Production
"Take Two" carried production number 75011 and was recorded on July 22, 1986.1 Regular voices came from Lorenzo Music, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Arsenio Hall, and Laura Summer, with guest voices by Thom Pinto, Bill Ratner, and Tom Weiner. The episode uses the song "Movie Star" from the show's soundtrack.
For the movie-within-the-show scene, Maurice LaMarche dubbed the voice of Bill Murray as the actor playing Peter on screen.1
Plot
A crowd of fans and a news crew wait near a chartered jet that should have left half an hour earlier. In the city, Ecto-1 is chasing a Winged Bullfrog ghost, and Winston brings it down with his Particle Thrower using a mounted scope. The team stops by the Firehouse to say goodbye to Slimer and a sour Janine, but Slimer stows away on Ecto-1. The Ghostbusters board the jet and take off for California, only realizing Slimer came along after all the peanuts vanish. Slimer turns up in the cockpit; when the pilot asks how many years he has flown and Slimer answers "three," the pilot, who has fifteen, orders him to a seat.
In Hollywood two agents show the team around, including a replica Firehouse the Ghostbusters are meant to advise on. Peter cares more about who is cast, and as Egon leafs through the enormous script, none of them recognize the actors' names. Bob the agent is left to continue the tour. Elsewhere on the lot, two workers open a large trap door sealed for twenty years, since "the big accident," and a ghost awakens inside.
The group wanders onto the live set of "Space Avengers of the Galaxy" and accidentally shoots a Megazoid robot, sparking a brief scuffle between Peter and the loud-mouthed director. Bob suggests stashing their gear in the prop room. After they leave, workers bring in prop packs, get confused by the four real ones mixed in, and haul those back to storage. The Megazoid then comes to life on its own, and Egon reads very high levels off it, a ghost is inside.
When the Ghostbusters retrieve their packs they find fakes. Egon modifies the team's two P.K.E. Meters to detect the particle-beam energy of the real Proton Packs, and they split into pairs. Ray and Winston cross a "Deadly Dr. Crowley" set and are chased by the Megazoid before Slimer catches up to them. Egon and Peter find the trap door and recognize a sleeping ghost. They locate the real packs and call a meeting at the replica Firehouse, while the director rallies studio security to recover his Megazoid before it gets damaged further.
The team opens fire but cannot drive the ghost out. Prompted by something Winston says, Egon disarms himself and uses sign language to coax the ghost into coming willingly. It nearly works until the director interferes, but the Ghostbusters confine and trap the ghost anyway, and the Megazoid collapses to pieces in front of the stunned director.
The team arrives thirty seconds late to their premiere at Radio City after running into four full-torso vapors. Inside, as the Weaver Hall scene plays, Peter complains the actor playing him looks nothing like him, and everyone shushes Slimer for chewing too loudly.
The episode is built around the conceit that the 1984 Ghostbusters film exists as a movie being produced inside the cartoon's world, a metafictional setup the series rarely used. Along with "Citizen Ghost," it is one of two episodes that explicitly addresses the differences between the animated show and the film it spun off from.
The cast list the Ghostbusters cannot place is the real film's leads, Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis, with Winston joking that the names sound like a law firm.3 Peter assumes Robert Redford would have wanted to play him.4 In the later series Extreme Ghostbusters, a callback has Peter still trying to pitch another movie about the team, now holding out for Brad Pitt.56 Near the end, a brief stretch of the actual Ghostbusters film plays on screen, and when Peter sees Bill Murray as himself he remarks that the actor "doesn't look a thing like me."7
The "Doctor Crowley" films Ray references are named for occultist Aleister Crowley. A separate Dr. Crowley appears in "The Halloween Door," with no connection. In "The Haunting of Heck House," Peter again refers to the movie made about the team.8
On the visual commentary for The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection, J. Michael Straczynski said the Megazoid was a jab at the toy-driven animated shows he had worked on,9 and that the Deadly Dr. Crowley set was his tribute to Frankenstein.10
Trivia
The chartered jet carries "GB4" on its tail. Among the prop replicas on the movie set are a pair of Ghost Sniffers alongside the Proton Pack and Trap copies. Of the four Ghostbusters, only Egon and Ray know sign language.11
The plane from this episode was later reused as visual reference in IDW's Ghostbusters comics: the aircraft on page 15 of Ghostbusters #5 is based on it, the peanut bag Winston eats from on page 3 of Ghostbusters International #9 matches the jet's snacks, and Ghostbusters International #2 reuses the episode's stewardess and recasts its two charter pilots as helicopter pilots with their speaking roles swapped.
References
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Marsha Goodman (1986). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Take Two" (1986).
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Eatock, James and Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 4. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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The Real Ghostbusters (2009), "Take Two" (1986). Time Life Entertainment. Winston: "Murray...Aykroyd...Ramis. What's that? A law firm?"
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The Real Ghostbusters (2009), "Take Two" (1986). Time Life Entertainment. Peter: "Admit it, Redford was dying to play me."
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Extreme Ghostbusters (1997), "Back in the Saddle, Part 1" (1997). Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Egon: "So how did that Hollywood thing work out, Peter? Ever sell that idea for another movie about us?"
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Extreme Ghostbusters (1997), "Back in the Saddle, Part 1" (1997). Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Peter: "We're very close to a deal but I'm holding out until Brad Pitt becomes available."
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The Real Ghostbusters (2009), "Take Two" (1986). Time Life Entertainment. Peter: "Y'know, he doesn't look a thing like me."
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The Real Ghostbusters (2009), "The Haunting of Heck House" (1990). Time Life Entertainment. Peter refers to the movie made about the team's first case at the New York Public Library.
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J. Michael Straczynski (2009). The Real Ghostbusters, "Take Two" (1986) commentary. Time Life Entertainment. "And of course this robot was my sort of shot back at all the animated shows I had done, which had toys, toys, toys... toys."
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J. Michael Straczynski (2009). The Real Ghostbusters, "Take Two" (1986) commentary. Time Life Entertainment. "This is my tribute to Frankenstein, by the way."
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The Real Ghostbusters (2009), "Take Two" (1986). Time Life Entertainment. Ray: "He's using sign language. That way, he doesn't have to make any noise."
