THE GHOSTBUSTERS GO ON VACATION AND FORGET HOW TO THINK

Guess What's Coming to Dinner

Original Air date October 27, 1990

Writer: Jules Dennis

Director: Raymond Jafelice

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:  When the Ghostbusters are on vacation a family of ghosts moves in and redecorates.  They throw out all the Ghostbusters' equipment out because they don’t understand why someone would have so many leaf blowers.

Using a leaf blower!

                When the Ghostbusters get back they get in an argument with the ghost about who owns the place, but there is little the Ghostbusters can do because they left all their equipment at home.  Since the dad ghost told them they threw away their stuff, the Ghostbusters go to the junk yard to find it.  When they get back the Containment Unit is starting to come apart and ghosts are getting out.

When you start letting things out of the Containment Unit.

                After a final confrontation the Ghostbusters finally fix the Containment Unit and the family agrees to leave after Egon saved the ghost boy from having his ghost form turned inside out.  

My Take: How often do the Ghostbusters go on vacation and whether they’re on a farm, in the wilderness, or at Mount Rushmore they end up running into ghosts.  So why would they go somewhere and not bring at least three or four proton packs with them?  I am rolling my eyes the entire episode.       

                Now for my stray observations:

•       Okay ghosts have a system where they sell houses to haunt?  Don’t they do research?  Wouldn’t they know who the Ghostbusters are?
•       People trying to take over someone’s house when they go on vacation is a real life problem.  Don’t read about it unless you want to get mad.
•       Why didn’t the more powerful ghosts make a run for it when the Containment Unit was open?
•        Also a group comes to firehouse takes over the place, nearly destroys the Containment Unit and Ghostbusters let them go?  Why, so they can take over someone else’s house?  These are problem ghosts that you shouldn’t feel bad busting.

One of the bad episodes.

THE GHOSTBUSTERS ACT LIKE SEXIST JERKS AND PAY FOR IT

Til Death Do Us Part

Original Air date September 30, 1989   

                  

Writers: Pat Allee and Ben Hurst

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: To the shock of all viewers Janine is actually granted a vacation!  The Ghostbusters are interviewing temporary replacements.  The first applicant is an older and not very attractive woman named Mrs. Attelmeyer.  Winston, Ray, and Peter acted like the woman had a contagious disease so Egon got to interview her. 

The kind of girl you like until you find out she is already dead.

                Egon was getting ready to hire her when he was then pulled aside by the other Ghostbusters and vetoed.  They insisted he hire the other applicant.  A beautiful woman named Dixie who all the Ghostbusters, except Egon, immediately fall for.  The woman is so incompetent she can’t find “D” on the computer.  The rest of the guys go out of their way to try to impress her but it seems she has eyes only for Egon.  It becomes immediately clear to the viewer that Dixie is a ghost. 

The Ghostbusters after victory.

                She corners Egon and kisses him; this causes her brother ghosts, who come off as southern “Bubbas” to show up and announce they have to be married.  They steal the packs so they Ghostbusters can’t resist.  Since Dixie is a ghost that means Egon must become one too.  Egon agrees so long as he gets his last request to bake his own wedding cake.  There is an explosion and Egon “dies” and Slimer emerges, impersonating his ghost.  Slimer then simply annoys Dixie and her brothers to the point they get frustrated and leave. 

My Take:  I don’t identify as a feminist.  It’s not that I don’t support equal rights I do.  I just don’t like labels that are political and lead people guess my position on issues before I have a chance to explain them.  I also find the label overly broad in scope.  For example when you have people from Sarah Palin to Jill Stein both calling themselves feminists despite having nothing in common in political thought, to me the label loses something.  I am also the person who rolls my eyes when I hear, “Game of Thrones is sexist in how it treats women!”  All I want to yell is “Do even watch the show?”

