Case File 104: Ghostbusters

Welcome to Rogues Gallery. For every other week, we investigate pop cultures' most memorable villains, anti-heroes, and misunderstood monsters to find out how they make being bad. Looks so good. I'm Kristen. I'm Mike. And I'm Chris. And on this episode, we're opening up a case file on all the spooks, specters, and ghosts from the seminal 1984 action

horror comedy Ghostbusters. After discovering a way to trap supernatural entities, a group of quirky down on their luck scientists start a ghost hunting business. As they deal with rising levels of paranormal activity, they uncover a plot that threatens to unleash something very, very strange on their neighborhood. Something weird, and it don't look good. So the Ghostbusters must band together to save New York from an all-out ghostly invasion and answer the question, who you're going to call.

But before we strap on our proton packs and clean up the town, a quick announcement. As we mentioned a few episodes back, this is our season finale. We're going to take a little bit of time off, but we'll be back on February 12th. So mark your calendars, make sure you're subscribed, follow us on social media, whatever you got to do. And as we wind this down, I just want to say I am particularly proud of this season. I hope

you both are as well. You've done amazing work. You make me laugh. You make me think. And I am so happy for the opportunity to do this with you. Regardless of whatever else is going on out there. And no matter how much I might be dragging my feet sometimes about having to record, once we're here, once I'm sitting at this table with you both, I always wind up

feeling so grateful for this experience. So let's bring this one home. Now, look, when it comes to the third reconciliation of the last of the mechetric supplicants, of course, we're Shubs, not slores. So let's begin by establishing our familiarity with this week's subject with a background check. Mike, this question seems so simple, but so overwhelming.

What is your history with Ghostbusters? Ghostbreakers was that I'm not familiar. So I think I've mentioned this on the podcast or other podcasts before, but this was a pretty seminal part of my childhood. So my earliest memories are from inside a toy chest shaped like a big football, because I always like small spaces watching this movie and part two taped off of HBO in the wrong order with about three seconds of the Phil Donahue

show in between. Little palette cleansing. Yeah, it is like, okay, you've seen Vigo. Here's little Donahue. Let's go to gozer. I've been doing it like Michael Eisner used to introduce. It's just Donahue introducing Ghostbusters in the wrong order. Yeah. So like I that's one of those tapes that I like wore out to the point where as a teenager when I finally got it on DVD, there were things I didn't recognize because the

tape I had watched so much was so worn out. I was like, oh, that's a library. That's what that sign says. But no, like this, this has been a huge part of my life and growing up. There was a period as a child that I for about a solid year because of this franchise. I was like, I don't care what I do when I grow up. I just want to wear jumpsuit. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's a really pan out. You can still wear jumpsuit. Yeah, occasionally.

This was one of the things that I most often dressed up for for Halloween for years. I still occasionally will do a Ghostbusters riff in a costume as a teenager. I did both a proton pack and a slime blower homemade on both of those counts. More recently, I've done Super Mario as a Ghostbusters really getting wild with it. But yeah, no, this franchise

means a lot to me. I think in some ways, even because art can influence your point of you in the world, it kind of has instilled in me this idea of you don't have to necessarily be the smartest or strongest. If you're just like, I'm going to do my job and do my best to do what's right. That's kind of the message I took away from it. But yeah, it's a really important thing to me. Also growing up the cartoons meant a lot. I've got a lot of

opinions on that when we get to it. But yeah, this is one of those ones that it's really hard to look at this, the first two films at least super objectively because it's just very deep in my bones. Kristen, there are only two movies I remember distinctly from my childhood wanting desperately to watch, but also wanting to run from the room the second the title was mentioned. Oh, that's so good. That's so scary. One being the Wizard of

Oz. Okay. Yeah. Which, and the second being Ghostbusters. I don't know when I saw this for the first time, but I do know that the library ghost traumatized me. I refused to watch it for years, always choosing to start the movie after that scene was over. Or I would tell my brother like, okay, you call me in when she's gone. Did he ever time it so that it's like right when she. That's the big brother move for sure. Despite that,

this was an IP that my brother and I shared a love for. We would play Ghostbusters constantly. I think I've mentioned the game compromise before. Yes. Everybody's favorite childhood game. Got a lot of that game compromise. We each got to choose a toy and we had to mush them together. Dave most often chose Ghostbusters. So the barbies played with the Ghostbusters, the My Little Sput shot played with the Ghostbusters. Yeah, we've talked about this for sure, because

it's the scale that bothers me. Yes. Are the Ghostbusters taking care of the 50-foot women? Is that the story? Yeah, I didn't have a lot of toys that were to scale with action figures. Like, micro machines and My Little Sput shot. Great. We're good. But the Ghostbusters probably rode the little ponies. That's how you get to the Ecto 1 broke down. We have to ride these horses. That's a good thing. We have this stable of magical ponies. I get,

you know what, there's a Ghostbusters way to make that work. There it is. Okay. So we had the proton packs. We watched the cartoon. I loved Slimer, which is a weird thing for like a little girl to be like, oh, he's so cute. I mean, that's kind of what his purpose was in the cartoon. My brother had the headquarters and the slime. Yeah. And he argued for literal decades that those Ghostbusters toys would be a collector's

item one day. You know, the ones that we took out of the box played with vigorously and then dumb slime on and probably tore off their arms. Those collectors are just items. Okay. So he had the firehouse. Yes. I did too. And it came with the big canister of ooze to drop down it. Did he do that? Yes. See, I was the kid that was like, I'm not ruining the firehouse. Yeah. That container of ooze is going to stay sealed. So my parents

recently moved houses. Those Ghostbusters toys and the headquarters were definitely still in the basement when they moved. And I'm fairly certain they are now in my brother's basement. I don't think he didn't throw them out. He's going to be buried with those. Yeah. It'll be his. That's his Pharaoh's tomb. Yes. And the casket with him. There will be his wedding album. And the Ghostbusters house. I always, my cousins had that. And I

always loved it because it was like finally a playset that can be any location. Oh, yeah. It's just like a building. Yep. And so many play sets were like weirdly too specific and had like all these gimmicks that were just gotten away. I was like, no, I could just be in a city building and that that always made me happy. Yeah. That's where all the super villains and their thugs set up shop when I played Batman. Exactly. When I made Batman

movies, that was obviously I couldn't have any actual bat mobiles. So we did a lot of miniatures. And then that again, it's like, oh, so they're all just hanging out in this building again. So when I got, um, okay, well, yeah, I mean, when was Ghostbusters not a part of my life? It was so omnipresent in my childhood that I can't even reliably say which came first the movie or the cartoon. I mean, chronologically, I'm saying for me.

I'm pretty sure it's a document. Yeah, I think you can look this up. But what I do know is that as far as formative media goes, this is definitely in the bad rock, the movie, the cartoon, the song, the toys. Oh, my goodness gracious. The toys. So let me set the scene for you. It's the year after my parents got divorced. I'm five years old. My mom's

job transfers her to New York. All of our family is back here in Illinois. So she's now a recently divorced single mom with two little kids living in a brand new state where she doesn't know a single person. And one of her kids, this one right here, is pretty upset and confused about why dad's not around anymore. Annie's taking it out on her. So she felt really bad. And as the holidays rolled around, it's our first Christmas without

dad. It's our first holiday season without extended family around. Mom wants to make sure this one is really special for my sister and I. And what I wanted more than anything that Christmas was a proton pack, preferably a real one, but I'd also settle for a toy. So I had been, I'd taken this glittery baton that my sister had tied a jump rope to it, stuffed it into my school backpack. That was my makeshift proton pack that I ran around

pretending I was a ghost buster with. But so it was pretty clear what was at the top of my Christmas list that year. Christmas morning arrives and mom had gone all out. The action figures, the ECHTO one. If the firehouse wasn't part of that batch, it came shortly after. And looking back on that now, we did not have the money for that or rather what money she did have, you know, there are probably other very pressing concerns, but her main

concern that year was me and my sister. And so the last two boxes I opened were the ghost trap and the proton pack, which I think also came with the PKE meter. If it didn't, she got that as well. So I was all set and I couldn't wait to try it on. There's a photo of me. If I can find it, we'll post it. I'm in front of the Christmas tree wearing my Star Trek, the next generation pajamas, wearing my proton pack and striking a pose, but I

am not posing for a photo. If you look at my face, I'm not paying attention to the camera. I'm just like, oh my god, power. This picture is seared in my memory of anytime you tell like a story of your childhood, I pictured that Chris. I picked up that exact picture because I've seen it so many times. It's so cute. I like to imagine that like goes into your teenage years. And then I had my first kids and you just like a little proton pack.

My Star Trek pajamas. So we have this incredible Christmas morning and then Mom says, okay, it's time to get dressed, go to church. And I start throwing a fit because I don't want to take the proton pack off. The only way my mom could get me to agree to put on my stupid little suit and go to church was if I could wear my proton pack over it. Why did for you to say that? So that's what I did. I just strolled into church like sup.

I'm here for the Holy Ghost. That's not when you're supposed to buzz. And I'm the one hand. Sorry, mom. That's one of a thousand things I've apologized for later in life. But on the other hand, I hope there was at least some small part of her that thought, okay, well, I wanted to make sure they had a good Christmas and look at this. It's almost gone too well. I did too good a job. Yeah. It was really good Ghostbusters 2 cosplay for the courtroom.

Right. Oh, okay. Just ahead of my time. So Ghostbusters is not just a movie I adore. It's something I associate with that time in my life, living in New York with my mom in my sister andlessly rewatching our VHS copy of this, getting up when it was still dark out on Saturday mornings to watch the cartoon, running around with other kids from the neighborhood, pretending we were the Ghostbusters, renting, but never beating that ridiculously

hard Nintendo game. Oh, yeah. Listening to the LP of the soundtrack, which I still have. Kristen and I just got a new record player. I have the original vinyl pressing of the Ghostbusters soundtrack. So anyways, really bittersweet, but ultimately really special time in my life. I aged out of the whole Ghostbusters thing fairly quickly. It's not a property I clung to as I got older, although it would be really something if I still insisted on wearing a proton pack to like jury duty or something.

I have to go to our nieces, baptism, hiring a proton pack. Don't wear a gas cover because anything happens. That would be a good way to get out of jury duty, though. Not this guy. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, the junior Ghostbusters that I'm thinking, no, he can go home. Yes. Yeah. And, you know, the client is a marshmallow man. So it seems like he's going to be a little biased. I'm slick to be interested. But yeah, I still look

back on all of this with so much love and affection. This is a foundational film for me. No question. And yet I don't really rewatch it that often because when something's been a part of you and your life for this long, when you know it this well, it's almost like, well, I don't have to watch it. It's in my DNA. Yeah. And for that reason, it's been a minute since I've seen this. And I've been looking forward to breaking this down and

talking about what that was like. So let's get to work on our case file. As always, we'll begin with causative trauma. Let's start with Dan Ackroyd, whose fascination with the paranormal goes way back. His great grandfather, Samuel, was actually a spiritualist who held sayances and studied the afterlife. And he had such a fascinating entry point into all of that. He was a dentist. And this was in the 1930s. So no topical anesthetics. That

wasn't a thing yet. So pain management was a real concern for dentists in this era. Samuel reads about other dentists using hypnosis to help relax their patients. He starts researching that. And as he does, he begins to wonder if such a state might make you a viable conduit for communicating with the spirit realm. Natural logical progression. We need people

like this. I'm down for hypnotism at the dentist, man. I had a good cavity filled recently and then immediately go to work and like half my face is numb and talk weird the whole day. Can you imagine if just like snap your fingers, you're out and you're not drooling? That's great. But then you think you're a chicken the rest of the day. Hmm. I mean, pros cons. Yeah. So he gets deep into this stuff decides he wants to start

holding weekly sayances at the family farm. And he kept journals documenting all of those experiences more than a quarter of a century's worth of notes. Those journals were passed down from one generation to the next Dan accurate and his brothers later published them. So you can read them and find out about how they were talking to all kinds of spirits. Native Americans, Egyptian princes, someone from the Ming dynasty, even Samuel's own

great grandfather makes an appearance or two. But it wasn't just the journals being passed down. It was the fascination with all of this. So Samuel's son Maurice, he was a telephone engineer and he thought he could build a device that allowed you to hear the voices of ghosts through radio frequencies sort of early EVP type stuff. He was never able to get it to work. Actually, the reason he finally gave up on it was that a ghost told him he was

wasting his time presumably through a sayon's. Yeah. Because if it's coming through the device. Yeah. It's like that time I saw somebody yelling that he didn't eat a cell phone into a cell phone. It was like that's not a good way to win this argument, man. Where would I ever use it? But so that's Dan Acroid's grandpa. And so he passes all of the journals, all of this other literature about spirits in the afterlife down to his son Peter, Dan

Acroid's dad, dad Acroid, who of course then passes it down to Dan. So Dan Acroid's character Ray may be the heart of the Ghostbusters team, but Dan Acroid is truly the soul of this entire franchise. None of this exists without two thakes, cavities, you have a co-creator credit on these movies. That's insane. That is definitely not a connection I would have ever considered. It would be wild if you had. Almost as wild as jumping from hypnotism

to conduit of spirits. After Dan Acroid establishes himself on Saturday Night Live, both as a performer and as a writer, he's hanging out in that family farmhouse one day doing some light reading of a parapsychology journal. There's an article about quantum physics and parapsychology. And it makes him wonder what if we could actually trap ghosts? I love when Dan Acroid tells this story because he's like, I was reading the parapsychology journal

and quantum physics and he's like, and I just knew, bam, that's it. That's the movie. As if everybody listening is also going to be like, yes, completely. Obviously. He was not taking any substances at the time. So he starts to imagine a world where Ghostbusting is an actual job, like a new kind of exterminator. And naturally, given his background in comedy,

he's thinking, how can I make this funny? How do I marry these two things? Acroid was a huge fan of the old Ghost comedies from the 30s and 40s where Abbott and Castello or Bob Hope would bumble their way through haunted houses and face off against supernatural entities. So chasing a similar vibe, he starts hammering out a treatment for what would become Ghostbusters. This initial version, bat shit, bat F and S. It's set in the future.

