The Haunting of Griffin Rock
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| "The Haunting of Griffin Rock" | ||||||
| Production company | Hasbro Studios | |||||
| Airdate | July 28, 2012 | |||||
| Writer | Steve Aranguren | |||||
| Director | Patrick Archibald | |||||
| Animation studio | Atomic Cartoons | |||||
Ghosts haunt and terrorize the residents of Griffin Rock.
Synopsis
Jerry is driving an armored truck through rough weather when he suddenly spots a spectral figure standing in the road. He swerves, crashing through a barrier and plunging from a cliff. The Burns family and their Rescue Bots are soon out searching and find Jerry clinging to rocks but no sign of the truck. Once Blades fishes Jerry out of the water, they question him and he claims to have see the ghost of the Lady of Griffin Rock.
The next morning, the Bots ask Cody to explain ghosts and he does his best, though Blades still doesn't want to meet one, having seen all the Haunted Halls movies. Cody's interrupted by a call from Frankie, who has seen Huxley Prescott's news report on the ghost and believes it's time to test Doc Greene's Spectral Vapor Filter. The pair meet at the Hall of Inspiration, where Frankie points out the portrait of Charlotte Wayne, the Lady of Griffin Rock. Cody takes a picture to show the driver, and Frankie hands him a Filter. When Cody arrives back at the station, Chief Burns is checking on Evan and Myles. Cody's attempts to tell the Chief about Charlotte are interrupted by a call from Russell at the bank, reporting a ghost. Cody gives the Chief the Filter before he takes the team to investigate.
The team arrives at the bank in time for the security system to seal off the building. The team are startled when a Ghost Soldier appears and floats into a vault. Boulder opens the vault but the soldier floats back out. To Blades's discomfort, the team splits up to follow it, but after it has a brief encounter with Heatwave, the team follows the ghost outside until it vanishes through a wall. Cody alerts them to the alarm at the bank, and the team rushes back to find the vault empty.
Cody alerts them to more trouble—there's reports of ghosts all over town! A ghost at the restaurant causes a fire which Heatwave and Kade put out, but Kade's startled by the ghost and flees. Another ghost scares people at a jewelery store and passes right through Boulder and Chase. Cody suggests using the Spectral Vapor Filter, but the device only holds the ghost temporarily. Kade reports that the register at the restaurant has been emptied. Prescott tries to interview a ghost, only to be frightened off. As he speeds away, the dish is clipped off his van by an overhanging tree, and Chase has to save a couple of bystanders from being flattened by it. Dani and Blades also have a close encounter with a ghost.
Frankie recognizes one of the ghosts on the news report and shows the picture to Doc Greene. They grab Cody and check out the portraits at the Hall of Inspiration, which all turn out to be the people who are appearing as ghosts. They're caught unawares by a ghost popping through the wall, and when Frankie uses her Spectral Vapor Filter on it, it only holds the ghost for a few seconds. Then they realize that it's just the hologram of Chester A. Arthur. This leads them down a new line of thinking, and the soon determine that the ghosts are appearing where there are hologram projectors. Among the holograms in the database are Evan and Myles.
Chief Burns soon determines that the pair are no longer locked up, having left holograms in their cells. Cody comes up with a plan, and Graham and Boulder are called off from the jewelery store. As Evan and Myles loot the store, the Rescue Bots surround the entrance with the help of hologram Bots. When the pair come up, along with their own hologram duplicates, they're swiftly chased down by Heatwave. Kade briefly see the Lady of Griffin Rock again and waves her off as a hologram.
Later, at the Hall of Inspiration, Frankie puts on a show of the holograms, as they were originally intended to be seen. Kade wonders where the Lady of Griffin Rock is, and Doc Greene points out she was never in the hologram database.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Humans | Others |
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Quotes
"There's not really any police protocol for this situation."
- —Charlie Burns on the limitations of policing.
"No! Don't split up! In scary movies, you never split up!"
- —Blades is genre savvy, but everyone else has already gone.
"This behavior is against the laws of physical science and polite society."
- —Chase
Notes
Animation and technical errors
Continuity errors
- How the heck did the two thieves manage to clean out the bank vault by themselves in that short a time? And how did they rob a restaurant while it was in fire?
- The character model for the Ghost Gangster was previously used during "The Alien Invasion of Griffin Rock" as one of the people trying to flee on the island's ferry. As the gangster is supposed to predate 1949, it's presumably not the same guy.
Continuity notes
- Evan and Myles previously appeared in "Small Blessings".
Real-world references
- The Spectral Vapor Filters bear more than a slight resemblance to the traps used by the Ghostbusters.
- Barney is an homage to Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show.
