THE WERECHICKEN

Poultrygeist

Original Air date September 24, 1988

Writers: Duane Capizzi and Steven Roberts

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 farming couple, Maude and Zeke, are having what they think is an ordinary night when the Maude goes out to check on their chickens.  There she is attacked by a giant werechicken.  Afterwards she returns to the farmhouse where Zeke is watching a werewolf movie.  She suddenly transforms into a werechicken herself.  Zeke distracts her with popcorn as he moves to escape.

When your wife turns into a werechicken you share the popcorn.

At the firehouse Egon has been neglecting his chores in order to finish his weather science project to the annoyance of his fellow Ghostbusters.  When the call came in about the werechicken they left without him. At the farmhouse the Ghostbusters searched the farm for the werechicken but all they found was a giant egg.  Peter brought the egg back to the firehouse to be examined by Egon. Ray and Winston found the original werechicken and with their proton packs they were able to separate the demon from the chicken and trap it.  They didn’t find the Maude chicken so they headed back until Egon could figure out what to do with the egg.

Not a good house mate!

So let's give him this to study.

That night Slimer while sleeping dreamed of food.  He then woke up, ate his dream, and concluded that he needs some food.  Forgetting that the large egg was to be studied he decided to make an omelet out it.  Slimer puts the egg in the oven—showing he has no idea how to cook an omelet—but instead of cooking it he incubates it and out pops a new werechicken.  The baby werechicken walks around and bites Egon who was adding last minute changes to his science project.  Egon then transforms into a werechicken and attacks his fellow Ghostbusters. 

The weredemon

When the moon became covered up with clouds Egon transformed back into a man in boxer shorts.  The Ghostbusters tried to come up with a cure but only had some of the ingredients.  So when Egon took the cure while in the middle of transforming back into the werechicken the result was he had a chicken body and normal head.  The other three Ghostbusters went after the werechicken who had now grown to mini-skyscraper size.  They try to blast the demon out again but the trap still has the other werechicken demon in it.  So they lose the giant as it climbs the Empire State building to lay an even bigger egg. 

Transforming

Egon's were chicken!

Egon, in his chicken body, was still trying to present his weather machine to a group of meteorologists.  The group was scared away when they saw the giant werechicken on the Empire State Building and Egon’s own chicken body that was exposed underneath the trench coat.  Egon’s team however put the weather machine to good use by dropping the temperature down to freeze the werechicken.      

Head of man, body of a chicken!

After the danger had past and they got the antidote the Ghostbusters invited the farm couple to the firehouse so they could monitor Maude’s recovery with Egon’s. 

Bigger than the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!

My Take: The concept of the werechicken just shows you how creative the men and women who wrote this show are.  If there are werewolves why can’t there be were-other-things. 

                Now for my stray observations:

·         I have heard that in order to bring back the dinosaurs we wouldn’t be able to the clone them but we might be able to reverse engineer them from modern animals.  Some experiments were done with chickens.  I think the werechicken looks like something they would come up with.

·         Egon is a great Ghostbuster but terrible housemate.

·         I wonder what Cubby would think of this?

·         Was it Maude’s werechicken self that laid that egg right?  Wow, was she pregnant before and is super-werechicken her kid?

·         I appreciate the Get Smart reference.  “That’s the second biggest I ever saw!”

·         Slimer eating his dream was funny.  Oh, Spud your memory is so bad.

·         Egon wondered why he was almost naked.  I wondering why he wasn’t.  How did his boxers survive?  I thought it was funny when he put on another jumpsuit instead of walking around in a robe.

·         They rushed to make a cure last I checked that using the particle thrower on the werechicken got the demon out.  Why not just do that?

·         Egon with a chicken body was funny.

·         It’s not Egon’s fault that trap wasn’t change you were the one who filled at the farmhouse, Ray.  Don’t you have more traps?

·         Once Egon must sacrifice his weather creation for the cause.

·         Okay what happened to the frozen bird on top of the Empire State Building?  Did they just leave it there?

A great episode that was a lot of fun.