Production
The recording session was held December 5, 1986.2 On the call sheet the title was spelled "The Cabinet of Calimari."2 The title plays on the 1920 German horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.13
According to the visual commentary track on the Complete Collection, Matt Edens pitched the Houdini premise to his two older brothers, who then wrote the script. He was paid one hundred dollars by each brother for the idea.4
In a September 12, 1986 draft of the script, the theater owner Joe Magic was named Ted Magic.5 The same early script had Calamari headed to Schenectady for a two-week run at the Mohawk Inn.6 That draft also had Peter kiss Vanna immediately after Calamari vanished into the cabinet, and she reacted by slapping him.7
Several of the stage-magic props in the episode came out of research by Michael Swanigan, a Houdini enthusiast.8 For legal reasons, the ghost of Houdini was not allowed to bear a direct likeness to the real man.9
Plot
One evening at the Firehouse, Winston Zeddemore and Egon Spengler wait, dressed to go out, while Peter chases Slimer, who has made off with Peter's jacket and Egon's tie. The team ends up in the front row at the Magic Theater, where owner Joe Magic introduces the Great Calamari. For his first illusion Calamari makes his assistant Vanna vanish and reappear from a giant mirror. Ray Stantz gets the nagging sense he has seen the trick before. During an upside-down water-tank escape, a ghost appears, shatters the tank, and ends the act.
Backstage, Magic threatens to fire Calamari, who admits the ghost has been turning up at rehearsals; if the Ghostbusters can catch it, he keeps his job. While Winston and Egon inspect the equipment, Calamari steps through his mirror and sends a flying handsaw and a swarm of blades after them, slicing off Egon's thrower. Egon suspects the ghost is behind the attack. The team finally corners the ghost, and Egon traps it, only for it to escape the trap. A second trap, a chain, and a padlock all fail to hold it.
The ghost leads them to Calamari's dressing room, where Ray gets a reading off a locked trunk. Inside they find old theater posters showing the same man performing under different names, including the Great Spumoni, the Great Linguine, and Antipasto the Magnificent, all references to Italian food. A newspaper clipping reveals that, as Spumoni, Calamari was jailed over the unexplained disappearance of a volunteer who stepped into his Cabinet of Mystery and was never seen again.
Meanwhile Vanna, now hypnotized by Calamari, lures Peter into the Cabinet of Mystery and shuts him inside. Egon's P.K.E. Meter confirms she is not possessed, only entranced. Peter finds himself in a surreal world where the laws of physics no longer hold: a desert of melting clocks (a nod to Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory) and a giant floating eyeball. There he meets Irving, the long-lost volunteer, who has no idea how much time has passed.
The team traps the ghost in a crate, fills it with cement, but Calamari breaks the block and frees the ghost again. When the Ghostbusters fire on the fleeing Calamari, they bring the ceiling down on him. Egon finds Harry Houdini's secret notes hidden in a false bottom of Calamari's luggage and realizes Calamari had been stealing Houdini's tricks, and that the ghost is Houdini himself, still an escape artist no trap can hold. Ray reasons that the Cabinet of Mystery was Houdini's and that the ghost may be the only one able to free Peter. Ray offers Houdini his notes, and the ghost flies into the cabinet.
Irving steps out first and asks for a dime to phone his wife; Winston tells him a call now costs a quarter. Peter follows. Calamari, surfacing from the rubble, tries to shove the team into the cabinet but slips on loose papers and falls in himself, and Houdini vanishes as well. As they leave, Houdini sends Peter's lost keys hopping back out of the cabinet.
The next morning at the Firehouse, the team cannot wake Vanna from her trance, trying hypnosis, past-life regression, a Ouija board, hunting dogs, and new-wave music. As a last resort Peter kisses her, and it works. Vanna then reveals the spell could only be broken by a kiss from a toad.
Ghosts and locations
Harry Houdini is the ghost at the center of the episode. The famous real-world escape artist appears as a ghost on a mission to reclaim the secrets Calamari has stolen from him. He is voiced by Maurice LaMarche. For legal reasons, the production could not depict him with a direct likeness to the real person.9 His most distinctive ghostly trait is his ability to escape every containment method the Ghostbusters attempt: standard Ghost Traps, chains, padlocks, and even a trap encased in poured cement all fail to hold him, consistent with his legendary reputation as the world's greatest escape artist. He ultimately acts as an ally, stranding Calamari in the Cabinet Dimension and freeing Peter and Irving in exchange for the return of his stolen notebook.
The Cabinet Dimension is a surrealist parallel realm accessible through the Cabinet of Mystery. Its interior shifts through several distinct environments: a dark hallway, a room of fire, a museum-like space with oversized objects, and a desert strewn with melting clocks (an homage to Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory) and a giant floating eyeball. Irving, a volunteer who vanished during one of Calamari's early performances as the Great Spumoni, had been stranded there for over a decade prior to the events of the episode. Harry Houdini is the only one who can open the Cabinet from within.
Calamari (also known at various points in his career as the Great Spumoni, the Great Linguine, and Antipasto the Magnificent) is the human antagonist of the episode: a crooked magician who built his act on tricks stolen from Harry Houdini's private notebooks. His string of Italian food stage names is a running joke, capped by Winston's line, "He can't even hold a name. Is anybody hungry?" He ends the episode stranded in the Cabinet Dimension. Joe Magic, the theater owner who hires the Ghostbusters, appears to have been visually modeled on stage magician Doug Henning.
Cast
Regular voices were provided by Lorenzo Music as Peter, Frank Welker as Ray and Slimer, Maurice LaMarche as Egon and Houdini, and Arsenio Hall as Winston. Guest voices were supplied by Laurie O'Brien and Jay Robinson. Janine Melnitz appears in the episode but has no dialogue.
Notes
The matter of how long Irving was trapped is left vague on screen. The aired version settles it with the dime-versus-quarter exchange. The September 12, 1986 script was more specific: Irving asked whether Nixon had been impeached, with Peter replying it had been "over 10 years," which would place his disappearance before Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974.10
In the broadcast, the episode is bracketed by Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster and Ghostbuster of the Year; in DVD order it sits between Deadcon 1 and A Ghost Grows in Brooklyn.
References
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Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 21. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1986). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "The Cabinet of Calamari" (1986).
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Andy Mangels, Michael Edens (2009). The Real Ghostbusters, "The Cabinet of Calamari" (1987) Commentary. Time Life Entertainment.
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Michael Edens (2009). The Real Ghostbusters, "The Cabinet of Calamari" Commentary. Time Life Entertainment.
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Edens, Mark and Edens, Michael (2009). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection Volume Three Disc Five, p. 5. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Edens, Mark and Edens, Michael (2009). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection Volume Three Disc Five, p. 29. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Edens, Mark and Edens, Michael (2009). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection Volume Three Disc Five, p. 28. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Michael Swanigan (2009). The Real Ghostbusters, "The Cabinet of Calamari" (1987) Commentary. Time Life Entertainment.
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Michael Swanigan (2009). The Real Ghostbusters, "The Cabinet of Calamari" (1987) Commentary. Time Life Entertainment.
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Edens, Mark and Edens, Michael (2009). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection Volume Three Disc Five, p. 28. CPT Holdings, Inc.
