Production
The episode carries production number 75013 and was recorded on July 25, 1986.2 It is the show's official Christmas episode and the last of season one. On the introduction recorded for the home-video collection, J. Michael Straczynski said he was a fan of Charles Dickens and named this his favorite of the episodes he wrote.
Voice work came from the season-one regular cast: Lorenzo Music as Peter, Frank Welker as Ray and Slimer, Maurice LaMarche as Egon, Arsenio Hall as Winston, and Laura Summer as Janine. Guest voices included Marilyn Lightstone, Mona Marshall, and Peter Renaday. Like the rest of the first season, the episode draws on the show's library music, using the song "Party On His Mind" in one stretch.
Plot
Driving home on Christmas Eve from a bust in upstate New York, the Ghostbusters get lost in a snowstorm, miss the turnpike, and stall out Ecto-1 on a mountain road. Setting out on foot, they pass through a rip in the space-time continuum and find themselves in Victorian England during the Christmas season. Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim are collecting their meager dinner from the butcher when the P.K.E. Meter picks up Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas. The team follows the readings into Scrooge's house and traps the very spirits meant to reform him. When Peter presents the bill, Scrooge tries to weasel out of paying, hands over a mint 1837 coin only after they threaten to release the ghosts, and once they leave declares war on Christmas.
Back in the present, Ray gets Ecto-1 running and the team heads to the firehouse. Egon takes the captured ghosts down to the Containment Unit while the others go looking for a Christmas tree. Janine and Slimer both react to the idea of Christmas with a sour "Bah!" On Fifth Avenue, Peter, Ray, and Winston find the city plastered with Scrooge advertisements and a book by Scrooge titled "A Christmas Humbug." Ray works out that the mountain road was a time slip, a door to the past. A passerby confirms that in 1837 Scrooge defeated the Ghosts of Christmas single-handedly and the holiday has been gone ever since. By trapping the spirits, the team rewrote history into a world of stingy, Christmas-hating Scrooges.
They rush back to the firehouse, but Egon has already filed the ghosts into the Containment Unit. With only until the end of Christmas Eve to fix things, he plans to open a hairline fracture in the Unit and pull the three Ghosts of Christmas back out, while Peter, Ray, and Winston return to Scrooge's time and impersonate the spirits. If Egon fails, the three will have to stay behind permanently to take the ghosts' place. Peter plays the Ghost of Christmas Past, using a View-Master toy to show Scrooge his "past." Winston, as the Ghost of Christmas Present, swings around town showing Scrooge the poor in their misery. Ray, as the silent Ghost of Christmas Future, resorts to charades.
Inside the Containment Unit, with Janine and Slimer minding the equipment topside, Egon locates the three ghosts but is attacked by the other entities held there. He gets the spirits into a Trap, escapes through the fracture, and races to the time slip. Posing as Jacob Marley, he hands the Ghosts of Christmas back their job in time for them to finish reforming Scrooge. Once Peter admits he has learned his lesson about Christmas, the Ghost of Christmas Present sends the team home by having them grab his robe, returning them to the firehouse kitchen with history restored. The episode ends with a Christmas party and an offscreen Santa Claus wishing everyone a good night.
Connections to other episodes
The other inhabitants of the Containment Unit make a cameo when Egon goes inside: the entities visible during his rescue include Samhain and the Sandman, among others, gathered from earlier season-one busts.
Egon's harrowing trip into the Containment Unit became a recurring point of continuity. He refers back to it years later in the Extreme Ghostbusters episode "Slimer's Sacrifice," telling Roland Jackson that he has done it before.
Broadcast history
"Xmas Marks the Spot" was re-aired on its own as a Saturday-morning special, first on ABC on December 24, 1994,3 and later on CBS on December 9, 1995.4 Both were one-off airings with slightly altered intro credits.
References
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Eatock, James and Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 6. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1986). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Xmas Marks the Spot" (1986).
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Toledo Blade, December 24, 1994 (television listings, via Google News newspaper archive).
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The Telegraph-Herald, December 8, 1995 (television listings, via Google News newspaper archive).
