| Ghostwriter | |
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| Genre | |
| Developed by | Pamela Douglas |
| Starring |
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| Country of origin |
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| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 74 (18 story arcs, with four episodes in each arc, except 1 and 5, which have five episodes)(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Liz Nealon |
| Producer | George Barimo |
| Production locations | Brooklyn,New York |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | |
| Release | October 4, 1992 (1992-10-04) – February 12, 1995 (1995-02-12) |
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Ghostwriter is aneducationalchildren'smystery television series produced byChildren's Television Workshop (now known as Sesame Workshop) andBBC Television. The series revolves around a multiethnic group of friends fromBrooklyn who solve neighborhood crimes and mysteries as a team of youth detectives with the help of a ghost named Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter can communicate with children only by manipulating whatever text and letters he can find and using them to form words and sentences.[2] The series was filmed on location inFort Greene, Brooklyn. It began airing onPBS on October 4, 1992, and the last episode aired on February 12, 1995. It reran onNoggin, a channel co-founded by the Children's Television Workshop, from 1999 to 2003.
The series is designed to teach reading, writing, and critical thinking skills to schoolchildren. Each mystery is presented as a case, covering four 30-minute episodes (except for the first and fifth story arc, where there are five 30 minute episodes); children are encouraged to follow each mystery and use the reading and writing clues given to attempt to solve them just as the Ghostwriter team does.[3] Supervising producer Miranda Barry recalled arguing strongly for filming the series on location in the real setting of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and noted that there was a year long gap between the pilot and the filming of the rest of the episodes.[4]
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | |||
| 1 | 34 | October 4, 1992 (1992-10-04) | May 16, 1993 (1993-05-16) | |
| 2 | 28 | September 12, 1993 (1993-09-12) | April 24, 1994 (1994-04-24) | |
| Special | September 18, 1994 (1994-09-18) | |||
| 3 | 12 | September 25, 1994 (1994-09-25) | February 12, 1995 (1995-02-12) | |
Ghostwriter was critically acclaimed and honored for presenting a realistic, ethnically diverse world in its two-hour mystery stories.[5] By the end of its third season,Ghostwriter ranked in the top five of all children's shows on American television.[citation needed]
In a 2011 retrospective, Alyssa Rosenberg praised the show for showing kids tackling realistic problems in their neighborhood.[6]The Atlantic in 2016 called the series "The Most Literary '90s Kids Show" and praised it for being "about relatable kids who learned that their written words actually mattered."[7]
Created as an integrated, branded, multi-media project, theGhostwriter brand included magazines and teacher's guides, software (Microsoft), home video, games/licensed product, and other outreach materials that reached over a million children each month. There were manyGhostwriter novels released, bothnovelizations of the TV episodes and new stories. They were released byBantam Books.
Noggin's website featured exclusive casebook files based on the show.[8]
Ghostwriter has been broadcast in 24 countries worldwide, and generated a number of foreign-language adaptations, including a dubbed over version onDiscovery Kids in Latin America marketed asFantasma Escritor.
Despite its popularity, the program was abruptly canceled after the third season due to inadequate funding after the BBC pulled out of co-producing the show. The original series was rerun from 1995 to 1999 onPBS. From 1999 to 2003, it aired on theNoggin cable network, which was jointly founded by the Children's Television Workshop (now known asSesame Workshop) withMTV Networks. In the U.K. it aired on the BBC and theDisney Channel at different times.[9][10] The show's revivalThe New Ghostwriter Mysteries also aired on Noggin as part of its nighttime programming blocks,The Hubbub[11] andThe N.
During the mid-1990s,Ghostwriter was released on VHS byRepublic Pictures Home Video. The company released "Ghost Story", "Who Burned Mr. Brinker's Store?", and "Into the Comics" with their respective story-arc episodes edited together into a feature-length format.
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Shout! Factory released Season 1 ofGhostwriter on DVD on June 8, 2010. Its supplements are a trivia game and a casebook.[12][13][14]The entire series except for the last two story arcs were also released by GPN.[15]
| DVD name | Ep # | Release date | Special features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Season One | 34 | June 8, 2010 | Ghostwriter trivia game, Ghostwriter casebook |
| Season Two | 28 | TBA | |
| Season Three | 12 | TBA |
Ghostwriter producer and writer Kermit Frazier revealed in a 2010 interview that Ghostwriter was a runaway slave during the American Civil War. He taught other slaves how to read and write and was killed by slave catchers and their dogs. His spirit was kept in the book that Jamal discovers and opens in the pilot episode, freeing the ghost.[16]
In 2006, BBC School Radio produced a radio series ofGhostwriter for primary school students.[17] Character names from the TV series were retained, though voiced by new children. Music and the theme song were also kept, and a new arranged jingle for children to recognize Ghostwriter's appearances was created by Sesame Workshop.
In 1997,CBS aired a new version of the series,The New Ghostwriter Mysteries,[18] as part of their educationalThink CBS Kids block, but it was canceled after one season due to low ratings. The new series had little in common with the original, changing Ghostwriter's on-screen appearance, introducing entirely new characters, and getting rid of theserial format of the original series.[19] The series was filmed inToronto,Ontario, Canada, and featured a new team of three kids: Camella Gorik (Charlotte Sullivan), Emilie Robeson (Erica Luttrell), and Henry "Strick" Strickland (Kristian Ayre). Ghostwriter only had two colors, which weresilver andgold. Production locations included Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and New York, United States of America. Episodes ran for 22-24 minutes. Production companies wereChildren's Television Workshop andDecode Entertainment. It aired onCBS (CBS Preschoolers) (United States) andCBC Television (CBC Preschoolers) (Canada).
A revival ofGhostwriter aired onApple TV+, premiering on November 1, 2019.[20] The series was nominated for eightDaytime Emmy Awards.[21]
A spin-off,Ghostwriter: Beyond the Page, premiered on April 1, 2021.[22]
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