… then I wonder why his GB co-star (and creator) Dan Aykroyd had no similar objection to the animated version of his role, Ray Stantz, sounding like Fred Jones from Scooby-Doo?
It’s also true that Maurice LaMarche, the voice of the animated Egon, had originally been told not to vocally impersonate Harold Ramis, the defense over that being he couldn’t do it any other way.
~Ben
What I’ve heard is Bill said some sarcastic remark about his character not sounding like himself and the people running the show didn’t realize he was joking.
According to Micheal C. Gross, Ivan Reitman ordered the change after Murray commented to him about it:
Dan Akyroyd is supposed to be a serious candidate for Nicest Man on the Planet. It wouldn’t be like him to complain that the cartoon Ray didn’t sound enough like him. And…geeze, poor Harold was always mystified by what happened to Egon’s hair, but he never actually asked it to be changed, as far as I know.
Bill Murray, on the other hand, is a human tornado and the mere whisper that he was unhappy was enough to make everyone snap to attention.
I notice though, he doesn’t seem to have been COMPLAINING that Peter didn’t look like him, just asking why. Maybe someone should have just explained the whole “likeness” thing… or pointed out that the cartoon intentionally made the characters look and sound different on purpose, for reasons of it being a cartoon.
But nope, he’s Murray, so better safe then sorry.
Maybe Mr Ramis wished he could get his pompadour that big.
Don’t we all.
So basically, the studio was afraid to get into trouble to get the characters to look/act like the actors. Dan, Harold and Bill loved the show and wondered why the characters didn’t look/sound like them.
…ohh what could have been.
Perhaps they wanted too much money for their exact likenesses to be used…?
I don’t think they even made an effort to try and get the likeness rights. A lot of cartoons based on films at the time didn’t bother too because it would usually take a chunk out of the budget.
If the cartoon HAD used the likenesses of the actors, we would have had three tall, brown-haired, medium built white guys in khaki and their tall black friend also in khaki. It’d be a nightmare from an animation point of view because the characters would look too similar. You’d be asking for a ton of continuity problems.
Wither it was Bill Murray or some jumpy producer, nobody was glad to see Lorenzo leave. I think it was the start of what would be a series of bad decisions by those managing the show.
Really? Didn’t they have people involved who knew the movie actors? Surely they could’ve found out with a just a simple phonecall?
I have often wondered what went on behind the scenes of this show concerning the actor likenesses. They must’ve originally wanted the cartoon characters to sound different from the live-action ones if they turned down Ernie Hudson, but they were okay with LaMarche doing a spot-on Ramis impression?
As M.Thunder pointed out it was more for animation than anything else. Im actually rather glad they didn’t use the actor’s likenesses it gave the show its own identity.
No fan of Janine Melnitz was glad to see Laura leave, either. Strangely, she never returned as “Big J” for the 1990-91 season even when JMS did, for the episode “Janine, You’ve Changed.”
And speaking of her, if the producers were to depict her (in the cartoon) with her original dark brown hair and round glasses, then aside from her usual secretary clothing she too would perhaps (and somewhat) be confused with three out of our fearless four Ghostbusters (Ray, Peter and Egon).
~Ben
Irony: Ernie Hudson AUDITIONED for the part of Winston and didn’t get it. 
I personally liked the original voice actress of Janine better.
He’s not a serious candidate-he IS the Nicest Man on the Planet!
That’s way different from what I heard years ago. It just sounds like a case of someone getting the wrong idea about an innocent question. I think Bill probably enjoyed LM doing his character an was probably wondering the same thing as the rest of us.
Don’t forget that the original pilot for RGB had completely different art for Peter that looks a lot more like Bill Murray than the actual version they used for the series.
What I heard was creative differences and from some of those latter episodes…need I say more?
It’s too bad they didn’t get him back for the EGB episode, that would have made it worth watching.
He was replaced because the producer says Ivan Reitman said Bill Murray asked him in passing why Peter didn’t sound more like him. And the producer decided this meant Bill Murray hated Lorenzo so Lorenzo had to go. At least, that’s the story that gets passed around.
We’ll never know if it really happened that way. But the creative team didn’t have a single problem with Lorenzo. All I can read is that everybody on the show loved him.
It’s especially sad when you think about how that episode was made in '97, only three years before Lorenzo died. If he was ever going to return, this was his last chance.
Micheal Gross brought up an interesting point in the DVD interview. By that point Lorenzo was famous for doing Garfield and was also doing voices for commercials (he was also one of the crash test dummies too) and he never really changed his vocal inflection all that much, so he was becoming recognizable. Apparently that was one of the reason’s Ivan was uncomfortable with having Lorenzo doing the voice. Not a real good reason but it does add another layer to this.