A family interest in ghosts
Dan Aykroyd, who wrote Ghostbusters and played Ray STANTZ, grew up in a family fascinated by the paranormal. His great-grandfather had been interested in spiritualism and séances, and his father later wrote a book about the history of ghosts. Aykroyd read magazines on paranormal research as a boy, and the film's mix of scientific-sounding gadgets and ghost-hunting came from that.
His first draft was much bigger and stranger, set in the future and across other dimensions. The director, Ivan Reitman, pulled it back down to earth, in modern New York.
Written for a friend
Aykroyd wrote one of the lead parts for his friend and comedy partner John Belushi, who died in 1982 before filming. The part eventually became Peter VENKMAN, played by Bill Murray. The green, greedy ghost SLIMER was nicknamed by the crew the ghost of John Belushi, because of Belushi's famous appetite.
Harold Ramis, who co-wrote the film, played the brainy Egon SPENGLER. The heroes are scientists thrown out of a university who set up a business catching ghosts.
A real New York firehouse
The Ghostbusters' headquarters is an old FIREHOUSE, and the outside is a real working fire station in the Tribeca area of New York, Hook and Ladder Company 8. It still displays the Ghostbusters sign on special occasions, and fans visit it. The inside scenes were filmed elsewhere.
Their car, the ECTO-1, is a 1959 Cadillac converted from a vehicle that could serve as an ambulance or a hearse. The PROTON PACK props were heavy for the actors to carry, and the ghost TRAP had to look convincing without doing anything at all. The SLIME that covers Venkman was mostly methylcellulose, a harmless thickener also used in food, mixed with water and colouring. When the film came out in 1984, it became the highest-earning comedy ever made up to that time.
A lawsuit over the theme song
The theme song, with its chant of who you are going to call, was written and sung by Ray Parker Jr. and became a number one hit. The singer Huey Lewis claimed it sounded too much like his own song, I Want a New Drug, and the case was settled out of court.
The film opens with a haunting in the New York Public LIBRARY, where a librarian is scared by a GHOST among the bookshelves. Our library page covers what libraries are really like.
A giant marshmallow and the rest of the grid
At the climax, the ancient spirit GOZER lets the heroes choose the form of the destroyer. Ray tries to think of the most harmless thing he can, and out of his childhood memories comes the STAY PUFT marshmallow man, a giant smiling mascot that stomps through the city. ZUUL, a servant of Gozer, takes over one of the characters, and her nerdy neighbour Louis, an accountant, becomes the Keymaster who helps open the way.
The rest of the grid holds a haunted world: the GHOUL, the SPOOK, the SPECTER, SLIME and GOO, a HAUNTED building, every PARANORMAL event, and each ghost BUSTER.