Hi! Allow me to introduce myself! My name is Joe O’Brien and as this sites creator it’s probably pretty obvious by now that I’m a Ghostbusters fan! When it comes to “The Real Ghostbusters” however, it’s clear to me that my love for the franchise goes a little further.
Born in 1984 (2 years before the show first aired) I was the perfect age to become captivated by it as I was growing up, especially at the height of it’s popularity between 1989 and 1991.
Back then I was literally eating, breathing and sleeping The Real Ghostbusters. I frequently watched the show, subscribed to the Marvel comic and owned almost every toy too. My cat, “Sam” used to sleep in my Firestation HQ playset while I slept in a Ghostbusters duvet set and in 1989 (the year the sequel was released) I even had a Ghostbusters themed party for my 5th birthday, complete with a home made “no-ghost” logo cake.
Ray, Winston and Egon all made an appearance.
As you can tell from the pictures, RGB was without a doubt my entire life and I feel very fortunate to have such fond childhood memories thanks to those amazingly “real” characters.
As I got older though, I started to play with other toys and develop other interests but what really took over from The Real Ghostbusters was my love for Star Wars. At about age 6 or 7 I would soon discover the toys and then later the films with the release of the Special editions in the late 90’s. Star Wars soon became a life long obsession and just like that, I had forgotten all about the world of The Real Ghostbusters..
As an adult, my interest in the Star Wars franchise continued and in my late teens I took up toy collecting as a hobby. It wasn’t long before I became involved with the on-line community where I spent years researching and learning all about how Kenner designed and produced the toy line. Around 2007/2008 I developed an interest for items of a pre-production nature as I found that area of the hobby extremely fascinating.
Fast forward to around 2010 and even though I don’t remember exactly what triggered the desire to get into collecting Ghostbusters toys, all of a sudden I became quite nostalgic and interested in them again.
Due to the kind of pre-production Star Wars items I had grown fond of collecting however, I wasn’t 100% sure production toys were really going to hold my interest. So after a little bit of researching I decided I would see if I could put a small but manageable RGB prototype collection together instead. It wasn’t long before I had acquired exactly what I was looking for. My first few purchases were some pre-production “first shot” action figure prototypes (Ray, Winston & Granny Gross) along with a set of Fright Features “proof cards” seen below:
I’ve gone back and forth between Ghostbusters and Star Wars ever since but after being involved with toys for so long as a Star Wars collector I decided that if I was going to continue collecting RGB items as well then I really didn’t want to limit myself to just the toy line.
While that decision meant I would have a lot to learn about other collectables, in doing so it really opened up a lot of other cool areas to explore. Nowadays my collection is a real mix of pre-production items from some really fun Real Ghostbusters items and I’ve never been happier!
So why the website?
By creating theartofRGB.com I’ve not only given myself a little place on the internet to showcase items from my personal collection but also a totally new platform to share. The reason I like to share is because I firmly believe that knowledge, information and really cool stuff should be enjoyed by everyone in the community!
So that’s my story! If you have a piece of original Real Ghostbusters artwork that you would like featured here or you have something for sale that might be of interest to me then feel free to get in contact!
Enjoy the site 🙂