Slimer is goofing around with the photo copier, when Louis enters with a stack of documents. When he leaves to go to the copy store, three ghosts named Grub, Larvy, and Mopes enter and try to free their boss, Spiderlegs, from the containment unit. They set an alarm off, so Slimer goes down and hits the reset button. Grub, Larvy, and Mopes demand he open the unit, and when he refuses, they kidnap him and put him in a ghost-proof room.
As the Ghostbusters return from a job, Louis finds a ransom note saying that they have to return Spiderlegs and signal them by requesting a song on the radio before midnight. When the lead ghost leaves to listen to the radio, the other two watch Slimer, who gets them to feed him all the food in the fridge and play tag with him. Meanwhile, the guys look Spiderlegs up and determine she's too dangerous to free, so Egon gets the idea of instead finding Slimer with sound waves after determining the frequency of his ectoplasm. They do it, using a sample of the slime he left all over the photo copier.
When Slimer hears the frequency, his body twists all over the show, making a mess. Peter and Winston, in Ecto-2, spot the chaos from outside the building and radio Egon and Ray, who are at the radio station. The Ghostbusters all enter the hideout and chase the kidnapper ghosts, who Slimer tells to hide in the hot tub. He then sets the hot tub to "puree", which sprays them out, allowing them to be trapped, and then Spiderlegs chases them in the containment unit.
This episode provides examples of
- Bad Boss: Spiderlegs angrily chases her inferiors and tries to zap them with her laser vision.
- Chekhov's Gag: Slimer leaving his ectoplasm all over the photo copier was initially just a joke, but later they get a sample of said ectoplasm to find his frequency.
- A Day in the Limelight: The episode focuses on Slimer.
- Distressed Dude: Slimer gets kidnapped.
- Ectoplasm:
- Exploited when Slimer leaves ectoplasm on the photo copier, which the Ghostbusters and Louis then sample in order to find his frequency.
- Played for laughs when Slimer gets goo on Louis's face.
- Everyone's Baby Sister: Lampshaded when Slimer says that by kidnapping him, the other ghosts have just made the Ghostbusters angry.
- Evil Laugh: The evil ghosts laugh sinisterly after kidnapping Slimer.
- Eye Beams: Spiderlegs has laser vision.
- Giant Spider: Played with for Spiderlegs, who is a large ghost who appears to be half-spider and half-woman.
- I Will Show You X!: When Slimer says, "I've got a headache!", another ghost says, "I'll give you a headache!".
- Large and in Charge: Spiderlegs is the boss, and she's much bigger than her underlings.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The evil ghosts mention they'll get Slimer back "faster than you can say, 'Who you gonna call?'".
- Losing Your Head: Justified when the kidnappers can take their heads off and be okay, since they're ghosts.
- Loud Gulp: Slimer audibly gulps when he's grabbed.
- Meaningful Name: Spiderlegs has spider-like legs.
- Mocking Sing-Song: During the game of tag, Slimer mockingly babbles to the kidnappers to the tune of "Ring Around the Rosie".
- Mythology Gag: Slimer being called a "spud" references Ray calling him one in the first movie.
- Nothing Nice About Sugar and Spice: Spiderlegs has neat, long, blonde hair and wears a necklace, but she's still a very dangerous ghost.
- Pig Man: One of the ghosts is pink and has pig-like ears.
- Psycho Pink: Downplayed — Spiderlegs, the evil spider ghost, has pink eyes.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Spiderlegs is an evil spider ghost, who is black with a red abdomen.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Spiderlegs, the evil boss ghost, has red eyes.
- Shout-Out:
- The title references The Ransom Of Red Chief.
- The ghosts dance to "The Twist", which is a real song.
- Sinister Schnoz: Two of the kidnapper ghosts have massive noses.
- Soul Brotha: The radio station guy is a black man with an afro and sunglasses who talks in hep talk and likes playing music.
- Spiders Are Scary: Spiderlegs resembles a spider, and she's an evil ghost with laser vision.
- Theme Music Power-Up: The theme tune plays as the bad guys are being trapped.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: An example involving a literal sandwich — Slimer has to abandon his sub to reset the containment unit.
