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"Short Stuff" is the 97th episode of The Real Ghostbusters, first aired October 22, 1988 as part of the show's fourth season. Written by Richard Mueller, it introduces the Ghostmaster, who sends three ghostly bounty hunters to capture the Ghostbusters at the Firehouse. During the attack the team is shrunk to six inches tall and has to survive long enough for Janine Melnitz to find a counter spell.1
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The episode carries production number 175006.2 It was recorded on July 18, 1988.2 The regular voice cast included Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Buster Jones, and Kath Soucie, with Gregory Martin as a guest voice.
A production tape (Production #175006, dated October 18, 1988) of this episode exists that carries the animation and voice track but no music or sound effects.3
In a run-down part of the city, Winston Zeddemore chases a ghost that hops out a window, where Peter Venkman and Ray Stantz blast it. Slimer hands a trap to Egon Spengler, who captures it. On the way back to headquarters, Ray admits he is bored, missing the days when the team faced major manifestations like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and the Sandman.
In the Netherworld, the Ghostmaster realizes the Ghostbusters have captured nearly all of his ghosts. He summons his three best bounty hunters, Animax, Mist Crawler, and Dark, promising a reward to whoever brings him the team alive and punishment to the other two, then sends them through a portal.
At the Firehouse, a portal opens and Animax bursts through, wrecking Janine's desk and spraying webbing on Ray and Peter. Slimer slimes Animax's eyes, and Winston tricks the ghost into swallowing a trap before opening it to capture him. Egon recognizes the attack as an ambush.
Driving through the city soon after, the team is caught off guard by Mist Crawler, who morphs into a brick wall, deflects their proton streams, strips off their packs, and disables Ecto-1. They take cover in a building, and when Mist Crawler slips in through the mail slot, Egon captures him with a trap he managed to carry along.
The third hunter, Dark, comes through a portal and takes the form of a figure from a stack of Punk Cinema magazines. Reaching the Firehouse, Dark hypnotizes Janine into shutting off the team's makeshift security system, then puts her to sleep. Inside, a shrinking spell reduces the Ghostbusters to six inches tall and traps them in a magic bubble. Slimer wakes Janine, chases Dark, and bumps the ghost into the portal, knocking the bubble loose so it shatters and frees the team. The Ghostmaster, furious at the failure, sends Dark back to finish the job.
From a rooftop, Egon has Slimer tell Janine to search the Big Red Book of Ancient Spells for a counter spell. The shrunken team stalls Dark across a clothesline, dodges a crow, and ends up in a ventilation system that funnels them into a bottling plant, where they are sealed inside a bottle of Yuppie Water and loaded onto a delivery truck. Egon has them shake the bottle and shoot the cap, and the carbonation pressure launches them free. After a series of near misses, a boy lends them a balloon to float back toward the Firehouse.
Unable to find the right spell, Janine starts trying them all, turning Slimer different colors and patterns, splitting him into three, changing the Firehouse, and briefly making Peter rat-like. Ray shoots the balloon to bring the team down. A restoration spell binds Slimer back into one and also makes him grow steadily larger, letting him smother Dark and break the ghost's concentration. Ray and Egon find the correct spell and return the team to normal, then trap Dark. As they relax, the Ghostmaster appears on their television to swear revenge before the set melts. Only Ray is excited by the whole affair.
The ghost captured at the start of the episode appears in the end credits of Extreme Ghostbusters. The episode also has an additional "story by" credit at the beginning, separate from the standard title screen.
This is the first of three appearances of the Ghostmaster, who was originally conceived as the series' recurring main villain. He later turns up in a cameo in "Jailbusters" and returns a final time in "Revenge of the Ghostmaster."
An animation error appears in the Book of Annoying Beings, where Winston's surname is misspelled "Zedmore" instead of "Zeddemore."
"Short Stuff" follows "Robo-Buster" and precedes "Follow That Hearse" in both air-date and DVD order.