Now Ramis has turned fully adult on us. Analyze This, which Ramis co-wrote and directed, stars Robert De Niro as a mob boss who seeks the help of a psychiatrist, played by Billy Crystal. It's funny, sometimes even silly, but lacks flatulence, female nudity, pesky rodents and food fights.
"Directing anything is a huge responsibility," Ramis says, a permanent grin plastered on his bespectacled mug. "But people think directing means being in control."
"A lot of directors get so ego-involved they kind of resent it if other people have ideas. I'm just the opposite. I'll listen to everybody. If the make-up man has a good joke, it's going in the movie."
Ramis is out to prove being an adult doesn't mean you can't goof around. In fact, Crystal claims that filming Analyze This was a loosey-goosey enterprise because of Ramis' encouragement of improvisation.
"The most you can ask from anybody as a director is to let you play and come up with stuff," Crystal says. "That makes it great to go to work every day, because you can have fun. If anything, we cracked up too much."
Surprisingly, the main culprit - when it came to ruining yards of film stock on the Analyze This set - was the guy who made the mohawk a fashion in the 70's.
"There were several times when Bob (De Niro) couldn't continue, just would laugh hysterically," Ramis says.
"And once an actor breaks, you know they're going to continue to break, so three or four takes in a row would be destroyed by Bob breaking up. And there's delight in seeing Robert De Niro laugh, because he's so reserved. Normally he's so serious."

Still, De Niro yukking and Crystal egging him on is a far cry from Peter Pan's glory days. During filming of Caddyshack, for instance, Ramis says, "The whole cast stayed in a hotel right on the golf course in South Florida and at night, everyone would get loaded on whatever and steal golf carts and have races and demolition derbies."
On Stripes, the craziness came from Ramis and Murray making it up as they went along.
Ramis says: "Scripts were sketchy and Bill loves to improvise, and I'd always be there like a gremlin whispering in his ear: 'say this, say that'. I'd help him shape these long improvs. I got a lot of satisfaction out of seeing some of these big Bill Murray speeches come together."

Time marches on, however, and though Ramis has no plans to do a drama - the closest he's come was in a small role as Jack Nicholson's shrink in As Good As It Gets - he says he's considering another Ghostbusters flick, which would be the series' third.
A minor sticking point: The original gang - Ramis, Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson - are relative geezers now.
"Danny and I talk about doing another Ghostbusters on a reguler basis," Ramis says. "The studio would like to make a deal. The dream plan was that danny and I would produce and I would direct it and we would recruit some newer, younger, popular ghostbusters."
Any suggestions?
"Sure," says Ramis, his permanent grin widening. "Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Will Smith."
A whole new generation of perpetual adolescents, with Ramis as father figure. Oh, well. Even Peter Pan has to pay the mortgage.

Click here to see a scan of the Ghostbusters information from the article in the newspaper (for authenticity purposes).

- Article written by Bob Ivory, from the March 17, 1999 edition of The Daily Telegraph

Transcribed by Rick Haslewood, 17/03/99