Plot
The Ghostbusters chase a ghost across the grounds of Harcourt Alabaster III's chemical plant. It flees into a chemical research and development facility, where the Ghoul ducks into one of the chemical vats. Peter zaps the vat with a proton stream, and the influx of energy sets off all the vats at once. The ghost laughs and prepares to leave, but the team captures it, ending up covered in sticky reddish brown chemicals. Egon notices the captured ghost reads as a weak Class 2 rather than the Strong Class 3 Vaporous Apparition he had first labeled it.
After a long shower and a lot of scrubbing the guys get clean, but they soon develop reddish and purplish growths over their bodies. A layer of strange growths eventually covers everyone but their heads. Peter notes -- almost in passing -- that their insurance is not actually paid up. The chemical company cannot explain the growths, so the team goes to the hospital to see a specialist. Doctor Gould conducts his examinations from behind a shield, using a probe to close the distance, and assures them it is not serious. He runs many tests and claims he knows how to treat the condition, though it is clear he does not understand what he is dealing with.
Ray develops a large eye on his chest, and the others grow other organs on their own chests: Egon a nose, Peter an ear, and Winston a mouth with pointed teeth. Janine tries to keep them comfortable throughout their stay, bringing Egon chicken soup with mushrooms, Ray doughnuts, and Winston copies of Herman Melville and Charles Dickens along with a Walkman loaded with an Alan Parsons Project tape -- though she brings Peter nothing, against hospital policy. Egon, meanwhile, asks her for his spectrometer, ectodefusitron, and plasmometer. Slimer is kept outside the room because the doctor considers him unsanitary.
In a private moment, Gould tells Janine that a cure could take five or six years, and he is clearly more excited about the papers he intends to write, the American Medical Association conventions he plans to attend, and the books he intends to publish than he is about the patients. As his tests grow more invasive, the Ghostbusters' patience runs out. When Egon tries to fill a vial with a water pitcher, a nurse warns him she knows karate. The breaking point arrives when Gould attempts to extract samples with syringes of many sizes, and the four Ghostbusters chase him down the hall in their wheelchairs, Winston brandishing an oversized needle.
When Slimer gets close to Ray, part of the mass covering his body reacts, flies off, attacks Slimer, then returns to Ray's hand. Radio reports suggest the problem is incurable. Egon pieces together what happened: the chemical was experimental and designed to absorb a wide spectrum of energy, so when the ghost passed through the vat the substance absorbed its ectoplasmic properties, and the proton blast gave it the spark it needed to come to life. The gunk is alive and it needs ecto energy to survive.
Egon decides to have Slimer approach them deliberately. When he does, the substance covering their bodies flies off and forms a reconstructed Gunk Creature. It chases Slimer -- who slams it into Gould and a nurse on the way out -- while the cured but weakened Ghostbusters grab their gear. Because the creature is not a real ghost but a chemical construct that has absorbed the original ghost's ectoplasmic energy and proton energy, the team cannot trap it. Instead they overload it with their particle throwers and blow it up, trashing the floor and coating themselves in goop again. Gould remarks drily that it used to be a nice, quiet hospital until they let the sick people in.
A week later the Ghostbusters are discharged with a clean bill of health. When Gould presents his bill, Peter hands him a bill for the team's services to the hospital for exactly the same amount, suggests they call it even, and rips up both bills. Egon compliments Peter on the added touch of the ripping, and wants to try it himself next time.
Episode entities
The Ghoul
The Ghoul is the antagonist that triggers the episode's crisis. A ghost originally classified by Egon as a Strong Class 3 Vaporous Apparition, it is hired out as a pest and factory nuisance by some unspecified party. It deliberately lures Peter into shooting the chemical vats, setting off the chain reaction. After capture its P.K.E. signature reads as a weak Class 2, a clue to what the chemicals have absorbed. The Ghoul is voiced by Townsend Coleman.
Gunk Creature
The Gunk Creature is the true threat of the episode: a chemical construct that assembles itself from the contaminated layers growing on the Ghostbusters' bodies. It is not a ghost in any conventional sense. Because it has absorbed ectoplasmic energy from the Ghoul and proton energy from the original blast, a ghost trap cannot contain it. The only solution is to overload it with sustained proton streams until it disperses.
Cast and characters
The Ghostbusters: Egon Spengler, Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore, with Janine Melnitz and Slimer. One-off characters include the Ghoul (Townsend Coleman), the Alabaster Chemical Plant scientists, Doctor Gould, and the Gunk Creature.
Equipment and locations
The team uses their proton packs and particle throwers, the ghost trap, the P.K.E. Meter, and Ecto-1. This episode reveals that the animated ghost trap has a readout showing the classification of the ghost or ghosts it has captured.
The Alabaster Chemical Plant is a chemical research and development facility owned by Harcourt Alabaster III. The experimental chemicals at the plant are designed to absorb a wide spectrum of energy -- a property that makes them uniquely dangerous when combined with ghostly ectoplasm and proton blasts. The Hospital is a New York City medical facility where the Ghostbusters spend the bulk of the episode under the dubious care of Doctor Gould.
Production
The episode was recorded on January 9, January 12, and January 16, 1987.2 Frank Welker recorded on January 9 and 16, and Maurice LaMarche recorded alone on January 12.2
Notes and trivia
Peter's line "Heat 'em up!" and the others' reply "Smoking!" echo a moment from the original Ghostbusters film.1 Egon's favorite soup is established here as chicken soup with mushrooms.
Janine brings Winston books by Herman Melville and Charles Dickens along with music by The Alan Parsons Project, and Peter references Captain Ahab from Melville's "Moby-Dick." Janine also misquotes the maxim "A mind is a terrible thing to waste" to Slimer, and Dr. Gould mentions the American Medical Association.
The episode features a running comedic thread involving Egon and the hospital staff: he attempts to fill a sample vial from a water pitcher, only to be warned by a nurse that she knows karate, and later the team chases Gould down the hall in their wheelchairs.
Doctor Gould's medical shield was later reused as a visual reference in IDW Publishing's Ghostbusters comics. It appears on page 19 of Ghostbusters Volume 1 Issue #7, and the nurses and Doctor Gould make a non-canon cameo at the check-in station on page 20 of that issue. The shield Egon carries in Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #5 (page 20) and Issue #6 (page 2) is based on Gould's, and the foot X-ray from this episode appears as a non-canon cameo on page 19 of Ghostbusters Crossing Over Issue #2.
Episode order
By air date, "Doctor, Doctor" follows The Man Who Never Reached Home and precedes You Can't Take It With You. In DVD order it sits between A Fright at the Opera and Ghost Busted.
