“Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together… Mass hysteria!” Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) warns the Mayor of New York. No, Venkman wasn’t talking about 2020 in this 1984 classic sci-fi comedy, but rather about what would happen if paranormal activity took hold of Manhattan. This mega-blockbuster, breaking money-making records and subsequently sparking thousands of fandom wars, follows three off-kilter Columbia University parapsychology professors investigating the paranormal.

After being dismissed from the Ivy League institution, Venkman, Dr. Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) start up a ghost elimination service (“the largest paranormal removal company in America”) and run it out of a previously abandoned Tribeca firehouse, recruiting voice-of-reason everyman Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) as a fourth member of the team and a bespectacled, straight-talking secretary (Annie Potts). The supporting cast also features Sigourney Weaver in the iconic role of Venkman’s cellist love interest (“There is no Dana, only Zuul.”) as well as Rick Moranis, William Atherton, and cameos by Casey Kasem and Larry King.