Toy Fair 2018: Playmobil’s Ghostbusters sets get animated for wave 2

A blond-haired Egon and ginger Ray? Yep, the Real Ghostbusters have invaded Playmobil’s neat line of GB toys.

The REAL Ghostbusters

It’s shaping up to be quite a year for The Real Ghostbusters. The animated version of the original team of ‘Busters, The Real Ghostbusters has a comic event unfolding at IDW, a line of action figures from Diamond Select, and a collection of Playmobil sets.

Not that the cartoon is the sole focus of Playmobil’s offerings for the year, there are also a few Ghostbusters II sets in there. Still, it’s the animated ones that immediately catch the eye.

There’s good reason for that of course. The Real Ghostbusters changed the team’s look up quite a bit, right down to Egon and Ray’s hair color. They also sported different color jumpsuits. Actually that’s one element that the GBII figures have in common with the toon versions, as the Ghostbusters movie sequel characters sported both the classic and new darker suits.

These sets have some action features as well, which also kind of recalls the 80s. Back then pretty much every toy line had figures with built-in features. Admittedly, some of those gimmicks didn’t quiet come off perfectly. These though, limit the action to the vehicles they’re all packed in with.

Each ghost-busting vehicle has a water blasting feature worked into it. So maybe these are a little better as outdoor toys? Not that you couldn’t play with ’em just as well without filling them.

Each set will run you $21.99 USD, and all four will arrive in April of this year.

Slime-filled sequel

As I mentioned, there are also some GBII sets on the horizon, and these will be arriving away sooner than their animated counterparts.

Consisting of all four main Ghostbuster characters, the GBII collection is smaller in scale than the aforementioned, as these are figure packs. No vehicles in this wave. Each one has a pretty darn cool feature though – and it doesn’t involve water.

If you’re getting these, make sure to download the Playmobil app (it’s free) for your mobile device, as you can actually bust some ghosts with these figures. Well, not actual ghosts, but you get the idea.

Once you have the app up and running, you can place the traps included with the toys on the screen. After that, virtual spirits (you can pick from a few) will gravitate over to it and get pulled in. Here’s the kick – the traps are built so that you’ll actually see a “hologram” of the ghost in question getting sucked into the device. It’s an honest to goodness cool effect, just make sure you have low lighting to see it best.

These will run you $10.99 USD each, and they’re shipping out right now. I can’t imagine a kid wouldn’t have a good deal of fun with ’em.

All in all, this equates to a pretty varied assortment. And all of them still “work” with previous sets like the Firehouse and Ecto-1 car. There’s no change in scale or anything, so if you’re putting together a big Ghostbusters display, these’ll fit right in.

Or, you know, if you want to buy these for a child to actually play with.