Harold Ramis Dies At 69

samzenpus writes "Writer and comedian Harold Ramis has passed away at 69. Ramis had a hand in many classic comedies but is especially loved for playing the ghost-hunting Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters. 'His creativity, compassion, intelligence, humor and spirit will be missed by all who knew and loved him,' said his family in a statement."

Comments

See you on the other side, Egon

[Anonymous Coward]

:(

Egon the scientist left an impression on me as an 11 year old kid.

While his character was supposed to be a little dorky I suppose, he was just pure awesome to me. He was the only Ghostbuster to be totally on top of things, and knew what he was doing. He inspired me to be the techie I am today.

RIP Harold Ramis.

Re:See you on the other side, Egon

[o_ferguson]

I concur. An inspirational nerd.

Re:See you on the other side, Egon

[Oscaro]

Same here. When I was a kid, I wanted to be like Egon.

Re:See you on the other side, Egon

[jdavidb]

I'd have to agree with that. In particular, I always remember him for the line "Print is dead." It certainly wasn't in 1984, and saying so made a person sound like a lunatic. But look at print today!

Re:See you on the other side, Egon

[ackthpt]

:(

Egon the scientist left an impression on me as an 11 year old kid.

While his character was supposed to be a little dorky I suppose, he was just pure awesome to me. He was the only Ghostbuster to be totally on top of things, and knew what he was doing. He inspired me to be the techie I am today.

RIP Harold Ramis.

He left an impression on me, too. Nerds could be cool.

Thanks for the memories, Harold/Egon.

Re:See you on the other side, Egon

[MightyMartian]

Bill Murray is a big famous actor now, since he got his (admittedly deserved) Oscar nomination for Lost in Translation.

It's a damned pity, but I don't see how a third movie could go ahead without Egon.

Re:See you on the other side, Egon

[grcumb]

I concur. An inspirational nerd.

I sympathise, but as an old Canadian geezer, I always felt that by the time the US audience finally heard about them, the SCTV alumni had already done their best work. That troupe - and their cheezy, low-budget show - formed my sense of humour more than anything else. Dave Thomas, Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara... all of them went on to make memorable comedy in the US. I think Joe Flaherty was the only one who didn't make a big splash. (Which is America's loss, not his.)

But there was a time when all of them were callow, reckless youths with nothing to lose by making asses of themselves week after week on a second-rate Toronto-based network that was so small (it had only 13 stations at the start) it too had nothing to lose.

Back in junior high school, my week was centred around that blessed moment when the Indian-head test pattern would appear and the announcer would say, 'Don't touch that dial. Don't touch that one either. And stop touching yourself.' I still remember the intonation....

(... I never did stop touching myself, but that's another story.)

Re:See you on the other side, Egon

[dohnut]

"Print is dead."
- Egon, 1984

"Egon is dead."
- Print, 2014

Egon Gone

[Freshly Exhumed]

He crossed the beams!

Re:Egon Gone

[EmagGeek]

STREAMS! He crossed the STREAMS!

Re:Egon Gone

[Steeltalon]

Dude! It's "crossed the *STREAMS*!
I blame today's educational system for failing us.

SMH

Re:Egon Gone

[mcgrew]

Ghostbusters? Pshaw! How about the National Lampoon radio Hour, which was SNL without pictures? Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Dan Ankroyd, John Belushi, Gilda Radner... and, er, wasn't Ramis with them on SNL, too? I taped a couple of thise NLRO shows, have them digitized now. Some hilarious stuff!

Of course, most of you folks weren't even born then. Hey, would one of you kids mow my lawn?

Ziskey rates death

[NotDrWho]

It's a pussy.

Thank you

[MetricT]

For making us laugh, making us think, and making the world a little happier. You did good.

Sample

[Cow Jones]

I'd like a sample of his brain tissue.

Signs you may be dead:

[o_ferguson]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

So...do you have any hobbies?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Now I really collect spores, molds, and fungi."

Oh come on, he would laugh!

R.I.P. Will not be forgotten.

[John Pfeiffer]

This news makes me really sad. Ghostbusters shaped an incalculably large portion of my childhood. :(

Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day are two of my all-time favorite comedies (My top-top probably being Grosse Pointe Blank) in fact I just watched Ghostbusters the other night on my new bigass TV, and was considering watching Groundhog Day... (And now, definitely will tonight.)

One of my favorite moments in Ghostbusters is when Egonâ" in a complete deviation from his usual demeanor, and out of all the people present â"ends up being the one who jumps Peck shouting "YOUR MOTHER!" when he accuses them of being responsible for the explosion at the firehouse. It's something that always stuck out in my mind as being particularly funny.

Re:R.I.P. Will not be forgotten.

[freeze128]

Venkman: "Egon? Any ideas?"

Egon pulls out a calculator and is about to type on it when Venkman slaps it out of his hands.

