User reviews

"Ghostwriter" fans will always remember the team of six kids who ran around Brooklyn cracking codes and solving mysteries. Some people have teased the show for its early 90's look of colorful outfits, trendy headgear, mild rap music, and brief introduction to the internet.

While the Ghostwriter team worked on solving mysteries, they also learned about environmentalism, drug abuse, violence, war remembrance, and family feuds.

So who IS Ghostwriter? In the pilot episode, a ghost suddenly pops out of a book in the basement of Jamal Jenkins. He's depicted as a bubble that floats around the screen before diving into books or a computer. Ghostwriter cannot hear or talk. It takes Jamal and his friend Lenni Frazer a few tries until they realize he can only communicate through words.

One of the hardest challenges for "Ghostwriter" was addressing difficult topics such as violence and drugs in a realistic environment. How do you do that on a PBS kid-oriented show? Through creative stories and compelling characters. And to do it through writing. As the show progressed, the characters faced peer pressure and social challenges.In "What's Up with Alex", Alex starts to shirk his responsibilities at home and is tempted to try marijuana because his "cool" friend Kevin uses it. The whole Ghostwriter team is concerned but thanks to their honesty with Alex, he turns down Kevin's offer and helps the team crack a crime ring.

This show is a nostalgia trip that is well worth taking.

"Ghostwriter" was a show that was very original, very cool to watch, and began and ended well ahead of its time. It's a great piece of '90's nostalgia, not to mention a terrifically entertaining show. It was admittedly not well acted at times, and at other times had very unrealistic scenarios (excluding the appearance of a ghost that takes words and writes with them), but the show had so many strengths to make up for those weaknesses.

First of all, the cast of kids they had was amazing. Casting Sheldon Turnipseed as Jamal Jenkins was perhaps the best thing the producers of the series had ever done. Judging from this early piece of acting, it is absolutely surprising that Turnipseed has ended up on the "Where Are They Now?" list and has since appeared to drop off the face of the planet. He was a great leading character, not to mention an outstanding positive black role model. If Turnipseed ever decided to crawl out from the rock he has been hiding under for the last thirteen years or so and try acting again, he could reach the same A-list status as Denzel Washington or Jamie Foxx.

Blaze Berdahl was also very good as Lenni Frazier, even though her hip hop songs probably can't stand the test of time. She was just a very fun and outgoing character, and someone I would have loved to have been friends with in grade school or junior high and beyond.

Also, Berdahl's character was the token white character (save Rob, the short-lived but equally appealing character played by Todd Alexander) in a show that dared to be more diverse than many shows before or even since. In any other show made for the tween audience even today, there's usually one white girl, her white friend with different color hair, and her other black friend who has the same hair style and acts exactly the same. If the show were predominantly black, the scenario would be exactly the same.

But having a show with this diverse a cast, other shows would be accused of being too preachy. At no point in my watching this show as a youth, or even catching snippets as an adult, did I feel that a message about the human race was constantly being shoved in my face. Rather, I thought the show reflected some great insight as to the many faces of middle class NYC youth. Furthermore, the characters were developed so well that they felt less like bland stereotypes and more like actual human beings that you could possibly visit in New York. It actually made me want to live in New York as a youth, too.

Although it was a PBS show designed for kids, I'm not exactly sure even today what the show was trying to teach. This fact could be a testament to the show's ability to make entertaining stories without being known strictly as an educational show. If I were to make a guess, I would say that the show's intent was probably to teach about the importance of reading and writing. Looking back, the show actually made me want to write a lot more, and I remember wishing my penmanship was as neat as the show's characters' was. The show was also perhaps the first to frequent the use of computers, and to even talk about the World Wide Web. Of course, this was in the days where modems were bought separately from computers, and dial-up was the only way to connect. Still, there weren't even a lot of mainstream shows at the time who made major plot points about the new Information Superhighway, and that eventually became very powerful stuff.

I remember "Ghostwriter" ended abruptly, still with a legion of followers. It's a shame that the show's demise was based solely on lack of funding (as far as I know), because it remains one of the most original television shows ever aired. This show has been off the air for over a decade, and has seldom been aired in syndication. It hopefully will get the DVD release it properly deserves, and maybe we'll even find out whatever happened to Sheldon Turnipseed.

