Robert Learned Coombs

Robert Learned Coombs was a homeless man living in New York City around the time that the Ghostbusters were first starting to become famous. He was best friends with another drifter, Harlan Bojay, and the pair often hung out together either causing general mischief or arguing about politics or who would win in a fight between Chuck Wepner and a ninja. Once, the pair found a dropped PKE Meter and tried to sell it for booze, and, in the wake of the Mr. Stay Puft incident, rather obtusely assumed that with all the marshmallow around there had to be an equally gigantic mug of hot cocoa nearby.

Comments

• Coombs and Bojay are apparently based on a pair of minor characters in the script who were played by Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray in dual roles as a pair of homeless men. Their scenes were ultimately deleted and now the pair only appear in Richard Mueller's novelization, which is also where their individual names come from (as the script simply identifies them as "bums").