Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "The Abominable Snowman" (December 13, 1975)

In the final episode of the Saturday morning series The Ghost Busters, the evil Dr. Centigrade (Ronny Graham) materializes with his sidekick, the Abominable Snowman, in the local graveyard. 

Everything the Abominable Snowman touches turns to ice, so he needs the heart of a warm-blooded human to replace his own.  

Dr. Centigrade determines the perfect candidate: Spenser!

Zero (Lou Scheimer) assigns the Ghost Busters to take down the ghostly duo, but Spenser bumbles his way onto Dr. Centigrade’s operating table.

The Abominable Snowman certainly made the rounds on Saturday morning television. He appeared in the third and final season of Land of the Lost (1975-1977), and in Bigfoot and Wild Boy (1977-1978) too.  Here, in The Ghost Busters, he is a shaggy, innocent (ghost) creature with no menace whatsoever. 

All the evil in the episode is provided by the scenery-chewing Ronny Graham who, as Dr. Centigrade, delivers his dialogue to the camera, consistently breaking the fourth-wall.

The actual plot here is a hold-over from “Jekyll and Hyde: Together for the First Time.” That episode saw Dr. Jekyll plotting to use the personality-less Spenser for a supernatural grafting of the Mr. Hyde personality.  In this episode, Spenser’s heart is needed to give the abominable snowman new life.

As we come to the end of The Ghost Busters journey, I will confess that I have developed a grudging respect for the slapstick, immensely silly series from 40-plus years ago.  

The same jokes get repeated every single week, the plots are ludicrous, and the sets and acting are cardboard.  And yet the show breaks you down with its inanity and good-heart. 

The Ghost Busters breaks through your resistance, and you just have to laugh at its weird flights of fancy.  I don't know that Saturday mornings have ever produced a weirder program than this one. 

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters; "Merlin the Magician" (December 6, 1975)

The ghost of the great wizard Merlin (Carl Ballantine) and his jester, Gronk (Huntz Hall), materialize in the local graveyard. Unlike most ghosts who appear there, this duo wishes only to return peaceably to “The Great Beyond.”

Unfortunately, Merlin has forgotten the spell that would take them back.  

Worse, Merlin's arch-enemy, Morgan La Fay (Ina Balin), has materialized in the present too, and wishes to destroy him.  She sets a trap for Merlin and the Ghost Busters after stealing their de-materialization ray.

“Merlin the Magician” is actually one of the more entertaining episodes of this vastly silly series from 1975, and it changes-up the format just a hair. Although we still get the obligatory ghost-and-sidekick duo, we also get a third character this time: Le Fay.  

Perhaps because of Balin’s performance, Le Fay somehow manages to seem more legitimately threatening to the protagonists than do most of the monsters on the series.  She even robs the gang of its ghost dematerializer weapon.

All’s well that ends well, and Merlin and Gronk get their wish to be returned to The Great Beyond, but they certainly are friendlier ghosts than most featured in the series.

Next week, the last episode of The Ghost Busters: “The Abominable Snowman.”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "The Vikings are Coming" (November 29, 1975)

In “The Vikings are Coming,” Eric the Red (Jim Backus) and the Viking warrior Brunhilda (Lisa Todd) materialize in the local cemetery hoping to prevent their (unseen) enemy, Lothar, from planting his flag on this new territory.

Now they just need to find their own banner to plant.

The Ghost Busters are on the job, however, and send the Vikings back to the Great Beyond using the ghost materializer, giving the ghosts an inept variation of a Viking funeral.

“The Vikings are Coming” features Jim Backus -- Mr. Howell of Gilligan’s Island (1964-1967) -- as a Viking warrior.

Let that description settle in for a while.

The episode is absolutely as ridiculous as that casting suggests. His casting makes one wonder why almost every guest star on the series is well-into-middle age.  Backus doesn't exactly have what we might think of as a Viking physique, or mind-set.

Backus can also be seen in an episode of Filmation’s Ark II (1976), “The Cryogenic Man.”  Here, he chases the Ghost Busters through a variation of the series’ running “corridor” joke.  Another running gag sees Brunhilda blowing a Viking horn in close proximity to him, causing him immense pain.

