Hey there, folks. After a bit of a hiatus so that you wouldn’t get any more fatigued of my gibberish than you probably already are, The Private Sector is back. And this week, I’m going to come clean by getting something off my chest. Something that’s been weighing on me heavily since age eight… try not to hold it against me… all right… here goes… I stole Winston.
Whew… that felt good. Literally confessing your crime to the bajillions of good folks that read these fine Ghostbusters fansites (and most likely my mother, who will be reading this after hearing that her boy is a thief through the grapevine). I guess that a story is in order.
I was eight. And while my family lived comfortably, admittedly it was difficult for my wonderful and remarkable parents to keep up with my hungry appetite for the fine Real Ghostbusters related products that Kenner was releasing en masse. I wanted desperately the Ghostbusters’ trademark firehouse headquarters, but such a luxurious purchase just wasn’t possible at the time (for the record, I built my own firehouse out of spare house siding that was in my father’s garage, probably far more rewarding for my creativity but not for my Dad who had purchased said materials to patch holes before the winter). Even purchases of the individual action figures were very selective and planned out because my parents were able to buy the figures for me so infrequently…
Egon Spengler (the original blue jumpsuit version with Proton Pack) was first. He was my favorite character, so his priority as a purchase obviously was elevated. For the longest time, he was the only Ghostbuster (with the help of Robocop and Batman) to fend off Granny Ghost (whom I had received as a birthday present from a friend) and all of the invisible ghosts in my imagination. Egon was the lone Ghostbuster, breaking the first rule by venturing out into business on his own. Fighting ghosts in lands foreign to New York like an old Fisher Price castle my parents purchased for me several years before… or the bathroom.
Egon was soon joined by the original brown suit release Pete Venkman, and then quite a bit later the Fright Features Ray Stantz (because Ray just wasn’t Ray to me without the Ecto Goggles). A few other ghosts joined them including a Kenner Stay Puft I had fortuitously come across at a neighborhood garage sale, for the then hefty price tag to me of fifty cents.
But Winston, the heart and soul of the Ghostbusters, was always noticeably missing.
By the time another purchase was granted by the folks, the original Winston with proton pack and jumpsuit was long gone from stores – replaced by the horrid Fright Features Winston who always looked like a strange ventriloquism dummy with his unhinged jaw. And why was he in a Formula One racer outfit? Fright Features Winston felt like a fraud to me. An imposter sitting on the pegs among his Kenner brethren. When given the opportunity by my parents to finally pick up Winston, I was stubborn and always passed said Fright Feature figure up.
Until one day… at a yearly check-up at my pediatrician’s office… I was sitting waiting in a patient room for the doctor to arrive. And there he was…
Sitting, surrounded by Fraggle Rock McDonalds toys and a couple Ninja Turtles in a box of toys conveniently placed on one of the exam tables (presumably to distract the patient from the terrifying injection the nurse or doctor was preparing to stick you in the arm with) – was the original teal green suit release Winston.
Now, I was raised Catholic so things that I haven’t even done already unexplainably weigh heavily on me. So the first thought in my head wasn’t “I’m going to steal this thing”, it was actually, “No way! That’s such a rare figure that I can’t find, what’s it doing here?” That figure sitting in the Tupperware tub might as well have been the Lost Ark of the Covenant to me after the couple of years that I had pined for it.
But as much as I eyed the figure, I did nothing during that visit but marvel at its presence.
Until a year later, once again – by chance the same exam room, the same tub of toys, Winston still in there (but noticeably a lot of the Ninja Turtles toys missing). Once again, first thought was, “No way! Him again! How cool!” Nowhere near, “I’m going to deprive dozens of Ghostbuster fan kids at this doctor’s office of a moment of joy getting to play with a Winston figure by stealing it…” And besides, I was (then) eight years old. Do you know what the punishment for stealing is to an eight-year-old kid in the late 80s? No, are you kidding me, man… not a stern talking to or a time out, my God, this was the time when parents weren’t all politically correct and bashful about sprawling you over their knee and beating the snot out of you. Children actually feared and respected their parents instead of dragging them around on a leash. There was no way that this good kid would even think of such a thing let alone do it…
Until the doctor injected me with one of those aforementioned needles in the arm.
Then I wanted vengeance.
They had inflicted pain and drawn blood from me. They took something forcibly from me without my permission. It hurt emotionally and physically and, to quote an immortal movie, “Son of a bitch must pay…”
So I took him.
