Plot
The Ghostbusters mingle with potential clients at a formal evening party. Peter pitches a banker on a new offer, a year-round ghost protection insurance policy. Their conversation is interrupted by a young woman, Kate, who has brought a drink to her boyfriend Bud. Bud lashes out at her, accusing her of talking to an old friend, and a brief scuffle breaks out between him and Peter. Bud storms off alone, leaving Kate worried about him.
Out on the streets, Bud is chased by a headless apparition riding a motorcycle. He tries to lose it in a parking lot but watches it pass straight through a door. Driving onto a bridge, Bud sees the ghost stop at the bridge's edge. The ghost then hurls its head at Bud's car, detonating it, cackles, and vanishes.
The next morning, Lieutenant Frump arrives at the firehouse and demands to see all four Ghostbusters. Peter expects a new job, but Frump instead accuses him of sending the motorcycle spook after Bud, claiming Peter had both motive and easy access to ghosts. Peter denies it, arguing that ghosts cannot be used as hitmen, and Slimer drifts over to hug him. Unconvinced, Frump leaves.
Winston suggests they try to catch the ghost themselves, and Ray notes it helps the team's reputation to keep Peter out of jail. Peter is elected to retrace Bud's route in a similar sports car, with Ecto-1 following. Egon picks up a large concentration of PK energy, and Winston opens fire on the ghost, which dodges every blast. At the bridge the ghost again pauses, throws its head, and disappears. Ray works it out: water is a natural ionizing agent, so the ghost cannot cross it. Egon confirms the theory as the power readings drop near the bridge. Ray then recognizes the ghost from Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
The Ghostbusters track down Kate, who breaks down and explains that the Headless Horseman is her family's curse. Her ancestor was the man Irving called Ichabod Crane. On the night of the famous chase, Crane reached the bridge, pulled himself to dry land, and left the town rather than vanishing. He later married and had a son. Twenty years on, the ghost returned and chased the son, who also discovered its aversion to bridges. Ever since, the Horseman has pursued the family and their friends, forcing them to move again and again. Kate, the latest descendant, lives near a bridge for some protection. The team votes to help her, and to clear Peter's name.
Back at the firehouse the team builds new equipment. Frump returns to announce more incriminating evidence: Peter was selling ghost insurance and Bud was an insurance investigator. That night, Winston has Kate wear a special helmet and read from a script. The helmet broadcasts her psychograms to lure the ghost to her apartment, after which Peter switches on his own helmet to draw it after him. The ghost rises from a fissure and arrives at Kate's apartment. While Winston distracts it, Kate runs to Ecto-1 in the parking structure below, where psycho-dampers keep the ghost from detecting her. Peter takes off with the ghost in pursuit.
At the Queensboro Bridge, Egon spots Peter and switches on a hologram generator he has positioned below the bridge, making it look like an ordinary street. The ghost falls for it and is immobilized. Egon throws out a ghost trap and lets Kate do the honors. Frump, who has watched the whole thing, orders his driver away, satisfied that Peter is innocent. Later, the Ghostbusters are back at another party where the same banker signs up for ghost insurance, and Peter spots another beautiful woman as the team toasts to him.
The Headless Horseman
The Headless Horseman of this episode is a ghost rooted in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," a fact the episode states directly. By the time of the episode, the Horseman has modernized its appearance to resemble a motorcyclist of the era, replacing the traditional horse and pumpkin with a motorcycle and an explosive biker helmet it uses as its hurled head.
The Horseman failed to kill Ichabod Crane in the encounter Irving described. The townspeople found only Crane's horse and pumpkin fragments the next morning; Crane had crawled ashore and gone on to marry and start a family. The curse followed: twenty years later the Horseman returned to chase Crane's son, and it has pursued each new generation ever since, forcing the family to move repeatedly. Running water is the ghost's key weakness, as it acts as a natural ionizing agent that causes a sudden drop in the Horseman's PK energy, preventing it from crossing any bridge over water. The Ghostbusters exploit this by trapping it on a hologram-disguised bridge.
Egon classifies the Horseman as a "simple ectoplasmic manifestation of 12.5 on the Flammarion Scale." The Flammarion Scale is likely a reference to Camille Flammarion, the French astronomer and writer who produced works of science fiction and spiritism. In the episode's call sheet, the character is listed as "Motorcycle Ghost" rather than "Headless Horseman."2
The legend's traditional account describes the Horseman as the ghost of a Hessian soldier from the Revolutionary War whose head was blown off by a cannonball; he rides at night seeking his head and cannot cross running water. The episode draws on this weakness directly as the mechanism for the Ghostbusters' capture plan.
Cast and crew
The episode used the series' regular voice cast: Lorenzo Music as Peter Venkman, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Arsenio Hall, Laura Summer, and Janine Melnitz. B.J. Ward appeared as a guest voice.
The Headless Horseman was voiced by both Arsenio Hall and B.J. Ward. In the episode's call sheet, the character is listed as "Motorcycle Ghost."2
Jean-Marc Lofficier co-wrote the episode with his wife, Randy Lofficier, but went uncredited. At the time, only one member of the family could join the Writers Guild, so the couple agreed to credit Randy's name alone on the script.3
Production notes
The episode was recorded on July 21, 1986.2
Script differences cited in this section are drawn from the first draft of the episode, preserved in The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection bonus materials.4
The first draft of the script, dated May 15, 1986, differed from the finished episode in several places. The opening shot trucked slowly in toward Central Park and an elegant penthouse terrace. During the first party, Ray told the banker about ghosts that haunted the banking world, the Axe Murderer of First National Trust and the Spectre That Ate Tax-Exempt Bonds, the latter eating only bonds issued by defense contractors. In the draft, Bud's chase ran down Fifth Avenue, across Broadway, through Greenwich Village, then onto Canal Street, ending on the Manhattan Bridge. The younger police officer accompanied Frump during his first visit to the Ghostbusters. Peter's test-run chase ended on the Brooklyn Bridge near the Civic Center. The shot of Kate's condo began with a camera pan from the United Nations Headquarters, up Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, along the East River, ending at the Queensboro Bridge.
The draft's origin story called for more descendants of Crane to appear. A newspaper clipping of Frump carried the headline "Frump Promises Arrest Soon." In the draft, Bud joined Kate in luring the Horseman to the apartment and complained about the script Peter wrote for them. For the chase, Peter dressed exactly like Bud and used a human inflatable doll vaguely resembling Kate, fitted with electronic equipment. Egon mentioned "Aquila Vulgus" rather than Disneyland. The closing event was originally Bud and Kate's wedding party.
Trivia
The principal ghost is based on the character of the same name from Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," a connection the episode states directly.
Egon suggests "reversing the polarity of the neutron flow," a phrase associated with the TV show Doctor Who.1
Egon classifies the Headless Horseman as a simple ectoplasmic manifestation of 12.5 on the Flammarion Scale. Flammarion may be a reference to Camille Flammarion, the French astronomer and writer who produced works of science fiction and spiritism.
Kate refers to Ichabod Crane as "Uncle Ichabod," implying she is not a direct descendant.
During the climactic chase, the side of the police car briefly reads "Sheriff" while its light bar reads "Police." In a related animation error, when Ray, Winston, and Kate get out of Ecto-1, the doors are blue rather than white, having been carried over from the sheriff's car.
References
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Eatock, James and Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 15. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1986). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "The Headless Motorcyclist" (1986).
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Spook Central, "The Headless Motorcyclist." https://www.spookcentral.tk/rgb_ep_headless.htm
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Lofficier, Randy (2009). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection Volume Two Disc Five, "The Headless Motorcyclist." CPT Holdings, Inc.
