Production details
- Episode number: 098 (air-date and DVD order)
- Production number: 1750082
- Written by Len Janson and Chuck Menville
- First aired: November 12, 1988
- Season: Season 4
- Home video: The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection, Vol. 4, Disc 1
The episode was recorded on August 3 and 9, 1988. Dave Coulier recorded alone on August 9, 1988.2
Cast
Regular voices were provided by Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Buster Jones, and Kath Soucie, with Jeff Marder as a guest voice. The episode features Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, Winston Zeddemore, Janine Melnitz, and Slimer, along with Mr. Dunbar and the Indian earth spirit.
Plot
During a late night lightning storm, a worker driving a forklift readies the last load of barrels. The boss, Mr. Dunbar, wants to close up before the rain starts. The worker dumps the barrels' contents, toxic waste, into a pit. Overcome by the smell, he is terrified when something emerges from it.
At the Firehouse, Winston preps Ecto-1 for a classic car show. Slimer plays with the steering wheel while holding a lollipop, and after Winston warns him not to bring food into the car, Slimer accidentally sticks the lollipop to the driver's seat. His frantic attempt to pull it free leaves Winston soaked and the candy splattered on the front door. The alarm rings: the team is called to a dump to deal with an angry ghost.
At the Eastside Auto Salvage Yard, the Ghostbusters hear out the worker. Before they had left the Firehouse, Winston warned the team not to track dirt into Ecto-1 (he had just cleaned the carpets), and asked everyone to check their boots. The others confirmed their boots were indeed on their feet. He also cautioned against fingerprints on the windows. As they sweep the yard, Ray recalls that the Manhattan Indians once lived in the area. Egon gets an unusually high reading off some ectoslime and traces the ghost to a pile of cars. Slimer is sent to the top of the pile with the P.K.E. Meter to confirm the readings and panics when the ghost reveals itself. The team opens fire; Slimer hides in one of Peter's boots. They chase the spirit across the yard, narrowly dodging falling cars, but it slips away and flies up Ecto-1's exhaust pipe. Lightning then strikes the car and the ghost vanishes. Egon calls off the search because the air is too ionized for a reading, and Ecto runs rough when Winston starts it.
Back at the Firehouse, Slimer sees the ghost reflected in Ecto-1 and grabs Winston, who sees nothing but is unnerved when the car appears to have turned itself around in the narrow garage bay. When the alarm rings again, Ecto-1 drives rough, stops in the middle of the street on its own, then comes alive, loses its brakes, and throws everyone out. Egon recognizes a possession. Winston tries to talk the car down, but the hood grabs him and the car speeds off. Following a trail of Winston's clothes and gear into an alley, the others find Ecto "eating" and fear the worst, until Winston surfaces from a sewer manhole in only his boxers. Ray and Egon accept that they have to neutralize the car, but Ecto-1 shields itself with an electrical force field and forces its way through the alley after them.
At the Firehouse, Ray runs a search on Janine's computer and pulls up a file on the earth spirit tied to the Manhattan Indians. Egon realizes the toxic waste mutated it. The team borrows Janine's car, much to her worry, and Winston's plan is to lure Ecto-1 back to the yard near a giant crane. Winston shoots down the yard's fence, then climbs to the crane while Peter goes into position on a pile of cars and Ray, Egon, and Slimer lure Ecto-1 into range. He switches on the crane's magnet, immobilizing Ecto-1 and disrupting its electrical field so the ghost becomes vulnerable. The team wrangles the ghost out, and as Egon readies a Ghost Trap, Winston sees the spirit has returned to its original benign form. He calls off the trap and has everyone release it from the streams. The grateful spirit thanks them and vanishes. The next day the team drives home with a first place trophy, and Winston announces another car show in New Jersey next month that he intends to win as well.
Ghosts, characters, and locations
Indian Earth Spirit. The central supernatural entity of the episode, described as an ancient benign spirit tied to the land the Manhattan Indians once inhabited. Dormant for an unspecified time, it is corrupted when illegal toxic waste is dumped into the pit above its resting grounds. In its mutated state it behaves aggressively, possessing Ecto-1 and turning the car into a living weapon. Once the team uses the crane magnet to strip it from the car and expose it to the proton streams, it reverts to its original benign state, expresses gratitude, and departs. It is voiced by Jeff Marder.
Mr. Dunbar. The owner or foreman of the Eastside Auto Salvage Yard, seen briefly in the opening ordering his worker to dump the toxic waste and close up before the rain starts. He is not depicted as a knowing villain; the episode frames the dumping as routine illegal cost-cutting rather than deliberate supernatural provocation.
Eastside Auto Salvage Yard. The episode's key location, established as standing on ground that was once Manhattan Indian territory. The yard features a giant crane with an electromagnetic lifting magnet, which Winston repurposes as a ghost-containment device in the climax. The toxic waste pit on the property is the direct cause of the spirit's corruption.
Themes
Winston's lines as the bust wraps up work as a veiled public service announcement about pollution. The whole episode reads that way, since the earth spirit was mutated by toxic waste dumped into the pit.
Continuity
This is the second time Ecto-1 is possessed by a ghost; the first was in "Killerwatt," and the third would occur in "Ghost in the Machine." The team again falls back on Janine's car after Ecto-1 is taken out of action. In Extreme Ghostbusters, "Darkness at Noon, Part 1," Roland Jackson mentions seeing Ecto-1 at a car show when he was younger, which may reference the events of this episode.
In broadcast and DVD order, "Follow That Hearse" is preceded by "Short Stuff" and followed by "The Brooklyn Triangle."
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
