Egon Spengler Oswald Spengler and a classmate of Ramis at Senn High School, Egon Donsbach, a Hungarian refugee. Christopher Walken, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd and Jeff Goldblum were all considered for the role of Egon Spengler, before Ramis, who had gotten close to the character while writing him, felt compelled to play it himself. LaMarche stated that when he auditioned for the part of Spengler in "The Real Ghostbusters", he was asked not to do an impression of Ramis, which he ignored because impressions were one of his strengths as a performer, and there was no other way he could imagine properly
Egon Olsen talent for improvisation impressed East Germans living under a socialist economy of scarcity, more than James Bond did, fighting his enemies with the newest technological gimmicks. The gaolers of the Vridsløselille prison in Copenhagen, where Egon Olsen went at the end of each film, initiated a renaming of the street right in front of the prison into "Egon Olsens Vej" () in 2004. According to gaolers and the prison warden, "Egon Olsen has always been a very nice criminal who deserves to be honoured", and "Egon has done much for the facility. Up until today, many tourists from Eastern Germany