On the day before Thanksgiving, Egon and Ray finish connecting a functioning airlock to the Containment Unit. Ray does not understand why they need one until Egon reveals he wants to open diplomatic relations with the spirit world and become the first ambassador to it. The airlock lights up and Slimer returns from inside the unit. Ray placates the irritated ghost by telling him where Peter keeps his jellybeans.
In the garage, Peter and Winston wipe down Ecto-1. Winston is surprised by Peter's initiative until he learns it is meant to impress women at the Thanksgiving Day Parade, then points out the crowd will be mothers and children. That evening, a crew rushes to finish inflating a Murray the Mantis float in a warehouse that the crew leader, Harlan, notes used to be a city morgue. A floor panel glows and something seeps into the pump inflating the float. The mantis balloon's eyes begin to glow.
During the parade the next day, Ecto-1 rides in the procession. Ray spots the Murray float and alerts Egon, who recognizes it as the star of a popular Saturday morning cartoon, a mantis who keeps the peace in a garden and is best friend to the gardener's daughter, Posey. The float handlers, dressed as Posey, are forced to let go, and the balloon rises into the sky. Peter volunteers to shoot it down, but bursting the float releases a giant mantis entity that goes berserk.
The Ghostbusters and the woman from the warehouse, Ann Lawson, drive to Central Park. Ray theorizes that filling the float in a former morgue released dormant death force energy and triggered an ecto surge. Running calculations, Egon concludes that "Murray" could have a life energy as high as Gozer's, putting it near 45 megawatts times ten to the fourteenth power. Winston repeatedly insists their only option is "The Big Guy."
Back at the firehouse, Peter bribes a reluctant Slimer into the Containment Unit with promises of a mini fridge, daily ice cream, donuts, and a Diner's Club Card. As police arrive and Lieutenant Frump relays the Mayor's displeasure, the airlock explodes and energy surges from the roof, re-forming into the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Slimer guides Stay Puft north to Central Park, where he meets Murray and the two giants fight. Egon directs Stay Puft to coax Murray into the alley between two buildings, where the Ghostbusters open fire from Ecto-2 while Stay Puft holds the mantis in the crossfire. Murray explodes. With the threat gone, Frump restarts the parade and Stay Puft stands in for the destroyed Murray as an impromptu float.
In his introduction to the episode on the home video release, writer Richard Mueller said the story was inspired by the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. The episode was recorded on September 17, 1986.2
This episode features the short-lived airlock added to the Containment Unit, which is destroyed when it blows up to release the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Both the Murray balloon and the mantis entity are drawn with only four legs, where a real praying mantis has six. During the fight, the possessed Murray grabs a red Volkswagen Beetle; an insectoid entity picks up a Beetle again in the later episode The Crawler.
The dialogue strings together several pop-culture references. Winston compares the giant Murray to "another big Twinkie," echoing Egon's analogy from the first film, and Peter jokes that beating it would take Darth Vader loaning them the Death Star. Egon also name-checks Gozer when estimating the creature's power.
By original air date, this episode followed "Boo-Dunit" and preceded "The Headless Motorcyclist." In the DVD ordering it follows "A Ghost Grows in Brooklyn" and precedes "Rollerghoster."
Marsha Goodman (1986). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "The Revenge of Murray the Mantis" (1986).
