GHOSTBUSTERS
MEMBERSHIP: (first team) Edward “Eddie” Spenser, Jacob “Jake” Tracy, (second team) Egon Spengler, Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Winston Zedmore, Janine Melnitz, (third team), Ray Stantz, Janine Melnitz, Eduardo Rivera, Roland Jackson, Garrett Miller, Kylie Griffin,
PURPOSE: To explore, document and possibly exorcise benevolent and malignant spirit activity
BASE of OPERATIONS: New York City
FIRST APPEARANCE: (original version) Ghost-Busters, ABC-TV Series, 1975, (second version) Ghostbusters (1984,1989)
HISTORY: Ghostbusters has been the name of several separate paranormal agencies
dedicated to the study and research of ghosts, paranormal activity and exposing of supernatural hoaxes.
The term goes back to 1940 when radio personality Larry Lawrence came up with the term “ghost-breaker.” As
he put it, “You’ve heard of tax-breakers. I’m a ghost-breaker. I take
skeletons out of the closet and dust them off.” Following his experiences at Castle
Maldito, he began a new radio program where he invited listeners to share
and tell their true experiences in the paranormal.
The term was later used in a condescending manner in regard to Eddie Spenser and Jake Tracy (nee Kong), two police detectives who had grown up listening to Lawrence's program. They later developed a reputation for reopening dead crime cases and uncovering new evidence that closed those unsolved mysteries. After one case reportedly laid the ghost to rest in a thirty-year old murder mystery to rest, they were nicknamed “The Ghost-Busters” by the media. They were soon taking on unsolved cases that also involved restless spirits. Their popularity also inspired an animated TV series that ran for one season in the Seventies and was briefly revived in the Eighties.
In 1982, the term “Ghostbusters” became officially owned by New York Paranormal, four paranormal researchers who used high-tech gear to study and document paranormal activity. Located in New York City, the team was founded by Peter Venkman and Egon Spengler, a psychologist and physicist joined by structural engineer Ray Stantz at New York University. After their funding ran out, they moved into a former Manhattan fire station that turned out to be haunted by a harmless poltergeist. They were soon joined by Winston Zedmore, an unemployed contractor, and Janine Melnitz, a burned out Manhattan corporate accountant who juggles their appointments and financing. To date, some of their most interesting cases have been the New York Municipal Courthouse haunted by the ghosts of the criminal Scoleri Brothers, the apparitions of Titanic survivors near Piers 34 and 54 at the New York Docks, a spectral jogger in Central Park and the phantom locomotive of “The City of Albany” which derailed and killed thousands of people in 1920. A motion picture exaggerating their paranormal exploits and comparing them to “ghostly exterminators” was released in 1984 and followed by a sequel in 1989.
To date, Ray Stantz heads up their investigations as Venkman and Spengler have departed to follow other pursuits. He has since developed a master database cataloging haunted locations across the world as a research tool for other investigator and a Ghostbusters Database linking the research of myriad groups in the United States, Canada, England and aboard including the Collinsport Ghost Society, New England Paranormal and New York Area Paranormal among others.
The organization is not just devoted to paranormal research but also to creating a hub for all paranormal ghost hunting agencies and a master database of cross-referenced haunted locations. Their accountant and legal advisor is Louis Tully, a junior attorney in the New York City District Attorney's office.
COMMENTS: Created by Norman Abbott (nephew of Bud Abbott) and Larry Pierce,
Updated by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.
Dan Aykroyd is the brother of David Aykroyd of the Organization of Intelligent Research.