This page contains excerpts from and tidbits about the following drafts of the "Ghostbusters" script:

• January 20, 1983 - by Dan Aykroyd
• June 6, 1983 - by Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis
• July 6, 1983 - by Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis
• August 5, 1983 - by Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis

"Did you know this film was originally called 'Ghost Mashers' back when Dan Aykroyd originally conceived the film as a vehicle for himself and John Belushi."

"Originally Eddie Murphy, me, and Belushi were supposed to be the three Ghostbusters."

Set in the future - not far in the future - but far enough. It took place on a number of different planets or dimensional planes. It was more eerie in tone, and there was a lot more of action and very little character work.

The Ghostbusters were essentially $10,000-a-year janitors who worked for someone else and really had no technical expertise whatsoever.

There really was no difference between the characters. Stantz and Venkman and Ramsey -- the character who eventually was changed to Winston -- were all essentially the same.

The entire finale was an involved series of events which culminated with the three Ghostbusters being whisked into alternate dimensions.

The Ectomobile was an all-black, rather sinister-looking machine with flashing white and purple strobe lights that gave it a strange, ultraviolet aura.

In the opening sequence, the Ghostbusters respond to a call from the Greenville Guest House regarding the discovery in the kitchen of gluttonous yellow mist of grotesquely altered human form -- a "FRVP" or "free-repeating vaporous phantasm" in ghostbusting lingo. After chasing the apparition -- described as "onion-headed" at one point -- through the rustic guest home, the Ghostbusters corner it in the basement, encircle it with nutrona beams and maneuver it into a small collapsible trap.

The Ectomobile is equipped with an advanced dematerializing capability that allows its operators, functioning somewhat outside the law, to readily elude police pursuit.

The spectral storage facility was not at the firehouse itself, but rather in a deserted Sunoco gas station in northern New Jersey, taken over by the Ghostbusters and surreptitiously converted into a holding cell for wayward spirits.

The root of New York's widespread psychic disturbances lay in the fact that a "Zuul" -- a generic term for the other-dimensional creature which would later evolve into the Terror Dogs -- had somehow strayed out of its rightful time and place and was being held captive by the Ghostbusters' employer, himself a transdimensional being. Unfortunately, the Zuul happened to be a favored pet of the all-powerful Gozer -- absolute ruler of the sixth dimension -- who, it seemed, would stop at nothing to recover it.

One of the many supernatural manifestations was a skeletal biker who has been terrorizing the residents of a small upstate town.

Shandor was the name of the Ghostbusters' interdimensional employer -- a decided eccentric whose walls were lined with mounted trophy heads taken from such challenging big game as bats, rats and lobsters. Though Shandor was invariably to be found sequestered in his darkened office, perched on a swivel armchair and covered entirely by a near-opaque mosquito bonnet, no one seemed to suspect that there might be anything inherently out of the ordinary about him. Shandor was dropped altogether from the second and third drafts, but resurfaced in the third -- in name only -- with an even more unsavory background than that suggested by the final shooting script.

When the accidental release of the Ghostbusters' incarcerated spirits triggers a twenty-five-acre sinkhole around their gas station storage facility. The sinkhole, in turn, disrupts a long-inactive fault line which somehow transforms most of northern New Jersey into a blazing inferno.

Gozer was described as looking like Bert Parks.

The Stay-Puft man appeared just slightly past the midway point as but one of several Gozer manifestations.

The graffiti on the Paranormal Studies door read: "Venkman sucks cocks in Hell!" -- an amusing reference to one of the shocker lines from "The Exorcist."

The Ghostbusters were tossed out of a small New England college and then go to New York.

The opening sequence takes place in a nice, converted farmhouse where this family has been bothered by incessant knocking that they're unable to trace. So the Ghostbusters are in there climbing all over the house, knocking out walls and ripping up floorboards in their nicely remodeled kitchen. And at the end of the scene, all they're able to tell them is, "Well, you've got a knocking." "We know we've got a knocking! What's causing it!" "We'll have to get back with you on that."

