Ghostbusters Cereal Movie Mystery Sweepstakes

A winner will get to meet a "Real" Ghostbuster

Nov 17, 2021

As the Eighties drew to a close, that storied decade would manage to give us one more Ghostbusters film. While it had been 5 years since the original film, we were not living in a Ghostbusters desert all that time. No, we had cartoons, toys, and food products that kept the Ghostbusters torch alive.

As we got closer to the sequel, the marketing machine began pushing it with interviews in print and TV, general advertising, and a product rebrand. What I was most excited to see get refreshed at the time was the Ghostbusters Cereal. This revived cereal, now with the No Ghosts symbol from the sequel, offered a very memorable premium in the form of a mini-record as part of the New Ghostbusters Cereal Movie Mystery Sweepstakes.

I remember being excited about this, the Real Ghostbusters Cereal they had been selling before this had been running a “SuperCash Cards” offer that looked cool, but that I could just never get into at the time. A record in a cereal box as part of a contest, though? That was right up my alley.

Now, according to the advertising that they ran at the time, a lucky kid and a friend would win a trip to the Real Ghostbusters Headquarters and get to meet a Real Ghostbuster. Which Ghostbuster? According to advertising and the record, it was Egon.

Here are the details of the contest directly from the cereal box:

You could win one of the prizes in The New Ghostbusters Movie Mystery Sweepstakes and have some fun by answering the questions from the record inside this box. You’ll meet a real Ghostbuster from The New Ghostbusters movie, and win a trip to Hollywood to visit the set of The New Ghostbusters and get real Ghostbusters gear! The more you enter, the more chances you have to win! Not purchase necessary. For details and official rules, see side panel.

You could get an album by purchasing Ghostbusters II, Cookie Crisp, or Dinersaurs cereal.

To enter the contest, you would listen to the album’s three questions. You would then write down the answers to those questions on an index card and mail them in. One entry was allowed per envelope, but you could enter as many times as you liked.

They would release two flexi-disc sized albums. Both a plastic square that you are required to cut down to circular size. The superficial difference between them is the color of the text, one is white and the other gold.

Two voices appear on each album, a host who introduces the album, who sounds really familiar, but I can only speculate. The other is the voice of Egon on The Real Ghostbusters cartoon, Maurice LaMarche. Who you might also know him as the voice of Brain from Pinky and the Brain. The Egon lines are a bit stilted and the jokes don’t land well, but they get the job done. I think they probably played better for me when I was a kid.

Now you cannot enter to win anymore, but here are the questions for those who are curious. It is LaMarche as Egon who reads the questions.

White-Label Albums Questions

Name the woman who works at the art museum, whose Peter Venkman’s girlfriend?
On what holiday does the big bust happen at the end of the movie?
What U.S. monument do the Ghostbusters work from to save the city?

Gold-Label Album Questions

In what city does the new Ghostbusters’ movie take place?
What lurks beneath the city and is the Ghostbusters’ biggest bust?
What must people do to ward off this evil?

Here are the actual recordings of the albums that someone was cool enough to upload to YouTube. Listen to that background music in these recordings, it’s good stuff.

White-Label Ghostbusters Contest Album

Gold-Label Ghostbusters Contest Album

Something to note about these albums is that the questions are pulled directly from the new film. So these would have been mild spoilers if you hadn’t seen the film, or it was released with the understanding that everyone would have seen the film by this point.

This raised some interesting questions. If this contest was run after the film was done and the winner was supposed to visit Ghostbusters HQ, are they dressing up a new location to be HQ? Had they held onto the sets from the film?

Sadly, I couldn’t find any mention of who won the contest online. So until a winner or someone associated with running the contest comes forward, this will need to remain a mystery. If you are one of those people, I would love to hear your story.