Tribute to Harold Ramis

Harold Ramis passed away on Monday at the age of 69. When I was a kid, his character Egon was my favorite in Ghostbusters, probably because he had glasses and was nerdy, just like me. When I grew up I discovered that Ramis had a hand in creating all the characters in Ghosbusters and Ghostbusters II as the screenwriter. He wasn't just funny on the screen in movies like Stripes, his writing and directing was making me and everyone else laugh in movies like Caddyshack, Analyze This, and Groundhog Day.

Think about how many laughs you've laughed in your life. And how many of them were generated by Harold Ramis. It's a considerable percentage. What keeps me from being completely and utterly depressed by that thought is that he'll continue to make all of us laugh for years. Because these movies are still hilarious and always will be.

He added lots of laughter to a lot of lives. He also added to our language.

"So I got that going for me."

As an actor he could make you laugh with just an expression. Like in this clip from Stripes...

And this one from Ghostbusters II...

He worked great as part of a duo or team of funny actors, like here with Bill Murray...

In his movies he took the normal and expected behavior of people and made it funny. What I mean by that is he used the language that people such as psychologists use on a normal basis, as a means of being humorous. To Ramis, a funny psychologist was a psychologist who acted like a psychologist, not one who acted zany or outside the expected norms of his role in society. And even when this shrink finds himself in an unfamiliar setting, even as he tries to blend in with that setting, he still acts like a shrink. As demonstrated by Billy Crystal's character in Analyze This...

There's rising tension as the scene reaches its climax and one character is about to kill another, yet you're laughing.

In Bedazzled he did something similar with the way athletes and sports commentators speak. Bedazzled is okay, it's not great, it has some great parts. And it has Elizabeth Hurley's parts...

In Bedazzled these are slightly exaggerated caricatures of what sports media and athletes are like, but there is a basis of truth to how the characters speak and act. Which is why it's funny. Ramis would create a normal character who was different and eccentric enough to be funny, but not too different to stretch believability and become cartoonish.

What I liked most about Ramis was his unique delivery. His jokes came naturally, they surprised you, they didn't make you burst out laughing but instead make you shake your head and laugh once you got the joke. At the very end of this clip from Ghostbusters II he does something that makes you laugh and you don't see it coming at all, because the dialogue is so natural, and so typical of a normal scene in a normal movie. That's when humor can have its most lasting and strongest effect...

In Stripes, his line "I'll be right behind you guys, every step of the way," is so exquisitely phrased, timed, delivered. It's just perfect.

He starred in, wrote, and directed some of the all time best comedies in a generation. He worked with greats like Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Billy Crystal, Dan Akroyd, John Candy, Chevy Chase. He also worked with modern comedic actors like Jack Black, Michael Cera, and David Cross in Year One. He had a small but hilarious role in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. He directed four episodes of The Office with Steve Carell. He got to direct Robert De Niro. Twice. That's quite a career.

He was a genius of comedy. R.I.P.