Ray Parker Jr. – Ghostbusters
1984 · Directed by Sean Pultz (fan edit)
72K Likes
Best comments
1.“The best part: 'The Titanic has arrived.' Only 72 years late.”
More comments
- 2.“'Do you have any hobbies?' 'I collect spores, molds and fungus.'”
- 3.“They came, they saw, they kicked ass.”
The story
This one is a fan's love letter. Uploader Sean Pultz calls Ghostbusters his number one favorite movie of all time, and for the film's 32nd anniversary in 2016 he re-cut his own music video for the theme song in HD. So this isn't the official clip. It's what happens when a superfan gets his hands on editing software.
The song has its own ghost story. The producers gave Ray Parker Jr. only a few days to write it and wanted the movie's title in the words, which he struggled with. Then a cheap late-night TV ad for a local service gave him the key: the film had a fake commercial for its own ghost-catching business, so he wrote a jingle a crowd could shout back. It sat at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in August 1984, got an Oscar nomination and, by one estimate, added about $20 million to the movie's box office.
Then Huey Lewis sued, saying the melody lifted his 1983 song I Want a New Drug. They settled in 1985, and the filmmakers later admitted they had used Lewis's song as temporary music in a lot of scenes. The official video, directed by Ivan Reitman himself, had Chevy Chase, John Candy, Danny DeVito and a pile of other stars dancing along for free as a favor. Thirty-some years later fans are still cutting their own versions. Some songs just won't stay dead.
