Speaker 1: With Technology with tech Stuff from dot Com. Hey there, everybody,
Speaker 1: this is Jonathan Strickling with tech Stuff. Today. I have
Speaker 1: a very special guest, someone that I've been looking forward
Speaker 1: to having on the show, Troy Benjamin, who is an
Speaker 1: author extraordinaire and uh knows all sorts of things about
Speaker 1: geeky stuff. I could be quizzing him about Iron Man
Speaker 1: right now, or talking about the intricacies of Shield. But
Speaker 1: today we're gonna look at a particularly spooky topic, the
Speaker 1: tech of Ghostbusters, because we have the Ghostbusters Ectomobile Owner's
Speaker 1: Workshop Manual, a book that I have a had a
Speaker 1: chance to look at and have enjoyed thoroughly. Mr Benjamin,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. Hello Jonathan, thanks for having me
Speaker 1: on man. That's now I hear that that title is
Speaker 1: such a mouthful, the Ghostbusters Ectomobile Owners Workshop. We should
Speaker 1: have really come up with an acronym or something there.
Speaker 1: In true Shield fashion, we should have come up with
Speaker 1: something shorter. I love that, you know in the on
Speaker 1: the cover that I have, it has the all the
Speaker 1: different designations for all the different ectomobiles as well, so
Speaker 1: it's so it's even more complex than that. I love
Speaker 1: it because you look at this and just from the
Speaker 1: look of it, it looks like a workshop manual, you know,
Speaker 1: it has that appearance. You've got the nice uh diagram
Speaker 1: of the ECTO one, the classic Ecto one on the cover.
Speaker 1: And before we jump into how this book came about
Speaker 1: and and the research you did, just from a casual perspective, guys,
Speaker 1: this is a book that's got tons of illustrations and
Speaker 1: photographs from the films. It's got lots of close ups
Speaker 1: of stuff that you would only have glimpsed at if
Speaker 1: you had been watching the movies. So if you're a
Speaker 1: fan end of the films like I am, this is
Speaker 1: a real treat because you get a chance to actually
Speaker 1: look at some of this stuff that you would really
Speaker 1: only see in passing. So let's let's talk about this.
Speaker 1: So how did this book come about? Before we we
Speaker 1: talked about the tech itself. Yeah, I mean, so this
Speaker 1: book um probably about this time last year. What happened
Speaker 1: was I I'm a big Ghostbusters nerd. I I do
Speaker 1: a fan podcast called The Interdimensional Cross Rip and that's
Speaker 1: a weekly show. And you know if I've run a
Speaker 1: fan website since six now, so, uh, Ghostbusters certainly in
Speaker 1: in terms of my adult life has really continued to
Speaker 1: resonate as it did back when you know, I was
Speaker 1: a kid and I was running around with my Kennor
Speaker 1: proton pack and and trap and everything, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's kind of carried through. So I've kind
Speaker 1: of been steeped in the lore, and with the new
Speaker 1: movie that came out, had really gotten in touch with
Speaker 1: the good the good folks at Ghost Corps, which is
Speaker 1: Ivan Rightman production company, and uh, you know, they when
Speaker 1: the new movie came out, they were doing a lot
Speaker 1: of events. I had worked with them and and kind
Speaker 1: of consulted on some stuff and done some you know,
Speaker 1: live shows and and things to help them promote the movie.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, on the side, I also I
Speaker 1: write books for Marvel. I've been writing Agents of Shield
Speaker 1: Declassified and several of these you know, big collectors books,
Speaker 1: these big hardcovers, and so, you know, just in casual conversation,
Speaker 1: I was talking with them and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I really I've always wanted to do you know, like
Speaker 1: a like a technical manual or like a visual history
Speaker 1: guide or you know something, because there's so many cool
Speaker 1: there's so much cool gear in the in the films,
Speaker 1: and there's all these little nuanced parts that places like
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters fans, the website where prop replica builders, they just
Speaker 1: pour over every single detail and try to figure out
Speaker 1: what is that little knob, what is that little like
Speaker 1: elbow that's on there. I want to find that original part,
Speaker 1: and I want to source so that my my proton
Speaker 1: pack is as accurate as humanly possible. And so I said,
Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta do like an official like reference
Speaker 1: manual for everybody. We have to put something together that
Speaker 1: if you are building your proton pack replica or your
Speaker 1: your replica ectomobile, this is your guide. This is your
Speaker 1: your bible, so to speak. And you know that there
Speaker 1: was sort of the stroking of the chins and the
Speaker 1: you know Eric Reich, who's the great associate producer there,
Speaker 1: he kind of goes, hmmm, yeah, I like that idea.
Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to me, they had already been talking with Inside
Speaker 1: Editions about doing something like that, and they were looking
Speaker 1: for an author. So um, again, like every good Hollywood story,
Speaker 1: it's right place, right time, and just happen happening to
Speaker 1: say the right things. I guess. So uh So last
Speaker 1: fall they said oh, we're doing this. It's it's not
Speaker 1: a it's not a visual history guide. It's more of
Speaker 1: a like a technical manual, you know, like the hands
Speaker 1: manuals that you get at the workshops. Now you go
Speaker 1: to an auto parts store and they have one for
Speaker 1: every car. How do you rebuild your carburetor? How do
Speaker 1: you change out your tires? That kind of thing. I said,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's such a great idea. It would
Speaker 1: be great to kind of incorporate, like make that a
Speaker 1: technical manual. Like I don't know, I start Star Trek,
Speaker 1: the next generation, even the classic Star Trek, They've always
Speaker 1: had these great technical manuals. Where how does a phaser work,
Speaker 1: how do you operate a phaser? How do you operate
Speaker 1: a transporter? How long does it take you to climb
Speaker 1: through a Jeffreys to yes, exactly? And how long did
Speaker 1: they build those Jeffreys tubes on the set? Not that
Speaker 1: long one section? But uh but yeah. So that kind
Speaker 1: of began the conversations with both Sony Publishing and and
Speaker 1: Ghost Corps and and inside additions as to what is
Speaker 1: this book, what are we gonna do? How do we
Speaker 1: make this interesting? You know, for for the die hard
Speaker 1: fans who already know a lot of this information. For
Speaker 1: the casual fans who are going to be walking by,
Speaker 1: you know, at their local Barnes and Noble or whatever,
Speaker 1: and and they say, oh, ghost Bus, there's ectomobile manual
Speaker 1: and they pick it up and they go whoop nop,
Speaker 1: too nerdy putting that down. You know, No, we want
Speaker 1: you to, we want to be engaged. We want you to,
Speaker 1: uh you know, have have something there that's entertaining for
Speaker 1: you too. So that was it was a very short
Speaker 1: conversation because they had a very as many things do,
Speaker 1: they had a very short production schedule, and they needed
Speaker 1: something right away. So uh yeah, that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: how it came about. And the tone of this for
Speaker 1: those who want to know, it's written as if it
Speaker 1: is in the Ghostbusters universe. It talks about all the
Speaker 1: different equipment and uh it does you know, you do
Speaker 1: refer to the the items in our world that have
Speaker 1: been repurposed and tweaked within Ghostbusters. You know, Egon has
Speaker 1: made some changes to the to the equipment or whatever
Speaker 1: it may be in order to make it work within
Speaker 1: the Ghostbusters world. But it does mean that you can
Speaker 1: actually look at this guide and see where many of
Speaker 1: these items originated. And that's pretty cool too. Also it
Speaker 1: means that you've worked in some great little jokes that
Speaker 1: are are provided by the various characters, often in little
Speaker 1: notes that are on like post it notes throughout the book,
Speaker 1: so you get the commentary from the Ghostbusters themselves. And
Speaker 1: I also love I mean, we were chatting just before
Speaker 1: we started recording about how and when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I played the Ghostbusters RPG a bit and one of
Speaker 1: the elements of that, one of the big parts of
Speaker 1: that was this idea of Ghostbusters franchising, and they talk
Speaker 1: about that obviously in the first movie, and they talk
Speaker 1: about the franchise rights would make the millionaires. And so
Speaker 1: this book also goes to that perspective as well. Like
Speaker 1: you you're opening up your own ghost Ghostbusters franchise, Well,
Speaker 1: here are some of the guidelines you should follow. And
Speaker 1: I like all of that. I love that there's that
Speaker 1: flavor in it. So I assume that since you were
Speaker 1: working from the get go with with people very closely
Speaker 1: attached to the beloved movies themselves, that you had a
Speaker 1: lot of really great access to things like the production
Speaker 1: photos and and maybe some reference photos and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, right, Yeah, I mean, and and beyond the photos,
Speaker 1: access to the actual cars themselves. You know, people that
Speaker 1: were going by on the Sony Studio tour would often
Speaker 1: catch the unfortunate site of my rear end in my
Speaker 1: feet sticking out of the car because I was on
Speaker 1: the floor of the car trying to take a photo
Speaker 1: of the seabed radio that's up on the ceiling and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what model it was, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it was it was. It was a whole
Speaker 1: lot of fun to kind of dissect these cars and
Speaker 1: get in there and find all of those details. But
Speaker 1: uh but yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the tone, and that was that was something that we
