"Can the darkness and the light share an immortal soul - without driving each other crazy?"
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (no given names used in this version) are antagonists in the 1975 Live Action Saturday Morning kids' series by Filmation, The Ghost Busters. As with most protagonists and as indicated by the show's title, they were ghosts, returned to the land of the living on a quest that placed them at loggerheads with the show's three heroes, Jake Kong, Eddie Spencer, and Tracey The Gorilla. They are featured in the show's eleventh episode, 'Jekyll & Hyde : Together, for the first time!'
As with most iconic fictional or historical figures used in this show, Jekyll and Hyde bear only a passing resemblance to the written sources. In this case, they are two separate spirits, however they were bound together in life. Secondly, instead of an amoral pleasure-seeker, Hyde is a rather dim caveman while Jekyll is an uptight snob with affectations of culture. Also, whatever he was in life, Dr. Jekyll is now a villain, seeking out someone else to pass on his burden of Hyde. His description of the needed recipient as someone with no personality almost marks it off as being hapless goofball hero Eddie Spencer.
Finding their way to the usual castle/mansion used in the series, the pair figure to find their target and use one of his personal items to complete the formula, while the Ghost Busters try and cipher out the vague instructions of their unseen employer, Zero. Trying to seek help from their bizarre filing system only leads to another reality-bending session with Tracy. Seeking out their opponents, both groups make for the cemetery adjacent to the villains' lair, where Hyde makes chit-chat with Eddie, both clueless as to who the other is. The villains make a pointless attempt to infiltrate the Ghost Busters office, the only result of which is to confirm Eddie as their target. The Ghost Busters confront the villains at their lair, which takes the dim Hyde out of the picture briefly (Tracy's trick literally places him on a bus) but seems to net Doctor Jekyll Eddie's wide-rimmed hat - just the personal possession he needs to complete his formula and transfer the burden of Hyde. At the last minute, however, Jekyll discovers that the incompetent Hyde used Tracy's Beany Cap, and since Tracy has a personality, some of that bounces back onto Jekyll (along with some facial fur) just before the Ghostbusters use their De-Materializer to banish the two. One more pain awaits Jake Kong, who sits down to discover Tracy's new hat - a spiked Prussian military helmet.
Trivia
- Doctor Jekyll was played by actor Severn Darden, known for his role as the school dean in the 1980's classic Real Genius and the villainous Human leader Governor Kolp in the final two Planet Of The Apes (first series) movies. (Sources Wikipedia and IMDB). He was also associated with Chicago's well-known Second City troupe.
- Mister Hyde, less of a menace and more of an annoyance here, is suitably played by comedian actor Joe E. Ross, known widely for his trademark 'Ooh-Ooh!', used in live action as the police partner of Fred (Herman Munster) Gwynne on Car 54, Where Are You?, and on cartoons such as Hong Kong Phooey and Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch.
- In this universe, the Robert Louis Stevenson story of The Strange Case Of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde seems not to exist, since Eddie does not know who the pair are, and Jake Kong recalls them only vaguely. Also, the reasons Jekyll had for creating the formula are alluded to but never spoken of.
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