Plot
An ice cream truck rolls past the firehouse with its jingle playing, and Slimer rushes out to flag it down. The vendor recommends the special of the day, the Dweebsicle, but the vendor is Professor Dweeb in disguise. Before Slimer can get away, he is sucked into Dweeb's contraption and carried back to the Professor's house, where he is deposited into a glass tank in the laboratory.
Unable to escape, Slimer endures Dweeb and his pet rat Elizabeth gloating over him. Dweeb rants about being tired of the Ghostbusters getting all the glory when he is the more brilliant scientist, then unveils his Brain Drain Machine, a device built to electronically read Slimer's thoughts. His goal is to learn a ghost's weaknesses, devise a foolproof way to capture ghosts, claim scientific fame, and put the Ghostbusters out of business. He switches on the machine and watches Slimer's memories of the Copycat incident.
Scribbling on his clipboard, Dweeb concludes that ghosts are essentially dumb, easily tricked, able to outsmart other ghosts, easily frightened, and either cowards or undeniably brave. Annoyed by the eraser shavings raining down on her, Elizabeth bites him. Dweeb activates the machine again, this time pulling up Slimer's memory of the Ghostbusters' second encounter with Samhain, from which he only gathers that ghosts are pushovers for parties.
He runs the machine once more and a commercial shoot involving the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, which turned into a rematch against the Phantom, appears on screen. The machine catches fire and Dweeb puts it out with an extinguisher before attempting one more scan at full power, bringing up Slimer's time as the giant Big Green. Slimer works out how to control which memories the machine pulls and overloads it, blowing up the machine and the entire house. Free at last, Slimer grabs a bunch of ice cream bars and hands two to Dweeb and Elizabeth. Dweeb does not realize his is the Dweebsicle device. Out of spite, Elizabeth activates it and enjoys watching Dweeb get sucked in, only to be pulled in herself. Slimer keeps licking his cone and flies away.
Devices and entities
Several one-off gadgets and props drive this episode's story.
Brain Drain Machine. Professor Dweeb's centerpiece invention for this episode: a console designed to electronically read a ghost's thoughts and project its memories on a screen. Dweeb runs it at progressively higher power settings until Slimer gains enough control to overload it, destroying both the machine and Dweeb's house in the explosion.
Ghost Tank. A glass containment vessel that Dweeb uses to imprison Slimer inside his laboratory. Slimer cannot pass through the walls of the tank despite being a ghost, making it an effective, if low-tech, prison.
Ize Cleem Truck / Dweebsicle. Dweeb's ruse relies on a disguised ice cream truck (the lettering on the back misspells "Ice Cream" as "Ize Cleem," which the episode plays as a gag). The truck's "special of the day," the Dweebsicle, is actually a vacuum device that captures Slimer on contact. The same device later backfires on Dweeb and Elizabeth at the episode's conclusion. Professor Dweeb's van dressed as the Ize Cleem truck later appears as a background Easter egg outside Pequod's in IDW Ghostbusters Issue #2-14.2
Cast
The newly recorded material features Frank Welker as Slimer, with Charlie Adler and Jeff Altman in guest roles; Altman voices Professor Norman Dweeb. The flashback segments carry the original casts of the source episodes.
All four flashback episodes: Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Arsenio Hall, and Kath Soucie.
"Sticky Business" additional cast: Douglas Johnson, Janet May.
"Halloween II 1/2" additional cast: April Hong, Lennard Camarillo, Katie Leigh, William E. Martin.
"The Copycat" additional cast: Adrienne Barbeau, Jesse Goins.
Flashback episodes
Because the episode is a clip show, its core scenes are drawn from third-season installments. The half-hour version uses flashbacks to "The Copycat", "Halloween II 1/2", and "Sticky Business". The hour-long version adds "The Two Faces of Slimer". All of the episodes drawn on are from the third season. The original music from those episodes was removed and replaced with new scoring.
During a commercial break in the hour-long version, Ray Stantz appears as a narrator and addresses the audience as Junior Ghostbusters. This is always the case when a commercial break falls at the halfway point of the hour-long Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters block.
Production
The episode carries the production number 140-517 and was recorded on June 20, 1990.3 The writing credit is shared across Chuck Menville (credited as archivist for the clip-show assembly) and the writers of the source episodes, including Richard Mueller ("Sticky Business"), Pamela Hickey and Dennys McCoy ("Halloween II 1/2"), and Michael Reaves ("The Copycat" and "The Two Faces of Slimer"). A lettering error on the back of the ice cream truck reads "Ize Cleem."
Both the half-hour and hour-long versions are included on Volume 5, Disc 1 of The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection box set.
By air date, "Deja Boo" follows "The Slob" and precedes "Afterlife in the Fast Lane". In DVD order it falls between "The Magnificent Five" and "The Treasure of Sierra Tamale".
References
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Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 41. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Ghostbusters Issue #2-14, IDW Publishing. Background Easter egg noted in issue annotation.
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Marsha Goodman (1991). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report - "Deja Boo" (1990).
