Rob Gilroy: Making A Stand #45

­­This week saw the sad passing of Harold Ramis. It was a shock to many, including me.

Far from wanting this column to turn into a shrine for people we have lost, I nevertheless felt compelled to write something about the one who would be Egon.

Like every man and his free floating, full torso apparition, I am adding to the wealth of tributes to the great man and his true comic mind.

The reason I felt the need to write this, is not to jump on any sort of bandwagon – my legs are not what they were and I’m adverse to all manner of horse-drawn transportation (what’s with carousels?) – it’s because, for the first time I can think of, I have lost an iconic figure from my childhood.

Harold Ramis has left a body of work behind him that anyone would be proud of but, for me at least, the one role that will always have the most resonance is that of Dr. Egon Spengler in the Ghostbusters films.

It seems a tad disrespectful to condense the whole of a man’s career into one role, but that is how I first came across him. Ghostbusters had possibly a bigger impact on me growing up, then any other film. Harold Ramis and Egon were central to that.

I wasn’t alive when Ghostbusters came out. It preceded me by a couple of years, which I like to interpret as my first real attempt to be fashionably late.

Ghostbusters 2 arrived a couple of years after me, so I can still claim that I liked them before they were mainstream. Thus the ying and yang of fandom is restored.

I have fond memories of listening to Ray Parker Jr’s seminal classic on an old 45 my dad owned, when I was 4 years old. I played it constantly. It was my record of choice at that age (closely followed by Natalie Cole’s Miss You Like Crazy).

My love of that song was partly due to it being an incredibly cool song, but also in part due to the pop-up ghost on the inside of the record sleeve. What can I say, I was easily pleased.

I can’t remember the first time I watched Ghostbusters. I must have been very young because the memory isn’t clear. What was clear though, were the opening moments of the film, set in the basement of the New York library.

As books and index cards fly off the shelves, a librarian runs, the tension mounts and finally climaxes with her in a state of abject fear as she is lit by a stark white light.

That image stayed with me for a long time, terrifying me every time I recounted it. It stopped me from watching Ghostbusters for a few years.

Eventually, aged 10, I decided to relive the experience, l liked the idea of being scared by it, not that I got off on it you understand, more in that Dr. Who hide-behind-the-couch-sort-of-thing.

I tracked down the film and not only did I still find that first scene truly spooky, but I also found that what followed it was an incredibly funny film, filled with great characters.

One of the main reasons for that is Ramis. It’s easy to forget Dr. Spengler in the film, such is the magnetic draw of Bill Murray and a supermodel with a buzz cut, but there he is, in every scene, being utterly brilliant.

It’s funny how, as you get older, your tastes mature and you start to appreciate the subtler aspects of certain things – like Ross Gellar in Friends, Simon Day in The Fast Show and Joseph Goebbels – they do their own thing which you never fully get until you reach a certain age. That was Ramis.

It’s also incredibly easy to forget that Ramis co-wrote Ghostbusters. What started out as Dan Aykroyd’s pet-project eventually became a worldwide phenomenon and that was helped, in no small part, by the wonderful Ramis.

Stories from the team behind the film talk of a huge, unwieldy script, first penned by Aykroyd, that spanned several dimensions and teams of Ghostbusters – a far cry from what eventually came to the screen.

It’s my impression that what Ramis did was give the film heart; he grounded the film in a reality that allowed us to connect with the characters.

Akyroyd provided the passion, the ridiculously sublime moments (Stay Puft) and the paranormal jargon, but Ramis brought the characters to the fore.

If it wasn’t for him and his eye for a razor sharp one-liner, it’s hard to see how Peter Venkman ever made it to the screen.

I’ve talked before of my love for Ghostbusters – everything about it. The sequel is woefully underrated and has several scene and lines that far eclipse the original.

Again Ramis and Aykroyd were able to revisit much-loved characters and reignite that magic.

I will miss Harold Ramis. I think the world is a much less kind and funny place without him. It is a true shame he never made more movies and, like Aykroyd, was reduced to fleeting cameos in inferior films.

However, his legacy will live on in his back catalogue and most definitely in Dr. Egon Spengler.

RIP Harold Ramis. In the words of Natalie Cole: ‘I miss you like crazy’.