Others are rift in the fabric of reality. Other dimensions begin seeping into ours. New York becomes a hotbed for these interdimensional beings. And that's created the need for a new type of pest control service industry, paranormal exterminators. And this all happens prior to the events of the film. This is the opening crawl that establishes the status quo. And in this version, with the ghost busting industry booming, our main characters are just

one team out of hundreds. And the expectation was that like the Blues Brothers, this would be another vehicle for himself and John Belushi. So Acroid brings this to director Ivan Reitman. They sit down for lunch, go over everything that Acroid's generated so far. And Reitman says, yeah, there is definitely something to this concept. But that what Acroid

had written would be impossible to film. A lot of it takes place in outer space. The entire final act takes place in another dimension where every single thing on screen except the Ghostbusters would be a special effect. So Reitman suggests they take a different approach. He starts imagining something a lot more grounded, set in the present day and just one team of Ghostbusters. Because this shouldn't be an established industry, it should be an origin

story about the guys who start this business. He also thought that would be a more natural way to introduce the audience to the science behind all of this, explain how everything works. And Mike, you've talked about this a lot in regards to other films we've covered. Reitman's domino theory when it comes to the suspension of disbelief. Yeah, that it's like literally in the first version of the script, page five, Marshmallow

Man is there. And it's like, no, we have to build up to that. So you can believe there's a ghost in a library. They're taking readings of it. They're using those readings to build equipment. You see some other Ghost. You see bigger Ghost. You see a more more of a variety

of Ghosts. You have the Ecto containment unit blow up. Then you see Ghosts and it's not until the end we've seen all these little steps up in like crazy things terror dogs that you can like kind of believe like, Oh, I've gotten to the point where I'm accepting a hundred foot tall Marshmallow Man, right? Where you got from a ghost story that could be in a conjuring movie to begin with and just domino it up.

I don't know why it like the choice to go from I'm reading this book. Oh, I should write a movie about Busting Ghosts to then it has to be in space with Internet of Mentional Beans like we have Ghost here. I love his wild imagination. And as we're going to see in just a minute here, there is a benefit to putting the that kitchen sink writer like kitchen sink of ideas pairing that with someone who's really good at like, okay, you just

threw out a hundred things. I'm going to take the 10 that we can make work. Exactly. And right man says he knows that guy. He knows exactly who they should take this to to bring it more in line with this more grounded version. Harold Ramos. And so they go straight from this lunch they're having. They just walk right over to see Harold Ramos. And right man says, not only do I think you can help Danny rewrite this, I think you should be the

third ghost buster. Ramos flips through the stuff. Acroids generated so far as they are pitching him on, you know, oh, and maybe we take it more in this direction. And it's like within minutes that Harold Ramos is like, I'm in. I'm totally on board for this. At this point, even though they haven't started reworking the script yet, they've got enough to peak the interest of Columbia pictures. They're ready to back the project,

but they need a number. How much is all of this going to cost? And Ivan right man, he just arbitrarily says 30 million. He had no idea. He'd never done a movie of this scale, but he had just made that movie stripes for about 10 million and thought, yeah, about three times that budget seems right. And this is at a point in time, keep in mind, where there

are no big special effects comedies. No, comedies were made for under for 10 million or under because conventional thinking was they had a pretty shallow ceiling on them when it came to box office returns. But this largely came down to the talent involved right man as a director who had some heat on him. And the three leads that were attached, Bill Murray in particular, who we'll talk about shortly, that's what they were banking on. This is May of 1983

that this conversation is happening. Columbia says, okay, you've got your 30 million if you can get this in theaters by June of next year. And right man's like, I guess we better start writing the script. So Dan Ackroyd, Harold Raimus, Ivan Reitman, they all had out to Martha's Vineyard to do exactly that. And they all described this as just an unbelievable

experience. They were all completely in sync creatively. And both Reitman and Raimus said that Ackroyd was totally receptive to them, just completely dismantling his original story, reassembling it. He never got defensive or protective about any aspect of it. Because he knew his strengths and weaknesses as a writer. So two of the biggest changes they made during this process were turning the main characters into scientists, reshaping it into

that origin story that Reitman pushed for. And then also really making sure that each of the Ghostbusters were distinct from one another. So this is where the idea emerges that Ray is the heart, Egon is the brain, Peter is the mouth. And it's through these sessions that it becomes the movie that we know it as today. And very quickly too, it's astonishing how fast they cobbled together the first draft of this and how close that

version is to what winds up on screen. And it's just kind of crazy to imagine what might have happened if someone else had jumped on this before Ivan Reitman because all of his instincts about what this needed. I mean, look, it's fun to imagine a movie that's

more like Acroids original version. And there is certainly an argument to be made for beginning in media res with some stories that Ghostbusters video game from 2009 actually it takes that approach where you're a new recruit joining the team and having everything

explained to them something like that would have worked in film as well. But as far as the elements of this that really seem to resonate with audiences, even if they could have figured out a more affordable way to do something closer to that original version, I'm not sure the movie makes as large a cultural imprint. Yeah, I think the fact that it feels like, oh, this could happen tomorrow. Somebody could set up the shop. Maybe they have proof of ghost and, you know, as the plot of the movie

has the ghost activity increases the size of the Twinkie gets really big. So the idea that, oh, this could be an industry if the technology is developed and also ghosts increase and being able to buy in and especially as a kid being able to imagine yourself as a ghostbuster in a much more grounded way. That's again, one of the things that as a kid, I related to the most was that I knew I was never going to be he man. I was never even

going to be sure like homes. I'm like, I'm not a dumb kid, I'm not that smart. But like, I could put on a jumpsuit in a proton pack and aim it at a ghost that I could do. Well, and even as a kid, the idea that like ghosts are real was way more like believable. So it was almost like, we just haven't gotten here yet. This is going to happen, right? Because I mean, yeah, there are ghosts and I guarantee ones in my basement.

I wanted to have a ghost so much as a kid. I talked about, oh, the Phantom did something. And I think my mom thought it was like me trying to get away with stuff. It was just me wishing I had a ghost. I was like, oh, no, the Phantom moved that. It's like, my call is like, I just wanted it to be a Phantom. I moved it. Was the ghost in your basement the reason that's where you kept the toys? It's the car monster toys. Little scarecrow.

Well, so we all read up on the details of that original treatment. So, Kristen, if you could pick one aspect of it to integrate into the finished film, what would it be? Would there be one? I don't want to change this any second of this film at all. Never. Don't touch it. Leave my film alone. What are you doing to my movies? Yeah, I mean, so many of the fantastical elements, I could see as like the jumping off point

for a different sequel or something. I think the only thing is that idea of like you said that mentioned the Ghostbusters 3 game. I think there is a version of the first movie being it's our world except there are Ghostbusters. Could be an interesting way to take it on. And yeah, again, have it be like maybe the Winston character is just the new guy and that's how

we learn all the technology. I think that could be interesting because one of the elements and I'm sure we'll talk about more later that I like later on in the movie is the idea of they're not it's not even novel to them anymore. They're just tired. Yeah. And it's also a reason I really like the the first sequel so much is that it's like, oh, they're coming back, but it's like, well, it's just getting back to work as opposed

to like this brand new thing. But yeah, I think that would be the only thing because I don't I don't even have helmets or spaceships or any of that stuff. Yeah, that's that's not for me. So before we move on to the next section, I also want to quickly go over the legal shenanigans regarding the name Ghostbusters. They were pretty deep into this when someone realized there was a children's show from the mid 70s called the Ghostbusters, which was owned by Universal.

So there's all this back and forth trying to get permission to use it and they're filming the movie and because they didn't know if they be able to clear the use of that title, a lot of scenes were filmed multiple times with alternate dialogue and signage ghost breakers, ghost smashers. And so there are clips of them filming the TV commercial that were ready to believe you thing where it's like they have to do a different take for each name.

And the sign over the door of the firehouse. Okay, we got that take what the Ghostbusters sign take that one down, put up ghost breakers. Let's go again. And it's just a wild to imagine because obviously things change while you're filming, but even like the profession of the character

you're playing having a different name to take, it must have been wild. And then there was one point where they're shooting, you know, in the third act with the whole crowd chanting ghostbusters, ghostbusters that someone involved with the production got on the phone and was like, okay, look, we've got all of these extras, hundreds of people chanting ghostbusters, you have

to clear this name. So, and this is so typical of the way the film industry works. The guy at Columbia Pictures who greenlit this movie, Frank Price, by the time they started shooting, he'd parted ways with Columbia and was now working at Universal Pictures. So now it was up to him to decide if Columbia had permission to use the name, which of course he granted. Let me think about it. And so that's why this is Ghostbusters. Thank goodness because the

alternatives were terrible. There wasn't a single one that I was like, oh, that would have worked. Like ghost smashers, I'm not going into the crowd damn it. The only remnant of that is of course the blowjob scene. That's a ghost smash right there. I had the same thought, but I also was trying to picture. But if I lived in a world where my childhood was ghost smashers and we're sitting here recording this podcast going like, can you believe the

original title was ghostbusters that that would sound just as silly? Because that's not the one we grew up with. I do wonder. But yeah, it is just like, there's something to the flow. Like there's a reason that other show was named that. Right. Because like, yeah, they had a bunch of, you know, the inspiration, the Abbott and Castello type ghost movies of the 20s and 30s and 40s and the Bob Hope stuff had other like similar names, ghost chasers

and that kind of thing. But yeah, there is something there is something to ghostbusters. I think the two ST sounds just it's something crisp about it. Yeah. I get ghost chasers. I think I could have gotten behind the ghost smashers. Ghost smash. Chasers though, it's like, but that so they don't catch them. They just went around where they are. Yeah. So it's so it's. Uh, we're humane. Yeah. Right. Right. So this whole ordeal is also why

they're wound up being two different ghostbusters cartoons airing at the same time. But we're going to get to that a little later. Do we want to do the thing where we pitch out in the titles? We don't have to. Spook scares. That's the only thing that occurred to me. It was like they got they it was all ghost was fixed. It was what came after as opposed to what about like what if we keep busters? Yeah. Spectral busters. I think. Boo buster.

Oh, no, because then it just looks like boob boob. I'm a boob you stir. I know what the hell that is, but it sounds great. Spirit central. Spirit. That's the only. Yeah. Okay. We're done. Spirit Halloween. Moving on. Oh, but speaking of locations, do you know the supposed Chicago connection to the to the to the plot and the writing of the script?

I'm all being from second city. I mean, that's part of it. But because they were all part of second city, they heard some stuff in the 70s around the John Hancock center being built. And there was a lot of weird conspiracy theories at the time that that building was satanic. One of the big reasons is that it has kind of a trapezoidal shape famously.

It's like for wind resistance and that kind of stuff. But people are like that means it's a portal to hell that trapezoid is evil like crazy early like hysteria satanic panic stuff. And there's all sorts of things, but you know, it's only a block away from where Alistair Crowley lived at one point. And all these things. And then later on in the 80s, because they're like weird things that happen throughout the building. And later on people who lived in

the building. So there's there's this like weird lore. If you look deep into the history of that building. And as that was developing, that was something that that Ray Miss and especially Acroid would have heard about. And it's said to be part at least like perhaps a kernel of the idea for Spook Central was that like what if there was just a building that was designed to be evil? Suddenly the leap from the dentist making the leap from hypnosis

to conduit is that is not that absurd. That one doesn't seem as nuts. I'm just picturing geometry. The trapezoid is evil. My mom says I can't study trapezoids because they were getting way to hell. I had so I would just school with a couple of girls whose moms told them they couldn't do what we had called free reading because the teacher said like you know, read whenever the spirit moves you and they're like, well, clearly she's trying

to possess you with an evil spirit. So we couldn't do that anymore. So I'm just picturing the same two girls. They're mom being like trapezoids are evil. So you're used from geometry. I know I'm too old to use this, but we're cooked man. We grew up with that kind of thinking. The spirit moves you like we don't mean a literal ghost. That would be a lot funnier if

you were. That's we're living that now. So the last thing I want to mention here before I hand this over to Kristen, we're going to talk more in depth about the production very soon. But I thought a fitting way to close out this section would be my favorite anecdote from the first day of filming. The first time Ivan Reitman saw the ghost busters

in costume. He's standing on a street in New York with the crew setting up a shot. He turns around and coming down the sidewalk are his lead actors in their full regalia for the first time jumpsuits proton packs the whole nine yards. And as they're walking towards him, he realizes, holy shit, this is going to work. All right. Well, that's how these spirits were summoned. Let's take a closer look at our first free floating full torso

of vaporous apparition in initial transgression. Poor librarian Alice played by Alice Drummond is just trying to finish her shift at the New York Public Library reshelving books. As Alice makes her way into the stacks, we the audience see some spooky shit going on behind her back. What's it the conjuring episode where I was talking about how funny it is that ghosts and movies always seem to understand three extra structure. They know they can't

come out swinging right out of the gate. There has to be like this steady escalation. And along those same lines, the number of times they're doing things that the characters can't see. So it's seemingly just for us, the viewers at home. So this part with the books flying past as Alice walks through the stacks. That's just the ghost entertaining itself. It's just bad timing. They meant to pull the books in front of her, but she already she

just kept walking. Oh, see, I was going to say I admire it. It's like this is a complete lack of ego. It's doing it for the sake of doing it, not because you need anyone else to validate it. But no, just bad timing. Haunt like nobody's watching. Yeah. Crochet that on a pillow. And then the card catalog basically explodes behind her that the drawers

come out the cards go flying. This was also done practically by just having a fake wall through which people were behind the wall pushing the drawers open and then had tubes of air through those drawers, sprain air and making the cards go flying. They made it in three takes. That was going to be my next question. I mean, I know they had to do like, they couldn't do many takes for any of the shots in this movie, but that's a real pain

in the ass to reset. Well, that's the thing is they had to pick up all those cards and put them back for each take. So yeah, just three. Why are we doing this in alphabetical order? Nobody's going to be able to see it, but we need the the the verse of Militude for Alice. One day they'll have like 16,000 K TVs. We'll be able to see it. Oh, actually,

this isn't a doy decimal system. I don't know if this is a stupid question. I just kept thinking about like if this were you and I and we were filming on set somewhere, you would have to put them back in alphabetical order because that's a set like or that's I mean, that was a real library is probably aren't real card catalogs. That would be my guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm thinking a little too low budget here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That'll be amazing like the scene in in Lucy where all the case files are stolen or trashed or whatever. And so we brought all of that in took everything out of their filing cabinets, put our own stuff in or no things in in some cases, but I love the idea that we just went in there and just rip shit up to know you don't understand this place got broken into. It's for the film. But that's exactly the fact that we emptied it all out, but then

we did have to make sure we all went back in alphabetical order. Yeah. So we don't see what terrifies Alice in this first scene, but her reaction is enough to make you scream alongside her. I think it's just the fact that now she's got to put them all back. Yeah, it's the practical reality. I got to re-alertize these slimy cards. I lied about knowing the Dewey Deswells is to get this job. I can't read. Yeah. So we need to talk to you. We

just want to be putting books back in just random places. No, I'm not. That's what like the stacks when the Ghostbusters come in. That's just I think that's right. There was like this, right? What's like there's a thrift store by me that does this weird thing. When I understand you're not going to be able to like, advertise all the books that you're selling for like a dollar. But what they do instead is just do that thing where they put them by

color. So it's just like, and it's just that's always been a hilarious design choice. It's like, I like the aesthetic of book. I don't want to be able to access it with any sort of regularity. It's what are you going to remember the color of every book you own and then be like, hmm, I want to read this book. Was it red? I love that you didn't pluralize book. Yeah. That's very much how that person would. No, yeah. I like idea of book. Yeah.

