Egon Spengler

Egon Spengler, Ph.D. is a fictional character from the Ghostbusters franchise. He appears in the films Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II, in the animated television series The Real Ghostbusters, and later in Extreme Ghostbusters. Spengler was portrayed by Harold Ramis in the films and voiced by him in Ghostbusters: The Video Game, and voiced by Maurice LaMarche in the cartoon series. He is a member of the Ghostbusters and one of the three doctors of parapsychology, along with Dr. Peter Venkman and Dr. Raymond Stantz.

Creation and conception

The character of Egon Spengler was named after Oswald Spengler and a classmate of Ramis's at Senn High School named Egon Donsbach who was a Hungarian refugee.

LaMarche stated that when he auditioned for the part of Spengler in The Real Ghostbusters, he was asked not to do an impression of Ramis, a request he ignored because impressions were one of his strengths as a performer and there was no other way he could imagine properly portraying the character other than to follow Ramis's example, and got the part anyway. LaMarche said in an interview that he did two different takes, one where he impersonated Ramis, the other where he tried a more "Woody Allen" like approach, which he admitted did not suit the character's physicality.