The idea for the fanfic started as far back as early 2008. I'd just ended my previous series, The Marvelous Muppets (you can guess what the crossover there was), and needed a new, fresh idea. I'd posted my best stories on the forum of a site called Muppet Central and wanted to create a fanfic that crossed Muppets with Ghostbusters (for kids of the 80s, you might recall it wouldn't be the first time that was done). My idea involved an all-female version of the Ghostbusters (with the same last names of the movie versions but the first names being the same as the girls') with Muppet characters like Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo serving as "new recruits." The monsters/ghosts would've been based on those from Jim Henson's Creature Shop (there were characters from Henson-blessed flicks like The Witches and Labyrinth and those out of The Storyteller series that I would have incorporated).
One of the most-successful methods to storytelling that I practiced in the latter days of my work on The Marvelous Muppets was casting real-life friends into the roles of characters in my stories (I personally call this the "Muse Method"). For my new, all-female Ghostbusters team, I needed some friends I made through MySpace (the big social networking site of the time) and Facebook to be the inspiration of these female equivalents. One of these ladies was my long-time friend Christina Renee, who I had cast for the role of the female take on Egon Spengler named "Christina Spengler." Little did I know at the time that Christina would later be cast in The Disney Ghostbusters as her own version of the character Janine Melnitz, secretary of the Ghostbusters in the films, named "Christina Melnitz."
The Muppets/Ghostbusters fanfic would last only a few short chapters before I decided to abruptly end it around March of 2008 as I just wasn't feeling the story. I was at a low point in my life at the time where there was just no time for writing (not even fan fiction), especially not with college weighing down on me hard with one particular course that cursed me with one demanding teacher. I went a four-month drought, having not written a single story, and my time on Muppet Central had come to a stop when I left the forum due to personal issues with one of the members (who was my girlfriend of three short months). Needless to say, the Spring and Summer of 2008 was the worst time for me as a writer; I lacked that spark necessary to write not just a good story but a great one.
Then came August 2008 when I discovered Disney-Dreams.net, a website for all things Disney with a cool active forum that included a spot for writers like me. DD.net became like a saving grace (or a sweet haven - whichever you prefer) for me, as I finally found a place encouraging of new ideas. Before I was on Muppet Central, a forum site known as DisneySites (which is now defunct) was the last spot where I posted any Disney-centric stories. By the time I reached Disney-Dreams, it had been three whole years since I'd written a Disney story (between then and the time I was first on Muppet Central, all I'd written were "Muppet Tales").
Becoming a new member on Disney-Dreams.net, I got comfortable enough with the fan forum to get back into writing. As with all stories, there needed to be an idea first. This is where "The Disney Ghostbusters" was born. I knew immediately that I wanted to write a Disney/Ghostbusters story when I'd attempted to get a Disney/Ghostbusters fan game started on DisneySites back in October of 2004 (they did weird-cool stuff like that on the page). What became my real drive to write it was the abandoned Muppets/Ghostbusters story from Muppet Central - even though I no longer had the passion for writing that story any further, I still loved the idea of a Ghostbusters fanfic in the style of a Disney reboot/sequel.
It was a no-brainer to have Mickey, Donald, and Goofy be the "new recruits" for this Disney-ized version of the Ghostbusters. The real trick was finding a cast of friends to model the new team on. Christina Renee, who remained my best friend/supporter in the months between my failed Muppets/Ghostbusters story and the launch of The Disney Ghostbusters, became our version of Janine - an even sassier woman who was one-half southern belle with a heart of gold. From there, I continued to consider an all-female version of the Ghostbusters like I did with the Muppets/Ghostbusters. I got Wendy Foster, a fitness friend I made through an online community called BodySpace, to be our female take on the Peter Venkman character, upping the Bill Murray quality to the character and switching it from a female perspective. In gender-switching the two Venkmans, there was an unintentional Disney joke made with their first names being "Peter & Wendy."
In the midst of casting, I asked myself, "Why not just diversify the Disney Ghostbusters?" With Wendy's involvement in the story, I'd not only had a woman in place of the character originally played by Bill Murray, but I also had a woman of color in the role (Wendy is Filipino-born). So I made a creative decision in gender-switching only two of the original Ghostbuster roles and leaving the other two to still be men. Here's where things got tricky: I had to decide what other member of the team I wanted to be female with three to choose from (Stantz, Spengler, and Zeddemore). At this point, I'd already put Christina in the role of "Melnitz," leaving the idea of a "Female Spengler" out of the question (Christina was the only person that idea could work with). Eventually, I got my inspiration through Diana Navarro, an incredibly talented artist and casual model who I met on MySpace. Diana had an "everywoman" flare about her the same way Winston does in the Ghostbusters movies, living a normal life as a mother, artist, and hard-worker; this was what convinced me to write her as the Disney Ghostbusters' female take on the "Zeddemore" character.