Book is book is is art book is content book is aesthetic book is to mirror. What's the theme of this room book? This is where we book. They book now. I'm just picturing Ken but wearing glasses. Barbie too. So after an introduction to our main characters, which we'll talk about later, we return to the library to find a shaken Alice line on the table. Now obviously this has been a very scary set piece so far, but these questions pure

gold. Oh, Vankman. Yes. Yeah. And it's the I think a really good addition of the comedy to the scene that she's she's taking everything 100%. Seriously, obviously she's very terrified. So is the the head librarian. What's his face? That's the key to it. Yeah. Everyone else in the scene is playing it straight. They're still in the scary movie. Exactly. And so the soon to be ghost busters investigate the basement where we find. Sookie book stacking.

This was human being with stack books like this. So that was right man's idea the day of shooting. And Vankman's line was ad libbed. Yeah. I mean, it's yeah. And you can tell this is I don't want to overstate this, but I think Bill Murray's ability to ad lib in this movie may have kind of fucked comedy in the 2000s because it just it's the natural progression of like this one guy who's very good at being this kind of character in a movie became like,

well, we should just ad lib every comedy all the time for every scene. And it's just like, now there's something magic about there's the structure of almost everybody else being on script and this one bugs bunny kind of going off that yeah, I think wrong lessons were taken. So then a bookcase falls over, which was not in the script nor planned. This just actually happened while they were filming. And they all just state they all react in character.

Yes. Genius. Yeah. And then the slimy hard catalogs, which is actually methyl silos, a Chinese foodstarch. And that's the thing is especially, you know, once you get to two and then from there on and once slime becomes a product you buy for kids, I feel like they lose some of the true grossness of it being this often very clear substance in the first one that makes it so much creepier and grosser. Yeah. Then just like, oh, it's

like pink or green or day glow. No, because it looks like it does look like not something a normal person's body would secrete, but does look like a biological secretion versus like right pink goo does not look like it occurs in the natural world. And that's to be

too denacquered about it. But like when people talk about Echdo plasm who are actually into like ghost stuff, it does look more like it does in this movie where it's like Flemmi or maybe like a yellowish color or something like that as opposed to like again, the colorful kids version that kind of it kind of became the Nickelodeon slime of it all. So then they run into the librarian ghost while she's just minding her own business reading.

This was the scariest part of the movie when I was a kid. I'm glad you said that too because I always thought I wonder if I'm alone in this, but no, this was this scared me the most when I was five, six years old. And even when she goes fully like, you know, turns all ghoulish, whatever that I did not affect me that much. It was this her with her back just floating in the eerie music and everything. Oh man. So this ghost is played by Ruth

Oliver. And to get this effect, she was filmed in front of a black screen. So instead of the traditional blue screen at the time or a green screen now, a black screen. And as a result, when they removed the background, some of her areas were nonexistent. So that's how she's kind of see through and like her, her bottom half of her was in shadow. So it didn't when they took away the black that didn't come through. So that's how you

get the semi transparent glowing effect when they composite them. Oh, cool. Yeah. It is one of those things where obviously some effects in this don't hold up great, but a lot of the actual ghosts do look creepy in a way that that eat a lot of more modern ghost effects don't have the same thing because there is a little bit of that lack of practicality to them of it being like, Oh, this is either a puppet or a person or a puppet that is

partially a person. That has a little bit more weight to it. So some of these I think really, really work. The other way they made this ear ear is that they had her act out the scene in reverse. Oh, that's classic. Trying to make all of her things feel a little off, which is very cool. Yeah. And then for the demonic version, when she becomes night

near librarian, so that's a puppet. They took a latex mold of poor roof and then used PVC pipe wooden sticks glue and screws to make her head lower, her shoulders raise, her arms elongate, her fingers grow, her mouth gets bigger and her head flattens all in 36 frames. So while building it, the designer realized that it would take 30 puppeteers to make that all happen at once. So they ended up having to make the whole thing happen

mechanically, press the button, press the change out. So believe it or not, this is the tame version of this ghost. The original library ghost puppet was considered too scary for younger audiences and was actually used in Fright Night. This is the tame version. I mean, that's the great thing about this first ghost busters movie is that it is, it just, it goes right up to the line of like, is this inappropriate for and like to the degree that this

is even a kid's movie is up for debate. Yeah. So that's kind of the secret sauce of this one for me and why ghost busters, it kind of begins and ends with this first movie in the cartoon for me as far as emotional investment goes. I like the second one. I think it's fine. And every ghost busters thing after that, there's never been one I've been mad that I've watched, but they're all varying degrees of like, okay. And this is a big reason why like

this one tonally really hits the sweet spot. And although obviously the Saturday morning cartoon really softens the edges of everything, it does have this aspect to it. It's the same thing. But in that context, we're going to go right up to the line before we start to get in trouble. And eventually they like the film series. They're in a position where

it's like, we got to pull back. But that's the magic of this one. So speaking of tone, the first test screening of ghost busters was only three weeks after shooting was completed. Many of the special effects weren't done, but this scene was right. Men remembers when the film was screened for 200 people, they screened and when this happens, the librarian scene, they screened and laughed at the same time. Perfect. Yeah. And that's when he knew

that this was going to work. Well, isn't it interesting that when we talk about things like this that we loved when we were younger, you mentioned this almost immediately, that library ghost terrified me. That was one of my big takeaways from this first movie. When people talk about the Saturday morning cartoon, something you hear over and over again, all those boogie man episodes. Oh my god, the boogie man, because it traumatized you as

a kid, not in a way that it's like, so I never went back and fuck that show. Uh-uh. It's part of the reason you love it. Yeah. You need those moments as a kid. I mean, I know I'm the weirdo that liked being scared when I was younger, but even if you're not, even if you don't think of yourself as this type of person, the imprint that that type of media makes on you, it's not only like entertaining and special, I think it is essential.

Mm-hmm. It's one of those things where I'm always a little sad that there isn't a good American equivalent to like a doctor who. And in some ways, I feel like Ghostbusters is one of the closest ones we have of mixing these like fantastical action sci-fi elements with

genuinely scary stuff. Yeah. And yeah, I do wish, and I guess we can talk about more when we get to a later segment, that that through line had continued a little bit more into the 90s and 2000s of like making this the American doctor who in some sense, where it's this is the scary but still fantastical action thing for kids. Because it's not just

Ghosts as we understood them as in their human, but you see through them. They are that, but then this scene also introduces the idea, but they can also be monstrously cartoonish. There are all kinds of things because they're not strictly human. They're also manifestations of this type of energy or whatever. All these in the cartoon obviously runs wild with this subsequent Ghostbusters media runs wild with this. I know they employed a bunch of

comic book artists as conceptual artists for the movie. And one of the questions going into this was like, should the ghosts be funny or scary? And how every element of the design of this in regards to the tone is threading that needle where it's like they're very often both and very and not even like, well, this time it's this and this time it's that

it's like simultaneously. It's kind of creepy and it's kind of funny. And the other thing too, speaking of Dr. Who that made me think of the the the the seramin, the creepy sound. That's used in this score. And that Elmer Bernstein score is so amazing because it's what we're talking about where it's it's two movies. You've got the comedy score, the bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, and even the yeah, the jaunty like didn't, didn't,

didn't, but then there's also the horror movie score. And even though the horror movie score takes over in the back half in these early moments and especially in the the second act of the film, it's interweaving both of them. And I know he said how challenging that was, but that's another thing that just like it works so well. And you don't realize the heavy lifting that score does for making something feel like Ghostbusters until they

do one of these without it. Yeah, yeah. And it was one of the things that, that's a little too much on the video game that I love that they used a lot of the original score and that to give it that Ghostbusters feel. Yeah, I think it's one of the one of the undersung elements because there's so many other things going on. And of course, the song that everybody knows gets so much credit, but it's like that score really helps so much.

I mean, I remember as a kid, that is part of the library. It wasn't even the Ghost. It was like, oh, no, that like walking through basically a basement with spooky music. I'm out. I'm not doing it. Yeah, I'm not going to do that. So now that they have busted their very first ghost, should we learn a little bit more about who's doing the bustin? Victimology. Did they bust that first ghost? It's fine. They did not. I love the idea

that that ghost is still just there at that library. They didn't even chase it. They're not even Ghost Chasers. Ghost runners. Yeah, definitely not Ghostmasters. I mean, I feel like I started that scene. Maybe they could have. I guess looking pretty nice. But enough about fucking Ghosts. Not written. Nope. There's a little bit more. Oh, yeah, we still have to get back to Ray. But yeah, so get a kind of run down the different characters. Go through

a little bit more of the development here. So obviously, the big star of this movie is Bill Murray as Peter van Kman. As you had mentioned, Chris, the original concept for the movie was a three-hander. Originally, it was going to be a reteaming of the Blues Brothers. So you got Akred and Belushi. And the third one was going to be Eddie Murphy. I had always heard this too. And then according to Ivan right, man, that was never the case that

Winston was always intended to come in halfway through the story. And that because he was going to be a counterpoint to the others, like not as humorous, a little bit more gruff. That it was never going to be a comedy guy that they all like. So, but I know at what point he did that interview and how much the story has changed over years because I think even Akroyd has. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's one of those things where I, especially with this kind of big franchise

and it will get to this with basically almost every single casting choice. There's a lot of talk about what the idea was at some point or potential casting. They have to take with a little bit of a grain of salt. And it might have been one of those things where maybe it wasn't necessarily written specifically with Murphy in mind, but it was definitely one of those things that would have been considered at the time. They'd done trading places together. Yeah.

He was just a huge comedy star. If you're looking to have three big comedy stars, obviously Dan Akroyd's writing it. So he wants to be in there. He wants to work Blue Sheek because they're like a known comedy team. And if you're going to get a third guy, that kind of makes sense. So whether it was technically written for Murphy or not, it's basically supposed to be a three-hander. And as we talked about, there are a number of things that kind of

changed that original draft. Of course, when Ray miscame on board, but one of the biggest ones was Blue Sheek's death. Akroyd has gone on record as saying that literally the day he heard about Blue Sheek's death, he was writing lines for him. And so obviously there had to be a bit of reconsideration about the project, but he decided to still finish the script even though he knew it wasn't going to be his friend in it anymore. So kind of

the logical next choice is Murray again, huge comedy star. But even at this point, had gotten the reputation as being very mercurial and very inconsistent. There had been other movies where they weren't sure if he was going to show up until the first day of shooting. I've been rightman, the director of this movie, the previous movie he made with Bill Murray was Meatballs. And he was like, I didn't know if I actually had Bill Murray until he showed

up for his first day. And if you've seen Meatballs, that is a movie that is a 100% built on having Bill Murray as the lead of that movie. There is nothing else that really makes that a big seller. So there's a lot of negotiations that eventually got Murray into the project, to keep East being Frank Price when he was still on board at Columbia, basically made a deal with Murray to make a film that he wanted to make called the Razer's Edge, kind of a

appropriately edgy movie in exchange for being the lead in Ghostbusters. But during this process and around this process, other names were thrown out. A lot of these may have been a bit more speculative. And a lot of them may have been that kind of deal that I think we discussed on Batman episode where they threw out, oh, maybe Robin Williams is going to be

the Joker to make sure that Jack Nicholson actually signed on board. So among the various names that were thrown out over the course of this process and over the years, perhaps more speculatively, other potential bankmans include Michael Keaton, Chevy Chase and Steve Gutenberg. Those were kind of like some of the most popularly named candidates. And those

all make sense to a different degree. Of course, this is a pre-Batman Michael Keaton, so he's very much known as an up-and-coming stand-up who's become an actor. Well, I mean, I'm not just saying this because I'm a huge fan of Michael Keaton and of the 89 Batman, but night shift. If you've seen night shift, it's Peter vankeman, but what if he works out like a morgue? You can see this. That would have worked. Yeah, absolutely. Chevy Chase, more of it just like he's a big comedy star at the time.

It's a similar vibe. I mean, literally Murray replaced Chase on SNL and they had kind of similar vibes. Throughout the 80s, there are a number of projects that were kind of, this is going to be a chase or Murray vehicle, so that makes sense. And Steve Gutenberg, although he's kind of somewhat remembered as a joke, at the time he was taken pretty seriously as an up-and-coming actor. And according to him, at one point, he was offered

this role, but chose police academy instead. I kind of doubt the very similar to that, just knowing the people involved and knowing that they definitely really wanted Murray. I think that was more of a like, hey, if we can't get Murray, do you want to do this? Yeah. At most. Oh, shit. Gutenberg passed. Oh, I knew it. Who can get Murray available? Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what I, the thing of one thing Ivan Reitman said about Bill Murray that is

frustrating as like a director, but is just a really amusing story? So they all go off to Martha's Vineyard to rework the script and they're kind of like, Bill, do you want any input on this? Yeah. Any thoughts on your character? No. Yep.

