Peter Mosen At The Real Ghostbusters Day Event

Way back in September 1986 Columbia Pictures Television presented "Real Ghostbusters Day" at the Ambassador Hotel (3400 Wilshire Boulevard) in Los Angeles in conjunction with the LA Science Fiction and Comic Book Convention. The promotion was to draw attention to The Real Ghostbusters, the then-new animated television series that, as we all know, would appear on the ABC TV Network that Fall on Saturday mornings. Old-School Ghosthead Peter Mosen was asked to be there to help with the festivities, and recently he was nice enough to pass along the photos seen above for me to share with all of you. Photos #2 and #3 are official Columbia publicity photos from the event, as you can see from the captions beneath them. According to Peter, the guy with the glasses in the first photo is Dan Harary of Columbia Pictures Television and the rest, he believes, are members of his staff.

According to Peter, at the event they showed some of the cartoon, gave out flyers, and had the original Ecto-1 on display in the parking lot (which Peter poses with in the photos). Peter was able to get lots of reference shots of the vehicle, inside and out, which enabled him to fabricate his own vehicles. "Technically I built three. My original '66 ambulance with a very limited budget in 1984, the replica '59 ambulance for my touring and appearances in 1989, and the refit of my original to Ecto-1A which wound up in Buenos Aires, Argentina in '90."

Peter told me that since The Ambassador Hotel itself was said to be haunted, he stayed overnight to investigate, but had nothing to report when the morning came. Unfortunately, he won't have the chance to investigate any further as the legendary hotel was demolished in 2005 to make way for a few schools. A wake for the hotel was held on February 2, 2006 at the Gaylord Apartments and adjoining restaurant H.M.S. Bounty, directly across the street from the Ambassador. Actress Diane Keaton, who was one of many who fought for the preservation of the hotel, was among the speakers at the ceremony.