Trivia: 1980s pop star Debbie Gibson has a cameo as the girl with the pink bow in her hair, celebrating her birthday at the Tavern on the Green.
Trivia: In the opening scene in New York Public Library, the librarian walks down the reading room with her trolley full of books and a man appears and walks across the screen. This man is the film's associate producer, Joe Medjuck. (00:00:55)
Trivia: When Spengler, Venkman and Stantz are in the basement of the New York Public Library, the bookcase falls over, prompting Venkman to ask Stantz if this has ever happened before. The whole exchange, including the bookcase falling over, was not scripted. It is thought that the bookcase fell because some crewmen accidentally bumped into it, and Bill Murray ad-libbed his lines. Producer/director Ivan Reitman decided to leave it in the movie because it added to the supernatural qualities of the film.
Suggested correction: Very funny, but also wrong. Completely unlikely when you watch the scene (there is no way that shelf could be knocked down 'by accident' and there are perfect cuts throughout the sequence). In fact the scene appears in the early script. The most improvisation you can find related to it is the scene with Bill Murray 'collecting the sample (the director in the DVD commentary remarks needing just one take) ', which was made up the day of the shoot to be a set-up for the bookcase moment and the rest.
Trivia: The original script by Dan Aykroyd took place in the future, and revolved around just one of many different "Ghost Smasher" teams operating throughout the galaxy. (As the original title was "Ghost Smashers.") The "Stay-Puft" Marshmallow-Man appeared by the 30-minute mark of the script and was just one of numerous giant threats the team would face. The budget was projected at nearly $300 million (in 1984 dollars, unadjusted for inflation), so Harold Ramis was brought in to help rewrite the script to make it more manageable for studios. (Hence, it was relocated to modern times, and the large set-pieces were scaled back).
Trivia: After the containment unit explodes, adult film star Ron Jeremy can be seen among the crowd witnessing the chaos, on the left side of the screen behind a blue police barrier.
Trivia: The Ghostbusters theme, "composed" by Ray Parker Jr., was directly ripped off from the song "I Want A New Drug" by Huey Lewis and the News. In fact, Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker for intellectual property theft (settled out of court). Premiere Magazine later featured an article in which the film makers admitted to using the song "I Want a New Drug" as temporary background music in many scenes. They said that they made an offer to Huey Lewis to write the main theme for the movie, but Huey Lewis declined. The filmmakers then provided Ray Parker Jr. with finished film footage (including the Huey Lewis song in the background) to aid Ray Parker in writing an original theme song, which apparently he couldn't do.
Suggested correction: This is incorrect. Ray Parker Jr paid a fee to Huey Lewis to sample "I Want a New Drug." Lewis sued Parker but settled out of court. Years later, Parker sued Lewis because Lewis broke a confidentiality agreement by speaking about the out of court settlement during an interview.
Ray Parker Jr, himself (appearing on the Adam Corolla show in 2015), claimed that he had never met Huey Lewis, did not personally know him, and that he did not know Huey Louis was the first musician approached to compose the Ghostbusters theme song. But Parker's statement must be a deliberate falsehood. After Huey Lewis turned down the theme song offer, it was Ghostbuster director Ivan Reitman who provided "samples" of movie footage containing the Huey Lewis song "I Want a New Drug" (as background music) to Ray Parker. Parker then produced a direct knock-off the Huey Lewis music. No "fee" was paid to Huey Louis for the direct use of his music until after Lewis sued for intellectual property theft. Ray Parker Jr additionally claimed that he didn't and still doesn't know any of the details of the original lawsuit; but that, too, is a falsehood. The settlement paid to Huey Louis was undisclosed but quite sizable, so much so that attorneys for Ivan Reitman and Ray Parker requested a gag order on the settlement (to avoid the perception of an admission of guilt). Ray Parker was allowed to keep the copyright on the Ghostbusters theme, but the fact remains that Parker (AND Ivan Reitman) paid dearly for knowingly ripping off the Huey Lewis song.
Trivia: According to William Atherton, Walter Peck was hated so much that many people came up to him and started getting him a piece of their mind as if they were actually to Peck and sometimes the confrontations would turn physical. He also recounts how he was walking down a street one day and as a bus drove past him, a group of people shouted out the windows, "Hey, dickless!"
Trivia: Right after Mr. Peck the EPA man forces the Ghostbusters to shut off the grid and the energy is released into the sky, an ad for Stay Puft can be seen on a building. (01:09:00)
