Production
The roots of the special go back to December 1987, when initial premises for a prime-time Real Ghostbusters special were first submitted to ABC.3 To rekindle interest in the show, ABC asked Straczynski to write a prime-time special that would be fast-tracked through an animation process that normally ran up to a year. He agreed on one condition: that daytime Broadcast Standards and Practices have no say over the story. Because the special would run in prime time rather than Saturday morning, where programming standards were tighter, the network agreed.4
Several concepts were floated before "The Halloween Door" was chosen. In December 1988 Straczynski submitted two ideas, a New Orleans story titled "Midnight on the Lady M" and "The Ghostbusters Live! from Al Capone's Tomb!", both of which the network passed on.5 Early in 1989, Len Janson and Chuck Menville pitched "Public Enemy No. 1," set in a haunted state prison for women, which the network also declined.6 Straczynski separately pitched "The Unhaunted House," a body-swap premise in which everyone turns into a supernatural entity on Halloween night while all the ghosts, including Slimer, become human; it too was rejected.7
Will Meugniot produced and directed the special, with Michael C. Gross and Joe Medjuck as executive producers and Ivan Reitman and Bernie Brillstein as executive consultants. Recording sessions were held on June 14, July 5, and September 19, 1989. Michael Rye recorded on July 5 and Frank Welker on September 19.8 In his visual commentary, Straczynski compared the pairing of Dr. Crowley and Fairweather to the classic horror acting duo Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre.9
Story and censorship satire
Rather than reuse Samhain, the established Halloween antagonist, Straczynski built the special around Dr. Crowley as a vehicle to mock parent groups and television censorship. Crowley wants to abolish Halloween on the grounds that it lets children's imaginations run wild, and some of his lines are taken almost verbatim from notes that Broadcast Standards and Practices had given Straczynski over the years. By his account the point was less to write a script free of the censors than to write a story about them.94 Crowley's surname is a nod to Aleister Crowley, the early twentieth-century occultist; Straczynski has said the censors, who had spent years accusing him of slipping satanic references into scripts, never noticed.104 BS&P was reportedly not amused once it realized its own notes had been put in the mouth of the villain.11
The sequence in which the anti-Halloween machine erases the holiday from the city is an homage to How the Grinch Stole Christmas. As the machine destroys horror novels in the New York Public Library, Crowley name-checks Washington Irving, Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, and Ray Bradbury. Straczynski wrote the lyrics to both songs in the special, and during a visual commentary he noted that the destruction of the Containment Unit is styled after the comparable scene in the first Ghostbusters film.12
The special's first-airing intro is a custom assembly built from footage across the series: clips from the pilot, the Season 4 mini-intro, episodes "Standing Room Only" and "Something's Going Around," and the special itself. Samhain appears in this custom intro in reused footage from the third-season opening, even though he plays no role in the special's story.
Plot
On Halloween, Peter Venkman is getting ready for a date with reporter Lynn Stacy after an afternoon gig at a junior high school; his original plan was to take her to a party at Donald Trump's. Slimer has spent a week making a Peter costume; Peter turns the prank around by dressing as Slimer and sliming him, satisfying a five-year grudge that dates to the first film. When Lynn arrives she mistakes the costumed Slimer for Peter, asks for a kiss, and storms out disgusted. Outside, Peter and the team run into Dr. Crowley and his assistant Fairweather, who want the Ghostbusters' help ending Halloween. Egon Spengler tries to explain the holiday's significance, but Crowley will not listen. Winston uses the same candy-in-the-socks distraction that Egon deployed in "When Halloween Was Forever", but while the team is preoccupied Fairweather steals one of their P.K.E. Meters, which Crowley needs to focus his machine, and the pair flee back to Crowley's mansion.
At Jefferson Junior High the Ghostbusters perform a Halloween rally for the students. Meanwhile Fairweather finishes the Electronic Positronic Anti-Halloween Machine. Crowley activates it and it scans the city, destroying everything tied to Halloween: pumpkins, decorations, costumes, candy, and books. A portal opens above the mansion, and the demon Boogaloo and his minions cross into New York City. Fairweather reveals that Crowley was a pawn in a plan to open the door to the Other Side, then drops his disguise to show his true monstrous form.
As the city is overrun, the team learns from a storefront news report that the President has declared a national state of emergency, and Boogaloo seizes the airwaves to announce the ghosts are in charge now that the "Halloween Deal" is broken. Egon explains the bargain: two thousand years ago the Druids struck a deal with the demons that infested the Earth, sending the worst of them to the Netherworld on the condition that they be remembered one day a year, on Halloween. If Halloween is not restored by midnight, the contract breaks for good. At the Firehouse, Janine Melnitz, Louis Tully, and Slimer fail to stop ghosts from reaching the basement and opening the Containment Unit, which explodes; Slimer flies the other two to safety.
