The Invisibles - Dan Aykroyd

"It means, basically, that some movies are clearly being made by Invisibles and they contain messages for other Invisibles. 

Invisibles talking to each other in their own secret language… the movies are signals, they let us know that others are out there…”

"I know what I saw."

"...When Dan came to audition for Saturday Night Live, he regularly met with John and listened to blues records. One time, Dan showed John the cover of an album by John Lee Hooker, which showed him wearing the hat and shades that would later become the Blues Brothers trademark look. 

John said 'If we ever put this together, this will be the look!'. 

The suits and the ties that they wore came from the Beatnik Era in the 50's and the 60's, where musicians would wear straight apparel, so that they could go out into straight society and not be hassled. 

Also, there was an MIB reference, y'know, to the 'Men in Black', the guys in black suits that always turn up when there are UFO sightings, and tell you to be quiet about it... "

"I was on the phone 'Sure I would love to' I look back, saw the Ford, went back like this, turned back like a half a second later, and it was gone and that car did NOT go past me.

 It did not make a U turn because I would have seen... 42nd Street, I would have seen that thing take a U turn and go away. 

That car vanished! 

That car was a cloaked vehicle of some type and whether this was like a warning to me because the guy that got out of the backseat gave me a real dirty look. That car vanished. 

I know what I saw. And it was just this fast, talking on phone, guy gives me a dirty look, talking on phone, car gone. 

That's what happened."

 “What happened was, we sold the show to the Sci Fi Channel and it was called Out There and I basically interviewed all of the people I admired in various fields of study like Colin Andrews in the crop circle movement, Linda Moulton Howe, the expert in cattle mutilation, John Mack.... I talked to him. I talked to the Allagash guys who were taken in a canoe in the trip in Maine and I, I mean, the last show we did, I had both Bassett, who has the UFO time clock and Greer, both Bassett and Greer were there. They were my two guests for the two.

Well, the show was cancelled that afternoon and I was outside, before I knew it was cancelled, in between the interviews and, uh, I was outside and Britney Spears called me because she wanted me to appear on Saturday Night Live with her. And so, I was outside having a cigarette, the phone rang, I was like, 'Hello Britney, how you doing?... Sure, of course I will...' I turned away like this (moves head to left), I turned back (moves head back towards camera) and there was a black Ford across the road, a black Ford Sedan and I was trying to look at the plate but the plate seemed kind of fuzzy and... Definitely a police car and two guys were there and a big, big tall guy got out of the backseat and he stood in the street, on 42nd Street it was. We were on 42nd Street and 8th avenue and he looked right at me and literally, I was on the phone 'Sure I would love to' I look back, saw the Ford, went back like this, turned back like a half a second later, and it was gone and that car did not go past me. It did not make a U turn because I would have seen... 

42nd Street, I would have seen that thing take a U turn and go away. 

That car vanished! That car was a cloaked vehicle of some type and whether this was like a warning to me because the guy that got out of the backseat gave me a real dirty look. That car vanished. I know what I saw. And it was just this fast, talking on phone, guy gives me a dirty look, talking on phone, car gone. That's what happened.

Then, two hours later, we were told to not continue taping and the show was cancelled and none of them would air. 

I don't know. I don't know. Was it an MIB experience? 

You know, black helicopters, military abductions that happen, people are taken and talk about being visited by military personnel and being debriefed about their abduction. 

Was it technology associated with some of these beings that are visiting? 

They wanted to warn me off or they wanted to give me verification that I was on the right track? 

I don't know. 

But I do know I turned back a second later and it takes so long for an automobile accelerating from zero to forty miles an hour to reach the corner of 8th Avenue and 42nd Street going past me and then pulling a U turn and going out towards Times Square, I would have seen that car. And I looked around. I mean, man, I was looking (!) and it was gone. So, I don't know. 

The tapes exist, I have them, we're gonna try to repackage them. We might put them out on DVD.”

"Let's redo one of those old ghost comedies, but let's use the research that's being done today. Even at that time, there was plausible research that could point to a device that could capture ectoplasm or materialization; at least visually."