Speaker 1: struggled with because technical manuals not inherently funny pieces of literature.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, I one of the things that
Speaker 1: really appealed to me about this project was here's all
Speaker 1: these things that are on top of the car. You know,
Speaker 1: they've got the roof rack and there's all of these
Speaker 1: great uh um you know, a kutreman. He's got all
Speaker 1: of these these gadgets and ghack and stuff. What does
Speaker 1: it do? I have no idea I've known Ghostbusters now
Speaker 1: for thirty plus years, and I have no idea what
Speaker 1: any of the stuff does. Um. And so I I
Speaker 1: dove into it, and I started thinking of all the
Speaker 1: theoretical sciences and all of how things would work, and
Speaker 1: how this component would tie to this component and what
Speaker 1: purpose they would deserve. Um. But then you start losing
Speaker 1: the humor, and you, I don't know, it starts getting
Speaker 1: two technical, it starts getting too bogged down in the
Speaker 1: lore and the technical jargon. Uh. And so that's really
Speaker 1: where my co author, Mark Sumarak, who worked on Proton
Speaker 1: Proton Pack, see it's all it's ingrained in me. Power Pack,
Speaker 1: the Marvel comic book, not the Nuclear Accelerator. Uh. He
Speaker 1: worked on power Pack and Guardians of the Galaxy and
Speaker 1: and a lot of Marvel titles. And uh so he
Speaker 1: came in and he did a really great comedy punch
Speaker 1: up and and really helped me because I had put
Speaker 1: those sticky notes, those post it notes all over the place,
Speaker 1: and you know, he came in and did a really
Speaker 1: great comedy pass and making those just really shine. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, tone tone was really difficult because you know,
Speaker 1: we we can only say that you can destroy the
Speaker 1: world with a component so many times before you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I got it. I'm on page twenty and you've said
Speaker 1: that this will blow everything up. I got it. That's
Speaker 1: not funny. What else you got in here? So? Um
Speaker 1: it was. It was really really tricky trying to find
Speaker 1: that right tone right, And of course, I mean Ghostbusters
Speaker 1: the film is brilliant in many ways, but one of
Speaker 1: the ways I love it is that the way they
Speaker 1: produced that film, the way that film rolls out and
Speaker 1: and unfolds in front of the viewer. Unless you're just
Speaker 1: a truly persnickety kind of of audience member, at least
Speaker 1: for that first viewing, you don't really start to question
Speaker 1: where did they get this equipment? How did they build it?
Speaker 1: How do you build up a portable particle accelerator that
Speaker 1: can fit on your back and not crush you. How
Speaker 1: do you get the super conductive true magnets cold enough
Speaker 1: to accelerate a particle at near the speed of light.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're all these little technical questions that if
Speaker 1: you were really thinking about it, you'd be like, well,
Speaker 1: but the movie it doesn't that's not important, right. The
Speaker 1: the the gear is fascinating because it really is cool
Speaker 1: to look at, and it creates they had great effects
Speaker 1: that went along with it, and it makes you want
Speaker 1: to know more about it, but it's not important for
Speaker 1: the story. So for the purpose of the movie, you
Speaker 1: can just watch it and they can have a little
Speaker 1: casual line about something and they don't even have to
Speaker 1: just they don't have to justify it as long as
Speaker 1: it works within the context of the story. And and
Speaker 1: that's perfectly fine. I find I I like, I like
Speaker 1: a hard science fiction, but I also like stuff that
Speaker 1: doesn't take the hard science fiction route as long as
Speaker 1: it as long as everything works for the story. So
Speaker 1: then so your job then is to come around and
Speaker 1: take this stuff that gets casual mentioned or sometimes no
Speaker 1: mention at all. It's just some thing that shows up
Speaker 1: on screen or it just happens to be part of
Speaker 1: the car that was never really meant to to get
Speaker 1: more than maybe a casual glance, and you have to
Speaker 1: give it a purpose. Yeah, and and you take a
Speaker 1: little bit of the mystery out of it, which is
Speaker 1: uh for for those of us that pour over every detail,
Speaker 1: that's that's great. But then you know, uh, you and
Speaker 1: I were talking offline about lightsabers. You know, As a kid,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, man, a lightsaber is the coolest thing.
Speaker 1: But then you start thinking, it's like the magic sort
Speaker 1: of comes from you wondering how it works, what what's
Speaker 1: in there that's powering it. And then of course you
Speaker 1: read the books and you know it's khyber crystals and
Speaker 1: these are a long Jedi tradition and blah blahlah blah,
Speaker 1: and it sort of takes a little bit of the
Speaker 1: mystery out. So you have to be careful too. You
Speaker 1: don't want to delude things to a point where you
Speaker 1: know there's not there's not a little room for interpretation too,
Speaker 1: because that's what fans since since they saw this movie
Speaker 1: up on the big screen, have been, oh, how does
Speaker 1: that work? How how is the lightning shooting out of
Speaker 1: this one? Right now? I don't understand the reasoning or
Speaker 1: the actual technical reason behind it, but it looks cool
Speaker 1: and they're catching ghosts with it, and that's all that matters.
Speaker 1: You can't You have to have that suspension of disbelief
Speaker 1: so that you keep moving forward and you're able to
Speaker 1: believe the the stay Puff marshmallow Man is walking down
Speaker 1: the streets of Manhattan. So yeah, it was it was.
Speaker 1: It was kind of it was fun in a way
Speaker 1: to put on a certain hat and be like, well,
Speaker 1: why would they have this on top of the car,
Speaker 1: and what would it be connected to and for what purpose?
Speaker 1: You know, why would Egon and Ray have decked this
Speaker 1: car out with a missile guidance system? And you have
Speaker 1: to sit and think of the like theoretical science behind it.
Speaker 1: That's a probably a bad example because we have a
Speaker 1: joke in there that they put that in there for
Speaker 1: when the e p A inspects them. They just want
Speaker 1: to freak them out by having a Tomahawk missile guidance
Speaker 1: system in there, just to keep them on their toes.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, it's it's tough, and but it's
Speaker 1: also a lot of fun because you can sort of
Speaker 1: reverse engineer like the cross section sensitivity analysis unit which
Speaker 1: is on the top of the car made by Texas Instruments,
Speaker 1: and you go, well, that was that was used to
Speaker 1: to filter out radar data. You know, if if you've
Speaker 1: got a radar sweep, that's filtering things out because they're
Speaker 1: looking for ballistics, missiles, are incoming aircraft. Uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: sifting through that data and then giving you a refined result.
Speaker 1: Oh they could use that, Like what if what if
Speaker 1: they had this p k E detection array that you've
Speaker 1: got every single human being on the planet has some
Speaker 1: sort of a soul or some sort of an essence
Speaker 1: that they're projecting. How do you weed out the ghosts
Speaker 1: from that? You know? Oh, and then things just like
Speaker 1: kind of slowly start being you connect the dots between
Speaker 1: them all and uh. That that was. That was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. That was. It was like being a detective,
Speaker 1: a reverse engineering detective. Yeah. I liked it being the
Speaker 1: techno geek that I am. I loved reading about this
Speaker 1: and seeing that connectivity because see seeing you refer to
Speaker 1: gadgets and what they actually do in our real world
Speaker 1: and what they are for. And then saying, all right, well,
Speaker 1: if we start from that premise, can we apply that
Speaker 1: by tweaking it a little bit. Let's say that someone
Speaker 1: has has ascertained that ghosts have a particular uh quality
Speaker 1: to them. That would we would need to separate the
Speaker 1: signal from the noise. How how could we take this
Speaker 1: thing and then tweak it and we'll get to to
Speaker 1: the the negative spectral particles? Because that, I think is
Speaker 1: all right. Let me let me just say, Troy, if
Speaker 1: I may call you, Troy, I am. I am so
Speaker 1: thankful now to know why they are called proton packs,
Speaker 1: because because it makes so much sense in the mythology
Speaker 1: you've set up in this book. So uh, for I mean,
Speaker 1: a proton obviously is positively charged particle. It's also you
Speaker 1: can call it just a hydrogen ion because a hydrogen
Speaker 1: atom is a proton and an electron. If you strip
Speaker 1: the elect trono way, you now have a charged ion,
Speaker 1: thus a proton. This is what particle accelerators do. It's
Speaker 1: what like the the large hadron collider has has a
Speaker 1: proton collider. And so having that, I had never even
Speaker 1: questioned why they were called proton packs ever and just
Speaker 1: didn't even occur. And you have the whole explanation of
Speaker 1: where the hydrogen gases, which makes sense you would have
Speaker 1: to strip the electrons from the hydrogen to create the
Speaker 1: protons less they have hydrogen ions, and that you accelerate
Speaker 1: these and then you just have a gun that's shooting
Speaker 1: these particles, and why would you use protons. So having
Speaker 1: ghosts have negatively charged particles makes it makes so much sense, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and so you're you're sharing in the glee
Speaker 1: that I had when I was figuring all of this
Speaker 1: stuff out. And and thanks to uh AN m I
Speaker 1: T Professor Dr James Maxwell, who had done a lot
Speaker 1: of the research for the new movie and had written
Speaker 1: a dissertation about all of this stuff. And he he
Speaker 1: sent me all of his research and let me go
Speaker 1: through it and and sort of translated into layman terms.
