Cast
Regular voices were provided by Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Arsenio Hall, and Kath Soucie. Guest voices were James Avery and Donna Christie.
The story features Ray Stantz, Slimer, Egon Spengler, Winston Zeddemore, Peter Venkman, and Janine Melnitz, alongside the fairy-tale manifestations: the Gingerbread House, Rumpelstiltskin, the White Rabbit and the Queen of Hearts' Card Soldiers, Little Bo Peep and her sheep, the Giant, and the Giant's son.
Equipment
The central piece of equipment in this episode is the Ethereal Solidifier, a machine designed by Egon to convert ethereal entities into solid matter so they can be captured more easily. Egon and Winston are still completing it when Slimer hides the library book underneath it, inadvertently activating it. The Solidifier's reversal function, once Egon rewires it, dematerializes all of the fairy-tale constructs it generated. Other equipment used includes the Proton Pack and particle throwers, the PKE Meter, Ecto-1, Ecto-2, and the Belt Gizmo.
Plot
After Ray finishes reading a fairy tale to Slimer, he notices the book is two days overdue and tells Slimer it has to go back in the morning. Slimer wants to keep it. Meanwhile, Winston and Egon work late in the basement workroom on the Ethereal Solidifier. Winston, noticing Egon has started mixing up his tools, talks him into finishing the work the next day.
Around two in the morning, an unhappy Slimer takes the book and looks for a place to hide it. The kitchen refrigerator is too full (though he helps himself to some grapes). After a rug in the Rec Room also fails, he settles on the basement and tucks the book beneath the Solidifier, accidentally flipping a switch on its underside. The machine hums to life and glows.
The next morning Janine takes a call: an enchanted forest has appeared in Manhattan. The Ghostbusters find the Gingerbread House from "Hansel and Gretel," which Slimer starts eating before the house comes alive and tries to eat them. Winston calls it the "original Sugar Shack." Proton streams destroy the house and the forest, but Egon cannot explain how it happened and takes a sample of the remains for analysis. On the way back to Ecto-1, the car is stolen by a red-skinned dwarf who insists they will never guess his name. Peter's nicknames fail, including a reference to the Smurfs. Once Ray realizes it is Rumpelstiltskin, naming him makes him vanish. The team is then trampled by the White Rabbit and the Queen's Card Soldiers from "Alice in Wonderland."
Back at the firehouse, Little Bo Peep and her sheep are on their way out, with Bo Peep apologizing about the rugs. Slimer realizes the manifestations are his fault, grabs the book from the Solidifier, and returns it to the library (scaring a librarian in the process). He claims to have fixed the problem, but a giant beanstalk then grows into the sky and giant-sized garbage rains down. Egon works out that the Solidifier turned the stories into real things and says he can reverse the effect if he has exactly the same book. He and Ray go with Slimer to retrieve it while Winston and Peter take Ecto-2 up the beanstalk.
Winston and Peter reach a castle on a cloud, where they are knocked down by a giant child with a squirt gun. The squirt gun blast also shorts out the particle throwers. They are brought to the child's gluttonous father, who prepares to eat them. Peter tries to win the Giant over by offering his entire baseball card collection and claiming to be a fan of the San Francisco Giants. Egon notices Ecto-2's emergency beacon through his Belt Gizmo and realizes time is short. He rewires the Solidifier, has Ray place the book on top, and activates it, dematerializing the giants and the castle just before Winston and Peter are eaten. The beanstalk and garbage vanish as well, and the team flies safely home. The Ghostbusters, Janine, and Slimer celebrate with a group hug.
That night Slimer wants another bedtime story. Ray, done with fairy tales, is handed a magazine with a centerfold. Egon, assuming it is a "girly magazine," asks whether Slimer is too young for that sort of thing, until Ray reveals it is a dessert magazine. Egon and Peter go silent and turn out the lights. Ray then catches Slimer looking at the magazine and tells him to go to bed too.
Production
The episode was recorded on February 27 and May 22, 1987, with Arsenio Hall's lines recorded on February 27.2
Notes
The episode draws on several well-known tales and rhymes: "The Frog Prince," which Ray is reading at the open; "Hansel and Gretel" (the Gingerbread House); "Rumpelstiltskin"; "Alice in Wonderland"; the "Little Bo Peep" nursery rhyme; and "Jack and the Beanstalk." When the Ghostbusters confront the dwarf, it takes them three guesses to land on his name, echoing the three days the protagonist has to guess it in the original story.
Winston nicknames the Giant "Mikey," a reference to the boy from the 1972 Life cereal commercials. Peter tries to win the Giant over by offering his baseball card collection and claiming to root for the Giants. The giant child's squirt gun is notable as the episode's one demonstration that Proton Pack particle throwers can be shorted out by a large quantity of water.
This is the only time the Belt Gizmo is shown picking up a warning from Ecto-2's emergency beacon; in earlier episodes ("Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream," "The Headless Motorcyclist," and "Baby Spookums") it had served only as a communication device. The closing centerfold gag makes this the second Season 3 episode built around a sexual innuendo, after "Baby Spookums."
The New York Public Library and its lion statues make a brief appearance when Slimer goes to return the book. In the IDW comic continuity, the Ethereal Solidifier makes a non-canon cameo in Ghostbusters Issue 14 as one of Egon's scanning devices.
Animation Errors
Two animation errors appear in this episode. After Peter says "Okay guys, time to earn the big bucks," a close-up shot shows Ray missing his head and neck entirely. Later, when Janine runs out to meet Ecto-1, her legs are not visible, making her appear to be standing in a ditch; the error exists so she can speak to the Ghostbusters at eye level through the car window.
Episode order
In both broadcast and DVD order, "Once Upon a Slime" follows "The Bogeyman Is Back" and precedes "The Two Faces of Slimer."
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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Eatock, James and Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 26. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1987). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Once Upon a Slime" (1987).
