4 min read
Written By: Tony Marino
Air Date: October 29, 1988
Season: 1 (Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters)
Episode Number (air order): 08
Production Number: 166009A
DVD: Vol. 5, Disc 3 (disc episode 03c)
Recorded: June 15, 1988
Believing he will get rich quick, Rudy hustles a gardening job at a ritzy mansion and cons Slimer into doing all the work. Slimer then spends the episode in a running battle with a mischievous gopher determined to devour the estate's prize-winning tulips.
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| Character | Voice Actor |
|---|---|
| Slimer | Frank Welker |
| Rudy | Jeff Marder |
| Mrs. Pennyworthy | B.J. Ward |
| Bad Gopher | uncredited |
Rudy is a recurring human acquaintance of Slimer who frequently drags Slimer into ill-conceived money-making schemes. Here he lands a gardening contract at the Pennyworthy estate and immediately retreats to a hammock, leaving Slimer to do the actual labor.
Mrs. Pennyworthy is the wealthy owner of the estate. She is chiefly concerned with her prize-winning tulips and, when she returns at the end of the episode, rewards Slimer directly after recognizing that he did all the work. She then invites him to lunch with the Mayor, leaving Rudy empty-handed.
The Bad Gopher is a wordless antagonist who employs increasingly elaborate cartoonish schemes to steal Mrs. Pennyworthy's tulips: a diving board over the tool trough, a shopping cart with a magnetic strip to open Slimer's fence, rocket fuel in the lawn mower to launch Slimer skyward, and finally a cannon. The cannon backfires, sending the ball rolling after him into his own hole, and he flees the property. The character functions as a classic slapstick foil, analogous to the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote dynamic.
The episode takes place at the Mrs. Pennyworthy Estate, a large, unnamed posh manor whose primary set-piece is an ornamental garden containing prize tulips. No specific real-world location is given.
Rudy and Slimer arrive at the estate gates for a gardening job and dodge an outgoing stretch limousine. Mrs. Pennyworthy greets them, instructs them to make the yard look like a million dollars, and asks that special care be taken with her prize tulips. As soon as her car leaves, Rudy assigns Slimer to the front yard while claiming the back yard is "harder," then falls asleep in a hammock.
A gopher emerges from a hole, eyes the tulip trough, and begins a series of increasingly absurd thefts. First attempt: he constructs a diving board over the trough and dresses a tulip with condiments before Slimer stops him and sends him back underground. Slimer builds an "impenetrable" fence around the trough. Second attempt: the gopher returns with a shopping cart and a magnetic strip that somehow opens the fence gate, making off with an armload of tulips before Slimer jams a shovel into the ground to stop him.
The gopher then pours rocket fuel into the lawn mower and spreads fast-growing fertilizer across the lawn. When Slimer starts the mower to cut the suddenly overgrown grass, it launches him into the air. He zooms past the sleeping Rudy and nudges him gently onto a floating inner tube in a swimming pool. The runaway mower targets the gopher, who slips back into his hole just in time, though it shaves the fur off his back. The mower eventually stalls and, somehow, the lawn looks great.
The gopher's final scheme is a cannon aimed at the tulip trough. Slimer, raking nearby, nonchalantly points the barrel skyward without realizing it. The gopher fires, the cannonball arcs up and falls back down into his own hole, and rolls after him. He lands on a cactus and runs off the property. The aftershock rearranges the lawn into an unusual layout.
Mrs. Pennyworthy returns to find Slimer's work admirable. She soon realizes Slimer did all of the work and pays only him. She then invites Slimer to lunch with the Mayor. Slimer promises to bring a doggie bag back for the bewildered Rudy.