Speaker 1: So he had sort of started this path. And then
Speaker 1: again I started putting the pieces together. Um, you know
Speaker 1: how if you're shooting a ghost with a proton pack,
Speaker 1: and if it's comprised of negative electrons, why does it
Speaker 1: get tired? Oh, well, it's being hit by positive energy.
Speaker 1: Of course it's going to be getting tired because it's
Speaker 1: decaying at a more at a rapid rate um and
Speaker 1: and a lot of that was so fun again getting
Speaker 1: into this. Now you can see why my editor was like, Troy,
Speaker 1: it's not funny enough, Like what are you doing man?
Speaker 1: You're talking about this reads like a physics book. But
Speaker 1: it was so interesting and so exciting to me that
Speaker 1: it's it's hard not to get into it. Yeah, why
Speaker 1: why did they call it a proton pack? Why? Why
Speaker 1: does the ghost get contained in the trap and they
Speaker 1: can't get out, Like, what what is it in the
Speaker 1: technology there that keeps them locked in? Um And and
Speaker 1: also how do they adapt that for bigger ghosts, for
Speaker 1: more powerful ghosts, for uh And and if it's exuding radiation,
Speaker 1: how are they combating that? You know, there's a whole
Speaker 1: lot of those levels that were just so much fun
Speaker 1: to dive into, and like, you know, the reality of
Speaker 1: it is Steven Dane, uh And and John to Cure,
Speaker 1: the production designer on the film, they just went to
Speaker 1: apex in in Pasadena and grabbed all of this technical
Speaker 1: stuff that like NASA, JPL or somebody had just tossed
Speaker 1: out into the garbage, and they're just grabbing stuff in there.
Speaker 1: Put oh, that looks cool, that's got some great lights,
Speaker 1: and that looks like a great control panel, and they're
Speaker 1: they're pulling and cludging all of this stuff together. They
Speaker 1: weren't thinking about I mean, I'm sure in a certain
Speaker 1: sense like Ron Cobb, they were thinking about how things
Speaker 1: work and okay, that needs to control that thing, but
Speaker 1: they weren't thinking about this level of detail at that point.
Speaker 1: So sure it was it was cool to kind of
Speaker 1: help them now thirty years later and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you did that on purpose. That's why that's the hair,
Speaker 1: you know, right, And then they can they can sit
Speaker 1: back and say, well, yes I did, when in reality
Speaker 1: it was just like this thing looks cool on top
Speaker 1: of this car, and uh and and ultimately like, hell,
Speaker 1: you know, subconsciously I must have known that this was
Speaker 1: connected to sonar and therefore, but with some gentle tweaking,
Speaker 1: you could have it to listen for ghosts instead of
Speaker 1: you know, for anything else. Yeah, I like that. I
Speaker 1: mean I've been I have been known to claim credit
Speaker 1: for brilliant deductions I have made without knowing about it.
Speaker 1: So so I am not above such things myself. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I I found that really really entertaining to to dive
Speaker 1: into that. It also, I mean, once you once you
Speaker 1: come down to that explanation where you know, you you think, well,
Speaker 1: if you're tackling something that's supernatural with science, you've got
Speaker 1: to find some scientific basis somewhere for for the two
Speaker 1: to meet, right, you know, otherwise you you have I
Speaker 1: fight your magic with science and and ultimately you can't
Speaker 1: really you can't really see anything useful then, right, So,
Speaker 1: but once you made that determination of all right, well
Speaker 1: we're getting to work from the the foundation of these
Speaker 1: ghosts having some some spectral energy that has a negative
Speaker 1: charge to it. That's great because the word negative has
Speaker 1: so many different connotations. There's one one connotation in engineering
Speaker 1: or physics and a totally different one obviously if you're
Speaker 1: just using it as a regular adjective. And not only that,
Speaker 1: but it meant that you could then explain other things
Speaker 1: that they talk about where they just casually mentioned the
Speaker 1: different classes of ghosts, and and then you think, well,
Speaker 1: now now we have something quantifiable that we can measure.
Speaker 1: We can measure, say, the the magnitude of a negative charge,
Speaker 1: and then the tools we use to detect these things
Speaker 1: suddenly become much more easy for us to explain from
Speaker 1: even just a theoretical technical point of one of my favorites,
Speaker 1: and I want to know some of your favorites too,
Speaker 1: but one of one of my favorites were the goggles,
Speaker 1: and because you talk about how it provides it's a
Speaker 1: heads up display or HUD for the p k A meter,
Speaker 1: and that it gives you information, but you also and
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you did, because I was thinking as
Speaker 1: I was reading the description you point out how it's similar.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's based off of night vision goggles, and
Speaker 1: the whole the whole premise by night vision is that
Speaker 1: it's taking light that we as humans are incapable of seeing,
Speaker 1: you know, infrared light. We cannot we cannot see that light,
Speaker 1: but it has It takes that light and then it
Speaker 1: has to use algorithms. Actually, it's using technology to convert
Speaker 1: that into light we can see, so that we can
Speaker 1: actually view stuff in darkness when otherwise we could not.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like what NASA uses with their telescopes.
Speaker 1: They use near infrared telescopes. They then you'll see on
Speaker 1: any NASA picture where they've used those telescopes that they
Speaker 1: will indicate that they've used various UH enhancements in order
Speaker 1: for us to be able to appreciate what is we're
Speaker 1: actually looking at their using various colors. And in the
Speaker 1: world of Sbusters, you explain that this technology has been
Speaker 1: tweaked to be able to view various UH otherworldly supernatural
Speaker 1: creatures ranging from poulter Geist all the way up to
Speaker 1: you know, deities that that normally would be invisible. But
Speaker 1: this is because because it can interpret that data, it
Speaker 1: can then project essentially an image that we could perceive ourselves.
Speaker 1: And I thought that's so clever. I love that explanation
Speaker 1: because again, it is based on something that really does
Speaker 1: exist out there. It's something that we've been using for
Speaker 1: decades now, and it's just that people don't necessarily think about.
Speaker 1: They just think, oh, when I put these goggles on,
Speaker 1: I can see in the dark. Yeah. Yeah, And it
Speaker 1: makes a certain amount of sense that if you, if
Speaker 1: you put yourself in the shoes of Egan Spangler, he's
Speaker 1: probably looking at technology that previously exists and wondering how
Speaker 1: he can adapt that to the needs that they have
Speaker 1: as quickly as they can. Because in the movie they're
Speaker 1: small business takes off quite literally overnight, so he has
Speaker 1: to go out and find, oh, oh, there they are
Speaker 1: these night vision goggles that have been decommissioned by by
Speaker 1: the army. I know that they have these sensor rods
Speaker 1: on them. If I just tweak the sensor rods, they
Speaker 1: won't be detecting infrared or heat or or heat signatures
Speaker 1: things like that. They'll start detecting the decay of those
Speaker 1: negative electrons that are out there, and we can we
Speaker 1: can sort of quantify that and visually put that into
Speaker 1: our ghostbusters eyes so that they can help track these
Speaker 1: things down totally. But then the funny thing about this stuff,
Speaker 1: and and even on those two particular pages in the
Speaker 1: book you find the designers of the film, we're just
Speaker 1: doing things because they looked cool, because it made a
Speaker 1: certain amount of sense that like, when he's looking around
Speaker 1: the ballroom, you know, the numbers in the corner are moving,
Speaker 1: and when they lock in on Slimer, it locks into
Speaker 1: a certain value. But what we found was, as he's
Speaker 1: looking around the room, the value on the numbers is higher,
Speaker 1: and then when he locks in on Slimer, the value
Speaker 1: on the numbers is lower. So we had to figure
Speaker 1: out this way, which it was totally counterintuitive. You know,
Speaker 1: why would when he's looking around the room and it's
Speaker 1: at like three thousand, when you then find Slimer and
Speaker 1: it's at one thousand, why why does it become lower?