Venkman and the alien Zuul -- masquerading as human in Dana's body -- leave the restaurant and encounter several carriage horses. Noticing the bridles and harnesses, Zuul inquires if they are prisoners, Uncertain of her reaction, Venkman responds promptly: "No, no, They're volunteers. This is considered a good job for a horse." "They look so sad," Zuul laments, and then kisses one of the beasts with enough genuine emotion to elicit a worried look from the carriage driver. Venkman pulls her away and segues -- ever so smoothly -- into an invitation which leads to his surprise wakeup the next morning: "You know. I was just thinking. No trip to this dimension would be complete without a visit to the Times Square Motor Hotel.

Rather than making an aerial passage uptown, the ghosts descend into an all but deserted subway station. As a transit cop chats amiably with a female cashier, the subway turnstiles begin spinning unaccountably. Investigating, the officer discovers a huddled mass of ghosts and vapors hovering directly over the tracks. When a speeding express train passes by, the spirits hitch a collective ride uptown -- taking over the cars en masse and sending everyone from motormen to muggers fleeing before them.

Spengler pinpointed a small community in northern New Jersey as the likely epicenter of major psychic activity, due to its central proximity to three nuclear power plants and a number of chemical waste storage areas.

The Ghostbusters regroup in New Jersey for a final battle with Gozer in its most terrifying form -- a swirling psychic maelstrom topped by a disembodied aphid's head of monstrous proportions.

Gozer was described as a Robert Young-type character.

Venkman's appearance before a university funding committee was ultimately scratched in favor of the ESP testing sequence. The opening segment with the screaming librarian cut directly to her apparent point of view -- in actuality a ceremonial demon mask being used by Venkman as a visual aid.

It's a horrible face, half-animal, half-human, with very long fangs and bulging eyes.

Fall back to reveal DR. PETER VENKMAN standing at the end of a long conference table. He is holding the hideous demon mask that we saw in the beginning of the scene.

As he speaks, he sets out two more demon masks, an audio cassette player, a slide carousel and a disorderly sheaf of notes. Venkman is a great salesman, extremely charming when he wants to be, but his charm is wasted on this audience.

MORE SLIDES

The graphics depict Venkman's speech.

Venkman takes Dana -- an interdimensional alien masquerading as a beautiful woman in the first draft, and a beautiful woman possessed by an interdimensional alien in the second -- to a fashionable New York restaurant. Her unfamiliarity with the finer points of human etiquette becomes apparent when, upon arrival, she observes several ladies removing their wraps and proceeds to follow their example by taking off her blouse. Later Louis Tully -- then a visiting conventioneer, also possessed -- enters the same restaurant.

The Maitre d' looks down and writes in his book. The conversation with this lunatic has ended.

VINZ

He blows his top. He grips the podium with both hands, opens his mouth and lets out a roar that sounds like it came right from the depths of Hell. Steam and vapor pour from his mouth, blowing the Maitre d's shirt and jacket right off his back, and covering him in gelatinous bits of mucous and tissue.

THE MAITRE D'

Alternate endings included scenes within the towering glass and chrome headquarters of Ghostbusters International -- now a high-rolling multinational corporation "recognized everywhere as the first line of defense against interdimensional trespassers."

The sign over the revolving doors reads:

GHOSTBUSTERS INTERNATIONAL

THE GARAGE ENTRANCE

One Ectomobile is arriving as another speeds out on a call. A limousine pulls up to the curb and Winston gets out in a very tasteful pinstripe suit carrying a briefcase.

THE DOORMAN

He tips his hat as Winston passes by and enters the building.

INT. A LAS VEGAS WEDDING CHAPPEL

Spengler and Janine are getting married in a very tacky nuptial parlor. Louis Tully is the witness. Spengler looks preoccupied, Janine looks very happy. She kisses Spengler and Louis throws some rice on them.

EXT. FORT DETMERRING

The old historical sign has been augmented with a commercial sign that reads

Stantz enters the gateyard with a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine and heads for the Captain's bedchamber where he had his delightful encounter.

EXT. DANA' S APARTMENT BUILDING

It has been substantially repaired, but work is still going on.

INT. DANA' S APARTMENT

Venkman is over by the windows doing some very eccentric aerobic dancing to the tempo of the Ghostbusters theme. Dana is on the couch laughing delightedly at him, wearing a long shirt of his and nothing else.

We start to pan off Venkman as the theme fades out and an eerie note is left hanging in the air. The camera pans ominously to the kitchen door and then into the kitchen and across the countertop, finally coming to rest with a menacing tone on an open carton of eggs.