Next week: “Merlin the Magician.”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "Only Angels Have Wings" (November 22, 1975)

In “Only Angels Have Wings,” The Red Baron (Howard Morris) and his grease-monkey, Sparky (Robert Easton), materialize in the local graveyard and need a new plane.  

They wish to take revenge on the British pilot who shot the Baron down in World War II: Lord Smedley Hargrove.

Unfortunately, Spenser is a descendant of the British flyer, and so the ghosts' revenge focuses on him.

The (extreme) budgetary limitations of The Ghost Busters (1975) come into play a bit in this week’s episode. 

In particular, there are scenes here in which the ghosts of The Red Baron and Sparky ostensibly take flight in a plane, and attack Tracy, Spenser and Kong.  

We never see the plane, even once, only actors pointing towards the roof of the sound-stage.  Similarly, the finale involves Spenser downing the plane by throwing split pea soup (as thick as fog!) at it.  

Again, we don’t actually see the plane crash, or come down.

This week’s ghost is not a silver screen monster, either, but a famous historical figure. We have seen this aspect of the series formula before, with “They Went Thataway,” an episode about Billy the Kid.  At least when the monster ghosts are inept fools, no real person's memory is being slandered.

Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will recognize Sparky as Robert Easton, an actor in two films skewered by the Satellite of Love: The Giant Spider Invasion (1975), and The Touch of Satan (1971).  

Outside that singular honor, Mr. Easton had a diverse and impressive acting career, appearing in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) and playing a character called Sparks in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).

Next week: “The Vikings Are Coming.”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "Jekyll and Hyde: Together for the First Time!" (November 15, 1975)

In "Jekyll and Hyde: Together for the First Time,” the ghosts of Dr. Jekyll (Severn Darden) and Mr. Hyde (Joe E. Ross) materialize in the local cemetery and begin their search for someone without a real personality.

That person, they have learned, can be attached to “Hyde,” freeing Jekyll from his alter ego permanently. 

The person they choose for this honor: Spenser (Larry Storch).

The Ghost Busters retrieve their newest assignment from Zero (Lou Scheimer), and learn they must stop the villainous duo. 

But Jekyll and Hyde require just one personal item from Spenser before they can make their supernatural transfer...

The characters of Jekyll and Hyde -- straight from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel -- get a strange update indeed in this episode of Filmation’s wonky live-action series The Ghost Busters (1975). 

Dr. Jekyll is portrayed as the real villain of the duo, rather than as a proper gentleman whose dark side is manifested. And Hyde is quite oddly portrayed as a bumbling cave-man rather than as a legitimate figure of evil, a repository for all human vices and dark impulses

Severn Darden plays Jekyll. Of course, he is a familiar presence to fans of Conquest of Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, wherein he played the villain, Kolp. 

Joe. E. Ross may not be as well known to today’s audiences, but he (infamously) portrayed a cave-man named Gronk in the sitcom It’s About Time (1966-1967) from Gilligan’s Island creator Sherwood Schwartz. Ross resurrects his cave-man act for The Ghost Busters, and is similarly garbed as well.

I suppose the creators of the program decided that Hyde could not be too menacing, and so made him a primitive counterpart for Jekyll, rather than an evil one.

One big question about this episode involves the writer’s description of Spenser as lacking a personality. This is a guy who always wears a zoot suit, essentially, works hand-in-hand with a gorilla, and demonstrates outright terror at the drop of a hat.  

I wouldn’t exactly describe him as lacking a personality. Love him or hate him, I’d say that Spenser is pretty unforgettable.

Next week: “Only Ghosts Have Wings.”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "The Vampire's Apprentice" (November 8, 1975)

In this episode, “The Vampire’s Apprentice,” the Ghost Buster triumvirate -- Spenser (Larry Storch), Tracy (Bob Burns) and Kong (Forrest Tucker) -- challenges Countess Dracula (Dena Dietrich) and Count Dracula (Billy Holmes).  

In this case, Dracula is portrayed as a senile old bat.  At one point in the episode, his fangs even get corked. Also, his sonar-like hearing is apparently really bad.  And when he goes to bed in his coffin, Dracula can't go to sleep because he's "afraid of the light," and needs to be told a story.

