Plot
The Ghostbusters recuperate in the firehouse sleeping quarters after a brutal week of cases, including four Class 5's, eight Class 3's, and a Class 2 in Miss Fiorino's linguini. Peter Venkman decides it is time for a vacation. Ray agrees, noting it has been three months since the last one, and suggests his cousin's dairy farm. Peter shoots the idea down, but soon Ecto-1 is on the road anyway.
With Winston Zeddemore navigating, Ray turns left on cue and drives head on into a harvester. The unbothered driver tells them the farm is three or four miles off and offers to have his brother Charlie repair Ecto-1 at the auto shop in town, though it will not be ready until Sunday. Since they are staying the weekend, Ray agrees. Facing the long walk, Peter tries to strangle Ray. As the group sets off on foot, the harvester driver meets Slimer and points him toward the farm, concluding that folk from the city keep getting weirder.
At sunset they reach the farm and are greeted by Sam, Ray's cousin. Peter is instantly smitten; she is not. Over dinner Sam explains the dairy is fully automated and she only hires help when she needs it. Egon Spengler falls asleep at the table, and once everyone turns in, Slimer eats the leftovers. That night an undead rooster rises from a strange patch of land and crows as several arms push up through the soil.
The next morning Sam runs out of the wrecked dairy, slamming the door into Slimer. Egon gets readings on the P.K.E. Meter, and although the team is missing some of their equipment, Ray insists they can still investigate for Sam. Winston spots a barren field; Egon takes a soil sample before a bull chases them off. Sam says the field has been barren since she bought the place. Using the Ecto Goggles, Egon identifies an odd pink form of ectoplasm in the soil. Ray returns from the county records office with the farm's history: it belonged to the same family, the Petersons, across ten generations, all buried on the property. When the last member died the farm passed to the county, which removed the headstones from the family cemetery but left the bodies. Ray initially estimates the entities must be at least Class 2 Area Aberrations; Egon puts the number higher, at Class 3 at minimum. The pattern is desecrated graves and angry spirits.
The team stakes out the field at night. The undead rooster appears, followed by the Peterson family, who Sam realizes are simply "doing chores." Peter volunteers Ray to talk to them, but Ray says the wrong thing and the Petersons give chase across the farm, with Slimer somehow driving a tractor into the dairy. Everyone barricades inside the house until the Petersons return to their graves at dawn. Egon explains, citing the Big Book of Occult Lore, that the family is experiencing chronometric reversal aggravated by non-urban repetition: in life they rose at the crack of dawn, and their ghostly state has reversed that pattern.
With too many spirits to trap, Ray proposes rigging a mass containment field from the dairy's own machinery. By evening the rig is ready, despite Egon's warning that it could trigger an explosion of monumental proportions. The Petersons rise on schedule and enter the dairy, and Ray throws the switch, trapping them in the field. Peter has Sam speak to them about how much she loves the farm. Her appeal makes the Petersons realize they are destroying the peaceful place they worked so hard to build. As the field shorts out, Mr. Peterson smiles and asks Sam to plant daisies, the family's favorite, in spring. Sam agrees and the spirits disperse peacefully. Peter tries to claim a kiss as his reward, but Slimer flies in and kisses him instead, sending Peter chasing the ghost.
Cast
Equipment and locations
The team uses Ecto-1, the P.K.E. Meter, and the Ecto Goggles, and improvises a mass containment field from the dairy's automated machinery using an "Ecto-Crane" rig. The episode opens at the firehouse before moving to the Stantz Dairy Farm, which operates under the motto "The Best Cheddar This Side of Oshkosh." The dairy is fully automated, and Samantha Stantz hires temporary hands only as needed. Frank Welker, in addition to his regular cast duties, voices the undead rooster that heralds the Petersons' nightly rise.
Trivia
- The dairy farm's sign misspells Stantz as "Stanz."
- The sign references Oshkosh, a town in Wisconsin. The farm's motto, "The Best Cheddar This Side of Oshkosh," makes the regional joke explicit.
- The barricade sequence, with the Ghostbusters holed up in the house while the undead try to break in, plays as a nod to the film "Night of the Living Dead."
- Janine Melnitz does not appear in this episode.
- A milk carton bearing the Stantz Dairy Farm name (with the same "Stanz" misspelling as the episode's sign) appears as a background Easter egg in Ghostbusters: Crossing Over Issue #2, page 4, panel 2.4
Release
"Dairy Farm" is included on Volume 3, Disc 3 of the Time Life DVD box set for The Real Ghostbusters. By air date, it follows "Who're You Calling Two-Dimensional?" and precedes "Egon's Ghost". In DVD running order it follows "Egon's Dragon" and precedes "The Hole in the Wall Gang".
References
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Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 24. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1986). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Dairy Farm" (1986).
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Lenburg, Jeff (1991). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Facts on File, New York NY USA, ISBN 9780816065998.
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Ghostbusters: Crossing Over Issue #2, p. 4, panel 2. IDW Publishing.
