Ghosts and entities
Proteus is the episode's central antagonist. Described in the episode as a primal god of the same class as Gozer, he maintains the corporate front "Proteus Unlimited," housed on a hidden and unmarked 13th floor of the Erie building in Manhattan. He is fully resistant to proton streams in his natural state and shifts rapidly between physical forms. His most decisive power is a fingertip energy beam that displaces targets into a mirror-based pocket dimension. Janine defeats him indirectly: her shot into one of the mirrored walls of the boardroom blinds and overloads his beam, freeing the team. The name is drawn from Greek mythology, where Proteus was a prophetic sea god renowned for changing shape.
The episode's opening sequence features three ghosts who have adopted the appearances of classic literary characters: Frankenstein's monster, Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick, and Mr. Hyde from Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. These are addressed in the Literary references section below. Other one-off entities include a Tiny Cyclops (harassing a store clerk when the team arrives on scene), a group of Immigrant Family ghosts (haunting Janine's apartment), Street Thug ghosts (who inadvertently name Proteus during Slimer's reconnaissance inside the Containment Unit), a Mole Ghost, and a Squid Monster. A demonic receptionist guards the entrance to Proteus Unlimited on the 13th floor.
Plot
Ecto-1 pulls up to a building and the Ghostbusters charge inside, facing three ghosts that have taken the forms of literary characters from nearby books: Frankenstein's monster, Captain Ahab, and Mr. Hyde. After the three are trapped, Winston and Ray catch a tiny cyclops harassing a store clerk. Egon adds three more full traps to a pile of over three dozen in the back of Ecto-1.
Back at the firehouse, Janine has finished another round of calls just as the weary team returns. She runs down the list: a Class 4 disturbance at the World Trade Center, a phantom garbage truck rampaging in Queens, ghost terrorists protesting the Monroe Doctrine at the UN, and a man named Samsa who claims he has been possessed by a giant cockroach. Peter is baffled and asks Egon what is happening; Egon's P.K.E. Meter overheats the moment he switches it on. A black hand pops out of a ghost trap, and Winston stuffs it back in before dumping the trap into the Containment Unit, prompting Ray to note they will soon need another Klein bottle before the unit cracks open.
Janine tells the guys her apartment is haunted, but Peter and Egon insist the citywide crisis comes first. She returns home by taxi to find her furniture stuck to the ceiling and laughing ghosts dropping it back to the floor. The next morning she falls out of her floating bed and finds her shower full of frogs. She heads to the firehouse to demand help, but the team is already out on a job. Slimer greets her, and she takes one of Peter's spare uniforms from a closet.
On the streets, the Ghostbusters are pinned in a standoff with several street-thug ghosts. Ray and Egon lay five connected traps at a choke point while Peter and Winston bait the ghosts across them, and Egon triggers the traps remotely. Winston compares the situation to when Gozer was around. Egon denies Gozer is returning but admits the captured ghosts share a common spectography, a nexus for all the activity, though too much spectral static prevents him from pinpointing the source.
Janine and Slimer arrive at her apartment with the team's gear. Slimer hides in a cabinet while the ghosts pelt Janine with objects, including a vase from her mother, and wrap her up in a blanket. In Ecto-1, Egon narrows the activity to Midtown Manhattan. As the team drives toward a Class 9 free-roaming vapor at Gracie Mansion, the statue of Atlas at Rockefeller Plaza comes to life and hurls its globe at them, sending Ecto-1 into a pole. The statue is so charged with ectonic force that the proton streams have no effect. The team melts the ice beneath it, a news crew films the fight, and the statue fires a beam from its fingertip that makes the Ghostbusters vanish.
