The Real Ghostbusters (1986)
First episode title: Ghosts Я Us
How familiar with the show am I?: I've seen the first film but nothing of the show.
Ghostbusters is this 80s Bill Murray film about a team that fights ghosts and... oh I'm going to have to explain why the cartoon is The "Real" Ghostbusters aren't I. OK, here's the short version:
There was a 70s live action TV show called The Ghost Busters, by Filmation, completely unrelated to the more well-known franchise. When the Ghostbusters film was made, by Columbia Pictures, the similarity of the titles was noticed, and Columbia had to pay Filmation for the use of the name. Then the film came out and got popular, and Filmation decided to take advantage of the similar names by releasing a cartoon adaptation of their TV show, called Ghostbusters (which I hope to someday cover on this blog). As a result, Columbia couldn't call the cartoon of the film "Ghostbusters" without a naming conflict, so they added "The Real" to distinguish it.
So, they're not lying - this is the Ghostbusters you've heard of, and therefore, for all intents and purposes, it's the real one.
We get a good look at the major characters in the opening, most of which are noticeably redesigned from the film:
Peter Venkman and Winston Zeddemore have each been given the chiseled jaw of a hero
Ray Stantz has red hair and a belly
Egon Spengler gets the most extreme redesign, with a swirl of blond hair, a big chin, and a tan, and his height is greatly exaggerated - the only way in which he's still obviously Egon is the fact that he wears glasses
Janine Melnitz, the secretary, has red hair with a big fringe and little pointy green glasses
So here's the episode, "Ghosts Я Us". Almost every online listing I could find calls it "Ghosts R Us", but it's spelled with a backwards R on the actual title card here.
Peter: Somebody seen a ghost?
We begin with the Ghostbusters arriving on the scene of a haunting in their car, the Ecto-1, which is straight out of the film. As the four guys prepare to go in, we also briefly see Slimer peer out of the vehicle. In the film, Slimer is one of the ghosts they bust, but in the cartoon he was made into a kind of pet or sidekick - I'm not sure of the in-universe reason, but I'm guessing the real-world reason is that he's marketable to kids. His voice? Frank Welker again, sounding similar to when he played a similar role as Glomer in Punky Brewster! The guy has amazing range but he's in too many cartoons to sound completely different each time - his Ray Stantz here could also be mistaken for his Fred from Scooby-Doo.
The haunted place where they've arrived is a chocolate factory - in fact, chocolate is spurting out of it right now! A bunch of female workers outside all scream in exactly the same way simultaneously, and the style they're drawn in makes me think of certain animes - perhaps a Japanese animation studio was involved with this show? As the chocolate rains down on everyone, the Ghostbusters run to get inside the factory as quick as they can, while Slimer just starts guzzling the chocolate. Do ghosts need food, or is it just something Slimer does?
Ray charges into the building first and immediately gets a face full of chocolate - Ray blinking through the chocolate is another part that makes me think of comical anime. Ray's role in this cartoon is comic relief / guy who messes up, presumably as an exaggeration of him being the one accidentally responsible for the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in the movie. And Peter's role is to be sarcastic and make quips about the events around him, like his reaction to Ray here:
Peter: Reminds me of a college party I went to once.
Now we see the ghosts haunting this place for the first time. There's a small red one, a thin pink one, and a large peach-coloured one in a big nappy. Egon - his role is to be the tech guy - identifies them as level 5 apparitions using a scanning gizmo that doesn't seem to be based on anything from the movie, and which he'll continue to use throughout the episode. The red ghost says "Mortals!", I think, and then the big ghost says something I honestly can't make out at all. I don't find the ghosts this hard to understand later in the episode, so I'm not sure why they're so incomprehensible here. Also, I don't think there were any ghosts that looked anything like these ones in the film - these look more like aliens!
The ghosts get into one of the factory's machines and use it to spray Winston with chocolate, so Ray sets up a ghost trap outside the machine while Peter blasts into it from the other side - the ghosts are forced out of the machine and into the trap. Egon confirms with the scanner that the place is "clean", and Winston points out all the chocolate still covering the floor. Because, you see, it's not clean, in that sense... Is Winston's job to make the lamer jokes? To be fair, even in the movie it didn't seem clear why Winston was there, he just felt like an afterthought - apparently his role was originally bigger but a lot of it was cut in order to put more emphasis on Peter. So it's not a surprise if the cartoon struggles to know what to do with him, given what it has to work with!
