Ghostbusters: Dan Aykroyd Revealed Surprise Spinoff Is Canon

Dan Aykroyd may be the chief creative force behind Ghostbusters, but his approach has always been a little different than most fans of the series. As a true believer in all things paranormal, Aykroyd originally envisioned the movie as a vast epic, filled with lore drawn from real myths. To this day, Aykroyd rarely misses the opportunity to discuss the unexplainable parts of our world, especially on his History Channel show Strange Sightings, which is what brought him to the Talking Strange podcast, hosted by Aaron Sagers.

Yet, what Aykroyd revealed to Sagers surprised everyone. When Sagers asked, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, if the actor’s cameo as Ray Stanz in the 1995 movie Casper is canon to the Ghostbusters franchise, Aykroyd answered in the affirmative. “I think so, given that [Steven] Spielberg asked for me and they built me in there,” he explained in serious deadpan. “Of course, it’s a beautiful nod to what we were doing with Ivan [Reitman, Ghostbusters director] and everybody. You’ve got to include it in the canon, no doubt.”

Released 30 years ago by Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, Casper stars voice actor Malachi Pearson as the titular apparition, who lives inside Whipstaff Manor in Friendship, Maine, with his three bullying uncles. When heiress Carrigan Crittenden (Cathy Moriarty) discovers she has been left the Manor in her uncle’s will, she decides to search it for treasure, but is constantly rebuffed by Casper’s uncles. Eventually, she enlists the help of “ghost therapist” Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman), who brings along his daughter Kat (Christina Ricci). But before that, Crittenden seeks help from other, more famous ghost fighters, including Ray Stanz.

The short scene finds Ray running out of the house in full gear, proton pack on his back, stopping only to address Crittenden and her attorney Dibs (Eric Idle). “Who you gonna call?” Ray asks rhetorically; “Someone else.”

Clearly, Akyroyd extends the Casper cameo to the Ghostbusters family out of his generosity with the franchise, but it does raise some questions about the rest of world. Is Don Novello’s profane priest Father Guido Sarducci, also used by Crittenden to deal with the ghost problem, part of the Ghostbuster’s world now too? What about Clint Eastwood, Rodney Dangerfield, Mel Gibson, and the Cryptkeeper, all of whom Dr. Harvey sees in the mirror when the uncles start messing with him?

Obviously, the answer is to simply not worry too much about it. Ghostbusters canon has always been shifting, as demonstrated by the fact that Aykroyd and his co-stars Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson originally said that the 2009 video game was canon, but several of those plot points have been overwritten by Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. And then there’s the question of where 2016’s Ghostbusters fits into the whole thing.

Akyroyd doesn’t seem to worried about making the pieces fit, and instead cares more about having fun with his characters. So when Sagers brought up the comic book The Blues Brothers: The Escape of Joliet Jake, which includes Aykroyd’s daughter Stella among its creative team, and asked about the possibility of Jake and Elwood Blues meeting the Ghostbusters, Aykroyd was once again amenable to the idea.

“Well, that would be for some young accomplished writer to figure out, maybe Stella,” he allowed, before taking it more seriously. “It would be an interesting meeting, let me put some thoughts to that.”

That’s good news for Ghostbusters fans, because whenever Aykroyd starts thinking about things, some wonderful and unexpected things can happen.