Speaker 1: And so we kind of had to help them with
Speaker 1: a little bit of a gap in their logic or
Speaker 1: or in in the way that they had sort of
Speaker 1: defined things, and say, oh, okay, the closer you get
Speaker 1: to zero, the more powerful the entity is. And that's
Speaker 1: you know, if you are. If you see a zeroed
Speaker 1: out number in that corner, you're probably looking at the
Speaker 1: end of the world, you know, when they're the the
Speaker 1: temple rooftop looking at Goes or the Goes are and
Speaker 1: if you were to throw those goggles on there, it
Speaker 1: would be a zero number, a negative number. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then when you get to Slimer, it's still fairly low.
Speaker 1: It's in the you know, I think it's thirteen thirty five,
Speaker 1: thirteen thirty three. Oh shoot, I'm gonna it killed. On
Speaker 1: the forums, I think it's thirteen thirty three. When they
Speaker 1: walk in, uh to Slimer it is thirteen thirty three
Speaker 1: point five. Yes, all right, man, I'm so glad you
Speaker 1: you had that. But so yeah, so so figuring out okay,
Speaker 1: so the class the classification system that they're defining these
Speaker 1: ghosts by, maybe that thirteen area is about a class
Speaker 1: four or a class five, and kind of going from
Speaker 1: there and then building around that because that's the only
Speaker 1: number that we've defined in the context of the film.
Speaker 1: Of course, you watch the cartoons. There's all the cool
Speaker 1: gag and stuff in the cartoons, but it's a little different. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's finding finding those little stepping stones
Speaker 1: and then building out from that. We know that slimer
Speaker 1: is in the dred range, let's say that you know
Speaker 1: something more like m I think what we ended up
Speaker 1: doing is like in the five hundred range, that's like
Speaker 1: a class seven like that's that's a huge metaspector that
Speaker 1: is uh, probably not the friendliest and probably doing some
Speaker 1: damage to you, uh, and then building out that chart
Speaker 1: from there. So we we We've got a lot of
Speaker 1: proof readers that came back on the book and they said, well,
Speaker 1: this doesn't make sense. Wouldn't zero be like normal zero?
Speaker 1: It should start at zero and it should go up,
Speaker 1: you know that once you get to five thousand, that
Speaker 1: should be the biggest entity. And it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we're helping out the movie again. Here are helping
Speaker 1: helping them apply this this logic and and this sort
Speaker 1: of procedure to their stuff. And so hopefully that communicates well.
Speaker 1: And then also again like you were saying, hopefully, you
Speaker 1: know Ivan rightman looks at this and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what I intended the entire time. Yes, of course,
Speaker 1: that's that's the intention all along. Well, the nice thing
Speaker 1: is there is there is precedence in the world of
Speaker 1: science where someone has made a decision where the scale
Speaker 1: as it goes up is measuring an effect that goes
Speaker 1: down unless you are looking at the world at atopsy
Speaker 1: turvy way. So for example, celsius, originally one was freezing,
Speaker 1: and then you'd go up to zero to boiling. So
Speaker 1: you look at that and you're thinking, are you just
Speaker 1: saying that like that that you're saying it's less cold
Speaker 1: until it gets to very much not cold? How does
Speaker 1: that make sense otherwise? Or zero is just really hot
Speaker 1: and then the higher you go, the colder it is.
Speaker 1: Are you thinking elevation? What where's your thinking in this Celsius?
Speaker 1: So that's that's that was I'm glad you latched onto
Speaker 1: that because that's that was my my simplistic not scientific
Speaker 1: reasoning behind it was a percent is normal is okay,
Speaker 1: and when you hit zero percent things are crazy. You
Speaker 1: are looking at the end of the world as you
Speaker 1: know it. That's that's how we kind of went about it. So,
Speaker 1: so since I was talking about my favorite being the goggles,
Speaker 1: do you have a particular piece of equipment that, out
Speaker 1: of all of it is is your favorite. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know it's hard to say when you're working on
Speaker 1: each individual little piece, but yeah, I mean it's it
Speaker 1: is hard, I would say, just on a at a
Speaker 1: fifty thou foot view. Just getting to dive into the
Speaker 1: Ecto one A from the second movie was a whole
Speaker 1: lot of fun because that was, you know, the second movie.
Speaker 1: They never showed the inside of the car in the film,
Speaker 1: and of course because they had the that Ecto one
Speaker 1: A out at Universal Studios Florida. As kids, we would
Speaker 1: climb in there and we would see stuff and you'd
Speaker 1: see photos of oh my god, there's a computer in there,
Speaker 1: and there's all of this great equipment that you never
Speaker 1: see in the actual film that they don't do anything
Speaker 1: with in the actual films. So, um, we I may
Speaker 1: be divulging too much, Eric maybe ready with the sniper
Speaker 1: rifle here, but we we did dive into what is
Speaker 1: left of the Ecto one A there in the process
Speaker 1: of hopefully restoring that car. Uh, and I was able
Speaker 1: to just dive in and see, oh my, that's that's
Speaker 1: a Trio Tech centrifuge, and that's that's like a clock,
Speaker 1: power controller, and all of these tiny details that nobody's
Speaker 1: ever really seen because it's not photographed, it's not documented. Well, um,
Speaker 1: and so we were able to pull those components out,
Speaker 1: and to me, it was like an archaeological dig finding
Speaker 1: all of these these things and you'd you'd pull out this,
Speaker 1: it looked like garbage and you go, oh, that's this
Speaker 1: part of the big white pill looking cylinder that's on
Speaker 1: the back of the car. Um. So I think on
Speaker 1: a on a on a broad view, that that's my
Speaker 1: favorite part of this book. But uh, if I were
Speaker 1: to pick one component, I would say it's the tu sniffer, which, uh,
Speaker 1: it has been long debated among fans as to what
Speaker 1: it's the thing that's on top of the original car
Speaker 1: that looks like a double barreled shot a red double
Speaker 1: barreled shotgun. And uh, you know in a deleted scene
Speaker 1: from the movie, a cop is coming to write a
Speaker 1: ticket and put it on the windshield of the car,
Speaker 1: and that that sniffer sort of turns and acts like eyeballs,
Speaker 1: like it's following the cop around and he can't quite dodge.
Speaker 1: It's it's gaze. And we said, wow, that we could
Speaker 1: go with that. It could be like a sensor device
Speaker 1: if the car was are normal or had some sort
Speaker 1: of of you know, blues mobile powers. But let's let's
Speaker 1: set that aside, and again let's start thinking about how
Speaker 1: this would be useful to the Ghostbusters. Why would they
Speaker 1: put that on the car and with for what purposes?
Speaker 1: And so finally getting to say what that particular piece
Speaker 1: of the roof rack was was a whole lot of
Speaker 1: fun um. And we do get a good joke in
Speaker 1: there about it looking like Egan's nose and that's why
Speaker 1: they called it a sniffer. But uh, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I think that's probably the one because we were finally
Speaker 1: getting to define stuff that that fans have have wondered
Speaker 1: about for a long time. And it's all Ghost Corp. Approved.
Speaker 1: So it's cannon guys. Now, such power, such amazing power. Power.
Speaker 1: And after you came from Marvel, did you not learn
Speaker 1: with great power comes great responsibility? And no, I know, Ben,
Speaker 1: I know, but um yeah, it's uh, it's it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where and we were very careful. There
Speaker 1: were a few things in there where we didn't want
Speaker 1: to get too carried away. There's uh, I think I've
Speaker 1: said it before, but there's a hose that's on the
Speaker 1: uniforms where if you if you look in the original film,
Speaker 1: they have these yellow hoses that kind of look like
Speaker 1: they go out from around the waist area kind of
Speaker 1: down to about mid thigh with with a little plug.