The Ghostbusters get rewarded outside the factory with a year's supply of chocolate, presented in big heart-shaped boxes. The ceremony is being filmed for TV, and we a shot of the inside of a TV production van that feels quite elaborate given how briefly it's seen before we cut to the views from the TV cameras. On the other hand, the fact that the Ghostbusters are public figures with a good reputation is going to become relevant as the plot goes on, so maybe they wanted to make that point as clear as possible for people who haven't already seen the movie.
They drive into the Ghostbusters headquarters, secretary Janine greets them, and then her bubblegum bursts:
I think she's surprised at how friendly they all are when greeting her. They each gift her a big box of chocolates. If she's watched the TV at all then she'll know they didn't buy them especially for her, but either way she's cross when she opens them because there's no chocolate in there - Slimer has eaten it all! And then he slimes all over Peter. It's a bodily function, right? It's like throwing up? Except ectoplasm? No wonder he does it after binge-eating.
Peter wants to finally blast Slimer for good. There's definitely an indication that something has happened since the movie that changed Slimer's relationship with the team from "enemy" to "pet, but on probation". Ray prefers just to tell Slimer off instead, calling him a "naughty ghosty", and Peter relents but tells Slimer that he's on his last chance. I wonder how many last chances he gets in this show, assuming the status quo stays the same?
Winston: We're gonna hit the sheets, it's been a rough night.
Egon: Hold all our calls, Janine.
Janine: Hey, piece of cake.
At which Slimer starts rummaging around everything on Janine's desk, presumably looking for the cake! He still wants more food? Janine frustratedly tells him it's just an expression as he looks disappointed.
There's a short scene of Ray emptying the ghost trap into their "Ecto-Containment Unit" in the basement that has all the ghosts they've captured in it, and then we see the Ghostbusters sleeping. Apparently they all sleep in the same room together - do they not have their own houses? Ray holds a little plush Stay-Puft while he sleeps. Cute. And Slimer also sleeps in the same room, with a pillow but no bed, and he's dreaming of various food items jumping over a fence as if he's counting sheep - when he tries to eat them, he swallows his pillow for a sec before he sneezes it back out, splatting himself against the ceiling! That'd hurt if he was corporeal.
He floats down to the kitchen and grabs a load of food from the fridge, but Winston hears the noise and wanders out of bed to investigate. Slimer goes down to the basement, still making noise as he drops things, but manages to hide himself from view when Winston looks in there, so he doesn't get spotted. But after Winston leaves, and just as Slimer relaxes, Slimer accidentally hits a big switch connected to the containment unit! Lights flash and an alarm sounds, but apparently it's not loud enough to alert any of the Ghostbusters.
Slimer doesn't realise what he's done at first, and starts eating some bananas (peel and all!), but then he notices the flashing lights and remembers what Peter said, so he desperately starts trying to fix his mistake, putting the switch back in position, but not before something visibly starts moving out through a pipe on the machine that leads through the wall. Cut to the roof, and... the three ghosts from earlier emerge from the building! One detail I didn't notice on the first couple of viewings is that they literally scare a black cat white - it changes colour as it flees from them.
Now that we hear them having a proper conversation amongst themselves, it's clear that the short ghost and the thin ghost are the parents of the large ghost. The big baby is referred to here as Zonk, and the short ghost will later refer to himself as Slug, but the thin ghost is never named so I'll just call her Mama. Zonk gets a part of the building stuck on him as he emerges, due to his size:
Slug: I told you to put him on a diet!
Mama: I did! But he only lost weight from his head!
And when Zonk frees himself, he climbs onto the aerial the other two are sitting on, but his weight unbalances it and they hang over the edge of the building! Slug complains about his weight and about his messy hair - which is a single hair, but Zonk combs it anyway, stretching out his whole face comically with the comb.
Mama asks what their plan is, and Slug starts to demonstrate by changing into a vaguely more human form - but this form scares Zonk, who falls off the aerial in shock, causing it to fly up and fling Slug off! Zonk looks directly at the camera when he says "whoops". Do ghosts have fourth-wall-breaking powers?
