With the recent announcement of the amazing, all-female leads of the new Ghostbusters movie, we decided to dig up some random trivia facts about the Ghostbuster franchise.

Ghostbusted

Ernie Hudson played Winston Zeddemore in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II…but not in the animated TV series, The Real Ghostbusters. He had to try out for the role, and halfway through his audition, the director cut him off. “No, no, no, that’s all wrong!” the director said. “When Ernie Hudson did it in the movie—“Hudson reminded the director that he was, in fact, Ernie Hudson. He still didn’t get the part. It went to Arsenio Hall.

Casting Coincidences

When the 1984 film Ghostbusters was adapted into a TV cartoon called The Real Ghostbusters in 1986, star Bill Murray declined to provide the voice for his character, Dr. Peter Venkman. So producers used actor Lorenzo Music, best known for voicing comic strip cat Garfield in several TV specials. (He actually sounded a lot like Murray.) Murray still had veto power over who would get the job, though, and upon seeing the finished cartoon, he quipped that Dr. Venkman sounded too much “like Garfield.” Music was fired and replaced. Music died in 2001, so producers needed someone new for the voice of Garfield for 2004’s big-screen Garfield: The Movie. Who got the role? Bill Murray.

Who You Gonna Call?

Blennophobia is an abnormal, unwarranted fear of slime. It can cause, among other symptoms, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, nausea, severe anxiety, and panic attacks. The condition is common in people with obsessive-compulsive disorders as well as those with schizophrenia, and can be triggered by contact with or just proximity to any slimy substance, such as snail slime, or even just images on TV or in films (like Ghostbusters).

John Belushi

His death by drug overdose in 1982 at the age of 33 sent shock waves throughout the entertainment industry that lasted for years. He was cast in or attached to a dozen film roles, so all the projects had to be either scrapped or postponed after his sudden demise. The biggest movie: Ghostbusters, in which Belushi was scheduled to play the lead. (The part ultimately went to Bill Murray, but Richard Pryor was also considered.) And yes, before he died, Belushi was considered for the lead role in The Blue Lagoon, but the film’s producers realized that the serious tone they were looking for might be jeopardized by the portly Belushi swimming around in a loincloth with Brooke.