                 Nevertheless, I was so disgusted by the way the Ghostbusters were acting in the beginning of this episode that I can't ignore it.  It wasn’t just because they wanted to higher the attractive unqualified woman over the qualified unattractive one. It was how they were treating her as if she had some sort disease that they might catch.  I was like “what is their goddamn problem?” Now I will acknowledge that Mrs. Attelmeyer did have some traits where there could be legitimate objections to hiring her.  For example her tendency to bark orders at Egon, even though he was the one interviewing her.  I can see why a business might hire a less qualified person who can get along with their fellow employees over a more qualified person who personality might be a problem.  However they make clear the reason they want Egon to hire Dixie is so they can all try to date her.  This is also very inconsistent with the way these characters have been portrayed around women that age in the past.

                To be fair the episode does show that their behavior was wrong and they did pay for it when it turned out the new hire was a ghost looking to kill Egon, but from that point the episode got worse.  I am sorry those pathetic “Bubba” ghosts should not have troubled the Ghostbusters so much.  In addition this is the second episode in row where the Ghostbusters don’t bust the ghost, instead they just trick or bribe them in order to leave.  What is up with that?  You are supposed to be the Ghostbusters maybe you should act like it?

    

                Now for my stray observations:

•       Janine actually gets a vacation?  I thought she wasn’t allowed to leave.
•       Notice they fell apart without her.
•       Why were they Ghostbusters concerned with the particle throwers being aimed at them? They weren’t connected to any packs.

  

  Egon's mom!

•       Egon’s mother isn’t acting like the mother described by Egon in Ghostbusters II, the one who didn’t believe in toys.  She also looks too much like him.  With have seen through past episodes that Egon greatly resembles his father’s family’s ancestors.  So why does he resemble his mother so much?  Is this an inter-Spengler marriage?  I knew they were closeted Targaryens.

So much wrong with this episode.  

BRIBING AN EVIL GHOST

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. 

SLIMER SUBSERIES REACTION

Slimer Subseries

Original Air date: Fall of 1988

Writers: various

Director: various

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 1 of 5)

In the fourth season of The Real Ghostbusters a decision was made by ABC executives in order to ease the younger portion of the audience, for whom the main show might be often scary, to retitle the show: Slimer! And the Real Ghostbusters.  It would now be an hour long program that feaure a regular RGB episode along with this sub-series that focused only on Slimer.  This was worst decision made during the franchise's run and did permanent damage to the way the show was perceived by the general audience causing ratings to drop.  There is no getting around it the sub-series is outright terrible. 

Characters are drawn very differently!

                Now I know what you are thinking, “But Jeremy this made for little kids! Of course you as an adult don’t like it.”  I want to make this known I hated this when I was seven. At the time I was really put off by the change in the animation.  It didn’t have same feel as the main show and it bothered me. I should point out at the same age I was not put off by the Ghostbusters looking different from live action to animation, but everything in Slimer series bothered me.   The strange thing is I like Slimer as character and always have.  I thought the idea of the Ghostbusters adopting a pet ghost was great and stated so a numerous occasions on this blog.

                Let me clear about this, I know The Real Ghostbusters is a cartoon.  But not all cartoons are the same.  There is huge difference between the classical Batman: The Animated Series and Loony Toons.  They are both cartoons.  One is an adventure series that takes place in a universe that is close in most respects to the real world and the other is an outrageous comedy where characters can defy gravity, space, time, and their series own per-established rules.  

The odd part is in the second season the episode “Who Are You Calling Two-Dimensional” helps distinguish between the two types of cartoons.  In that episode the Ghostbusters were trapped in a cartoon universe and the episode kept showing common animated troupes that were not part The Real Ghostbusters normally.  Our heroes are based on the logic of a self-contained universe, which was basically a universe mostly like ours but with ghosts, where the other cartoons ignore any and all logic on purpose.  The Slimer sub-series goes ingonres they way the RGB universe works and instead is like a cartoon that features Bugs Bunny.  It has characters who are supposed to be humans but have Mr. Fantastic/Plastic Man type powers, can hide behind regular telephone poles, can fit inside a food container, and regularly survive falls from high distances off the ground.  