The next scene is in a hospital - Zonk bursts in and starts scaring the doctors and patients, making faces and saying things like "ooga-booga". But then Slug and Mama come in, both in "human" forms and claiming to be ghost experts, while the real humans all flee. Zonk pretends to look scared - but then, of course, once the humans are gone, he smiles again. The Ghostbusters show up, prepared to fight ghosts, only to find the problem has already been solved without them, by a brand new pair of ghost hunters calling themselves "Ghosts Я Us". They're keeping Zonk in some kind of barrel instead of an actual trap, but it seems to have fooled everyone! Also, that name should be kind of a giveaway... And they leave in a truck whose logo is just Zonk's face with a cross through it!
As the Ghostbusters get back to the office, Janine is answering a call:
Janine: No, ma'am, this is the real Ghostbusters, not Ghosts Я Us!
I like that they picked a plot for the first episode that gave them an excuse to use the phrase "the real Ghostbusters". I wonder if that was the inspiration for the whole episode? Apparently people have kept calling the Ghostbusters the whole day but hanging up when they realise they aren't Ghosts Я Us - presumably the ghosts have done more than the one stunt we've seen then, for them to overshadow the Ghostbusters' reputation that quickly!
Peter reckons those guys must somehow be fakes, but Egon says his scanner showed there was definitely a class 5 ghost in Ghosts Я Us's "containment unit". What, they can't think of any kind of scam that would involve a real ghost? And did his scanner not pick up the other two? Then they get another call, this time to a hotel, only to find Ghosts Я Us have beaten them to it again. Hey, are no real calls coming in at all?
This time, Zonk even briefly pops out of the containment unit, but the Ghostbusters still haven't figured it out, only saying that there's something familiar about them. As Ghosts Я Us drive away, gloating, Slug orders Zonk to comb his hair again. I'm not sure why this is a running joke, since the main punchline of "he's combing his single hair" was kind of covered the first time!
Then we cut to the Ecto-1, and the Ghostbusters get a call from Janine - she's got another scanner, which she calls a watchamadoodle, and it says that the containment unit is missing three ghosts. That's when Peter realises that Ghosts Я Us look like those other ghosts, but weirdly, he says that they look like the ghosts they captured "this morning". We've seen a night pass and even had everyone go to sleep since then! Did they change the events of the episode and forget to change that line, or had they just already forgotten what they wrote when they got to this part?
Anyway, the Ghostbusters work out someone must have shut down the machine and immediately accuse Slimer, who's hiding under the seats of the vehicle. But before they can do anything about it, Janine gets another call, this time from Ghosts Я Us themselves, to lure the Ghostbusters to an abandoned toy factory in Brooklyn. The Ghostbusters at least figure out that Ghosts Я Us are probably there, but they see this not as a trap but as an opportunity to finally re-capture the ghosts. Well, at least they don't seem as stupid now as they did a minute ago.
Janine: Stay calm, sir. Help is on the way!
Slug: Oh, God! The sooner the better!
Zonk: Yeah, the better the soo- the soo- uhhh... quickly.
The ghosts rush into the factory, which is so dark and scary that even Zonk is afraid. Slug explains that they're there because this factory is haunted by Turlock, a class seven ghost, which scares Zonk even more - remember, he and his parents are only class fives. Slug seems confident he can deal with him though, and rushes in to wake Turlock up. But he runs into a giant rippling worm thing with one eye, and now even Slug is scared as the thing announces that Turlock is "gone, permanently". Ohhhh, things are getting serious. The trio flee as the cloud of gas that is the body of the powerful ghost starts grabbing some of the old toys, and then, in a dramatic transformation sequence, it becomes something brand new!
We catch glimpses of parts of its new form as you can see above, but we don't get a full view yet. For now, the Ghostbusters arrive at the factory, only for Ghosts Я Us to flee right over Ecto-1, Zonk almost crushing it with his weight! And then the new ghost bursts out of the building and Egon declares it "a full-magnitude class ten" as the arrow on his meter somehow bursts out of the screen, in the most Looney Tunes bit of animation in this episode!
So now the big ghost is going on a rampage through the city, and it's up to the Ghostbusters to stop it. Peter tells Ray and Egon to use "Ecto-2" to head the beast off - what we haven't seen until now is that there is a kind of helicopter-bike thing stored in the back of Ecto-1, with room for two! So those two take off while Peter and Winston stay in the car, and they can pursue the big ghost from two directions! I can guess that the reason for the extra vehicle is to sell more toys, but it still looks pretty cool. Slimer also ends up on Ecto-2 in the split, uninvited as usual.
