The Ghostbusters trap a ghost and start to head home, but Ray is unhappy, because he's bored with hunting "normal" ghosts and wants an adventure. Meanwhile, in another dimension, a ghost called the "Ghost Master" is unhappy that the Ghostbusters are killing his underlings and sends three other ghosts to capture them alive with the promise of a reward.
At dinner, Ray is still bored, but then one of the bounty hunter ghosts, Animax, enters. He destroys Janine's desk and sprays Peter and Ray with webbing, but then Slimer gets slime on his eyes, allowing the Ghostbusters to trap them. Then, Peter and Ray get free and Egon notes that ghosts don't normally invade the firehouse, so this must be an ambush.
Later, the Ghostbusters are driving around, when the second bounty hunter ghost, Mist Crawler, shapeshifts into a brick wall, then zaps them with energy. They try to shoot it, but it deflects the blasts, then steals the proton packs and immobilises the Ecto-1. The ghost then run into a building and trap Mist Crawler. Then, the third bounty hunter ghost, Dark, arrives and takes the form of a punk singer in a magazine.
At the firehouse, the Ghostbusters set up a security system, but Dark enters and hypnotises Janine into turning it off, then puts her to sleep. Dark then shrinks the Ghostbusters and traps them in a bubble, but Slimer wakes up Janine, tells her the situation, and bumps Dark back through the portal without the bubble. It breaks, freeing the shrunken Ghostbusters. The Ghost Master, angry, sends Dark back to retrieve the Ghostbusters, who tell Janine to find a spell in a book to grow them back.
Slimer flies the Ghostbusters to a roof, where they cross a powerline, and enter a seltzer water bottling plant with Dark chasing them. Meanwhile, Janine is trying all the spells one by one to see if they're the correct spell. The Ghostbusters, in a bottle of seltzer water, get put onto a delivery truck, and Egon decides to have them shoot at the lid so they'll be shot out. This launches them into a car, where a boy agrees to give them a balloon to ride on.
They float back to the firehouse, where Janine is still trying spells. After a few mishaps (like Slimer turning into three ghosts and Peter turning into a rat-like creature), she manages to find a spell to grow them back. Slimer starts growing too, and smothers Dark, allowing the Ghostbusters to trap it. Then, the Ghost Master appears on TV, swearing revenge.
This episode provides examples of
- Accidental Pun: When Egon says that he and the others were "a little upset" over being shrunk, Winston berates him for his use of "little" as he thinks it sounds like a joke.
- Admiring the Abomination: Due to having been so bored recently and wanting something exciting, Ray actually enthuses about the bounty hunter ghosts.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: One of the spells makes Slimer grow huge.
- Balloonacy: The Ghostbusters fly to the firehouse on a balloon.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Early on, Ray expresses a desire for more challenging and exciting cases. As Dark shrinks the Ghostbusters, Peter reminds Ray of this attitude.Peter: Is this exciting enough for you, Ray?
- Butt-Monkey: Janine reads assorted magical spells, and it's Slimer the bears the brunt of assorted transformations.
- Challenge Seeker: Ray is openly bored with the mundane calls lately and longs for the kind of challenging antagonists they previously faced.
- Covered in Gunge: The three Slimers get slime all over Janine.
- Dagwood Sandwich: Ray is seen eating a really tall sandwich during the dinner scene.
- Distressed Dude:
- Peter almost falls to his death on the wire.
- The Ghostbusters nearly drown in some seltzer water.
- Continuity Nod: Ray remembers the Sandman from "Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream".
- Cyclops: Mist Crawler has one eye.
- Ectoplasm:
- Exploited when Slimer uses his goo to blind Animax.
- He later gets some slime all over Janine when turned into three.
- Elective Unintelligible: Animax and Mist Crawler only make snarling noises, but Dark gets several lines while in his human disguise, demonstrating that he at least can speak normally if he chooses to.
- Everyone Hates Mimes: Mimes are listed in the Ghost Master's "Big Book of Annoying Things".
- Evil Laugh: Dark laughs evilly when entering the firehouse.
- Extra Eyes: The first ghost has many eyes.
- Forced Sleep: Dark puts Janine to sleep to sneak past her.
- Forced Transformation: One of the spells turns Peter into a rat-like creature.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Some of the evil ghosts have eyes that glow.
- Hypno Fool: Dark brainwashes Janine into turning off the security camera.
- Ignored Aesop: In light of everything they went through, Ray says he's learned the importance of taking it easy. After the Ghostmaster broadcasts his threat to one day return, Ray is more excited than ever.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Dark shrinks the Ghostbusters down to about four inches tall.
- Intelligible Unintelligible: The three bounty hunters make assorted snarling and wailing sounds, but the Ghostmaster converses with them easily.
- Jumped at the Call: Between ghosts going out of their way to attack them and Egon theorizing that someone is calling the shots, Ray couldn't be happier.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Of the three bounty hunters, Animax just loudly charges in and starts tearing up the place. By contrast, Mist Crawler and Dark opted for more guile tactics to take the guys by surprise.
- Lightmare Fuel: The Ghostbusters are in danger of being kidnapped by an evil ghost who's under orders from a vengeful ghost... but they also get into wacky shenanigans as the result of being shrunk.
- Medium Awareness: At the end, Peter wonders if the Ghost Master will get his own show.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: One of the bounty hunters is literally named Dark.
- Near-Villain Victory: Dark successfully shrinks the Ghostbusters and imprisons them in his orb. He was in the process of returning to the Ghostmaster's lair when Slimer showed up at the last moment and got the better of him.
- No-Sell: Mist Crawler deflects the proton blasts. Dark is also protected by his orb.
- Obligatory Joke: Dark gladly indulges in this after shrinking the Ghostbusters.Dark: Having a small problem, Ghostbusters?
- Oh, Crap!: Slimer after seeing Dark capture the Ghostbusters.
- Platonic Kissing: Slimer kisses Egon at one point.
- Properly Paranoid: Fending off Animax in the firehouse make Peter and Egon concerned they have bigger problems the usual hauntings. Mist Crawler's attack just confirms their suspicions.
- Pun-Based Title: The title puns on the fact that the Ghostbusters are made shorter.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Mist Crawler, an evil ghost who wants to kidnap the Ghostbusters, has one red eye.
- Soda Can Shake Up: The Ghostbusters shake up the seltzer water and shoot the lid to send them spraying out.
- Sticky Situation: Animax sticks Ray and Peter to the wall with webbing.
- Taught by Television: Riding the balloon to the firehouse, Peter points out they have no way to get down. Ray opts to shoot the balloon to cause a descent, saying he got the idea from a comic book. Peter is displeased, to say the least.
- Tempting Fate: Ray wishes something more exciting will happen. When it does, he and the others get shrunk and nearly kidnapped.
- Theme Music Power-Up: The main theme plays as Dark is being trapped.
- Villain of Another Story: The Ghostmaster describes Animax, Mist Crawler, and Dark as his absolute best bounty hunters.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Mist Crawler and Dark can both shapeshift.
- We Need a Distraction: After Slimer gets the guys to the rooftop, Egon has him go on ahead to the firehouse alone to tell Janine to find a counter-spell that will return them to normal. Egon reasons that Dark will be able to track them wherever they go, so he says they'll be the distraction while Janine and Slimer do the reading.
- We Will Meet Again: The Ghostmaster hijacks the guys' TV to promise that he will be back.
- You Have Failed Me: After summoning the three bounty hunters, the Ghostmaster promises to greatly reward whoever succeeds and to severely punish the two that fail.