This evil duo masquerades as the Count and Countess of Luxembourg, but the Ghost Busters see through the façade, and confront them at their castle, which -- as always -- is conveniently located next to a creepy (cardboard) grave yard.

The humor in this episode of The Ghost Busters, also as in all episodes, feels as antique as Old Dracula himself.

This story labors on the obvious, like “stake (as in wooden…) vs. “steak” (as in to eat) misunderstandings.  At one point, the Countess of Dracula (Dena Deitrich) quips “be subtle.” Unfortunately, that’s advice the episode and the series never take.

One of the story oddities featured in this episode:

One bite by a vampire makes you undead. A second bite, however, returns you to a human state.  

That’s confusing, even to vampires, no?  Now let me see, did I bite you three times or four?

Next week: "Jekyll and Hyde: Together For the First Time."

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "They Went Thataway" (November 1, 1975)

In "They Went Thataway," the ghosts of Wild West legends Billy the Kid (Marty Ingels) and Belle Starr (Brooke Tucker) materialize in the local grave-yard and begin their search for new gang members.

When The Ghost Busters learn from Zero about their new nemeses, Spenser (Larry Storch) and Tracy (Bob Burns) respond by watching old TV westerns as research.

Before long, there is a confrontation at the old castle, where Billy and Belle are hiding out. Spenser, Tracy and Kong (Forrest Tucker) pretend to be cowboys (and a horse!) by singing "Home on the Range" to the Old West spirits, before de-materializing the deadly duo.

This is yet another extremely silly episode of the live-action, slapstick Filmation series The Ghost Busters. At this juncture on the program, the series writers were resorting to non-monster-based ghosts, such as Billy the Kid and Belle Starr, and future episodes would involve the Red Baron and his grease monkey, and Eric the Viking and Brunhilda. The thought being, perhaps, that these well-known (and historical or literary) characters were visually distinctive enough to make interesting antagonists.

Nonetheless, "They Went Thataway" qualifies as one of the less interesting installments, even though Belle Starr is played by Forrest Tucker's daughter, and the episode manages to rib some Western movie cliches.  

As is the case in many of these stories, the ghosts don't even qualify as bad, let alone evil, so de-materializing them and sending them to the Great Beyond seems unnecessary and a little cruel-hearted.

Next week: "The Vampire's Apprentice."

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "Which Witch is Witch?" (October 25, 1975)

A witch (Ann Morgan Guilbert) and her minion, Gronk (Huntz Hall) materialize in the graveyard on the outskirts of town.

There, they plot their sinister revenge against “you know how,” the witch-hunter who sent them to the Great Beyond centuries centuries earlier, at the Salem Witch trials.

Unfortunately, the spirits have to settle for the witch hunter’s descendant: Spenser (Larry Storch).  

The witch disguises herself as the lovely Salem (Leigh Christian) to lead Spenser to his doom…

At one point in “Which Witch is Which?,” an episode of Filmation’s The Ghost Busters (1975), a character notes significantly that “history repeats itself.”

Well, so do episodes of this series!

Once more, we get a formulaic story that trots through all the oft-told jokes. 

Let’s do a catalog.

We open in the grave-yard and the threat of the week appears. This threat (a ghost and sidekick) spies the castle and decides to settle down there. 

Then, we go to the Ghost Busters office, and Spenser and Tracy do something crazy (like magic tricks, jogging, or whatever the gimmick of the week is).

This mischief requires Kong (Forrest Tucker) to shoo the duo away to get the message of the week from the Mysterious Zero.  He says something along the lines of “go get our next ghost busting assignment.” Then we get the driving gag, and the self-destructing tape gag.  The tape always self-destructs in five seconds, and always explodes on Tracy, leaving him a mess. This week, the tape is in a kitchen sink.

Then it’s back to the office for more research, and we get the next gag: the file-cabinet gag.  (I have to confess, I often find this one the funniest, for some reason). Basically, Spenser can’t open the file cabinet properly. It’s a battle of wills between Spenser and…the cabinet.

Then we’re off to the castle, and the final battle with the ghosts. The antagonists are finally zapped back to the Great Beyond with the ghost de-materializer, and we get one more comedic scene at the office, before the end credits roll.

This is what happens in, literally, every episode of the series.  It’s incredibly repetitive.

