HONEY I SHRUNK THE GHOSTBUSTERS

Short Stuff

Original Air date October 22, 1988

Writer: Richard Mueller

Director: Charles Grosvenor

Main Cast:

• Dave Coulier as Peter Venkman
• Frank Welker as Raymond Stantz
• Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler
• Buster Jones as Winston Zeddemore
• Kath Soucie as Janine Melnitz
• Frank Welker as Slimer

(Rating 5 of 5)

Summary: The Ghostbusters are finishing a routine job.  On the ride home Ray was sitting in the back of Ecto-1 disappointed.  Ray lives by excitement and he is not getting any.  He is tired mundane ghosts and wants to take on a better challenge.  He misses opponents like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Sandman.

The Ghostmaster General

                As Ray was wallowing in boredom in the Netherworld the Ghostmaster General is outraged at continuous loss of ghosts to the Containment Unit of the Ghostbusters.  He sends three agents to capture the Ghostbusters and bring them to him alive. 

The three hit ghosts!

                The ghost hitman Arborak, spider creature type ghost with webbing and choppers, attacks the Ghostbusters at the firehouse.  Ray and Egon are taking down quickly but Peter and Winston get to their equipment and set the trap catching Arborak.

Nurgot shrinks them down!

                The next day, while out on the job, the Ecto-1 is attacked by Ulyoth.  He sends energy blasts their way and the Ghostbusters return fire.  Ulyoth is powerful enough so the proton beams didn’t affect him too much.  The Ghostbusters retreated into a building and placed a trap that Ulyoth fell right into.

                At this point the Ghostbusters now realized they were being targeted, a fact that made Ray so happy.  As they are setting up a new security system the third hit ghost arrives. Nurgot, an insect like ghost who assumes human form on Earth, with him he had a floating glass ball.  He mind controls Janine to get her to let him in the firehouse.  He then battles the Ghostbusters and shrinks them down to finger-size men.  Nurgot then takes them into the glass ball and proceeds to leave.  As he is about to go back to the Netherworld Slimer knocks the ball out his hand.  The Ghostbusters free themselves from the ball as Slimer flies them away.  

small Ghostbusters

                Egon has Slimer bring them away from the firehouse and has him go back to tell Janine to look at the Big Red Book of Spells to find one that would undo Nurgot’s magic.  In the meantime they would to their best to avoid Nurgot and distract him from going back to the firehouse.

                As Janine tries her best witch imitation the Ghostbusters run like mice through the city.  They walk across a power-line, almost get eaten by a bird, get bottled in seltzer water, end up hanging out with a kid, and finally back to the firehouse where Janine is not having much luck.  She does manage to split Slimer in three and when she gets him back together he grows big.  Egon finds the right spell and they are returned to their normal size and take down Nurgot.  Slimer is also restored to his previous self.

Restored!

                After winning the Ghostbusters are watching TV when their program is interrupted by the Ghostmaster General and his threats.  Ray has never been happier.

My Take:  This was great episode.  Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, staring Ghostbusters’ alumni Rick Moranis is one my favorite movies.  The Ghostbusters did a nice version of it here and did first airing one year before the movie came out.

                The Ghostmaster General is cool villain.  My one question is this: has the Ghostmaster General always been leading the dead or did he come to power as result of the Ghostbusters?  The Netherworld getting sick of losing its citizens turns to leader to combat them is the story I would prefer.  Since ghosts are intelligent it would make sense that they would want to get rid of the Ghostbusters, we saw Wat try this early in the series.  But the Ghostmaster General presents a more organized effort to wipe out the completion. 

                Now for my stray observations:

·         I love Ray throughout the episode.  Being bored out of his mind in the beginning and brought back to life (not literally) with the prospects of new challenges.

·         Why didn’t they just blast the bird with their proton packs? 

·         When stuck in the bottle you have two choices you can start swimming or you can start drowning.

·         I love Winston calling out that they should be dead and Egon’s explanation of it being do to their size.  I also consider that a knock on the Slimer sub-series.

·         I didn’t like the Book of Spells, the Ghostbusters should solve stuff with science not magic, Egon should already have a size machine to deal with this.

A great episode with a great new villain.