Behind The Design - Toastbusters

Our second installment of Behind The Design focuses on another fan favorite, Toastbusters. It’s one of those designs where at first glance it seems simple enough. That is, until you take some time to really look at all the elements and how they fit together. Then it becomes quite complex.

Before we go too deep into the components let’s talk about the inspiration behind this quirky t-shirt design, Ghostbusters. We love the girl power of the all-female cast for the 2016 remake of Ghostbusters starring the likes of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones but our design is in homage to the original Ghostbusters.

The 1984 classic boasted an iconic cast of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson. I don’t think much needs to be said about this group. Maybe all that needs to be known to understand just how unreal this combo was is that almost none of the scenes were filmed as scripted and, in fact, almost all of the scenes had at least one or two ad-libs. Most of Bill Murray's lines are ad-libs. ~ IMDb

So now let’s get into Toastbusters. To give you an idea of how much thought goes into each design, here’s what Anthony (Tony) Carmeci III of Carmeci Design had to say about Toastbusters:

“Toastbusters had my gears going, most particularly because the movie Ghostbusters is about mortal men, hunting ghosts, which are ethereal humans in most respects. Or at least ethereal anthropomorphic beings!

Toastbusters on the other hand was a bit tricky. When bread dies, it now clearly becomes a zombie. Haha. So I didn't really want to go for a ghostly bread, it would have taken too much thought for the consumer.

Ghosts are a HUGE fear for people, but what would bread's huge fear be? A toaster. So the monster is the Toaster, and the Bread must quell it's enemy as well as fear itself.”

Feel free to read that again. It took me a few run throughs to really understand what Tony was talking about. This was all without giving him any direction other than “the title is Toastbusters”… just another reason why we at Movie The Food love Tony.

Let’s dive right into it, shall we? The simplest, and most straight forward aspect of the design is the text. Who ya gonna call? Toastbusters, of course! Unless you’re ok with moldy zombie bread roaming your kitchen, in which case you might as put the phone down.

How do you take a toaster, turn it into a monster, and then bring it to life? By sneakily creating a face out of the dials and giving it extra flailing arms of course. This toaster would surely send people running if seen roaming the streets of New York.

Next up is our Toastbuster, Enaan Pringler to be exact. He stands valiantly firing avocado spread from his hipster pack as he tries to quell the mighty Toaster.

Lastly is the background for the design. If you were to take a ruler and measure Enaan Pringler and the mighty Toaster you would see that the two are actually not too far off in size. Then how does Toaster look to tower over Enaan? Well, part of that is the perspective Tony was able to capture. The other part is the details in background. Faint skyscrapers with a cloudy, greenlit sky full of lightning bolts gives the whole design a lofty feel of massive proportions. It immediately gives the viewer the feeling of being atop a building in the middle of the Manhattan skyline in an epic battle to rid the world of the insatiable Toaster.

When you put all of the components together you get Toastbusters!

“Three cheeseball scientists get kicked out of their custard positions at a culinary university in New York City where they studied the E. coli. They decide to set up shop in an old bakehouse and become Toastbusters, trapping pesky toast, bagels, muffins, and crumpets for dough. They wise-cracker their way through the city, and stumble upon a gateway to another flavor dimension, one which will release untold radiant heat upon the city. The Toastbusters are called on to save the Baked Apple.”

If you like these in depth looks at our designs be sure to keep an eye out for more in the near future! Also, don’t forget to pick up your own tee below or at the Toastbusters Collection page and drop us a comment to let us know what you think about Toastbusters!