About Ghostbusters.net
Ghostbusters.net is a collective of ghostheads honoring the spirit of the Ghostbusters multiverse, since 1997.
Founder Chad Paulson first discovered the Ghostbusters franchise in 1986 with the debut of The Real Ghostbusters. He was quickly drawn to the adult humor of series showrunner J. Michael Straczynski, the outstanding animation and the new and exciting supernatural adventure every episode would deliver.
Chad was also captivated by The Real Ghostbusters toy line from Kenner, including the wearable Proton Pack, PKE Meter and Ghost Trap which single-handedly spawned a global decentralized network of kids chasing down ghosts in their neighborhood until the street lights came on.
One year later and Chad would finally see the original Ghostbusters film, as his Father taped the 1987 Ghostbusters broadcast from WLS ABC in Chicago. Chad later uploaded the Ghostbusters ABC Sunday Night Movie intro and local news bumpers to YouTube to preserve the memory.
Just two years after being introduced to the original Ghostbusters film, Chad and his younger brothers were lucky enough to see Ghostbusters II, his favorite Ghostbusters film, in theaters on June of 1989. Watching Ghostbusters II in the theater was a core memory and, thanks to his Mother, Chad has photographic evidence of the spirited occasion.
Fast forward to 1996, 10 years after discovering The Real Ghostbusters, when Chad finally gets 56k dial up Internet at home. Among his first web searches is Ghost Trap, as he wanted to get a boost of nostalgia since his childhood trap was lurking in the attic alongside his other toys.
The first Ghostbusters website Chad stumbled upon was The Ghostbusters Homepage by the legendary Bill Emkow. While there were other wonderful websites dedicated to Ghostbusters, including Proton Charging, Ghostbusters HQ and Spook Central, Chad was drawn into the The Ghostbusters Homepage community hub that was The Ghostbusters Message Board.
Chad soon became a regular contributor to the message board. Not long after, he made his first code contribution as the board was running open source software called wwwboard in the Perl language. There was a problem with spam and imposters, so Chad wrote a simple update to display the poster's IP address to help moderators identify authentic members vs trolls.
A year later, in 1997, Chad started his own website called Ghostbusters Central. The site contained an auction marketplace, a prop section, news, and much more. It was most famous for streaming full episodes of The Real Ghostbusters in Real Video format which Chad taped from recent airings on the Fox Family Channel.
On January 25, 2000 Bill Emkow decided to step down from The Ghostbusters Homepage and keep it in an archived state. He kindly entrusted The Ghostbusters Message Board to Ghostbusters Central and a brand new message board was born using secure accounts, which eliminated the imposter issues from the original board.
In the summer of 2001, Ghostbusters Central became Ghostbusters.net and Chad had just finished completing the taping, editing and encoding of all episodes of The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters which streamed on the site. During this time Chad had completely rewritten the site from scratch, allowing you to do more than just post on the message board with your Ghostbusters.net account, including rate episodes, action figures, post props, fan fiction and more.
During the summer of 2005, after years of scouring the Internet and classified ads, Chad procured a 1959 Cadillac Miller Meteor Combination from Alaska. The intention was, and still is, to restore the vehicle to a screen accurate replica of the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters. Once the vehicle is restored, Chad would love to work with the Windy City Ghostbusters and the South Shore Ghostbusters to help raise money for Ghostbusters Give Back.
A few years later, Time Life began working on The Real Ghostbusters: The Complete Collection DVD Box Set which Chad helped promote on Ghostbusters.net and its newly-created social media presence at the time. Time Life was kind enough to thank Chad, including other ghostheads who helped contribute to the creation and promotion, in the booklet that came inside the box set.
In 2015, Ghostbusters: Answer the Call was announced and Chad handed over the @Ghostbusters Twitter account to the newly-formed Ghost Corps, who is now responsible for all things Ghostbusters at Sony. Chad has since gifted Ghost Corps other items over the years, including the ghostbusters2.com domain.
In 2026, Chad rebooted Ghostbusters.net to become a content-focused mobile-first website that connects the growing and diverse Ghostbusters community with the franchise's rich history and ever-expanding library of officially licensed products, films and animated series. With a brand new Ghostbusters Netflix Animated Series coming in 2027, the future is bright for those looking to explore the Ghostbusters multiverse with us, new and old.
