Production
The episode carries production number 201002 and was recorded on May 31, 1989.2 It is catalogued as episode 101 in both the original air order and on DVD. The regular voice cast included Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Buster Jones, Kath Soucie, and Rodger Bumpass.
Janine Melnitz does not appear; in the story she has taken the day off. Soucie still recorded four incidental voices for the episode rather than reprising Janine.2 Within the regression scenes, Frank Welker voices Egon as a child and Kath Soucie voices Egon as a baby.1
The episode appears on the 2008 Time Life DVD box set of The Real Ghostbusters (Vol. 4, Disc 2)1 and on the later 2016 Sony DVD release. The Time Life version omits a brief shot of the clock faces transforming just before the Clock Ghost manifests in Clocks Galore; that shot is present in the 2016 Sony set.
Plot
Late one evening, Ecto-1 pulls up to a clock store called Clocks Galore, where a security guard lets the Ghostbusters in. Navigating the crowded aisles, Slimer and Ray are startled by a demonic-looking clock, and Egon's P.K.E. Meter registers a strong presence. When a cuckoo clock announces midnight, Peter blasts it by mistake, and the real ghost appears. It proves agile and hard to hit. In the confusion Peter and Ray both fire on Egon and the ghost at the same time. The ghost passes through Egon, grows larger, and crashes out through the ceiling. Egon seems unhurt, but every clock in the store has begun running backward.
The next morning over breakfast, Louis Tully lays out a financial problem: expenses are climbing while profits fall, and he suggests bringing in investors. He mentions his mother during the discussion. Egon then strides in acting unlike himself, listening to rap Shakespeare and showing off a new device meant to find and destroy pimples before they form. Annoyed that no one is impressed, he storms off. The others agree something is wrong.
When two investors arrive for a tour, Egon, now a teenager, pelts everyone with water balloons from the second floor, soaking the investors' suitcases. Ray works out that the collision with the ghost reversed the atomic structure of Egon's body, and that he is aging backward. The team traces the ghost to Times Square, where it is attacking a watch billboard and trying to stop time. By now Egon has regressed to a young child and refuses to give up his proton pack until Ray talks him into being the trap man. The attempt fails and the ghost escapes, and Egon emerges from behind a dumpster younger still, clutching a kitten.
Back at the firehouse, Ray calculates that Egon will vanish from existence at midnight. The team cares for him as he becomes a toddler and then an infant, even pausing to change his diaper and take photographs. A call about a ghost at a clock factory turns out to be a dead end, and they realize they must precisely reenact the original accident. Left briefly with Slimer, the infant Egon builds a ladder out of toys to reach a pigeon on the firehouse sign and tumbles off; Slimer catches him, but the Clock Ghost reappears and snatches him.
Searching Lower Manhattan, the team finds Egon and the ghost in a clock tower with minutes to spare. They open fire and confine the ghost, and as it is trapped, Slimer holds Egon over the open trap so the ghost passes through him again. The smoke clears to reveal a grown Egon hanging from a clock hand. The next day Egon, still embarrassed about having been a baby, instinctively calms a crying infant by speaking gibberish to it before the team heads off.
Ghost and Locations
Clock Ghost. The Clock Ghost is the episode's principal antagonist and a one-time-appearance entity. Voiced by Buster Jones, it first manifests at Clocks Galore at the stroke of midnight. Egon initially classifies it as "at minimum, a Class 5," though after the accident he refers to it as "the little Class 4," leaving the exact classification inconsistent within the episode. Because the crossed proton streams linked it to Egon, the ghost ages rapidly in parallel with Egon's regression, growing visibly weaker between appearances. It is drawn to timepieces and attempts to stop time outright when it attacks a watch billboard in Times Square and later scatters a clock factory's stock. Recognizing the link connecting it to Egon, the ghost kidnaps the infant from the firehouse and retreats to a clock tower in Lower Manhattan. It is captured there when Slimer holds Egon over the open trap so the ghost can pass through him a second time, reversing both their conditions. The Clock Ghost makes a non-canon cameo appearance on the subscription cover of IDW's Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue 18.
Clocks Galore. A clock specialty store and the opening location of the episode. The Clock Ghost is the ghost haunting the store when the Ghostbusters are called in.
Times Square and Lower Manhattan. The mid-episode chase moves to Times Square, near a large watch advertisement billboard. The climax takes place at a clock tower in Lower Manhattan, in the vicinity of St. Paul's Chapel.
Notes
The story takes Egon through five distinct ages: teenager (tacky clothes, rap Shakespeare, and an acne-eliminating helmet), pre-teen (the water-balloon launcher and a ride on a vacuum cleaner), young child (whining in Ecto-1 and clinging to his proton pack), toddler (playing with the cat), and finally infant. As a baby he cries three times, over a needed diaper change, over the team leaving him behind, and over Slimer drinking his formula, yet still shows his genius by assembling a toy ladder to reach the pigeon.
In the broadcast, Egon's run of episodes places "Three Men and an Egon" between "Something's Going Around" and "Elementary My Dear Winston".
Errors
Two animation errors appear in the episode. At approximately the 17:06 mark, Winston Zeddemore, shown with his back to the viewer, is miscolored with Ray's color palette. At approximately the 23:03 mark, when Peter fires his proton stream at the Clock Ghost, the stream is visibly misplaced in the frame.
References
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Eatock, James and Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 32. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1989). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Three Men and an Egon" (1989).
