Plot
A late-night noise wakes a Manhattan couple, Al and Gladis. Al pulls on a robe, grabs a bat, and goes to investigate, and they find their puppy, Prince, standing upside down on the ceiling. Prince attacks, and the couple's scream carries across the skyline.
The next day, Garrett, Kylie, and Roland leave a market hauling 30 pounds of mushrooms that Egon sent them to buy for a fungus experiment. Garrett needles Roland for not approaching a woman walking a poodle, and Roland admits he is not a dog person. Garrett ribs that Roland is a "Spengler clone." Egon hears the exchange over the CB and calls them back: the fungus work has to wait, because the city is flooded with calls about violent dogs.
At the firehouse, Janine hands the team a list of 30 addresses while Eduardo staggers in half-asleep. They head out in Ecto-1 with Slimer, who is drawn to the dog food at the calls. At the first job, a possessed Mastiff shrugs off their proton fire even on a low setting and swings Slimer around like a rag doll. Kylie improvises, trapping the dog inside a clothes dryer that the team wheels away on Garrett's wheelchair.
Egon theorizes that a remote source is broadcasting a controlling frequency into the dogs, and sends the team back out to clear the streets while he searches for the signal. The night drags on as they cage dog after dog and animal control hauls them off. The dogs grow more coordinated, even pulling a man from a delivery truck and aiming it at the Ghostbusters. The attacks then stop, and Egon cross-references the call locations on a printout. Thousands of dogs converge on Times Square, where a huge dog-like entity, the Demi-Dog, sits atop a pile of garbage and spits trash at Ecto-1. Roland realizes the Demi-Dog is the source of the broadcast. Their fire only angers it, the possessed pack surrounds the car, and Roland is forced to back Ecto-1 into a dead-end alley.
Back at the firehouse, the caged Mastiff hops its cage onto Slimer, who shrieks in terror, and the dog recoils. Egon recognizes that the scream repels the possessed animals and records it, with Janine sneaking up and barking to startle Slimer into a good take. He broadcasts the recording over Ecto-1's PA, scattering the dogs. With the Demi-Dog cowering, Kylie lures it into a trap, and all the dogs return to normal. An interdimensional portal then opens and the Mistress, the Demi-Dog's owner, crosses over. Enraged, she shifts her form and lashes out with tentacles, but Roland baits her into the open and captures her in a second trap as the police arrive. Later, while the team washes Ecto-1, Garrett and Kylie try to set Roland up with a passing woman walking a dog.
Ghosts and entities
The Demi-Dog is a giant, pug-like demon with glowing red eyes. It serves as an advance scout for the Mistress, preceding her into new worlds and using a controlling signal to remotely possess the local animal population. Under the Demi-Dog's influence the possessed animals display escalating organization, eventually employing coordinated group tactics. The PKE meter registered full bars when scanning it, and proton streams had no effect; only the amplified broadcast of Slimer's shriek forced it to recoil long enough for Kylie to deploy a trap. The name is a pun on "demi-god," and it also inverts the word "dog" to read "god."
The Mistress is the demonic owner and commander of the Demi-Dog. She targets new worlds by sending the Demi-Dog in first to seize control of the local population, then crossing over once her pet has established a foothold. Upon entering the physical plane she initially manifests as a human woman; her true form is a flying, mermaid-like creature with tentacles and a wide mouth set in her torso. She is highly agile, evading proton streams, until Roland baited her into position and captured her. Artist Tristan Jones, working on Tobin's Spirit Guide themed artwork, named her "Theron" after Potnia Theron, the ancient Greek epithet for "Mistress of Animals."
Cast
The episode used the show's regular voice cast: Tara Strong (credited as Tara Charendoff), Maurice LaMarche, Jason Marsden, Pat Musick, Alfonso Ribeiro, Rino Romano, and Billy West. Iona Morris guest starred; her name was misspelled in the end credits as "Ionia Morris."
Production
The episode was animated by Koko Enterprise Company, Ltd. Hawkins wrote it through four known drafts: a writer's draft dated April 25, 1997, a first draft on April 29, a second draft on May 3, and a third draft on May 5, 1997.1
Notes
The Extreme Ghostbusters weaken and trap the Demi-Dog with sound equipment, a tactic similar to how the original Ghostbusters captured Ral in "It's a Jungle Out There." This episode sits between "Ghost in the Machine" and "Mole People" in the season.
The episode contains several in-jokes. Garrett refers to the poodle-walking woman as "Miss America." Janine's dialogue riffs on the animated film "All Dogs Go to Heaven." Garrett also invokes Peter Venkman's famous "We came, we saw..." line from the first film. Roland calls Garrett "Romeo," a nickname that recurs across the series.
References
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Hawkins, Barry (1997). Extreme Ghostbusters "Dog Days" (Third Draft, May 5, 1997), script title page.