It's sort of like at the best, the nice version is like, I trust you, but you know, also probably just no. And then when they did rework the script, Ivan Reitman said trying to get it into his hands to get any sort of commitment that, okay, you are really going to do this because you're a big reason we got this funded. So he likened it to being a process server where you actually have to be, you have to physically put it in his hands and be like,

okay, so you did get this. You have this script, okay? Okay. Like they had to ambush him at an airport to be like, here, here's the script, Bill. We're going to do this. Well, and that is an important thing to note. One of the big reasons they were able to get this funded, yeah. Reitman's a big name, Accord's a big name, Ramesh's a big name, but Murray was the biggest name and kind of the thing that sealed the deal. That's why Price made a whole other movie

about it to get it done. But obviously very stressful when everyone else who's like, we're kind of putting a lot into this. We need to get Murray on set. And thankfully he came, brought us a game, did a great job. What's the theme where you have to duct tape someone's hands to the liquor bottle? Better word 40 hands. Yeah. But with the script. How are you supposed to read it if it's taped? But you got it. Yeah.

But you got it. You got two copies, actually. So a couple other names that I don't really trust were really that thrown out, Robin Williams and Tom Hanks. Some people have said we're thrown out. But one interesting one, and this is definitely one that I think was more, you caught somebody at a random time they said a thing. But shortly after Belushi's death, there's a blurb in variety about, well, without your friend who you're going to have in this

movie that you're supposed to make. And at one point he's responded, I don't know, maybe Richard Pryor, which is a really different version of this movie. But I could kind of say, I mean, again, comedy legend and a kind of similar like he's an actor who kind of takes over a film. And again, it's almost that bugs bunny. Kind of if the rest of the people are playing at straight, he's kind of not. Yeah. So that's one of those ones that I hadn't

heard about until recently. And I could kind of see being an interesting alternate universe to go into and see that version. It's the fun thing about fan casting Ghostbusters movies even now. Yeah. You just take a look at, okay, who, which comedians, whether they have a history together or not, who would you put in and what kind of vibe is that? And any time, because it for years, the rumors of Ghostbusters three and the different writers

it was going through. And anytime there was some suggestion that, oh, it's going to be this younger next generation of Ghostbusters. And so it's like, always it going to be like the Apatau crew. Or maybe is it like Ben Stiller? And that stuff is, it's fun. There is, that's a fun game to play. And so it's interesting that even hearing that fact sort of thing obviously is playing out in real time back when this first movie is being made. And that

although I'm with you, Kristen, I don't want to change anything about this movie. This is fun to go that, wow, yeah, what is the Richard prior Ghostbusters? Yeah, because it's it's because there's so I mean, obviously there's the Gene Wilder collaborations. But most Richard prior movies outside of that, it's mostly like he is the guy in the comedy. And

most of the people are kind of around him and somewhere and other. So it's interesting to think of like, yeah, if he was really in this ensemble of a comedy or would it have been more of a Richard prior movie and the other roles would have been even straighter? Yeah, it's it's fun to imagine. So of course, one of the the founding members, Ray Stance as played by Dan Acroid. I always like to think of as the self-insert character because

really almost all of Ray's dialogue is just stuff. I think Dan Acroid has said in real life much like how in the movie Animal House, the the DDA character, the big auto nut was written originally for Dan Acroid because he also is a big car guy. It's just one of those I love when a person clearly has a fixation on stuff and is able to get that in their art through the character and just really inhabit the role in a really lovely way. So obviously

this one didn't have a lot of alternate casting choices. He was pretty sure he was going to play the character based on him in the movie role. Yeah. But yeah, any thoughts on Ray? I think it's a kid I didn't like this character because I just felt he was kind of maybe I just saw too much of myself in hand that like he's just kind of the not the dork in like

the brainy one because obviously that's egon. But he's just kind of like the awkward doofus that I just really like ghosts and I'm very I think that's a little bit of me about like, you know, Venkimins hitting on this student and not reading the social cues of like, I'm trying to get it on. I'm like, I'm really excited about ghost guys. This is me. I'm the awkward puppy running into a room not reading the vibe. He's kind of

a ghost weeb. Yeah, I love the the lovable goofy dad energy. Oh for sure. Ray. Yeah. He's I mean, one of my favorite moments is it's still like, look at this poll you guys. You gotta try this poll. Even the best thing is does this work? I mean, it's a poll. It's worse than worse. I mean, I guess yeah, it's like the moods. The scene way to ask that is like, is this safe to you? No, it's like you get on it and somehow you go up.

No, it's broke. Yeah. It's been around in place. Like what the hell? Something's got to kind of service this poll. Oh, that's that's a leader. Yeah, shadowing. Yeah. So we've alluded to this several times. There is a blowjob scene in this movie. Very brief. That's a dream sequence of the film as it is, but it's part of this whole elaborate sequence that they filmed some of that took place in a fort. One of their like early busting gigs.

That's why if you look carefully, Tenerife is wearing like weird military regalia. I mean, it's easy to miss that because there's a ghost blowjob happening. But that's why that's in the movie as it is. It wasn't written as also in this scene. There's a ghost blowjob during a dream. It's still very silly that there was any of this this broadie, what

broadie, raunchy kind of rowdy stuff in there. But if you do look at the deleted scenes, there is a very different version of this movie that could have been pretty rough. These are it's the team they did meatballs. Yeah. There was stripes with Bill Murray and Animal House. They even rate men and produce like, yeah, like there are still some elements of that. But it's thankfully not as much of the like sex and like characters that are

just completely ungrounded. Yeah, I think they found a good balance. It's just weird that there was a it wasn't just this like one scene. There was also something about it kind of being a subplot where Ray needed a love interest and then realizing, no, he doesn't. And even if he did, it's not this, not this. Not not a random Fort ghost. And I'm just trying to remember what I thought this was when I was five. Exactly. Like the

ghost knows he needs to pee and he's going to wet his sheets. So wake up. I didn't. I think this was. I think and again, it's hard to like go back into that kid brain of it all. But I think I thought it was like, oh, she's taking off his clothes. I got that. But I thought like, oh, he's so scared. He's crossing his eyes. He's like, oh, no. This goes just taking off my clothes. I am finishing as a much darker scene if I really think about

it. Like this. Like, yeah, I yeah, it's this is like a whole kink, the whole closed female naked male CFN. Yeah, we're all CF and M is I've heard. Yeah. It's it's a bit of a doubt saved on my. No, I did. I did. That's a that's a thing. No, yeah. I mean, everything's a thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's also one of the best jokes in the the film. Next mock

in it. When we talked about that, I just just left that describing this film as the the film where Dan Akira gets a blow job from a ghost is a really funny way to describe the film. But of course, Ray stands as the heart. We've got the mouth. We've course need a brain and that comes with. You can't do that. You're talking about a ghost blow job and then we've got the mouth. But no, there is a brain to this whole operation. That's of course

Harold Rayma says Egon Spangler. As you had mentioned earlier, kind of suggested by Rayma as an addition to the crew and brings a much needed kind of straight man energy. He does have jokes, but it's important to have somebody for of course, very much to riff off of from Murray, but also to be the the big exposition dump guy because yeah, you can't get some of that from Ray, but he also needs to be a little bit more of an emotional hook.

So having this as the balance, I think yeah, this trio works really well off of each other. Not dissimilar to like a Kirk and Spock and Bones trifecta. So it makes sense that this was kind of the key ghostbuster trio that starts the whole thing. I will also say, as much as I love Harold Rayma's performance in the franchise, I was a much bigger Egon fan in the cartoons. That's definitely where Egon I think took off for me.

Take it if I don't think I've talked about it in this podcast. There have been no reason to. I met Harold Rayma's. Oh, okay. This is like 20 years ago. I was it was right outside the post office on Clark up here. Is that still there? Okay. But you know, I used to live right around the corner from there. And so I was just out one afternoon. I turned to that corner, nearly ran into him. Wow. And I just I looked up and I was like some

version of like, oh my God. And he just got the biggest smile on his face. And he goes, hello. Oh. And we just stood there talking for a minute or two. And I mentioned I, oh, I'm in film school at Columbia. He asked me a couple questions about the film program. Could not have been nicer. He was the sweetest man. And it was just a minute or two. And

then we just went our separate ways. And I just now I had the big smile on my face. Just walking on the sidewalk, I turned into that old lady from from Superman to Niagara Falls when Superman rescues the little boy. And then they just cut to that old woman being like, what a nice man. That was me walking away from meeting Harold Rames. Just like, wow, what a nice guy. Yeah. Good. Good. I want him to be nice. Yeah. No, it's I've heard a lot of sweet stories. I did

see his kids introduce Ghostbusters at the Millennium Park movies in the park one year. And that was very sweet. For a while, I think it might have changed. But for a while, you could see me on the Millennium Park movies in the park website. Because they had from that viewing a shot of Ghostbusters playing and the entire crowd. And the reason you could see me is that I was right up front. So I was right on the aisle and you could just make me out because I was wearing my Ghostbusters

jumpsuit. So you can see like a little guy and a little like, you know, kind of beige canvas jumpsuit. And I think it might have even been a shot of Harold Rames on there. But so great addition kind of rounding out the original trio. But there is a fourth Ghostbusters as much as a lot of media, especially in the 80s and early 90s would like you to think there was only three

ever. And that's of course Ernie Hudson as Winston Zedhammore. So again, whether or not this role was originally written for Eddie Murphy, it's definitely a lot more significant in earlier drafts of the script. There are a couple other people considered for it. Gregory Hines was one of the big names and Reginald Vell Johnson even flew out to audition for the part. And right man,

both as kind of like sorry, he had to go through this trouble. But also thinking he was just a good actor gave him the kind of almost cameo like roll towards the end of the film as a little thank you for coming out. One of the weirder alternate castings that one of the hugest grains of salt you have to take with any of these is an interview Yafid Kodo said that he was considered and offered a part in Ghostbusters that most people assumed was Winston. But he couldn't

remember if that was the case. And it could have been a different part, but he did a different movie instead. So just the vagary of that that you didn't even know the part that you were offered. I again take that one with a grain of salt. I mean it is. I well. That would have been interesting to have him in Sigourney Weaver in the movie together. Yeah to have a little alien reunion. Yeah. So that would have been kind of kind of fun. So Hudson auditioned a number of times

about like five for the role. And as initially written it was a guy who talked about he had an Air Force demolitions expert background all sorts of backstory. The joke of his character more less being that he was way overqualified. He had all this work experience and life experience that would come up throughout the script. And in some later things again like the video game they touch on this a little bit more that you know Winston has led this whole interesting life

before he becomes a Ghostbuster because he needs the paycheck. But even though he signed on at about half of his normal salary that he would have taken because it was this big part in this movie with a lot of big names. Once he started filming literally like the night before got an updated script and his role was drastically reduced. He said he came on later had less things to do.

A lot of his stuff ended up going to Bill Murray's part as a man. We said that things in the original version that he had read he was going to be the one who was slimed initially all sorts of stuff had kind of got shifted over to Murray and other stuff was cut from the script. So it's definitely one of those things that feels like in retrospect a bit messed up. I always this was always my favorite Ghostbuster. Yeah. He was my favorite just because he was like his reactions to people are so

good. He has some very good lines and plays them very straight and just being the guy. Yeah. But I always thought like rather than having a demolitions expert I would always thought was so great about this is that he applied at least picturing that he applied to this like anyone applies to any part time job. This like I just need the pay when he even says like if hey if he has a steady paycheck I'll believe whatever you say. Right. That we've all done that.

Like right I don't give a shit what it is just pay me money and you end up being a fucking Ghostbuster. Right. That was awesome. I think that it so the tragedy of all of this of the part being severely cut back that is I agree with you the one positive. Yeah. Is that the special forces back on all that it is cool but Winston's appeal is the every man. Yeah. And I think that is such an essential point of view in a movie like this and like I said earlier there is a version of that that works

where he's your entry point into the story. But the minute they switched this to being an origin story I do also understand why it makes more sense to have Winston enter halfway through because it's a now we're halfway through the story you introduce this new dynamic to the team story wise it shows that business is booming and we've reached a point where we need to start hiring more people. I think that's really good. How Winston and when Winston enters the story is not the problem.

It's what they do with them once he's there because that outsider perspective it's not even that they don't milk it for all it's worth it's almost like they don't do anything with it at all because when Ernie Hudson talks about the script being rewritten it's not so much in terms of the screen time that I think he feels particularly burned by it's that when he is on screen now

he's usually just standing around and he finds his moments for sure. Yeah. But they took all of this incredible dialogue that they've written for him and I think it was Ivan rightman who told Dan Accroyd you can't give Winston all the best lines like what about the rest of you know this doesn't

make sense right man was the one that kind of forced a lot of Winston's material onto Bill Murray that wasn't Bill Murray being a diva saying like these are the best lines that was Ivan rightman's big note so and I think honestly the bigger tragedy is that by the time they get to