Ghostwriter was this interesting show aimed for the juvenile trade to encourage folks to read. That's something you have to encourage at a young age. It was shot in and the episodes were located in some familiar areas of New York City and watching the show it all looked quite familiar to me.

Just who or what was Ghostwriter. He was this other worldly being who could only and who chose to only communicate with a select group of adolescents by writing wherever, be it on a computer or on a bathroom wall. The kids got involved in solving a mystery and their method was to read Ghostwriter's clues and keep a case notebook of what they learned. Eventually they put things together.

I remember one episode where Ghostwriter brought up some painful memories for people in Brooklyn. He had them go to Sullivan Place because an old ballpark was located there and that had something to do with the mystery. Kids their age in the 1990s would have no memories of Ebbetts Field, but they did the required research to learn. A show that teaches how to research is a valuable thing indeed.

I wish it were still running.

Back when Ghostwriter was on PBS, I never missed an episode, and was disappointed when it went off the air. Now when I catch it on Nickelodeon and Noggin (and educational children's channel), the show is just as good as I remember it. The best thing about Ghostwriter was that it never insulted the intelligence of its viewers, even though its targeted viewing audience was about 7 to 12 years old. Each mystery took four episodes to complete, and the plot was always complex and interesting enough to justify the continuations. It seemed like the writers never cut corners just because this was a children's show. Another great thing about the show was its setting in New York City. It was obvious that the show wasn't shot on some fake urban soundstage in Hollywood. The characters run around the city in an area called Fort Greene, and the community is portrayed in a warm and authentic way. A huge credit to the show was its great young cast. Even though their acting skills weren't great, they each managed to adhere a strong personality to the characters.

Special props go to Joey Shea, who was hilarious as Calvin Ferguson, the smarmy kid who was the de facto arch nemesis of the Ghostwriter team. Overall, the show was always entertaining and funny.

One of my favorite gigs, I was the videotape operator for 40 of the 74 episodes of "Ghost Writer", sharing the position with Mike Gordon. Best crew and cast to work with. Metropolis Studios was a great location as well.

I just finished watching another episode of Ghostwriter. For the uninitiated, Ghostwriter was a popular kids show during the 90's which involved a gang of kids in NY and their invisible ghost friend, who they couldn't see, but who could make words out of letters. With the help of this ghost buddy, they went around NYC solving various mysteries. The episodes were always in 4 or 5 part mysteries, and I used to love them. I remember in Saudi, as a kid, i would want to wear pens around my neck just like they used to. Got a couple of my friends to do the same too.

Anyways, the funny thing was, i just realized how much i still like the show, 10-15 years after i first saw it. Now when i revisit it, i realize the show was not only entertaining, but also dealt with a lot of issues which a lot of adults would do good to take note of. It celebrates the power of togetherness and friendship, as well as showing glorious examples of steadfast loyalty to the ones you love, passion and determination, as well as an aversion to violence in any form. I remember the show was probably one of the first ones i saw where the kids who made up the gang where all of different ethnicities. There was Jamal, the African American, Tina the Chinese American, Alex and Gaby, the Hispanics as well as Lenni, the true blue American. Yet, without ever getting preachy, it managed to make us care for these kids and put across the point that with tolerance, understanding and friendship, the differences don't really matter. Another thing i liked about it was the importance given to writing. It genuinely encouraged kids to take up writing more.

The poignant thing is though, all the kids who played a part of this have now all gone to the 'Where are they now' list. I looked up their limited profiles available on IMDb, and it looks like hardly any of them went onto any more acting assignments. Though they all seemed to have graduated from university. That was surprising for me, considering they all seemed to have the natural flair for the screen. Especially the unmentioned leader Sheldon Turnipseed (Jamal) and Blaze Berdahl (Lenni), who seemed to have it in them to carry it off on the big screen.

Ghostwriter is a television series produced in America by BBC One and the Children's Television Workshop. This series aired from October of 1992 until February 1995. Ghostwriter is about a group of teens who solve mysteries and crimes in New York with the assistance of Ghostwriter. Ghostwriter is a ghost that communicates via letters and words he can find, but is unable to communicate otherwise.

I remember when I was in high school, I think grade 10 and I was talking about Ghostwriter in class, and one of the most popular girls in school told me she watches it as well. That was a good day for me.

