The Ghostbusters are bored since there have been no jobs in three weeks. Peter and Winston try to play ping pong, but Slimer eats the ball, to Peter's anger. Janine brings in her old TV and they start watching a show called Leave it to Woodchuck, but find that it's in colour despite being a black and white show. Janine then adds that it's a black and white set. A character from the TV exits the TV and turns into a monster. Egon and Winston trap him, but then more monsters exit the TV, so they trap them and unplug it. Egon realises the TV is set to channel one, even though there isn't any, and then finds the same thing has been happening all over the city.
The Ghostbusters get a call and drive off, with Slimer tagging along. After they trap the ghosts, a restaurant nearby advertises a giant TV, out of which a superhero named Power Guy emerges. They start fighting, and then Power Guy makes a vortex from his chest, into which Peter nearly gets sucked. Slimer sticks Peter to the wall with ectoplasm, but gets sucked in himself. Power Guy then morphs into another vortex and flies through the roof.
In the Ecto-1, Egon surmises that the ghosts have been trying to build their own TV station called WBOO, and have been using TV to teleport. A ghostly television tower then appears in Central Park, and the Ghostbusters enter. They find out that the leader, the Unreal Shriek Squeal, is planning on broadcasting the ghost TV channel over the whole world at midnight.
They battle various ghosts, and eventually find Slimer. Then, they try to trap Shriek Squeal but can't because he protects himself by covering himself in televisions. Luckily, they break the signal that would have broadcast the ghost channel, which in turn destroys Shriek Squeal and the tower.
This episode provides examples of
- Alternate Species Counterpart: In the Leave It to Beaver parody Leave it to Woodchuck, the protagonist is a literal woodchuck.
- Blow You Away: Shriek Squeal once tries to blow the Ghostbusters away with air.
- Breath Weapon: One ghost breathes fire.
- Captain Obvious: When Egon says, "We're in trouble," Peter replies, "And you've just figured that out now?!".
- Circling Birdies: Slimer sees floating purple ghosts when he falls.
- Covered in Gunge: When Slimer sticks Peter to the wall with ectoplasm, Peter ends up coated in it.
- Distressed Dude: Slimer gets kidnapped.
- Monster Clown: The Unreal Shriek Squeal is the leader of the ghost attack and wears clownish clothes.
- Ectoplasm:
- Played for laughs when Slimer hugs Peter in the car and gets goo on his face.
- Exploited when Slimer saves Peter from the vortex by using his ectoplasm to stick him to the wall.
- Everyone Has Standards: Peter may not like Slimer very much, but he swears not to let him stay in danger.
- Evil Laugh:
- Power Guy does a sinister laugh when he appears.
- The Unreal Shriek Squeal does three shrill cackles.
- Funny Animal: The first ghost takes the form of an anthropomorphic woodchuck.
- The Hyena: Shriek Squeal is prone to bursting into shrill laughter.
- Meaningful Name: Shriek Squeal has a shrill laugh.
- Merchandise-Driven: Power Guy was apparently based off a toy.
- Mythology Gag: Ray calls Slimer a "little spud", like he did in the movie.
- Playing with Fire: One of the ghosts can breathe fire.
- Revolting Rescue: Slimer saves Peter by using his slime to stick Peter to the wall.
- Rhyming Title: Station Identification.
- Shout-Out:
- Leave it to Woodchuck is a parody of Leave It to Beaver.
- Winston mentions The Outer Limits (1963).
- One of the ghosts says, "We're dead, Jim", parodying the Star Trek: The Original Series character Dr. McCoy, who says, "[He/she]'s dead, Jim" whenever somebody dies.
- Spell My Name with a "The": The clown ghost is named the Unreal Shriek Squeal.
- Sticky Situation: Invoked when Slimer deliberately uses his ectoplasm to stick Peter to the wall so he won't get sucked into the vortex.
- Take That!: Power Guy seems to be a spoof of He-Man.
- Tempting Fate: When Ray shares that Power Guy was based off a toy, Winston says, "How dangerous can a toy be?". It turns out to be very dangerous.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Egon says in a deadpan way, "We're in trouble" when the vortex appears.
