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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.
Janine Melnitz and Slimer do not appear in this episode.
The episode carries production number 76026 and was recorded on July 24 and 25, 1986, with Frank Welker recording alone on July 25.2 The regular voice cast included Lorenzo Music, Frank Welker, Maurice Lamarche, and Arsenio Hall, with Rita Taggart as a guest voice.1
