Canonicity
In the primary film and comic canon, Winston is developed across Ghostbusters (1984), Ghostbusters II, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Ghostbusters: Back in Town, and Ghostbusters: Dead Man's Chest. He also appears in two secondary canons that branch off the films: Ghostbusters: The Video Game (realistic versions), which follows the two films but conflicts with Afterlife, and the IDW Publishing comic series, which follows the two films and incorporates elements of the video game. A separate animated continuity (The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters) and the Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime game form additional, tertiary branches.
Ghostbusters (1984)
Winston was not originally a professor. He applied for a job opening late in 1984 once business started picking up, and Janine Melnitz interviewed him at her desk. She asked whether he believed in UFOs, astral projection, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness Monster, and the theory of Atlantis. Winston replied that if there was a steady paycheck in it, he would believe anything she said. Ray returned from a job, took one look at him, and hired him on the spot, handing him two Traps and welcoming him aboard before showing him how the Containment Unit worked.
When Egon warned that the Containment Unit was running low on space and that his data pointed to something big, Winston asked what he meant by "big." Egon used a Twinkie to represent the surge of psychokinetic energy building over the city, and Winston delivered the now-famous line, "That's a big Twinkie."
A couple of weeks later, while Winston drove Ecto-1 along the FDR Drive with Ray studying blueprints in the passenger seat, the two discussed faith and the end of the world. Winston, a Christian, asked Ray whether he believed in God, then raised the idea that the recent surge of activity might be a sign of the apocalypse, the dead rising from the grave. The exchange gives the film one of its few quiet, ominous scenes.
After the team's storage grid was shut off by Walter Peck and the Containment Unit blew, the Ghostbusters were arrested and taken to a city lock-up. Brought before Mayor Lenny, Winston stepped forward and vouched for the team: he had only worked for the Ghostbusters a couple of weeks, but ghosts were real because he had "seen shit that would turn you white." Given the green light to act, the team climbed to the roof of Dana Barrett's building and faced Gozer. When Gozer asked Ray if he was a god and Ray said no, Winston told him that the next time someone asked, he should say yes. After the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man appeared, the team crossed the streams, destroyed the temple, and saved the city. Emerging from the wreckage covered in marshmallow, Winston threw up his hands and cheered, "I love this town!"
Between the first two films
After Gozer, the Ghostbusters were hit with lawsuits and a judicial restraining order over the collateral damage and were forced out of business. Like the rest of the team, Winston took other work. He and Ray kept their uniforms and moonlighted as birthday entertainers, singing and dancing the Ghostbusters theme at children's parties, where they were often jeered and heckled.
Ghostbusters II
Just before the 1989 holiday season, Winston told Ray he had had enough of taking abuse from "over-privileged 9-year-olds" and quit the party act, declaring that "Ghostbusters doesn't exist" anymore. He sat in on the opening of the team's trial before Judge Stephen Wexler, nicknamed "The Hammer." When the restraining order was rescinded after the team's courtroom confrontation with the Scoleri Brothers, Winston returned to the team full time.
Investigating the river of slime beneath the city, Winston went down the abandoned pneumatic railroad with Ray and Egon. A spectral Ghost Train barreled down the tunnel and passed straight through him, an encounter the comics later cite as the source of his lasting unease about going underground. After he was nearly drowned by the slime current and dragged out a manhole with Ray, the two came to blows in the street until Egon, realizing the ectoplasm was responding to their hostility, made them strip off the slimed clothing. The team eventually animated the Statue of Liberty by coating its interior with positively charged slime, guided it to the Manhattan Museum of Art, and used Slime Blowers on Janosz Poha and Vigo. When Ray was briefly possessed by Vigo, Winston slimed him, helping eject the spirit back into its painting.
Between Ghostbusters II and Afterlife
After the team disbanded again, Winston went into finance and made a fortune. He started a business with a single employee and grew it into a global enterprise, Zeddemore Industries, married, and had children.1
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Winston joins Ray and Peter for the climactic return to Gozer in Summerville. The three suit up, and when Gozer again asks Ray if he is a god, Ray finally answers "Yes." After Gozer, Zuul, and Vinz are trapped with the help of Phoebe Spengler and the manifested ghost of Egon, Winston is the first to recognize his old friend, and admits he should have called and told Egon he missed him. He promises to take the battered Ecto-1 home and clean her up.
