NOW THE SHOE IS ON THE OTHER FOOT

Flip Side

Original Air date September 17, 1988

Writer: Tony Marino

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: A strange and unexpected tornado rips through Central Park.  Ordinarily that is not job for the Ghostbusters but Egon believes it’s not a real tornado.  The Ghostbusters go to investigate and for a non-real tornado it sure feels like one.  Egon needs to get closer to get his PK readings.  The good news his suspicions are confirmed the bad news is he gets pulled into the tornado.  Ray and Peter try to rescue him and get sucked up was well.  Only Winston and Slimer are spared and the bad weather goes away returning to the previous beautiful day.

Egon is sure that is not a normal storm.

Their reaction to seeing their other selves.

                Egon, Peter, and Ray land in what they think is the middle of New York but it is now night.  Ray’s tries to check the time but his watch is going chaos.  They make it back to the firehouse only it’s very different.  Egon’s picture is now in the ‘no’ sign.  As they enter it looks no one has been there in ages.  The make their way to kitchen and they think Slimer is in the fridge but it turns out to be an octopus creature.  They retreat to what they think is their bedroom.  But there are sleeping people in the only three beds, when Peter goes to look he finds a ghost version of himself that looks like a rotten corpse waking up.  Dead versions of Egon and Ray wake up as well, and they are excited that some “live ones” have come to get busted.  When the guys use their particle throwers they find them useless.  Their dead counterparts however have their own Slime packs and Slime throwers that they attack them with.  The Ghostbusters run but as they leave the see a dead Janine taking calls for the “Peoplebusters.”

The Peoplebusters

What they're packing.

                As they run away they discover they can fly.  On a blimp they can see that they are in “Boo York.”  Egon concludes that they are in an alternate reality.  The reason they are flying because in this world humans have the traditional ghost powers of flight and intangibility. (Although ghosts still have the ability to detach body parts if needed.)  The Peoplebusters chase the Ghostbusters in the Egon-1.  They finally corner Ray and slime him helpless.  Dead Ray then carries his counterpart back to the firehouse with cheers from the ghosts who live in the Big Pumpkin.  Ray tried to protest but has his mouth sealed with slime. 

Don't mess with us.

Janine the dead one.

                Peter and Egon try to fly around Boo York with their dead equivalents on their tail.  They think they are safe at the witch version of the Statue of Liberty.  However they are chased away in the Peoplebusters’ Egon-2.  They get chased into an ugly salon where ghosts are trying on new heads.  There Egon is captured leaving Peter the last standing Ghostbuster.

Egon#1

                Back home Janine and Winston were working on a way to bring their friends back.  They succeeded in building an inter-dimensional communicator with Slimer as the communicator’s main focus. They are able to connect to the walkie-talkies of the other Ghostbusters.  Peter can now talk to Winston and Janine in their own firehouse and also they can speak with Ray and Egon in the Peoplebusters’ Containment Unit.   Egon and Ray find the Containment Unit rather nice; it’s a park on a sunny day.  There is also a sealed off portal that may be able to bring themselves home if they can open it with their proton packs. 

The Ghosts cheering their heroes.

Peter allows himself to get captured.  In the Earth-like environment their packs work again and they blast the portal to open it.  The Peoplebusters try to stop them but the Ghostbusters are this time able to return fire and destroying their Slimepacks and covering them in slime.  The Ghostbusters and all the human prisoners return to Earth.  Winston and Janine pick the guys up in the Ecto-1.

At the Containment Unit

My Take:  One of the all-time great Star Trek episodes is “Mirror, Mirror” where member of the Enterprise crew travel to a universe where the Starfleet is evil.  This episode is similar with an interesting twist: they are put in the position of being the ghosts.  It’s important to remember while the Ghostbusters don’t openly hunt harmless ghosts they do respond to any call they get.  This time they get to see what it means to be hunted.  The only bad part is they don’t seem to reflect on it.

                Now for my stray observations:

·         Egon on the “no” what was up with that?  Why wasn’t just a generic person?  After all we don’t have Dead Egon with his Peoplebuster outfit in our “no” sign.

·         Where is the Winston Peoplebuster?  There is a Janine Peoplebuster receptionist, so where is Winston?  Maybe in the mirror universe Peoplebusters are allowed to go on separate vacations.  Unlike the famous Ghostbusters. Or maybe they came to an earlier version of the Peoplebusters' timeline and there is no Winston yet?

·         Also shouldn’t the Peoplebusters have their own version of Slimer.  I am thinking of a human kid looking like the classical Dennis the Menace.  

·         I thought the Egon-1 and 2 were cool, but what is with Egon’s name. 

·         I was disappointed that the Peoplebusters didn’t recognize the Ghostbusters for what they were; waking up to them must have been like the Ghostbusters waking up to the Phantom Ghostbusters.

·         I really like the set up for the Peoplebusters’ Containment Unit.

Going to the mirror universe is always fun.