Ghostbusters 2 they still don't rectify this no you still walk away feeling like I wish the filmmakers loved Winston as much as a lot of us fans do it is one of those weird disconnects between the creative people and the fans and I think that's part of why like Ernie Hudson has been a very loyal

backer of the franchise and has been involved in all the sequels and you know does a lot of cons and it speaks very highly on it even though yet in the first movie and then frustratingly in the second movie they don't give him a lot in the actual text to do don't give him a lot of

background I have no idea what his home life is like and granted like you don't get a lot of home life of a lot of the characters but it really does seem like he is just there to be the fourth guy and that's that's a bit of a shame because he's a great actor and I think again he does find

those great moments in the few times they they give him the shine and another thing is and I understand there's limited resources for this kind of thing but in so many of the posters oh yeah video games they just completely exclude him like I love that take a Genesis game

but it is so wild to me that it only has the three founding Ghostbusters Winston isn't even like mentioned and I understand a little bit more in the original 1984 run it's like well these are like the big stars like Ernie Hudson is like yeah working actor but he's not like a name but it's

like once you get part two it's like no we know he's one of the Ghostbusters he should be in all the ads and he wasn't more but yet is it is one of those things that I've always been a little bit bummed on his behalf and we we get talking about the cartoon there's even more things I have to

say but of course there have to be characters who aren't Ghostbusters and one of the primary ones is Dana Barrett as played by Sigourney Weaver so a number of people auditioned for this Denise Crosby Darrell Hannah a very young Julia Roberts Kelly LeBrock a bunch of different people they

were thinking more along the lines of models because this part was originally written as a model um but it wasn't so much the competition that was a kind of an obstacle for Sigourney Weaver it was her reputation as being a more dramatic actor um a lot of people thought like can she even

play in a comedy but during an audition when she kind of suggested that oh I think Dana should be one of the dogs um from the from the script and did a little on all four's dog impression for Ivan Wrightman they're like okay she's game let's let's get her on board um so she's brought on and

again this is another you know at the time and it's still a problem in comedies a little bit underwritten in parts but I think she does find a lot of stuff to do and even found some ways to kind of like tweak the character to be more interesting she's the one who suggested that Dana uh go from

being a model to a cellist giving uh you know I think a little bit more depth in some ways but also just like contrast to because she's sharing a lot of first scenes with vankeman who's this showy kind of ostentatious guy and she's a little bit more reserved and refined and um she also had

this idea that she is very soulful but it more comes out in her music even though we don't really see her play I like that as a background to her and I think one of the most telling things is a very important line switch that that she is credited with in the original script she compares

vankeman to a used car salesman which is a you know fine comparison but her idea to change it to a game show host is so much more telling of both that character and her character being able to see him for what he really is which I think does help some of the more like you know the gender

politics of it all can get a little bit queasy but you never feel like she's really ever he's not getting one over on her yeah she's always the smartest one in that relationship so I think that's why it kind of works and why you can kind of believe them getting together in

the end is like okay you're kind of a fool and your moves are kind of lame but I think you actually are kind of a good guy we can hook up you you you you did me a solid by changing me from a dog I've always loved daya like and the cellist I think is a huge addition to the script because

yeah she does seem refined and classy so that when she walks into the the firehouse and like this guy leaps over the door like it just you can see her level of desperation like all right I'm actually going to call these weirdos from the TV because I need help I gotta go to this man cave

yeah so in the documentary cleaning up the town you can see little clips of auditions from Darrell Hannah and Denise Crosby and they're not bad but it is such a different energy that weaver brings to this and especially in her scenes with Peter she can play charmed and suspicious

simultaneous like she is really the largest grounding force in the film like everybody has heightened aspects to them she's like she kind of centers this in a really important way and she can be funny but it is those dramatic chops that I think turn this in from a kind of a nothing character

into something that you know I mean sure maybe it could have been more but the degree she elevates the entire film really kind of knocked me out this time because yeah and especially we're watching at this time I get I get the sense of like in the library scene oh this there's the version of this

that is this straightforward ghost story and if we saw like a almost you know Susperia like version of this where Dana Barrett is the central character there's no ghost busters and it's just about her like being caught up in this web of this weird building and there's something dark going

on and like maybe there's still a goofy neighbor or something but it's like her falling into this web of supernatural otherness that's a movie that could work and that casting is the casting you might do for that version of the movie the big American studio version of something that moroc

into a jalo and yeah so I think that's a great observation that she grounds this in a way that mostly other characters really just can't but she does the do the comedy really well and not it's not she's not vaikman she's not telling jokes but her reactions yeah are like hilarious even though

she is keeping a straight face the one of my favorites is when she first opens the door she's like are you the gate key oh yeah and just when you watch her expression fall before she slant the door so so good what was the line I really really laughed hard at this time it's not even a

comedy line it's the way she says it when Lewis is like you know I keep all those energy whatever whatever how things yeah yeah yeah yeah the way she's sort of like I know yeah it's so funny oh yeah and that is I well obviously get to him in just a sec here but I love that relationship too

because it also creates a good idea of oh yeah this is a beautiful woman in 1980s New York there's going to be a lot of weird guys hitting on her all the time just the visual like the disparity of like six foot Sigourney Weaver five foot three Rick Moranis like that just them together is funny

and even down to like the the way they they're both costume and of course their performances that she says just like like fucking like elegant creature and he's this like a little treasure look at me I'm a little guy it's it's really one of the times that it most looks like well you barely

have to change this to make this the cartoon version this is what it would look like in the any animated version but speaking of Lewis Tully one of the other big characters played by Rick Moranis Dana's neighbor this one has a pretty interesting backstory as far as the original casting it

was written it was even storyboarded with John Candy in mind but whether this was his legitimate artistic take or perhaps a way to get out of a movie that he didn't want to do but didn't want to offend a bunch of other big comedy people some of which he had worked with in the past he requested

that Lewis not only have a thick German accent but two German shepherds because that's the only way he underscould understand the role he also was supposed to be like a strict business man like it was a little bit more how it was written but yeah but then Ivan right man was like what the

what we want to talk so many dogs are already having this just confusing and so I think it's Ivan right man was the one that said it's possible that because John Candy was just getting kind of tired of playing the same type of role over and over that he had just had enough he really didn't

want to play that type of character again so just like I'll do it if you do these crazy things you know like a lot of the times we talk about weird sequel ideas that probably weren't what they wanted to do but like I'll do a sequel if you degree to do this dumb shit or cycle Myers in space or

Marlon Brando being like I'll play Jarell but he should be a bagel he should be a talking bagel just say no so another person considered is Michael McKean then known for most for the Vernon Shirley he auditioned but Moranis was kind of a clear choice when he was given the script

by Ivan right man he literally said yes and under an hour just kind of flip through it it was like oh you know I totally have a take on this yeah he was like I'm so happy John passed because this is the best script I've ever read yeah he was super excited and he had his own kind of tweaks

taking it from that businessman thing to a little bit more of he's going to be a nerd making him an accountant and having all those accountant specifics in the again the other a great example of ad libbing pretty much all that party dialogue before he comes to a dog

is just ad libbed by him and just like the the kind of one shot nature of how how it's filmed the where it's just like this guy just keeps going this guy just has so much and it's that that really well researched well or at least I'll I'll check with you Kristen how how well researched it is

but it feels like well thought out at least specifics of this guy and the the different like things he's talking about with all of his guests who are his clients so we can write it off as a business expense I like this is one of those things I didn't appreciate as much as a kid because

it wasn't like well this isn't a ghostbuster I don't have to listen to this but those specifics are so much funnier now especially like knowing more people like this as an adult and being like oh man this guy just doesn't get it so they're all right let me ask you this as far as Lewis goes there is the the brief moment in two where he gets to suit up yeah and as kids were you excited for there to be more of that like Lewis as a ghostbuster yeah yeah it felt like yeah especially as a kid

it always felt a little underwoman it's like oh he just like thinks he did something outside that's that's the the end of that whole like little mini arc where he's like oh wow he sees meeting slimer it's like oh that's just for that one joke yeah slimer is not a part of the rest of the movie

I was so excited for him to like step up and graduate into being one and my favorite moment in the trailer for the most recent one and another thing I was kind of bummed that there was they didn't do anything with it in the actual movie but the moment where Venkman sees Janine and he's

like Melnitz in uniform yeah all right yeah that was like fuck yes yeah and then that's it that that moment is pretty much it yeah almost the entirety of both their birds um yeah uh speaking of Janine Melnitz from my staff any pots uh this was uh one of the roles that was offered to somebody who

just kind of turned it down Sandra Bernhard um great like queer icon uh uh uh uh funny lady probably most well known at the time for King of Comedy um which if you haven't seen fantastic performance but eventually the role went to any pots and it was kind of a rush job for her getting into the film

her first day of filming they just were like oh she should have glasses took glasses from the set dresser that then just became her costume glasses for the movie um which again just shows how frantic and rushed this production was but that's part of that lightning in a bottle that's

why I mean that the same creative team could not capture that same lightning in a bottle again there if that's uh and I think she again this is one of those performances I appreciate a lot more as an adult yeah um uh the kind of like subtle humor and the characterization that she gives to

Janine I think it's just really strong and it is one of those weird things is that I think between one and two there's you know you know some changes it's been five years blah blah blah um but there are some interesting changes with Janine largely brought on by the fact that the cartoon was very popular and specifically the cartoon version of Janine had become pretty uh well known and popular so they've literally changed how Janine dressed and her hair color because of the cartoon I think she

does a pretty good job of keeping the continuity of the character but sometimes if you do these days watch one and two right next to each other it's like wow oh yeah that's a that's a that's a shift yep it's been five years but I didn't get the impression from the first ghost busters that this

person was gonna dress frankly like a lot of Mike we're friends do now um because you seem to lot more like I'm not about high fashion and dyeing my hair I'm just here to do my job and be a little bit pissed at these guys for not being good at theirs well and even the little bit of there's

something with her any gun yes and then that's dropped for the second movie because now it's her in Lewis yeah yeah I guess they needed more for Lewis to do and they were like uh we never really liked the the egon and Janine stuff it didn't really work for us and I I always thought I was here

yeah I know that's what I'm saying like it felt like that was from you know different commentaries and interviews I've heard that they always thought like uh we tried something in the first movie and it didn't work I always thought it really I I appreciate it because that is the kind of

the person who would be in love with egon and his like very distance personality would be somebody like Janine like I've seen people in those relationships what did you think of it I mean I just the the the relationship or the just the hints that she's kind of into him I thought

it was cute yeah yeah the idea that she's in love with the nerd and he has no fucking clue and the fact that most of what we've seen of Janine is like the the way she looks at vancman and they're just the kind of over it yeah and then to go from one of those moments to literally

the next second and then egon pops up from under her desk and then there's a whole new Janine yeah I like that yeah it gives her a lot of dimensionality it's really great also because vancman is sometimes a bit of a pest the idea that like she's not falling for a stick this is the

lovable nerd over here yeah this is my guy speaking of somebody who's nobody's guy Walter Peck is played by William Adleton this is kind of pitch-perfect casting for your quintessential 80s prick he did this role in a couple of other things even into the 90s and while I was obviously

a big break it was also one of those like mixed legacy things as he said for years and very famously an entire bus full of children would call him dickless to his face which is it's like yeah that's I appreciate that you like the film it's a little rough that that's what I'm called on the street

I love random strangers when Harold Ray miss talks about after the film comes out it's a huge success and he sees William Adleton and he's like oh isn't this nuts and like everywhere I go they're yelling ghost busters at me and hey he got and William Adleton didn't just be like yeah I mean

I have a little bit of a different experience the thing about William Adleton because he's he's such a he's so good at playing the sniveling punchable the die hard and this is just oh yeah quintessential 80s douchebag as a kid you don't understand that I hate him because this is a really

good actor yeah you just hate him because I hate this fucking guy now is an adult this performance is is something else the the first scene with him in vapeman William Adleton is so good and that exchange where it's like I can I see the containment unit no how come you didn't use the magic word

and the thing about like what yeah and then like can I please see his face when he does it it you punchable cock it's so good the other crazy thing William Adleton is in the third crow movie the crow salvation oh playing a doting father to kirsten duns and it is wild like from

the first time I saw it was just like he's so good at being a heartwarming dad yeah what is this yeah yeah I've just never seen him act anything else he really is a really good actor and it's just it's I mean kind of a sort of a love hate thing for him that he's so good at playing this type of

character but man no that was one of my favorite scenes on this viewing him in vapeman or just like this guy is going toe to toe with Bill Murray it's fantastic no it's it's it's really great and like yeah I think the dynamic that he has especially with Murray but with the the whole crew the the condescension is great is a little uncomfortable now where it's like I don't know that we needed to make the bad guy from the environmental protection agency yeah that seems like a choice I wouldn't make

I don't think that I knew what the EPA exactly as it is it just like he didn't I need to think like government guy I thought business guy because look at the suit but yeah now I'm just like I mean we don't we like being if they are polluting I do want to know yeah it's like they they have

nuclear material this is something we should be supervising and there there should be some government regulation they say earlier they have unlicensed nuclear accelerators on their backs yeah he's a dick but he's kind of right too it's the fact that he shuts off the power

yeah right right knowing what the fuck it's doing you get you know even sure you saw that in the original version the containment unit was all the way out in New Jersey oh yes it's some abandoned like so a lid made a little bit more yeah and then for budget reasons it's like no it's got to be

in the basement of the firehouse which I mean I understand the logistics of filmmaking but it the it does make it like a weirdly reckless it's it's like a lot of Marvel villains where it's like no he's he's right he's just doing it wrong is kind of the take as an adult on on the Walter

Peck character it's like yeah you you should be making sure that this technology is being used in a safe way and that these people aren't defrauding the public because they're haven't been ghost busters before and now all of a sudden ghost busters are doing a lot of business this is

something we should check but yeah now I it's one of those things I just have to kind of like it was a choice at the time and put it in context and be able to enjoy it in that in that in that fashion so of course we have a non-human villain in addition to our our douche EPA guy

goes to the ghost area to be specific I know there's a lot of gozers out there so I want to make sure you know played by Slavitsa Irzhulvan not sure if I'm pronouncing it correctly Yugoslavian actress and she got the part as a relative unknown after a number of really kind

of famous almost iconic people were considered Paul Rubens was in the mix for an earlier version of gozer that would have been styled more as like an architect in like a fancy business suit and something more akin to the gozer we ended up getting was styled after Grace Jones

it said that that's even where the aim for the flat top line is going to be okay yeah because famously she has that flat top hair so a lot of the styling that eventually came into gozer I think came from some of those early concepts for the Grace Jones casting huh what movie

is it where there is a character literally called the architect the matrix matrix we loaded yeah yeah I'm I was actually immediately picturing just kind that kind of a very straight face like I am the architect it would be so weird to see Paul Rubens do that like interesting but but weird yeah like obviously we almost exclusively know him as a culture as P.B. but even at this

time that was kind of the case he had become famous doing P.B. Herman on talk shows and on a stage show and all that stuff so by the time this came out that also would have been the case it's not like casting Paul Rubens before he had any fame whatsoever yeah it is casting the guy

that you would probably know as P.B. Herman so yeah I think they they'll take the ended up going with works and of course gozer does come back later on but we'll get there for now I do want to say and we've touched on this a little bit who is who's your guy's favorite ghost buster still Winston

still Winston yeah I love him I need distinction between live action movies and the cartoon oh yeah I mean Ernie Hudson is just but I mean so in the cartoon who was your favorite ghost buster I don't remember the card like I can picture it but like I don't have strong memories of it okay

more and more though I love Egon I think it's like it boulder he's not even the straight man but he guess he it like to do it just a different type of humor to a crazy degree the like I collect sports fungus yeah it's more more yeah yeah but he's just completely not even realizing how

completely in his own head he is is very charming well as a kid vankman for sure in the movie and the cartoon as an adult it's probably Egon but also this is a situation where it's gonna depend on the day that you ask me like I've gone through phases where every one of them has been my favorite

they're also essential for why this works and like you just you don't get this great interplay and the whole team dynamic what that is without they're all just essential components of it so it's hard really hard to pick a favorite at this point yeah I'd definitely fall into the the

camp of like as a kid it was like obviously vankman he's the funny one he's kind of the lead yeah and then growing up I had different phases and specifically in live action I definitely had a really strong Egon phase there were there were a number of years was just like man I

wish I could get my hair like egon's weird weird goal it was like it kind of works for Harold Raymus in the 80s I don't think it needs to work for me as a teenager in the Bush era but no and then growing up I again I appreciate the team dynamic and I do appreciate Ray specifically

for a reason I didn't get into him as much as a kid is that he's the one I can relate to the most he's the most like my vibe I feel so I kind of appreciate that especially like embracing the fact that part of wild of Ghostbusters is the approachability the idea that this is the fantastical

character that I could be the hero as but in the cartoon I have always been an Egon guy I just absolutely love the design I always thought was really cool the performance I think is the one that makes me laugh the most consistently again just the dry nature of it and of course

