Details
Plot
A newspaper carrying a spread on the Ghostbusters saving New York again blows into an alley just as the Ghostmaster manifests. Three hoodlums surround him and try to mug him, so he sends out his magic bubbles, which force the muggers into a dumpster. The Ghostmaster recalls the bubbles and shoots an energy bolt into the sky. The bolt ricochets from building to building like a pinball and finally lands on the Firehouse.
The next morning, Slimer wakes first and goes to brush his teeth, but the lights and faucets do not work. As soon as he leaves the bathroom, they come back on. The same thing happens with the television in the rec room. Annoyed, Slimer alerts the guys to the power failure. Egon and Winston go to check the Containment Unit; the control panel goes dead and the unit begins to overheat, but it returns to normal as they run for it.
In the garage bay, Ray cannot start Ecto-1, and Peter cannot get his Proton Pack to fire. With the phones out too, Peter steps outside to find a pay phone, and the vehicles immediately die; the moment he steps back in, they start again. Gathered in the kitchen, Ray concludes that a single force has singled them out. The television switches on by itself, broadcasting "GM TV." The Ghostmaster greets the team and admits he has rendered them and Slimer powerless: a spell shuts off all electronic equipment near them, including their packs and Traps. He intends to take them to the Ghost World as his personal servants, and then the television melts. Peter, not missing a beat, sizes up the Ghostmaster as a Type A personality: overly ambitious and controlling. Egon wants time to think, but Ray argues they should leave the Firehouse with their packs.
The Ghostmaster arrives and sends his bubbles into the Firehouse. The team ducks into a bicycle shop owned by Mr. Janopoparopoulus. When the bubbles return empty, Peter skates straight through the Ghostmaster and Winston knocks him into some garbage cans, while Ray and Egon ride past on bicycles. The guys split into pairs, and the Ghostmaster chooses to chase Peter and Winston, buying Ray and Egon time to work out a solution. Slimer slimes the Ghostmaster so Peter and Winston can escape, then hides among the bubbles, where he learns the Ghostmaster's power is weakening. After the initial pursuit fails, the Ghostmaster produces a yellow whistle and blows it; the frequency summons all the magic bubbles back to his location and he orders them to find the Ghostbusters quickly. One bubble locates Ray and Egon, so Slimer leaves to warn them.
On the steps of the New York City Public Library, Egon works through a stack of books and a diagram while Ray gets thrown out by the librarian for repeatedly turning off the lights. Egon explains that a force field surrounds each of them, extending 40 feet in all directions, and that trapping the Ghostmaster would make the fields vanish. Ray points out a complication: the Ghostmaster is a Class 11 entity that an ordinary Trap cannot hold. After Slimer reports the Ghostmaster's waning powers, Ray gets an idea and eyes the construction scaffolding.
Peter is caught and sealed in a giant bubble, and Winston, after evading one, falls into the 42nd Street subway terminal and is carried back up inside a bubble. The Ghostmaster brings both captives to the library. Egon gets him to stop and treats it as a last request, and the Ghostmaster, not noticing he is standing exactly 40 feet from Egon, obliges. From the library roof, Ray and Slimer trigger a jerry-rigged device that strikes a trap pedestal, springing a Trap hidden in a tree behind the Ghostmaster and containing him. The force fields vanish and the bubbles disperse. Back at the Firehouse, the power goes out again during the celebration; everyone assumes Peter forgot to put the Ghostmaster in the Containment Unit, but it turns out he remembered the grid and simply forgot to pay the electric bill.
Production and notes
The episode was recorded on July 17 and 19, 1989, with Dave Coulier recording alone on July 17.2
At roughly 15 minutes, this is one of the show's shorter episodes, and it is the only one of the 12-minute installments in which a ghost returns from an earlier episode. It is the second episode to feature the Ghostmaster and his last appearance. Janine Melnitz does not appear.
A couple of moments tie back to other Ghostbusters material. The library research scene, with a worker on scaffolding in the background, echoes a similar setup in the first film. Winston is caught near the 42nd Street and Uptown subway entrance, the same spot where the team and Robo-Buster later fought the Pyro-Hippo ghost.
