Voice cast
The episode's regular voice actors were Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Buster Jones, and Kath Soucie. Roger Bumpass appeared as a guest voice.2
Plot
The street outside the Firehouse is packed with people and confetti for the First Annual Ghostbusters Grand Prix, a race whose prize money goes to the winner's charity. As the crowd is greeted, no one notices a demon among them. Each Ghostbuster is matched with a car suited to his style: Peter Venkman takes the turbine-powered Venkmobile, Ray Stantz the solar-powered Ray Runner, Egon Spengler the fully computerized, hydrogen-propelled Spengler Speedster, Slimer the Slime Buggy, and Winston Zeddemore a souped-up Ecto-1.
When the race starts, the demon walks through a wall and reappears on a rooftop, glowing with power. The sky darkens and part of the track is turned into a tunnel. Police try to wave the drivers down, but the team mistakes them for well-wishers and keeps driving through the new tunnel entrance, which seals shut behind them. Janine Melnitz and Louis Tully, watching from the Firehouse rec room, realize something is wrong.
Inside, the scenery has changed and Egon's onboard computers short out. A police escort takes Janine and Louis to the scene with a load of Egon's inventions piled in the back seat of Janine's car. The drivers reach a crossroads with signs reading Ghost Town, Cove of a Thousand Horrors, and Nightmaresville. A diner materializes by the road, but everyone inside the Do or Diner is a hostile supernatural entity, and the team flees. Egon concludes they are in the Netherworld and has no directional data to work with. Peter speeds ahead and crashes, wrecking the Venkmobile; Ray and Egon determine the group is enclosed in a parabolic realm of high-density ectoplasm, like a fish bowl.
The landscape becomes a checkerboard. Egon uses that detail to identify their adversary, the Phantom, a Class 7 demon known for board games with very high stakes who has never lost. Giant dice fall and smash the Ray Runner; Ray climbs into Ecto-1 just in time. A sign reading "Back 10 Spaces" forces several of the cars to retreat across the board. The Phantom reveals he chose the Ghostbusters for their reputation, glad to finally have worthy competitors. Peter's proton stream bounces off him and nearly hits Peter. Egon decides the goal is to accumulate points.
The Phantom sends a Motor Home Creature to chase the team. Janine fires the last of Egon's devices at the sealed tunnel entrance. The creature destroys the Slime Buggy and grows to the size of a house. Winston leads it into a canyon, where it becomes wedged in the ridge, and the team scores 300 points after driving beneath it. Egon's Directional Finder locates a crack in the portal home, to the south-southeast. The team reaches Level 3, which the Phantom says no one has done before, and he begins wrecking his own game. Ecto-1 drives into the ectoplasmic tunnel; the Phantom extends an arm to grab it, but once Ecto-1 returns to the physical plane Janine shuts off the device, pulling the Phantom back into his collapsing game. The team pushes Ecto-1 across the finish line, Louis confirms they salvaged the uniform deposit, and the Mayor hands the trophy to Slimer while declaring everyone a winner. The group poses for a photo that makes the front page of the Herald News.
Ghosts and entities
The Phantom
The Phantom is the episode's main antagonist, a Class 7 demon with the appearance of a pale, thin man dressed in black with a cape and a wide-brimmed hat. He is voiced by Frank Welker. His demonstrated powers include intangibility, slime secretion, weather manipulation, telekinesis, portal creation, teleportation, and arm extension. He has never lost one of his games before the Ghostbusters reach Level 3. The Phantom is notable as a board-game-themed antagonist alongside a similar one-off character, the Player, who trapped the team on a train rather than in a race; the two are referenced in Ghostbusters fandom discussions comparing game-master villains in the series.
Motor Home Creature
The Motor Home Creature is a vehicle-like supernatural entity dispatched by the Phantom to raise the stakes of the game. It is voiced by Dave Coulier. A key trait: the creature grows larger each time it is struck by a proton stream, which leads Winston to exploit the growth by luring it into a canyon where it becomes too large to move. The Ghostbusters score 300 points by driving beneath the wedged creature before escaping.
Do or Diner Ghosts
The Do or Diner is a phantom roadside restaurant that materializes near a crossroads bearing signs for Ghost Town, Cove of a Thousand Horrors, and Nightmaresville. Its patrons are hostile supernatural entities who do not welcome human visitors. The team's attempt to ask directions here ends in a rapid retreat.
Race vehicles
Five custom vehicles are built for the Grand Prix, each reflecting its driver's personality.
Venkmobile: A turbine-powered car driven by Peter Venkman. It is the first vehicle destroyed in the Netherworld when Peter crashes into an obstacle.
Ray Runner: A solar-powered monster truck driven by Ray Stantz. It is smashed apart by a pair of giant dice when the Phantom officially starts his game. Ray escapes in time and joins Winston in Ecto-1. The Ray Runner later makes a non-canon cameo in IDW's Ghostbusters Volume 2, Issue 14, among floating vehicles.
Spengler Speedster: A fully computerized, hydrogen-propelled vehicle driven by Egon Spengler. Its onboard computers short out on entry to the Netherworld. Its fate after the dice-dropping scene is explained only in the deleted storyboard sequence (see Production notes).
Slime Buggy: A modified van with a viscous coating applied to reduce wind resistance, driven by Slimer. Its interior includes a small refrigerator stocked with desserts and other food. It is destroyed by the Motor Home Creature.
Ecto-1 (souped-up): Winston's entry and the vehicle that carries most of the team for the second half of the episode, ultimately driving through the ectoplasmic portal to escape the Netherworld.
Production notes
One of the devices Janine brings is the B.U.F.O. Receptacle, the same container Walter Peck used to transport Slimer in "Big Trouble With Little Slimer." Another device brought to the scene is the Frequency Emulator.
The episode has a continuity gap: Egon's Spengler Speedster disappears after the dice-dropping scene with no on-screen explanation. Storyboards reproduced in The Real Ghostbusters Box Set Volume 4 show a deleted sequence in which the Speedster is snared by gas-pump hoses and then eaten by a gas station's service bay.3
Several small background gags appear near the end. The Herald News front page mentions a "T-10 four speed" under Louis and "Van Nuys, California" under Slimer, and the van that pursues Slimer has "Dead Sam Club" written on its back.
Animation errors
When the Motor Home Creature appears and drives head-on toward the Ghostbusters, a few frames in that sequence contain animation directive cards between scenes. After Peter first blasts the Motor Home Creature, he briefly has blonde hair in the following shot.
References
