MEET PETER’S DAD

Venkman's Ghost Repellers

Original Air date: October 20, 1987^[1]

Writer: Richard Mueller

Director: Dale Schott

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 ship at sea sailing through a thick fog.  The captain fears it may be the New Jersey Parallelogram and his ship disappears.  Back at the station Ray thinks the New Jersey Parallelogram is something they should look into.  Peter rejects this ides because there would be no one to pay them and the last thing he wants to do is go out in the middle of the ocean for free.  At this point Janine walks in with a new red poncho, to Peter’s horror; she reveals it to be marked as a Venkman Ghost Repeller.

Janine gives Peter some bad news with her new fashion. 

                Peter is upset that his con artist father is using his status as a ghostbuster to sell phony products that don’t work.  Peter proves their uselessness with a test from Slimer who passes through the poncho with ease.  A few moments later Peter’s father, Charles, does show up and Peter gets into an argument with him and makes him promise not to sell any more products with his name on them.  Charles reluctantly agrees and leaves, which causes Peter to feel a little sorry for his father.

Peter is not impressed with his father right now.

                Later the Ghostbusters are on a regular mission, but unknown to them Charles Venkman is selling his Ghost Repellers to Dr. Mulch of the MS Applegon , whose science expedition is sailing out to study the New Jersey Parallelogram .  The Repellers don’t work and the ship vanishes.

Yeah, is not really honest.

                A few days later the Coast Guard shows up with looking to hire them for help finding the Applegon.  Peter tries to refuse but the officer tells him about the Ghost Repellers, and the Ghostbusters are off.  Also Charles Venkman hears what happened and in a moment of remorse takes a boat out to find the missing ship.

Uh-oh, the New Jersey Parallelogram

                The Ghostbusters head out In a Coast Guard cutter to find the missing ship.  Sure enough they get caught in the New Jersey Parallelogram, however now that they are inside Egon adjusts the PKE meter to scan for non-supernatural matter and this leads the Ghostbusters to the missing ship.  They are able to tow (despite the fact that there is no water they are still sailing) the missing ship back.  After they do they are informed by the crew that they saw the elder Venkman also trapped, and an empty boat that came out with them belonged to him.

Looking for the people that Peter's dad lost.

                The Ghostbusters decide go to find Peter’s father.  The Ghostbusters take the speed boat and head back into the New Jersey Parallelogram.  In there they dodge the Bismarck and find themselves in dome structure.  There Peter’s father is being harassed by ghosts, the Ghostbusters do their thing and start blasting them.  They manage to destroy the dome structure which in turn destroys the New Jersey Parallelogram. 

                Later back at the station, Peter gets a note from his dad telling him he is trying to sell ice makers to Eskimos.

My Take: This was a great episode.  We learned in X-Mas Marks the Spot that Peter had a very negative relationship with his father that was so bad it ruined the very idea of Christmas for him.  Every Christmas instead of being with his family he was off doing another con job.  Peter wouldn’t like it but part of his father’s sleaziness rubbed off, when we first met him Peter was using a science experiment to hit on a co-ed.  There is also an interesting moment where he just feels bad for his father.  “He is not really a bad guy; he just can’t make an honest buck.”

                Now for my stray observations:

• The New Jersey Parallelogram, hilarious!
• Slimer showing how useful having him around is for experiments.
• Egon changes the PKE meter to detect normal matter, however we often notice it blow up when overloaded so why wasn’t it frying before the switch?
• Speaking of which, if Egon switched it to normal matter should they find a lot of lost things?
• How the Hell the Bismarck get there?  It sank in the North Atlantic eastern side. Interesting trivia, when the episode came out the Bismarck’s wreck hadn’t been discovered yet.
• The New Jersey Parallelogram was very easy to destroy.

·                                A very enjoyable episode, it makes you feel a little bad for Peter.

 [1] Listed original air dates for entire syndicated season may not be correct.