Janine's Day Off
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Series: The Real Ghostbusters Season: 2 Episode (aired): 014 Episode (DVD): 057 Production Number: 76044 Written by: Michael Reaves and Steve Perry Recorded: October 24, 1986 Airdate: September 14, 1987 Boxset: Vol. 2, Disc 4 Previous Episode: Xmas Marks the Spot Next Episode: Adventures in Slime and Space Episode List: Real Ghostbusters: Season 2, Real Ghostbusters: Episode Guide
Janine Melnitz talks Egon Spengler into joining her for dinner at her family's apartment in Canarsie, Brooklyn. The Ghostbusters hire a temp secretary named Louise to cover the phones. While the firehouse is short-staffed, Slimer wanders into the basement workroom and accidentally activates Egon's dimensional gate, a machine capable of acting as a two-way conduit to the supernatural world. Six small glowing orbs slip through before Slimer panics and shuts it off. The orbs hatch into six Imps.
The Imps quickly wreak havoc. One zaps Peter Venkman with its weapon, another types "Hi, Toots!" on Janine's computer terminal, and others target Ray Stantz and Slimer. When Ray retrieves a Ghost Trap, he trips over Winston Zeddemore, giving the Imps time to scatter further. Peter blasts one with his Proton Pack, but the Imp splits into six new ones. Adjusting to higher power only makes the problem worse. Winston calls Egon, who races back from Canarsie with Janine in Ecto-1. Ray mentions on the call that he just installed a new hydraulic bumper on Ecto-1. Peter, determined to fix things before they return, reverses the polarity of his stream, hoping the opposite effect will eliminate the Imps. Instead, the reversed stream forces all the Imps to merge into a single gigantic mass that reshapes into a towering demon. The demon punches through the firehouse wall and goes on a rampage outside, killing power to the building.
In the dark firehouse, Louise stumbles into the basement workroom seeking the circuit breaker. Finding what she thinks is the generator switch, she activates the dimensional gate again and releases three ghosts, known as the Deadly Three, into the firehouse. The Deadly Three locate a Proton Pack and arm themselves, turning the firehouse into a second battleground. Janine and Louise are forced to fend for themselves while the Ghostbusters pursue the giant demon through the streets.
The Ghostbusters' Proton Streams prove useless against the demon. Ecto-1 runs low on fuel during the chase. Egon determines they need a far larger power source. He spots a gate to a power plant nearby, and he and Ray go inside to modify a Proton Pack to draw on the plant's output while Peter and Winston distract the demon on foot. Back at the firehouse, Janine and Louise flee to the sleeping quarters, then take the fire pole back down to the lobby. Janine finds Peter's polarity-reversed pack, uses it to cancel the Deadly Three's stream, and follows up with a standard stream. Startled, the three ghosts surrender.
At the power plant, Ray fires a reinforced stream that confines the demon long enough for Egon to trap it. The Ghostbusters return to a firehouse even more wrecked than they left it. Janine declares that since her night off was ruined, she is taking the following day off as well. She and Louise toss mops and cleaning supplies to the four Ghostbusters and walk out, leaving the team to the aftermath.
The Imps are six small supernatural creatures that enter the mortal world through Egon's dimensional gate. They carry small energy weapons and are mischievous rather than outright malevolent. Proton streams have the opposite of the intended effect: blasting an Imp causes it to split into more Imps. Reversing the polarity of the stream causes all active Imps to merge into a single mass instead of dispersing. Imps also appear in the RGB episodes "Chicken, He Clucked" and "The Joke's on Ray," though those are considered distinct creatures.
The Giant Imp Monster is the direct result of Peter reversing his Proton Pack's polarity: all the loose Imps fuse into one enormous corporeal entity. The Ghostbusters and Janine refer to it as a demon rather than an Imp once it takes this form. Ordinary Proton Streams have no effect on it. It is ultimately confined by a Proton Pack modified to draw power from a municipal power plant, and then trapped by Egon. The Giant Imp Monster is a one-of-a-kind entity, synthetically created by accident. The Megaspook Jr. in Ghostbusters 101 #4 is visually based on this creature.
The Deadly Three are a group of three ghosts that cross over through Egon's dimensional gate when Louise inadvertently reactivates it during the blackout. Each has a visually distinct appearance: a tall, skeletal white ghost with large hollow eye sockets and holes in its body; a large, pale-teal ghost with massive arms and wrinkled lips; and a small, brain-shaped purple ghost with large blue eyes and yellow teeth. The three are voiced by Arsenio Hall, Maurice LaMarche, and Lorenzo Music respectively. They seize a Proton Pack and fire it freely through the firehouse until Janine neutralizes them with Peter's polarity-reversed pack. Their fate after surrender is not shown on screen, but they are presumed captured. The Deadly Three also appear in a vision sequence in the IDW Comics story Ghostbusters: Get Real Issue #4.
| Character | Voice Actor |
|---|---|
| Peter Venkman | Lorenzo Music |
| Ray Stantz | Frank Welker |
| Egon Spengler | Maurice LaMarche |
| Winston Zeddemore | Arsenio Hall |
| Janine Melnitz | Laura Summer |
| Slimer | Frank Welker |
| Character | Voice Actor |
|---|---|
| The Deadly Three (Ghost #1) | Arsenio Hall |
| The Deadly Three (Ghost #2) | Maurice LaMarche |
| The Deadly Three (Ghost #3) | Lorenzo Music |
| Louise | Ivana Moore |
| Imps / Giant Imp Monster | Chris Latta |
Louise
