Plot
A strange midnight thunderstorm sweeps through the city, a lightning bolt nearly striking a meter maid before swerving away and lighting up electronics as it goes, finally settling at the Firehouse. Inside, Winston, Peter, Egon, Slimer, and Ray are watching television in the rec room. Peter mentions Michelle Pfeiffer is about to appear on "The Lenny Jason Show," but Ray channel-surfs and Slimer hogs the popcorn, annoying the others, just as the set loses reception. When it returns, "The Sammy K. Ferret Show" is on: an obnoxious cartoon host who insults his guest, a pink poodle starlet promoting a movie called "Dog Tracy," then drops an anvil on her. Ray and Slimer laugh, but Peter and Winston call it a night, and Egon soon follows.
The television acts up again, so Ray extends the antenna out the window. The reception returns, but the same lightning strikes the antenna. The set sparks as if Sammy is about to climb out, then catches fire. Slimer puts it out and Ray pulls the plug, shrugging that they will just buy a new set.
The next day, Janine tries the broken television on her lunch break and watches a cartoon mouse and cat chase out of it and into the kitchen. The Ghostbusters do not believe her, and Egon chalks it up to overwork and gives her the afternoon off. Sammy finally emerges from the melted set and hides as the team returns with their gear. They corner him in the kitchen, where his cartoon gags, including bombs, a cannon with a very real cannonball, and a train pulled out of a drawn-on cabinet door, turn out to be genuinely dangerous and wreck the dining hall. Egon works out that the longer Sammy stays in the real world, the more solid and dangerous his cartoon creations become.
Driving around in Ecto-1 while Peter scouts ahead in Ecto-3, the team finds cartoon creations spreading across the city. Sammy kisses Ray and turns him into a cartoon pig, and Winston into a cartoon dog, while taunting Peter and Egon and dumping them into a hole in the road. Ray reasons that Sammy, convinced he is the funniest thing alive, will not resist a challenge to his title. They disguise Slimer as a comic called the "Funny Spud," and when Sammy shows up the team blasts him, but the proton streams pass straight through and the trap catches Slimer instead. Ecto-1 is turned into a cartoon car. Egon is then transmogrified into a cartoon bird.
Egon concludes Sammy is still an ego-driven ghost that can be trapped if they make him angry enough to drop his cartoon form. They realize he will not be able to resist appearing on "The Lenny Jason Show." There the crew helps them humiliate Sammy on live television, distorting his image, burying him in fake snow, and blowing him into a tuba while the studio audience laughs at him. Sammy loses his temper and reveals his true, monstrous form. The team blasts him and Slimer traps him. His last words are "I'm still the funniest!" Ray, Winston, and Egon return to normal, though Ecto-1 remains stuck in its cartoon shape.
Sammy K. Ferret
Sammy K. Ferret is the episode's villain, voiced by Chris Collins. On-screen, he presents himself as an obnoxious cartoon talk-show host, the star of "The Sammy K. Ferret Show," a program beloved by Ray and Slimer. In reality, he is a powerful ghost who, once pulled into the physical world by the lightning strike, can warp reality and impose cartoon physics onto his surroundings. He conjures bombs, trains, cannons, and holes from nowhere, and can transform people into cartoon animals with a kiss, converting Ray into a cartoon pig, Winston into a cartoon dog, and Egon into a cartoon bird at different points during the episode.
Because he is not bound by normal physics, proton streams pass directly through him in his cartoon form. The team's solution is to exploit his vanity: Sammy is pathologically incapable of tolerating someone else getting more laughs than he does. When the Ghostbusters publicly humiliate him on live television, his rage causes him to revert to his true monstrous ghost form, at which point he can be trapped normally. Some of his residual effects linger after capture, most visibly leaving Ecto-1 in a cartoon car shape.
Collins was best known at the time for voicing Wheeljack in the original Transformers animated series, making "Stay Tooned" his most prominent Ghostbusters role.
The pink poodle starlet who appears as Sammy's first on-screen guest, voiced by Kath Soucie, serves only to be humiliated. She plugs a film called "Dog Tracy," a parody of the 1990 film Dick Tracy.
References and homages
The episode is built around parodies of contemporary pop culture. Sammy's guest plugs a movie called "Dog Tracy," a play on "Dick Tracy," and Winston flips through a TV listing whose cover reads "Slimsons," nodding to "The Simpsons." When the picture cuts out, Peter quips "Married with Static," a riff on "Married... with Children," and Janine is reluctant to miss her soap, "Nurses and Doctors, Doctors and Nurses." The cartoons Janine sees in the kitchen resemble Tom and Jerry. Late-night host Lenny Jason is a play on Jay Leno, and his first name also references series writer Len Janson.
Egon whistles in appreciation of actress Michelle Pfeiffer, followed by a cat wail, a gag tied to his running "cat call" and a wink at her then-recent turn as Catwoman.
Of the team, Peter is the only Ghostbuster who is never transformed into an animal, while Egon, Ray, and Winston each are.
Animation errors
At the 05:50 mark, Ray reaches down and his uniform sleeve is shown instead of his civilian clothes.
At the 10:20 mark, Egon's uniform is colored brown like Peter's rather than his correct color.
References
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Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 40. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1990). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Stay Tooned" (1990).
