Production details
Plot
It is Janine's birthday. She goes on a shopping spree with Louis and Slimer carrying her purchases, but Slimer gets distracted by a candy display and is separated from the pair. Janine spots a sale sign and drags Louis to an elevator. The elevator turns out to be possessed: it snaps at Slimer when he tries to follow, and he ends up phasing right out of the mall and nearly into a bus.
Back at the firehouse, Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore hang a "Happy Birthday, Janine" banner while Peter Venkman practices an Elvis impression. Slimer crashes through the banner and tries to mime what happened, but the team only understands when a ghost appears on Janine's computer. He introduces himself as Boss Poso, shows Janine and Louis tied up, and gives the Ghostbusters until midnight to turn over their operation.
Egon runs a search on Poso and finds he works with a sidekick named Shifter, whom the team captured two weeks earlier and stored in the Containment Unit. They send Slimer in with a Camera Trap to find Shifter inside the grid. Slimer slips past various ghosts, is greeted by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and locates Shifter at a card game. The Camera Trap snags both of them and drops back into the basement. Fitted with a control collar, Shifter explains that Poso wants to be the Ghostfather and needs the Ghostbusters' equipment to do it. Winston offers him a deal: help rescue Janine and Louis and go free. Shifter agrees and points to Poso's hideout, a place called Ghost Town in New Jersey.
Because Shifter can only smuggle one of them in, the team coats Peter in slime collected the previous year after the Vigo incident. The slime responds to thoughts and emotions and gives Peter limited ghostly powers, including flight, so he can pass as a ghost. Peter and Shifter catch the last ferry to Ghost Town while Slimer, Ray, and Winston shadow them in Ecto-2. A flirtatious female ghost on the ferry, annoyed at being rebuffed, tosses Peter onto a garbage barge.
In Ghost Town, Poso's henchmen recognize Peter and lock him in a cell after Shifter vanishes on him. Ecto-2 is attacked and crashes on the outskirts. At the firehouse, Poso's goons force Egon to show them the Containment Unit; he tricks them and traps them instead. Shifter returns and frees Peter, then slips out of his collar. Peter, fed up, declares he will save his friends and beat Poso alone, but the two reconcile after Shifter admits Poso is the reason he was caught. With Poso's henchmen chasing them and the slime refusing to let Peter fly, Peter has Shifter activate the collar to yank him onto a rooftop.
Near midnight, Peter bursts into Poso's room and clamps the collar onto one of Poso's arms. Shifter flies it to Ecto-2. Peter frees Janine and Louis, Winston throws a trap, and Shifter activates the collar to draw Poso in. Poso's tail catches on one of Ecto-2's wheels until Shifter bites it loose, and Poso is captured. With Poso gone, the other ghosts abandon Ghost Town. Shifter says his goodbyes. Egon arrives in Ecto-1 and hands Peter a towel, but the slime has grown fond of Peter and will not come off; his frustration sets it bouncing around with him in tow.
Episode-exclusive ghosts
Poso
Poso is the episode's central antagonist, voiced by Danny Mann. He is a Class 7 Organizer with aspirations to rule every ghost on the East Coast as the "Ghostfather." The firehouse computer's Tobin's Spirit Guide entry lists his ID number as KL-2793-001-45 and attributes including Criminal Mastermind, Firebrand Third Level (Pyrokinesis), Evil Overlord Sixth Level, and Grand Forger 12th Degree. Visually he is a large, dark-purple figure with four arms, gangster attire, and a tail that splits at its tip, loosely evoking Jabba the Hutt from the Star Wars franchise. Poso's demeanor is that of a 1930s movie gangster: imperious, short-tempered, and reliant on underlings. After the events of the episode he is contained in the Ghostbusters' Containment Unit.
Outside the animated series, Poso appears in non-canon IDW comic cameos: a wanted poster on page 1 of Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #12, and his computer file on page 15 of Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #18.
Shifter
Shifter is a Class 5 ghost, voiced by Frank Renzulli. He was Poso's sidekick until Poso's scheming got him caught by the Ghostbusters, which is what motivates him to cooperate with the team. The firehouse computer lists his ID number as 4-8494-8514-00-35, with attributes including pickpocket, gangster, forger, and evildoer skills across multiple levels. Shifter is drawn as a small, fast-talking figure with a visual resemblance to a caricature of actor Steve Buscemi; he calls Peter "cuz" throughout the episode and at one point refers to him as "Peter Pan." Despite removing his control collar mid-episode and being technically free to leave, Shifter stays to fulfill his deal and personally bites Poso's tail free from Ecto-2's wheel to ensure the capture. He departs Ghost Town on good terms once Poso is contained.
After the episode, Shifter's profile appears on a computer screen in Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #15, page 14.
Minor ghosts
Several unnamed ghosts appear in or around Ghost Town and the Containment Unit. The Containment Unit card-game scene includes an Eel Ghost and a Paper Ghost alongside Shifter and Samhain. Among Poso's followers in Ghost Town are a Multi-Appendage Ghost, a Four-Eyed Worm, and an Inverted Ghost. None of these characters appear elsewhere in the series.
Connections to Ghostbusters II
Egon states he collected the slime the year before, right after the team battled Vigo the Carpathian, tying the episode's timeline to the events of Ghostbusters II. The animated slime behaves differently from the film's mood slime: here it is yellow rather than pink, and when Peter gets angry it turns red and sprouts tentacles. The line places the cartoon's version of the Vigo affair about a year before this episode and season.
Recurring elements and references
Samhain appears in a cameo, seen playing cards with other ghosts in the Containment Unit scenes.
Poso's ambition to be the "Ghostfather" is a play on The Godfather; the name itself nods to author Mario Puzo. On the ferry, Shifter reads the "Ghoul Street Journal," a riff on the Wall Street Journal, and he sarcastically calls Ghost Town "Tahiti." The Ghostbusters had won a real trip to Tahiti in the earlier episode The Devil to Pay. Several scenes reuse retooled animation cels from I Am the City, an earlier Mueller-written episode.
The episode introduces a Camera Trap, a device used to enter and retrieve targets from the Containment Unit. The same Ghost Tether device appears on the cover RI of Ghostbusters: Year One Issue #2, where Ray is shown using it.
In the broadcast and DVD running orders, Partners in Slime sits between If I Were a Witch Man and Future Tense.
References
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Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 32. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1989). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Partners in Slime" (1989).
