6. You Could Call The Phone Number From The First Film...
To keep up the momentum of the slow-burn word-of-mouth success of the first film, director Ivan Reitman elected to have a new trailer run that was (essentially) just the first TV advert the Ghostbusters themselves make, only with the 555 number swapped out for an actual 1-800 number. If you rang it you got a recorded message of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd apologising that they were out busting ghosts. The number got something like 1000 calls per hour, 24 hours a day, for six weeks. The number in the film, meanwhile, is a "fictitious number" originating from early Bell Telephone ad illustrations.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
