Slimer's
Curse
Original
Air date September
23, 1989
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
- Rodger
Bumpass as Louis Tully
(Rating
1 of 5)
Summary: An
armored truck loses its way in a rain storm and hits the grave of old Jonathan
Tightly a crazy millionaire, who we later learn from Winston, wanted to take all
his money with him when he died. A ghost
creeps out and inhabits one of their chests.
 |
| Slimer is generous with the Ghostbusters. |
At this
point the Ghostbusters are at the firehouse and Slimer is nervously awaiting the results
on the lottery ticket Ray bought for him.
The Ghostbusters tell him to cool it as they head out on a job but when they get back they
discover that Slimer has won. Slimer
starts using his money to buy lots of pizza and gifts for the
Ghostbusters. The only problem is
everything he buys goes bad. Pizza turns
nasty, clothes fall apart, cars blow up.
To make matters worse they get all sorts of calls from all over town in
places that Slimer has shopped.
 |
| That look you get when you realize your winnings our cursed. |
It
turns out Slimer’s cash is haunted. Poor
Slimer is devastated. Winston says they can’t
destroy it because destroying currency that’s illegal. They
resolve to track the problem to the source.
Using the PKE meter and the armored truck’s record they find the grave
of Tightly. Tightly’s ghost emerges
from the money and attacks the Ghostbusters.
Tightly manages to override Peter’s pack and the Ghostbusters decides
this ghost is too tough for them and bribe him with Slimer’s money to go away. Tightly is satisfied all the
hauntings stop.
My Take: Okay where to start. I am thinking this was supposed to have been
part of the Slimer subseries considering how bad it was. Okay, so Slimer can win the lottery? Ghosts are allowed to legally own
property? Do they have to pay income
taxes? Can they sue or be sued? Can they
register to vote? Can they hold public office?
Can they serve on a jury? Can a lawyer representing the ghosts in the
Containment Unit file a Writ of Habeas Corpus?
This is
also not how the lottery works. They
don’t drive to the winner’s house to tell them, you have sign and turn your
ticket in. They also don’t give you cash on the spot they send a check after a small waiting period and back in the 1980s I don’t
think there was a lump sum option. Not
to mention the high taxes on it.
Worst
part about the episode was at the end when they are fighting the ghost of
Tightly, whom I am sorry was not that impressive, they just give in when he
overloads Peter’s pack. The other three
should have fired or at least thrown a trap out. Instead they decide to bribe the ghost to go
away with the rest of Slimer’s money.
And why did they have to do this? Because in life Tightly wanted to take
it with him but when he died the government took it in unpaid taxes. So the Ghostbusters bribe a ghost who was
both a miser and a tax cheat with enough money to cover 180 ghostbusting
gigs. How weak was that? “Oh, he over loaded Peter’s pack so let’s
surrender.”
Now for
my stray observations:
- Someone should have told Slimer to put it in a bank.
- Also considering the way Slimer was going through money they should have had Louis give some basic monetary advice. Where was Louis?
- This episode makes it clear why the Ghostbusters are broke all the time: they clearly don’t know how to handle money despite what Louis says.
- I am assuming the ending was as it was because they didn’t want to change the series by making Slimer rich. The way he was going though money that wasn’t going to be a problem.
The episode is bad all around.
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