Re:My favorite was "Stripes"

[aztracker1]

I was going to comment the same... as much as I liked Ghost Busters... Stripes is classic.

Re:And so ends all hope of Ghostbusters 3

[Areyoukiddingme]

Bill Murray did say he'd be willing to do a third, as long as it didn't suck. He had a pretty high bar for not sucking though, which is why it never happened.

Re:Earl Camenbert

[crmanriq]

And I'm an idiot. That was Eugene Levy.

Crap.

Now I'll go feel sad. And stupid.

Re:And yet

[GodfatherofSoul]

Dan Akroyd is the all-time winner of the Landing a Woman Way Out of your Class geek Olympics. I in good faith cannot criticize him or anything he has ever done.

Egon's sexuality

[SuperBanana]

While his character was supposed to be a little dorky I suppose, he was just pure awesome to me.

One of the things I enjoyed about his character in the movies as I got to be older was his relationship to Jeanine was a bit complicated. She clearly puts the moves on him...but unlike nearly every male movie character I can think of (who isn't implied to be gay) - he's ambivalent, tolerates, or rebuffs her. The stereotypical reaction from male movie characters is "Yeah, let's get it on!", especially in action movies.

However, there's a scene - I can't remember which - where he says something, she responds with "OH EGON, I just blah blah blah" and he responds with a look that's half "Yeah, baby. You know you like it" and half "siiiigh, ok, I'll console you, fine..."

Now...if only Winston's character hadn't been so racist. That's the part I hate the most about Ghostbusters; Winston Zedmore is pretty much just there to bounce jokes off of or be the 'dumb black clown' character. I feel like the cartoon actually gave him character development and whatnot more on par with the others (although did they ever show any of his family, for example?) The series definitely played up the "the most normal and people-skills-equipped of the group" elements.

Re:Egon's sexuality

[cayenne8]

"That's a big twinkie..."

C'mon, Winston got one of the funniest lines in the movie...

There's no reason to pull out the racist card any time a black man isn't portrayed as the ultimate hero and intellect in a movie. All the characters in this COMEDY were slightly strange and comedic characters...

As was said in another movie Ramis did.."Lighten up Francis".

Re:Egon's sexuality

[epyT-R]

Ugh.. One of the great things about ghostbusters was that it came out at a time when accepted humor wasn't limited by this kind of PC garbage. The social(ist) reconstructionists didn't get to video entertainment en-masse in this country until the end of the 80s. If that's not what you want, go watch one of those effeminate vampire movies.

You know, it's ok to tell a story without bolting PC narratives onto the side, or worse, squeezing all of them within those limitations ("I've seen shit that'll turn you white!"). Frankly, movies and tv are inundated with it now, to the point of absurdity. It's almost like the script writers and directors are screaming "I CARE MORE ABOUT NONWHITES, WOMEN, AND GAYS THAN YOU!" at each other and their audience with their stories. By the early 90s, it was already cliche (the "empowered 90s woman"), and by the end of the decade, it was boring and predictable. Today, it's cranked up to 11 and downright condescending. Enough already.

Re:Egon's sexuality

[cptnapalm]

If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say.

Ray, when someone asks if you are a god, you say YES!

I fucking loved Winston when I was a kid.

Re:Egon's sexuality

[MightyMartian]

Winston was pretty essential to the film, because he was the everyman. Without Winston, you had two crazy ass scientists (Egon and Ray) and a conman (Venkman). As with any movie filled with nutsos and and miscreants as protagonists, you need a straight man who can sort of stand a bit outside the action and act as a sort of proxy for the audience. The character of Winston reminds me a lot of Murray Slaughter off of the Mary Tyler Moore show; both weren't necessarily part of any given action, but rather served to underline the absurdity of what was going on.

Re:Egon's sexuality

[SternisheFan]

Ernie Hudson played a character in Ghostbusters, one of many films he acted in. Read his Wiki entry linked below to know the man from the character).From Wiki....

In the original script for Ghostbusters, Winston Zeddemore was intended to be the smartest and most capable of the Ghostbusters, a former Marine with multiple degrees and a Ph.D., making him more suited for the job than the founding three Ghostbusters. However, in the final screenplay none of these qualifications were mentioned. The changes are discussed in detail in the commentary on the DVD of Ghostbusters, the explanation being Winston allowed the technobabble to be put into layman's terms.

However, the novelization of Ghostbusters mentions Zeddemore's service with the Marines prior to joining the Ghostbusters. Further, in Ghostbusters: The Video Game, while the Ghostbusters are on a mission in the New York History Museum, Zeddemore reminisces about the time he spent studying for his doctorate in the museum's Egyptology wing. (In context, it's unclear if Zeddemore studied for the doctorate prior to joining the Ghostbusters, or sometime between the events of the movies and the game's setting in 1991.)

