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

[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

[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

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.

So...do you have any hobbies?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

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

Oh come on, he would laugh!

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: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: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: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..."