When Halloween Was Forever

Series: The Real Ghostbusters
Season: 1
Episode: 8

Once again, it's that time of year in which I get to watch 'When Halloween was Forever' during the proper season. To give a short review, I love this episode. This episode pretty much combines a few of my favorite things all into one package of awesome. You've got the Ghostbusters, you have them in their animated form, you have Samhain, Halloween, Halloween lore, tons of ghosts, and a 1980's pop song. What more could I possibly ask for?

Lets get the story out of the way. It's leading up to Halloween and the Ghostbusters are finding that more and more ghost appearances are happening, and that the ghosts are increasingly more powerful. When some 7th century ruins arrive, an evil ghost named Samhain escapes thanks to the aid of his two goblin lackeys. His ultimate plan? To make it eternally night, and to slow time so that Halloween will last forever. The actual goal is actually a lot of fun compared to other ghosts, but that's a post for another day. It's up to the Ghostbusters to put a stop to this plan, and they are against one of their most formidable ghosts yet.

So. We have a pretty great story, considering the Monster of the Week formula that Ghostbusters uses. The animation itself is on par with other episodes. There is one small goof that I noticed, where Egon is shown in the group when he's actually not supposed to be in that scene. That aside, I didn't catch anything else that was blatantly notable. Even then, the mistake could be considered a 'blink and you'll miss it' type of deal.

The one pop song that plays is kind of catchy, and due to my nostalgia it's one that I would happily listen to on my mp3 player. The ghosts are all visually diverse, and there's a few that are a lot of fun to look at, most notably Samhain himself. I really enjoy the pumpkin head and old tattered robe that he wears. I think my only, minor, complaint with Samhain's visual look is that the head seems overly large in some scenes. That being said, the fade out to his glowing face is awesome.

All in all, I'd rank this episode a solid 4 1/2 /5