Plot
The Ghostbusters and Slimer arrive by train in the German town of Blukenporken. Slimer is delighted, but Peter complains about the food, the women, and the entertainment. Egon reminds the team this is a working holiday, while Winston is confident they will bag the ghost and relax for a week. Their ride turns out to be an odd, hunchbacked man named Boris, whose reckless driving terrifies everyone before he somehow delivers them to town in one piece.
In Blukenporken, the Mayor explains the problem. The town's castles were all haunted, and the resulting tourism kept the economy alive. One day every ghost vanished and the money dried up. The Mayor wants the Ghostbusters to find out who drove the ghosts away and bring them back. The team is taken to a spooky castle, where a woman named Frau Schweinkiller answers the door. While the guys eat dinner, she secretly collects some of Slimer's ectoplasm into a vial and delivers it to a casket in a hidden chamber, telling her master she awaits his transmogrification. A figure rises and declares he needs the life-giving slime of one more ghost to gain the power to cross over from the spirit world and live again.
The Count summons two bat-like creatures, Destricon and Lucifus, to hunt Slimer. The pursuit runs through the castle's traps: a greenhouse with a biting Venus flytrap, a spiked wall, a pit of snakes, and a pool of lava. Ray and Winston get caught in the spiked-wall trap until Slimer gums up its gears with slime. Egon and Peter finally drive the Count off, and Egon notes the entity has the strength of twenty ghosts. Slimer recognizes him as the man in a castle portrait, the Count, and identifies him as a vampire.
The next day the team converts Boris's car into "Ecto-Junior," fitted with most of Ecto-1's gear, with Slimer standing in for the siren. They track ghosts to a farmhouse where a Broken Spirits Support Group is meeting. A ghost named Fritz says he had been a ghost for 623 years until Count Von Blukenporken drained all his slime and stripped his powers. Back at the castle, the team confronts the Count on the roof, where his eye lasers destroy Ray's vampire-hunting gear and the proton streams prove useless. Ray realizes only sunlight can stop the vampire, and Egon builds mirror attachments for the packs that emit powerful ultraviolet rays. After a running fight in which Slimer knocks out Destricon and Lucifus with a shield, the team focuses their ultraviolet beams through a chandelier and destroys the Count. Winston catches all the released ectoplasm in pots, the drained ghosts feed on it and recover, and the grateful Mayor invites the team to stay for the festivities.
Ghosts, entities, and locations
Count Von Blukenporken is the main antagonist, voiced by Ron Feinberg. He is a vampire who became a ghost and devised a plan to absorb the ectoplasm of 21 ghosts in order to transmogrify back into a living being. With the slime of twenty ghosts already consumed, Egon classifies him as a Class 7 ectoplasmic manifestation, making him immune to proton streams. His draining of the local ghost population caused the regional tourist economy to collapse, which is what brings the Ghostbusters to Blukenporken. He is ultimately destroyed when the team channels ultraviolet rays through a chandelier, releasing all the stolen ectoplasm back to his victims. The Count is similar in concept to Ghash from another episode, in that he grows stronger by feeding on other ghosts, but unlike Ghash he depletes rather than destroys them.
Destricon and Lucifus are two bat-like slime bats who serve the Count, voiced by Frank Welker. They assist in cornering Slimer and running interference during the rooftop battle, and are ultimately knocked out by Slimer wielding a knight's shield. After the Count is destroyed, the pair are captured and placed in the Containment Unit. They later escape when Foul Grungie opens the unit in the episode Guess What's Coming to Dinner, making this their only notable appearance outside "My Left Fang."
Frau Schweinkiller is the Count's human servant who poses as the castle's housekeeper. She secretly collects Slimer's ectoplasm and delivers it to her master's casket. She was originally voiced by Linda Gary, but that recording was not used in the final episode (see Production below). Her name and mannerisms are a deliberate parody of Frau Blücher from "Young Frankenstein" (1974).
Boris is the hulking, hunchbacked driver who picks up the Ghostbusters at the train station. He is a parody of Igor from "Young Frankenstein." His reckless driving terrifies the team, but he serves the Count as a human minion alongside Schweinkiller. Winston takes over Boris's hearse and converts it into Ecto-Junior.
Blukenporken is a small German town whose entire economy depends on ghost tourism. All of its castles were traditionally haunted, drawing visitors until the Count drained the local spirits and caused a financial crisis. The Mayor Heinrich hires the Ghostbusters to restore the ghosts and save the town.
Ecto-Junior is a field-expedient vehicle Winston assembles by fitting Boris's hearse with Ecto-1's equipment. The only thing it lacks is a siren, a gap Slimer fills by mimicking the sound. The hearse's No-Ghost logo changes appearance between scenes due to an animation error (see below).
Production
The episode was recorded on May 9 and 11, 1990, with Dave Coulier recording alone on May 11.2 Linda Gary originally voiced Schweinkiller, but that take was not used.2
Trivia
Frau Schweinkiller resembles Frau Blücher (played by Cloris Leachman) and Boris resembles Igor (played by Marty Feldman) from the film "Young Frankenstein" (1974). Peter delivers a string of pop-culture references through the episode, including Wayne Newton, "The Wizard of Oz," and Indiana Jones, and jokes about seeing the castle written up in "Better Moats and Dungeons," a play on "Better Homes and Gardens." When Peter and Egon dangle above the pit of snakes, Peter explicitly invokes Indiana Jones, consistent with his established dislike of snakes and rats.
An early sight gag has the Ghostbusters walking past a group of townsmen wearing only barrels or underwear, a visual pun on the phrase "town coffers are bare." Around the 01:48 mark, the crowd waiting at the station includes figures resembling the Mona Lisa and Elvis Presley.
The villagers play a rendition of the Ghostbusters theme on accordions, and the organ grinder near the start plays a tune similar to the "I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost" portion of the song.
Ray arms himself with garlic, stakes, and a mallet, the traditional weapons against vampires. Using ultraviolet light to defeat a vampire echoes No One Comes to Lupusville, in which Ray attuned his particle thrower to simulate the spectrum of sunlight. The "working holiday" setup also recalls the earlier episode Bustman's Holiday. Peter's line that this is the team's first vacation in three years sits oddly against Guess What's Coming to Dinner, which is close in episode order and has the team taking two vacations.
Ray compares the Count's catacombs to Dr. Frankenstein's lab, extending the "Young Frankenstein" theme running through the episode.
Janine does not appear in this episode. The title is shared with an episode of the "Where's Waldo?" animated series, another DiC production.
Animation errors
The hearse that picks up the team at the train station already shows the No-Ghost sign on its doors in some scenes, and carries an "Ecto-1" license plate, before Winston converts it into Ecto-Junior. Ray's vampire-hunting gear also vanishes and reappears at random.
Episode order
By air date, My Left Fang follows Spacebusters and precedes Russian About. In DVD order it follows Busters in Toyland and precedes Stay Tooned.
References
