Hello Jason,
I believe it is because of the magic_quotes is enabled in your site. When turned on, magic_quotes automatically performs an addslashes () on all form data submitted. This means that a [\] is placed before every ['], ["], [\], or null in the data, so That's Great would be converted to That\'s Great automatically. This all happens before your coding even sees that data, so if you're just passing a string to the next page (and not to a database) it will print out with slashes even though you may not want them. Can you check the magic_quotes in your site is it turn on or off. Joomla > Site > System Information > php info > (search for magic_quotes). If the magic_quotes is enable, can you contact your web hosting provider to turn it off? Please keep us updated.
Hope this will help.
Thanks.