Ghostbusters first released

There certainly was something strange in many neighbourhoods on this day in 1984. Ghosts! That needed to be busted! Which is my desperately cute way of saying that the original Ghostbusters was released today in 1984, going on to become an entertainment juggernaut, spawning sequels, cereal, an animated TV show and video games galore. In the original version of the script, Ghostmashers traveled through time fighting spirits with magic wands.

But that was decided to be too daft. So then they fought giant marshmallows with laser packs instead. And in the greatest piece of social democracy since Thomas Paine released his Common Sense in 1776, Slimer wasn’t even known as Slimer! He was originally called Onion Head, but was dubbed Slimer by the fans after the film’s release and was consequently known by that name in all future films and franchises. The film’s writer and star Dan Aykroyd claimed Slimer/Onion Head was the ghost of his former comedy partner John Belushi. But this probably isn’t actually true.