Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!! For the last post for Women In Horror Month, I picked the widely controversial and unjustly criticized (in my opinion) horror comedy, Ghostbusters! Ghostbusters is filled with a legendary cast, a great soundtrack, and unforgettable entities. So, grab your Proton Pack, never forget your Swiss Army Knife, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com and IMDb.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• Because Harold Ramis passed away before this film was made, he was honored with a bust of his head and we can see it just outside of Erin’s (Kristen Wiig) university office in the beginning of the film. The bust was later donated to the Harold Ramis Film School at Chicago’s Second City, where Ramis began his career.
• At one point, Erin says, “Books can’t fly, and neither can babies.” This is a reference to the original Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II.
• Chris Hemsworth (Kevin) was concerned with improvising for the interview scene. He ended up improvising having glasses with no lenses and the Mike Hat line.
• When Abby (Melissa McCarthy) said the line, “Unlike Columbia, this institute is 100% behind us.” In the original film, Columbia University allowed the crew to film there as long as its name was never mentioned.

• The studio didn’t like the scene where the Dean (Steve Higgins) constantly flipped off Abby and Erin because they didn’t want the scene to scare away families. The film’s director, Paul Feig pointed out the hypocrisy and stated, “If you watch the original, they swear constantly, they smoke constantly, and then there’s fellatio from a ghost. So people remember what they want to remember.”
• For their first ghost encounter, Kristen Wiig had to be slimed twice. The first time she was slimed, it completely missed her face. The second time, it hit her so hard that it knocked her wig off. It would’ve taken 2 hours to reset everything and try again, so they opted to cut the two takes together and added some digital slime to perfect it.
• The role of Patty was originally written for Melissa McCarthy. Paul Feig was worried about McCarthy playing the same kind of character in all of his films, so the role was given to Leslie Jones. He stated, “I wanted to unleash Leslie on the public in the same way we unleashed Melissa on the public in Bridesmaids, with a very showy role.”
• When speaking about Zach Woods (Tour Guide Garrett), Paul Feig called him, “literally the best improviser I’ve ever worked with, across the board.” He was cast in the film before the Ghostbusters themselves.

• Chris Hemsworth’s big dance scene was the most difficult scene Paul Feig had to cut from the theatrical version.
• The creepy parade balloons were based on old Macy’s balloons from between the 1920s and the 1940s. Paul Feig and the film’s screenwriter, Katie Dippold were inspired by looking at the photos while writing the script.
• The first cut of the film was 4 hours and 15 minutes long.
• During the film’s climax, the number on Jillian Holtzmann’s (Kate McKinnon) Proton pack was 1984. 1984 was when the original film was released. It is also the year Kate McKinnon was born.

• Emma Stone was offered a role in the film, but she turned it down because she didn’t want to commit to another potential film series after appearing in the Amazing Spider-Man films.
• Holtzmann’s hairstyle and glasses resemble her counterpart, Egon from The Real Ghostbusters TV series. This was purely coincidental as Kate McKinnon designed her character’s look herself.
• Slimer was created with an actual puppet. An early version of the script revealed his backstory as a gangster who killed someone in New York City’s Rainbow Room before dying himself.
• Paul Feig and Chris Hemsworth have the same agent, and that’s how Feig found out that Hemsworth was interested in appearing in the film.

• Paul Feig met with Kate McKinnon at after-parties in the past, but never considered her for a part in this film. It wasn’t until he watched an interview where she said that one of her childhood dreams was to be a Ghostbuster that he thought to bring her in.
• Paul Feig likened Kristen Wiig to Chris Farley, saying they both have comedy in their veins. When Wiig started turning towards more dramatic projects, Feig believed she wouldn’t be interested in this film, but Wiig actually reached out to him to be a part of the film, even if it was just a small role.
• Martin Heiss’ (Bill Murray) look was created by Bill Murray and inspired by Quentin Crisp.
• Originally, Martin Heiss was supposed to die after being thrown out of the window. While editing, Paul Feig changed his mind and omitted all references to the character’s death.

• At the end of the concert scene, Holtzmann smashes a guitar on stage. This was improvised by Kate McKinnon. Paul Feig prevented her from damaging a real guitar, but he loved the idea and had prop guitars made for smashing.
• It was unclear whether or not Bill Murray would actually show up to shoot his cameo, until he arrived on the day it was filmed.
• In the film’s commentary, Paul Feig took credit for the joke where the Ghostbusters shoot their Proton beams into Rowan’s (Neil Casey) crotch. Katie Dippold thanked him for protecting her from potential blowback from fans who would’ve thought it was her idea.
• The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, the main villain in the original film cameos as one of the deadly balloons that squishes the Ghostbusters.

• Paul Feig regretted keeping Ozzy Osbourne’s cameo a secret from everyone, because it meant having to wait until the roomful of extras was emptied to film. He apologized to everyone who was there and didn’t get to see Ozzy.
• Kate McKinnon improvised singing “Come out, come out, wherever you are” from The Wizard Of Oz. Paul Feig and Katie Dippold admitted they didn’t recognize the reference.
• Harold Ramis’s son, Daniel Ramis has a small cameo as a metal head outside of the concert that Rowan infiltrates.
• Katie Dippold plays the Ghostbusters’ real estate agent.
• The person who tells Rowan to clean the bathrooms over the walkie talkie was Paul Feig. He also was the Ghost Jumpers narrator and he drew the ghost logo with the giant boobs.