Janine later meets Winston at his firm to return the lucky coin she once gave Egon in 1984. Winston reflects that Egon was the brains, Ray the heart, and Peter kept it cool, casting himself as "the sex appeal." Asked whether he still covers the rent on Ray's Occult Books, he says he still has hope it will turn a profit. He recounts that he came in looking for a steady paycheck but learned from busting ghosts that he had "the tools and the talent," and that he may be a businessman but will always be a Ghostbuster. In a tag, Winston enters the old Firehouse, which he had purchased, and waves the restored Ecto-1 back inside.
Ghostbusters: Back in Town
In the Dark Horse comic Ghostbusters: Back in Town, Winston continues repairs on the Firehouse in June 2022 ahead of Callie Spengler, Gary Grooberson, Phoebe, and Trevor moving to New York. He welcomes the family, downplays the building's lingering plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and mold problems, and presents them with flight suits and ghostbusting gear. He has Phoebe enrolled at the Zeddemore Academy, a school named after him, and Trevor at Midtown Tech. When Janine notes he is the family's "very generous benefactor," Winston calls himself an investor. After the team traps Madame Malveaux and damages the New Year's Eve ball, Winston jokes about replacing "six tons of Waterford crystal."
Ghostbusters: Dead Man's Chest
In the Dark Horse comic Ghostbusters: Dead Man's Chest, the Zeddemore Foundation donates to an Upper East Side art museum to cover repairs and replacement of art the team damaged.2 Winston serves as honored guest at the museum's reopening ribbon-cutting and, gathering the off-duty team for a group photo, jokes that the cost was "peanuts" compared to repairing a health-foods store on Wall Street.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
By the summer of 2024, Winston has quietly founded the Ghostbusters Engineer Corps and a Paranormal Research Center, building a new, higher-capacity Containment Unit he had kept secret from the new team. After the existing unit is hit by a death chill, he, Janine, and Lars Pinfield brief the Spenglers on the space problem and his concern about the spiritual rift created in 1984. He explains that he and Janine bought the Firehouse back so the Ghostbusters could be the "finger in the dam" against spiritual activity, and unveils the new Containment Unit and its Proton Field technology.
When Phoebe destroys one of the New York Public Library's lion statues with a Proton Pack, Winston is dismayed, and he warns Ray to slow down and enjoy his "golden years" before the work gets him killed. In the final battle against Garraka, whose chill renders proton streams useless, Winston helps Ray pull the lever to trap the entity using the new Containment Unit. Afterward, with Mayor Peck forced to back down before a hostile crowd, Winston credits Phoebe and her family with saving the world and declares, "We're the Ghostbusters!"
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
In the realistic version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, set around Thanksgiving 1991, Winston has earned a doctorate, mentioning that he "practically lived" in the museum's ancient-Egypt exhibit while working on it, which implies a degree in Egyptology or history. After a Psi Energy Pulse cancels his plans to see the opera Aida, he fights through four hours of traffic to rejoin the team at the Sedgewick Hotel in time to see the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. During the final confrontation, Ivo Shandor mocks him as the "slow" one of the group, and Winston carries the exorcised mayor to safety once Shandor is destroyed.
IDW comic series
The IDW continuity gives Winston a different background. He was born June 17, 1945 in Michigan, enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1978, and trained at Parris Island under Staff Sergeant Adams, who repeatedly warned him never to lose his temper in a fight.345 After six years he left the Corps, moved to New York City for a construction job, and quit after a dispute with the foreman's nephew before answering the Ghostbusters' ad.67 Ray hired him on the spot, and within days Winston went on his first bust, against the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe at a university, where he learned that fear, kept in check, was a sign of taking the danger seriously.8
Much of Winston's IDW arc is framed by interviews with author Rebecca Morales (and later Erik) for books about the team, in which he recounts his hiring and early cases. He notes he wanted to learn more about computers, "the wave of the future."9 In this continuity Winston does not hold an earned doctorate, though he is later given an honorary doctorate in parapsychology and pursues a law degree in night school, plans Dan Aykroyd had once floated for the films.10 He is a lifelong baseball fan, and a romance recurs through the series with a substitute teacher named Tiyah Clarke, whom he eventually proposes to and marries.
