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2. A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever

4. Description Excerpt—Chapter 3: Biblical Proportions Ghostbusters earned plenty of glowing reviews and champion financial figures upon its release, but there’s much more tangible evidence that speaks to its immediate, immense popularity. The film hadn’t been in theaters for a full week yet when a merchant selling bootleg Ghostbusters buttons on a Chicago bus was mugged for his entire supply. A handful of teenagers in Lincoln, Nebraska, converted a 1964 Cadillac to look like the car in the movie and spent their June and July nights “[cruising] Lincoln’s main street . . . looking for deadly ghosts.” …A Ghostbusters fan club started when Pittsburgh residents Mark Lister and Jim Garvey bought the right to do so from Columbia Pictures for 10-thousand dollars. The club’s 8.95 membership fee granted fans an ID card, a patch, an “anti-paranormal proficiency” certificate, and “an insurance policy protecting them from ‘sliming.’” In just a few months, Lister and Garvey signed up twenty-five thousand members. There was also the case of Jeff Nichols, a high-schooler in Hackensack, New Jersey, who found himself a hometown hero when friends began noticing him in the background of a brief scene Ghostbusters filmed at Rockefeller Center. Nichols had been on a school trip to New York City in the fall of 1983 and had no idea he’d been caught on camera. No less than the New York Times caught up with this accidental star. “It’s strange to think that I’m in a movie that’s playing all over the country,” Nichols said. “I guess it’s like being a part of history.”

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