This past Saturday, Feb. 24, was the 10th anniversary of Harold Ramis’s death, most well known for his involvement in films such as “Animal House” and “Ghostbusters” (in which he played Egon Spengler).

Harold Ramis was born on Nov. 21, 1944 in Chicago, Illinois and was brought up Jewish. He entered Washington University in 1962 as an undergraduate student, was a member of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, and graduated in 1966. Following his graduation, Ramis worked at a St. Louis mental health facility for seven months before ultimately pursuing his comedy career at Second City in Chicago and beyond. A lifelong lover of his alma mater, Harold Ramis received an honorary Ph.D. from WashU in 1993. Ramis loved WashU, and continued to return throughout his career, speaking on campus most recently in 2009. 

Harold Ramis in a 1965 StudLife article (Courtesy of Bob Benson)

As a lover of comedy, I thought it was important to take a brief look back on the life and accomplishments of this WashU icon and entertainment industry juggernaut: someone who touched all our lives whether we knew it or not. 

Ramis spoke about his time at WashU and in ZBT to the St. Louis Jewish Light: “Going away to school and joining ZBT was really a liberating experience for me,” he said. “We lived in an atmosphere of moderately controlled violence. We were able to do what we wanted and when we wanted to do it. Like those in ‘Animal House,’ we felt ‘we can do anything.’” 

To me, Ramis means the world, a part of the reason I am proud to be a WashU student. His ideas, reaching millions, provided infamous entertainment, but also made people think about the state of the world. Among our many distinguished alumni, he is proof of the impact and power a WashU student can have after they graduate. Ramis made people think and laugh. 

Jack Black, an American actor in primarily family and comedy films, said, “Harold was a force of good in the universe — so funny, sweet and thoughtful, He will be deeply missed.” 

Looking back on Ramis, I thought it would be interesting to delve into the Student Life archives to see how he appeared during his time as a student and better understand the fun-loving, good-natured, thoughtful man that ambled through the same university halls we pass every day. 

From my brief search, Ramis did not appear in Student Life until 1964 (his junior year), where, during welcome week, Ramis sang folk songs at the first-year talent show. That same year, in a StudLife article called “Bearskin Tryouts,” Ramis wrote and performed a sketch for the Bearskin Follies, a satirical show run by fraternities and sororities (Ramis was the vice president of ZBT his junior year). Their sketch portrayed the problems leading to the Revolutionary War as not sectional, but sexual. In addition, they depicted how the first battle of the war was in 1765 — not 1775 — a very Ramis-type comedic sketch. In the show, Ramis played “Mr. Schwartz, a sleazy revolutionist with a suggestion of the John Birch Society,” as quoted in a 1965 StudLife article titled “Bearskin’s Folly Tonight, Tomorrow In Brown Hall.”

Unfortunately for Ramis, this show got negative reviews from Student Life’s guest reviewer Richard Lavin, though he shone a somewhat positive light on Ramis’ performance: “The Cohen-Ramis duet frankly didn’t work, neither musically nor comically”, Lavin said. “However, Ramis seemed to succeed best at adapting himself to the small stage. His throw-aways and ad-libs were probably his best moments.”

In a StudLife article from 1965 called “Bearskin’s Folly Is Real Folly,” an example of one of his throw-aways is “Get on the stick, boy,” as he handed Paul Revere a wooden horse. 

In the fall of Ramis’ senior year, he played the second shepherd in a play in the WashU Christmas assembly. As featured in StudLife’s 1965 article titled “Christmas Assembly To Feature Play,” Ramis won “‘The Man Most Likely to Succeed Award’ for writing to the CIA and requesting brochures on a career in espionage.”

Ramis performed in a play called “The Hostage,” which was about an Irish brothel-inn. Here, Ramis played “a meek ex-church official who had run off with Church funds [and] has just been converted (or rather, inverted).” Despite his sub-par singing, his “hammed gestures and facial expressions” made up for it. Ramis continued doing theater, appearing in “Oedipus Rex” in March 1966 as the high priest. That was the last mention of Ramis in Student Life during the 1960s until his name was listed for graduation in StudLife’s June 1966 issue, “Undergraduate Degree Winners Listed.”

To me, this brief exercise of looking at Ramis during his time at WashU was illuminating. Specifically impactful, in my opinion, are his “Most Likely To Succeed Award” and his Bearskin Follies sketch. Ramis writing the CIA is akin to the bumbling characters of John Winger and Russel Ziskey in “Stripes.” Ramis yelling, “Get on the stick, boy,” to Paul Revere is a line that could have been pulled out of any of his movies, reminiscent of Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Vacation. 

It comforts me to know that the Harold Ramis who went to WashU was the same Harold Ramis I idolized, whose movies I absorbed, one after the other.

Harold Ramis died on Feb. 24, 2014 due to “complications of an autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis.” Upon Ramis’ death, President Obama said, “When we watched his movies — from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day — we didn’t just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings.”