it before now, right? Perhaps in books, or magazines or, I don't know, maybe some sort of big-budget movie spectacle? No, on second thought, that's just silly. They clearly made the whole thing up.
The Royal Mail Ship (yes, that's what "RMS" stands for) Titanic was
captained by Edward Smith, who you'll remember was played by King Theoden in the movie. Er, Titanic, not Ghostbusters 2. While the actual ship and its passengers appeared in GB2, the captain did not, so this figure is just extrapolation. He's molded from clear plastic: blue for the uniform, black for the shoes, and white for the exposed body. His face and the details of his uniform are painted in solid colors, and his hat is a new mold.
Since the Titanic Ghost didn't actually appear in the film, he may not be as much of a "must-have" as some of the other ghosts, but he's still pretty cool - better to get him than, say, the Washington Square Ghost, right? Luckily, he and Egon are one of the easier TRU two-packs to find, so if this macabre mariner appeals to you, he should be easy to add to your collection.
-- 04/24/10
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