Production details
The episode carried production number 140001.2 It was recorded on May 13, 14, and 15, 1987, with Frank Welker recording on May 14 and 15.2
Regular voice work came from Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Arsenio Hall, and Kath Soucie, with Marilyn Schreffler as the guest voice of Spookums.
Plot
Once every 300 years the Moon moves into a rare alignment of planets and stars. As it does, a dimensional crack opens near Times Square. A small, friendly ghost climbs out and tries to play with a stray cat. The cat bolts, the ghost crashes into a row of trash cans, and a woman who spots it screams it into the backseat of a parked car. The ghost's parents come looking for their child, but the car drives off and they trail it into a tunnel.
At the firehouse, Egon watches the Moon while the others sleep. Peter wakes up slimed by Slimer, whose night light has burned out. The phone rings, Ray answers, and the team heads out in Ecto-1 only to hit a traffic jam. Slimer, tagging along, shapes himself a police hat and whistles traffic through the gridlock. The parents are searching the stopped cars for their child. The Ghostbusters, puzzled but seeing the eclipse underway, open fire; the ghosts dodge the streams and fly off.
Winston starts Ecto-1 and hears a strange noise under the hood. Lifting it, he comes face to face with the baby ghost. The team aims their throwers, but Slimer defends it. Ray notes he has never seen a ghost so young, and Egon guesses it is fleeing the other two. Winston suggests taking it back to the firehouse for safekeeping, and the team agrees. Janine is instantly smitten, while everyone ignores Slimer. Egon names the ghost Spookums, after one of his mother's nicknames for him.
A call comes in about the two ghosts attacking a car wash in Brooklyn. Janine asks Slimer to watch Spookums while she runs an equipment check. Spookums knocks over a stack of crates marked "Fragile," and when Janine startles Slimer the crates come down; she blames him. In Brooklyn the team again fails to catch the ghosts and accidentally blasts Ecto-1.
Back home, Spookums spooks Slimer again, landing him in the refrigerator, and Janine blames him a second time. While the disabled Ecto-1 is being towed, the team spots the two ghosts and finally traps them. Back at the firehouse, Slimer tries to settle Spookums down by guiding her to a chest of toys so she stops playing with a fire pole. His patience exhausted, he gives her a stern lecture instead. Spookums wanders off into the city alone.
When the team returns, the wailing from the trap reminds Egon of something, and Slimer realizes the captured ghosts are Spookums' parents. They release them, and Egon's readings suggest the parents' home is in another dimension opened by the eclipse, which Ray says is almost over. Slimer reports that Spookums has gone missing. The parents resume their search while Egon and Winston look for the crack and Ray and Peter look for Spookums, borrowing Janine's car since Ecto-1 is wrecked.
Slimer finds Spookums in an alley and tells her about her parents. The parents and Ray and Peter both hear her, and Egon's P.K.E. meter locks onto the crack. Reunited, the three ghosts hurry to the crack near Times Square, where Egon and Winston hold it open with crowbars as the eclipse ends. The parents cross over; Spookums says goodbye to Slimer, kisses him on the cheek, and follows. The crack closes, flinging Egon and Winston into the air to land on Ray and Peter. The team celebrates, and Slimer slimes them all.
Featured ghosts
Spookums is the baby ghost at the center of the episode, voiced by Marilyn Schreffler. She enters the physical plane through the dimensional rift during the lunar eclipse and ends up inside Ecto-1's engine compartment. The Ghostbusters and Slimer look after her at the firehouse until her family is found. Ray observes that until Spookums, the team had never encountered a ghost so young. The name Spookums comes from a nickname Egon's mother had for him as a child. She is reunited with her parents and returned home before the portal closes.
Spookums' parents are two unnamed adult ghosts who follow their child through the dimensional rift. The team initially reads them as hostile Class 5 spirits and fires on them twice without success. It is Slimer who, after they are trapped, recognizes how the captured ghosts are behaving toward Spookums and concludes they are her family. Once released, Egon's PKE readings confirm their home dimension aligns with the eclipse rift, allowing the family to cross back through before it closes.
Continuity and changes
"Baby Spookums" opened the third season and introduced redesigned character models. Janine's design is softer, Ray is thinner, and Slimer has a tail. From this episode on, Slimer's dialogue is easier to follow; the incoherent "Slimer-speak" of the first two seasons is dropped. In retrospect, fans have tied Janine's softened voice, hairstyle, and appearance to the influence of the ghost Makoveris Lotsabucks from the episode "Janine, You've Changed".
Depending on the episode order followed, this is the point where Dave Coulier takes over as Peter Venkman and Kath Soucie takes over as Janine. The third season also brought a round of changes meant to make the series more kid friendly, a shift connected to the departure of story editor J. Michael Straczynski. The GBFans.com FAQ covers the voice cast changes in more detail at Why did the voices change?
At the start of the episode Ray sleeps with his Stay Puft Marshmallow Man doll. The episode is also where the audience learns that Egon's mother used to call him Spookums.
One animation error stands out: when the team splits into pairs to search, Ray is shown leaving with Egon when it should have been Winston. Moments later Ray and Peter depart in Janine's car.
Release
The episode appears on The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection (Volume 3, Disc 3), which also includes a visual commentary by writer Len Janson. In the original broadcast order it followed "Transylvanian Homesick Blues"; in DVD order it followed "The Hole in the Wall Gang." Both orderings place "It's a Jungle Out There" next.
References
-
Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 25. CPT Holdings, Inc.
-
Marsha Goodman (1987). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Baby Spookums" (1987).
