Ghostbusters Hugely successful, science fiction/comedy movie, released in 1984 by Columbia Pictures and directed by Ivan Reitman. Ghostbusters features three parapsychologists who save New York City from the ancient Sumerian goddess Gozer. The film’s portrayal of paranormal phenomena, as well as the pseudo-Scientific equipment used to track and destroy ghosts and other evil manifestations, captured the public’s imagination and boosted the careers of parapsychologists and ghost investigators like LOYD AUERBACH. Additionally, the catchy title song, written and performed by Ray Parker Jr., immortalized the phrases “I ain’t ’fraid of no ghosts” and “Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!” The tune is a popular ring tone for cell phones belonging to countless paranormal investigators. Dan Aykroyd, one of the three ghostbusters and an alumnus of Saturday Night Live, originally wrote a wilder, more ambitious script as a vehicle for himself and fellow comic and friend John Belushi. Aykroyd pitched the idea to producer/director Reitman, who liked the concept but realized a plot featuring time travel into another dimension would be quite expensive. Aykroyd and friend Harold Ramis rewrote the script, visualizing Belushi, Eddie Murphy, and John Candy as the paranormal exterminators. Candy and Murphy had other commitments, however, and Belushi died tragically from a drug overdose. So the movie was cast with Aykroyd as Dr. Ray Stantz, an expert on metallurgy and the history of the supernatural; Ramis as Dr. Egon Spengler, a Scientific whiz, and Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman, a sleazy lounge lizard type who eventually showed his business savvy and persuasive good nature. Rick Moranis, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, William Atherton, and Ernie Hudson as the fourth ghostbuster, Winston Zeddemore, rounded out the cast. In brief, the plot is: Stantz, Venkman, and Spengler decide to start a ghost extermination business after they are fired from Columbia University. Spengler invents “proton packs”: portable electromagnetic energy producers to destabilize and capture the ghosts and a “containment grid” to store the paranormal waste. Business is nil until the team is called to investigate ghostly perturbations at the Sedgewick Hotel, where they encounter Slimer, a globule of green Ectoplasm with an attitude. The hotel is cleansed of paranormal interference but with a lot of damage to the facilities. The media coverage is priceless, however, and business soars. Meanwhile, the ancient Sumerian goddess Gozer (somewhat similar to the Mesopotamian deity Tiamit) is rapidly absorbing enough psychic energy to return to earth and establish her Demonic kingdom. The entry portal is an apartment building supposedly designed by the insane World War I surgeon Ivo Shandor that will attract the necessary super- 192 Ghostbusters natural forces. By the time of the movie, Gozer’s doglike monsters, Zuul the Gatekeeper and Vinz Clortho the Keymaster, have already broken through—in tenant Dana Barrett’s (Sigourney Weaver) refrigerator. Seeing the coverage of the Sedgewick Hotel, she calls the ghostbusters. There are the usual setbacks and roadblocks thrown up by meddling inspectors and petty government offi – cials, but eventually the team confronts Gozer and her minions head on. The Demon challenges the ghostbusters (four now) to choose a shape for her evil to be personified as, and Stantz unwittingly thinks of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. The final battle, necessitating crossing the energy streams emitted by the proton packs (an untested last resort), pits the ghostbusters against a giant marshmallow figure in a sailor suit walking like Godzilla through the streets of Manhattan. The Demon is defeated in a rain of melted marshmallow goo. Ghostbusters spawned an entire industry, with a sequel, Ghostbusters II: River of Slime, in 1989, two cartoon series, video games, books, and comic books. Ghostbusters was the most profitable comedy of the 1980s, and although less successful, GB II was one of the comedy hits of the year. Distributor Columbia Pictures licensed the spin-offs and other products, including action figures and school lunch boxes. The cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters ran for seven seasons, from 1986 to 1991. Ray Parker Jr. received an Academy Award nomination for his memorable and bouncy song. The video, featuring Parker, the cast, and cameos of stars confirming that “who they were gonna call” were the Ghostbusters, helped establish the MTV cable television channel devoted to music videos and was considered a key production in music video’s early days. The plot of GB II reunited the entire cast and featured the addition of Peter MacNicol as an art conservator who was restoring the portrait of a cruel 16th-century Moldavian prince, Vigo the Carpathian. In the five years since the first film, Dana Barrett had had a baby boy, Oscar, and Vigo uses MacNicol’s character, Janosz Poha, to kidnap Oscar so that Vigo can use the boy’s body to reincarnate. Meanwhile, the ghostbusters—hampered by lawsuits and injunctions forbidding them to reopen their business after the earlier fi asco—discover a “river” of pink slime under Manhattan that responds aggressively to anger and violence and calmly to positive images and upbeat music. In order to defeat Vigo and rescue Oscar, the Ghostbusters blast Jackie Wilson’s song “Higher and Higher” all over the city and cause the Statue of Liberty to magically walk through the streets (à la Mr. Stay-Puft) to the art museum, which is totally covered by an impermeable crust of slime. The combination of music and Miss Liberty cracks the crust, and the ghostbusters save Oscar just in time from sacrifice. When the dust settles, Vigo’s malevolent portrait has been replaced by one of the ghostbusters and Oscar. Ramis and Aykroyd reportedly have tried to write a script for Ghostbusters III for years with little success, and over that time Bill Murray has declined to make a third appearance. Ramis was reportedly working on Ghostbusters in Hell with Ben Stiller replacing Murray. The Ghostbusters franchise may have influenced more than just movies and related products, perhaps contributing to an increase in the number of psychics on TV and the public’s general acceptance of paranormal phenomena. Ghost investigator Loyd Auerbach reported that even one of the spirits he encountered feared being blasted with a proton pack. The Ghostbuster films probably also contributed to the increase in paranormal research groups and activities and media coverage of them. Of course, the supernatural has always been a popular plot contrivance for films, plays, and books, going back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and a host of other works where things go bump in the night. In 1940, Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard starred in The Ghost Breakers, in which Hope saves Goddard from criminals trying to scare her away from treasure hidden in her family’s ancestral home, the Castillo Maldito, or “castle of evil.” During filming of the first Ghostbusters, Columbia Pictures learned that Filmation had produced a show for CBS-TV in 1975 by the same name featuring comedians Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch. But the ancestor most like Ghostbusters is a Walt Disney animated short entitled Lonesome Ghosts, released in 1937, in which three bored Apparitions phone ghost hunters Mickey, Donald, and Goofy and lure them to a haunted house where they are teased, taunted, and provoked.

FURTHER READING:

Ghost Breakers, The (1940). Internet Movie Database. Available online. URL: www.imdb.com/tktle/tt0032520. Downloaded June 3, 2006.

“Jeezy Creezy . . . More GB3 News.” Ghostbusters HQ. Available online. URL: www.ghostbustershq.com. Downloaded March 28, 2007.

The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits– Written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley – September 1, 2007