THE GHOSTBUSTERS DO THEIR OWN VERSION OF “BACK TO THE FUTURE”

It's About Time

Original Air date October 28, 1989

Writers: Len Janson, Chuck Menville

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 5 of 5)

Summary: The Ghostbusters are heading back from a job and Ray is feeling it for 1950s greaser culture and the 1950s overall.  Ray was been born in 1959 so he missed what he feels is America’s greatest decade.  Egon objected to this pointing out that each decade has its own challenges.  When they get to the firehouse Janine is crying.  The city of New York is tearing down the neighborhood and they have to move. 

Where's the Containment Unit?

                As the Ghostbusters are preparing to evacuate the Containment Unit into traps, Peter starts to toy with one and as a result they all get sucked in and pushed out.  When they look around the Containment Unit is gone.  The alarm goes off and it sounds different, as the Ghostbusters go upstairs they find a team of firemen going to a job.  A black and white TV set identifies the date as April 10, 1959. 

The 1950s

                The Ghostbusters leave the firehouse and Ray tries to get his hair done over greaser style.  However news reports show that Manhattan has been overrun by ghosts.  Egon reasons that they are responsible.  They disguise themselves as firemen and go to Company 93 who are currently in their firehouse and join them on their mission.  They throw the trap in vortex and return home.  When they get back Janine tells them that the station was the home of the famous Company 93 that stop a ghost invasion, therefore the firehouse was declared a national monument.

This 50s ghost problem might be more our fault. 

  My Take: This is a great episode.  I have always loved time travel stories and this one was a lot of fun.  It’s scary that in three short years we will as far away from this episode’s current time as it is from the time they traveled to.  We already past Back to the Future Part II last year.

                Now for my stray observations:

•       I love that Egon called Ray out for his blind love of the 1950s; I wish someone had brought up segregation.
•       Ray is one year younger than my parents.
•       The Ghostbusters really need to get a lawyer and not a night school one like Louis, Eminent Domain exists but they need to give a reasonable deadline, not tomorrow.  Also considering they have a Containment Unit why don’t they just remind the Mayor what happened last time they tried to shut them down.
•       Play with a ghost trap connected to a Containment Unit and you have a time machine, but ghosts will follow you.  So that is how time travel works in the Ghostbusters universe.
•       Last I checked humans can’t be sucked into a trap.
•       The firehouse seen in the Ghostbusters One and Two, is actually still a firehouse.
•       Since when does water stop ghosts?
•       Okay so having a fire team that rescued the city thirty years ago from ghosts gets the firehouse declared a national monument but the Ghostbusters who first saved the city five years ago and multiple times since from much nastier ghosts doesn’t?

 Despite its flaws it is still an episode favorite.