Details
Plot
The episode opens on Peter running through a fog-filled forest, pursued by a large ant monster. His proton stream has no effect on it, and the creature slices the cord connecting his particle thrower to his proton pack, leaving him defenseless. Cornered at the edge of a cliff, Peter wakes to find he has fallen out of his office chair. Ray runs past to answer the door. A package has arrived, and Peter hopes in vain that it is a back massager. It is an ant farm. Peter, who declares the world would be better off without bugs, is not pleased.
At the Museum of Natural History, Winston Zeddemore and Janine Melnitz view a stone tablet depicting the monster from Peter's dream. A display identifies it as Apshai, the Egyptian god of insects. The exhibit curator lectures that Apshai ruled Egypt from an unusual temple until the Egyptians, who no longer worshiped him, drove him out. Apshai and his followers took the temple's Crystal Capstone, the alleged source of his power, and were never seen again. The curator presents the one recovered relic, a gold scarab. The moment he opens it, an earthquake rocks Manhattan. Far below the city, the Crystal Capstone glows aboard a buried boat, and a mandible emerges from it.
At the Firehouse, the earthquake sends Egon Spengler scrambling to save his collection of spores, mold, and fungi. Ray's ant farm breaks, and the insects file out in an oddly organized march, joined by an unusual number of other bugs streaming out of the building. Egon notes the timing is wrong, since bugs are agitated before an earthquake, not after. A huge procession of insects is heading down the street, and in Central Park, enlarged insects emerge from cracks in the ground.
Ray and Egon take Ecto-2 while Peter and Slimer drive Ecto-1. A giant dragonfly attacks the helicopter and forces it into a pond. Reunited, the team finds the bugs are building something. Egon insists they are not real insects but ethereal enlargements under some kind of behavior control. Peter goes to fetch the ghost traps and finds beetles stripping Ecto-1. He blasts one, shrinking it back to normal size, then is ambushed by giant spiders, webbed up, and carried underground. Slimer follows after him.
Egon devises a new plan: he needs a fire pumper and four thousand gallons of honey. The bugs take the bait and feast, letting the team descend into one of the fissures. Below, Apshai announces that Peter has been chosen as his sacrifice and rants that humanity has ruled the world long enough, promising termites to destroy buildings, locusts to ruin crops, and mosquitoes and bees to torment people. Up above, Janine recognizes the structure the insects are building as a representation of the Temple of Apshai but cannot reach Egon by radio.
The team tracks Apshai down. Janine frees Peter and tosses him a proton pack, but the Crystal Capstone is placed atop the pyramid before they can stop it. Powered by the Sun, Apshai grows enormous. Rather than firing on Apshai directly, the Ghostbusters target the capstone. Once it is destroyed, Apshai turns to sand and fades away, the bugs shrink back to normal, the temple collapses, and the fissures close. Egon and Ray reflect that the world still needs insects as a monarch butterfly lands on Peter's nose.
Production
The first draft of "20,000 Leagues Under the Street" was turned in on May 21, 1990, by Jules Dennis and Richard Mueller.3 The episode was recorded on March 20 and 22, 1991, with Dave Coulier recording alone on March 22.2
Trivia
Peter's premonition of the giant insect that attacks him later is the second time he has a precognitive dream about an entity he goes on to face. The first was of the Sandman in "Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream."
At the museum, Winston laments that he would rather be at a Mets game, in keeping with his enthusiasm for baseball seen in "Night Game." Janine claims she was Cleopatra in a past life. Over the course of the episode she wears three different outfits and dons her jumpsuit for the first time since "Jailbusters."
The end credits use the end title theme from the earlier seasons rather than the theme used in the final two seasons.
In the broadcast order, the preceding episode is "Attack of the B-Movie Monsters."
References
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Eatock, James and Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 42. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1991). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "20,000 Leagues Under the Street" (1991).
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Benjamin, Troy and Goldberg, Craig (2025). The Real Ghostbusters: A Visual History, p. 13. Dark Horse Books, Milwaukie, OR, USA. ISBN 9781506749273.
