Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster
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
4 of 5)
Summary: The
Ghostbusters are non-stop busy with job after job coming in. This is good for profit margin; however Egon
feels that something greater must be up for he cannot even turn on his PKE
meter without it over heating on him.
Throughout all of this Janine has her own problem with apartment being haunted. She asks the Ghostbusters to take care of it, and they add her apartment to the
list but it will be awhile because they are so busy.
When
Janine gets back to her apartment the room is upside down. Her personal life is continuously plagued by
her ghost tormentors. The next day she
has had it. She rehearses as speech that
she is going to lecture the guys on her benefits, but when she gets there they
are still out on jobs. So she grabs one
of Peter’s spare uniforms, a proton pack, and a trap. Shen then heads home.
 |
| Sometimes you have to bust your own apartment's ghosts. |
While
this is going on the Ghostbusters are still battling and losing to the forces
that have emerged against them. An Atlas
statue comes to life and is immune to their weapons. Finally Atlas aims its finger at the
Ghostbusters and a beam comes out and the Ghostbusters vanish.
Janine
is also losing her battle with her apartment ghosts. The ghosts have her wrapped in a blanket and
have disarmed her. Slimer however comes
to the rescue by placing a ghost trap in the middle of the room, hiding behind
a couch and stretching his arm out to activated it. The ghosts are sucked up and Janine is saved.
As she
returns to the firehouse and sees a news report about how the Ghostbusters have
vanished. She and Slimer go out to look
for them. When she gets to the scene she
talks to a news reporter and then she continues her search. With no luck at the site she returns to the firehouse and has Slimer go
into the Containment Unit to see if the newly captured ghosts have any
information. Slimer comes back with a name, Proteus, and a location. Janine uses that information to figure out which building Proteus is probably using.
 |
| Now you stay in the Containment Unit. |
 |
| Proteus the good looking bad guy. |
 |
| Yeah, but he isn't because the song is now playing. |
At the
end of the episode Janine earned a raise and a promise from the Ghostbusters
that her apartment will always be kept ghost free, except for Slimer.
 |
| The Ghostbusters are safe especially Egon. |
My Take: I
thought this was a good episode. It
allowed the spotlight to be on the two recurring supporting characters: Janine
and Slimer. I do have some complaints
about parts of the episode. The first
part that annoyed me was the Ghostbusters careless attitude towards Janine’s
plight. They might as well have said to
her “Sorry, maybe you should just get a bed in the firehouse, if you didn’t have an
apartment it couldn’t get haunted in the first place.” Janine maybe their receptionist, but she is
one of them. And if ghosts think they
can park their butts and harass the Ghostbusters’ own employee in her home with
impunity, then all ghosts know that the Ghostbusters are not be feared. (And that is my internal Tywin Lannister
talking.) They should have been ashamed
of themselves for not getting right on top of it.
The
second complaint is this is supposed to be a Janine episode so why is she at times
shown to be less competent than she is at other points in the series? This happened on Janine’s Genie as well. In the Sandman episode we saw Janine fire a
particle thrower with the best of them, yet in Janine’s Genie she doesn’t know
how to work one. We saw her in the very first episode use a PKE meter to monitor the Containment Unit and now she doesn’t
know how to read one. Janine might not
be an expert Ghostbuster but she should be competent in how to use the
equipment. During this adventure it’s Slimer being
the real hero and not Janine to the point that the episode could have been called: Slimer, Helpful Ghost. I do give points for her
excellent use of the Containment Unit and Slimer to gain information from newly
captured ghosts.
Now for
my stray observations:
·
Free Ghostbusting service should be a benefit
for any Ghostbuster employee.
·
Janine has an apartment! You mean to tell me that Janine actually gets
to leave the firehouse once in a while?
I honestly thought she lived there and was only allow five hours of sleep
while working the rest of time. It seems like
she is always there.
·
Why didn’t Janine take her own Ghostbuster
uniform, as opposed to stealing one of Peter’s?
·
Slimer is so helpful.
·
I love the “girl Ghostbuster” comment from the
news reporter. Wait until he sees the
movie coming out this year.
·
I though Janine using Slimer for the Containment
Unit was way better than Egon’s earlier idea.
·
For a Gozer-like villain Proteus went down
really fast.
A really fun episode I think you’ll
enjoy it.
[1]
Listed original air dates for entire syndicated season may not be correct.
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