In the episode “It’s a Jungle Out There” a talking dog sends Slimer flying in terror to Peter for protection, in his own show Slimer has a friend name Fred who is very human like even wearing boxer shorts under his fur.  We see this when Fred's fur flies off when being yelled at by the giant dog, Bruzer, later the little dog catches up with his fur.  Bruzer walks on his hind legs and uses his front ones like arms as if Rall had returned.  His owner is a super masculine woman who has every security, nurse, and rescue job in New York City.  

Slimer's main rival seemed to be a cat named Manx, who played the Coyote to Slimer’s Road Runner.  Manx would often be dropped from great heights, actually be physically flattened, and be caught in explosions.  Yet he would always be fine.

I can’t stand the main villain, Professor Dweeb and his poodle Elizabeth who behaves and acts like a person in all but speaking ability.  Dweeb is a self-absorbed “scientist” who thinks the Ghostbusters are fakes and Slimer needs to be caught.  Dweeb is well named but that is it.

Dweeb and Elizabeth

The only character emerging from this series that I liked was the singing ice cream truck driver Chilly Copper.  The idea of Slimer befriending an ice cream truck driver is something that would be very consistent with the character.  Her warm personality would bring a nice presence to the show. 

Dog with a job!

So the main question is this.  Is any part of this cartoon salvageable with main series?   The answer is yes but only in a very disturbing way.  All the main Slimer characters that were created for the subseries are ghosts but they are ghosts who aren’t aware they're dead.  This would explain why they can disappear behind small objects and can change their overall shape.  Not to mention survive impossible things. 

So how do you like that kids?            

THE REVERSE VAMPIRE STORY

Transylvanian Homesick Blues

Original Air date December 11, 1987

Writer: Michael Reaves

Director: Charles Grosvenor

Main Cast:

• Dave Coulier as Peter Venkman
• Frank Welker as Raymond Stantz
• Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler
• Arsenio Hall as Winston Zeddemore
• Kath Soucie as Janine Melnitz
• Frank Welker as Slimer

(Rating 1 of 5)

Summary: The Ghostbusters are invited to Boldavia by the local ruler Count Vostok.  The Count hopes they can help rid him of a particular ghost.  Since Count Vostok paid upfront the Ghostbusters head out to see him.  When they arrive it is clear that Vostok is a stereotypical vampire in the manner of which he dresses, acts, and even the strange castle he lives in.  The dead giveaway however is when the “ghosts,” shaped like giant bats, attack the people and then turn their attention towards the castle Vostok transforms into a giant bat himself and battles the others who vanish.

So what are we doing here? Don't know his episode doesn't make any sense.

                The Ghostbusters have lots of questions, probably due to the fact that they have forgotten the previous encounter they have with vampires.  Egon asks if he drinks blood and Vostok says that he now sustains himself with modern artificial blood.  He also states that he is the last of his kind, and that his family’s old enemy Van Helden is out to destroy him even though he doesn’t hurt people.  He created a machine that creates ghost bats framing him for the people’s terror. 

Count Vostok

                As day approaches Vostok retires to his coffin and the Ghostbusters are stuck dealing with an angry mob.  When Slimer doesn’t manage to scare them Egon turns the PKE meter into a sonic weapon and drives them away.  Van Helden sneaks in and tries to get the Count but the Ghostbusters come in and stop him.  The chase him by car and catch him after he hits a tree.  Egon then concludes the villagers are probably over their problem with the Count by now.

Javert- I mean Van Helden

My Take: I didn’t think it was possible but it turns out Michael Reaves, the author of the Boogieman Cometh and many other five star episodes, is capable of writing a bad episode.  This episode had an interesting concept with a vampire who has discovered a way to survive without harming people but is still menaced by society who still thinks he is dangerous.  I almost gave it a ‘2’ just for that but ultimately decided to go with my gut ruling. 