Back at the apartment, Slimer sneaks a trap next to the ghosts, sets it off, and catches them without trapping himself. He and Janine return to the firehouse and watch a news report about the team's disappearance. After failing to read the P.K.E. Meter herself, Janine realizes the captured ghosts know what is going on. Slimer is volunteered to go into the Containment Unit to spy on them and overhears the street-thug ghosts mention Proteus and the Erie building before he is discovered and forced to flee back to the exit, where Janine pulls him out and threatens the rest back inside. She reviews Slimer's recording and looks up the Erie.
The only Erie in Manhattan turns out to be a 26-floor building with a hidden, unmarked 13th floor housing "Proteus Unlimited." Janine blasts past a demonic receptionist into a mirror-lined boardroom where the Ghostbusters are trapped inside one of the mirrors. Proteus, a primal god in the mold of Gozer, manifests and shifts through many forms. Janine's stream fails against him, so Slimer distracts him while she fires on a mirror, blinding Proteus and overloading his beam. The team is freed and everyone escapes as the 13th floor and several nearby floors explode. At the firehouse, with everything back to normal, Janine considers going into business for herself, but Peter offers her old job back with a raise. She accepts, on the condition they keep her apartment ghost-free, except for Slimer.
Literary references
The episode is dense with literary nods. The opening ghosts take the shapes of Frankenstein's monster, Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick, and Mr. Hyde from Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The caller named Samsa who believes he has become a giant cockroach references Franz Kafka's 1915 novella The Metamorphosis, whose protagonist is Gregor Samsa. The bug demon Cohila later adopts "Gregor Samsa" as an alias in the Extreme Ghostbusters episode "The Crawler." When Janine finds the team trapped behind the mirror, she invokes Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass.
IDW Publishing's Ghostbusters: Get Real miniseries ties directly into this episode. Issue #1 opens immediately before the Real Ghostbusters' battle with the Proteus-possessed Atlas statue, recapping the episode's setup and adapting the drive to Gracie Mansion, the statue ambush, and the reporter's coverage. Issue #3 inserts an "extra scene" set right after Slimer's reconnaissance in the Containment Unit. Issue #4 adapts the boardroom confrontation, Janine's shot at the mirror, the destruction of the Erie, and the closing firehouse scene, and has Peter echo Egon's earlier triage line. In the Ghostbusters Annual 2017, Janine again recalls the events of this episode, suiting up without the team's clearance just as she did here.
The episode's interior look of the Containment Unit's pocket dimension has been referenced visually in later IDW comics, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #5 and Ghostbusters: Crossing Over Issue #8.
Director Gil Kenan has said the idea of Janine suiting up as a Ghostbuster in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire was influenced by this episode.
Trivia
The episode was recorded on September 10, 1986.2 Through most of it Janine wears one of Peter's spare uniforms, and she refers to the Containment Unit as the "Storage Facility," the term used in the first film. Janine also quotes the show's theme song with the line "I ain't afraid of no ghosts."1
Additional observations from the episode:
- When Egon describes the current level of spectral activity to Peter, he invokes an Ouija board alongside the P.K.E. Meter reading as a scale reference.
- Peter makes a reference to the Lone Ranger during the standoff with the street-thug ghosts.
- Egon explains the Ghostbusters' job-priority approach using the medical concept of triage, sorting emergencies by severity and urgency.
- Ray's mention of adding another Klein bottle to the Containment Unit is a nod to mathematics: a Klein bottle is a surface on which the notions of inside and outside cannot be consistently defined.
- Gozer is referenced by name three separate times in the episode.
- When Slimer enters the Containment Unit on his recon mission, many of the ghosts from the opening sequences end up pursuing him through the pocket dimension inside.
- A prop folder visible in Ghostbusters: Get Real Issue #1 contains the episode's real production data: air number 025, DVD number 048, production number 76035, writer M. Reaves, and air date 09/29/1987.1
References
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Eatock, James and Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 16. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1986). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster" (1986).
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According to the Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report for "Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster," Maurice LaMarche also performed the voice of Winston in the episode. Some voice actors have noted that a few episodes had performers cover other actors' parts when those actors were absent.
