I was going to say the same thing. Bloom Co. definitely preceded Calvin. I suppose Watterson could have influenced Breathed's later work?

Yeah, it's possible that he was "phoning it in" compared to some of his other work, but he was still hilarious in it.

Scientific respect?! But their theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, their methods are sloppy, and their conclusions are highly questionable. They are poor scientists!

This isn't Internet or AVClub "backlash." GB2 has never been a well-regarded movie.

"Bill Murray has his moments" in Ghostbusters? HAS HIS MOMENTS?

No, this argument has it backward. The fact that the Ghostbusters were in dire straits was actually the most realistic development in GB2. It was five years later; it makes total sense that once the euphoria wore off, the city would sue them, the public would tire of them, and they would turn into a punchline. This is…

In the first Ghostbusters, Larry King hadn't even started on CNN yet. He was just some cool, semi-obscure radio guy.

Or maybe it's that the repetitive jokes on other shows at least aren't ugly and misogynistic.

Well, la-di-dah (etc.)

This is high praise—and accurate.

Says the guy who nitpicks the article.

Uh, Randy Quaid is hilarious in it.

Maybe you're thinking of "The Fantabulous Contraption of Professor Horatio Hufnagel."

It's interesting to consider what the film would have been like had Belushi survived and played Venkman as originally intended. It still would have been good, I think, maybe even great, but I have a hard time believing it would have been QUITE as good. In their SNL days, Belushi and Aykroyd were arguably funnier than…

You don't look Druish…

Yeah, Scrooged came between the two Ghostbusters films. But still, that was quite a few years between roles. I saw Murray say once on Charlie Rose (or maybe Larry King?) that he just didn't feel he could handle that level of success, after Ghostbusters, so he fled to France for a while. He was supposed to come back to…

I don't think you've really debunked anything Dowd wrote here. He said Murray's dramatic career really got going with Rushmore, not that it was his first dramatic attempt.

This is getting into a weird area.

His performances in Where the Buffalo Roam, Hamlet, and Cradle Will Rock are divisive, at best. I'm somewhat divided on them myself.

Yes, but if we're talking cameos, then Little Shop of Horrors is clearly the best.