Dan Aykroyd Says His Casper Cameo Belongs in Ghostbusters Canon
Dan Aykroyd is folding his 1995 Casper cameo into Ghostbusters canon, declaring the haunted-house gag officially part of the timeline.
File this under: things that make way too much sense once you hear them. Dan Aykroyd says his blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in 1995's Casper is not just a gag — he considers it official Ghostbusters canon.
Aykroyd says the Casper bit counts
On the Talking Strange podcast, Aykroyd — who co-created Ghostbusters with Harold Ramis and plays Dr. Ray Stantz — said the Casper appearance should live alongside the movies in the franchise timeline. He says Steven Spielberg personally asked him to do it, and the filmmakers folded Ray right into the story in a way that felt legit to him.
'I think so, given the fact that [Steven] Spielberg asked for me and said, "Come and do this," and that they built me in there. Of course, it's a beautiful nod to what we were doing with Ivan [Reitman] and everybody. I think you gotta include there in the canon, no doubt.'
A quick refresher on the Casper cameo
Casper is the family-friendly haunted house movie starring Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman. Pullman plays an afterlife therapist who moves with his daughter into a crumbling mansion in Maine. The place is tied up with a rich heiress, Carrigan (Cathy Moriarty), who wants the ghosts gone yesterday. So she does what any sensible person in 1995 would do: calls the Ghostbusters.
That brings in Aykroyd as Dr. Ray Stantz, showing up as the team’s representative. He takes one look at what is going on inside and nopes out, dropping the perfect little wink: 'Who you gonna call? Someone else.'
Where it sits in Ghostbusters world
Ray Stantz is, of course, one quarter of the original crew alongside Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and Harold Ramis. And Casper was not Aykroyd’s only wink back at the series from outside the mainline films. He also popped up as a cab driver in the 2016 female-led reboot, which starred Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Melissa McCarthy.
So do we add Casper to the marathon?
If we are taking Aykroyd at his word — and given the Spielberg ask and the Ivan Reitman nod, it tracks — then yeah, Casper quietly slides onto the Ghostbusters shelf. It is a weird, funny little crossover that has technically been hiding in plain sight for almost 30 years.
Are you penciling Casper into your next Ghostbusters rewatch order now? Or is this a fun easter egg you keep separate from the main course?