Speaker 1: And but unfortunately, and Harold Ramos has joked a whole
Speaker 1: lot about it, they made the hoses yellow. So everybody
Speaker 1: everybody's thinking, like, do they have cathos? What are they
Speaker 1: walking around with these hoses that kind of very conspicuously
Speaker 1: go from around the growing area down to this part
Speaker 1: that's by their knee, and uh, you know they've they've
Speaker 1: joked about well, you know, you see stuff and sometimes
Speaker 1: things happen. Um. But so so we we thought about
Speaker 1: actually defining that and what it what its purpose was,
Speaker 1: and that that's one of those where I was like, Eric,
Speaker 1: should we finally tell people what this is? And He's like, no,
Speaker 1: let's leave that one up to the imagination for a
Speaker 1: little while. That's amazing. Well, one of the things I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about was, you know, interesting stuff that
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people don't necessarily realize,
Speaker 1: especially because the world of cars is so different today.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, when you talk about the Ecto
Speaker 1: one and the fact that It's essentially it's a it's
Speaker 1: a type of Cadillac. But in that time, Cadillac would
Speaker 1: create these chassiss that other car manufacturers, like specialized car manufacturers,
Speaker 1: would end up taking, and then they would make their
Speaker 1: own uh models built on top of those basic chassis,
Speaker 1: which is why you could end up with several cars
Speaker 1: that look very different from one another, but they all
Speaker 1: are worked on the same basic foundation. And and and
Speaker 1: why this this fifty nine Miller meter is so difficult
Speaker 1: to find because they only made a certain amount of them,
Speaker 1: but other manufacturers made very similar looking cars. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and and fans have similarly can converted those into ectomobiles too.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the Miller Meteor car, I mean it has
Speaker 1: because of Ghostbusters. It's so iconic. I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the DeLorean from Back to the Future. You
Speaker 1: see that vehicle and your and that's another great example
Speaker 1: of a car where there was uh not on purpose,
Speaker 1: but there was a limited number of them. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's really neat to get a little bit of
Speaker 1: a look behind that, because you know, you don't typically
Speaker 1: see that kind of stuff. Now, you don't really see
Speaker 1: a car company creating a basic found, you know, chassis
Speaker 1: that other companies are using to make other vehicles. Now
Speaker 1: you might find a car company that makes a chassis
Speaker 1: for their line of vehicles and then they build different
Speaker 1: bodies on top of it. But that's the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff you can find out with this book, as you
Speaker 1: learn more about that basic technology that was used uh
Speaker 1: in in the film, and obviously learn more about the
Speaker 1: the Ecto one from the new film as well, so,
Speaker 1: which is of course a totally different car. It's uh
Speaker 1: so that was really cool. I also love the idea
Speaker 1: of going into things like like the concept of plasma
Speaker 1: plasma being the most plentiful of all the forms of
Speaker 1: of of matter out there, although you know, most of
Speaker 1: us don't think of it that way because we don't
Speaker 1: tend to run into a whole lot of it here
Speaker 1: on earth. But absolutely, you look at your nearby stars,
Speaker 1: they're lousy with the stuff. So uh And of course
Speaker 1: that's ionized gas. It's it's a gas that actually can
Speaker 1: carry an electric current. And I love that you talk
Speaker 1: about it being a plasma that comes out from the
Speaker 1: the the wands of the proton packs, uh because that
Speaker 1: also helps when you see the lines of electricity going
Speaker 1: up and down. You think, oh, well, of course it's
Speaker 1: a it's an ionized gas. It can carry an electric current.
Speaker 1: That makes perfect sense that that there moves. It moves
Speaker 1: in a wavelength like sound too, you know, so that
Speaker 1: because it's coming out with such force that you've got
Speaker 1: that wave pattern that is happening, and and getting to
Speaker 1: explain why everything is the way that it is. That
Speaker 1: that was a whole lot of fun and and that's
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that is still rooted in
Speaker 1: the original research that Michael C. Gross did for the film. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he was very detailed because they had to when
Speaker 1: they were animating things come up with that logic that okay,
Speaker 1: it originates at at at the ghost or at the
Speaker 1: wall or the bar or whatever they end up hitting
Speaker 1: with this this particle thrower. Um. And so you you
Speaker 1: can watch if you step through frame by frame, you
Speaker 1: see the light beam start on where it ends and
Speaker 1: then go back to the emitter. So it's it's like
Speaker 1: a bolt of lightning. You you see it hit the
Speaker 1: ground first and and go up back into the sky
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And so, um, yeah, it's it's all there. Everything,
Speaker 1: all of the breadcrumbs were left For us, it was
Speaker 1: just kind of putting the pieces together and you know, well,
Speaker 1: it's an ionized gas, it's plasma, and it's it's being
Speaker 1: based in hydrogen. And trying to figure out all of
Speaker 1: all of the technical details behind it was was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Yeah, I very much appreciate all that.
Speaker 1: As I was reading it, I just kept thinking, like,
Speaker 1: it so nice to see something that is is referring
Speaker 1: enough to the tech and science that we really know
Speaker 1: that people who are interested in recreating the uh, the
Speaker 1: effects by going out and finding as many similar objects
Speaker 1: out there as possible in order to make their own
Speaker 1: ECTO one or to make their own proton pack. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: But it's also cool that it can introduce people into
Speaker 1: realms of science that perhaps they didn't know they were
Speaker 1: interested in, and then they can legitimately start to learn
Speaker 1: more about physics. They can learn more about particle physics,
Speaker 1: in particular about electro magnetism. Uh. And even like some
Speaker 1: of the equipment and you have like sonar detectors, radar detectors,
Speaker 1: it's amazing that they were able to get hold of
Speaker 1: all that that junk equipment because some of the stuff
Speaker 1: is like I mean, some of it was was pretty
Speaker 1: top secret military stuff back in the day. I mean,
Speaker 1: and it's just sitting in a junk yard in three
Speaker 1: when they're doing pre production, Like, yeah, this was kind
Speaker 1: of scary that you could go to any place and
Speaker 1: pick this stuff up. But yeah, yeah, you know, twenty
Speaker 1: years ago you wouldn't be allowed to know what this was.
Speaker 1: And now here it is just laying around right next
Speaker 1: to a whole bunch of copies of of the Atari
Speaker 1: twenty et. The Extraterrestrial's right there, there's your Tomahawk Missile
Speaker 1: Guidance System cartridge. Oh what a world we live in.
Speaker 1: Uh So, exploring this and and going through this experience,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was really a rewarding experience for you
Speaker 1: and uh and we know we've talked about some of
Speaker 1: the favorite stuff. Were there anythings in particular that you
Speaker 1: found a real challenge while you were researching and trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, all right, how do I how do
Speaker 1: I make this fit? For instance, I would say that
Speaker 1: one of the ones that would have jumped out at me,
Speaker 1: you have an illustration of some sonar canisters, And if
Speaker 1: I had seen that immediately, I would have thought, well,
Speaker 1: what the heck am I gonna do with these things. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, there's there's a naval sona buoy. Uh
Speaker 1: that's and and Star Trek fans will notice it because
Speaker 1: it used to be the proton torpedoes that they would
Speaker 1: use in I think all the way through Next Generation.
Speaker 1: You still see them in some of the cargo bays
Speaker 1: and next Generation, but so so that that exterior case
Speaker 1: is something that they would use just as as cargo
Speaker 1: around the ships and things like that. And my guess
Speaker 1: is that on on Ghostbusters too, they happened to go
Speaker 1: to whoever sourced those two Star Trek about that time.
Speaker 1: It was eighty nine, so it makes sense they were
Speaker 1: working on I think that was Star Trek five at
Speaker 1: that point. And again, you do you see these in
Speaker 1: those films, Um, so they probably, oh, that looks futuristic.
Speaker 1: We're gonna put that on the side of the car.
Speaker 1: It looks a whole lot more futuristic than you know,
Speaker 1: the first movie. They've got these storage tubes that you
Speaker 1: see on plumbers vans, and so they swapped one of
Speaker 1: those out with this this sona buoy, and I had
Speaker 1: to I had to think why, for what purpose? And
Speaker 1: and knowing that what's in there is a sonar a
Speaker 1: booty that they would use in submarines and things like that. Well,
Speaker 1: why why would they use that? But then again kind
Speaker 1: of reverse engineering and and and thinking, like one of
Speaker 1: the biggest differentiations between the Ecto one A and the
Speaker 1: Ecto one from the original film was the digital age.
Speaker 1: They moved from analog to digital. So you see a
Speaker 1: satellite dish on the top, you see a personal computer
Speaker 1: inside the car. Um So they're they're upgrading things. They're
Speaker 1: going through the components that are on the car, and
Speaker 1: if you look at things that are missing, you can think, oh,
Speaker 1: they replaced something on the original car with the sona booty.
Speaker 1: And then I had to go, uh to the library
Speaker 1: and figure out what these buoys did and what they
Speaker 1: use them for, and again kind of start to reverse
Speaker 1: engineer that as to why Egon Spangler would build that
Speaker 1: into his p KU detection array. But it ended up
Speaker 1: working out pretty well, but that that was a tricky one.
Speaker 1: And also you know, getting Ian Morris who is the illustrator,
Speaker 1: and he's awesome, he works, uh, he is actually a
Speaker 1: Haynes manual illustrator by trade, so he's he's actually diving
Speaker 1: into the real cars, doing the engines, doing the cutaways, um.
Speaker 1: And so it was a lot of fun working with
Speaker 1: him saying, oh, no, Ian, there's a wall there. You
Speaker 1: can't you can't build this electro magnet around there because
Speaker 1: there's a cartridge and there's a wall. And he goes, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. All right, great, thanks mate, and
Speaker 1: he would kind of like revise things. UM. So I
Speaker 1: would send Ian this, uh, just reference of Okay, here's
Speaker 1: the deal. There's this thing on the car on the
Speaker 1: outside and it looks like this, but what we want
Speaker 1: to do is illustrate what's inside. And it looks like this.
Speaker 1: You don't have reference for that. Let me help you.
