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
Pictet–Spengler reaction hydrochloric acid forming a tetrahydroisoquinoline. Like the Mannich reaction, aldehydes give good yields while ketones tend to give lower conversion. The Pictet–Spengler reaction has been applied to solid-phase combinatorial chemistry with great success. An analogous reaction with an aryl-β-ethanol is called Oxa-Pictet–Spengler reaction The reaction mechanism occurs by initial formation of an iminium ion (2) followed by electrophilic addition at the 3-position, in accordance with the expected nucleophilicity of indoles, to give the spirocycle 3. After migration of the best migrating group, deprotonation gives the product (5). Replacing an indole with a 3,4-dimethoxyphenyl group give the reaction named the Pictet–Spengler