This is potentially an embarrassing thing to admit to, but I spent the first two decades or so of my existence with the original Ghostbusters film from 1984 flying firmly below my radar. It came out before I was born, so naturally I'd missed out on the initial momentum, but then in the interim the opportunity to get acquainted just never came up. I never caught it on TV, I never attended any parties at the houses of friends who had the VHS tape, nor was anyone in my household ever tempted to pick out the title during our once-frequent trips to our local rental store. Which is absolutely not to say that I didn't know who the Ghostbusters were. Course I did - this was the era when you were guaranteed to hear Ray Parker Jr extolling their talents at every school disco you attended, and like any child of the late 1980s I'd watched my fair share of the Real Ghostbusters cartoon spin-off. I was also familiar with their live action counterparts, by way of Ghostbusters II, which I saw multiple times growing up. I could swear that, in the mid-to-late 1990s, that film received a terrestrial UK broadcast with absolutely every Christmas or New Year's Eve that rolled around. Although clearly I never paid close enough attention to grasp the significance of those numerals, because I was never particularly mindful of the fact that I was watching Part Deux of a story already set in motion. I'm not sure how old I was when I put it together that the movie about the long-haired man in the painting with the unwholesome interest in babies was actually the sequel and not the movie that most had in mind when they spoke about Ghostbusters.* But I do know that I was very nearly 20 by the time I actually managed to sit down and watch the 1984 film. I've never watched it since, either. I guess in this lifetime my preferences were always destined to swing more toward Gremlins. And Casper.
Probably my fondest Ghostbusters-related memory would be the ads for the promotional tie-in that happened at Wimpy restaurants during the UK release of Ghostbusters II in late 1989. Former heavyweights of the UK fast food scene (the chain was American in origin, but never took off in its homeland), Wimpy had spent the preceding decade watching those Johnny-come-latelies at McDonald's swell in size and increasingly hustle in on their territory, and it was only going to get worse from there - by the 2000s, they'd all but retreated from the high street altogether (the logical assumption would have been that they'd gone bust, until I happened to find one tucked away in the corner of a bowling alley). In 1989, though, they were still considered relevant enough to be doing business with a major blockbuster, and they had quite the unnerving narrative to go along with their Ghostbusters-themed Happy Meal equivalent. This contained a burger and fries (no gimmicks), a slime milkshake (whatever went into that) and the main attraction, the so-called "Ghost In A Can" - which, so the accompanying television campaign led me to believe, you opened up at your own peril. It was all a bit too much for me, I'm afraid. If there was one thing guaranteed to prevent me from setting foot inside a Wimpy restaurant, it was the thought of everyone around me cracking open cans concealing nasty surprises.
Even at four years old, I wasn't quite naive enough to believe that Wimpy were actually giving away malevolent spirits in sealed cans, bestowing on members of the public the power to unleash evil entities into the world with a simple tab pull. But I apparently was naive enough to suppose that they might be giving away cans containing state of the art holographic technology that made it appear as though a ghost was swooping out, all as a freebie curiosity piece in a kids' lunch that set you back just £1.99. For how they touted it, I would certainly have expected some kind of fake ghost effect. But since the television campaign was the closest I ever got to the action, it just had to remain a mystery. It wasn't until I was at university, and the subject of Ghostbusters came up in a casual conversation I was having with a friend, that I suddenly remembered the Wimpy promotion, and how curious I had been regarding how the "Ghost In A Can" thing actually worked. I mentioned it to my friend. "Oh that," they replied. "I don't think there was anything in those cans except a bog standard Coca-Cola." Not even a special, limited edition flavour of Coca-Cola. Man, what a let down. Where exactly did the ghost come into it, then? Were we expected to supply our own, using just our imaginations? How lame!
Looking back, the clues were there all along as to can's actual contents. Re-watching the ad now, I can't help but notice that Coca-Cola logo in the top-right corner of the final still, which should have been a dead giveaway. I also feel a trifle silly for being as spooked by the ending as I was, given that the ghost that emerges clearly hasn't flown up out of the kid's can, but has rather been edited in choppily using footage from the movie. Something that also didn't occur to me at the time but now strikes me as a little odd is that the kid in the ad is eating his lunch in a library - which, yes, ties in with all the Ghostbusters window dressing, but you'd think that Wimpy would have also wanted to promote something of the atmosphere inside a Wimpy restaurant, in order to tie in that busting magic with the experience of dining at one of their locations. Or would that have made the inserted spectral footage look even less seamless?
My subsequent research has indicated that there might have been more to the campaign than just a flashy exterior. Not much more, mind. The meal also came with a "Ghost Licence", which contained instructions on how to get the most out of your imprisoned spirit. As per the licence, if you opened the can, your ghost would conveniently vanish into thin air and be lost forever. But if you held your depleted can up to strong light for a few minutes, then took it to a darkened room and peered inside, you would apparently see some kind of glow-in-the-dark effect at the bottom (or leftover ecto residue, as the campaign narrative would have us believe), to indicate that your ghost had, at one time, been there. A far cry from the impressive unleashing act suggested (however shoddily) by the TV ad, and maybe you lacked the patience to hold your can up to the light that long, or the inclination to put your eye that close to the sharp edges of the opened seal. But it might have provided passing amusement to the kids of '89. My research also indicates that the gimmick itself was actually nothing novel in 1989, and that these Ghosts In Cans had been used as promotional items since as far back as the original film's release in 1984. According to the Ghostbusters Wiki, there were equivalents in various international locations (none are listed for the US itself), including Sweden, Canada and a noted fake from Argentina, although only the cans released alongside Ghostbusters II were sold as fast food tie-ins (it also seems that Wimpy didn't have exclusive ownership of the promotion, in the UK - they were available at Burger King too). And if you followed the instructions explicitly laid out on the side of the can, telling you NOT to open the thing, and instead kept it very safe, and very close, then congratulations - you now have something you could try selling for an extortionate price on eBay. (I'm not sure that the contents should still be considered drinkable, mind.)
I still have no idea what made a "slime milkshake" so distinguished. I'm happy for that much to remain a mystery.
* The same also true for Bill and Ted, now that I think about it. I grew up with Bogus Journey, and with the spin-off cartoon. Excellent Adventure, though? It just clean passed my childhood by.
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