Morgan Le Fay (The Ghost Busters)

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Morgan Le Fay

Morgan Le Fay was an antagonist on the 1975 Saturday Morning Live Action kids show The Ghost Busters. version of the legendary Arthurian sorceress, she appeared on the show's fourteenth episode "Merlin The Magician", appropriate, considering the episode featured her pursuing fellow ghosts Merlin and Jester Gronk for reasons that are never really made clear, but do seem to involve harming them in some way.

As the story opens, Merlin and Gronk appear in the series's stock cemetery, and rue the fact that Merlin's magic is not what it once was (and, it is heavily implied, that it never was all that great) and as a result, the two ghosts cannot get back to the afterlife, where Merlin is certain their act would be a big hit with their old friends from Arthur's court. After Merlin and Gronk make for the series' standard castle/mansion, Morgan appears, vowing to finish the two off when the moment is right.

The Ghost Busters HQ finds Jake Kong losing his patience with Eddie Spencer and Tracy The Gorilla yet again, leading the latter two to fetch their assignment from Zero. The assignment recording mentions Merlin and Gronk, but not Morgan. After being unable to figure out what Merlin might want, the two groups encounter each other at the cemetery. To Jake's surprise, Merlin and Gronk love the idea of him using the Ghost De-Materializer on them. However, the incompetent Merlin accidentally causes the De-Materializer to vanish. Back at the Ghostbusters' office, the group waits hours as Merlin can barely make a rabbit appear, let alone bring back the De-Materializer. Sensing her opportunity to be rid of the whole bunch, Morgan sends a note via magic saying that she has the De-Materializer at the castle. Her implied plan is to kill the Ghost Busters, then bind all the hero group's spirits to that castle for eternity.

The group's efforts to break down the castle doors prove futile and then pointless - Gronk didn't lock the door last time he left. Though in context it seemed like a bluff, Morgan does indeed prove to possess the De-Materializer, but stops most in their tracks by entrancing them, a spell which cannot be broken while they gaze upon her face. Tracy, unaffected by Human attraction concepts, throws a cream pie in Morgan's face, obscuring the view of her face and breaking the spell. She is dispatched with the recovered De-Materializer. Though Merlin claims to have mastered the spell to return Gronk and himself to the afterlife, when the Ghost Busters return to their office, the two are still on the Earth plane, so Jake banishes them just to get some peace and quiet.

While both Morgan's power and competence seem greater than Merlin's (if not also most of the villains on this series), this seems to be only on the surface. A spell she uses to pluck Tracy from the group of heroes instead pulls in the whole group. She also merely threatens them in several situations where in theory, she could easily finish them off or trap them. Finally, though she tried to summon Tracy to her side, she seemingly had no means to control him, since he proved unaffected by her glamours. This might have been reflected in Merlin and Gronk's attitude towards her, all along being more concerned with making it to the afterlife than any threat she might pose.

Trivia

• Ina Balin, who played Morgan, had a long and varied Television and Film career according to IMDB. But her crowning cultural mark was (according to series producer Christy Marx) being the model for the character of Jerrica in the 1980's action/music series Jem.
• Carl Ballantine, who played Merlin, started as a stage magician who specialized in spectacular flubs that he played for laughs, making him a natural for this role. He was most noted for his role as a regular on the 1960's World War Two sitcom, McHale's Navy, as Lester Gruber.
• Huntz Hall, who played Jester Gronk, was a second fiddle most of his life. As one of The Dead End Kids, he starred with the likes of Cagney and Bogart, such as in 1938's Angels With Dirty Faces. Later on, he was in the long-running Bowery Boys series of goofball comedies. This was the second of two roles Hall played in this short-lived series.