Steven Melching

Steven Melching (born 1968, USA) is an American television writer who scripted two episodes of Extreme Ghostbusters, the 1997 animated series.¹ His other credits are largely in animation, on shows such as Beast Machines, X-Men, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, The Mummy: The Animated Series, and The Batman.

Extreme Ghostbusters

Melching wrote two first-season episodes of the series, both of which built their plots around the team's daily-life supporting cast and around a single high-concept monster that the proton packs could not simply trap on the first attempt.

In Your Dreams (production number 125, first aired November 7, 1997) follows a wave of nightmares that leave New Yorkers physically injured in their sleep. Kylie Griffin, Eduardo Rivera, Garrett Miller, and Roland Jackson trace the attacks to the dream demon Morpheus, who is using a radio host's voice as a conduit into sleepers' minds, and they must let him cross fully into the physical world before he can be captured.²

Glutton for Punishment (production number 138, first aired November 24, 1997) pits the team against Ravana, a feline entity who taints food so that the people who eat it gorge uncontrollably, feeding him through them. The episode runs that threat alongside a comic subplot in which an infected Slimer eats his way through the firehouse while Egon Spengler and Janine Melnitz try to rein him in.³

Both scripts went through multiple drafts. "In Your Dreams" exists in drafts dated March 24, April 1, April 4, and a final draft of April 5, 1997.²⁴ "Glutton for Punishment" exists in a first draft of May 16 and a final draft of May 21, 1997.³ The surviving drafts show material that was changed or cut before broadcast: an earlier version of "In Your Dreams" included Garrett's mother appearing in his dream and a newspaper photojournalist named Aaron Curtiz who was meant to generate good press for the team, while "Glutton for Punishment" originally referenced the Mass Maker gloves before they were dropped.⁵⁶