Venkman is great in that till he isn't right and we can talk about that when we talk more in depth about the cartoon but yeah Egon just was so cool to me and I always grad gravitated as a kid towards the smart character like Donatello was always my favorite Ninja Turtle so that's

kind of where I fall so next we go from who you're gonna call to how you're gonna bust them in methodology so for this section I want to take each major scene in chronological order and discuss not just how it's done but our reactions to it now after the library scene we meet Dana as

she's coming home from cell over her soul or going to tell she's coming home with that cello and she definitely tells telly I'm going to her her soul I'm like I just don't get off to it yeah yeah she brings her groceries home and immediately something's wrong the eggs cook on the counter

and when she opens her fridge there is an otherworldly portal and a creature growling zool it's amazing she can make that out I do not I've never heard that I've always thought that I was like in like that that's something that's hard to hear as a person who's seen this movie a thousand

times knowing what the name like if I a refrigerator it's the anything but what I expect to be in my refrigerator I'm not processing what the otherworldly dog is saying no no no no yeah which is like it said its name was zool like are you sure I'd be so like I what did it say

uh stovetop yeah did you just see a box of stovetop and why are you keeping that in the refrigerator I got a chill it eggs that cook themselves would be that's the count that's an amazing feature if it's intentional if you can just you know make your entire counter it yeah I mean that it's not on

all the time that'd be a disaster cats get off the counter but keep them off the counter that's for sure yeah so to do this the the eggs had holes poked in them in the bottom and then they took an air tube into the eggs and blew air through it so they would explode and then yeah the countertop is just a hot plate nice no it's I love how simple yeah and again with that domino theory of reality just having these like simple little practical things make it a lot more believable when you get to

the crazy stuff later on so meanwhile the ghost busters are called to their first ever real ghost at the sedra hotel if not their first real ghost the library was the first ghost is their first ghost busting anyways there's something on the 12th floor it's green it's hungry and it's covered in

slime it's wreck onion head oh slimer did not receive his appropriate moniker until the cartoon instead he was called onion head because it smelled his design which was first sculpted out of clay took six months and cost approximately three hundred thousand dollars to me part of that time

was spent just trying to make sense of all the conflicting notes for a creature that was supposed to be a smile with arms no he's a blob no make his head bigger his no smaller more cartoony less cartoony they just did five bajillion sculptures make him john belu she i like where it ended up where

the spirit i know i know of belu she it's been there without you don't look at it and go oh that's supposed to be john belu she he doesn't look like john belu she i also like the makeup the guy the design slimer talking about how one of the reasons it took so long was not understanding that

once you go through like the layers of compositing and the fact that it's going to be a little translucent he was trying to make this thing look more realistic and it kept being sent back is like more detail more detail and he's like this now it's wrong it's too it like there's the lines are

too deep there's too much going on here but then when you see it after it's been you know going through all of that post processing and like oh right because we're going to lose 50% of those details after all of the effects are done you need all of this and he's to be exaggerated so

that it comes through the right way you know when it's all finished make up right yeah yeah so that i also i love all the behind the scene stuff where there is somebody with just wearing slimer it's a performer's actual hands and then the same thing you were talking about earlier where

against a black screen so they're you know the pants the legs you lose all of that and you just get this insane when i love in that footage you can really see his pedalink so yeah and then they couldn't make like even though the guy was as you said he was wearing the puppet and

filmed against the black screen they couldn't move around in it much so they actually move the camera around the guy in the puppet i mean that makes way more sense with the way it goes moves and like okay now run towards the camera yeah yeah this is also our first look at the proton packs

they weigh 30 pounds some of them some of the there's different versions there's lighter versions but like the deep yeah the but the detailed ones the metal ones were 30 pounds this is my favorite exchange in the movie when they're in the elevator on the way up and race says like they haven't

had time to test this egon says i blame myself so do i that's my favorite exchange of the movie well i love a little bit of like when they switch on they just shift in the other yes like oh my god clear explosion you would have any yeah i mean that sound effect when the sound designer talks about the work that went into this that it i mean and this is they knew this was a really important moment and yeah what exactly is this thing supposed to sound like it's got to have some weight to it

it's got to feel like a it's something really substantial and potentially dangerous has just happened and now that sound is iconic and obviously they don't really shoot laser beams but they would have pyretecdicks going off around the set to look like proton damage so this first take where they

shoot up the housekeeping cart they didn't tell the poor woman what was about to happen oh yes so her line what the hell are you doing was her actual response to not knowing what was about to happen something that never came through on vhs and that i i don't think i saw until the first time

for the first time until i this is like fairly recently actually the after they blow up her cart they're in the foreground having a conversation and over vancman's shoulder you can see her using her little spritzer like a spray bottle to put out a piece of toilet paper that's on fire

it took me forever to notice that and it's one of my favorite parts of the movie yeah it's such a good joke i've never noticed that yeah because you're looking at vancman yeah yeah but just over his shoulder and that's one of those things that again as i get older

there's just certain things in movies where i'm just like uh that woman's day is just ruined like she just having a real rough day now she's got to explain like yes these guys with like backpacks set my card on fire and so like i i'm not gonna get charged

for this right you're not gonna take this out on my paycheck right so this is also our first look at the acto one in the original script the car would have been black with purple and white strobe lights and it also would have had supernatural powers including interdimensional travel and

the ability to dematerialize the dark paint was scrapped after the cinematographer pointed out that the car would be shot at night and it would be very hard to see i also just love that it seems like tan acro it is just every script it's like can i have a magic car though

because in blues but there's like yeah they like have this whole like cut subplot thing of like explaining why their car can do crazy things because it was parked next to a transformer and infused with energy and it's just like dude it's just a car and it's a movie just it's okay

this is one of the great movie cars i mean it is it's up there with the bammobile the de laurian i mean if you want to move into television the general lee this and what's astonishing about it is that it looks so cool it's immediately that as a kid it's a toy you want to play with

even though it's so in line with the rest of the production design of the ghost buster's tech and that it is kind of janky yeah like the the cool streamline sci-fi version that you just described i get why that's maybe where you go and the when you're thinking about the original

intergalactic version of this what an insane sentence but for this like everything else in the movie no it's a beat up old piece of shit with a bunch of random stuff spread like stuck all over it it should be hideous it's beautiful it's oh it's amazing how well this works and this is another

thing about the sound design where the siren that they knew they wanted it to sound like more european but rather than just taking an existing siren sound effect this is like a cheetah and then the roar in reverse and then slowed down maybe with some other effects on it and whatever

however they did it and this is pre-digital so your cotton tapes place them things and like and another absolutely iconic sound wow i also love just you know it being this this old ambulance with all the stuff on top how when it's driving you can tell it's like a little too

top heavy and you're like oh they probably can't even go that fast in it but they're trying their best and yeah it's just it totally fits with the aesthetic it's instantly memorable and iconic is this is one of the toys i had as a kid yeah with the seat on top yeah yeah i definitely lost

the seat and the back door oh i got rid of the seat immediately because i wanted it to look more like the movie yeah i think i met it on the same this often in compromise would race with the barbie limousine huh like the barbie corvette that's an easy one i love the actor one but sorry the limousine

hmm that's a that's a much fairer race so now with a bonafide ghost busting on their resume the ghost busters are stars we're treated to a montage chronically in their rise to fame so do you guys have any favorite parts about this montage we've talked about the ghost bj um i mean that's the only i that's the only part i like no i i i love all the little details i love that like omnimagazine is there to show the proton pack of the little celebrity cameos the the the the the the boys in beige

or whatever um i also just just yeah i i love that it's a montage that serves its function well but it's also kind of funny i also like that now that their logo is showing up everywhere i just i think that anytime you have something like that because even though that wasn't designed for the

marketing it's just designed because it's in the script we need something in the movie but the marketing department eventually obviously jumps on this they based their whole initial campaign around it no title no pictures of the cast just blast that image everywhere and so like Batman

or Jurassic Park or anything where you have this instantly recognizable graphic that's just such a huge boon for drumming up interest for maintaining awareness and of course merchandises and so it's it's cool that with ghost busters there's always a little bit of life imitating art because that's

what's happening in the movie as well as this thing is spreading and everybody's getting acquainted with like everyone in the movie knows that logo just like everyone in the real world is about to know that logo i also love the one part where there's the the news broadcast on the street and there's

an actual just random weird guy in the background doing shit that was just a guy who was on the street you need that because that is most yeah that's most newscast now i love it so also during this montage is the theme song yeah hell yeah this was written and performed by Ray Parker Jr

after test screenings in early 1984 i've enrightman wanted a song about 20 seconds in length at the beginning of the movie when Peter and Ray enter the library right man just wanted a song that said ghost busters in it so Columbia spent a bunch of money to have different musicians including Lindsey

Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac and Kenny logins right songs to be considered but they didn't find when they liked so by the time that Ray Parker Jr got involved he had three days to figure out a song and he was struggling like nothing rhymes with ghost busters so he was half asleep one night and saw

an exterminated commercial on tv and realized oh they can just shout ghost busters i don't actually have to rhyme anything with it so the next day he finished recording and submitted a cassette tape with just under one and a half minutes to write men uh and it earned him an academy award

domination for best original song and eventually lost to stevey wonders i just called to say i love you do we want to talk about that controversy yes because i think was it not tempt with the Huey Lewis song and so that and they're like we need something with like a similar beat similar groove

did you have you heard the Huey Lewis song i want a new drug oh yeah i've specifically heard people do you know the like mashups like you know putting them back to back side to side yeah and it is it is if if nothing else extremely suspicious you don't even need to put them side by side if you've

never heard Huey Lewis as i want a new drug just listen to the first 30 seconds of it you'll it's this is not well i guess if you really no it's the yeah this is absolutely what happened and then like a saxophone comes in later in that song just like okay yeah and i get it if a director tells you

this is the temp score we're using we need something that matches this because we've already cut part of this montage to the song so it at least needs to be the same beat and have a similar feel of course

you're gonna wind up with something similar but it is more similar than you're probably imagining if you've never heard it it's crazy it's not like a lot of more modern lawsuits about like sounds song sounding alike i should say where it it is just like but yeah down to the instrumentation of it

like the the the vocals the quality of it is is way too similar but i do love that because of that that and i think we talked about this in our back to the future episode that's why he will Lewis agreed to do back to the future because it's like well if i say no you're just gonna do the

song anyway without me just give me a cameo and we'll do it i mean so it was settled out of court which tells you that's usually a sign that like oops um but it's still the the ray parker junior song is so good i it's like inseparable from all of this and i also i just i think boston makes me feel

good might be the funniest lyric ever snuck into a chart topping pop song yeah it is it is wild and that's like you that's like played at kids birthday parties to this day when it's just like out of context if you put that in any other song that doesn't have the title ghost busters

uh-huh if you're sitting in the middle of some i i don't know like uh kid friendly like if a song in moana had the lyric boston makes me feel good people be like we cannot bring our kids to this movie are you sure this wasn't the song over the blowjob part what do you do it is this and if

if you guys heard i'm assuming you probably have at some point the neo cisteriga boston oh it's it's it's a treat um look up boston by neo cisteriga it's it's a trippy weird uh reimagining of the ghost busters theme song and another thing i highly have to recommend on the theme song is the

performance at the 1985 or 84 Oscars i don't want to spoil it okay but there are a lot of choices in the staging of that that um if you tried to predict what's gonna happen next it would take a billion monkeys on a billion typewriters a trillion years to come up with the next choice

i'm gonna lick this up okay okay all right so but the ghost busters have been neglecting their first customer daynights and her spooky spooky apartment the gargoyles on the top of the apartment building come to life the first attacks Dana while she's chilling on the couch demonic arms pinner to the

chair drag her through the door and into the waiting jaws of a gross gargoyle dog i will say i have always been uncomfortable with the way that those hands grab her breasts and crotch i and i thought that someone was taking advantage but yeah comforting to know the grips actually

tried really hard to be respectful this is a gourney weaver after all and but they can't see what they're grabbing they're just putting their hands through a fake couch and there she had to turn them be like just do it i don't care you're wearing rubber hands i think the exact quote i love

this was she looked down at one of them and she said go ahead make my day okay this was for me the same that like creep me out as a kid yeah yeah because yeah i just the idea of like what is even happening what are these hands the the light in the doorway

uh i think they talk about it being kind of like a take on the close encounters um uh similar kind of shot and yeah that that's just like oh my god this is supernatural in a way that i i couldn't i couldn't bust this well and the terror dog that was the second scariest thing in the movie

for me as a kid were those things it is one of those things i the stop motion in a couple parts is one of those things that does take me out of it a little bit where it's just like yeah they are trying the best the technology just wasn't quite there for it but some of some of those aren't

as bad but especially when it's the puppet i think it's really cool i love the full size puppet it's funny that it's it's played at like it's just laying down like a tired dog and because of how frequently they cut back and forth from the stop motion of it running but then every time they

switch back to the practical it's got to be in that like and it it kind of works because the original the guy that designed this version of the terror dogs the one they wound up going with it's very close to his design he said they just made it a little chunkier it's just a little bit

bigger and so like you would imagine that takes some effort to to move around so in a way it does kind of look like like it runs out of a room it slams through a door and then it's just like all right i need a second and i'm like okay i now i can run again i do it's a sprinter not a mayor or a

thundog so meanwhile Lewis is throwing the party we talked about where he's being awkwardly charming shall we say this party where he invites clients to go them tax advice so weird uh but somebody brought a dog and it chases him out of the building across central park and into the beautiful window windows of tavern on the green this particular part was one of the scariest to me and i think my memory as a kid is that the chase through central park lasted longer um but it's actually very quick

but i think it had something to do with the fact that he the banging on the door and the fact that no one's helping this yeah and they played as a comedy beat yeah but as a kid that was very upsetting and also i this is going to sound so weird part of the thing that was kind of freaky to me about this moment when i was really little was it winds up being shot in a way where it looks like there's nothing out there so i was like can they not see it no one it's own what is going out there

was another thing that really freaked me out yeah now i can totally see that yeah i i i'm glad that this is one of the parts where i it was initially longer because this is one of the parts where they i think at two different beats filmed cutting to to uh uh rumah's gentleman played by Murray and acroede as different characters who were just doing the broadest comedy beats i'm like yeah well what i think about the 36th world series was blah blah blah

blah blah blah blah. and it's just totally insanely different from anything else in the film It breaks the world of like, why are two lead actors playing different characters? It's one of those things where it's just like, oh, they did not know what this movie was gonna be while they were filming it. Cause why else would you film this? I mean, that's always, to some degree, the case. There's always the movie.

