Slayers and ‘Busters: When Franchises Collide

In a humorous inversion, the Ghostbusters find business has slowed to a crawl. Some crazy vigilante teenagers are fighting monsters for free! It’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Ghostbusters in a culture clash of incoming revenue and fighting the good fight.

Don’t Cross the (Revenue) Streams

After a violent seismic disturbance, paranormal activity in Lo-Cal City rises precipitously. The R&D geeks have a very long list of theories, most involving limestone, psychomagnotheric slime deposits or phases of the moon. Regardless of the reasons, six jobs for outlying franchises in two weeks is a clarion call for a brand new GBI start-up outfit. Wouldn’t you know it, on the second job of the night the new team gets tripped up by a gang of teenagers waving crosses and, in one young woman’s case, giving practical lessons in kung fu to ghosts.

The conflict comes from motivations. The Scooby Gang fights the good fight because it’s there and the right thing to do. Ghostbusters come on the scene because the customer’s credit card went through. They might occasionally collaborate, but there will always be mistrust because one group doesn’t honor the other’s reasons for doing what they do.

This Job is Not Worth Eleven-Five a Year

In a take-off of the fifth season of Angel, Ghostbusters International hires the Slayer and her cadre. But for what purpose? Drs. Stantz and Spengler might be motivated to dig into what makes the Slayer a Slayer, perhaps leading to a retail line of designer herbal supplements. Marketing might stump for the appeal of attractive young people sporting the trademark jumpsuits and company logo. Or it could be a scheme to discredit homebrew monster fighting, by pitting Slayer Team One against specially selected menaces.

Future Ghostbusters of America

In The Real Ghostbusters animated series, an informal “junior Ghostbusters” club made a few appearances. Shift that forward a few years. A group of high school students are captivated by Ghostbusters International’s resurgence. At first, the club focuses on following the real deal’s exploits. Then they go out in the field with a borrowed EMF detector. Later, following plans and ideas found on the internet, they start cobbling together their own ghostbusting gear. Nothing nuclear, mind, but relying on older, pre-digital techniques: Carnacki‘s electric pentacle, palindrome snares, and the tried and true pellet gun loaded with rock salt.

The conflict comes from which side of the divide the players put themselves on. As young upstarts, the corporation is concerned with protecting their market from competition and their asses from liability lawsuits. From the perspective of the real deal, the newbies are likely to rile up something they can’t put down with rock salt. Naturally, one or the other is going to come to the rescue of the other, again depending on which side the players have taken up as their own. Or maybe not, depending on how aggravating the other side has been.