In
“The Dummy’s Revenge,” a ventriloquist called “The Phantom of Vaudeville” (Tim
Herbert) and his dummy, Elmo (Brian Berlin), materialize in the graveyard on
the outskirts of town, near the castle where they once lived. They have returned to the land of the living
to inflect revenge on the act that replaced them on stage, in audience affection.
Spenser
(Larry Storch), Kong (Forrest Tucker) and Tracy (Bob Burns) are assigned by
Zero the task of stopping these ghosts.
When they announce themselves as ghost busters, however, the Phantom and
his dummy turn their wrath on them…so they pretend to be vaudeville stars.
During
the ensuing confrontation, the de-materializer doesn’t work and that the
phantom can only be destroyed by unmasking him…
God
help me, I’m starting to enjoy the goofy and sophomoric charms of The Ghost Busters (1975), a
cheap-jack Filmation live action series. This episode isn’t any better than any
of the others, and yet somehow, I am learning to tolerate the goofy shtick
better.
Here,
we get the usual jokes: the self-destruct joke (of the mission tape), the file
cabinet joke, and the mistaken identity joke too. In this case, the Ghost Busters are mistaken
first for Vaudevillians, and then they wish to prove they are actually
vaudevillians, when the Phantom targets them as ghost hunters. The vaudeville act performed by Spenser, Kong,
and Tracy -- under duress -- in the ubiquitous haunted castle, isn’t half bad.
The
villains are also actually a bit creepy this time, although victims of the same
quirk. It’s not just a ventriloquist and
his dummy to fight here, but the ghost of a ventriloquist and the ghost of a
ventriloquist’s dummy. That’s just so
incredibly awkward, but a necessity, I suppose if the de-materializer is in the
picture. This week, however, the de-materializer doesn’t even work. I guess the powers that be felt these ghost
busters had to be constantly fighting ghosts, not other monsters of the week,
hence the fact that every monster -- whether mummy, vampire, Frankenstein
monster or ventriloquist’s dummy -- had to be a ghost.
Next
week: “A Worthless Gauze”
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