At the time I'd first launched "The Disney Ghostbusters," Diana was the oldest friend I'd cast for a character role in a story, so I capitalized on that with her "Diana Zeddemore" character. Although she is not the official leader of the DGBs or carries a PhD, Diana still has seniority over the other members and has a lot of streetwise intelligence. She is not a huge fan of Venkman's hotheadedness, which creates tension between them that grows throughout each story in the series. In my opinion, Diana is the real driving force of the dramatic side of the Disney Ghostbusters series, connecting with her young teammates and others in ways that echo the real-life motherhood of Diana Navarro. It is this effect that inspired me to feature Diana as a mother character in World of Disney (another Disney series that I started shortly after The Disney Ghostbusters) and Outatime! (a Back to the Future-inspired story I'm writing in late 2014).
With two female takes on classic Ghostbusters, that just left the remaining two members: Stantz and Spengler. Back when I first implemented the idea of casting friends as characters in my works, it was easier casting women than it was men. From my perspective, there are stories that have been overdone with men that are just so much more interesting and fun with women in place of them (hence why I'd switched genders for Venkman and Zeddemore in The Disney Ghostbusters). In a world mostly run by men, there is a general fear in half of the Earth's population in seeing iconic male roles (i.e. James Bond, Doctor Who, and Indiana Jones) replaced by women. The same goes if a person of color were to take an iconic role that was originally envisioned with a Caucasian person.
This is how I'd approached casting the roles of Stantz and Spengler for The Disney Ghostbusters - I didn't just want men in the roles, I wanted men that brought diversity with them. While searching for the right guy to inspire the role of Stantz, I came across my friend Jatniel Gonzalez, a Hispanic-born MySpace friend of mine from New York (the main setting of Ghostbusters). At first glance, Jatniel ("J.G." for short) looks like a young Hispanic version of Dan Aykroyd - so much that I joked with J.G. once on MySpace about writing him in a Blues Brothers fanfic as his own version of Elwood (another character Aykroyd brought to life). His involvement, and the notable fact that he's quite a handsome guy, encouraged another interesting new aspect that I brought to the Disney Ghostbusters series - developing a love life for Dr. Stantz. As most fans know, Dr. Venkman is the real "ladies man" of the Ghostbusters, having been with Dana Barrett and various other women. But what if - especially in a world where Venkman is female - Stantz was the ladies man? The title of "The Heart of the Ghostbusters" brings a whole new meaning with J.G.'s version of the Stantz character and adds another depth of drama to the series. That and the fact that J.G. was the youngest friend to be cast in the series gave me some great material to write, especially in his interaction with Wendy and Diana's characters.
Finally, there was Spengler to worry about. Following up on my approach with J.G. and his casting as the "New Stantz," I realized that with two women and two diverse backgrounds taking on this Disney version of Ghostbusters, I needed to balance it out in a way that made sense. I made the conscience choice in casting myself in the story as "Dr. Sean Spengler" in homage to Harold Ramis' decision in casting himself in his own story. But the choice wasn't just paying homage to the source material. My involvement with the series put a reversal on the original team, which consisted of basically three white guys and one black guy (our team consisted of a diversified mixture of race, sex, and age).
With the Disney Ghostbusters team complete, it was time to launch the first story, "Who Ya Gonna Call?" The story began with the climax of the first Ghostbusters film, retold with our team taking the place of the original team. For added measure, characters and settings from then-popular Disney Channel shows were featured, such as the ones from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody (the Tipton Hotel replacing the Shandor building from the film). From the first chapter, we're introduced to one of the most intriguing characters of the series - a young woman by the name of Alexis Embers. As interesting as Alexis's story is in the series, it's equally so in real life: Alexis Embers was the friend of a friend I made on MySpace who created a superhero character around her named "Safire."
I never once got to chat directly with Alexis, just with Robert (the friend behind her superhero alter ego). Robert shared with me what Alexis thought of the story, and her opinions of both it and her character were positive. Today, I've lost touch with Robert and Alexis, but Alexis's presence in the series has been strong since its insurrection in the fall of '08. The character Alexis Embers has played a integral role in the series, going from "Ghostbusters Fangirl" to falling in love with J.G. Stantz and becoming his fiancée to becoming "Caretaker of the Underworld" by the second story, "Ghosts of War." Because I'd lost contact with Alexis and Robert by the time I'd written and posted the second installment from 2010 to 2011, Alexis was purposely written out of the series - a choice that I regretted deeply and even disrupted the tone of the series.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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