7 min read
Season 2, Episode 15 | Air Date: October 2, 1987 | Production No.: 76063
Written by: Kathryn M. Drennan | Recorded: October 31, 1986
Previous Episode: Ghostbuster of the Year | Next Episode: No One Comes to Lupusville
Real Ghostbusters: Season 2 | Real Ghostbusters: Episode Guide
Home Video: The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection, Vol. 3, Disc 3
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After a successful but undignified bust at a New England farm, the Ghostbusters get turned around on the drive home and stumble into a small town called Nass Burg. While stopped for gas, Slimer wanders off and finds an old well with a plaque beside it. Winston reads it aloud: a Zedikiah Spengler banished a dragon into the well in 1742. Egon reluctantly admits Zedikiah was an ancestor, but dismisses him as a loon who chose superstition over science. As the team drives away, Egon's voice carries down the well and awakens the creature inside.
Back in New York City, Egon downplays the situation, reasoning the dragon was "only the size of a horse." Moments later a very large dragon appears in the sky above them. Proton Streams prove useless against the creature, and the team scatters. When the dragon sweeps low and grabs Egon, it does not attack him. Instead, recognizing Egon's strong family resemblance to Zedikiah, it decides Egon is its father and begins following him around the city.
The Ghostbusters spend the night poring over Zedikiah's journals and trying to decipher his arcane symbols. By morning they piece together the history. In 1742, Zedikiah Spengler was experimenting with musical incantations, attempting to use one to refill a dried-up well. Instead, the spell roused the well's Genius Loci, a spirit of place, which manifested as a dragon. The dragon, nicknamed Loci by the team, started bringing Zedikiah farm animals as gifts. Unable to stop it any other way, Zedikiah rearranged the notes of the original incantation, found the right melody, and placed Loci in suspended animation inside the well. The suspension was supposed to be permanent, and Loci was not supposed to keep growing.
Ray, Peter, and Winston try to play the original incantation on conventional musical instruments, but the sounds are not powerful enough and Loci simply bats the attempt aside. Egon then works out the key insight: only one specific chord matters, and it must be played at the exact frequency and amplitude that corresponds to Loci's current size and distance from the well. Since Loci has grown far beyond what simple instruments can produce, the Proton Pack Particle Throwers need to be retuned so they vibrate at the correct frequency, essentially functioning as giant tuning forks. Peter suggests using Ecto-2 to lead Loci back to Nass Burg before firing. Egon has second thoughts at the last moment, troubled that the sound waves could destroy Loci rather than merely put it to sleep, but Winston convinces him there is no other option. The Ghostbusters fire into the sky, Loci shrinks back to horse-size, and settles into suspended animation at the bottom of the well. Egon climbs down to confirm with the PKE Meter and gives Loci one last pat before climbing back up.
| Character | Voice Actor |
|---|---|
| Peter Venkman | Lorenzo Music |
| Ray Stantz | Frank Welker |
| Egon Spengler | Maurice LaMarche |
| Winston Zeddemore | Arsenio Hall |
| Janine Melnitz | Laura Summer |
Loci is the episode's central antagonist and, in its own way, its most sympathetic character. It is a Genius Loci, a spirit bound to a specific place, in this case the well outside Nass Burg in New England. The spirit manifests as a dragon. In 1742, when Zedikiah Spengler accidentally roused it, it was roughly the size of a horse. By the time it reawakens in the episode's present, it has grown to an enormous size, large enough to carry cars and drop a ferry on a city street. It is not malicious. It simply attaches to whoever it perceives as its father figure based on Spengler family resemblance, brings them offerings, and follows them around. Proton Streams have no effect on it. The method of returning it to suspended animation is a precisely calibrated sound wave rather than a conventional trap. Loci later appears in IDW Publishing's Ghostbusters comic series, specifically in issue 18 of the second ongoing volume.
The episode opens with the Ghostbusters on a farm bust in New England. The ghost they catch is a poltergeist that plays multiple musical instruments simultaneously, dropping hay bales on the team before being trapped. Writer Kathryn M. Drennan's script described it only as "all legs and no arms." The animators added the musical instruments and fleshed out its visual appearance. It is captured with a Ghost Trap before the main plot begins.
Egon's ancestor, active in 1742, appears in the episode through flashback and through his journals. He was experimenting with musical incantations and accidentally summoned Loci while trying to refill a well. He eventually found the sound frequency to put Loci back to sleep. Egon initially dismisses him as a crank who preferred superstition to science, then has to revise that assessment once he realizes Zedikiah had actually worked out a legitimate acoustic principle. The episode later established (in a different RGB episode) that another ancestor named Eli Spengler was also a Ghostbuster, contradicting Egon's claim in this episode that scientists and scholars run in his family but not Ghostbusters.
A small town in the New England area. The name "Nass" is a reference to one of writer Kathryn M. Drennan's high school friends. The old well on the outskirts of town is where Loci was imprisoned in 1742 and where it is returned at the episode's end.
Loci reappears in IDW Publishing's Ghostbusters ongoing comic series (Volume 2, Issue 18), as a callback to this episode. Separately, Zedekiah Spengler's lute from this episode appears as a background Easter egg in Roger's Apartment in the IDW comics continuity.
