THE MAKING OF THE GHOSTBUSTERS!

Take Two

Original Air date: November 15, 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: A reporter and a group of fans are lined up for the Ghostbusters before they leave New York for California.  Yet the Ghostbusters don’t show up.  Realizing their private jet won’t leave without them they decide to spend their time fighting ghosts.  After driving by the firehouse to say good bye to Janine, Slimer joins them without their knowledge.  The Ghostbusters arrive at the airport to discover an angry reporter and no crowd, seeing as they all went home.  The Ghostbusters then board their plane and leave for Los Angeles.

Got a plane to catch? Hell no, we got ghosts to catch!

                When they get to Los Angeles they given a tour of the studio, talk about the movie (that is made very apparent to the reader the movie they are making is the original Ghostbusters film from 1984), and they accidentally blast an electronic movie monster that was the main villain in another movie that was being made.  This causes the Ghostbusters to get in a fight with a load mouth director.

Going over the script? Who is this Aykroyd fellow?

                After Peter puts the director in his place the Ghostbusters decided to put their proton packs away before they can blast anything else on the various sets.  Unknown to them a Sleeper ghost wakes up and is mad about the noise.  It possesses the movie monster and begins to attack everything.  The Ghostbusters get their packs only to discover that they were swapped with the props from the Ghostbusters movie. 

Don't wake a sleeping ghost.

                Having to run away they use their PKE meters to search for their proton packs.  They split into two groups Egon and Peter find their packs while Ray and Winton found the ghost.  Good news is the find each other and unite against the movie monster.  Egon figures out it’s a sleeper ghost and reasons he can negotiate for the ghost to surrender by speaking to it in sign language.  The ghost is about to surrender but the load mouth director shows up and makes a lot of noise.  This forces the Ghostbusters to catch him the old fashioned way.  Karma wins when the director’s movie monster falls apart killing his project.

Egon talks it out before the stupid director ruined it for them.

                The Ghostbusters finish up the episode going to watch the 1984 film Ghostbusters.  Peter notes that Bill Murray doesn’t look like him. 

Slimer, be quiet we're watching a movie about us! Oh, you don't come out too good.

My Take:  There is a lot of fun in this episode.  I remember seeing this episode a few times as a kid.  The first time was before I saw the movie and the other times were after.  It’s definitely better to see this with having seen the film because there is so much to appreciate.  The story concept makes a lot of sense.  You have the world famous Ghostbusters and Hollywood is going to make a movie about their lives.  Basically they are making a film about how the Ghostbusters came to be, so in other words their making classic 1984 movie Ghostbusters!

Now for my stray observations:

·         Didn’t they have answering machines in the 1980s? Poor Janine she deserves to go to California too!

·          What did Peter say to make that stewardess so mad?  I hope the cows like the clothes.

·         “What are these guys a law firm?”

·          Okay, who is this director?  I am assuming Straczynski’s basing him on a jerk he knows.

·         Shouldn’t the prop proton backs resemble the ones from the movie?

·         Egon, who already knows the ghost is a sleeper somehow, says they'll do the ghost a favor by putting it in their Containment Unit because it's the most quiet place in the world.  Who is he kidding?  We saw in the peep hole last episode there are a lot of ghosts in there and they aren’t the quiet type.

·         Egon knows sign language as well as troll.

·         I wish they showed a few more scenes from the movie while watching it on the show.  It was quite fun watching their reactions.  

An all-around great episode, wonderful characterization, brilliant movie tie in, and a fun ghost to fight.