Cast and crew
The regular voice cast includes Lorenzo Music, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Arsenio Hall, and Laura Summer. Guest voices are Diane Pershing and Danny Mann.
Guest characters
George and Martha are an elderly couple who live near the Firehouse and serve as the episode's civilian point-of-view characters. Voiced by Maurice LaMarche and Diane Pershing respectively, they witness an explosion erupt from Egon's laboratory and observe the sliming chaos from their apartment balcony as thousands of tiny Slimers overrun the city. George assures Martha the spectacle is more entertaining than watching "Celebrity Wrestling for a Dollar." The pair appear only in this episode.
Danny Mann provides the voice of the Banana 9000 computer; the credit is intentionally omitted from the episode as a nod to the HAL 9000 from "2001: A Space Odyssey."1
Plot
Egon has just finished his prototype Plasmic Strainer, a device meant to stabilize an ecto-electromolecular destabilizing field in order to disintegrate ghosts and make containing them obsolete. He also brings out the Banana 9000, a computer intended to let Slimer communicate effectively with the Ghostbusters. Slimer flies through the Strainer.
The Strainer destroys Slimer's cohesive properties, leaving him molecularly dis-coordinated. Every time he hits a solid object he replicates into two smaller Slimers. Ray says the Slimers will eventually reach a point where they can no longer get smaller or shatter, but he calculates that this will not happen for about 4,120 years. Egon explains the problem is worse: each tiny Slimer is trying to grow back to full size by feeding off its surroundings, and the slightest bump fragments it again, restarting the cycle. The many small Slimers soon cover the city in slime, causing car accidents and property damage. The Ghostbusters warn that, left unchecked, the whole world would be coated in a thin layer of slime.
When they break the news to Mayor Lenny, he threatens to send them to prison unless they fix the problem at once. They decide to reverse the polarity of the little Slimers to make them reassemble, which requires catching a single one. Egon reverses the poly-stratification of the machine, turning one tiny Slimer blue and attractive to the rest.
All the Slimers converge on the blue one and form a giant blue Slimer. Because the small Slimers had been feeding all over the city, reassembling them produces far too much Slimer, and the result is evil and out of control. He abducts Janine from the Mayor's office and climbs to the top of the Empire State Building. The Mayor supplies four helicopters, and the Ghostbusters use nose-mounted proton packs to burn off the excess ectoplasm with controlled bursts, neutralizing the slimic energy and returning Slimer to normal.
Equipment
The episode introduces several one-off devices: the Dimensional Inverter, the Banana 9000 computer, the Plasmic Strainer, and the Slimic Net, which uses the carrying device of the Specter Detector. The team also uses standard gear including the proton pack, particle thrower, trap, and P.K.E. meter. Egon references the Containment Unit when describing how the Strainer would make storing ghosts unnecessary.
Trivia and references
The episode was recorded on August 4, 1986.2 Peter alludes to the Ghostbusters' first encounter with Slimer and getting slimed. After the first meeting with the Mayor, Egon's plan prompts Ray to tell Peter to give Egon a chocolate bar, a callback to the post-library scene in the first film.
The script is loaded with pop-culture nods. Pac-Man makes a cameo on the screen of the Banana 9000. In the DVD commentary, David Gerrold notes he drew inspiration from "More Tribbles, More Troubles," an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series that he also wrote. Peter makes a separate Star Trek reference when he says, "Aye aye, captain! Setting phasers to stun." The Three Stooges cameo as visitors to New York who get slimed, and Peter jokes that Howard the Duck will win the Republican nomination for president. The Howard the Duck theatrical film had been released in 1986, the year before this episode aired, giving the joke a topical edge.
When the team debates telling the Mayor about Slimer, Janine invokes the motto "United we stand, divided we fall." The episode implies the Mayor is in an election year; since New York City held no mayoral election between 1985 and 1989, this points to a setting of 1985.3 The Mayor also mentions the Terror Dogs and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from earlier crises. During the climax, Peter twice makes King Kong jokes as the giant Slimer grabs Janine through a window, scales the Empire State Building, and fights the aircraft.
All four Ghostbusters pilot the Mayor's helicopters during the climax. Other RGB episodes indicate Ray and Egon may be unlicensed and have had limited formal flight training, making their competence here a minor continuity note.
Animation errors
A skylight shown blown out earlier in the episode appears intact during the second half.
Continuity
Two characters from "Adventures in Slime and Space," a slender man in orange and a man in a brown business suit slipping on Slimer's ectoplasm in Central Park, reappear as a background cameo on page 6 of IDW Publishing's Ghostbusters International #8.
Episode order
By air date, "Adventures in Slime and Space" follows "Janine's Day Off" and precedes "Ragnarok and Roll." In DVD order it follows "Cry Uncle" and precedes "Night Game."
References
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Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 7. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1986). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Adventures in Slime and Space" (1986).
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New York City mayoral elections, summary tables (Wikipedia).
