Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for June 15, 1989…
PRE-PREMIERE
Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray spent their afternoon in Burbank taping an appearance as the first and second guests on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which was broadcast later that night.
They had to leave early to get to the premiere of their movie at the famous Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
They shook hands with Johnny and his sidekick Ed McMahon as they departed to a rather brassy rendition of Ray Parker Jr.'s ‘Ghostbusters’ by the Tonight Show orchestra, leaving Johnny’s third guest, comedian Kevin Meaney, with the remainder of the show’s time to himself.
THE PREMIERE
According to the LA Times’ Jeannine Stein, in an article that ran a few days later, the ‘premiere chairman’ for the event was Judy Ovitz, wife of powerful Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz, and herself a cast member of the film. Tickets for the event, which benefitted St. John’s Hospital, warned “Be there or be slimed!”
The event consisted of the screening itself at the Chinese, followed by an after party at the Palladium. Tickets cost $350, and Ovitz hoped they would raise $500,000 that night to purchase St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica a piece of gynecological treatment equipment called a Selectron Remote Afterloader.
Obligatory film quote: “I’d like to run some gynecological tests on the mother.” “Who wouldn’t?”
THE SCREENING AT THE CHINESE
Some of the celebrities in attendance:
Dan Aykroyd and wife Donna Dixon
Kevin Bacon and a pregnant Kyra Sedgwick (no relation to the Sedgewick Hotel)
l to r: Sigourney Weaver, Ivan Reitman, his wife Genevieve Robert, Sig’s husband Jim Simpson
Another cool photo op:
Paula Abdul
Robert Downey Jr. and Sarah Jessica Parker
Bobby Brown, his entourage, and date Karyn White
Christine Lahti and her husband, director Tommy Schlamme
Alana Hamilton and son Ashley
Sally Field and her then-husband, producer Alan Greisman
Ron Howard
Cast-member Cheech Marin and his family
Khrystyne Haje (played Simone on the TV show Head of the Class)
Howie Mandel
Pebbles
John Forsythe (who had appeared the year before with Bill Murray in Scrooged)
Caddyshack alums Rodney Dangerfield and Bill Murray
The LA Times also reported the following folks in attendance, but I found no photos so far:
Annie Potts; Pat Weaver (Sigourney's Dad and the man who invented the talk show format); James Woods and Sarah Owen; Columbia chief Dawn Steel; Jon Lovitz; Phil Hartman; Norman Lear; Penny Marshall; Candy and Aaron Spelling; Barbara and Marvin Davis; Catherine O'Hara; Sydney Pollack; CAA chief Michael Ovitz; and "a handful of nuns from St. John's."
Noticeably NOT in attendance was actor Rob Lowe, someone who HAD attended the premiere of the first film in 1984 (with date Melissa Gilbert). Lowe had become the subject of a sex tape controversy the year before, which reporter Jeannine Stein states was a conversation topic the entire night: "Have you seen the Rob Lowe tape?"
<B>**THE AFTER PARTY AT THE PALLADIUM**</B>
The lobby was decorated something like Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, with costumed 'statues'.
There was also a New Year's Eve theme to the night, inspired by the movie's finale.
The LA Times said of the food: "Along Came Mary catered a family-style dinner (everyone serves himself from huge platters) that included jumbo prawns with apple cider and mustard sauce, boneless breast of chicken stuffed with ricotta sage filling, baby asparagus, yellow squash and mushrooms and a peach and blueberry <I>*feuillette*</I> with puff pastry shells, creme Anglaise and vanilla ice cream. Thankfully, there was no theme food, like slime punch."
I was surprised to learn in Stein's writeup that Howard Huntsberry, who covers Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher" on the GB2 soundtrack, had previously played Wilson "with dead-on accuracy" in 1987's La Bamba.
Huntsberry was on hand as part of the evening's entertainment, following a big band that played throughout dinner, and succeeded by an impromptu number by Dan Aykroyd, who said as he left for the evening: "I've done all the press, I have nothing to say, I had a good time."
As guests departed they were handed a copy of the GB2 novel, a "hot beverage thermal mug", a GB2 logo pin and a noise-making toy-- the description of which suggests one of the Hardee's Ghost Blasters, which were later recalled because children could aspirate the tiny batteries.
Harold Ramis decided to take home at least one other souvenir from among the decorations.
I had wondered in the past why Harold Ramis alone had not done a cameo in the music video for Run-DMC's Ghostbusters Rap (Aykroyd, Murray, Hudson, Potts, and Weaver all appear in it), and a possible answer comes from the July 3rd People Magazine article about the premiere, author unknown.
"Despite the rumors that I was in New York having a nose job, the fact is, I had some gallstones removed," Ramis stated.
"And tonight we're going to auction them off!" added Aykroyd.
The People article ends with a slightly prophetic quote.
Compiled by Alex Newborn