The original trio of ghosts are still fleeing, trampling other cars as they go. There's a shot of a taxi driver and passenger who for some reason are drawn almost as grotesquely as the ghosts! And then, of course, any concern the drivers have for what those three ghosts will do to their cars goes away as the big ghost starts running them over and they are forced to abandon their vehicles or get crushed. We see the big ghost's new form clearly now - a cymbal-playing monkey on top, a block with letters on it (and its own pair of eyes) in the middle, and the bottom of some kind of toy that has claws and rides a tricycle from the look of it, hence its ability to run things over. I wonder if every episode ends up with them fighting something big and cute like in the film, or if they're just mimicking it for this first go?
So Ecto-2 flies over the big ghost as it heads for Brooklyn Bridge, and Ray, wearing some kind of scanning goggles, says he can detect the class fives ahead too. Ecto-1 is stuck in traffic but Peter knows a "shortcut" - going diagonal up against the railing of the bridge - scaring Winston but getting them there faster! I guess the writers of this one see "reckless" as a part of Peter's personality. Then Ecto-2 lands (on some cars! It's really not great to be a motorist in Brooklyn in this episode) ahead of where the ghost trio are fleeing to, in time to capture them in a ghost trap once again - but now Ecto-2 is right in the path of the big ghost!
Ecto-1 radioes Ecto-2:
Winston: Hang on guys, we're almost there!
Peter: All this is because of Slimer. If he hadn't messed up, we'd be home in our jammies right now.
Now remember, Slimer is on board Ecto-2, so he hears this and gets upset... It's hard to feel too sorry for him, though, given how this episode started! Then they try and do a joke about the monster's four eyes by having Egon talk about "the gleam in his eyes" and having Ray say "which eye?", but it doesn't land because he said "eyes" anyway, and even if he didn't, a gleam in someone's eye isn't usually something where it matters which eye. Nice try, guys.
Ecto-2 manages to fly out of the big ghost's reach, but Ecto-1 reaches it now and almost gets crushed! Ray fires at the monster - "Aim for the monkey!" - but all that achieves is that the central block of the construction opens up like a jack-in-the-box and a giant doll head pops out! There was a doll just like that in the pile at the factory - the animators were paying attention here.
Then they try to put a grappling rope around it, but that just gives it something to swing them around by! Peter and Winston, now on foot, fire at it, but the monster's fall slams Ecto-2 onto one of the bridge's arches, and the monster itself easily gets back up! Peter says what we're all thinking:
Peter: What's it take to stop this guy?
As the monster climbs up the bridge's railing towards Ecto-2, Peter's words about how this is Slimer's fault echo in Slimer's head, as he reconstitutes himself from getting splatted in the fall. So Slimer, obviously trying to prove himself, starts charging towards the big ghost, even as Ray yells at him to stop! Slimer slides down the railing, covering it in slime, then gets out of the way...
Meanwhile, Egon sets Ecto-2 to "full power overload". He could've said he was setting the self-destruct sequence, which sounds more like an intentional feature and less like a defect, especially since it comes with an exact timer! Egon and Ray jump out of Ecto-2 as the monster slips on the slime and goes tumbling into the river, taking the still-tethered heli-bike with it.
All four Ghostbusters, and Slimer, look anxiously out at the water as the component parts of the ghost's form float apart... and a massive one-eyed fish-worm-y beast flies out of the water! This is presumably its true form, and not the cloud of gas we saw earlier - maybe it only ever reverts to this shape as a last resort.
Peter makes a joke about wanting sushi, and then Ecto-2 explodes in a ridiculously big fireball that looks like it should take out the bridge and everything on it, but apparently only destroys the ghost. Then the Ghostbusters are standing on the giant tricycle - all that's left of the ghost - having their pictures taken in another ceremony, their reputation clearly restored. Slimer gives Peter a big slimey kiss and Winston calls it a "happy ending" - do I spot an innuendo? - while, inside the ghost trap, the trio struggle to get free.
Well, it's a happy ending for me - I enjoyed that episode! And yes, there are Japanese names in the animation credits. Oh, and the guy who created Babylon 5 was in charge of the story? J. Michael Straczynski? I guess this is how he got his start!