WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
This year marks the 30th anniversary of GHOSTBUSTERS!
For the record, Dan Aykroyd really does believe in ghosts. “It’s the family business, for God’s sake,” he says from his family’s farmhouse in Ontario, site of Aykroyd séances for generations. Aykroyd’s great-grandfather was a renowned spiritualist; the family had its own regular medium to channel souls from the other side. His grandfather—a telephone engineer—investigated the possibility of contacting the dead via radio technology. His father authored a well-regarded history of ghosts; strange lights halo his daughter in photographs. I never knew about this ghostly background and had really forgotten that Dan Aykroyd wrote this movie!
Yet Aykroyd was the first to turn the supernatural into a highly lucrative global franchise. Drawing on his spectral heritage, Aykroyd sat down one day and started writing Ghostbusters. The finished result catapulted a crew of already-famous Saturday Night Live and Second City comedians to international superstardom, and became a watershed in the industry, eroding the once insurmountable barrier between television and film actors. “Ghostbusters—one of Columbia’s most iconic films of all time—basically invented the genre of special effects-driven comedy,” says Doug Belgrad, president of Columbia Pictures.
One of the leads for whom the script was written unceremoniously died of a drug overdose. (John Belushi)
New York became a lead character in the film, which documents many now-lost landmarks, such as the World Trade Center buildings and the original Tavern on the Green. A representative of the New York Public Library, where the film’s opening scenes were shot, says that impostor Ghostbusters have occasionally burst into the main reading room and startled the patrons quietly reading there.
In the first week of its June 1984 release, Ghostbusters broke Columbia’s “best opening weekend” and “best opening week” records. “You never heard people laugh like they did when they were watching Ghostbusters in a packed theater.”
“The film crossed over to so many markets and audiences and was celebrated for so long,” recalls Rick Moranis. “It went through three seasons: the entire summer. [Then] every kid was dressed as a Ghostbuster for Halloween, and it dominated the Christmas gift season.” The film went on to gross $238.6 million domestically and another $53 million overseas.
Several industry figures credit Ghostbusters with helping to break down the once strictly church-and-state divide between television and film actors. In the pre-Saturday Night Live period, “agents never discussed television people for movies,” says Ovitz. “Maybe small parts, but never leads . . . no one would pay to see someone you could see on TV . . . [but] there came a movement with Ghostbusters: all of the sudden everyone was clamoring for S.N.L. people. Within a 12-month period, the entire attitude of people in the business regarding television personalities changed.”
The movie starred:
Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman
Dan Aykroyd as Dr. Raymond "Ray" Stantz
Sigourney Weaver as Dana Barrett
Harold Ramis as Dr. Egon Spengler
Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddemore
Rick Moranis as Louis Tully
Annie Potts as Janine Melnitz
William Atherton as Walter Peck
David Margulies as Mayor Lenny
Slavitza Jovan as Gozer
One of the big surprises was the success of the theme song which I'd say 9 out of 10 of you reading this have sang in the shower!
The film's theme song, "Ghostbusters," written and performed by Ray Parker, Jr., sparked the catchphrases "Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!" and "I ain't afraid of no ghost." The song was a huge hit, staying at number one for three weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and for two weeks on the Black Singles chart, and brought Parker an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. According to Bruce A. Austin (in 1989), the theme "purportedly added $20 million to the box office take of the film"
There have been other Ghostbusters and might be still more to come...but no matter how good they might be this is the one we will always remember like they saying goes...everyone remembers their first.....
GHOST THAT IS!
Start a new tradition this year and make this your Halloween family movie....
BOO!
Until next time!
Strolling Down Memory Lane~Main Page
My Compliments to Candy on Ghostbusters