Speaker 1: And he goes, wait, so there's a thing inside a
Speaker 1: thing here. I don't, Troy, you're crazy. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't understand this. And so I'd have to say like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: look that is the weather proof container that the booy
Speaker 1: goes in at Like when you go when you go
Speaker 1: to the mountains and you've got skis but you've got
Speaker 1: to get on an air plane, you put your skis
Speaker 1: into one of those hard clamshell cases. That's what this is.
Speaker 1: Why they did that on the car um. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: not waterproof. Yeah, that's the ticket. It's not waterproof, even
Speaker 1: though it's an underwater booie. Don't worry about it. We'll
Speaker 1: figure that out later. But so that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: help him kind of figure things out too, So that
Speaker 1: that was that was also a challenge, you know, having
Speaker 1: to describe what's in your head to an illustrator and
Speaker 1: uh and and a technical illustrator at that. So it
Speaker 1: had to make sense. It had to be put together.
Speaker 1: It couldn't just be like, you know, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a circle, you know for kids. There was just no
Speaker 1: way to to communicate that to him. You had to
Speaker 1: tell him exact details. I appreciate your Hudsucker proxy reference,
Speaker 1: you know for kids, big Coen Brothers fan here. So uh, well,
Speaker 1: I can completely appreciate that. My father is an author
Speaker 1: and he has written extensively in science fiction and has
Speaker 1: worked with illustrators as well, and so he has told
Speaker 1: me stories that are very similar. He's also he's actually
Speaker 1: written for Star Trek. So yeah, so I I've I've
Speaker 1: lived through this my my life as well. I've seen
Speaker 1: it from that side. So it's cool to talk to
Speaker 1: someone else who also has had these experiences. It's really
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to learn about it from Ghostbusters because
Speaker 1: that's the property that I love, but I've never had
Speaker 1: any other connection to apart from just being being a
Speaker 1: fan of it. Um I. I also think that it
Speaker 1: works really well within the context. This kind of gets
Speaker 1: it into film critiquing, which is not what this episode
Speaker 1: is about. But I don't care. Uh, it's my show.
Speaker 1: Um I think it also works. Something that serves you
Speaker 1: well as the author is that in the film, the
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters are essentially they're exterminators, right, They're not, you know,
Speaker 1: they're scientists and they're the Egon in particular is a
Speaker 1: brilliant engineer. But they are they It comes down that
Speaker 1: they are. They are ghost exterminant eaters are ghostbusters and
Speaker 1: and as such, one, it gives you a little license
Speaker 1: for things to be a little you know, Jerry Rigged
Speaker 1: and Jenkie because they're they're glorified exterminators. And too, it
Speaker 1: does make sense that you would have people say, well,
Speaker 1: let's repurpose technology, because one, I don't have the access
Speaker 1: to a lab where I'm going to be able to
Speaker 1: do the R and D and the production and the
Speaker 1: manufacturing of all of these pieces of equipment we need
Speaker 1: and be that would be way too expensive anyway, Let's
Speaker 1: buy stuff that's cheap and then we'll just change it.
Speaker 1: Like from from a movie like within the universe of Ghostbusters.
Speaker 1: It makes sense because you're talking of again about a
Speaker 1: small business. They they you know, put all the mortgages
Speaker 1: on to raise house in order to afford starting it,
Speaker 1: and they don't have the money to build particle accelerators
Speaker 1: with brands. It's all found. I mean, you look at
Speaker 1: they throw this device on Louis Tully's head, and it's
Speaker 1: a calendar, you know, it's a calendar with a bunch
Speaker 1: of electrodes and wires and stuff hanging out of it.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense because it's just stuff they found
Speaker 1: and they know it. It's a conductive material um and
Speaker 1: and that's one of the things that the new movie
Speaker 1: I think got right was, you know, Jillian Holtzman is
Speaker 1: a dumpster diver. She goes in and she finds these
Speaker 1: lead pipes and she wants to turn them into proton shotguns.
Speaker 1: That's that's the the spirit essentially of what the first
Speaker 1: film was. It's this found garbage that people have thrown
Speaker 1: away that they've turned into treasure. Yeah, and I like
Speaker 1: that also when we get into the later films, I
Speaker 1: like that they were thinking about how they would update
Speaker 1: the technology. As you pointed out, between Ghostbusters one and
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters Too, they went from analog to more digital. They
Speaker 1: had computers, and so the design of things started to
Speaker 1: change a little bit, not so dramatically that it's no
Speaker 1: longer recognizable as Ghostbusters, but it has changed. Whereas and
Speaker 1: then we get into the the latest film where you
Speaker 1: start getting the printed circuit board as a more important
Speaker 1: motif and some of the elements and and a of
Speaker 1: course obviously circuit boards transistors that transformed electronics. It's something
Speaker 1: that has allowed for maniaturization. And in the context of
Speaker 1: the film, you get to see the different variations of
Speaker 1: the proton packs and with the last one being the
Speaker 1: most compact and at least according to canon, the lightest
Speaker 1: of the three. Yeah. The evolution of technology, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's great to see that reflected as well within
Speaker 1: the mythology of the world. It's it's nice to see
Speaker 1: something that's consistent with the way the world actually works,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's not just oh well, this looks cool.
Speaker 1: We don't have to worry about justifying it. It actually
Speaker 1: it actually works logically as well. Uh. Also, if just
Speaker 1: an aside, I really dug the fact that the different
Speaker 1: variations of the proton packs in the latest film had
Speaker 1: special code names that relate relate to a particular author.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to give it away for people
Speaker 1: who want to get the book and find out who
Speaker 1: it is for themselves, I will say it is very
Speaker 1: appropriately Halloween themed. It is. It's very appropriate. And then
Speaker 1: we also got another great joke in there from the
Speaker 1: scientist of the group saying that they wish they had
Speaker 1: been named after more, you know, highly esteemed scientific minds.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, that's that's that's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite little again, the little things that you kind of
Speaker 1: put in there to add a little bit of levity
Speaker 1: to it, because it is we're talking about the evolution
Speaker 1: of these packs, uh, and and the miniaturization of the technology,
Speaker 1: but you also want to add a little bit of
Speaker 1: that that special sauce in there that makes it kind
Speaker 1: of amusing and fun. And oh that's right. It's a technical,
Speaker 1: technical manual, but I'm having fun reading it. And that's
Speaker 1: that's one of those things that's in there. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like it a lot. I mean I've also read
Speaker 1: through technical manuals for things like the Star Trek universe,
Speaker 1: and those are really interesting too, especially the ones the
Speaker 1: the gadgets that are dependent upon very theoretical science things
Speaker 1: like nanotechnology, that that we're still in the infancy for
Speaker 1: most of that stuff, and we really don't know if
Speaker 1: we're ever going to get those nanobot style uh at
Speaker 1: atomic assemblers that will be able to build stuff out
Speaker 1: of raw material the way. Yeah, because yeah, once you
Speaker 1: get the replicator, it's game over. Right, You've you've you're
Speaker 1: in a post scarcity environment. Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, yeah, hot,
Speaker 1: I do want that. Yes, same here. But it was
Speaker 1: it was fun to see that and again see it
Speaker 1: within the Voice of the world, like they're they're little
Speaker 1: bits and pieces where you can hear like this is
Speaker 1: this is raised kind of way of communicating this or
Speaker 1: this is how they would have written the workshop manual
Speaker 1: because there's just a little bit of a reverence there,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's subtle. It's not like beating you
Speaker 1: over the head with it. Yeah. So that's what I
Speaker 1: also appreciate was that it had that tone because you
Speaker 1: make a good point, you have to walk that fine line.
Speaker 1: You can't go super zaney because if you do, then
Speaker 1: you're not really saying anything useful. But if you go
Speaker 1: total technical manual, it's so dry that only the hard
Speaker 1: the hardest of the hard cores. Yeah, I gotta one.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I mean, I'm I'm so glad to
Speaker 1: hear you saying this because you're you're one of the
Speaker 1: first people that's seen it and been able to be
Speaker 1: analytical about it in this way. And again, the tone
Speaker 1: on the book was one of the hardest things to
Speaker 1: struggle with. And I had I had done a draft.
Speaker 1: I don't even think I made it through a full draft. Um,
Speaker 1: it was more from like Peter Bankman's kind of snarky
Speaker 1: you know, the trademark Bill Murray Wit where you know
Speaker 1: he was making quips, and it was it just didn't
Speaker 1: read correctly when it talks about cynical all, how all
Speaker 1: the different types of equipment can get you girls that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Yeah exactly, yeah exactly, And and it
Speaker 1: made more sense to let him sort of chime in
Speaker 1: and get the one liners, uh, you know, the in
Speaker 1: in true Bill Murray fashion, he tries to get the
Speaker 1: last word in um and then so then we moved
Speaker 1: to a more kind of Egon Spangler um voice for
Speaker 1: the for just for the main, for the meat of
Speaker 1: the book. And it just it's too technical, you know,
Speaker 1: it's too you get you get too wound up in things.
