Plot
One evening, a police helicopter is on patrol when a witch and her cat fly past in the night sky. One officer asks his sergeant whether he saw the witch too, and the sergeant tells him to lay off the coffee. The witch then appears right in front of them and spooks the crew, delighting in the prank, but her cat Twinkie tumbles off the broom in the process.
Down below, Slimer takes delivery of a pizza just as Twinkie lands on the box. The two take an immediate liking to each other, and Twinkie grabs the pizza and bolts into the Firehouse. In the garage bay, Ray Stantz is working on Ecto-1 and singing the Ghostbusters theme. The cat and Slimer race past him, startling Ray into banging his head on the hood and somehow shredding the lower half of his jumpsuit, revealing Ghostbusters-themed boxer shorts underneath. Upstairs, Egon Spengler is running a delicate experiment when Twinkie and Slimer charge in and wreck it.
After Slimer scolds the cat and blurts out that he wishes it hadn't done that, Twinkie glows and the ruined experiment, along with Ray's shredded jumpsuit, is restored to the way it was. Scanning the cat with his P.K.E. Meter, Egon identifies it as a familiar. Louis Tully initially misunderstands the term, so Ray clarifies that a witch's cat focuses her supernatural power. Louis grabs Twinkie and wishes for a billion dollars, but nothing happens. The familiar's powers, Ray notes, are attuned only to supernatural beings like Slimer, not to humans. Judging unlimited wishes too dangerous, Egon takes Twinkie away and the cat is given a makeshift bed in a corner of the kitchen.
Across the city, the witch returns home and tries a location spell, but without Twinkie to focus her power, her cauldron gives only a cloudy picture. She vows to teach whoever has her cat a lesson anyway.
That night Twinkie wanders out of its bed, finds Slimer asleep in the bunk room, and curls up on him. Slimer dreams of food, and the contents of the refrigerator come to life. Louis, up for a midnight snack, ends up tied in sausage with animated food trying to leap into his mouth. His scream ruins Egon's Experiment #7004, which he had been attempting a second time. Realizing Twinkie has slipped away and is granting Slimer's dreams, the team scrambles as the refrigerator transforms into a giant Transmogrifier robot that pelts them with plastic fists and hands them proton packs that only shoot water.
The wishes keep escalating: a Christmas tree and presents appear, snow falls outside, and a choir blocks the team's path to Slimer. The strange, localized weather draws the witch to the Firehouse. Inside, the men collide with Santa Claus, sitting atop a giant bag of presents. Louis attempts to explain the situation in plain terms, even mentioning the Easter Bunny. Egon tricks Santa into leaving by wishing him gone, prompting Santa to grumble that the job gets harder every year before vanishing. They finally reach the bunk room just as the witch swoops in and reclaims Twinkie. The witch admits the Ghostbusters are not all bad, then flies off. Before the cat goes, Slimer whispers one last request, and as Egon, Ray, and Louis settle in for sleep, Slimer produces an enormous sub sandwich and digs in.
Characters
The episode features three one-off characters who do not recur elsewhere in the series.
Twinkie's Witch is a witch who delights in pranks, as established by her opening stunt on the police helicopter crew. She is voiced by Kath Soucie. Without Twinkie to focus her power, her location spells produce only a dim, clouded image. She ultimately cooperates with the Ghostbusters to navigate Slimer's runaway wishes and retrieves her cat, departing on relatively good terms.
Twinkie is a black cat that serves as the witch's familiar, channeling her supernatural power. Voiced by Frank Welker, Twinkie can grant any wish made by a supernatural being, requiring only proximity and the spoken wish. The safeguard, as Egon notes, is that the ability is attuned exclusively to supernatural beings; a human wishing for a billion dollars gets nothing. The character has no connection to the Twinkie analogy used in the 1984 film or the Twinkies snack brand tie-in for the 2016 film.
Wishes Made Manifest is the collective term for the food and objects animated by Twinkie while Slimer dreams. The episode's most visually inventive sequence has the refrigerator morph into a giant Transmogrifier robot (a deliberate nod to the Transformers franchise) that hands the Ghostbusters proton packs firing only water, while platters of food pursue Louis through the kitchen. The animated food is voiced by Patrick Pinney, the episode's sole guest voice performer. Santa Claus, also manifested by a wish, is implied to be voiced by Pinney as well.
Production
The episode carried production number 201012 and was recorded on June 21, 1989.2 On the DVD releases it is identified as episode 109B and was placed on Volume 4, Disc 3 of The Real Ghostbusters box set.
Peter Venkman, Winston Zeddemore, and Janine Melnitz do not appear, making this the second episode in which not all four Ghostbusters are present. Even so, Kath Soucie did not reprise Janine here; according to the episode call sheet and SAG report she instead provided the witch and one additional incidental voice.2
According to The Real Ghostbusters: A Visual History, the network reaction was strongly positive. Dennys McCoy recalled, "We got a note back from Jennie Trias at ABC that just said, 'No notes. We love this episode'."3
The episode leans on contemporary pop culture in its gags throughout: Ray wears Ghostbusters-themed boxer shorts beneath his jumpsuit, the refrigerator Transmogrifier parodies the Transformers franchise, and Louis's panicked invocation of "the Easter Bunny" when the witch appears plays on the audience's familiarity with holiday mythology. A small character note: the episode establishes that Louis hates beets.
In broadcast and DVD order, Kitty-Cornered follows Surely You Joust and precedes Slimer's Curse.