One of the eggs shakes a little bit and the shell on top begins to crack as if some desperate creature was trying to break out. Then the top of the shell pops off and a baby chick sticks its head out and looks around at an unbelievable new world.

There was another effect besides the self-cooking eggs. Also on the counter was a loaf of bread in a plastic bag, We wanted to have the bag puff out and steam up to the point where it started to peel away. Then, one by one, the pieces of bread were going to heat up, turn brown and fall over as toast.

Dana's appearance at the firehall is preceded by a scene in which Winston Zeddemore -- armed with enough references to nail down a job as security chief for the White House -- presents himself in reply to a trifling "help wanted" ad for a guard.

Venkman's bruised ego, coupled with Louis' jealousy at seeing another man emerge from Dana's apartment, resulted in a small exchange between the two that took on varying forms as the project progressed. In the August draft -- when John Candy was still being sought for the role -- Louis suspiciously asks Venkman if he is a friend of Dana's, to which Venkman replies: "No, I'm her masseur, She pays me a hundred bucks and I rub the places she can't reach, Has she been after you, too?" Louis responds unconvincingly in the affirmative, and then reenters his apartment muttering: "She's paying for it? I'd do it for free." As shot, Louis runs out into the hallway -- suggesting he has heard Dana's door close and is 'coincidentally' trying to intercept her. Implying a major conquest, Venkman says, "What a woman," and then exits -- leaving Louis crestfallen and, once again, locked out of his apartment, During editing, the Venkman line was cut.

Spengler conducts an early demonstration of the experimental ghostbusting equipment for his comrades at the firehall. Since the self-contained unit is still under development, the existing prototype is plugged into an AC outlet. An audible surge of power runs from the wall socket along the extension cord to the power pack on Spengler's back. The pack heats up to 550 degrees and kicks the electrical surge back down the wire to the wall outlet which melts. At once, all the lights in the room black out. Compounding the gag, the action then cuts to an exterior of the firehouse as all the lights in and on the building go out, as does the street lamp and the stoplight at the corner. Then the action cuts once again to a long shot of downtown office buildings as they all black out in rapid succession, leaving dark silhouettes against the night sky.

In the Sedgewick Hotel, Stantz and Venkman are followed about by an obnoxious ten-year-old boy who -- to their growing annoyance -- thinks they're nothing more than janitors.

Winston had been seen in the script as a security man for the company, When it became apparent that the Ghostbusters had no real need for a security man, he became instead a full-fledged -- if not altogether convinced -- Ghostbuster.

Louis' attempted escape into Central Park is preceded by a sequence in which -- having just emerged from the apartment house -- he flags down a passing taxi and jumps inside. Seconds later, the Terror Dog bounds out of the building and launches itself onto the hood of the cab. In true New York form, the driver hurls a few expletives at the beast, guns his motor and speeds away, causing the creature to lose its balance and fall by the wayside. Undaunted, the Terror Dog takes off in hot pursuit, chasing the taxi through the streets of Manhattan.

As recounted by Spengler, Ivo Shandor was a deranged surgeon, architect and Gozer worshipper, electrocuted at Sing Sing after his attempted abduction of a teenage girl led police to his penthouse apartment, furnished impeccably -- if not tastefully -- with stacks of human bones.

It is Winston -- not Stantz -- who inadvertently conjures up the Stay-Puft marshmallow man.

As originally scripted for John Candy, the Louis Tully character was to have had decidedly earthier interests -- best evidenced in the party sequence.

A party for all his single swingle friends is in progress.

Louis is playing the ultimate host. The mood is sensual, the jazz casual, and Louis is very drunk. He approaches an ATTRACTIVE GIRL and puts his arm around her waist.

He casually drops his hand onto her ass and chuckles at his own joke. The Girl grabs his arm and twists it in a painful Judo wristlock.

She releases the hold on his arm and he boogies away rubbing his wrist.

THE BUFFET TABLE

Louis comes up behind two fashionably dressed models who are standing near the table with plates in their hands.

He slaps Bruce on the back so hard that the plate of pasta he's eating from flies from his hands and spills on Bruce and his male friend. The two models look at the red tomato sauce stains on their expensive clothes.

Louis is saved by the doorbell. He trots off to answer it.