Despite years of huge successes on film and TV, Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray did not meet Johnny Carson until the 1984 press tour for Ghostbusters. The clip starts with Aykroyd doing a delightfully odd show-and-tell about paranormal research that sucks all the air out of the room, then Murray comes out halfway through and tries to save the segment to Carson's great relief. It's hard to imagine the pace of this 13-minute segment flying on network TV today.
Fun fact: the Zener cards used at the top of Ghostbusters is one of many references to the Duke University Parapsychology Lab, an official part of Duke's psychology department that was eventually moved off campus and is now the Rhine Center. Ghostbusters was based in part on the work of J.B. Rhine and his wife at Duke, and as an independent research facility later.
Image: YouTube / The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
