THE GHOSTBUSTERS TRY VIGILANTISM

Ghost Busted

Original Air date: October 22, 1987^[1]

Writer: Michael Reaves

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 Ghostbusters are sitting around with no work.  There haven’t been any ghost sightings in weeks and they fear they are on the brink of bankruptcy.  The only way to save any money is if they all decide to get jobs.  So the Ghostbusters and Janine all try this and strike out.  Every job they get they prove to be incompetent at—except Janine who is the one person there who is qualified for a real job—and are very quickly fired. 

Peter is begging not to have to get a "real" job.

                While this is going on, Slimer is out looking for food and encounters a local thief who cons Slimer into helping him.  The Ghostbusters discover this and when the thief tries to run away, Peter blasts an fire escape that helps bag the crook.  The Ghostbusters are proud of Peter and very happy to collect the reward money.  This gets them thinking that if they alter their equipment that instead of hunting ghosts they could hunt criminals.

Fellow Ghostbusters not impressed with Peter's begging.

                The next day a group of thieves gets the surprise of their life when they find themselves being chased not by the cops but by Ecto-1.  They pull over and get out of their car only to find that the Ghostbusters are chasing them on foot.  The Ghostbusters blast the criminals with their proton guns freezing them in place, then they roll out the trap and when it opens it generates and energy cage allowing them to be held until the police come and pick them up.

Customer service is not Egon's specialty.

                How does the city react to the Ghostbusters becoming lawless vigilantes?  The City celebrates, everyone is happy to see the newly dubbed “Crimebusters” going the war against crime.  The Mayor gives them his personal endorsement.  And the Ghostbusters are rolling in the dough because as a privatized police force they found they can make a lot of money.  They change their symbol to a crook in the “no” sign and this becomes their primary source of income.

Who are you going to call? Not the cops!

                Their success however upsets the top mafia boss, known as the Crime Lord, who is upset they are doing so much damage to his business.  He decided to retaliate and when the Crimebusters get home they find that Janine has been kidnapped and a ransom note says they must give up their crime hunting activity or they will never see Janine again.

Who is the first person to make sure Janine's okay? Yeah that's right.

                Egon just alters his PKE meter to Janine’s bio-rhythm and they find her in an abandoned train station pretty darn quick being guarded by three guys.  The Crimebusters beat them easy and rescue Janine.  They then go to the Crime Lord’s headquarters and confront him.  But the Crime Lord thought of this and has a glass shield that protects from the Crimebusters’ weapons.  He tried to escape by helicopter but the Crimebusters hunted him down in Ecto-2 and blew him out the sky forcing him to land.

                Later the Crimebusters are back where they started.  They sit around the station with no calls.  Egon reports that they have seemingly wiped out all the crime in New York.  They then get a call about a ghost.  They rebrand themselves the Ghostbusters and head out on the call.  Janine and Slimer change the sign back to the original.  Elsewhere the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is walking around and winks at the audience. 

My Take: Of all the episodes I have re-watched so far this one is by far the funniest.  The first chase scene when the Ghostbusters are using their newly altered equipment was hysterical, the crooks has no clue about what to do.

                Now for my stray observations:

·         No money again.  Someone other than Peter needs to be in charge of the finances, he is a good bill collector but he shouldn’t be in charge of the budget.  Where does their money go?

·         I like the line Peter made about his dad, good follow up to an earlier episode.

·         What exactly is Janine’s and Winston’s relationship to the Ghostbusters organization?  I always thought that the first three owned it outright and the other two were just hired help.  When they’re out getting jobs to help keep the Ghostbusters afloat does that mean is Winston and Janine are getting jobs to help their other job pay them?  Or at some point did the three original Ghostbusters sell the two shares in the company?  Maybe during one of their down swings when it may have been cheap?

·         Destroy a fire escape to catch a petty theft and get paid for it?  Damn destructive Ghostbusters are almost never held accountable.

·         Did they run this idea by the Mayor before hunting crooks or where they just always vigilantes?

·         Next time they are slow on business they should lend themselves out to missing persons, think how many people they could find by using the PKE meter to pick up their bio-rhythms.

·         As the Crimebusters it was nice to let see them fight with non-lethal weapons.  However if big city cops had this equipment I think they would still find a way to kill ethnic minorities for big crimes such as selling cigarettes in the wrong location.

·         Ecto-2 didn’t look right and what was worst was the Crimebusters trying to blow the Crime Lord out of the sky! He's not a ghost what if he crashes on somebody?

·         I laughed for five straight minutes when Egon announced they had “got rid of all the crime in New York.”  Yeah imagine that, we do good work alright.

·         How the hell did the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man get out of the Containment Unit?

I highly recommend this episode it is nonstop laughs.

---

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