You write the movie, you shoot, and then the movie, you add it, where you realize this is what we actually made. So like, I actually kind of understand that when you're this familiar with the finished film and you watch some of those deleted scenes, it's easy to think, what the hell were they thinking? If you've been through the process, you know, sometimes some wild shit gets thrown out and credit do, I bet they realized very early on. Don't, that's not gonna work.

Yeah, it definitely felt like, they almost like covering their base of like, I'm not sure if this is funny enough. Maybe if we add these characters, that'll help with it's like sagging and we could cut it if we need to. And it's like, yeah, we don't need this. Yeah, it's completely superfluous. So meanwhile, Peckerhead releases all the ghosts and containment. I want you guys favorite part of this montage of all the ghosts coming out into the city. The cab driver always freaked me out.

That's great. And yeah, I love the integration of like, oh, this is like a practical guy that's not like a ghost ghost. Yeah. And of course, it's time for that mouthful of hot dogs. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean. Also this song, magic, this was my favorite song and the soundtrack, I know it's not the theme. That's the big song from the movie. This was my favorite song. I was gonna say that's my favorite part of this montage is just the ghost streaming out. Yes, there's something about the tone of that.

Yes, it's so good. The vibe of that song. And I remember that before we had the LP, my dad had the cassette, the soundtrack. And I remember him putting that on in the car. And even though I'd seen the movie, I knew the song. There was something about hearing that song while we were driving at night. That I was just like, I can feel it right now. I'm having the exact feeling I had as a kid or just like, it's eerie, but I love this. Like what? It's just an overwhelming feeling.

So it must be that it's just kind of tapping into that every time I hear it. But oh man, I love that song. So of course it's during this chaos that Dana and Lewis finally consummate their unholy union and raise gozer. So we are now on the rooftop, battling not Zoolba gozer. It gets very confusing. With the Stapuff Marshmallow man. Now the Stapuff Marshmallow man was in the earliest version of the script, as we said, but only 20 minutes in.

Dan Acroid could see the Stapuff Marshmallow man for his initial script. He created the character to show that, hey, look, it seems harmless and fluffy, but given the right circumstances, everything can be come evil and terrible. I love that this was one of the very first images that popped into his head, I mean, like, kind of like what happened to the movie. Yeah, but I mean, he saw this and he just trusted that this was gonna work implicitly, even though Ivan Reitman was the exact opposite.

Every step of the way, he thought, we're gonna ruin this whole movie with that fucking Marshmallow man. And even as the design was coming together, it was very nervous about it. Throughout all of these test screenings, he really was not sure this was gonna work. And it's just great that Dan Acroid believed in this idea that Ivan Reitman trusted Dan Acroid and that this winds up being one of the most iconic things, not just in this movie, but I mean, this is Ghostbusters.

Yeah. And it's very telling that like every iteration of Ghostbusters since then pretty much has at least wings to if not had a version of the Stapuff Marshmallow man. Even though it's not like inherent to the concept of Ghostbusting and being abstract, well, of course, if you're in a Busta Ghost, there's gonna be a man made of Marshmallow's. But yeah, it's just like, yeah, it hits.

But Reitman seriously thought this might ruin his career, that it might ruin the movie and therefore, like no one was gonna take him seriously ever again. It is definitely one of those things that's so hard to get in your mind. Oh, this didn't always exist. So like if you just went into the theater in 1984, how wild this must have felt. Like these experiences I've had in movies that are like there of like, oh my God, I can't believe they went here.

I can't believe this is what the finale of this movie is. It's also, oh, sorry, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, but so it's just, yeah, I'm trying to put myself back in that mind frame where I think I'm gonna go see basically like Stripes 2, is what I'm going into this movie thinking. Like, oh, there'll be some like Ghost, but it'll mostly just be like a couple of guys riffing. And then at the end of the movie, there's like this Kaiju, I wouldn't know that term at the time.

But there's this Kaiju battle in the middle of New York. Like, that's just so fun. The way it's shot, the line delivery, it's the perfect setup and then delivery of the punchline where what did you do, Ray? And he's like building up to it. Like, listen, I tried like, and as they're having that back and forth, you're getting these glimpses of this thing moving in between buildings just like for a fraction of a second. And then the way Ray goes, like, it's the Stay Puff Marshmallow man.

It's so fucking fun. They want an amazing reveal. I also love the, and again, did not notice this as a child. The little subtle seedlings of the Stay Puff, the marshmallows on the counter. There's a big mural on the side of a building that you can see in the montage. That is of the Stay Puff Marshmallow man. So like, oh, this isn't established thing in this world. If you're paying enough attention, you might notice that. That's really fun.

This thing also stressed me out as a kid because yeah, the idea of clear your mind, I'm sorry. You're lucky. It's just the marshmallow man. If I had been on that roof, ooh, you guys would have been a trouble. Yeah, it would have been some like fully clothed man to make a woman. I don't even know how to have just one thing in my mind. Yeah. Clear your mind. But it's also the sort of thing where it's like, you know, don't laugh. And then immediately you're gonna think of something funny.

So just like, and especially don't think of anything really horrible. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I was good on him for like, okay, I would have never done that. I would have immediately, my brain would have been like, what's the worst thing in the world? Yes. Like, oh my god. What's the movie? Is it Paprika where the DVD cover is just nonsense? What the face? Oh, like a bunch of laughs. That's what would happen. It would just be everything all at once. It just starts raining. Oh my shit. Oh, Kristen.

It was just one thing. It was everything. It's like some kind of blob of like people you know and pop culture things just like all mashed together. Well, and definitely fucking dinosaurs. Like, yeah, everything would be like, not the mama. Everything would be fused with a T-Rex somehow. Yes, I could write it. That's what would happen. And then Mike and I are just stuck on our ponies. Oh no. And it looked the limo should be the us.

So the marshmallow man was built and portrayed by actor and special effects artist Bill Bryan. Who modeled his walk by on Godzilla? Sure. That makes sense. There were 18 foam suits each costing between 25 and $30,000. 17 of them were burned as part of filming. Man. You know, you've never noticed this in the movie, but because obviously it's a normal sized guy in this miniature street, as he stomping along in some shots and the bottom of his feet are flattened cars and flattened people. Oh, yeah.

That's awesome. I also love the detail that the scale they ended up making at was kind of weird. So for all the cars, they could only find one like pre-made model car that was the right size. So they had to like repaint and like, like kit bash these different cars to look like different cars. That's awesome. This is this one model they were able to find. And of course, what are the other little details?

To miniaturize the one shot, we see the hydrant get kind of blown apart in the water spray up. That's just sand. Oh, that's so cool. I, that's man, I listen, it kind of works. It doesn't matter if it's all the same car because if you're looking at the cars, you're like, yeah. But yeah, like summer painted, like taxis and there's a couple of police cars. Yeah. Oh, cool. That's fun. So even as a kid, I knew that this marshmallow was obviously shaving cream. Like it's, oh, seriously?

Oh, I mean, it was too light. Like it was just clearly too light. It needed to be heavier and thicker to be marshmallow. And should have burned their skin. And these melt, melt some into skeletons. It's just turned into a body horror movie. The shaving cream did get like, give like chemical burns. What was meantfully did I think they said, like, like when it was, yeah, pick this kind. So after, at one point, they were supposed to dump 150 pounds of shaving cream onto Atherton.

And he was like, I would like you to test that first. Mm-hmm. And it knocked the stunt man down. And they were like, okay, fine, 75 pounds. Oh, yes. Then he has a quote. He didn't mean it this way. I don't think it's just an unfortunate phrasing where he was like, so they got some stunt man or other, you know, non-essential person in there. And I was like, what? Yeah. You are moving. He did, I don't think he met. It just, he was in character. Right. Like, he never left. He never left.

Winston, you get in there. Test it on Winston. He's not essential. He gets some non-essential person to get the marginal. And then that. Oh, man. All right. So goes are ones to bring about the end of the world. But maybe our headhunters can channel their power to a more constructive use. It's time for a rocabilitation. This is one of those weeks where being the person who checks the Instagram worked against me because I checked Instagram before I had thought of my own answer.

And they were so good. I was like, I don't think I should play this. These are too fucking good. I can't think of anything. Yeah, that's usually how I feel sitting here. It's like, uh. So Paul said either a 1980s aerobics instructor. Paul's second choice was voice actor for an exorcist sequel. OK. Jose said, host of a new game show called, choose the form of the destructor. Well, you're compete in various games like, are you a god?

Possession and gatekeeper and key master win the ultimate prize, not ending the world. Oh my god. That's the stakes. If they lose, we all lose. It's a short, short run. Didn't last very long, that show. Just the pilot. Yeah. Yeah. Justin said, put them on the creative team for Halloween hornites. Instead of a haunted maze with one theme, each person that enters the maze chooses their own words to hear.

Nice. Yes. Hannah said self improvement coach in need of a confidence boost or makeover, looking for the key that fits your lock relationship wise. Just call 555 gozer and book your appointment today. Steven said personal chef. The eggs are worth the possession afterwards. There you go. Claire and said camp counselor, the camp would look epic. The marshmallows would be off the hook. And oh my god, the ghost stories complete with visual aid. The marshmallows. Oh, I forgot.

My favorite detail of that after the stay puffed explodes and they're all covered in marshmallows, it's so funny how everybody, everybody is slathered in them. And then you look at Bill Murray and he was clearly like, no. Yeah. So that was his idea because he thought it was going to be funnier if he was pristine. I remember as a kid being like, this make, I get mad. It makes no fucking sense. He was just like, it'll be so much funnier if ever. Okay. I mean, that's maybe is it excuse?

Yeah. It's like, you know what would be hilarious? Funny is if maybe I'm not even here. If maybe you cut to me and I'm in like Jamaica. Yeah. It'd be like really funny if like, Vickman just had like a bunch of gold bars and I could keep those afterwards. Jackson said choose the form of the instructor would be a great for personal trauma therapy. A real face your fears situation. Okay. Allen said, black Friday line monitor, are you a god? Back of the line.

Gavin said dog trainer, those two angry pups were running riots, smashing up apartment buildings and rampaging through Central Park. Now look at them. Calm, obedient and sitting nice like the good dogs they are. I love that. That's a version of the dog whisperer I would watch. And finally Tim said, with powers like theirs, I have to say Macy's day parade coordinator. Why settle with the giant floating snoopy when we can have real one walking down 6th Avenue?

Mike, what are you going to do for gozer skills? Well, I think the clear job advertising. Imagine if you can just like, oh, who's our mascot? We have a hundred foot tall version of it walking around. And like, yeah, like you yourself in mint mobile, you have a giant Ryan Reynolds in there. Your pills very doughboy is just like throwing biscuits from on high. It's great. There's going to be some collateral damage. Sure. But you're really going to get the brand recognition out there.

Chris, I'm about you. So we could give gozer a Las Vegas headliner show because that's really what the final set piece looks like is like a cigarette and Roy performance with terror dogs instead of lions. But also thinking she could be the ultimate heel in the gorgeous ladies of wrestling. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. What about you? So I had two answers. First off, locksmith. She brings keys and locks together. Yeah. Okay. You're welcome. I was also imagining like, you call a locksmith.

And this like weird bubble lady shows up with two giant demon dogs. And like, it's, I'm like that on my apartment. Well, I have to keep her in the key master right here. You just blow the entire wall out. Okay. Thanks. Cool. But then I thought no, gozer is going to give back to society by busing up cults. Are you a god? Oh, nice. Nice. Zip. Get out of here. Jared let out. Oh, God. Next, the noxium. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. She's been sitting on that for a week. Actually, I just thought.

Oh, it's like half of her notes. She's that just like 72 point font. All right. Well, thank you to everyone who participated. If you'd like to take part in row cabilitation or ultimate matchup, these submissions came from our Instagram page. You can find us at Rogues Gallery podcast where there will be a dedicated post ahead of each episode for you to leave your answers. Now that we've put our rogue on a more promising path, it's time to identify there. Last known location.

Let's very briefly talk about the response and the legacy of this first film. So we've gone over some of the reasons this was a risky proposition for Columbia Pictures. And like I said, for Ivan Reitman, terrified, he might ruin his career. But when Ghostbusters was released on June 8th, 1984, this thing exploded. Like a marshmallow man. Like a breached containment unit. Let's keep going. Like an egg on a counter. Like a terror dog.

And I'm sure everyone at Columbia was like, see, I always knew it would be. I always knew that there's always going to be a hit. But no, they couldn't possibly have known how successful this was going to be. Because if they had, if they did have some sense, they definitely would have had more merchandise ready to go. Fortunately, that logo was pretty easy to start printing on everything. So they may not have been fully prepared for the full scope of its success.

But they did have that theme song that was all over the radio. Soundtrack was shooting up the charts. And all of the merchandise they could cobble together was flying off the shelves. This was so successful. It actually messed with Bill Murray's head a little bit. Because that movie you mentioned earlier, the Razor's Edge. That was the more personal, the thing he really believed in. And that did not do very well. And then meanwhile, Ghostbusters is widely embraced.

