THE GHOSTBUSTERS GO HANGOUT ON A FARM

Dairy Farm

Original Air date September 25, 1987^[1]

Writer: Larry DiTillio

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 overworked and in a dire need of a vacation.  Ray convinces them, over Peter’s objections, to drive out of to the country to spend time at Ray’s cousin’s farm.  As they drive out to the farm they take a wrong turn and wreck Ecto-1 on harvester.  There is a local mechanic in town to fix Ecto-1 over the week end.  So the Ghostbusters pay to have the car towed and walk the rest of the way to the Stanz Farm. 

Not to happy having wreaked their car. 

                It turns out Ray’s cousin Sam is woman.  Who Peter is instantly attracted to, but Sam (short for Samantha) doesn’t feel the same way.  They all enjoy a hardy meal as Sam explains her operation.  The Ghostbusters think they have made a good choice for their vacation spot.  The next day however they find part of Sam’s farm has been vandalized and the PKE meter revels that the vandal is most likely a ghost. 

Ray's cousin Sam

                Some research leads Ray to discover that the previous owners were a family by the name of Peterson.  The Peterson’s owned this farm for ten generations and when they died out the property manager moved the family stones from the cemetery but not their bodies.  The dead field that Egon was testing was the family cemetery.

Ghost chicken!

                That night they stayed out to watch and saw the dead rooster get up and wake the rest of the family who started doing chores but in ways that would ruin the farm.  When confronted they attacked and without their equipment the Ghostbusters and Sam were forced back into the house and were saved by the coming dawn. 

The dead Petersons!

                The next day the guys Macgyvered some dairy equipment to generate a force field that night so they were able to contain the Peterson family.  Peter told them that there was someone who wanted to say something to them and brought out Sam to plead to them as a farmer.  The Petersons were move and agreed to rest and let Sam run the farm.

Pa Peterson, ghost patriarch 

                Sam decided Peter wasn’t so bad after all so he asked for a kiss and Slimer kissed him.

Farmers can rest in peace!

 My Take: My grandfather often told my father that he was born in the wrong side of the century.  My father always wanted to be a farmer.  To me the idea of getting up at the crack of dawn to do farm chores for my entire life was never appealing, and with my allergies it would have been not any fun.  I kind of wish I was born a hundred years from now when technology is more awesome.  That had nothing to do with this episode just a random thought.  The episode was another one of those “Ghostbusters without their ghostbusting equipment episodes” but it was not bad.

                Now for my stray observations:

·         Why do the Ghostbusters all have to go on vacation together?  I do not have that relationship with any of my co-workers ever.   Ray can go to the farm, Egon can go the science museum with Janine, Winston can attend a lot of Jaguars games, and Peter can go to Tahiti with a hot girlfriend.

·         Try explaining that car accident to your insurance company.

·         Slimer’s farmer get up was really cute.

·         Peter needs to try a new method of getting women that isn’t so off putting.

·         So the ghost rooster, do you think that might have been a Peterson family dinner at one point?

·         For a family that lived at the farm for ten generations there doesn’t seem to be that many of them.

·         Slimer was having some fun in the chaos, usually he is a helpful ghost.

·         “Even if we had our equipment there would still be too many to trap.”  My butt.  That one statement knocked this episode from a five to a four.  Not only were there not that many Peterson ghosts to begin with but I have seen them catch more ghosts in the opening sequence.  Hell a few episodes back they made almost $80,000 in one afternoon and they didn’t run out of traps.  This was cheap line put in to answer the most obvious solution: borrow Sam’s car go to the repair shop and pick up their gear out of Ecto-1.

·         Instead let’s do the Ghost Whisperer thing.

An enjoyable episode even with some issues.    

---

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