you know the movie ghostbusters, but did you know the script was inspired by

dan aykroyd's great grandfather & his interest in the paranormal that was passed down through generations?


“Part of Ghostbusters’ appeal derives from the cold, rational, acceptance-of-the-fantastic-as-routine tone that Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, director Ivan Reitman, and I were able to sustain in the movie.

“This element originated from my great-grandfather’s interest in the subject and from the books he collected. He bequeathed these to his son, my grandfather, Maurice, the Bell Telephone engineer who actually queried his colleagues about the possibility of constructing a high-vibration crystal radio as a mechanical method for contacting the spiritual world. His son, my father, as a child witnessed séances and kept the family books on the subject. My brother Peter and I read them avidly and became lifelong supporters of the American Society for Psychical Research, and from all this Ghostbusters got made.”

--Dan Aykroyd, Feb. 2009 (forward to his father's book; title listed below)

From the prologue:

“The young man stubs out his Turret cigarette. He leans back, closes his eyes, and slips into a trance. In the deafening, pin-drop silence, it is as if some curtain is about to rise into some invisible arch in the ceiling. But the show is an unusual one. These guests have not traveled from town to see a play or hear a concert. This is a meeting of Dr. Aykroyd’s Circle. A séance is about to begin, and the people present are here to engage in an usual form of communication.

“They have come from town to talk to the dead.”

--A History of Ghosts; The True Story of Séances, Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters by Peter H. Aykroyd and Angela Narth, forward by Dan Aykroyd; 2009

who you gonna call? apparently back in 1929, in ontario, people called Dr. Aykroyd who would host a number of guests, along with a full trance medium, to be a part of his--what my grandmother refereed to as a--spirit circle.

(in the early 1900s, in chicago, my grandmother and her six siblings (including a doctor of medicine) and some of their spouses were essentially doing the same thing--only, as far as i know, they didn't keep journals or diaries about it.)