The racial politics of Ghostbusters (or more likely Hollyweird in general) is mildly alarming, though...

I quote The Enemy:

Aykroyd pitched his story to director and producer Reitman, who liked the basic idea but immediately saw the budgetary impossibilities demanded by Aykroyd's first draft. At Reitman's suggestion, the story was given a major overhaul, eventually evolving into the final screenplay which Aykroyd and Harold Ramis hammered out over the course of a few months in a Martha's Vineyard bomb shelter, according to Ramis on the DVD commentary track for the movie. 

Aykroyd and Ramis initially wrote the script with roles written especially for Belushi, Eddie Murphy and John Candy. However, Belushi died due to a drug overdose [Not True] during the writing of the screenplay, and neither Murphy nor Candy could commit to the movie due to prior engagements, so Aykroyd and Ramis shifted some of these changes around and polished a basic, yet sci-fi oriented screenplay for their final draft.

The Living Legend that is Ernie Hudson, better known as Winston Zeddemore, aka "Sir Not-Appearing-on-the-Poster"

"Winston Zeddemore was written with Eddie Murphy in mind, but he had to decline the role as he was filming Beverly Hills Cop at the same time. When Murphy had the role, Zeddemore was going to be hired much earlier in the film, and would accompany the trio on their hunt for Slimer at the hotel and be slimed in place of Venkman. 

When Ernie Hudson took over, it was decided that he be brought in later to indicate how the Ghostbusters were struggling to keep up with the outbreak of ghosts."

In the first movie, Winston never ever fires his weapon (by which I mean his neutrona wand, not his large, African penis) until the final ten minutes of the film, because the lengthy sequence showing he and Ray out on a job at an old army barracks, plagued by a remarkably blonde, caucasian succubus has been deleted and re-purposed as an erotic dream inserted into the montage sequence in the middle of the movie, so we don't get to see Winston save the dumb slumbering White Man from the consequences of his own kinky sex drive.

And then he disappears after his first scene in Ghostbusters 2 and then again during the courtroom battle with the Scolleri Brothers, after the movie takes time out to make clear that he was present in the court, along with Company Directors Dr. Spengler, Dr. Stantz and Dr. Venkman, who stood accused of violating the court order placed upon Ghostbusters Inc.

Logicially and narratively, there is no reason for him to have not strapped on a proton pack and taken part in this life or death confrontation for the life of the company.

This had to be some form of racial thing, right? I mean there is just no other way.

Right..?

I understand it differently now - alchemically, magickally, symbollically, and from the lips of Dan Ayckroyd and Ivan Reitman themselves :

Ray, Egon and Peter are Company Directors of Ghostbusters as a business, as a legal entity.

(and entities, of all kinds, are what we are about discussing here)

They OWN the business.
It's a High-Tech Start-up

They OWN the franchising rights.

Winston is AN EMPLOYEE.

He earns $11,500 a year, before taxes

He is the only employee sanctioned to wear the gear and participate in professional paranormal eliminations.

(Louis has to wear a borrowed jump-suit)

He is the ONLY ONE who gets to join in with the actual business of the company and of busting ghosts.

He is THE AUDIENCE.

Ackroyd and Reitman SAID SO.

So we have to earn the right to participate in the fun by investing in the other three characters.

Likewise, they have to buy their way into our affections before you get to see any (to use Doc Brown's words) serious shit.

And, in a deft subversion of the conventions and expectations of the Magickal Negro Hollywood stereotype, he is a practical, down to earth, blue collar man (who probably used to work as a mechanic or something similar), he is the one with the most down to earth, practical Common Sense.

He doesn't get excited by spontaneous sponge migrations, he never tried to drill a hole in his own head, he doesn't get involved with possessed people, and he knows where ALL THE FIRE EXTINGUISHERS ARE IN THE BUILDING.