Teal jumpsuited Winston was smuggled away from that hellish prison where children were tortured with no reward. He wasn’t stolen. He was freed. Or so I told myself at the time… until later when Catholicism kicked back in and the guilt weighed so heavily on me that Winston taunted me. He remained on the shelf because I felt guilty to play with him. I couldn’t sleep at night in fear of the punishment to come for what I had done.
It was a long and difficult year until I had made up my mind that, on next return to the doctor’s office, I would return Winston to where he came from. Just as I had smuggled the action figure from the pediatrician’s office a year prior, I snuck him back in and despite not being in the same exam room that time around, deposited him back into a tub of toys.
And funny enough, there he stayed and remained. Each and every year that I visited my pediatrician (healthy, of course – as they had special quarantined lobbies and exam rooms for the sick kids), Winston would be spotted occasionally.
For all I know, he’s still there to this day.
Unless some new generation of young Ghostbuster fan is considering liberating Winston from his sterile confines…
Don’t hurt me, mom.
(The Private Sector is a weekly syndicated column written by Troy Benjamin presented every Wednesday on Proton Charging, GB Fans, Ghostbusters.net, and Cross the Streams as an op-ed look at the goings on in the world of the Ghostbusters franchise. Learn more about Troy at www.troybenjamin.com)
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With 8 years old you already had a conscience? *applaud* most kids would never think twice on returning it, your parents must have done something right. While we’re at it check my history of the action figure for an entertaining read that made many others, just like Winston, possible.
Already a correction… my math/fuzzy memory was way off… I was actually seven at the time of the crime. Even worse. I was plotting Heat-like robberies at age six, apparently.
Egon was my first also. I never got an original winston till I was around 15 years old. Its so sad I didn’t get to enjoy any of them until it was too late.
I stole the original RGB-Ray in the age of 8 or 9… from my cousins toy-box (full with Ninja Turtles and Masters of the Universe) in the early 90s. Oh well, Ray is still here to remind me what a bad person I am. Even if I bought another one at ebay. It feels strange to have don’e something like that but it is senseless to give it back to my now 30 years old cousin because he gives a damn about Ghostbusters (!!!!!!! can you believe it?). So I’ll take care of Ray till his little plastic-skeletton is rotten one day. And now, I’ll get my pills
Egon was my first too! I was very lucky to have all four of the ghostbusters in the jumpsuits (I still do). Altho i had to get a second egon once i completed the set because my original egon’s head broke off and couldn’t be mended. So the the headless egon became a ghost for the ghostbusters to bust ala citizen ghost! I must admit i didn’t like any of the variants kenner produced even as a child, i only put up with fright features Jannie cos it was the only figure of her at the time.
All’s fair in love and Ghostbusters…or in this case love of Ghostbusters. Where’s that doctors office? I never had an original Winston either, I may just have to make a trip to see if its still there.
Wow dude,just wow. Your articles rock so hard.
Del.
That wasn’t as bad as I imagined when I read he stole it. If he still felt remorse, he could donate a few toys to a toy drive now that he’s older and that would be more than enough to appease kharma.
@ForeverYoung – Not to worry, 95% of my old toys are now long donated. And I contribute to a local toy drive every year at Christmas here in LA. Because of the remorse? Probably not. Just fun to think that I’m sending a Star Wars toy to an excited kid that’s actually going to play with it – not bitch about the head sculpt and how the pantlegs are tucked in.
@Del – As do you, sir.
@Mike – Funny enough, I have no idea if it’s even still there anymore. But you’ll need a plane ticket to Colorado to do so.
@Chris – I ended up having two of the Fright Feature Egon’s (with the white suit and blue tie) and found a way to permanently lock the second one’s head in the “Frightened” position. He became one of the Peoplebusters.
@Alex – You should try giving it back now, see what happens.
@John – Perhaps karma paying me back, shortly after returning Winston to his original home – I ended up getting the “Super Fright Features” Winston, who was in the cool Containment Unit-proof suit. His Fright Feature was hardly ever activated.
i was the oppisite, egon was the one i couldnt find, i had the fright features egon but not the proper one with the pack. I found him one day at a second hand shop but he had no pack, but as soon as i got him i never used my fright features egon i just used the pke meter from him for my proper egon
This article helped remind me to be thankful to my family for the things they provided to me as a child. We were not well off by any means. Quite the opposite, actually… yet I had every ghostbusters toy I ever wanted. Even the s***ty Frightened ones. (What was up with those anyway?)