Zeddemore is a religious man to some extent, saying in a discussion in Ghostbusters that he believes in God and "loves Jesus' style". While driving the Ecto-1 with Ray he voices his thoughts that the sudden spike in ghosts appearances might be a sign of the apocalypse, pointing out that while they have come to treat capturing ghosts as routine pest control, in a very real sense the dead are literally "rising from the grave".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...

Ernie Hudson Wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Ernie Hudson interview on YouTube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re:RIP Harold Ramis

[cayenne8]

Don't forget where it all really started with him in a big way....

Animal House....

Re:RIP Harold Ramis

[hguorbray]

SCTV is the closest this country (well, canada, to be fair) ever came to classic english-style absurdist humor a la Goon show, Python, Not the 9 o'clock news, etc

It was consistently funny in the first incarnation and was still decent the 2nd time around, although the 'guest band' part of the format trapped them more into the TV Variety show format -but it was about a fictional TV network, so....

Kids in the Hall, Strangers with Candy and many other American sketch comedy shows definitely owe something to SCTV

-I'm just sayin'

Re:And so ends all hope of Ghostbusters 3

[lkernan]

He must have forgotten about Garfield 2...

To be fair, we all try to forget about Garfield 2.

Re:look at his lines

[Rakarra]

I dunno, he had a number of moments of lucidity, like when he and Ray were talking in the car about the increase in spiritual activity, and he's the one who points out that maybe what they've been seeing is what was written of the last days in the Book of Revelations. It's a pretty sobering moment, one of the few moments that the movie doesn't try to play for laughs.

He was supposed to be the straight man amongst the zaniness; he was more of an urban everyman rather than the university staff steeped in academia that made up the other three's background.

I'm not sure I buy the Uncle Tom Foolery angle, especially since he gets about the same serious/comedy mixture that Murray's Venkman got.

Re:look at his lines

[MightyMartian]

That's largely because he and Bill Murray were the only strictly sane people in the entire movie. He was just an average joe looking for a job, and Murray was a con artist. Everyone else was, to be blunt, to one degree or another out of their minds.

This is the first time I've ever be introduced to the notion that Winston was merely the obligatory black character.

Re:claims of "political correctness"

[MightyMartian]

That's because he was the outsider, not because he was black. The Ghostbusters needed another guy with a proton pack, Winston signed up because it was a job. He wasn't a conman like Venkman, and not a semi-insane scientist like Egon or Ray.

You might as well complain about how Weaver's character spent most of the time in both movies being the vulnerable incapable female.

Caddyshack documentary

[queequeg1]

Not acting per se, but he was excellent in the Caddyshack documentary. Some of the insights into how that movie got made were awesome. Especially his observations about the direction a movie can take when you decide to make an animatronic gopher one the lead characters.

Re:claims of "political correctness"

[Sponge Bath]

The problem is that is how this was the standard way virtually any black character was constructed by Hollywood

At least he wasn't wearing a red shirt as part of the away team. While not claiming it was intended, the movie The Edge seemed to go down that path. Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin and a black guy (Harold Perrineau) are stranded by a plane crash in the northern wilderness. Then there was a bear. Then there was no black guy.

Re:Beyond Ghostbusters

[MightyMartian]

He would deserve the highest praise for Groundhog Day alone, a film that has only grown in popularity and appreciation since its release. The fact that he was involved in one capacity or another in a number of highly esteemed projects over the years shows just how good he really was.

Re:look at his lines

[jxander]

Except when he was the only sane person in the room, and had to convince the mayor to let the guys go be heroes

Or when he and Ray had a candid conversation about Revelations and the end times.

He certainly wasn't as ... odd ... as the rest of the crew, but I hardly consider that a BAD thing, or in any way racist.

Re:claims of "political correctness"

[DNS-and-BIND]

Political correctness is real, and it is routinely used by feminists and other radical left-wingers to dismiss any speech that disagrees with them. How is it "accusing" leftists of being politically correct, when in fact they are?

Funny how you prove his point by all but demanding a story be told by bolting PC narratives on the side and derailing the entire flow by screaming "I CARE MORE ABOUT NONWHITES, WOMEN, AND GAYS THAN YOU!" at each other and their audience.

And PC too

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I thought Winston was the most real character in the whole zoo; a necessary character to ground all the others. And I loved his "I've seen shit that'll turn you white!" line--and I'm black.

Re:And so ends all hope of Ghostbusters 3

[SternisheFan]

In "Zombieland", after Bill Murray, dressed as a zombie, is blasted by shotgun and sits dying, the girl asks him, "So, do you have any regrets?"

Bill Murray, "Umph, ..., Garfield, maybe..."

Re:look at his lines

[o_ferguson]

Smartest guy in the movie: Winston Zeddemore: No offense, guys, but I've gotta get my own lawyer.

Here's an interview with Reitman on CBC Radio

[sandbagger]

http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/...

Re:And so ends all hope of Ghostbusters 3

[SternisheFan]

According to this 2013 interview, Murray says that the agents were ''foaming'' at the thought of Ghostbusters3. (20:00) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...