And he doesn't run around, screaming and hollering and buffoonin' around, blaming all of the Bad Craziness on all o' the Crazy White Folks for being Bad and Crazy and White, he doesn't get self-conscious or feel inferior in a room full of eggheads and PhDs, he's proud of who he is, can handle some good natured joshing and teasing from The Boss, and he's never ashamed of who he is or what he is.

He just works hard, and takes pride in his work.

Carter G. Woodson and Booker T. Washington would be proud.

That's better...

"They began to use words like - 'Universal Appeal' ..."
- Dave Chappelle

I Quote The Enemy :-
(Consider also 'The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews')

Nimoy approached Beverly Hills Cop writer Daniel Petrie, Jr. to write the screenplay when a concept that executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg described as "either the best or worst idea in the world" arose—Star Trek fan Eddie Murphy wanted a starring role. Nimoy and Murphy acknowledged his part would attract non-Star Trek fans to the franchise following the rising popularity of Murphy, but it also meant the film might  [Absolutely would] be ridiculed. 

The IMDB Version:

"The film was originally supposed to have Eddie Murphy instead of Catherine Hicks. 

 Murphy was supposed to have played a professor concerned with UFOs who spots the decloaking Klingon ship at the Super Bowl. 

"Captain...! There be whales here..!"

 Apparently, all others are convinced the ship is a half-time special effect while Murphy believes it is real. "

"Only in Southern California..."

The "Late" William Cooper of the Office of Naval Intelligence, of course, insisted that this was  real....

Steve Meerson and Peter Krikes were hired to write a script with Murphy as a college professor who believes in aliens and likes to play whale songs.

Murphy disliked the part, explaining he wanted to play an alien or a Starfleet officer, and chose to make The Golden Child—a decision Murphy later said was a mistake. 

The character intended for Murphy was combined with those of a marine biologist and a female reporter to become Gillian Taylor.

Egon Spengler: 

The structure of this roof cap is exactly like the kind of telemetry tracker that NASA uses to identify dead pulsars in deep space.

Ray Stantz: 

Cold riveted girders with cores of pure selenium.

Peter Venkman: [to jailbirds] 

Everyone getting this so far? So what? I guess they just don't make them like they used to.

Stantz: [slaps Venkman up the head] 

No! Nobody ever made them like this! The architect was either a certified genius or an authentic wacko!

Venkman: 

Ray, for a moment, pretend that I don't know anything about metallurgy, engineering, or physics, and just tell me what the hell is going on.

Stantz: 

You never studied. The whole building is a huge super-conductive antenna that was designed and built expressly for the purpose of pulling in and concentrating spiritual turbulence. 

Your girlfriend, Pete, lives in the corner penthouse of Spook Central.

Venkman: 

She's not my girlfriend. I find her interesting because she's a client and because she sleeps above her covers. 

Four feet above her covers! She barks, she drools, she claws...

Spengler: 

It's not the girl, Peter, it's the building! 

Something terrible is about to enter our world, and this building is obviously the door. 

The architect's name was Ivo Shandor. I found it in Tobin's Spirit Guide. 

He was also a doctor. Performed a lot of unnecessary surgery. 

And then in 1920, he founded a secret society.

Venkman: Let me guess: Gozer worshippers?

Spengler: Right.

Venkman: [to Stantz] 

"No studying"!

Spengler: 

After the First World War, Shandor decided that society was too sick to survive. 

And he wasn't alone; he had close to a thousand followers when he died. 

They conducted rituals up on the roof, bizarre rituals intended to bring about the end of the world, and now it looks like it may actually happen!

Venkman: [singing] 

So be good, for goodness sake! Whoa! Somebody's coming! Somebody's coming!

Ray Stantz: 

We have to get out of here. We've gotta get a judge or something.

Zeddemore: 

Hey, wait a minute! Hold it! Now are we actually gonna go before a federal judge, and tell him that some moldy Babylonian god is gonna drop in on Central Park West and start tearing up the city?!

Spengler: 

Sumerian, not Babylonian.

Venkman: 

Yeah. Big difference.

Zeddemore: 

No offense, guys, but I gotta get my own lawyer.