Speaker 1: And he starts going into these technical jargon paragraphs that
Speaker 1: are dense, and it's not a whole lot of fun
Speaker 1: to read. But what what I found was writing from
Speaker 1: raise point of view, um, you know where he's so
Speaker 1: he's so enthusiastic about everything and everything is just very endearing.
Speaker 1: He loves the fact that this piece of technology is
Speaker 1: in his car and he wants to tell you why,
Speaker 1: um and and that once once we sort of like
Speaker 1: tuned into that frequency, that's when the book started coming
Speaker 1: together because it made a whole lot of sense. This
Speaker 1: is race Dance, And he's got an intro in the
Speaker 1: beginning because we we wanted to make sure that everybody
Speaker 1: knew like he's he's super proud of this book. He's
Speaker 1: proud of all of the equipment that they are licensing
Speaker 1: out to all of these franchise ees. Um and and
Speaker 1: then hopefully your enthusiasm. It's hopefully it's infectious. Hopefully you're
Speaker 1: reading it you're like, oh, oh that's really cool. Oh
Speaker 1: that makes a whole lot of sense. Oh that's so funny.
Speaker 1: Why why they did that? Now I know, and I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that that little bit of you know, this is great.
Speaker 1: We we gotta stay here. I'm gonna go get my stuff.
Speaker 1: Like I want that same sort of enthusiasm to be
Speaker 1: conveyed through the books. So I'm I'm breathing a very
Speaker 1: heavy sigh of relief and say all of these things.
Speaker 1: I guess that's what I'm saying. Well, I think anyone
Speaker 1: who has that level of of fandom for Ghostbusters and
Speaker 1: they really want to have this. You know, we've seen
Speaker 1: lots of of supplemental materials that go towards the supernatural
Speaker 1: side of the things. But to go to something where
Speaker 1: you're looking at the tech side and it it's not
Speaker 1: just being explained away as uh, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: essentially magic, but we're giving it a scientific name. It's
Speaker 1: it's really cool to see that, because I mean, there
Speaker 1: is a lot of signs and I'm not taking away
Speaker 1: from science fiction authors who do this because again, if
Speaker 1: the story is the most important thing. That's really what
Speaker 1: I care about. But it is really easy to write
Speaker 1: a thing of a jigger and say this is the
Speaker 1: you know, you do do what Futurama did. You just
Speaker 1: take whatever the thing does, and then you put an
Speaker 1: er at the end of the name of it, and
Speaker 1: that's what it is, a thing longen er, and then
Speaker 1: that's the thing. Uh, you could do that, So I
Speaker 1: appreciate that this is UH taking that extra step. I
Speaker 1: also am very eager to show this book off to UH.
Speaker 1: We have a a a car expert here at the
Speaker 1: office who loves he loves to talk about movie cars
Speaker 1: in and so I think he's really gonna be thrilled.
Speaker 1: I haven't shown it to him yet because I wanted
Speaker 1: to all for myself until we had this interview. But
Speaker 1: but then I will show it off to him because
Speaker 1: I think he's really gonna dig it. That's Scott Benjamin,
Speaker 1: so he's he's a huge UH car buff and and
Speaker 1: knows far more than I ever will about vehicles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he'll be very because that was the other thing too,
Speaker 1: is you know there's a page that we talked about
Speaker 1: the tires, the engine, oil, maintenance, and things like that. Um,
Speaker 1: which it's all true. I mean again, my goal of
Speaker 1: every uh Ghostbusters fan that has their own ecutomobile replica,
Speaker 1: I want this in their glove box because it's all real.
Speaker 1: This is this is that's what your tire pressure needs
Speaker 1: to be. Uh, this is when you need to check
Speaker 1: your oil. Um it's hopefully knock on my desk here.
Speaker 1: Hopefully it's all completely technologically proof that you can go
Speaker 1: in there and oh yeah, the the tires need to
Speaker 1: be at thirty p s I and and things like that. Um.
Speaker 1: So again, going back to tone being such a difficult
Speaker 1: thing on this, I wanted car enthusiasts to have something
Speaker 1: in here, and that's kind of the reason we went
Speaker 1: into the history of the Miller Meteor and talking about
Speaker 1: those chassis builds that they would do, and and even
Speaker 1: going in and describing, you know, the difference between Miller
Speaker 1: Meteor made three different coaches, the Landau, the Future and
Speaker 1: the Sentinel, and helping people that that don't really know
Speaker 1: the difference between those three. You know, hopefully when you
Speaker 1: see a car out on the road or you go
Speaker 1: to a car show, you can look now at a
Speaker 1: car and be like, oh, that's a future and here's why.
Speaker 1: Um so yeah. Getting getting the getting the car and
Speaker 1: driver crowd interested in this too was was a big
Speaker 1: challenge because I'm I'm not a big car guy. My
Speaker 1: dad taught me how to change my own and change
Speaker 1: my tires and that's about all that I can do.
Speaker 1: But you know, especially after working on this book, I
Speaker 1: have such a great respect and I love the classic
Speaker 1: car enthusiast now because they keep these machines from the
Speaker 1: fifties and the sixties, uh, still running and still pristine
Speaker 1: in their original conditions. And it's hard work, especially when
Speaker 1: they're not making these replacement parts anymore. They've got to
Speaker 1: keep these things fine tuned. So I can't call myself
Speaker 1: a car guy, but I feel like I am a
Speaker 1: car guy after this, Like I I know how this
Speaker 1: car works. I feel like I can tell you. I
Speaker 1: feel like I can help you do some maintenance on
Speaker 1: it and that, and that's kind of the goal. I
Speaker 1: want you guys to read it and think that you
Speaker 1: can do maintenance on the actomobile. Well. I think it's
Speaker 1: great because I was telling a friend of mine that
Speaker 1: I was going to have this conversation with you, and
Speaker 1: the first thing she asked me, and I am not
Speaker 1: making this up, was what's the tire pressure for the
Speaker 1: ectol one. I said, I can actually tell you that
Speaker 1: because in the beginning of the books, right, so I
Speaker 1: was like, I said, I've got that detail. She was
Speaker 1: even asking me, like, so so hard the tires the
Speaker 1: same and Ecto one and Ecto one, am and no
Speaker 1: they are not. Let me tell you why because that's
Speaker 1: explained in the book too. We why did the white
Speaker 1: wall tires go away? Well, we explain that, um, And
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I mean it's it is. It's very much
Speaker 1: a car manual. It it's funny, it's a technical manual.
Speaker 1: It's an entertaining book for Ghostbusters fans. It's a car manual. Um.
Speaker 1: It's a reference book for people that need to have
Speaker 1: something to look at when they're doing prop replica replicas.
Speaker 1: So kind of like the shield books that I'm doing.
Speaker 1: It has to serve so many different purposes, and then
Speaker 1: having to hit a page count makes it really difficult
Speaker 1: because one of the joke that I wanted to put
Speaker 1: in there was at the very back of the book,
Speaker 1: every car manual has those blank pages with the lines
Speaker 1: for you to to mark down all of your maintenance um.
Speaker 1: I I wanted to and was unsuccessful in pitching have
Speaker 1: two or three pages in the back that had those lines,
Speaker 1: but then had handwritten notes of uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: paranormal specter spit ectoplasmic goo at the siren, stripped all
Speaker 1: of the chrome away from it, replaced chrome with a
Speaker 1: spray paint until further chrome is available. You know that
Speaker 1: like putting those things down there that I thought would
Speaker 1: be a whole lot of fun for fans to like, Oh,
Speaker 1: what would would have maintenance log on an ectomobile look like?
Speaker 1: You know what? What are the terrible things that happened
Speaker 1: to them that they had to deal with? The wear
Speaker 1: and tear. The wear and tear on that car would
Speaker 1: be very different from your average vehicle, Yes it would.
Speaker 1: So the good news is a lot of that trickled
Speaker 1: into the actual UM, the pages of the actual text,
Speaker 1: because you know, there's a sound replicator on the original
Speaker 1: car UM and we surmised, okay that because the car
Speaker 1: has such a distinctive siren, that's what feeds the federal
Speaker 1: siren that's on the front of the car. But then
Speaker 1: I also wanted to put something in there about the
Speaker 1: Jersey Devil, which we know has an affinity for certain sounds,
Speaker 1: and they can have the Jersey Devil be chased out
Speaker 1: of town because it's drawn to the sound and it's
Speaker 1: it's following it. So, uh, you know, we we worked
Speaker 1: that in there. That was something that was originally in
Speaker 1: the handwritten notes in the back of the book and
Speaker 1: and kind of got worked into the text. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was tough, and and we had a whole lot
Speaker 1: of stuff on the firehouse that just got cut for space.