I suppose there’s comfort in routine. But the question here is: are there also laughs in routine?

I might have to argue yes, because this series has broken my will, and I’ve found the last half of the series generally more amusing than I did at first half.  I guess once you know what to expect, you free yourself, in some sense, from wanting anything different. You can just give in to the silliness, and start observing the curve-balls in the oft-seen formula.

Beyond reiteration of the routine, “Which Witch is Which?” also features Storch performing more classic Hollywood imitations; this time of Clark Gable. And Tracy, once more, seems to be the character with the most intelligence.

Not bad for a gorilla. He’s my favorite character.

Okay, accuracy requires me to point out one more thing before I close.  There is a new joke here, though it is a variation on an old one. Here, Spenser starts reading books in the office, and the tomes each start attacking him. He reads Moby Dick, for example, and the book squirts water in his face. The book Call of the Wild howls at him.  A few episodes back, the same joke was pulled with a TV set.

But heck, at least the joke changed a little bit.  That’s progress, I suppose, 1970's Saturday morning TV style.

Next week: “They Went Thataway!”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "A Worthless Gauze" (October 18, 1975)

In “A Worthless Gauze,” the ghost of Queen of the Nile, Farah (Barbara Rhoades) and her Mummy (Richard Balin) materialize in the graveyard on the outskirts of town.  These two spirits are in search of Simios, an ape sorcerer who can share with them the secret of immortality.

This ghostly duo from Ancient Egypt mistakes Tracy (Bob Burns) -- who has been practicing magic – for the great Simios.  They also mistake Tracy and Spenser’s (Larry Storch) incredible “secret” -- Kong’s (Forrest Tucker) surprise birthday party – for the secret of immortality.

The Ghost Busters, meanwhile, are also experimenting with disguises, and mustaches in particular.

This is another goofy, slapstick episode of The Ghost Busters that features moments of extreme silliness. The Queen’s Mummy, for instance, hangs up a sign on his sarcophagus: “Out to Lunch.” It is written in hieroglyphics!

Another ridiculous moment finds Tracy doing magic tricks, and magically switching places with Spenser on a car ride to pick up the weekly mission from Zero.

One additional interesting quirk this week is that the Mummy’s touch causes “instant mummification.” He is constantly trying to grab the Ghost Busters, but Tracy comes up with an interesting trick: he jams a boxing glove on the mummy’s hand.

One action here showcases the production drawbacks and limitations of The Ghost Busters. Spenser and Tracy run into Queen Farah and the Mummy in the graveyard. They are all standing next to a man-sized (but clearly lightweight) gravestone marked with the name “Lucy Moonlite.”  Spencer and Tracy run off, pursued by the bad guys. In the next shot, they run past the same gravestone (marked with the same legend). The scene that shows Kong running through the cemetery, right by -- you guessed it -- the same unmistakable gravestone.

From Lucy Moonlite’s constant re-appearing, we can surmise that the graveyard set is tiny, and that the series thus had relatively few resources on which to draw. At least the gravestone is seen from three different angles during the sequence, in an attempt to hide it.

Next Week: “Which Witch is Which?”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: "The Dummy's Revenge" (October 11, 1975)

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”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "The Flying Dutchman" (October 4, 1975)

In “The Flying Dutchman, the ghostly Captain Beane (Stanley Adams) of the Flying Dutchman materializes in the local graveyard in search of new crew-members for his famous, eternal ghost ship. 

He and his first mate, Scroggs (Philip Bruns) spot Spenser (Larry Storch), Kong (Forrest Tucker) and Tracy (Bob Burns) and settle on the trio as perfect candidates.

“The Flying Dutchman” is probably the weakest episode, thus far, of The Ghost Busters. At least the villains of the week are actually ghosts this time, and not the ghosts of monsters (like a werewolf, or the Frankenstein Monster).  

Still, that’s hardly an endorsement, as the episode features lame gags (“I haven’t had so much fun since Long John Silver taught me the one step…”) and some poor special effects.

On the latter front, the interior of the castle this week apparently becomes sea bound, and sprays of water hit Captain Beane. It looks like someone is squirting him with a water pistol from right off-camera.

