Netflix’s ‘Ghostbusters: Night Shift’ Cartoon Sounds Fun but Confusing

If you’ve read any of my articles on this site for the last six years, it should come as no surprise that my kids are huge Ghostbusters fans (because I am a huge Ghostbusters fan). They have jumpsuits and proton packs; there’s a board game we play together often; and they love watching cartoons and movies. Their favorite iteration of the ghostbusting crew? The team from the show Extreme Ghostbusters, an animated sequel series that picks up where the original animated series (The Real Ghostbusters) left off. And y’all, that show rules.

The show finds Egon and Janine helping a new crew of diverse college students bust ghosts in New York City. It’s spooky, funny, and the team is something that would be called “woke” up and down the internet these days. It’s comprised of an African American, a Latino man, a paraplegic, and a goth woman. It’s incredible, and its existence made me extra furious that a bunch of chuds decided to get mad over the franchise being rebooted with women in 2016 (a film my boys and I have had a blast watching together).

But one of the other things that Extreme Ghostbusters does so well is that it keeps things simple. The show follows the 80s animated series and makes some references to the movies, but it is ultimately about the new crew busting ghosts without getting bogged down in what has happened between then and now. It’s something that none of the sequels to Ghostbusters have managed to get right, a trend that will seemingly continue with a new animated series that is heading to Netflix.

Ghostbusters: Night Shift is hitting the streaming giant next year, and we’re finally getting some new information about it from Annecy, according to Deadline. That includes a logline that… says a lot by saying a little. “New York City, 1994 — Five years after the Ghostbusters took the Statue of Liberty for a walk, a new wave of supernatural terror hits the Big Apple, forcing a group of scrappy, young New Yorkers — untrained, underappreciated, and kinda sorta responsible for the problem — to put on proton packs, face their fears, and bust some ghosts.” Huh!

On the one hand, I like the idea of a new team. While there isn’t a mention of a returning Ghostbuster, it’s safe to assume that Ernie Hudson’s Winston will appear in some capacity, as he has become the kind of leader of the various iterations in the new films and new video games. But that’s where things already get tricky. If he is included, and maybe even helps these new Busters, why was the company left dormant until he revitalized it almost twenty years later in Ghostbusters: Afterlife? It could be that whoever gets the equipment just steals it while the firehouse is abandoned, something that was referenced in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. But, to be frank, that sounds pretty dumb.

To make things even more confusing, the logline directly references Ghostbusters 2, a film that Ghostbusters: Afterlife essentially ignored, and Frozen Empire used it for Easter Eggs you’d have to be blind not to see. But it’s not really that simple. Afterlife makes it seem like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man ravaging Manhattan was an event that has now been relegated to YouTube videos, even though it would be a seismic shift in society. Ghostbusters 2 makes the same insane choice. The timeline between films has just always been weird.

There’s a chance that this cartoon will just exist on its own, as the previous animated series both did, but it’s being written by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan. Dan Aykroyd is executive producing. This thing is likely going to be connected to the larger world. But instead of drawing off of the new characters and world that they have established, they’re going back in time. Maybe they’ll try to explain why Egon just up and left, or why everyone just kind of forgot the Ghostbusters. Or, maybe, it will just be some standalone fun. Hell, it could end up being my kids’ favorite version of the team. Or, it could just be confusing. I’m not going to act like I won’t be saddled up to watch with them regardless.