Plot
Slimer is reading a comic book called "Rat Toon" and tries to share it with Ray Stantz, who is busy with a tuba lesson. Slimer mimics the gags from the comic but gets slime all over Ray, who shoos him away. Slimer flies to the rec room to bother Peter Venkman, who is exercising on a stationary bicycle, and ends up stuck in the front wheel. Downstairs, Janine Melnitz is not interested either; she wants to finish her paperwork so she can take the next day off. Slimer then startles Winston Zeddemore, who is working on Ecto-1 and hits his head on the underside of the hood.
A sign reading "Danger Keep Out" hangs on the door to Egon Spengler's laboratory. Hearing Egon count down inside, Slimer assumes there will be more gags and flies in, triggering an explosion. The blast scatters through the Firehouse: Slimer lands in Ray's tuba, Peter is thrown onto Ecto-1, the hood closes on Winston, and Janine's paperwork goes flying. Egon explains he was testing highly volatile samples of ectoplasm when Slimer distracted him. The team scolds Slimer, and Peter gives him one last warning. Tearing up, Slimer retreats to his attic hideaway.
Winston takes a phone call and the team heads out on a new case. Slimer refuses to come along and stays behind, listening to his Walkman and raiding the refrigerator. At a retirement center, the Ghostbusters confront a squid-like ghost that hurls household objects at them, sprays them with ectoplasm, then laughs and leaves. Back at the Firehouse, Slimer hears footsteps and investigates, only to be startled into flying upstairs. He calls Ecto-1's car phone, but when Peter answers, Slimer remembers the warning and hangs up. The intruder turns out to be Professor Dweeb and his lab rat Elizabeth, who fires his Twisto Ray at Slimer. Slimer ducks behind a mirror, the ray reflects back, and Dweeb twists himself right out the window and into his van.
In the car, Egon is troubled that there is no entry on the squid ghost in Tobin's Spirit Guide. The team is called to the Bowl and Coffee Shop, where the ghost reappears, tosses bowling balls, and seizes Ray and Egon's proton packs to fire on them. Meanwhile, Dweeb sneaks back into the Firehouse and catches Slimer with a clamp shot from a device on his chest, planning to box him in a carrying case. Slimer stretches his lips to a water jug, drinks the entire contents, and swells up large enough to snap the clamp, then sprays all the water onto Dweeb. Dweeb's device short-circuits and sucks up Elizabeth, his rocket skates malfunction, and he careens around the building before crashing out a back door.
At the Bowl and Coffee Shop, with both options (firing the captured packs or running) carrying deadly consequences, Peter has the team do both: Ray and Egon run while Winston and Peter fire. The explosion leaves the Ghostbusters unharmed, but the ghost simply reassembles, slimes them again, and leaves. Ecto-1 begins acting sluggish. Back home, Slimer rigs strings of pots and pans across the first floor as an alarm. Egon plays a hunch that the ghost is connected to the ectoplasm he experimented on earlier, and after cross-referencing its behavior against every ghost the team has ever trapped, he concludes it is a manifestation of the combined anger of all those ghosts, one entity of pure hatred. He realizes it intends to destroy the Firehouse first, with Slimer alone inside.
The squid ghost arrives and trips Slimer's alarm. Assuming it is Dweeb again, Slimer bonks the figure with a pan, only to discover the truth too late as the ghost grabs him. The team, now realizing the ghost's slime is what carries its laughter, ditch their slimed uniforms, and Ecto-1 makes a crash landing after literally flying off on its own. Dweeb returns with a pair of magnetic flux devices, accidentally frees Slimer by hitting the ghost's tentacle, and is then slimed and flung off into the city with Elizabeth. Winston and Peter take the flying Ecto-2 to the Firehouse roof. On Peter's instruction, Slimer lures the ghost to the staircase, where Peter and Winston open fire; Slimer adds Dweeb's dropped thrower to the assault, and Winston throws the trap to capture the ghost. When Ray and Egon finally arrive by taxi and see the mess, they quietly sneak back outside and call for another cab.
Ghosts
The Squid Ghost is the episode's central antagonist and one of the more unusual entities in The Real Ghostbusters. Rather than being a pre-existing ghost, it is a composite entity born from the accumulated anger of every ghost the Ghostbusters have ever trapped and deposited in the Containment Unit. Egon classifies it as Class 6 or better. Physically it appears as a red squid-like ghost with six tentacles tipped with pincers, orange eyes, eight fangs, a long head, and six curved spikes. Unlike almost every entity the team has faced, it has no entry in Tobin's Spirit Guide or any other occult reference, which initially troubles Egon.
The ghost's most dangerous weapon is its slime: the inky ectoplasm it sprays is highly volatile once it saturates a target, causing both people and objects to fly uncontrollably. This is how the ghost sends Ecto-1 careening away on its own. The ghost can also fly, phase through walls, and reconstitute itself after being blown apart by an overloaded proton pack. It is ultimately contained through a combined effort by Winston, Peter, and Slimer, with Slimer using Professor Dweeb's improvised Magnetic Flux Beam to help fully confine the ghost so it can be trapped.
Cast
The regular voice cast includes Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Buster Jones, and Kath Soucie. Guest voices are Jeff Altman and Charlie Adler.
Production
The episode was recorded on April 18 and 19, 1991, with Dave Coulier recording alone on April 19. Jeff Altman was confirmed for the episode on April 17, 1991.2
Notes
Ray has begun teaching himself to play the tuba in this episode. Peter was last seen exercising on his stationary bicycle in "Venk-Man!" Janine sports a new hairdo, and Slimer's Stay Puft doll can be seen in the attic. The Firehouse's new television is branded a "Samsong," a nod to the Samsung brand. When Slimer dials 555-YUCK, the jokes are delivered by a voice resembling comedian Rodney Dangerfield.3 The magnetic flux beam and trap that Professor Dweeb uses to try to catch Slimer coincidentally resemble the proton pack and trap as they later appear on Extreme Ghostbusters.
Episode order
In both air-date and DVD order, "Not Now, Slimer!" follows "The Treasure of Sierra Tamale" and precedes "Attack of the B-Movie Monsters."
References
