The Two Eds of Ghostbusting

I' ve written before about my two favorite GHOSTBUSTERS cartoon series--FILMATION'S GHOSTBUSTERS and EXTREME GHOSTBUSTERS--and the striking similarities between the two despite being from different decades and with different casts. The most striking similarity--for me, at least--is that they both have a cowardly, dimwitted brunet team member whose name is a form of the name Edward: FGB's Eddie Spenser, Jr. and XGB's Eduardo Rivera. And these two Eds have even more in common. For example...

BOTH EDS ARE VOICED BY ACTORS WHO HAVE VOICED HEROIC CHARACTERS: Eddie is voiced by Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime in the TRANSFORMERS franchise, while Eduardo's voice actor, Rino Romano, voiced the Dark Knight and his alter ego Bruce Wayne in the Nineties WB cartoon THE BATMAN.

BOTH EDS ARE LAZY BY NATURE, ALWAYS LOOKING FOR THE EASY WAY: Eddie usually finds a way to get out of doing a chore, whether it's painting the exterior of Ghost Command or changing the oil on Ghost Buggy. In the episode "The Haunted Painting," he wishes for magic paints to instantly become a great artist and not have to practice hard like his friends tell him to. Meanwhile, Eduardo is a slacker famous for his frequent napping at the Firehouse, and admits he took Egon Spengler's Paranormal Studies class for an "easy A."

BOTH EDS HAVE READ AT LEAST ONE FAMOUS LITERARY WORK, BUT PREFER TO READ COMICS: In "The Ghost of Don Quixote," Eddie forgoes his usual comic books to read Miguel Cervantes's novel, mispronouncing it "Don Quicksotty." In the XGB premiere episode, Eduardo admits having read Homer's THE ODDESY, mispronouncing it "The Oddity;" and in another episode is caught reading the comic strip MARMADUKE in the newspaper.

BOTH EDS LOVE TO DO SOME FORM OF VISUAL ART: As noted before, Eddie took up painting and started enjoying it once he learned to apply himself and practice. Eduardo is a graphic arts major at New York Community College who also studies architecture.

BOTH EDS CAN RELATE TO YOUNG KIDS: Some of Eddie's best FGB episodes have him opposite a kid, whether it's Jessica Wray's nephew Corky (several episodes); Kita, daughter of the Mayor of the Moon Colony in the future ("The Girl Who Cried Vampire") or Alan, his "little brother" in the Big Brothers program ("Pretend Friends"). Eduardo's number one admirer is his nephew Kevin, the son of his older brother Carlos, aka Carl, a New York City cop.

BOTH EDS STARTED OUT AS STUDENTS OF THE PARANORMAL BEFORE BECOMING GHOSTBUSTERS: Eddie started out as an apprentice Ghostbuster along with his partner Jake Kong, trained by their Ghostbuster fathers, Spenser and Kong Senior (from the live action SatAM series THE GHOST BUSTERS). As mentioned before, Eduardo took Egon's Paranormal Studies class (for the "easy A") along with Garrett Miller, Roland Jackson and Kylie Griffin. It's when a huge ghostly threat comes along that both sets of students become Ghostbusters officially.

BOTH EDS ARE MY FAVORITE CHARACTER IN THEIR RESPECTIVE CARTOON SHOWS: I mean, this is the reason I'm writing this essay. Heck , I can relate to both the Eds, even if I am an older black woman. Like Eddie, I have mussy hair, chubbiness and a love of reading books, comic or otherwise. Like Eduardo, I know Spanish, like to create art and attended college (I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish). In this age of diverse pop culture heroes and seeing characters that "look just like me" to relate to, it's nice to know that somebody on TV can look different and still be "just like myself." Love those Eds!

(Photos courtesy of Google Images)