HAUNTED STEEL

Lost and Foundry

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

Writer: Mark Edward Edens

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 hunting an average ghost in a steel mill.  This is a dangerous place for a team that is as destructive as the Ghostbusters.  They chase the ghost and blast him forcing the ghost to land in the molten steel with more poring on him.  The ghost seems to have disintegrated in the steel.  Ray thinks it’s weird but the rest of the team declares it a win, little did they know they just bought themselves a world of trouble.

The Ghost prior to taking a steel bath.

                Back at the firehouse they catch Slimer trying on one of Winston’s uniforms, Winston is good humored about it and thought Slimer looked cute.  Peter wanted to give Slimer a trap to play with hoping he would get caught in it.  Slimer gets mad an accidentally fires the particle thrower.  The proton blast destroys their pole.  So Peter has Janine call the steel factory looking for a new one.

Slimer ready to roll.

                The next day the Ghostbusters are called to a department store.  It turns out the refrigerator just got up and walked off.  Thinking this was a false alarm and the employees just misplaced the refrigerator, they would later learn that this was the first of many problems.  As they went outside they saw cables come to life and start attacking some cable techs. The Ghostbusters blasted the cables forcing the cables to retreat.  As they traveled the city they were attacked by flying nails from a hardware story and in an art museum a modern art show’s pieces started attacking everyone.   At a construction site the Ghostbusters almost get themselves killed fighting girders.

Peter needs to get lucky.

When they returned to the firehouse they found themselves being called out again and Peter tried the new pole and was attacked by it. The Ghostbusters forced the pole to retreat. Egon has now figured out everything that had happened.  That the ghost they fought earlier was divided into the metal.

He does!

The ghost was trying to reunite itself.  The Ghostbusters tracked it to a junk yard.  The ghost now had a giant metal body.  They tried to blast it apart but it reassembled.  At one point Ray crushed it in a compactor but that also failed because it could still restore itself.  Finally, Peter got it accidentally with a giant magnet.  With the steel ghost trapped with the magnet they brought it back to the steel mill to melt the medal, free the ghost, and then trap it traditionally.

My Take:  This was a very fun episode.  The Ghostbusters having to run around town as things go haywire and they have no idea why because the PKE meter is having trouble reading anything. The ghost’s signature has been spread across the steel so that blocked the normal readings.

                Now for my stray observations:

·         Those damn destructive Ghostbusters.  All I could think about at start of the episode was them ending up in a Darth Vader suit because of all the hot steal flying everywhere. 

·         The ghost disintegrates in the steel and they choose to let it go, didn’t they learn anything from the chemical plant.

·         Slimer needs to learn to take a joke.

·         As a cable company employee I would like to inform Peter that the cable company doesn’t choose the content programming.  The content provider does that, the cable company only provides access to the stations.

·         That nail damage to the Eco-1 got fixed awful fast.  Do they have pit crew or something that follows them around to fix their car?

·         Lucky hole (You know what scene I’m talking about.)

·         Peter saves the day.  Good for Peter.

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