THE GHOSTBUSTERS VS THE GHOST OF AL CAPONE

The Ghostbusters! Live, from Al Capone's Tomb!

Original Air date December 2, 1989

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski

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 3 of 5)

Summary: Peter has conned his fellow Ghostbusters to do what we now call a reality TV show where the Ghostbusters are going to capture the ghost of Al Capone for the audience at home.  This whole thing is staged and the Capone bio pick shows that Peter (or Straczynski the writer) doesn’t know much about the life of Al Capone.

Shooting the show from the Tomb!

                The real Capone is insulted by this so he kidnaps the Ghostbusters and brings them to the ghost world where their weapons don’t work.  Capone sends one of his men to pick up the Ghostbusters.  There the Ghostbusters are cornered until an attack on Capone’s headquarters gives them the opportunity to escape.

The Boss wants  to see you!

Attack!

                They end up meeting with some rivals of Al Capone who feel he is a tyrant to the ghost world.  They help the Ghostbusters with a gift of magic crystals to make their packs work.  The Ghostbusters with a repaired Ecto-2 and 1930s car go off to battle Capone.  Capone's magic bat is his primary weapon so Winston sends Ecto-2 on a suicide mission with a pack set to explode.  Winston ejects in time and the Ghostbusters manage to trap Capone.  They return to the real world only to find ABC wants them to make more episodes. 

The rivals!

My Take: Okay if you’re going to use a real historical figure you should do your best to try to present them accurately as possible.  I say "as possible" because if you are doing a story where Thomas Jefferson encounters ghosts you already adding things to his life that didn’t happen.  But you should do your best to portray the stuff you can to the best of your abilities.  I don’t how you present Capone’s ghost but everything about his life they showed was wrong.  For example he wasn’t an only child like they said; in fact he had brothers who were also involved with the mob.  He wasn’t always respectful to women, just certain women.  He got that scare after insulting a woman and getting in fight with her brother.  (Capone was a nobody at the time.)  His rise to the dominate force in Chicago mob politics had a lot to do with Johnny Torrio, who was never mentioned.

                

Al Capone's ghost!

                   Now for my stray observations:

·         If the Ghostbusters wanted to do realty TV why don’t they just bring a camera with them on their missions? Kind of like Cops.

·         Why don’t the Ghostbusters’ packs work in the ghost world when they did last episode.

·         Oh Ecto-2 how many of you do we go through.

A fun episode all the same.