Stanley Adams is our villain of the week, and this episode aired approximately two years before his tragic death, in 1977.  Adams is beloved by a generation of TV fans for his work on Star Trek (“The Trouble with Tribbles,”), The Twilight Zone (“Mr. Garrity and the Graves”) and Lost in Space (“The Great Vegetable Rebellion”) but The Ghost Busters’ “The Flying Dutchman” doesn’t represent one of his better or more well-known roles.

Nope, it's just goofy business as usual, for this live action cartoon.  

Next up on The Ghost Busters: “The Dummy’s Revenge.”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" (September 27, 1975)

A ghost gypsy, Sophia (Dodrio Dennery) and a ghost werewolf (Lenny Weinrib) materialize in the graveyard seeking an amulet which will end the curse of his lycanthropy forever.

Unfortunately, that prized amulet is already in the hands of Spenser (Larry Storch), Kong (Forrest Tucker) and Tracy (Bob Burns).

Their latest assignment: de-materialize the ghost of the gypsy and werewolf!

“Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” showcases again the awkwardness of The Ghost Busters' (1975) format. Instead of encountering an actual werewolf, the comically-inept ghost hunters go after the ghost of a werewolf, ostensibly so they can de-materialize him at the end of the episode, securing a happy ending and a sense of closure for the youngsters watching.

But the facts that these folks are ghosts, and not just monsters, is disconcerting and confusing. From this story, for example, we must glean that the curse of lycanthropy lasts beyond death, since Harry Albert (Lenny Weinrub) suffers from it even while a ghost.  

Wouldn’t the werewolf curse end with his death?

The episode doesn’t make sense on other grounds, either.  

For example, why wouldn’t the Ghost Busters just give Harry the amulet thus curing him of lycanthropy, instead of all the tug-of-war over it?  But more trenchantly, how come a corporeal amulet cures the lycanthropy...of an incorporeal ghost?

This episode also cements another aspect of the series formula: the relic. This is the fourth episode so far of the series, and we have encountered the “thing” in the first episode (The Maltese Monkey), the Canterville Diamond (“The Canterville Ghost”), and now the amulet, here.  So it’s fair to state that -- at least so far -- these episode tend to involve not just ghost-busting but the recovery of valuable antiquities.

The best gag this week is a modification of a running joke set in the office. Usually Spenser has a tough time with a row of filing cabinets.  This week, the werewolf has an even more difficulty with the cabinets.

Next week “The Flying Dutchman.”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: The Ghost Busters: "The Canterville Ghost" (September 20, 1975)

A woman named Carola de Canterville (Kathy Garver) lives in the mansion in the graveyard, and is haunted, routinely by the clumsy and cowardly ghost of Simon de Canterville (Ted Knight). This spirit is cursed to remain in the castle for all eternity, or until he commits a brave act.

An evil gangster, Mr. C. (Len Lesser) pretends to be Simon, the Ghost of Canterville, to run Carole out of her house and find the priceless Canterville Diamond.

Fortunately, the Ghost Busters are assigned to help Carole uncover the truth of the haunting.  And as a happy but totally unintended side-effect of their involvement, Simon’s curse is broken.

This week on The Ghost Busters (1975), we meet Carola Canterville, and finds that she lives in the castle we’ve seen occupied by various spooks in every other episode of the series thus far. We see her ironing, and going about her (domestic) business, when Mr. C. begins “haunting” her.  We also learn that a spirit  -- Simon -- has dwelt in the castle for centuries, even though he too has not been seen in previous episodes. 

This castle gets a lot of action. And also, each episode of the series apparently occurs in its own parallel universe.  These are the facts we can draw from events this week.

What distinguishes this episode from the others, largely, is the presence of Ted Knight as the cowardly spirit. 

At this point, The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977) was still on the air, and the actor was at the height of his popularity as a scene-stealing second banana. It’s a bit of a surprise to see him on this series, which is so cheaply produced, and a haven, mostly, for those on the way down the ladder to D-celebrity status.

Otherwise, this episode includes another corridor gag, and Tracy shadows by a mobile suit of armor (really Mr. C.).  Again, this sequence could be a gag right out of Scooby Doo, cementing the idea that this series is a cartoon come to live action.   

This episode also features such antique gags as the painting with moving eyes, which goes back as far as the films of Abbott and Costello, and likely further.

Next Week: “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”