I guess it also helped that I was the first born of my generation… I didn’t have any brothers, sisters, NOR any cousins until I was 6 years old. 6 years of being the only child, only grandchild, and only nephew to half a dozen aunts and uncles. Looking back, I had quite the payload on holidays and birthdays.
Here’s a fun research question to pose to the reading audience at home: what was the retail price on the Firehouse Headquarters? I’ve seen the K-Mart ad from the clearance sale where it was around $40 – but memory seems to recollect that it was upward of ninety bucks…
Awesome article, Troy! The whole time I’m reading, I’m thinking about how I ONLY had the original Winston as a kid and the rest were the imposter Fright Features guys. Until I got some weird re-release of Peter in this glow in the dark suit or something? (which was also at the tail end of my toy-playing days). Finally, years later, I found someone selling all four originals on eBay and my then-girlfriend/now-wife helped me get them for me as a present (a real keeper, eh?).
All my Kenner figs (besides the eBay four) are somewhere at my parents’ house. I do wish to liberate them from the confines of a hot and musty attic… someday.
The Toys “R” Us price tag attached to my box is $59.99 in 1989 dollars.
Heh, my parents also were pretty hesitant to shell out the money to get me RGB figures. But I do fondly remember the occasional toy they’d get me. My mom even still remembers the time I got that toilet ghost. Egon was my favorite figure as well, but I never really got a chance to get the original jumpsuit figures; I still loved that Egon figure in the black jumpsuit with purple stripes, though.
Then one of my best memories has to be the time my mom took me into KB Toys for my birthday, and let me get the Ecto-1 and two figures. I remember getting the beige jumpsuit Peter with green eyes, but can’t remember the other figure I got..
Coming from a family of divorced parents, I (like many others) very often felt the hardships of being financially challenged. Thanks to recession, I am in that catagorey once again, but lets not go there. Even though may parents were split up and, at the time of my youngest years, hated each other I still found bennifets in the troubles. Like, gifts from two different families! Even though money was tight the fact that I had holidays and birthdays celebrated with both sides of the family meant that I ended up with nearly the entire collection of GB figures (eventually). Excluding the most rare items (Egons lab). But alas, as I grew up, and moved from place to place and from one side of the family to the other my nearly complete collection dwindled down to nearly nothing… When I was finally living on my own I began rebuilding it through the help of Ebay, garage sales and second hand stores. Unfortunatly, my collection will never reach the glory it once had.
Unless I get my hands on a DeLorean… Or an Ectomobile modified for time travel.
Winston is not “the heart and soul of the Ghostbusters”. That’s Ray.
Out of curiosity, did Winston have any accessories?
@Ed – The one I stole? Nothing, save for probably a few non-lethal virii and bacteria.
@Matt – Thanks for the info… curious. I guess as a kid, $60 felt like so much more. But that price point makes a lot of sense.
dont feel too bad i have taken every set of mini mates from where i work!
@Troy – Wow, “Super Sright Features” Winston was my first actual RGB (not a ghost)! Or was it Fright Features Pete Venkman? Dang, I remember exactly how I got both of those, but not which one was first… Either way, followed soon after was Super Fright Features Egon and Screamin’ Heroes Ray. All 4 ‘Busters would hop up on the Ecto-3, Halo’s Warthog-style, and chase after the Galloping Ghoul ghost, until our dog chewed him up. Boo-Zooka and the Boo-Lets became the villains-of-the-week staple after that.
it was 2008 i had just got the ghostbusters movie for my birthday. i found the real ghostbusters cartoon toys at an antique store and had to have them i saw so many sitting there hopeless….at first thought i said “dude ive gotta take this thing!” then i realized i had 5 bucks but the other was another 5….my dad bought it and guess what i got a special deal for being the first ghostbusters fankid of this generation he had seen so now he lets me in on some sweet deals. well no harm done but i always wished i could get 3 more……i held back on it and said nah ill buy em off online which caused me to go into a fury for overpriced toys not getting the things i payed for i still shop for these things but one thing i hate my sister for is one day i was online and found the super rare 1996 super sonic plush for 8 dollars and i told my mom but my sister instead of minimizeing the thing exited out and got on myspace……for 3 years i havent bought,seen or heard of the wereabouts of this toy or those ghostbusters ones….