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"Drool, the Dog Faced Goblin" is a second-season episode of The Real Ghostbusters. The Ghostbusters find a genuine goblin among the fakes at a traveling carnival sideshow in the Poconos, suspect it of terrorizing nearby towns, and are stopped from capturing it. It was written by Linda Woolverton and first aired on October 29, 1987.1
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The team drives out to the Pocono Mountains to investigate a circus attraction billed as "Madame Lefarge's Wondrous and Amazing Traveling Sideshow." When Winston asks why they are there, Egon launches into a lecture on the creation of Earth before finally pointing to an advertisement for "Drool the Dog-faced Goblin." Madame Lefarge denies having any goblin problem and starts her show. As her dancer Little Egypt performs, Drool leaps out, and Egon's P.K.E. Meter confirms it is a real goblin. Once the crowd clears, the Ghostbusters move to trap it, but Lefarge shields Drool and insists the whole thing is part of the act. She then translates Drool's greeting for them.
Lefarge explains that Drool is not a pet. He attached himself to the circus family a few years earlier and has stayed with them ever since, eventually becoming part of the show. Drool shows off his shape-changing powers, which disgusts the team, but Lefarge maintains he is harmless and questions how quick the Ghostbusters are to attack. As Ecto-1 pulls away, Winston starts to come around to her point of view while Egon holds that no goblin is ever harmless. The car then stalls. Everyone but Ray gets out to push it toward town, and something attacks them with an exposed power line before fleeing.
Stranded for the night, the team checks into a boarding house, where they are tormented by a series of shape-shifting pranks: a cat that turns into a giant dog, coffee that is really mud, a room with everything floating in it, a shower that runs tomato sauce, and a morning hailstorm of hominy grits. The entity attacks, and the outmatched Ghostbusters run, ducking through a dry cleaner and into a warehouse with the creature, in changing forms, chasing them.
Cornered, they set an ambush with Peter as bait. Egon warns that they are dealing with a non-amalgamated shape-changer, and the entity appears to Peter as a giant cockroach before slipping into a crack in the wall. Peter and Winston are sure it is Drool, but Ray remembers a Free-Floating Miasmic Phantom they once failed to catch. Back at the circus, the team pins Drool in their proton streams just as Lefarge bursts in begging for help and the real entity attacks again. Winston realizes it is the phantom that escaped them the week before; it had followed the team and waited for its chance. With bystanders pinned down, Drool grabs the phantom and holds on so it cannot hurt anyone, asking, through Lefarge's translation, that the Ghostbusters save the people at any cost. Peter apologizes for blaming him. The team blasts both entities into a single trap. When Lefarge asks whether Drool can be brought back, Ray admits that catching two ghosts at once has mixed their molecules and they cannot be separated. Lefarge takes some comfort that Drool may finally be among his own kind, and the Ghostbusters look on with regret.
The events of this episode were later referenced by Egon in the Extreme Ghostbusters episode "Back in the Saddle, Part 1", in which he recalls busting a shape shifter in the Poconos.
Drool is a goblin with shape-changing abilities, voiced by Maurice LaMarche. After attaching himself to Madame Lefarge's sideshow some years before the episode takes place, he became a genuine performer, billed as "Drool the Dog-Faced Goblin" and staging mock attacks on the dancer Little Egypt. Egon's P.K.E. readings classify him as a "Free Standing Four Footed Four Armed Garden Variety Green Goblin," though his coloring in the episode does not match that description.
Drool communicates in grunts and sounds that only Madame Lefarge appears to understand. His shape-changing repertoire includes a spider, a skeletal version of himself, a winged form, and a black grub-like worm. Despite the standard assumption that goblins are malicious, Drool sacrifices himself at the episode's climax by seizing the Metamorph so the Ghostbusters can trap both entities together, saving the sideshow performers from harm. Ray explains afterward that trapping two ghosts while they are in physical contact causes their molecules to merge irreversibly inside the trap.
Drool is briefly visible in the follow-up RGB episode "The Grundel," where a picture of him appears in Egon's reference materials during research. He also makes non-canon cameo appearances in the IDW Ghostbusters comic series, including Issue #3 (in a garbage can in the Firehouse garage bay) and on the subscription cover of Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #13. In Ghostbusters Annual 2017, the Queens Class 5 entity is visually based on Drool's design.2
The episode's true antagonist is a large, shape-shifting entity. Ray calls it a Free-Floating Miasmic Phantom; Egon refers to it as a Non-Amalgamated Shape-Changer. In the 1997 Extreme Ghostbusters episode "Back in the Saddle, Part 1," Egon retroactively classifies the entity as a Class 4 Shape Shifter.2 The Metamorph is voiced by Arsenio Hall.
The Ghostbusters had already encountered this entity the week before the episode's events. During that prior run-in, it appeared partly as a carnivorous vacuum cleaner; they failed to capture it, and Peter notes it left him with scars. In the episode itself, the Metamorph cycles through numerous forms: a barking cat, a meowing giant dog, a werewolf-like figure, a hailstorm of hominy grits, a large multi-headed floating creature with tentacles, a tall cloaked ghoul, a giant cockroach, and a fish-slug hybrid with three stacked faces and six tentacles. It shadowed the Ghostbusters from their previous encounter, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
The Metamorph briefly appears in "The Grundel" as an entry Egon flips past while consulting Tobin's Spirit Guide.2
Madame Lefarge, voiced by Rita Taggart, owns and operates "Madame Lefarge's Wondrous and Amazing Traveling Sideshow." Her company includes the dancer Little Egypt, as well as an Amazing Two-Headed Rabbit, a living Unicorn, and a real Mermaid among its attractions. Lefarge befriended Drool years before the episode and learned to understand his language, eventually giving him a place in the act. She serves as his defender when the Ghostbusters first try to capture him, challenges their "trigger happy" approach, and acts as his translator throughout. After the resolution she vows that she and the circus will never forget Drool.
Madame Lefarge makes a non-canon cameo in IDW Ghostbusters Issue #7 (as one of the hostages of the Hungry Manitou) and is referenced by name in Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #3.2
The team uses standard gear throughout. Ecto-1 transports them to the Poconos but stalls during the episode. P.K.E. Meters confirm Drool's supernatural classification. Proton Packs and Ghost Traps are employed in the final confrontation, with both Drool and the Metamorph trapped simultaneously.
Janine Melnitz and Slimer do not appear in this episode.
The episode carries production number 76026, air-order number 047, and DVD order number 039; it appears on Vol. 2, Disc 2 of the home video release. It was recorded on July 24 and 25, 1986, with Frank Welker recording alone on July 25. The regular voice cast included Lorenzo Music, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, and Arsenio Hall, with Rita Taggart as a guest voice.1
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.