Across the long IDW run Winston repeatedly puts himself in harm's way. Facing the chaos goddess Tiamat, he twice offered his own life as a sacrifice; rather than accept his death, Tiamat instead erased all memory of his relationship with Tiyah from the world, taking his future happiness as the sacrifice.11 His strong faith and the cross he wears recur as plot points: in one arc the Devil cannot touch him, and in another his faith shields him from a spell that teleports the rest of the team to Hell.12 He also appears in IDW's crossovers, including a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles team-up in which he pairs with Leonardo across dimensions and a Transformers crossover.
The Real Ghostbusters and the animated continuity
In The Real Ghostbusters, Winston is again the fourth Ghostbuster, hired because of heavy caseloads, and represents the everyday man. Over the run he becomes the team's mechanic and the usual driver of Ecto-1, and often pilots Ecto-2. The series fleshes out his background: as a child he learned to pick locks from his father, Edward Zeddemore, who initially dismissed ghosts as fakery; their rift heals after Ed sees the team in action firsthand. Winston had worked in construction, is a loyal fan of the perennially losing Jaguars baseball team, and is fond of game shows, mystery novels, and police dramas. In the episode "Spacebusters," he fulfills a childhood dream by joining an International Space Project as a civilian expert in supernatural phenomena.
Winston was voiced in the animated series by Arsenio Hall for the early seasons and by Buster Jones for the later seasons, the Slimer! spin-off, and Extreme Ghostbusters; Maurice LaMarche filled in on a few episodes.13 When network consultants suggested making the show's only African American lead the designated driver to give him a "clearly defined" role, writer J. Michael Straczynski objected that the suggestion was racist.1415 For the full episode-by-episode treatment, see The Real Ghostbusters.
Extreme Ghostbusters
Winston returned as a guest in the two-part Extreme Ghostbusters premiere, "Back in the Saddle," set in November 1997. By then he had been traveling the country as a licensed pilot after leaving the team, and his plans to spend the holidays with his sister were disrupted when the entity S.I.D.N.E.E. appeared. His uniform in the two-parter was a modified version of his original light-blue coveralls without the red trim, and the new recruit Roland Jackson was written to resemble him in temperament.
Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed
In Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, Winston has had Ecto-1 brought back to a restored New York Firehouse and oversees the new team as its backer, wanting the building to be "the jewel in the crown." When the entity Nameless erupts from the Containment Unit and possesses him, the team extracts the spirit safely; Winston compares the ordeal to "the longest shareholder meeting of my life." A talkable line in the game has him admit he has not set foot on a subway since 1989, a callback to the Ghost Train encounter in the second film.16
Personality
Winston is the most conventional and grounded of the four, the common man of the team. He is responsible and dependable but thinks for himself, as he does in the jail scene of the first film. His Christian faith surfaces on ethical questions and in the apocalypse conversation with Ray, and according to the Ghostbusters: The Video Game strategy guide he is the most spiritual and religious of the Ghostbusters. He loves New York City and, in the films, takes over the mechanical side of Ecto-1 so Ray can spend more time building equipment with Egon.
Casting and development
The character was originally named Ramsey in early drafts; Harold Ramis recalled that the part was renamed Winston.17 In IDW canon, Ramsey became Winston's middle name.18 Dan Aykroyd wrote the early "Ghost Smashers" version of the role with Eddie Murphy in mind, and the part was conceived as younger and hipper.1920 Gregory Hines was in talks before negotiations stalled and he chose The Cotton Club instead, and Yaphet Kotto was offered the role but passed.21 Reginald VelJohnson was a finalist before the part went to Ernie Hudson; director Ivan Reitman gave VelJohnson the jail-guard role as a gift for the trouble of the casting process.2223
In the scripts, Winston had been written as a security man for the company until the final shooting draft, when he became a full Ghostbuster.24 In all but the final draft, it was Winston, not Ray, who inadvertently conjured the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.2526 An August 5, 1983 draft made him one of the original Ghostbusters before the writers decided to delay his introduction so the team would visibly need help with the rising number of hauntings.2728 Ramis later explained that the writers had given Winston so many strong lines that they began shifting his attitude over to Bill Murray's Venkman; the "That's a big Twinkie" line, for example, belonged to Peter in one draft before passing to Winston.29 The Ecto-1 conversation about the end of the world was the scene used to audition actors for the part.30 Winston's "you say yes!" line was improvised on set, with Hudson and Aykroyd crediting Ramis with the suggestion. The novelization and final draft list Winston as a Strategic Air Command veteran, an Electronic Countermeasures-school graduate, a karate black belt, and a small-arms expert, and describe his family as strict Baptists.313233
For Ghostbusters II, Hudson simply happened to have no mustache during filming; there was no deliberate decision to shave it, contrary to fan theories tying it to his animated counterpart.
