Ghostbusters showed up on the scene like gangbusters when I was a kid, and I was thrilled to be part of the zeitgeist. The video for the Ray Parker Jr. song “Ghostbusters” was on MTV all the time and everywhere you went parents and children alike were quoting the film with glee. When Ghostbusters was released in theatres my parents and I could not wait to see Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, two of our biggest living Saturday Night Live heroes, together in the same film. My anticipation to see the film was so great that I remember sitting on the edge of my seat in the movie theatre staring wide-eyed at the screen, counting the seconds until the feature started. Everything inside my body was pumping on all cylinders, and when the film projector finally flickered to life, and the movie began, I found myself on an emotional roller coaster. One second I was laughing wildly, and the next I was jumping out of my seat in fear, all the while being heavily invested in the love stories and the glorious information about the ghosts and ghost-catching technology. Before Ghostbusters I had never seen a movie with such a perfect mix of comedy, science fiction, action, romance, and horror. It is this very mix which makes the film infinitely watchable. When Ghostbusters was in rotation on pay TV and later released on home video, my friends and family and I would watch it non-stop.
Everyone had their favorite character in Ghostbusters, but personally I absolutely adored Bill Murray’s wry comedic delivery as Dr. Peter Venkman. Venkman’s humor made such an impression on me that I actively worked very hard to emulate it. Whenever my friends and I would play Ghostbusters I would always want to be Venkman. Also, I should note that when I say play Ghostbusters, I mean that four of us were standing in my backyard, and we would each choose a character to play so we could act out our favorite scenes from the movie or scenes that we made up on the spot. Though unspoken, I feel that our main goal was to crack each other up as we mimed all of our props and gave wonderfully over the top reactions to monsters that weren’t really there. Over the years we would play out all of our favorite movies, comics, and TV shows in our backyards for hours on end, and as I look back, I believe that one of the reasons that I decided to become an actor was because of that joy I found in playing with my friends.
Ghostbusters was not just a movie to us as kids in the 1980s but rather a movement. It was a chance to dream and play and think up wild stories that we could act out with each other for fun. Spawning sequels, cartoons, reboots, and even a juice drink, the spirit of Ghostbusters has not faded. I’m sure that there were countless films before Ghostbusters that successfully straddled several genres at once and inspired a generation, but for me Ghostbusters will always be remembered as the movie that opened up my mind to the countless possibilities in film and the endless fun of pretend. In the immortal words of Ray Parker Jr., “Bustin’ Makes Me Feel Good.”
Comfort Films Episode 7: Ghostbusters (Released November 19, 2021)