This episode, despite being the second to last episode of Season 3 is placed as the first episode of the season on the DVD set.  This is due to the fact that because of an animation error Janine was drawn to look like she did in the first two seasons.  Janine’s hair and glasses are the least of this episode’s problems.  The most obvious issue with the episode is how the characters are really excited to meet a vampire because they never seen a vampire before.  But they have, in fact they saw a large group of vampires, one that became so big they had a schism and split into two groups that were fighting amongst themselves.  So when Vostok claimed to be the last of his kind they should have corrected him.

Also some of the things that were said about Transylvania were very off.   Transylvania was never its own country historically it had been part of the Principality of Wallachia, whose most famous Prince, Vlad III (AKA Vlad the Impaler), was the one of main inspirations for Dracula.  At the time that book was written Transylvania was part of the Habsburg Empire, which was long thought of as backward by those in Western Europe so it was easy to imagine a vampire living as one of their counts and preying on the people of their county.  In fact, another Dracula inspiration, the real life Countess Elizabeth Báthory kind of did.  Nowadays Transylvania is part of Romania and had been since the early twentieth century. 

Now for my stray observations:

·         Peter is smart to recognize that the Ecto-1 can’t get them to Europe. (Actually it probably could now with all those gadgets that we have seen this season.)

·         Did Vostok buy this castle from Count Duckula?

·         Villagers shouldn’t speak English.

·         Since when is Slimer incapable of scaring people?

·         Okay why are the Ghostbusters even here?  The Count has issue with the Vampire Hunter and the Villagers.  What good are the Ghostbusters?  I mean it worked but who would have thought.

·         Egon is overly sure about what the villagers, who he nearly fried their brains, are going to do.

              Well, even great writers are allowed to mess up now and again.    

MEET EGON’S UNCLE

Cry Uncle

Original Air date: November 12, 1987^[1]

Writer: Bruce Reid Schaeffer

Director: Dale Schott

Main Cast:

• Lorenzo Music as Peter Venkman
• Frank Welker as Raymond Stantz
• Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler
• Arsenio Hall as Winston Zeddemore
• Laura Summer as Janine Melnitz
• Frank Welker as Slimer

(Rating 1 of 5)

Summary: The Ghostbusters are on the job and Egon is concerned about finishing up on time to pick up his uncle at the airport.  They don’t finish on time and they end up meeting him at the firehouse.  Before they arrive Uncle Cyrus comes in contact with Janine and Slimer but he loses his glasses at one point and mistakes Slimer for a cat.

Uncle Cyrus the really smart dumb guy!

                When the Ghostbusters arrive they apologize to Uncle Cyrus for not picking him up on time, but there is a bigger concern. Uncle Cyrus does not like that his brilliant nephew is working as a low-level exterminator for non-existent things.  Winston tries to reason with him but they get called out on a job.  They ask Uncle Cyrus if he would like to go so he can see what Egon does and he agrees.  The Ghostbusters arrive at the convenience store and can’t find any ghosts.  Uncle Cyrus loses his glasses again and that’s when the ghosts show up and Cyrus misses his nephew’s success. 

This doesn't make sense even by Slimer standards!

                Back at the firehouse, Cyrus guilts Egon with a promise he made as a young man to be there if needed.  Cyrus tells him that he needs Egon to run his lab.  Egon leaves a note for his fellow Ghostbusters and heads off with his uncle. 

Egon hates his new job.

                Janine finds his note and is heart-broken at the loss of Egon.  The other Ghostbusters feel the loss when they go on a mission and find themselves needing Egon.  The three Ghostbusters and Janine fly out to see Egon at his new job, that he clearly hates, and ask his uncle if they can borrow him for one last assignment.  Cyrus reluctantly agrees and decides to go with them.

