Plot
Late at night an energy surge shatters windows across a glowing high-rise building. At the Firehouse, the Ghostbusters are woken by an alarm from the basement: the Containment Unit is intact, but sensors detect a non-corporeal rupture of a scale they have never seen. Egon insists the team respond even after Peter votes to go back to sleep.
Inside the high-rise's vast laboratory, elderly billionaire Mr. Tummel has built an enormous pyramid-shaped matter transporter. His scientist activates the device, firing energy cannons at stacked gold bars and levitating them into a hole punched through the ecto barrier above the building. Tummel intends to ship his entire fortune to the Netherworld rather than leave it to charity. When his scientist refuses to continue until they can assess the environmental impact, Tummel has him thrown out and takes manual control. Hundreds of ghosts immediately begin escaping through the breach. Tummel anticipated this and had an Ecto Shield and twin Particle Throwers built into his wheelchair as a precaution.
The Ghostbusters reach the building and begin blasting ghosts, but discover a critical problem: because the entities were brought across by artificial means, their ecto-molecular structure is unstable. Every fragment that breaks off spawns a new ghost. Egon calculates that within fifteen hours the entire world would be overrun. The elevators are all possessed, so Ray pilots the team to the upper floors by helicopter. The magnetic field of the vortex kills the engine; Egon rigs his Proton Pack to the ignition and gets it running again. At the top, finding the entrance sealed in solid steel, Peter simply picks the lock with a nail file.
Inside, the team frees three servants Tummel had planned to take with him to the Netherworld. Tummel responds to their arrival by opening fire with a laser security system. Egon decides the only solution is to overload the equipment and collapse the gate. Peter engineers the opportunity by posing under a white flag and manipulating Tummel's greed, convincing him to attempt to transmit his entire building. In the chaos, Tummel's wheelchair is struck and he rolls into the transfer area. When Peter shoots the control panel it has no effect: the system is already running on automatic. Egon grabs an open Ghost Trap, tosses it into the pyramid to set up a feedback loop, and races back to the helicopter with the others.
Winston throws his Proton Pack and Trap at the building to help collapse the portal. The ghosts, the building, and Tummel himself are all pulled into the Netherworld. The money and gold, however, are displaced and rain down on the street around the Ghostbusters. After a brief pause, the team leaves it all on the ground and walks back to Ecto-1 as police arrive.
Characters
Ghostbusters
Neither Janine Melnitz nor Slimer appear in this episode.
Mr. Tummel
Mr. Tummel is the episode's central antagonist, voiced by Frank Welker. An elderly Fortune 500 billionaire, Tummel spent eighty years accumulating his wealth and refused to let it pass to charities at his death. He contracted a scientist to build a matter transporter capable of transmitting physical objects into the Ghost World, intending to arrive in the afterlife already wealthy. Tummel's high-rise laboratory features elaborate Egyptian-themed architecture and equipment, fitting his ambition to replicate the funerary practices of ancient pharaohs. He had a functional Ecto Shield and two Particle Throwers integrated into his wheelchair as defensive countermeasures. Peter ultimately outmaneuvers him by appealing to his greed, and Tummel is pulled into the Netherworld along with his building when Egon triggers the feedback collapse. His gold and money, displaced by the event, returns to the physical plane. A visual nod to Tummel appears in IDW's Ghostbusters Issue #8, where the character Mr. Visitor is modeled on his design.
Unstable Ghosts
Hundreds of ghost entities escape through Tummel's breach. Because they were brought to the physical plane artificially rather than crossing over naturally, their ecto-molecular structure is inherently unstable: any fragment that separates from a ghost becomes a new, independent ghost. This compounding threat drives the episode's urgency. The entities are contained and pulled back when Egon's feedback loop collapses the portal.
Equipment
Key equipment featured in the episode:
- Containment Unit: detects the initial non-corporeal rupture via alarm
- PKE Meter: used by Egon to track the ecto surge to Tummel's building
- Proton Packs and Particle Throwers: used to combat the unstable ghosts; Egon also reroutes his pack to restart the helicopter ignition
- Ghost Trap: Egon throws an open trap into the pyramid to trigger the feedback loop that closes the portal
- Ecto-1: transport to the building
- Tummel's Matter Transporter: the pyramid-shaped device at the heart of the episode, designed to transmit physical objects into the Ghost World
- Tummel's Wheelchair: modified with an Ecto Shield and twin Particle Throwers as defensive armaments
- Tummel's Cargo Loading Drone: automated forklift used to move gold bars into the transporter
- Tummel's Laser Defense System: security guns Tummel activates against the Ghostbusters
- Portable Control Console: Tummel's control interface for the transporter
Trivia
- Egon exclaims "Holy Heisenberg!", a reference to German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg.
- In one shot of the team running down a hall, animation errors appear: Peter is drawn running twice, and Ray's arms are colored as Peter's.
- Ray mentions having taken a single free helicopter lesson back in 1976, and the others react with surprise that he can fly, despite his having piloted Ecto-2 before.
- The episode was recorded on August 29, 1986, approximately thirteen months before its broadcast air date.
- Tummel's building and equipment are decorated with Egyptian motifs. In ancient Egyptian tradition, elaborate measures were taken to provide the dead with wealth and comforts for the afterlife.
- Tummel's scientist references compensating for "O-Zone balance" when initializing the device.
- After dismissing his scientist, Tummel makes an offhand reference to the Easter Bunny.
- Peter addresses Ray as "Tex," one of his recurring nicknames for him.
- Peter baits Tummel by threatening to donate his building to the United Way.
- Ray mentions that Peter owes him five dollars.
- Neither Janine nor Slimer appear in this episode.
Production
The episode is part of the second season of The Real Ghostbusters and was written by Richard Mueller and Durnie King. For the full broadcast order, see the Real Ghostbusters episode guide.
References
- The Real Ghostbusters, "You Can't Take It With You" (Season 2, production code 76024, aired October 14, 1987)
- Fandom Ghostbusters Wiki, "You Can't Take it With You" and "Mr. Tummel" articles