And this was something that, you know, he enjoyed, but regarded as being fairly disposable. And he kind of hated the idea that this might wind up being what he was most known for. And then I think, yeah, if you're a Ghostbusters fan, if you've paid even a little bit of attention to the behind the scenes stuff with the franchise over the years, he also is somebody who has a love-hate relationship with the whole thing.

Even its success, it took a really long time for a sequel to come together, though. And there are many, many reasons for that. It's really not a part of the story of this film, though. But so in the meantime, there was the Saturday morning cartoon, which I think for a lot of people our age is just as if not maybe more significant than the film. Do you remember, of course you did. This wasn't that long ago. When we went to Lake Geneva and the last morning there, I think you were still sleeping.

It was still dark out. There was an amazing thunderstorm. It was just really coming down. And I started making coffee. And then in the background, I was just like, oh, the real Ghostbusters is on Amazon. I haven't seen this in ages. And I was just like, I'll just have it on in the background and whatever. Not really pay attention to it. And then you kind of slowly made your way out. And then we both just wound up sitting there for good chunk of that morning.

Just like drinking coffee and being like, this is amazing. This show is really good. And especially the early episodes of it, when it's a lot like Batman the Animated Series where it's just dark. Like the visually, it's just a dark, kind of creepy atmosphere of those early episodes is so good. Yeah. They really lean into the Horus that Ix earlier on. And there's the whole different breakdown.

If you want to get really into the weeds of like, they were the syndicated episodes where they could do a little bit more. But then there's the ones that were directly meant for like Saturday morning, major network release. And then of course, later on, there's the Q5 kerfuffle. Basically they brought in an advertising firm that were like, here's all these changes that we think are going to make the show better. And they all made it much worse.

I mean, I remember as a kid, even being aware that when it became slimer and the real Ghostbusters. It's been like, this isn't, is good. No. I don't like this. They basically softened everything, even like character designs. They recast some of the voices. Some of the most notable being Janine and Winston already kind of like underserved characters in some ways.

Yeah. So that was definitely something that even as a kid I noticed, but those early episodes some really hit Lorenzo music as Peter van Kman, really funny. Bruce Lamar says, I mean, like the whole cast is phenomenal. Yeah. Isn't that, so when they were casting for the animated show. Oh, yes. And Winston. Winston, Ernie Hudson auditioned to play the role of Winston in the cartoon and didn't get it.

Now, they say that a big reason might have been because they already had issues with likeness rights and it might have been this weird legal thing of, well, if we have him playing the character, then he is kind of inherently playing the character that he played in the movie that we don't exactly have the rights to blah, blah, blah.

So it might not have been that they were like, I don't think he gave a good enough audition to play the character he originated, but yeah, eventually went to Arsenio Hall of all people. Yeah. But yeah, no, it is funny to know that like Ernie Hudson just like keeps getting these weird, like little, little short shifts and throughout the history of the franchise. We're here for you, Ernie. We love you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ghost Ghostbusters fans really, really adore that show.

So after the success of the movie, Filmmation wanted to make the animated series. They went to Columbia, said, hey, how about it? Columbia said, no, we're good. We've got this other company doing it. But thanks to that live action 70s TV show, The Ghostbusters, Filmmation was able to make an animated sequel series to that show and call it Ghostbusters. And they even got it on air a couple of days before the real Ghostbusters premiered.

But that's why the one based on the movie is The Real Ghostbusters. I had toys for the Filmmation one. I had no idea what it was. I just knew it said Ghostbusters. I didn't understand the difference. And also as a kid, I was so used to these toy lines getting so weird in random, especially like the license stuff, and especially where every Batman figure had a zebra print and a helicopter. It wasn't in the movie. Okay. The only thing that threw me about them was again, the scale.

It always comes back. It was just like, these, okay, I don't think these are supposed to go together. But why would they both be? Ghostbusters. Didn't get it, really didn't get it. And it did kind of the whole thing. It kind of backfired on filmation because most kids who did tune into the filmation cartoon were just upset about the bait and switch. These aren't the characters from the movie. It doesn't look like the movie.

So these days, it's usually referred to as Filmmations Ghostbusters or sometimes the original Ghostbusters. But it's really funny that as a child, I'm not aware of any of the legal ramifications anything going on. So the title of the real Ghostbusters, I interpreted it as some sort of rivalry between the cartoon and the movie. Like, that's what I thought too. Those were Ghostbusters. But here, these are the real, this is the real version of the story. Which is ironic because they're cartoons.

Right. But it just loves the idea that there's like, weirdly, the cartoon has a chip on his shoulder. It's like, no, we're the real ones. You guys are fakers. Yeah. It's just so strange. I feel like there's had to be a lot of dramas that accidentally bought the wrong app to figure this out. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I have either of you seen any, even just like clips from the Filmmation Ghostbusters. Yeah, I did eventually see it way after the fact. But yeah.

I've seen both the cartoon and the live action. And it's some goofy shit. Yeah. It's, you can understand why it's like, you know, this was mostly a good thing to get a name from. So eventually we did get a sequel both to the film and to the real Ghostbusters cartoon. You remember extreme Ghostbusters. Oh, very much so. Yeah. That was, I was very excited for it. It was one of those things where I kind of like, I think I tricked myself into liking it more than I actually did.

I was a little too old for it, but I do, there was one, one of my friends was like less inhibited about what's not cool to like anymore. And so he was still very much into it. He really talked it up. And I thought the premise sounded amazing. I didn't watch it at the time. I've seen a little bit of its sense, but it's Egon assembles a new team of younger Ghostbusters. Oh, I mean, that extreme Ghostbusters. I thought that was a joke. No, no, this is, it's very much the era.

Yeah. And then the last episode of the show is the best one because it's when the members of the original team come back and they team up with the new Ghostbusters team. Like a two-part race. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I've heard that they weren't sure if that was going to be the ending, but they were like, well, this would be a good one to have. If it ends up being the ending, it works.

And yeah, I definitely remember seeing that one live and just, especially at that time, the idea of like, oh, this is calling back to this other series. It's almost akin to a more meta or multiverse thing of like, but that's from the old series. Yeah, Egon was always there, but it was like, these are the original and they're back, but they're like slightly different. Yeah, it's cool.

And since then, on the feature film side, we had the remake in 2016, then more recently, two more sequels set in this original timeline. Naturally, there's been a plethora of video games, toys, comic books along the way. Some wild crossovers in the comic books. There's a really fun one where the animated Ghostbusters meet the live action Ghostbusters. There's also Ghostbusters and Transformers. Well, there's like a weird multiverse of like, I think, Hasbro-related products.

That have a shared universe where like, G-I-J-O and Transformers and Ghostbusters, like, have had crossover multiverse events. It's just like, who was G-I-J-O, Transformers and Ghostbusters all fighting together? Like, a haunted truck made by Kobra? There's like, Ghostbusters Ninja Turtles is another one. Yeah. The one that really makes sense is Ghostbusters and X-Files. Oh, sure. That was one they did. But there's also just a lot of like regular Ghostbusters series out there.

Tons of stuff to dip into if you're interested. But since last known location is usually where we talk about the current state of the franchise, what I'm more interested in is we know there's a new animated series on the horizon. It's going to be on Netflix. Not a ton of info available about that yet at the time of this recording. On the film side, things are a little bit less clear. The most recent movie, Frozen Empire, underperformed, relative to expectations.

We don't really need to do a post-mortem on it here, but the point is, I think it's inevitable there will be more Ghostbusters movies at some point. What's not so certain is if they'll continue with the current cast or find some way to retool all of this again, it's kind of up in the air. So where would you like to see this go? Or have you had your fill of Ghostbusters? I might be in the minority that I really liked afterlife. I don't think you're in them. It seems to be a pretty even split.

Yeah. Okay. I, Frozen Empire, no. But I think that the kid version is cute and a lot of fun and was a way to reinvent, not invent a great. To bolsonic, vinaigrette. To bolsonic, vinaigrette. That's serious. Maybe a little bit of basil on top. So I'd like to see them keep going with that or at least give it one more good try after Frozen Empire. And maybe we can explore that idea of Ghostbusting becoming mundane and maybe like, there's the idea of like, there's competing Ghostbusting. This too.

Yes. That would be fun. Well, and it seems like a good time to do that because of the, the meta nature of like, we've had now, you know, five Ghostbusters movies. So it is in the public consciousness a bit more mundane. It's not a special dev of a Ghostbusters movie anymore. So the idea of in-universe people are kind of like, yeah, Ghostbusters.

I think that works better than honestly how they did it with Jurassic World where it was like, no, I think like a dinosaur park is still pretty fucking mind blowing even 20 years on. But like I could see, yeah, if you're not actually encountering the ghost every day, it's like, yeah, there are certain jobs that seem pretty extreme that we're just kind of like, oh, yeah, firefighters exist.

But if you think about it, it's like, that's a guy who goes into a burning building and then like uses an axe to save people. It's crazy. So it's funny. You mentioned Jurassic World because I know before that movie came out and Kristen can back this up, whenever there was talk about a new Jurassic Park movie and what would you do with it? What should the next sequel be? I just kept saying for years, open the park, open the park, open the park. That's what I want to see. That's the next sequel.

And with Ghostbusters, I used to feel the same way about a line in this first movie when Venkman talks about how lucrative the franchise rights would be. And so finally, in the most recent one, we do see a little bit of that where Winston is in charge of the larger Ghostbusters operation. There's different divisions, some sense of this getting larger, expanding. I think that's great.

But what I'm talking about is focusing on different teams in different cities, a new corporation with their own possibly superior Ghostbusting technology that now they have to compete with. It's actually a really wonderful opportunity to honor this aspect of Acroids original concept. Because like you said, these films now exist in a world where this stuff is becoming common place.

So that just seems like a really easy way to not invalidate anything that came before, but to also try something new. Because the other thing too is just like, I love the acto one. I love all the toys. I love all the iconography of Ghostbusters. The reason I, there are things in afterlife I like. The reason I'm not super into it overall is the more and more they start call like bringing in elements from the first movie. I understand why they felt like they had to do that.

But it's, it's not even just, oh, it's gozer again. It's the terror dogs again. We're just doing the ending of the first movie again. It's even the fact that whatever the ghost in that one is, that it, the blue thing that is not muncher is not sure. It's just slimer. Yeah. And so, yeah, the acto one is cool. Let's see some new versions of that. Let's get some new toys for kids to play with.

Well, and another problem with that particular, you know, sequel film for me is the idea that it's almost a film about people's relationship with the film Ghostbusters as opposed to what the relationship with Ghostbusters in the world where there are people that existed and had these events happen as historical fact. And that's, that's, that's part of the thing.

I think overall my biggest note for the Ghostbusters franchise is, yeah, I think you can still have it being a timeline where the first movies existed. That's fine. A cameo here and there, but don't make it so much about the same people.

It was my biggest problem with the 2016 one was the constant cameos where it's just like, even if you're enjoying the stuff that they're doing that's new, every 15 minutes you see an original Ghostbusters, sometimes playing a very similar role and it's just like, no, I'm trying to get in this new headspace. I've seen Ghostbusters. I've seen Ghostbusters too a million times. I can go back to them whenever I want.

Give me something new with this really fun idea, this concept of what if there's technology that you can hunt Ghost with that's actually a little bit actiony, but the tone is comedic and it's about fun people hanging out and doing this fantastical thing. Alright, well, before we wrap up this season, let's wind this down with a quick round of suggested sentencing. If listeners enjoyed Ghostbusters, what other media should they check out? Kristen. I'm going to recommend the show Truthseekers.

Goddamnit, this is mine. I thought it was. I was impressed. I was impressed. I thought it was. I was impressed. So this is starting Nick Frost. It's a British supernatural show. Just one season, the main character is a broadband internet installer with an interest in paranormal investigations. It's funny, it's creepy. The characters are just really, really memorable. Yeah, and also it's just the tone of it.

Like, the same way Ghostbusters was a slightly different pace for its cast and crew relative to the comedies they had made right before this. That's also the case with this show. This is not Sean of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. It's really grounded, really gray and dirty and lived in. It's definitely very funny, but in a more understated way. And it also gets surprisingly emotional in spots.

And also unlike a lot of stuff that claims to be influenced by Ghostbusters, even some of its own sequels, this one gets the paranormal side right as well. It is genuinely creepy. They put just as much care and effort into that side of the story, if not more actually. And like Ghostbusters, these isolated incidents, they all start to connect and build towards a larger mystery. Only eight episodes. You'll fly through it. I agree, great characters, great premise, underrated show.

So yeah, that's truth seekers and it's on Amazon Prime. So mine again, is a mix of some spooky ghost stuff, but with some comedy and it's pretty small scale. So I think it works very well. It's the 2014 film Housebound. Yes. Yes. Basically the premise is there's this kind of troubled woman who gets in trouble. I think she tries to steal a safe or an ATM or something. And she is then put under house arrest in a place that happens to be haunted.

So there's a reason why the person is staying in the haunted house. And there's some spooky moments and a lot of funny moments and just really good fun characters. So yeah, it's a lot of the same things you like from Ghostbusters, but an even smaller scale. And again, it's nice to have that flavor of it being New Zealand. So it's a different take in some ways just because of that cultural context as well. That completes our case file on the OG Ghostbusters.

If you're a fan of the show, please let us know by leaving a rating and review on your podcasting platform of choice. After that, come find us on social media. Links are in the show notes. You can use those to get clues about our next episode, participate in upcoming investigations and interact with us and other listeners. And you can find me on Instagram at K underscore Shrey. And I'm on Instagram at Christopher Schrader. I'm too hot to handle. Too cold to hold.

I'm a web buster and I'm in control. Don't have me throw in post up for a bunch of children. All the while the slime was under the content. I'll pack up my crew, get a grip, come equip, get my email pack on my back and I'll split. Find out about Vigo, the master evil, try to force me online. That's not legal. Mike's not on social media, but we've got a contact page on 27thetterproductions.com that you can use to get in touch with all three of us.

That includes requesting a character or title you'd like to hear us cover. All right friends, this case is closed, but we'll be back on February 12th for a brand new season of Rogue's Gallery.