Plot
The Junior Ghostbusters are out trick or treating on Halloween night with Slimer. At one house, while a woman asks about their costumes, Slimer swallows her entire bowl of candy and spits the bowl back out empty and slimed. Two of Samhain's goblins are nearby, harassing a tied-up terrier. The Junior Ghostbusters bump into the goblins and drop their candy. Believing the pair are just other kids in costume, Jason offers them some candy as an apology, but the goblins run off into the night. Slimer, suspicious, follows them and finds they have dumped their candy in the bushes. He brings the abandoned candy back, and the group decides to trail the goblins.
The chase leads to the Ghostbusters' headquarters, where the Junior Ghostbusters are briefly scared by creepy faces in the dark until the lights reveal the Ghostbusters and Janine in costume for their own party. As the party gets going, Slimer spots the two goblins among the guests. They slip downstairs to the Containment Unit and lock the door from the inside. By the time Egon, Peter, Ray, and Winston investigate a burst of P.K.E. from the Firehouse roof, the goblins have already released Samhain.
Furious at his imprisonment, Samhain hurls an orb of P.K.E. into the wall and the Firehouse violently transforms. The Ghostbusters escape in Ecto-1 as the building becomes a ghostly fortress. Samhain raises a protective shield that only ghostly beings can pass through, blocking the team's light and Proton Streams; the more ghosts inside, the stronger he and the shield grow. Outside, the Ghostbusters trap several pursuing ghosts with a Proton Cannon and trap apparatus, and Winston covers their retreat with a smoke screen. They drop the children off at the Junior Ghostbusters clubhouse.
Samhain leads his minions out to hunt for the Ghostbusters, leaving the fortress empty. The Junior Ghostbusters, now in their jumpsuits, detect Samhain's departing army on a jerry-rigged ghost detector and take Ecto-Junior into the empty fortress. When two of Samhain's minions intercept them, Donald holds the pair off with a giant slingshot loaded with pumpkins before the whole group is captured by Samhain himself. Egon, studying the cosmic shape of the structure, concludes that changing its shape will make it collapse, but he needs more data on the interior. Slimer is fitted with a mini camera in his mouth and sent in. He locates the captured children, and Egon spots a keystone marking the spot where the Containment Unit once stood. Destroying it, he reasons, will bring the whole fortress down.
When the Ghostbusters confront Samhain, he threatens to kill the children unless they surrender. They lay down their weapons; Slimer draws Samhain's forces while the team fires from a distance, and Janine activates the Proton Cannon and strikes the keystone. Weakened by the damage and the lack of ghosts to feed his power, Samhain is overwhelmed. Slimer uses his own slime to pull the children out through the wall, the keystone shatters, and Janine blinds Samhain with the lights on Ecto-1 long enough for the fortress to crumble. With the Containment Unit revealed (still open from his escape), Samhain is sucked back inside. The Firehouse returns to normal and the party continues.
Production
Len Janson and Chuck Menville assigned Hickey and McCoy to write a Halloween episode. With horror-movie sequels common at the time, the writers leaned into that idea for the title and concept. Network directives made this the most conservatively written of Hickey and McCoy's episodes.
As scripted, Samhain was simply sucked back into the Containment Unit at the end. His on-screen downfall was changed so that Janine blinds him with light, giving the Ghostbusters a more active hand in defeating him.
The episode was recorded on June 10 and 12 and August 5, 1987. Katie Leigh recorded alone on June 12, and Lennard Camarillo recorded alone on August 5.2
Trivia
When Egon presents the cosmic shape of Samhain's Fortress, several Japanese phrases written in romaji appear on the screen: "Kurutteru!", "Onegaida!", "A...I-Kimochi!", "Ya..Yam...Yamete", "Yatashiwa Kugi Yo Urushiina", "Yaahodo!", and "Koredo Oshima!!"
In dialogue, Jason identifies the goblins as "Class Five Full Roaming Vapors, as illustrated on page 23 of Tobin's Spirit Guide."
When the Junior Ghostbusters declare "We're the Junior Ghostbusters, and we're not afraid of no ghost!", they do not deliver the second half of the line in unison.
IDW Comics appearances
Imagery and props from this episode appear across several IDW Comics issues. An unused plastic flamingo prop from the episode can be seen next to Winston on page 11 of Ghostbusters: Get Real Issue #3. Monitor screens in Ghostbusters 101 #2 (panel 2) show two moments from the episode: the Junior Ghostbusters raising their club rings, and Jason shrugging during the trick-or-treating opening. In the Ghostbusters Annual 2018, page 9 shows the candy bowl from the opening scene, page 22 shows one of the blue goblin minions, and page 25 shows Winston's costume mask from the Halloween party. The cover RI of Ghostbusters Year One Issue #2 features the three spotlights, the spotlight switch panel, and the extending traps seen in this episode.
Broadcast and home video
In broadcast order, "Halloween II 1/2" follows "Sticky Business" and precedes "Loathe Thy Neighbor"; the DVD order matches. The episode appears on Volume 3, Disc 4 of The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection box set, which also carries a visual commentary by Hickey and McCoy.
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 27. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1987). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Halloween II 1/2" (1987).