Speaker 1: Um so there sequel maybe, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the potential for the whole franchise stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff you could cover. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and you know, we talked about how in the
Speaker 1: in the you know, before we started recording, about the RPG.
Speaker 1: The beauty of that is, of course, you know, whenever
Speaker 1: you're making any kind of role playing game, you have
Speaker 1: to build out you have to build out the world
Speaker 1: sort of as you have done. Uh. Usually people take
Speaker 1: less of a technical mind towards that. You know, it's
Speaker 1: they want to make stuff that's going to be great
Speaker 1: for game play purposes, but doesn't necessarily have to reflect
Speaker 1: the real world. In fact, it really doesn't have to
Speaker 1: reflect the role world at all. But the problem of
Speaker 1: course with that is that you know, those explanations aren't
Speaker 1: really know, they're not confirmed anywhere else. It's not like
Speaker 1: they're canon. So you might be able to use that
Speaker 1: as inspiration on jumping off point, but it could very
Speaker 1: well be that you look at and you think, well,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna fit with everything else. So I can't
Speaker 1: really adopt that that approach, I mean, and it's tough.
Speaker 1: You know, the the role playing games, the g b
Speaker 1: I role playing games, that was a whole lot of
Speaker 1: fun to go into those and just sort of use
Speaker 1: those as inspiration for tone and content, and because I
Speaker 1: loved and adore those as well, and I still have
Speaker 1: my podcast co host Chris Stewart was kind enough to
Speaker 1: send me some of the expansion books that I didn't
Speaker 1: have too, so it's I'm kind of diving back into it.
Speaker 1: But um but you know, yeah, and in the cartoon,
Speaker 1: because there were a hundred and said a whole lot
Speaker 1: of episodes of the cartoon. Um, but all of the
Speaker 1: gear was used mainly as like a da a sex
Speaker 1: machia too. All of a sudden there would be a
Speaker 1: gyrocopter that came out of the car and you'd be like, well,
Speaker 1: what how did that get there? Or you know, the
Speaker 1: storage tube would sort of unfold and become a chair
Speaker 1: that they could sit on, kind of you know, suicide
Speaker 1: Gunner style, and he'd go, oh, that's cool, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't make any practical sense. Why would you do that?
Speaker 1: It just obviously it inhabits the same universe as Inspector Gadget.
Speaker 1: It really does. It really does, and but it makes
Speaker 1: sense for a Saturday Morning cartoon that they had to
Speaker 1: have all of these things that would progress the plot,
Speaker 1: that would be more toy toy edics so that they
Speaker 1: could add it onto the Kenner toys. Um. So we
Speaker 1: we didn't really raw too much save for a couple
Speaker 1: of things. There are some nods to um one of
Speaker 1: my favorite real Ghostbusters vehicles, uh, the the Ecto two.
Speaker 1: There's there's a little bit in there about that. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we we tried to steer away from because again,
Speaker 1: you can just get so caught up in trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, well, oh, in this episode it does this,
Speaker 1: but then in this episode it does something totally different.
Speaker 1: So we kind of had to stick more towards the movies,
Speaker 1: um and and the role playing games. We're kind of
Speaker 1: the same way. You know, the role playing games were
Speaker 1: written before cellular technology, before personal computers, before all of
Speaker 1: the stuff that I know, like the Ghostbusters Resurrection. Guys,
Speaker 1: they've rewritten all of the rules and they've rewritten all
Speaker 1: of the character sheets because well, you need to have
Speaker 1: more challenges. You're living in a modern world. You can't
Speaker 1: go back to the eighties. As much fun as it
Speaker 1: is to be nostalgic about that time, you want to
Speaker 1: have more challenges, more modern day challenge just so it was,
Speaker 1: it was tough, and uh, you know, it's also from
Speaker 1: an audience perspective. Obviously, you want to aim for the
Speaker 1: widest audience you can so that they can appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And if you if you start including stuff from further
Speaker 1: afield from the movies, then you then you start you
Speaker 1: start losing people because fewer and fewer of them have
Speaker 1: any experience with that particular material. Right, So you start
Speaker 1: with the films because those the I would argue that
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure those are the the versions of the
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters that most people have encountered. Uh, and then that
Speaker 1: number starts to drop off when you start looking like
Speaker 1: the cartoons probably is the next biggest. And then I
Speaker 1: would argue are the role playing games and the video games.
Speaker 1: Video games are probably smaller and smaller, and whereas all
Speaker 1: that material is still out there, so there's no reason
Speaker 1: why people can't go out and also enjoy that. I mean,
Speaker 1: the role playing game stuff, a lot of that is
Speaker 1: out of print, so that might end up looking for,
Speaker 1: you know, stuff then and use game stores and things
Speaker 1: like that. But you know, the video games, the computer
Speaker 1: games and stuff, those are still out there as well,
Speaker 1: so there's there's plenty for fans to to enjoy. But
Speaker 1: this in particular I like, again, I love it that
Speaker 1: it's that it's tied to our real world. I love
Speaker 1: that you have sourced as many of those gadgets as
Speaker 1: possible so people can actually look into and see what
Speaker 1: they were really intended for. Uh So I'm very appreciative
Speaker 1: of this. Oh well, thank you. Yeah, that's uh And
Speaker 1: and that was selfishly just because I wanted to know
Speaker 1: what every component is. And also, again, if you're out
Speaker 1: there and you happen to come across the fifty nine
Speaker 1: Miller meteor and you want to build your own replica. Well,
Speaker 1: now you know that that's the spotlight that you need
Speaker 1: to get, and that's the dimensions of the storage tube
Speaker 1: that's on the side. Um. A lot of these things
Speaker 1: that we know fans have poured over details and in
Speaker 1: the very last page of the book has a huge
Speaker 1: amount of special thanks to people because over the course
Speaker 1: of already some years, this book would not have been
Speaker 1: possible without those fans because they have found the clippered valves,
Speaker 1: they've found uh, the lagree elbows. They they sourced all
Speaker 1: of these things over the course of you know, thirty
Speaker 1: some years, where the Internet actually helped crowdsourcing those parts
Speaker 1: and those components, and um, you know, being that we
Speaker 1: had to relatively write this in a short amount of time,
Speaker 1: I am so indebted to all of those fans because
Speaker 1: they did a whole lot of that legwork. This book
Speaker 1: would have taken another two or three years had not
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff been done. So Um. But
Speaker 1: the good news is we're able to identify stuff that
Speaker 1: they haven't too. So when you pick this up, well,
Speaker 1: now you know that that's a pile siren and you know,
Speaker 1: especially again on the ecto of one A, here's all
Speaker 1: of those components with their exact model numbers, their exact makes,
Speaker 1: their exact dimensions, So even if you can't find it,
Speaker 1: you can probably recreate it. Um. So yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: I mean, that's I just hope that the level of
Speaker 1: detail comes through, uh to every and everybody finds something
Speaker 1: different within the paages of the book that they enjoy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I I certainly think that there's there's plenty for your
Speaker 1: your Ghostbusters fans to pour through with this book. Troy Benjamin,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining my show. The book
Speaker 1: is Ghostbusters Ectomobile Owners Workshop Manual. It really is a
Speaker 1: treat to look through this, So make sure you pick
Speaker 1: one up for the Ghostbusters fan in your life, and
Speaker 1: might want to get one for yourself too because it's
Speaker 1: a really good read. Excellent, Thanks Jonathan. Thanks again to
Speaker 1: Troy Benjamin for joining us on this episode of Tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I very much appreciate his time. It was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun exploring the world of Ghostbusters and and kind
Speaker 1: of reverse engineering the the science of ghosts in this
Speaker 1: fictional universe. Uh. Those who have listened to tech Stuff
Speaker 1: for a long time, you guys know how I feel
Speaker 1: about the whole ghost hunting thing, so being able to
Speaker 1: talk about it from a standpoint of all right, we're
Speaker 1: starting with this fictional world, how do we explain how
Speaker 1: this technology actually interacts with ghosts? And then coming up
Speaker 1: with semi quasi scientific explanations actually is a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: So I very much enjoyed this conversation. If you guys
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, tell
Speaker 1: you what, Send me a message, write me an email
Speaker 1: tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or drop
Speaker 1: me a line on Twitter or Facebook. The handle it
Speaker 1: both of those tech stuff hs W. Remember you can
Speaker 1: watch me record this show live on Wednesdays and Fridays
Speaker 1: over at twitch dot tv slash tech stuff. And before
Speaker 1: I go, I have to wish you all a very
Speaker 1: happy Halloween. I hope you guys get lots of nice
Speaker 1: treats out there. I'll be going around dressed as a
Speaker 1: ghostbuster and I'll talk to you again really soon for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it
Speaker 1: how staff works dot com and wh who