The Ghost Ship

Title card

### Premiere

May 8, 1998 ("Pick an Ending" extended special)May 9, 1998 (normal 24-minute version)

### Runtime

33 minutes (original airing)
23 minutes and 48 seconds (reruns)

## Credits

### Writer(s)

Alan Johnson
David Fisherson
Tim Conner

## Features

### Commentary

Alan Johnson
David Fisherson
Tim Blackburn
Claudia Katz
Peter Avanzino
Tim Conner

## Navigation

### Previous

The Embarrassing Kid (airing order)
Bleep Mouth (production order)

### Next

Bleep Mouth (airing order)
Capguard on Duty (production order)

## Links

### Transcript

Click here to see transcript

**"The Ghost Ship"**, also known as **"Pick an Ending"**, is the twenty-first episode of the fourth season of Big Group, and the 80th episode overall. In this episode, Daniel, Wendy, Frank, and Alvin encounter The Evil Ghost, a ghostly pirate who seeks to acquire a new eternal crew to scare the residents of Sandwood Summers. As Daniel, Wendy and Frank do a poor job as his crew, the pirate considers devouring them instead, leading the three to try to figure out how to thwart his plan.

The episode, directed by Peter Avanzino and written by Alan Johnson, David Fisherson, and Tim Conner, and guest starring Kelsey Grammar as the host and the voice of The Evil Ghost, originally aired as a television special on May 8, 1998, and featured a poll where viewers can vote on the outcome of the episode; subsequent broadcasts have since shown a revised version which removed references to this voting feature. The episode received critical acclaim from online pop culture critics for its extensive and hilarious gags, and is generally considered one of the best episodes of the entire series. The original broadcast version was released on "The First 100 Episodes" DVD of the series in 2004 while the revised version was released on "The Complete Fourth Season" DVD set that same year.

## Trivia

### General

#### Original Airing

* This episode has two titles: "Pick an Ending" and "The Ghost Ship". The original Barry and Larry segments were called "The Cappies' Pick an Ending Spectacular Special", with "Pick an Ending" appearing within the beginning segment, and on the Season 4 DVD box set, the episode itself is listed as "Pick an Ending/The Ghost Ship"
* The original airing of this episode has a double-length of nearly 33 minutes.
* In the original airing, this episode stops at the point the Evil Ghost is deciding who will get the last ending, and Barry then tells viewers to call up and vote who the Ghost would pick. The winner was Wendy.
* On The First 100 Episodes DVD release of this episode and Disney+ (for a brief amount of time), the original title card bearing the phone number to call and vote now reads "Whoops! Missed it! Original 800 number as aired has been retired to Hank Azaria's locker!" The original phone number was 1-800-69-CAPPY (1-800-692-2779). Also, the title card font and color are completely different between the two versions.
* The Barry and Larry voting sequences are no longer played on the air. The commercial break warnings from the original airing were also removed, including on the VHS/DVD releases.

#### General

* **Fourth wall breaks:**
	+ In the original airings, before the voting screen comes up, Daniel shouts out "Curse you, voting polls!".
		- In reruns and on home media and Disney+, he keeps himself quiet.