Appearance in the 2016 film
After Rowan North broke the barrier between dimensions and flooded Manhattan with ghosts, the Ghostbusters found their path into Times Square blocked, in part by a row of Sabrett hot dog carts. Jillian Holtzmann remarked that the scene looked like her kitchen. A green glow came from inside one of the carts. As the team approached, the lid popped open and Slimer roared, scarfing down hot dogs, then turned and burped at them before flying their way. The team sidestepped him and he sailed straight into the driver's seat of the Ecto-1.
The engine started and Slimer reversed the car out, ignoring Abby Yates and Patty Tolan shouting at him to stop. Abby was annoyed that Holtzmann had left the keys in the car, and Patty noted that her uncle, who owned it, was going to be furious. Slimer swung the Ecto-1 into a parked car, then floored the gas and charged it toward the team. When Abby called for everyone to open fire, Holtzmann pointed out that the equipment on the roof rack was essentially a nuclear reactor, so Patty voted against shooting. They jumped clear as the car barreled past the carts, smashed a fire hydrant into a geyser, and knocked over a light pole that narrowly missed a passing pedestrian. Abby concluded they had just handed a ghost a nuke and suggested they run.
Slimer turned up again alongside Lady Slimer and the Ecto-1 Party Specters, cruising past the Ghostbusters near the Mercado building in the Times Square area. Abby was glad someone was enjoying himself. The crew reappeared as the team steered the Ecto-1 into the portal Rowan had opened, sending Slimer and his companions through the portal and the Divide into the World of the Dead. When the Ghostbusters detonated the reactors on the car's roof rack to reverse the portal's polarity and force the ghosts back through, Slimer and Lady Slimer were launched into the air atop a seat cushion. They traded a look, laughed, and dropped back down through the portal.
In the 2016 Ghostbusters video game from Activision, Slimer first appears in the Queen Charlotte Hotel level as a ghost that must be trapped. The game's in-fiction containment unit entry describes him this way (reproduced with the game's own spelling and grammar): "This troublesome little spud has been tormenting high end hotels in the New York area for years. Where he comes from is a matter of dispute, but his voracious appetite and foul onion-like ordor is not."
In IDW's comics, a version of this Slimer designated 80-C drove a shuttle to the Firehouse during a cross-dimensional ghost retrieval mission, dropping off Ghostbusters teams from several alternate dimensions. Slimer 80-C and several other Slimer variants flew up to the second floor, looked in on the original Slimer held in the containment tank, and were startled when he screamed at them. He is alluded to in Ghostbusters 101 #3, where Abby and Holtzmann recognize "the ghost that stole our car" before Holtzmann notes that one got blown up.12 He also appears in Ghostbusters Crossing Over #5.
Classification
The 2016 tie-in Ghostbuster's Handbook lists Slimer as a Class 5 full-roaming vapor, describing him as "a rather grotesque entity made of ectoplasm (thus the name Slimer)."3
Development
Paul Feig and co-writer Katie Dippold worked out an unused backstory in which Slimer had been a gangster executed for killing a waiter who botched his order. He began his afterlife as a more traditional ghost and was disfigured when the Ghostbusters, still testing their gear, were called to the restaurant he was haunting.4 As Feig described it, the proton beams ran too hot, blew Slimer's legs off, and turned him green, after which he distorted into the figure seen in the film and escaped into the world.5 Concept artist Tully Summers produced designs for this "Old Gangster Ghost" in February 2015, with Slimer meant to emerge from the human shell once the proton stream sliced through it.6 Summers also developed a more alien take on Slimer with dangling entrails and rows of revolving teeth, but production scrapped that direction in favor of a look closer to the classic 1984 design.7
Feig had previously worked with effects veteran Rick Lazzarini, who had built ghosts for Ghostbusters II, and with puppeteer Ronald Binion on a Ford campaign, and he put Lazzarini's Character Shop near the top of his list for animatronic work.8 After reading the script, Lazzarini had a dozen designers visualize the film's ghosts, including Slimer, and presented the sketches and renderings to Feig and the core crew.9 The shop began building 3D mockups, but a few weeks later the budget was cut and the practical-effects plan was shelved.10 The project came back on a tighter footing: Slimer would be a fully articulated puppet, augmented with effects, built on a small budget and intended mainly as a movement reference and an on-set presence for the actors to react to.111213
Lazzarini rehired key crew and built a Slimer sculpture, molds, and a suit, along with animatronic mechanisms for the eyes, brows, tongue, and mouth. The head's functions included three axes of brow movement, upper and lower eye blinks, side-to-side and up-and-down eye motion, a jaw that opened and closed, and a tongue that could telescope in and out and move in tentacle-like ways.14 The head was fitted with a helmet molded for Binion, who provided the body and arm movement while Lazzarini operated the facial expressions during filming.15 On set in Boston, the puppet required only two operators: Binion inside the suit and Lazzarini working the radio control for the face. Visual-effects work went to Sony Pictures Imageworks and MPC,16 who added random tufts of hair and an overabundance of slime pouring off Slimer's arms.17
The puppet's under-skull carried speakers, high-definition video goggles, and a microphone so Binion could hear directions, see the camera frame, and talk to the crew. Feig was initially reluctant to put Slimer in the film's trailer, but changed his mind once he saw how the effects came together.18
Trivia
Slimer drives the Ecto-1 in the 2016 film much as the original Slimer drove a hijacked bus in Ghostbusters II. The shot of Slimer and Lady Slimer rocketing out of the portal on a seat cushion is a nod to the scene in Die Hard 2 in which John McClane ejects from a jetliner just before it explodes. On the Boston set, the street where Slimer reverses the Ecto-1 is Water Street, and he guns it through the roadblock past Milk Street while clipping several lamp posts.