Quotes
- "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say YES!"
- "I hate Jell-O."
- "I love this town!"
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The Hollywood Reporter, "'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' Director Jason Reitman and Co-Writer Gil Kenan Discuss Next Franchise Film (Exclusive)" (June 8, 2022). Jason Reitman says: "The character of Winston Zeddemore and Zeddemore Industries figures strongly into the future of Ghostbusters."
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Winston Zeddemore (2025). Dark Horse Comics, Ghostbusters: Dead Man's Chest Issue #4 (2025) (Comic p.20). Winston Zeddemore says: "With this donation from the Zeddemore Foundation, the museum has been repaired and new art has been installed."
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Employee File (2020). IDW Comics, Ghostbusters Year One Issue #1 (2020) (Comic Cover B). Employee File reads: "June 17, 1945."
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Winston Zeddemore (2020). IDW Comics, Ghostbusters Year One Issue #1 (2020) (Comic p.4). Winston Zeddemore says: "All right, well... I was actually born in Michigan back in - -"
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Winston Zeddemore (2020). IDW Comics, Ghostbusters Year One Issue #1 (2020) (Comic p.6). Winston Zeddemore says: "Did six years in the Corps - - er, the Marines."
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Winston Zeddemore (2020). IDW Comics, Ghostbusters Year One Issue #1 (2020) (Comic p.4). Winston Zeddemore says: "Second, I left the Corps because... well... I woke up one day and it just wasn't my calling anymore."
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Winston Zeddemore (2020). IDW Comics, Ghostbusters Year One Issue #1 (2020) (Comic p.5). Winston Zeddemore says: "Fella came on a few weeks in who was, I'm gonna say, a little lax about safety. Dropped a wrench from three stories up and almost hit me, you know?"
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Winston Zeddemore (2020). IDW Comics, Ghostbusters Year One Issue #4 (2020) (Comic p.2). Winston Zeddemore says: "Definitely don't ask about Huges. Man, Venkman got me with that same damn prank. It gets you a two-hour lecture about the theoretical benefits of drilling a hole in your head."
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Winston Zeddemore (2020). IDW Comics, Ghostbusters Year One Issue #1 (2020) (Comic p.20). Winston Zeddemore says: "I want to learn more about computers. Wave of the future and all that."
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Dramatis Personae (2017). IDW Comics, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #1 (2017) (Comic Dramatis Personae). Dramatis Personae reads: "Honorary doctorate in parapsychology."
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Bueno, Claire (2024). Cleanin' Up The Town: Remembering Ghostbusters. A Cast and Crew's Memoir of Ghostbusters, p. 277. Premiere Publishing, Devon England, ISBN 9781836903437. Dan Aykroyd says: "And in the third movie I wanted to make him our lawyer because of all these environmental problems, we sent him to law school."
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Dramatis Personae (2017). IDW Comics, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #1 (2017) (Comic Dramatis Personae). Dramatis Personae reads: "In night school for law (but he's almost done!)."
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Marsha Goodman (1987). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Ghost?" (1987); and the call sheets for "Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster" (1986) and "The Ghostbusters in Paris" (1986), on which Maurice LaMarche filled in as the voice of Winston.
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Straczynski, J. Michael (2019). Becoming Superman, p. 265. Harper Voyager, New York NY USA, ISBN 0062857843. Line reads: "They suggested that the role of Winston Zeddemore (our only African American character) was also vague, so to give him a clearly defined position we should make him the driver."
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Straczynski, J. Michael (2019). Becoming Superman, p. 265. Harper Voyager, New York NY USA, ISBN 0062857843. Line reads: "The consultants went batshit at the suggestion that their notes were fueled by prejudice (much as I considered their suggestions about Janine to be party-line sexism at its worst)."
