Renowned photographer Oliver Rath took a series of artistic photographs based on the theme of Ghostbusters, which were exhibited at the Windows Phone 7.5 Hotel Event on December 15, 2011 in Berlin, Germany.

Mr. Rath was kind enough to grant my request for copies of the photos and permission to publish them on Spook Central for all Ghostbusters fans to enjoy. For more of Mr. Rath's work, check out his website (some of the photographs on his site contain nudity, so consider this your NSFW warning). You can also find him on Facebook. (The photos and all information have also been added to the Fan Art page here on Spook Central, which is where you can find the additional photo credits.)

Matt Prov and Brendan Mertens over at the Ghostheads podcast released their 17th episode last week, and they mentioned Spook Central's and Ghostbusters News' mention in Hustler's This Ain't Ghostbusters XXX Rave Reviews press release. Coincidentally... or not... Jason Fitzsimmons from Ghostbusters News was on the show, along with Fernando Hernandez from the Long Island Ghostbusters, Sam Swope and Brandon Carnahan from the Steel City Ghostbusters and Brock Parker from the Alabama Ghostbusters.

From 30:53 to 31:58 the discussion is made of the joint mention by Hustler, with Jason being asked to explain how he found out about it. Jason tells how he was trolling the internet for Marsupilami porn while downing a case of long-expired Ecto-Cooler, which lead to him stumbling upon the article on AVN's site. Just kidding...just kidding!!! It's a much more boring story than that. But I couldn't have filled up this paragraph if I just said he found it on Google while looking for Ghostbusters news :-)

Anyway, you can listen to the Spook Central/Ghostbusters News excerpt by clicking on the little play arrow/button above, though if you have a desire to hear about lots of other interesting topics, head over to the Cross The Streams site to listen to the entire 42-minute episode - if for no other reason than to listen to the amazing Macho Man Randy Savage tribute quote-a-thon from 37:58 to the end of the show. Thanks Brendan for the heads-up.

Matt Prov and Brendan Mertens over at the Ghostheads podcast released their 16th episode this past Wednesday, and they briefly mentioned Spook Central with the creative team behind the new IDW Ghostbusters comic book series: Tristan Jones, Erik Burnham, Luis Antonio Delgad, and Dapper Dan Schoening. The discussion was about which car the team favored most, the Ecto-1 or the Delorean time machine from Back To The Future.

Around the 37:10 mark, Dan mentioned that he prefers to draw the Ecto-1 because, "it's got a lot more character to it. Whenever I draw the Ecto, I consider it as a character." This prompts the hosts to mention that, originally in Ghostbusters, the car was going to be a character, it was going to be alive. As an example of that, they mentioned the Ectomobile Rejects A Parking Ticket deleted scene here at Spook Central. And if you listen really carefully, you can hear Tristan mention that he did the graphics for this here website - which is an honor that I will always be truly grateful for. How many webmasters can actually say that they had an honest-to-God famous comic book artist, Ghostbusters or otherwise, create title artwork for their site? Well, other than Stan Lee doing the art for that Spider-Busters site back in 1997 that Sony had taken down due to improper licensing from Marvel, but that's a story for another day.

Anyway, you can listen to the Spook Central excerpt by clicking on the little play arrow/button above, though if you have a desire to hear about the new Ghostbusters monthly comic series, and lots of other interesting topics, head over to the Cross The Streams site to listen to the entire 50-minute episode. Thanks Brendan for the heads-up.

A few months ago I wrote about how GBMax from Ghostbusters Mania decorated his Christmas tree and his cute little Ghostbusters Mania Ectomobile with home-made Ghostbusters community decorations. Now he's taken that devotion to the community one step further by decorating his proton pack with Ghostbusters fansite decals! Below are a few images. To see them all, and the cool Ghostbusters franchise buttons he made, head on over to Ghostbusters Mania and Facebook.

[UPDATE, 3/18/2011 - A few days ago Peter was selling this fan package on eBay. Since it didn't sell, he decided to add in a few more goodies, but keep the price the same. So if you passed on it last time, now's the time to go for it.]

Old-School Ghosthead Peter Mosen, under the username "peter*alien", is selling a "Ghostbusters Revised Ultimate Fan Package" on eBay. The package is listed with a starting bid of $100.00, though you can Buy It Now for $125.00. Shipping is $12.00. The listing/bidding ends on March 22, 2011 at 7:56:37 PDT. Peter describes the package as such:

Ghostbuster items from promotional tour in 1989. These items are all new in original plastic bags, blister package or shrink wrap. Included is a "Certificate of Anti-Paranormal Proficiency" measures 5 1/2"x 8 1/2" and Personalized autographed picture of the Original Ghosthead with his Ectomobile and Mr. Stay Puft measures 5"x7", both on card stock.

Each package contains one each of the following items:

(1) Original unopened amt/ERTL model kit of ECTO 1A, Ectomobile from Ghostbusters II.

