Blast from the Past: 1984's Ghostbusters Proton Gun

(Photo above: Dr. Egon Spengler trying to capture a ghost with a particle accelerator gun. Picture courtesy of Sony Pictures.)

Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad?"
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr. Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

The films from the 1980s had a magic to them. The zeitgeist -- a German term for "the spirit of the times" -- was innocent, energetic and positive outlook on life. The 80's produced incredible shows like The A-Team, Battlestar Galactica, Charlie's Angels, Magnum P.I., The Incredible Hulk, Knight Rider, and MacGyver. You can watch a lot of those shows again through the miracle of DVD boxed sets of thos old TV shows. You might find them a lot "campier" and more goofy than you remembered, but how many of us when we were kids fell in live with Olivia Newton John's character, Kira, in the movie "Xanadu"? After watching that, we all went straight for the store to buy rollerskates...

... and then fell on our asses on the street trying to rollerskate!

Who didn't feel the movie magic and then tried to bring a little of it off the silver screen and into real life?



That's what the magic of Ghostbusers did to us -- it made us feel like we were in New York cheering on that team of four to beat the powers of Zuul. What invoked that spirit? Was it the movie's theme music where it sounded like everyone around you was shouting "GhostBUSTERS!" when it was played over the radio, or if it was the marketing and minshare Ghostbusters was gaining when you saw the Ghostbusters logo everywhere from schoolbooks to jackets? And who didn't want that amazing ghost-busting gun that emited particle streams?

So here is a tribute to the "nerf" version of that famous proton gun, made by Kenner in 1984. It's range was allegedly not that great, but it was one of the first foam-shooting guns on the market at the time.

How did the proton gun work in the movie? As described on Technovelgy.com:

"Particle-beam weapons are devices that accelerate subatomic particles or atoms to velocities near the speed of light, focused into a narrow stream. The energy of the weapon is the aggregate kinetic energy of the individual particles forming the beam. A lightning bolt, a flow of electrons, is similar to a particle beam. For those still keeping up with these weapons, there are two general types, classified by their use: charged particle-beam weapons (endoatmospheric use) and neutral particle-beam weapons (exoatmospheric use)."

Who you gonna call?

Back-pack nuclear accelerator not included.