The general point of Ghostwriter is to help children learn how to read and write. The teens would follow a series of word clues to solve a mystery or crime and this would take place over a few episodes. Ghostwriter was a top children show that was discontinued due to a lack of funding. Cast includes Lenni Frazier, Alex Fernandez, Jamal Jenkins and Tina Nguyen.

My cousins & I used to always get snacks and stuff and watch this on a Sunday it came on channel 12 in New Orleans, PBS. WE LOVED THIS SHOW. I wish it would come on a streaming platform.. (ie- Amazon, Youtubetv etc.) They do have some episodes uploaded on YouTube; but it being a show before the (NEW HD & DIGITAL PROGRAMS NOW) it's really dark, grainy, & looks like it was recorded with a Polaroid instamatic camera. (Yes I am that old) I am an 80's baby & these type of shows shaped our teenage years, when we didn't have cellphones. I really wish a production company would pick this show back up; but NOT some crazy remake where it would take from the original format, I showed my 12 yr old some episodes & she liked it. PLEASE PICK THIS SHOW UP AGAIN & DO SOMETHING AMAZING WITH IT.

This is not like many shows I have seen. Yeah, it might be a little stupid at first, but soon grew on me. Too bad the show was canceled. I can't watch it on anything now but on VHS. :-( It was a pretty cool 90's show. I remember when I was obsessed with it the first time I saw it. I can barely remember one episode. That's pretty much all I can say. So, that is pretty much what the whole show is about, kids who try to solve mysteries with their secret blob ghost who takes words from different things and makes it into sentences. And yeah, they did have the neatest handwriting ever!

This yet is not as good as Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Robert Daraio, Videotape Operator for 40 episodes of Ghost Writer from 1992-1995

I remember watching this tv series. Sometimes it was a bit cheesy. It was never the same after the original Gabby left the show. I really preferred the original cast.

"Ghostwriter" was a wonderful escape from reality and into the brain-teasing and fascinating lives of a team of young adults. The teenagers were chosen by a friendly spirit (Ghostwriter) who could only communicate through writing. The original team, (starting out with only two members and broadening into about seven to eight members) is chosen to explore the many mysteries, cheats, and other oddities in their home town Brooklyn, NY. The original "Ghostwriter" TV series was a show like no other and captured the attention of many viewers anywhere. There will never be another show like it, may its memory live on in the minds of its faithful viewers for eternity.

This show is all kinds of sentimental. It was the reason i wanted to be a detective. I used to carry a magnifying glass every where i went. It was also the bearer of my first crush: Alex (the Latino boy who worked in his father bodega). It was also how i learned the word bodega at age 7. Hun. I just calculated that. I can't believe how much i retained at age 7. You'll find the movies on my "My Movies" list are mainly those that conjure some kind of sentimentality in me, and that is mainly why i use this site to reconcile long lost memories via film and television.

P.S. It was a pretty good show, kids fighting, crime, monsters, together using any means their little minds could muster. It reeks of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What a lovely stench.

This show was awesome!!If you want to see it on DVD, for it on www.TvShowsOnDVDcom I loved the way this show had many races coming together as one. It was very catchy with the interracial friendships and relationships. Also, I loved the mysteries that they had to solve. I thought this show was all that when I was younger and when it was out. I still love it so, I've like to see it on DVD so that I can watch it anytime that I want to! Everyone should vote for this DVD on the before mentioned website. You can vote for many TV shows on that site that have not been out yet.

Ghostwriter was fun to watch and easy on the mind. It made you think about different possibilities and what could happen next. Of course I didn't like every single episode, but I had my favorites. I wish that the show could've went on for many seasons!!

This was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid! Each new mystery held something else new and completely terrifying for a little kid! And that purple goo in some of the episodes scared the hell out of me and my sister. You can't imagine how insanely awesome this show is. If you're a little kid looking for a show, or an teen/adult looking for a blast from the past, you'll love Ghostwriter.

Kids saving New York from weird and terrible beings, come on, what's not to love, no matter who you are! And if you're a girl ages 7-10 you'll find Alex incredibly hot! I had the biggest crush on him when I was little.

The acting is pretty good too for a bunch of kids in the 90's.

My siblings and I fell in love with the show as did our parents. We ate dinner in front of the television once a week to watch it. In a world were television is full of violence and gore this is important for kids to see wholesome television. I still rent the videos show it to the kids I baby sit.