Slimer was also used to advertise QuickBooks in a series of online spots, with the 2016 film's puppet reused for the campaign.
References
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Abby Yates dialogue, IDW Comics, "Ghostbusters 101 #3" (2017), comic p. 11: "Is... isn't that the ghost that stole our car?"
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Jillian Holtzmann dialogue, IDW Comics, "Ghostbusters 101 #3" (2017), comic p. 11: "Nah. That one got blown up."
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Ghostbuster's Handbook, Simon & Schuster (2016), p. 76: "A Class V full-roaming vapor, Slimer is a rather grotesque entity made of ectoplasm (thus the name Slimer)."
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Wired, "At Last: The Untold Backstory of Slimer From Ghostbusters," July 15, 2016: "According to Feig, who created a backstory with Ghostbusters co-writer Katie Dippold, Slimer was a gangster executed for killing a waiter who screwed up his order. Slimer started his afterlife as a more traditional ghoul, but was disfigured when the Ghostbusters were called to the restaurant he was haunting."
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Wired, "At Last: The Untold Backstory of Slimer From Ghostbusters," July 15, 2016. Paul Feig: "When the Ghostbusters come in, they haven't quite tested their equipment yet, so they haven't got the levels right. The proton beams are too hot, so it blows his legs off. Then it turns him green. He starts to distort, and so he becomes Slimer. Then he escaped out into the world."
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Tully Summers, "Ghostbusters: Gangster Ghost," ArtStation, January 2, 2018. Tully Summers: "This one was interesting. He starts off a gangster ghost in a speak easy, leaking green from where he was tommy gunned to death. The Ghostbusters cut him in half with their proton packs, and it's revealed he has an otherworldly Slimer ghost hiding within the human shell."
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Tully Summers, "Ghostbusters: Otherworldly Slimer," ArtStation, January 2, 2018. Tully Summers: "This was my Slimer redesign back when the ghosts were more alien. He's intended to break out of the Gangster ghost. Sliming everyone with his dangling entrails and eating everything with rows of revolving teeth. Production eventually decided to go with the good old classic design from the first film."
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The Character Shop, "Who ya gonna call? The Character Shop!" (2016): Director Paul Feig had previously worked with Rick Lazzarini and puppeteer Ronald Binion on a Ford campaign; Lazzarini reminded Feig he had created ghosts for Ghostbusters II, and Feig responded that Lazzarini was "at the top of my list."
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The Character Shop, "Who ya gonna call? The Character Shop!" (2016): Feig's people sent over a script; Lazzarini began brainstorming the effects, and The Character Shop hired roughly a dozen designers on spec to visualize the script's ghost types, including Slimer, which were laid out for Feig and core crew at the first meeting.
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The Character Shop, "Who ya gonna call? The Character Shop!" (2016): A few weeks after the team began 3D mockups, the production's budget was slashed and there was no longer room for the planned practical effects and animatronics, so design and prototyping work stopped.
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Empire Online, "Ghostbusters - trailer breakdown with Paul Feig," March 9, 2016. Paul Feig: "But again, the thing with Slimer is we had a fully articulated Slimer puppet we used, and then we augmented him with special effects."
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Semlyen, Nick (2016). Empire Magazine, Issue 324, June 2016, p. 64. Bauer Media Group: "The new movie combines old technology (a fully articulated Slimer was built and operated by Ghostbusters veteran Rick Lazzarini) with new (CG augmentation) to create the most disgusting and deranged version yet."
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The Character Shop, "Who ya gonna call? The Character Shop!" (2016): When the project returned, the deal had no separate animatronics budget, little time, and the puppet was to serve mainly as a movement reference for the CG department and a real presence on set for the actors to react to.
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The Character Shop, "Who ya gonna call? The Character Shop!" (2016): Lazzarini rehired essential crew and built a Slimer sculpture, molds, cores, and suit, with animatronic head mechanisms including three axes of brow movement, upper and lower eye blinks, eyes side to side and up and down, jaw open and close, and a tongue that could telescope and make tentacle-type movements.
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The Character Shop, "Who ya gonna call? The Character Shop!" (2016): The head was equipped with a helmet molded to fit Ronald Binion, plus HD video goggles and a walkie-talkie; Binion provided the body and arm movement while Lazzarini puppeteered the facial expressions, and the puppet was filmed in Boston for the hot dog, Ecto-1 theft, and driving-away scenes.
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Semlyen, Nick (2016). Empire Magazine, Issue 324, June 2016, p. 64. Bauer Media Group: "In the end the coveted job went to Sony Pictures Imageworks and MPC."
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Semlyen, Nick (2016). Empire Magazine, Issue 324, June 2016, p. 64. Bauer Media Group. Paul Travers: "We added random bits of hair in random places, like he's an old person. And we've added a bunch of goopy slime to him, just pouring off his arms I mean he is called Slimer."
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The Verge, "Analyzing the Ghostbusters trailer with director Paul Feig and writer Katie Dippold," March 3, 2016. Paul Feig describes initial reluctance to include Slimer in the trailer, then deciding to add him after seeing the special effects: "he's actually a puppet, and then we CG'd over him to make him more lifelike."
