The One Thing Missing From Ghosts Is Patrick Swayze

CBS’s supernatural half-hour sitcom Ghosts has earned darling status as the rare program generally loved by both viewers and executives, the former for its wit and charm and the latter for its viewership numbers that are increasingly hard to come by sans pact with the devil. At Wednesday’s PaleyFest panel, the ensemble added the press in attendance to those under their spell. Vulture threw a few crucial and silly haunting-based queries at the cast, and the answers? Well, Patrick Swayze’s ghost would be honored.

When asked which version of ectoplasm from cinematic history he’d most like to be covered in, Utkarsh Ambudkar — the show’s corporeal straight-man, Jay — ran through his options. “The one from Ghostbusters II is dangerous. I don’t want the anger-plasm,” he stated before also ruling out non-paranormal film oozes including “James Cameron’s Alien plasma” and “the goop that came out of the princess’s dad who was turned into a mushroom-goop thing” from “the ill-fated John Leguizamo Super Mario Bros. movie.” He finally settled on what we can all agree is the only sensible answer: “Slimer’s plasm is pretty innocuous … I think I’m gonna have to go with Slimer.”

The group also wish-cast ghosts from the annals of U.S. history who they thought would make the best addition to the series. Danielle Pinnock, who portrays a spectral 1920s jazz singer, went with “a cool 1990s hip-hop ghost. A ghost rapper!” Asher Grodman, the show’s pantsless Wall Street bro ghost, felt the most glaring gap in the roster was someone who was alive “anywhere from 1800 to 1850.” Devan Chandler Long, who plays a lovable undead lunkhead Viking, went meta with the question: “Patrick Swayze. He’s historical. He was the all-time best ghost. Patrick Swayze, the actor. Because he was the Ghost, and then he can teach us about ghosts. There’s a lot of levels there.”

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