Me and my girlfriend were watching Ghostbusters 2 tonight and the Louis line “I was stuck in an elevator and had to make the whole time” came up. One of us thinks that line means had to find a way to pass the whole time and the other thinks it means had to pee the whole time. What do you guys think?
i think i read some where that he was supposed to say something to the effect of he had to use the bathroom the whole time but i could be wrong.
i just checked the script and he definitely was supposed to say go to the bathroom.
I believe it’s meant as crap.
I’ve always heard I have to Make as in make water I.E. have to pee.
Make as in make due, or make te best of it.
“have to make” is an old fashioned way of saying “have to go to the bathroom”
Damn, you’re going to get me started on this…
This is the line I hate most in the movie. joeghostbuster is right. “Have to make” means go to the bathroom. Problem is, as you can see a lot of people don’t know that, and even if you do know what it means, the phrase is so archaic that you kind of do a double-take. In my opinion, this is so jarring that it ruins the joke. You’re concentrating on the phrase he used instead of the comedy of it.
I don’t know if this was a result of the studio trying to cut down on the number of “bad words” used in the movie, due to the popularity of the cartoon… but it sure seems like it. If Louis had said, “Okay, so the blackout was a big problem for everybody— I was stuck in an elevator and I had to shit the whole time” in the middle of his opening statement, I would have fallen on the floor laughing. Even if they didn’t want to swear, he could have said “dump”, which now that I think about it may be even funnier.
Instead I just scrunch up my face and think, “that was weird.”
This.
/is old
actually I thought that line was funny, what else would you expect little meek Louis to say? his over bearing mother probably taught him to say that at an early age and it stuck with him into adulthood.
Well maybe he’d be feeling up for it now that his room mate has moved to Florida.
this is what I always thought… shrug
That’s what i’ve always figured too. I didn’t know there was another meaning for it.
i thought not being vulgar suited ricks character. if he said piss it wouldn’t have worked
But the superintendent’s gonna be pissed?
Without being vulgar, there are probably a dozen other euphemisms he could have said that people would have actually understood.
Louis had just been through an intense ordeal, and the line is funny.
Huh. I always knew what it meant. Never even considered that people wouldn’t know what the phrase meant. I guess it isn’t as common as I thought!
I think the terminology is a part of the character.
Like how he would rather say acetylsalicylic acid instead of plain Aspirin…
It means he has to pee. And I think it’s funny. What a great opening argument! 
Yeah “make” definitely means “piss”. That’s how I always took the line to be ever since I saw it on opening day in 89.