4 min read
Moaning Stones is an episode of The Real Ghostbusters, first aired on November 5, 1987 as part of the show's second season. Written by Steven Barnes, it sends the team to a New York museum where three reunited ancient stones bring dinosaur skeletons back to life and stir an immortal demon. The Ghostbusters find their gear useless, and Winston Zeddemore turns out to be the only one who can stop the threat.1
Join the community
Free accounts post in the forum, upload to the gallery, edit the wiki, and follow your favorite franchises. No credit card. No catch.
Marsha Goodman's episode call sheet and SAG report give the production number as 76055.2 The episode was recorded on December 3, 1986.2
The episode aired during Season 2 and appears on the home-video release as Volume 3, Disc 1. Regular voice cast for the episode included Lorenzo Music, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Arsenio Hall, and Laura Summer, with guest voices by Arthur Burghardt and Iona Morris.
An Eye on New York reporter interviews a museum curator named Miss Nuxom at the New York Cosmopolitan Museum about the three pieces of the Moaning Stones of Tangalla. Nuxom explains the stones once belonged to the Ibandi, an ancient empire that stretched from a river in the south up to what is now called Tangalla. She strikes two of the joined pieces, producing an excruciating sound, and reveals that the third piece was recovered a month earlier. Ignoring the warning that the pieces were deliberately kept apart, she holds the third near the other two. A nearby dinosaur skeleton begins to stir, then settles when she refuses the reporter's request to join all three. Nuxom also shows a silver medallion found with the third piece, bearing the image of a figure.
The broadcast is watched by an older woman named Dahlia, who is alarmed: she says the stones should have been destroyed because uniting them will bring the Undying One back to life. She compares the figure on the medallion to a newspaper photo of the Ghostbusters and recognizes Winston.
At the firehouse, Peter Venkman is testing a "love song" on a new synthesizer while Egon Spengler works nearby and Slimer hides in fear. A blast from the synthesizer knocks the four men into a heap. Janine Melnitz calls them down to the front desk, where Dahlia points to Winston and names him the reincarnation of Shimabuku. Ray Stantz recognizes Shimabuku as the greatest chieftain of the Ibandi empire.
Dahlia lays out the legend: six thousand years ago Shimabuku's people were ruled by an immortal demon, the Undying One. After a war among the gods left the demon exhausted, Shimabuku bound it to the Moaning Stones and split the stones into three pieces, burying them at the corners of the kingdom. Winston knows the story too: his grandmother told him tales from Africa and Puerto Rico about voodoo and Santeria, though he never believed them. Dahlia, a Santeria priestess who says she has lost most of her power, insists Winston is descended from Shimabuku and is the only man who can control the demon.
At the museum, Miss Nuxom and Ambassador Yali unite all three pieces. The stones glow and float, dinosaur skeletons reanimate, and guests flee as Ecto-1 arrives. Dahlia warns the team their gear will not work, and the skeletons reassemble after each proton stream hit. Egon scans the skeletons with the P.K.E. Meter and concludes they are dealing with a coherent vibration, so the team fights to the museum's sound room. Egon and Ray boost the public-address system to disrupt the energy holding the Undying One together. A first attempt fails; Egon reasons they need something with no coherence at all, so they play Peter's discordant love song. It works, and the animated skeletons collapse into ordinary bones.
The Undying One itself then forces its way toward the sound room, unaffected by the song. Out of options, Winston steps forward and claims his connection to Shimabuku. Dahlia transfers what is left of her power to him, and the others form a circle to empower him; Winston transforms into Shimabuku and binds the demon back into the stones. Egon smashes the stones apart again. Miss Nuxom returns to find the wreckage and a missing stone fragment, which Dahlia quietly hands to Winston before leaving.
The episode is included on the home-video set as Volume 3, Disc 1. In broadcast order it followed The Thing in Mrs. Faversham's Attic and preceded Knock, Knock; in DVD order it follows I Am the City and precedes The Long, Long, Long, etc. Goodbye.