(2) Cardboard logo pin (circle measures 1 3/8")

(3) Metal logo tie tack/lapel pin (circle measures 5/8")

(4) Embroidered Iron-on patch (circle measures 2 3/4")

(5) Die-cast metal & plastic Ecto 1A (3" long)

(6) GB2 logo/Fuji Film Thermal coffee mug

(7) 3-D GB2 logo keychain (circle measures 1 5/8")

(8) XL T-shirt w/ Glow in the dark ghost GB2 logo front/Fuji Film back, as on mug

(9) NOW Comics 3 part mini-series GB2 story (3 issues, no bar codes, mint condition)

(10) McDonalds Happy Meal "Real Ghostbusters" 3-D ruler, Mr. Stay Puft pad & sharpener

(11) Dell Publications GB2 novel by Ed Naha

These items come directly from Peter Mosen, "King of the Ghostbusters Fans" Original Promotional Ghostbuster for Columbia Pictures 1984-1993

Shipping fee includes insurance! Worldwide fee is for Canada & Mexico; others $59.00.

Massimo Piana's new site Ghostbusters Mania is officially open for business. There are some parts of the site in English and some parts in Italian, so if you need a translation of the Italian parts into English, Google is here to help. Overall, it's a very enjoyable site. Go check it out.

[UPDATE - 1/30/2011]
Massimo, being the cool cat that he is, just did a little write up about Spook Central over on Ghostbusters Mania. I'm honored. Thanks, Massimo.

GBMax Massimo from Ghostbusters Mania (in Italian) has done one of the coolest things I have ever seen. In fact, in my 14+ years of being in the Ghostbusters online community, I don't remember anyone else ever doing this. He decorated his Christmas tree with home-made Ghostbusters community decorations. Not just one or two, but at least a couple DOZEN of them! There are ornaments for Spook Central, Proton Charging, Ghostbusters Fans, Ghostbusters News, the Ghostheads podcast, the Cleaning Up The Town fan documentary, MANY of the franchises (too many to mention here), a few prop art ornaments (spy the Proton Pack in the collage below), a few cleverly-designed cast/crew character ornaments (Robin Shelby's Slimer, William Bryan's Stay Puft, Jim Fye's Miss Liberty), some official pieces (the Hallmark Ecto-1 ornament, the action figure trap), and lots, LOTS more.

The collage below will give you a taste of the awesomeness, but I highly suggest that you check out the full gallery over on Facebook. I am especially touched that he made a Spook Central ornament. It gives me the warm fuzzies to be thought of and appreciated like that. He even added a Spook Central logo to the back of his cute little Ghostbusters Mania Ectomobile (thanks to Massimo for the large photo, smaller photos of the car can be found in this Facebook gallery). Coolest... Car... Ever! I'm really honored, Massimo.

The only suggestion I would have is for Massimo to release printables of the decorations (with instructions) for the other Ghostheads who may want to do the same thing next year. Share the awesomeness! Special thanks goes out to Doreen Mulman for telling me about this.

Way back in September 1986 Columbia Pictures Television presented "Real Ghostbusters Day" at the Ambassador Hotel (3400 Wilshire Boulevard) in Los Angeles in conjunction with the LA Science Fiction and Comic Book Convention. The promotion was to draw attention to The Real Ghostbusters, the then-new animated television series that, as we all know, would appear on the ABC TV Network that Fall on Saturday mornings. Old-School Ghosthead Peter Mosen was asked to be there to help with the festivities, and recently he was nice enough to pass along the photos seen above for me to share with all of you. Photos #2 and #3 are official Columbia publicity photos from the event, as you can see from the captions beneath them. According to Peter, the guy with the glasses in the first photo is Dan Harary of Columbia Pictures Television and the rest, he believes, are members of his staff.

According to Peter, at the event they showed some of the cartoon, gave out flyers, and had the original Ecto-1 on display in the parking lot (which Peter poses with in the photos). Peter was able to get lots of reference shots of the vehicle, inside and out, which enabled him to fabricate his own vehicles. "Technically I built three. My original '66 ambulance with a very limited budget in 1984, the replica '59 ambulance for my touring and appearances in 1989, and the refit of my original to Ecto-1A which wound up in Buenos Aires, Argentina in '90."

Peter told me that since The Ambassador Hotel itself was said to be haunted, he stayed overnight to investigate, but had nothing to report when the morning came. Unfortunately, he won't have the chance to investigate any further as the legendary hotel was demolished in 2005 to make way for a few schools. A wake for the hotel was held on February 2, 2006 at the Gaylord Apartments and adjoining restaurant H.M.S. Bounty, directly across the street from the Ambassador. Actress Diane Keaton, who was one of many who fought for the preservation of the hotel, was among the speakers at the ceremony.

Google Maps captured the school as it was being built in their Street View, which is also a good place to look around at the adjacent buildings to find spots that match up with the backgrounds of the photos above. That helps, a little bit, to give you the "you are there" feeling.

Fellow Long Islander and Ghosthead, Dennis Carter Jr., has put together a live performance piece entitled The Story Of Ghostbusters: A One Man Fan Tribute. As the name implies, it's a one hour performance in which he acts out the entire movie Ghostbusters, portraying all of the characters and ghosts, with impersonations and other film parodies thrown in as well (like The Evil Dead and Ghost). What makes it even better is that Dennis can actually impersonate some of the voices pretty well.

What you see in the eight-minute demo reel above is just a small sample of the full piece that he originally performed at the I-CON 29 convention in March 2010 in Stony Brook, Long Island, New York. If you like what you see, Dennis will gladly perform the show for free at any conventions or special events in the United States. His contact details are provided at the end of the video. To see what he's done professionally, look him up on Facebook, Explore Talent, IMDB, and YouTube.