DREAM ME A LITTLE DREAM

Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream

Original Air date: October 25, 1986

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski

Director: Richard Raynis

Main Cast:

• ·         Lorenzo Music as Peter Venkman 
• ·         Frank Welker as Raymond Stantz 
• ·         Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler 
• ·         Arsenio Hall as Winston Zeddemore 
• ·         Laura Summer as Janine Melnitz 
• ·         Frank Welker as Slimer

(Rating 5 of 5)

Summary: The episode begins with a husband-and-wife pair arguing over what to do for the afternoon.  The wife wants her husband to come join her for tennis but her husband wants to stay home and read his old comic books.  While his wife is getting ready to leave he is attacked by mysterious stranger.  His wife is then attacked by a character that he was reading about.

Maybe he should have left with the wife.

                At the firehouse the Ghostbusters are having their breakfast.  An exhausted Peter, who hasn’t got enough sleep, joins them.  Peter complains about a strange dream he had about dark figure with glowing eyes and at that moment Ray chooses to let him know of some advice his aunt once gave him.  Ray explains that if you remind yourself that you are dreaming you can control your dream.

Fighting Comic Boy's dream.

Janine sounds the alarm and the Ghostbusters on a case. When they get to the job the Ghostbusters  find it odd that no one is outside.   When they enter the building they are attack by a weird alien who they destroy with their proton packs.  That leads them to believe they’re fighting something that is not a ghost.  They notice the married couple floating in the air and Egon is immediately suspicious.  Winston notices the comic book lying on the floor and that the creature they just fought was on the cover.  Looking outside they see lots of really strange things such as magical unicorns, flying cartoon characters, and more mysterious aliens. Egon immediately concludes that they are dealing with a sandman and one using very powerful sleep dust.  The others are skeptical but go along with it.

Dreams of a mailman.

When they get outside the Ghostbusters continue to see more strange things such as a letter arguing with a mailbox where it wants to be sent and then they nearly get stepped on by a new Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.  At this point they run to the Sandman himself.  The Sandman explains that he’s sick of humanity fighting wars and so is will put everybody sleep for 500 years to get humanity to correct itself.  Sandman is also somewhat defensive about what he’s doing telling them that he’s been dismissed as a rebel but he’s convinced his cause is just.  The Ghostbusters and the Sandman battle and they seem to have him on the run although the only thing they do is damage his outfit.  The Sandman then turns the dreams to nightmares and has them all attack the Ghostbusters. The Ghostbusters decide the need to get back to Ecto-1 which is being guarded by an evil giant rabbit.  Ray blasts the rabbit and it disappears.  They get into the car but it refuses the start, so Ray goes out to check under the hood but he is ambushed by the Sandman and put to sleep.  As the other Ghostbusters look on Winston wonders what Ray is dreaming about, and  then they hear something fall. They all run out of the Ecto-1 as a giant pizza lands on it. 

Angry dreams

The three remaining Ghostbusters travel on foot and use the PKE meter to find the Sandman in an apartment building.  A sleeping dragon is in front and the Ghostbusters try to sneak round it, but it wakes up and they are forced to blast it.  Egon wanted to avoid that because doing so sends a red flag to the Sandman to their location and sure enough in the apartment building Peter is nabbed by the Sandman and begins dreaming of cars and prizes.  

Nabs Egon, down to one Ghostbuster

Egon and Winston get out and find the Sandman, during the battle Egon figures out that Ray had already discovered the answer but before he can communicate to Winston he is also nailed by the Sandman.  Egon dreams of Albert Einstein who appears and talks to Winston.  Winston is feeling down, as the average joe Ghostbuster he is unsure of himself, however he quickly understands what Egon meant and he races to the firehouse.  At the station he gets Janine a proton back and lays it on the table.  The Sandman shows up and battles the two knocking out Janine with his dust.  He is about to corner Winston when Janine dreams of herself as a Ghostbuster who grabs her proton pack and sacks the Sandman when he is not looking.  Winston joins in and Slimer emerges from the desk with a trap, the Sandman goes down and all the people wake up and the dream creations are gone.  

Dream Janine

At the end when the Ghostbusters are celebrating, Janine explains that Winston told her to imagine herself as Ghostbuster and the Sandman thinking she was done for was unprepared for the attack.  They go to find Winston to see if he wants to join the party but he is asleep. 

Hero's rest

My Take: It was quite a treat to see that my two favorite episodes as kid were aired back to back.  This episode is a lot of fun with the dream creatures running around, the Ghostbusters fighting a mysterious Sandman, and getting picked off one by one.   This was a great character episode for Winston.  He wasn’t there when the team started, he was hired on when they got more work.  He also doesn’t have the same background that they do, he wasn’t a scientist, he was a job seeker who didn’t let the Ghostbusters strangeness scare him away.  You always have to wonder how he feels about that.  When Egon goes down he starts to feel a lot of doubt about his own abilities.  Even though that’s not really justified for example in the episode “Killerwatt” he the first one to realize the power had to be cut to stop him.  Yet, he somehow can’t shake that new guy feeling.  I liked that he figured it all out and tricked the Sandman.

Now for some of my stray observations:

·         Dude, go out with your wife. You can always read those comics when you get back.

·         Peter had a strange dream and describes the Sandman, was this a premonition on Peter’s part or was he legitimately visited by a non-rebellious sandman?

·         Ray isn’t the only one who thinks of Stay Puft

·         The Sandman was a really cool villain.  He seemed to have some mental problems, he was always talking to himself, seeking the approval of others while simultaneously not wanting to have anyone around to talk to for fear they might laugh at him.  He seems to be the ultimate pacifist wanting to make people have 500 year naps to stop war.  However what happens when someone dreams of war?  I did see what looked like World War II aircraft.  Also like Gozer, Sandman seems to be a big Emperor Palpatine fan.  Gozer did force lighting, while the Sandman just dressed like him.

·         I love the fact that early in the episode Egon just knew it was a sandman by basic observation; the other Ghostbusters were equally as impressed.  We don’t need to solve a mystery Egon already knows it’s a Sandman.

·         Same destructive Ghostbusters every time they miss they blow something up.

·         When Winston and Janine are preparing for the Sandman he tells her that he is giving her their last proton pack.  With exception to the occasional returning villain, these episodes are made with the idea that you can watch them any real order and not get messed up.  Nevertheless the statement provides some continuity with the Boogieman episode where they blew up their four proton packs.  If each Ghostbuster has a spare and plus one that would make nine.  So if they blew up four than it would make some sense that they would be down to just five for now.

·         Glad to see the supporting characters of Janine and Slimer bust a ghost.  The scene where dream Janine takes down the Sandman was really cool.  I remember my little sisters like that scene a lot.  When the new movie comes out this year the idea of a female Ghostbuster is no longer going to be a dream.

A great episode all around.