                The team invites Cyrus to come along so they can see how important Egon is but Cyrus declines.  On the mission Egon and Ray come up with a way to defeat the poltergeists and all is well, but they are still probably going to lose Egon.  While this is going on Janine shows Cyrus the Containment Unit.  Cyrus goes up and starts randomly pushing buttons causing a meltdown and before Janine hits the emergency switch the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man escapes. He is small and intangible at first then he grows larger and by the time is out of the firehouse tangible again. 

He's back!

                The Ghostbusters battle and with a little help from Uncle Cyrus are able to catch the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man again.  Cyrus now impressed with his nephew releases him from his promise and allows him to remain a Ghostbuster.

My Take: This episode sucked.  Really sucked, it was Janeway and Paris goes into transwarp turn into animals and have kids kind of suck.  I would like to give it zero stars but I already said one is my lowest so one it is.  This episode fails on nearly every level.  The only part I liked was Egon leaving a note (because with his non-existent social skills he couldn’t have done it in person) and Janine’s reaction to it.  The rest is almost unwatchable.  Even Slimer was off in this episode, he was in some ways overly aggressive and the whole Slimer in the drinking water was dumb.  Now if Slimer drank all the drinking water that would be one thing, but no he just wants to live in it.

                The biggest fail however is the whole premise.  As I stated in the ‘my take’ section in the previous review, the Ghostbusters live in the world where ghosts are real but they give us Uncle Cyrus a “skeptic” who doesn’t believe in ghosts.  In the last episode they made fun of mediums by showing a phony, it almost like they said “well we made fun of the people who really believe in ghosts so now we should make fun skeptics.”  Except the episodes were written by different people so probably not the case, although it is interesting that in the last episode featured an aunt of a Ghostbuster and this features an uncle.  Cyrus doesn’t believe in ghosts because he never saw one and whenever he has the opportunity he loses his glasses.  This is an absurd if you want a good lesson on skepticism look at the video below by QualiaSoup.

                Cyrus, “Egon, I don’t believe in ghosts.”

                Egon, “Uncle, here is my pet, Slimer”

                Cyrus, “I lost my glasses.”

                Egon, “Here are some of spare glasses and here is Slimer.  And if you come down to the Containment Unit I can show you the viewer and you can see more in there.”

                Cyrus, “Oh, look at that ghosts are real.”

                There you have it that’s how easy the plot should have been resolved.  But no we drag on this pointless exercise.  You could have made the uncle hate ghostbusting like an entomologist who hates the fact that his nephew is an exterminator for a living when he should be in a lab. That could have been interesting but instead we get an episode where the so called “brilliant” uncle is made to look like an idiot. 

                The episode gets worse as it goes on.  The scene with the Containment Unit was horrible.  The “brilliant scientist” starts just playing with buttons and it causes a meltdown.  Not only does this make Cyrus stupid but we have forgotten that the Containment Unit has a security system to prevent this.  Remember Wat needed a Ghostbuster body in order to open it.  Janine stops it from melting down completely by hitting a button on the wall that was never there before.  The Containment Unit front opens up completely and yet only one ghost pops out.  

               

The powerful Wat needs Peter to open this thing!

          

"Not really" says the STMM, "and I am the only ghost who saw this was open!"

              The escaped ghost is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, whom no attempt is made to explain how the giant changed from an incarnation of Gozer to an independent spirit in his own right, is now too big to be put into a trap.  This makes no sense what so ever, I can accept that fact that somewhere along the line some of the remains of the original giant reformed into a new entity, but don’t try to tell me you can’t fit him in a trap. I know you can because ghosts who are made of ecotoplasm will shrink down and fit in the trap—we already saw him change size in this episode—; in fact just before every episode I watch the Ghostbusters put Stay Puft and his friends into a trap with no problem.

                This episode is a complete failure, and one best to be forgotten.        

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[1] Listed original air dates for entire syndicated season may not be correct.