THIS GUY ON GHOSTBUSTERS HAS MY NAME AND HE’S A TOTAL DICK

Ragnarok and Roll

Original Air date: September 16, 1987^[1]

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski

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 4 of 5)

Summary:  A person who is named Jeremy like me is traveling with his good friend Di Tillio. Jeremy is young and handsome while his companion is dwarfish and seemingly has deformed facial features.  As Jeremy approaches a temple he pulls out a picture of a young woman and declares that there is too much pain in the world.  He begins reciting a spell and his given a flute.  With this magic flute Jeremy begins playing the Symphony of Destruction with that the sky turns dark and the Dark Entity’s face appears in the sky.  Jeremy’s appearance has changed as well.  His skin has turned blue and he no longer has his nose just two slits.  Jeremy sends emissaries throughout the world to insure its destruction.  He says he will complete the ritual at home in New York City.

Jeremy and his life buddy Di Tillio.

Jeremy has a new boss

                With this sudden activity the Ghostbusters are trying to figure out what is causing it. Looking at a map and judging where they had a lot of odd jobs recently Egon sees that there is an apartment in the middle of it.  They go to visit the apartment they find a young woman named Cindy.  It turns out Cindy got a scroll in the mail from her ex-boyfriend and she couldn’t read it.  Egon however can and when he does he finds that the scroll says only one word, “Ragnarok” which means Doomsday.  Egon decides to scan it with his PKE meter.  This causes it to overloads to the point where it explodes.  Fortunately, Egon throws it out the window just in time. Cindy tells the four men that her ex-boyfriend wanted to get married but she wasn’t ready and wanted to focus on her career first. This drove him into genocidal rage.

...and a new face.

The Ghostbusters learn of a tragic tale, she fell for a creepy stalker. Law and Order SVU is still over a decade away.

                As the Ghostbusters look for Jeremy they find their proton packs don’t have much effect on these monsters.  They find Jeremy on top of a building but he is now so powerful their weapons have no effect on him.  They decide to rig their packs to explode that will destroy the top of building and hopefully Jeremy as well.  This of course will result in their deaths.  Fortunately for them Cindy shows up teams up with Di Tillio and they show Jeremy what a creep he has been.  Jeremy then changes his tune literally and begins to play the song of life with his flute.  The Dark Entity tries to stop him by blasting Jeremy with lighting, but he still plays and weakens the creature.  This allows the Ghostbusters to use their weapons on the creature driving it back to its own dimension.  Jeremy relying on the strength of those around him completes the song of life, undoing all the damage that was done both to world and to him.

The moment the Ghostbusters realize that they probably are going to have to die to save the world.  Don't even hesitate. 

My Take: Okay so I have a character with my name on my favorite childhood TV show.  So what is he like? Well, he is one of the worst people in the world.  This Jeremy, who speaks with a Southern accent despite calling New York City his “home,” is clearly set up as the villain or at least main antagonist from the start.  The first thing I thought when I saw Jeremy pull out Cindy’s picture was that Cindy was dead and Jeremy was trying to connect with the ghost world to get her back (this is the Ghostbusters, after all).  I did for a moment wonder if maybe she was still alive and dying and therefore Jeremy’s path to the dark side would be kind of like Darth Vader or Mr. Freeze.  No such luck.  We later learn that Cindy is still alive and well. 

So if Cindy is alive what is up with Jeremy?  It turns out Jeremy wanted to get married and Cindy wasn’t ready to settle down just yet.  She wanted to explore a career first.  That’s right Cindy didn’t die, wasn’t dying, and didn’t cruelly break his heart.  She just didn’t want to get married, right now.  She may want to get married later but just not right now.  Cindy didn’t break up with Jeremy she just wanted to put their marriage plans on temporary hold.  But to Jeremy that was the straw that made him give up on the world.  So not only is Jeremy wrong, he is pathetic.

Jeremy, “Hon, let’s get married.”

Cindy, “Well, Jeremy being married to you would be nice but I don’t know if I am ready yet.  I would like to finish school, and get a job so I can get on my own two feet…”

Cuts her off, “You bitch, you heartless bitch!”

Normally this would end in some sort of domestic violence and/or stalker situation.  But this is a kids’ cartoon about Ghostbusters so instead we will do something far worse.  Jeremy is going to become a genocidal manic who is out to wipe out all of humanity.  And it was all because his girlfriend wouldn’t marry him when he wanted.

Di Tillio tells Jeremy he is a dick.

Cindy tells Jeremy he's a dick.

Jeremy suddenly realizes he's dick.

Now he tries to undo it.

  The Ghostbusters themselves came off great.  Their final stand was very heroic.  Realizing the only way they could stop they psychotic flute player was to set their packs to explode and take out the building they were all in they don’t hesitate.  Laughing in the face danger and letting each other know that they will seek each other out on the other side.  Then under his breath Egon udders Janine’s name and that brings me to another point.

The fact that you were able to undo all the damage you did makes us forgive you.  However you are still a dick.

The Ghostbusters are trying to balance their happiness of not having to die with their disgust of Jeremy the giant dick. 

The one downside to the show as a children’s cartoon is the characters are always static.  They don’t grow or change so everything always remains the same. Janine seems to desire Egon who doesn’t always notice.  Yet I find their relationship to be the most fascinating one on the show.  You have Janine who is written as an attractive and capable young woman and as such should not have any difficulty finding a boyfriend. (Except for the fact that she seems to dedicate 22 hours of every day, seven days week, to the Ghostbusters.) Janine isn’t desperate for a man, but she is desperate for a man.  Her mad crush on Egon is amusing in a sense because if she wanted any other Ghostbuster or just a boyfriend in general she could rather easily.  Yet Egon is a clearly on the spectrum (I think a full blown Aspie) and he just doesn’t get it.  All of Janine’s normal strategies to attract a man just don’t work because Egon isn’t normal.  The utter tragedy is Egon does love Janine back but he has no idea how to express it.  He doesn’t fall in love often and the feelings are unusual for him.  Normal displays and declaration of affection make him very uncomfortable, and yet when he thought he was going to die there is only one person that he thought of.

For all of Janine frustrations with Egon, you notice she doesn’t take it on other people, at no point does she develop genocidal ideas and seek to make them reality.  Since Jeremy’s one redeeming trait was he was able to undo all the bad he did by playing a different tune on his magic flute it won't be necessary to send him to prison.  Maybe they should bring him back to the firehouse so he can learn something from Janine.           

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