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Poultrygeist is an episode of The Real Ghostbusters, first aired on September 24, 1988 as part of Season 4. A Werechicken loose on a farm leaves behind one enormous egg, and when Slimer tries to cook it, the freshly hatched creature bites Egon Spengler and turns him into a half-man, half-chicken.1
The episode was written by Duane Capizzi and Steven Roberts, with production number 175002.2 On the Time Life DVD release, the episode was sequenced as number 093.
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On the night of a full moon, a Werechicken terrorizes a flock and drives them into their coop. The chickens' owners, Maude and Zeke, are inside watching a werewolf movie. Maude goes out to check on the birds and is attacked. She returns in a daze, transforms into a Werechicken, perches on Zeke's armchair, eats his popcorn, and turns on him while the original Werechicken watches from outside.
At the Firehouse, Peter is hauling trash out of Egon's lab because Egon has skipped his chores to finish a weather balloon. The work goes badly: Slimer dives into the garbage bags chasing leftovers, Ray loses his balance off the balloon and drops everything, and Slimer slimes Peter. Zeke phones in to report that a giant chicken ate his wife. Peter Venkman, Slimer, and Ray Stantz, along with Winston Zeddemore, take the call despite how far-fetched it sounds. Egon finishes his project moments later only to discover everyone has already left.
At the farm, the transformed Maude lays a large egg in the hay. Ray identifies the culprit as a Werechicken from a set of footprints, and Slimer spots the egg. With no P.K.E. readings off it, Peter and Slimer take the egg back to headquarters while Ray and Winston keep searching. They eventually track the original Werechicken to a farmhouse, blast it, and trap the ghost inhabiting it; the bird reverts to an ordinary chicken, and Winston works out that Zeke's "Werechicken" is really his wife.
Back at the Firehouse, Egon stows the egg in the refrigerator, too busy to study it. Slimer, dreaming of food, wakes up and decides to make an omelet, putting the egg in the oven. It hatches instead, and the newborn Werechicken bites Egon, turning him into one too. Ray finds the entry on Werechickens in Tobin's Spirit Guide and the team brews Chickenbane soup as an antidote.3 They are missing one ingredient and give it to Egon anyway, which stops the change at his neck, leaving him a Werechicken from the shoulders down.
The hatchling grows into a giant. Witnesses fleeing a supermarket give wildly different size estimates. The Ghostbusters head off the creature at the Empire State Building and extract its ghost, but the Ghost Trap is already full because Egon never emptied it, so the ghost returns to the body and scales the building. Ray realizes Egon's weather balloon can freeze it. Peter and Slimer pick Egon up on Ecto-2 during his demonstration, and following Egon's instructions Peter cranks the remote to the extreme left, generating a snowstorm that freezes the Werechicken solid. Later, Maude and Zeke visit the Firehouse and serve the team Chickenbane soup. A howl from the lab turns out to be Slimer enjoying a new soul music tape.
The episode features the regular Season 4 voice cast: Dave Coulier as Peter Venkman, Frank Welker as Ray Stantz and Slimer, Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler, Buster Jones as Winston Zeddemore, and Kath Soucie as Janine Melnitz.
An early draft dated May 12, 1988 differed from the finished episode in several details. Slimer's food dream originally had the food dancing to and singing the first two bars of Los Lobos' "La Bamba," in the style of the California Raisins.4 That draft also worked in a lunar eclipse alongside the full moon.5 In the same draft, the tape Slimer plays at the end was a new James Brown tape rather than the generic soul tape of the aired version.6
"Chicken, He Clucked," another chicken-themed installment, is frequently confused with this one.
In the broadcast order, Poultrygeist follows "Flip Side" and precedes "Standing Room Only." In the DVD running order it follows "Flip Side" and precedes "The Joke's on Ray."
Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 30. CPT Holdings, Inc. ↩
Capizzi, Duane and Roberts, Steven (2009). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection Volume Four Disc Five, "Poultrygeist" Script title page. CPT Holdings, Inc. ↩
Capizzi, Duane and Roberts, Steven (2009). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection Volume Four Disc Five, "Poultrygeist" Script p. 24. CPT Holdings, Inc. ↩
Capizzi, Duane and Roberts, Steven (2009). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection Volume Four Disc Five, "Poultrygeist" Script p. 17. CPT Holdings, Inc. ↩
Capizzi, Duane and Roberts, Steven (2009). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection Volume Four Disc Five, "Poultrygeist" Script p. 22. CPT Holdings, Inc. ↩
Capizzi, Duane and Roberts, Steven (2009). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection Volume Four Disc Five, "Poultrygeist" Script p. 40. CPT Holdings, Inc. ↩