This show was my all time favorite growing up, I'd stay up at 6:00 in the morning just to watch the reruns. I don't remember most of the episodes, because i was so young at the time. But it was one of the best shows of the early and mid 90's. One of my favorite episodes was where the gang contacts a girl and her adoptive brother through Ghostwriter. I must confess, I miss the 90's. They had better shows and let's face it, it was fun being involved in the boy band craze(Backstreet Boys vs. N*SYNC). So anybody who doesn't like Ghostwriter, that's fine, but I really don't understand why you would hate it at all. I give it a 10/10. One of the best.

I love this show. It has mysteries along in Brooklyn, New York. But I haven't seen this one episode of Ghostwriter, "What's up with Alex?" This show, in the year 2001, is shown on the network "Noggin". I hope it goes on another network soon so I can see the episode I listed above. The members of the team are: Jamal Jenkins, Lenni Frasier, Alex Fernandez, Gaby Fernandez, Tina Nguyen, Rob Baker, Hector Carrero, and Casey Austin. The team list is shown in the order they saw Ghostwriter.

This was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. After recently seeing it on 'Noggin/The-N' i was able to appreciate it a bit more. The mysteries were original, and had good morals to them. Each 'mystery' consisted of 4 episodes. The episodes consisted of the mystery, and another side story about one of the characters. I thought it helped bring along the characters and storyline. One of my favorites was 'Max Mouse'. The ending was kind of a twist that you could predict, but it still ended very well. The Series was very good, but near the end of its run, you could start to feel its aging (especially when they started replacing actors with new ones). Overall, I love this show. It was a great show that I highly reccomend...if you can find it on TV again since it was taken of 'Noggin/The-N'

I loved watching Ghostwriter when I was little. It was a mystery show for kids where this ghost would help solve mysteries by reading clues, and would appear to the kids only as words/text. The idea was great, but I've come to realize the acting wasn't very good.

On another note, I was just watching the premier episode of Real World Philadelphia, and noticed that William "Willie" Hernandez is on it. He is now around 23, and is a personal shopper. He said that his passion, though, is not in shopping, but in the arts. When he was a kid he played Hector on "Ghostwriter." Turned out to be a pretty good looking guy!

Hey, remember GhostWriter, that show with the little thumb print thing that floated around and solved mysteries with these five or six "hip" kids back in the early nineties (you can tell that the kids are "hip" because they wore their neon orange hats to one side and listened to non-threatening rap music)? Yeah, umm...you remember that?

So anyway, that show was awesome. They'd be all "oh no, some kids joined a "gang" and are participating in the use of NARCOTICS like MARIJUANA!!" and then the thumb print would spell out something like "Only you can prevent forest fires" or whatever the hell it was that he spelled. What was that thing's purpose anyway? "He can't see, and he can't talk, but he can read anything" was the description. Aside from the fact that it doesn't make sense if he can't see but can read, I have the ability to do all three... and so did all of the other kids for that matter (except for Hector, who was a dumbass. We'll get to that later). So what makes GhostWriter such a great partner? Hey, now that I think about it, the show wasn't awesome at all. It was terrible.

But what I must commend the show for would be the opening theme music, where they also established the plot. They would have like a line of poorly-edited "made to sound like a record is being scratched", then a line of talking. I liked that part.

"Guh-guh-guh-guh...GhostWriter! w-w-w-w-woooooord"

"He's this thumb print smudge that we couldn't get off the film, so we made it into a character"

"w-w-w-wooord...."

Yeah, and remember Grandma Jenkins, Jamal's grandmother? Man, she always knew what to say! ...And wait a minute, that's the same woman that claims to be NFL superstar Donovan McNabb's "mother" in those chunky soup ads! You know, where he's doing a commercial and she barges in and feeds him and the director gets p***ed and then she sprays him with the shaving cream? Yeah, that's her! What a scam.

So anyway, I remember how Grandma Jenkins was always helping them solve mysteries and stuff by bringing Jamal some Chunky Soup at the most inappropriate times,and he'd be all "moooom!" (even though she was his grandma, go figure.) and she'd be like "Chunky souuuuuup!" and the director goes "momma, you can fill him up right after I film him up right!" and then she assaults him with the shaving cream. Hilarious! And then she'd be the principal of that school with those kids on that awful TV show. (no, not GhostWriter, ja ja ja...). I can't remember the name now. it's on NBC if you wake up early on Saturday. Eh, screw it.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I liked GhostWriter as a kid, because the kids were so real. So down-to-earth. You know how they say Sex & The City is how women really talk? Well it's the same thing with GhostWriter: That's how women really talk...or something. They'd be all "Reading is fun! I always carry my library card" and I'd be all "oh man, it's like they're projecting my life onto the TV screen!" Amazing, really.

