ALL COMEDY IS CONSERVATIVE (profanity alert):

There is nothing "crypto" about Ramis's 1984 hit, "Ghostbusters": Its Reaganism is fully developed, as numerous critics have pointed out. Here the martinet is none other than a troublemaking EPA bureaucrat; the righteous, rule-breaking slobs are small businessmen--ghost-hunting businessmen, that is, who have launched themselves deliriously into the world of entrepreneurship. Eventually, after the buffoon from the EPA gets needlessly into the businessmen's mix and blunders the world into catastrophe, the forces of order find they must outsource public safety itself to the hired ghost-guns because government can't do the job on its own

Both Reagan and his closest advisers were transfixed by the film, Sidney Blumenthal tells us; "Ghostbusters" fit nicely into their idea of an America guided by "fantasy and myth." And while the film itself piled up its stupendous box-office returns in that summer of '84, Jack Abramoff and his College Republican pals got together a troupe of "Fritzbusters" to warm up the crowds at Republican events, mocking Democratic presidential candidate "Fritz" Mondale with an offensive take-off on the catchy "Ghostbusters" theme song.

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