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Winston Zeddemore (2022). Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, Firehouse (2022). Illfonic. Winston Zeddemore says: "Kid, I haven't been able to set a footstep on a subway since '89. Let's just say there was a traumatic incident."
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Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 9. New York Zoetrope, New York NY USA, ISBN 0918432685. Harold Ramis says: "Stantz and Venkman and Ramsey -- the character we changed to Winston -- were all essentially the same."
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Priest (2014). IDW Comics, Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #13 (2014) (Comic p.9). Priest says: "Tiyah, do you take Winston Ramsey Zeddemore as your husband, to live together in marriage?"
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Entertainment Weekly, "Ghostbusters: An Oral History" (November 7, 2014), Dan Aykroyd quote.
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Labrecque, Jeff (2014). "Ghostbusters: An Oral History." Entertainment Weekly.
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Greene, James, Jr. (2022). A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever, p. 36. Lyons Press, Essex, CT USA, ISBN 9781493048243. Line reads: "Winston was a meaty part, and it caught the eye of Broadway star Gregory Hines. Negotiations stalled, however, and Hines opted to headline Francis Ford Coppola's period drama The Cotton Club instead.... Kotto says he was offered $2 or $3 million to appear in Ghostbusters, but he can't remember if that was the role in question. Whatever was on the table, Kotto passed."
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The Hollywood Reporter, "Family Matters Actor Reginald VelJohnson Says Everyone Still Thinks He's a Cop" (November 16, 2015). Article reads: "That role was a gift from director Ivan Reitman after VelJohnson lost out on the role of Winston Zeddemore to Ernie Hudson, VelJohnson says."
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The Hollywood Reporter, "Family Matters Actor Reginald VelJohnson Says Everyone Still Thinks He's a Cop" (November 16, 2015). Reginald VelJohnson says: "They flew me out to California, and it was between me and him. And since it was so much trouble, Ivan Reitman said 'let me do something for you,' and gave me the prison guard."
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Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 99 annotation. New York Zoetrope, New York NY USA, ISBN 0918432685. Paragraph reads: "Until the final shooting script, Winston had been seen in the script as a security man for the company. When it became apparent that the Ghostbusters had no real need for a security man, he became instead a full-fledged -- if not altogether convinced -- Ghostbuster."
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Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 184 annotation. New York Zoetrope, New York NY USA, ISBN 0918432685. Paragraph reads: "In all of the drafts but the final one, it is Winston - not Stantz - who inadvertently conjures up the Stay-Puft marshmallow man."
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Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1983). Ghostbusters (First Draft August 5, 1983) (Script p. 129). Winston says: "The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man! He was on all the packages we used to buy when I was a kid in North Carolina. We used to roast Stay-Puft marshmallows on my grandpa's smokehouse fire."
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August 5, 1983 Draft of Ghostbusters, via Spook Central.
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Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 54 annotation. New York Zoetrope, New York NY USA, ISBN 0918432685. Paragraph reads: "The inclusion of Winston was in clear response to a perceived notion... that the team needed to embrace a fourth member who could serve as the on-screen voice of the viewing public... On further reflection, however, it was decided to delay Winston's introduction until after the Ghostbusters' first big score."
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Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 54 annotation. New York Zoetrope, New York NY USA, ISBN 0918432685. Harold Ramis says: "We bent over backwards to make Winston's character good -- and in doing so, we made him the best character in the movie.... So, little by little, we started shifting Winston's attitude to Bill's character... and we also ended up delaying Winston's introduction until much later in the film."
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Shay, Don (November 1985). Making Ghostbusters, p. 129 annotation. New York Zoetrope, New York NY USA, ISBN 0918432685. Joe Medjuck: "it was a good scene for Winston -- in fact, this was the scene we used to audition actors for the role of Winston."
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Mueller, Richard (August 1985). Ghostbusters: The Supernatural Spectacular, p. 136. Tor Books, New York NY USA, ISBN 0812585984. Ray says: "Very impressive. Strategic Air Force Command ECM school... black belt in karate... small-arms expert... as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Zeddemore, you're hired."
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Mueller, Richard (August 1985). Ghostbusters: The Supernatural Spectacular, p. 172. Tor Books, New York NY USA, ISBN 0812585984.
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Mueller, Richard (August 1985). Ghostbusters: The Supernatural Spectacular, p. 124. Tor Books, New York NY USA, ISBN 0812585984.