Low on traps and power, the team tracks the door to the Times Square district, where Boogaloo blocks their path. Winston Zeddemore and Egon race to reverse the machine while Peter and Ray Stantz try to distract Boogaloo, but the machine has been sabotaged by ghosts. Boogaloo animates the street to capture Peter and Ray; while in its grip, Peter can see the building where Ray lives. The solution arrives in Irma, a girl from next door dressed as a Ghostbuster who insists she is not afraid. With two minutes to midnight, Egon presents her to a baffled Boogaloo and argues that Halloween is about rediscovering wonder and taking the night back for children. The Halloween Deal is restored, a portal pulls Boogaloo and his forces back in, and time itself rewinds to eight o'clock so the kids can go trick-or-treating after all. Crowley, undaunted, declares he was right all along and vows to try again; Slimer scares him off by popping up in a Boogaloo mask.
One-off characters
Boogaloo is the main antagonist of the special and the leader of the demons that infested the Earth two thousand years ago before the Druids negotiated the Halloween Deal. He is physically imposing, can animate inanimate objects (including the street itself), fires energy bolts from his mouth and fingertips, and generates giant stone-like hands from the tarmac. He has a performative streak: his arrival in New York City is announced by a full musical number, "Boogaloo's Back in Town," written by Straczynski and guest voice Brian O'Neal, who also performs it. The Fandom Ghostbusters wiki and the Tobin's Spirit Guide companion book (Insight Editions) classify him as a Class 7 entity. He appears as a playing piece in Ghostbusters: The Board Game (Cryptozoic Entertainment, 2015); his character card quotes Peter's "He's ugly and his mother dresses him funny" line from the special. He makes non-canon cameos in IDW's Ghostbusters Issue #9 (cover variant) and Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #9.
Dr. Jacob Crowley (voiced by Michael Rye) is the chairman of Citizens United Against Halloween (And Lots of Other Stuff We Don't Like), a man who opposes not only Halloween but comics, television, fantasy, toys, and books about legends. He is entirely an unwitting pawn: Fairweather chose him because his obsession made him useful for opening the Halloween Door, and once the door is open Crowley is discarded. His prominent forehead design was compared in commentary to the Dick Tracy villain Flat Top. He makes a non-canon cameo alongside Fairweather in IDW's Ghostbusters Issue #5.
Fairweather (voiced by Rodger Bumpass) is Boogaloo's loyal disciple, spending two thousand years in wait for the right mortal to exploit. He adopted human form, posed as Crowley's assistant, and used the cover to steal a P.K.E. Meter and complete the machine. His true form, revealed once the portal opens, is a composite creature: the head of a dog, an armadillo-like body, insectoid legs, and one tentacle arm in place of a hand. He makes a non-canon cameo in his true form in IDW's Ghostbusters: What in Samhain Just Happened?! and in human form in Ghostbusters Issue #5.
Lynn Stacy (voiced by Kath Soucie) is a reporter and Peter's planned date. After Slimer, wearing a Peter costume, kisses and slimes her, she storms out in disgust before Peter can explain. She makes non-canon cameos in IDW's Ghostbusters Issue #14 and Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #9.
Irma is a young girl who lives next door to Crowley's mansion. Dressed as a Ghostbuster and wholly unafraid of the demons around her, she is the key to breaking the standoff: Egon uses her as living proof that Halloween's spirit survives in children even after Crowley's machine erased its physical trappings. Her courage is what restores the Halloween Deal and sends Boogaloo back to the Netherworld.
Boogaloo's Minions are the horde of demons that emerged with Boogaloo through the Halloween Door. They terrorize the city, tear apart Ecto-1, free the ghosts imprisoned in the Containment Unit, and deliberately wreck the Anti-Halloween Machine to prevent any reversal. The Harpy-type minions are voiced by Dave Coulier and Frank Welker. Several recognizable entities appear among the horde: the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (visible during the "Boogaloo's Back in Town" sequence), the Phantom, two Bug-Eye Ghosts, the Ghost Dog, and the One-Eyed Blue Terror, most playing celebratory rather than menacing roles.
Cast and music
The regular voice cast includes Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Buster Jones, Kath Soucie, and Rodger Bumpass, with guest performances by Brian O'Neal and Michael Rye. Brian O'Neal, who voiced Boogaloo, was also a member of The Bus Boys, the group that performed "Cleanin' Up the Town" for the Ghostbusters soundtrack.1
The special features two songs, "Boogaloo's Back in Town" and "Touching Old Magic," both with lyrics by Straczynski and music by O'Neal, who also performed "Boogaloo's Back in Town." Series music was by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy, and the theme song was written by Ray Parker Jr.
Legacy
The special has continued to surface in the IDW Ghostbusters comics. A black-and-white advertisement for "The Halloween Door" TV special appears on a tack board in Ghostbusters Annual 2015. In Ghostbusters Annual 2018, art of a child's costume from the opening of the special appears on a refrigerator, and Slimer makes a pumpkin-shaped cameo modeled on his appearance here.
Several one-off characters from the special have appeared in IDW non-canon cameos: Boogaloo appears on an Issue #9 cover variant and on Egon's evidence board in Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #9 (with Peter's line from the special quoted on the board). Dr. Crowley and Fairweather (in human form) appear together on page seven of Ghostbusters Issue #5. Fairweather appears in his true monstrous form in the final panel of Ghostbusters: What in Samhain Just Happened?! Lynn Stacy appears as a bystander in Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #9 and in a newspaper on page four of Ghostbusters Issue #14.
References
