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Bird of Prey is the nineteenth episode of Extreme Ghostbusters. It first aired on October 2, 1997, as part of the show's first season. A huge bird-like spirit called the Harasvelg throws New York's weather into chaos, and the team has to trap it before the storms tear the city apart.
The episode was directed by Chris Berkeley and written by Mark Hoffmeier, with animation by Koko Enterprise Company, Ltd.
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A heatwave and drought hit the Scandinavian-American town of New Oslo, ruining a family of corn farmers. A boy named Swen Christianson suggests using the Sceptre of Donar to call on the Harasvelg and bring rain, but his father Sken and his grandfather reject the idea, saying the Sceptre has not been used in a hundred generations and its secrets are lost. That night Swen picks the lock on the New Oslo Scandinavian Folk Museum, steals the Sceptre along with a paper holding an incantation, and reads the words aloud on a hill above the town. The Sceptre glows red, clouds gather, and the Harasvelg appears. Rain falls, but the storm quickly turns destructive. Lightning destroys both the Sceptre and the paper before Swen can send the creature back, leaving the bird loose.
In New York, the weather swings wildly between record highs and lows in the same week, a phenomenon a news report from Nancy Morrison dubs "The Scorcher in New York." Temperatures swing from -18 degrees on Monday to -3 degrees on Tuesday to 98 degrees on Wednesday in the same week. Egon Spengler worries the temperature and humidity flux could warp the inner circuitry of the gear and calls for a full equipment overhaul. After his P.K.E. Meter spikes, he suspects the swings are ectoplasmic in origin, and rooftop readings confirm a surge of ectoplasmic energy tied to the erratic barometric pressure. Slimer repeatedly tries to join the team's work and is brushed off each time; when Egon and Janine dash back inside from the rain, Slimer has been waiting with an open umbrella but the door slams in his face before he can offer it.
While out investigating in Ecto-1, the team is attacked by the unseen creature, which calls down lightning and hail and batters the car. Sken and Swen Christianson arrive at the Firehouse and admit Swen summoned the Harasvelg. Kylie Griffin recognizes the name from Norse myth: the Harasvelg was summoned in ancient times with the Sceptre of Donar to protect northern Scandinavian tribes from their enemies, but it proved impossible to control and turned on its masters, causing devastation, after which the tribes swore never to call it again.
The team tracks the bird through the city but finds their proton streams diffused by the weather, making it hard to hit. Roland Jackson tries to cut the creature off at Battery Park, and they manage to weaken it before it flees. Kylie learns that "Harasvelg" in Old Norse translates literally to "bird of prey," and that the books offer no way to defeat it. The Sceptre is the only lead, but it is locked in the New Oslo museum and the curator refuses to lend it or let the team study it. Egon instead develops Diffusion Filters, small modules for the proton blasters and proton pistol that let the streams cut through any precipitation.
Slimer flies to New Oslo on his own and steals the Sceptre from the museum. Back in the city the filters work and the team wears the Harasvelg down until it crashes near a movie theater. Its head punches through the movie screen and the patrons inside mistake it for part of the 3D movie they are watching. Roland is ready to trap it, but Slimer arrives waving the Sceptre, which re-empowers the bird and sends it generating a tornado. The team deflects a volley of the creature's fireballs with garbage can lids before Kylie grabs the Sceptre and realizes its crystal amplifies the creature's P.K.E.: firing their streams through the crystal would augment them enough to trap it. Eduardo Rivera is "volunteered" to hold the Sceptre aloft, the others blast the crystal, and the augmented stream lets Kylie trap the Harasvelg. The tornado keeps coming, fed by the heat and energy of the capture, so Slimer takes Eduardo's pack, flies into the funnel, and fires; the heat dissipates the tornado. He briefly seems lost, then drops out of the sky onto Eduardo, and Kylie kisses him for his heroics.
Regular voice cast: Tara Charendoff (credited later as Tara Strong), Maurice LaMarche, Jason Marsden, Pat Musick, Alfonso Ribeiro, Rino Romano, and Billy West. Guest voices: Joe Alaskey, Xander Berkeley, and Billy Jayne.
The team in this episode comprises Egon Spengler, Roland Jackson, Garrett Miller, Kylie Griffin, Eduardo Rivera, Janine Melnitz, and Slimer.
The Harasvelg is a giant winged spirit drawn from Norse myth, with a slender body, a massive wingspan, tiny arms, and razor-sharp talons and teeth. Garrett describes it as a "pterodactyl on steroids." It flies, manipulates weather to its will, whips up hurricane-force winds with its wings, and breathes fire as either a continuous stream or a volley of fireballs. The name is loosely inspired by Hraesvelgr, an eagle-like jotunn of Norse mythology.1
The team uses the Proton Pack, particle thrower, proton cannister, trap, P.K.E. Meter, barometric analyzer, Ecto-1, proton pistol, and a radio. Egon's Diffusion Filter, an ad hoc module inserted into the proton blasters and proton pistol, lets the streams cut through precipitation to reach the Harasvelg. The Sceptre of Donar, with its crystal that amplifies the creature's P.K.E., is the key item of the episode.
The Harasvelg is summoned in New Oslo, a name echoing Oslo, the capital of Norway. "Donar" in the Sceptre of Donar is the Germanic name for the thunder god Thor. Swen's incantation reads: "Protectors of Valhalla, I call upon that which has dominion on Earth and wind, lightning, and thunder. I call upon the power of the Harasvelg." It invokes Valhalla, the hall of Asgard where warriors slain in combat are carried by the Valkyries.
The team tries to cut the Harasvelg off at Battery Park, a location that had appeared earlier in The Real Ghostbusters episode "Sticky Business." Garrett mocks a snow-covered Eduardo as "Frosty the Idiot Boy," a riff on Frosty the Snowman, and Eduardo jokes that the bird may be attacking New York because it is a Red Sox fan. The Harasvelg later made a non-canon cameo as an illustration in the IDW comic Ghostbusters International #3.
The previous episode is Ghost Apocalyptic Future and the next is Seeds of Destruction.
Hraesvelgr is an eagle-like jotunn (giant) in Norse mythology, named in the Old Norse poems of the Poetic Edda and in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, where the beating of his wings is said to be the source of the winds. ↩