Production
Loathe Thy Neighbor carries production number 140013.2 The voice session was recorded on June 1, 1987.2 Regular cast for the season included Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, and Arsenio Hall, with guest voices Lewis Arquette, Jane Kean, Anna Mathias, and Scott Menville. Lewis Arquette voiced Bello Micawb in an uncredited cameo.1
Plot
A strange family hires the Ghostbusters to get rid of a ghost in their house. When the team arrives, only Ray is eager to explore. Peter presses the doorbell and everyone is startled when it shrieks. A hunchbacked butler, Creegor, answers and invites them in. The maid creeps up behind Egon and frightens him before offering to take the team's coats. Mr. Micawb greets the guys and offers worm wort tea. When he tries to reheat the kettle, it burns a hole through the table and drops through; he then offers warm yak milk, which they decline. Slimer, meanwhile, is spooked by a portrait that changes its appearance.
Lucretia Micawb comes downstairs and explains she is busy with spring cleaning for a family reunion. Her feather duster comes to life and dusts both Egon and Slimer. Their son Thaddeus insists there is no problem at all and introduces his pet dog, Patchwork, whom he built himself. The Micawbs' daughter, Lydia, who looks like an ordinary person unlike the rest of the family, announces she has finished cleaning the northwest wing. Mr. Micawb asks Lydia to show the team around while he explains that the family tried to get rid of the ghost themselves and failed. They have never seen it, only heard it. Because the relatives are due in the morning, the Micawbs ask the team to stay the night, when the ghost is most active. The guys are ready to turn the job down until Micawb says he will pay whatever they charge.
In the ballroom a chandelier comes loose and falls; Peter tackles Egon clear in time. Peter references Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets, while surveying the ballroom. Winston voices his suspicion of Thaddeus. Lydia next leads them to a study holding thousands of old books, some hundreds of years old. Egon confirms rising supernatural activity and readings unlike anything he has seen before. Books begin to levitate and grow mouths lined with sharp teeth. Rather than let Peter open fire, Ray reads a spell aloud from the Golden Grimbor, which returns the books to normal.
The team splits up. A gargoyle attacks Peter, and Winston disintegrates it. Dinner follows, with courses including Spider Hair Fondue and Ancient Tree Mold in a Bat Breath Sauce; Slimer happily eats everyone's portions while Egon keeps some mold for his collection of spores, molds, and fungi. Peter mentions his mother during the fondue and loses a filling at dessert. The team accidentally sets off the mansion's security system while leaving the dining hall. Creegor shows the team to their room, where Thaddeus tries to scare them with a glowing blanket. Peter references Frankenstein's Bride while settling in. Thaddeus is sent off with Patchwork, who is chewing on one of Ecto-1's tires.
Ray suggests the entity is not a ghost but a paranatural being, and the team explains the distinction to Peter. A skeletal vacuum cleaner in the hallway spots Slimer, sucks him up, and then takes a look at Egon. Winston switches it off and Slimer is freed; Lydia sends it off to find Lucretia. They trace the readings to a hidden passage triggered by a whistle. Ray accidentally triggers it by whistling while reading from Nameless Horrors and What To Do About Them, but Patchwork runs in and licks everyone before they can proceed. Lydia whistles again and successfully opens the passage. They follow it past strange growth and reach a locked door. Thaddeus stops them and confesses: while trying to build a playmate for Patchwork, he accidentally opened a doorway to another dimension. Tentacles burst through the door and the team fights its way into the room, where the being is nestled in an abyss. It grabs Slimer and then Winston, and the guys blast carefully to free them. Egon points out the being can only absorb so much energy and tells everyone to keep firing at full stream; with five seconds to clear the room, the being explodes and vanishes back down the abyss. The team reports the good news as the relatives arrive, and Slimer eats all the hors d'oeuvres.
Episode characters
This episode features a number of one-off characters exclusive to the Micawb household. Each is described briefly below.
Bello Micawb is the patriarch of the Micawb family, voiced in an uncredited cameo by Lewis Arquette. He resembles Gomez Addams in manner and appearance. Bello hires the Ghostbusters after his own attempts to evict the entity fail, and clinches the deal by offering to pay whatever they charge.
Lucretia Micawb is Bello's wife, resembling Morticia Addams in look and demeanor. She is occupied with spring cleaning for the family reunion, an implication that the episode takes place in March or April. Her feather duster, the Avian Duster Entity, is a sentient bird-like creature that dusts guests on its own initiative.
Thaddeus Micawb is the son of the household, responsible for the episode's central crisis. While attempting to build a playmate for Patchwork, he accidentally opened a dimensional doorway in the basement, allowing the paranatural being through. He also attempts to prank the Ghostbusters with a glowing blanket.
Patchwork is a dog-like creature Thaddeus built himself. Friendly and enthusiastic, Patchwork nonetheless makes a nuisance of himself by chewing on one of Ecto-1's tires and, at a key moment, interrupting the whistle-triggered passage mechanism by licking everyone.
Lydia Micawb is the daughter of the household. Unlike the rest of her family, she appears completely normal, paralleling Marilyn Munster's role in The Munsters as the regular-looking member of a monster family. She acts as the team's guide through the mansion and is the one who successfully triggers the secret passage.
Creegor is the hunchbacked butler who first answers the door and later shows the team to their room.
The Basement Entity is the episode's true antagonist: a massive paranatural being from another dimension that arrived through a doorway Thaddeus accidentally opened. It is nestled in an abyss beneath the mansion and attacks with tentacles. It can absorb energy blasts up to a limit, which Egon exploits by ordering maximum sustained fire until it overloads and explodes.
Cast and characters
The Ghostbusters appear with their usual gear, including the Proton Pack, Particle Thrower, Ghost Trap, and P.K.E. Meter. A Ghost Sniffer also appears in the team's equipment. The Micawb household and the haunting include Creegor the butler, the maid, Bello and Lucretia Micawb, their children Thaddeus and Lydia, the patchwork dog Patchwork, an animated feather duster (the Avian Duster Entity), living portraits, a foyer skeleton, living armor, book chompers, a gargoyle, a skeletal vacuum cleaner, and the Basement Entity. The setting is the Micawb Mansion.
Trivia
The Micawb family draws on the benign-monster comedy of The Addams Family and The Munsters. Bello and Lucretia resemble Gomez and Morticia Addams, while Lydia, the normal-looking member of the household, fills the same role as Marilyn Munster. The shrieking doorbell echoes the variant sounds used to summon Lurch on The Addams Family.
The episode draws a distinction the show uses elsewhere: a "supernatural being" is something that was once human, such as a ghost, while a "paranatural being" is an alien life form not of our world. For this case the team is hunting a paranatural being, since most of the mansion's oddities are merely supernatural and not the threat the clients are worried about.
Copies of the Golden Grimbor and the out-of-print Nameless Horrors and What To Do About Them appear both in the study and in the room leading to the paranatural being. Janine does not appear, making this the only Season 3 episode without her.
Additional in-episode references: Peter mentions his mother while reacting to the Spider Hair Fondue and invokes Frankenstein's Bride when the team settles into their room. He also references Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets, while the team surveys the ballroom.
Animation errors
At the 16:30 mark, two Egons appear on screen simultaneously and Peter is missing for a few seconds.
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
