Ghostbusters almost had a much worse name, and Dan Aykroyd has the footage to prove it. The 1984 classic is so synonymous with its title that it’s hard to imagine Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddemore answering to anything else. But when the cameras started rolling, Columbia didn’t actually own the name. That led the cast to shoot alternate versions of the team’s TV commercial with backup titles in case the rights deal fell through. Now Aykroyd has dug up footage from those sessions, including takes where the team introduces itself as the “Ghostblasters.” The clips also feature blown takes and some intentionally awkward acting. Even Harold Ramis looks down before popping up and hitting his mark. Good actors playing bad actors will never not be funny.
Aykroyd posted the clip with an explanation of the legal headache brewing behind the scenes. The production began before Columbia had secured the Ghostbusters title, and the cast had to do alternates, said the actor and co-writer. The name, he says, was owned by Taft Broadcasting from a previous television series, and Columbia finally paid $500,000 for it.
Here’s a story for you. We started filming without owning the title and had to do alternates.
Taft Broadcasting owned the title Ghostbusters as part of their half-hour sitcom starring Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker (F-Troop) and a gorilla chasing ghosts. I had never heard of… pic.twitter.com/NBHhZqme9G
There’s a snag with Aykroyd’s version of the story. Contemporary accounts point to Filmation as the actual rights holder. Filmation created the 1975 live-action series The Ghost Busters, featuring Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker, and Tracy the Gorilla. Filmation co-founder Lou Scheimer later recalled that production on the movie was already underway when the title was licensed to Columbia. Aykroyd might simply be confusing Filmation with Hanna-Barbera, which was owned by Taft Broadcasting at the time. The mess didn’t stop after the movie came out.
Filmation revived its original property as an animated series in 1986, bringing back the descendants of its original heroes and Tracy the Gorilla. Columbia was launching its own cartoon based on the movie at the same time. That left two entirely different shows fighting over essentially the same name. The solution was The Real Ghostbusters. For kids watching television in the late ’80s, that wasn’t just corporate trivia. If you saw Ghostbusters in the TV listings and expected Venkman, Ray, Egon, Winston, and Slimer, you could instead end up staring at an entirely different team and that stupid gorilla. As a kid who just wanted the movie Ghostbusters, I found that infuriating. The Ghostbusters are expected to return to TV in another cartoon for Netflix.
Aykroyd traces the phrase itself back even further. He says he first heard “Ghostbusters” in the 1953 Martin and Lewis comedy Scared Stiff. Dean Martin describes himself and Jerry Lewis by joking, “You’ve heard of Trustbusters and Gangbusters, we’re Ghostbusters!” Aykroyd says he watched every ghost comedy he could find while researching the original movie, including the Bowery Boys, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Abbott and Costello, and Martin and Lewis. The “Ghostblasters” footage isn’t some alternate version of the movie we almost got; it’s more a safety net while Aykroyd pushed for the real name. It’s evidence of just how close one of the most recognizable movie titles ever came to getting hung up over paperwork. And thank Gozer that Columbia found the $500,000.