Oh oh, remember the character of Gaby? She was this Hispanic girl for a while, and then she suddenly turned fat and not Hispanic, but the rest of her family stayed the same ethnicity. That was weird. Just one day, she's there and they're all "Buenos dias, Gaby" and she's all "hi" (because you know that she can't speak Spanish) and then she made her way over to the food.

And what about Hector? Can't forget about him. I remember this one part of dialogue from the show where Hector got a letter and (this part of my essay I am actually not making up) it went like this:

LETTER: (written on paper) "you cannot see me with your eyes, but can you find out my disguise?"

HECTOR: (trying to sound out 'disguise') "Dis-Kweez? Man, this guy writes some weird letters"

JAMAL: "Hahah. What a dumb f***!" ...And then GhostWriter wrote something or solved a mystery.

(note- I'm sorry. I forgot how the rest of that dialogue went, so I started making things up, thereby breaking my promise, not that you care.)

Oh, and remember how they would always try to incorporate Lenni singing in all the episodes, but she sucked? Why did they keep doing it? I could see the producers the first couple of times like "She sucks" "...yup." but after a while they should have told her stupid parents to stop hanging around the set and forcing her to sing & tap dance all the time. Honestly.

So, in conclusion, this didn't have a point. So there is no conclusion.

I really liked this show. I've seen all the episodes when Ghostwriter was on PBS. Now this year, apparently Nickelodeon has the airing rights to Ghostwriter and its spin off channel Noggin. I've seen Ghostwriter on Nickelodeon today (May 3, 2001) I guess the time was around 6:00 6:30 AM EDT. So anyone who misses Ghostwriter and has cable, see Ghostwriter on Nickelodeon and if your cable provider has Noggin (Nick's educational channel) you can see Ghostwriter on that channel too, check your local TV listings for times and days. This show was one of the best all time coolest mystery show that I've seen and it's a really great show.

I remember when I was young watching this on PBS. It wasn't the same sparkled shows meant for the demographic. With a little rewritting, it could have easily made it in primetime (don't flame me for it, with a budget and better direction, along with some slightly more mature storys, it could survive). The stories were fairly good, but a little aged by today's standards (the one with the whole hackers thing).

It even seemed like a sub-plot between plots was forming with that rob person, if I remeber right that is, in the middle of its run, but thats just me. There was so much more potential with it, like wtf is ghostwriter (beyond the little summary it gives). Another thing is, the characters had more depth then most children show charaters. I sure miss the show (watched on noggin when I got it, o well).

A notch above the rest

A team of kids in New York City have a secret friend whom they call Ghostwriter! They'd check out clues and solve mysteries. This was my favorite show from age 8-13. Even now they show the original episodes on Noggin, which unfortunately I don't have. But I remember the spirit of the show, the uniqueness of it all. I had a crush on Alex, played by David Lopez. My sister and I were such fans we'd create our own unique notebooks and pens and seek mysteries of our own. We'd watch the show religiously and our parents knew not to disturb us haha. If possible, I hope to find and buy the entire series on either DVD or VHS because of the wonderful memories, plus it would be nice to keep and own a part of my history from that time in my life.

When I was younger, "Ghostwriter" was the best show on television. I watched it faithfully every Sunday afternoon on PBS. Looking back on it now, some ten years later, I've realized that some of the shows are outdated and others had certain "innuendos."

I absolutely loved how the creator captured the diversity of the group and how it reflected NYC culture. The kids were very intelligent and insightful. Contrary to popular belief, kids are that deep at that age. I grew up right along with the "GW Team." It was a nice side track from "Degrassi High," which became a little too serious.

Anywho, what I'm starting to catch now are the little innuendos I never thought to see ten years ago. For example, "Building Bridges" (the one with Victor) definitely had some homosexual characteristics. "To Catch a Creep" deals with loneliness and racial tension. Some of these issues are still pertinent in today's society, but others were just a little hokey.