Is There a Ghost in the Film, Waiting for Guffman?

Ever since the 1980's film Three Men and a Baby, peculiarities and goofs have been caught in film. In Three Men and a Baby, there was said to be a ghost captured on film, the spirit of a little boy that had shot himself with a shotgun in the apartment where they filmed the movie. Later it was confirmed that the scene was not even filmed in the real apartment at the time. If you look at the scene where Ted Danson is talking to his mother, she walks across the room carrying the baby and in the background, behind the curtains by the window is the still image of a boy, and then panning back, a shotgun. This is one of the most eerie and hair raising experiences one can view on film, especially before an explanation was offered that the boy was actually part of a cutout of Ted Danson, one where he was dressed in a tuxedo, and the lapel of the tuxedo looks like a gun. Some crew members have said that the cut-out was left by the window on accident. Looking at the cardboard cut-out, one can see the resemblance of Danson, but there are other films that have had eerie scenes that were never cut, and made it to print as well.

In the 1939 MGM classic The Wizard of Oz, there is a scene where Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow, are embarking down the yellow brick road away from a red back-ground in the apple orchid. In the background; one can actually see the dark silhouette of one of the crewmembers, supposedly committing suicide by hanging. He climbs up a ladder, jumps, and you can briefly see him swinging back and forth from the noose tied around his neck. The explanation by crew was the man was making the trees sway in the wind, but one can clearly see him dangling, and swaying.

This is quite the urban legend... to think a wonderful children's movie has the macabre happening of an actual suicide caught on film, but again, the actual suicide was not confirmed. Now, film goofs and strange happenings aside, there are some interesting things to look for when trying to view so-called spirits caught on film. Are the images moving? What are the expressions on the face of the character?

In Waiting for Guffman, when the cast is in the locker room of the gymnasium after their performance, they get the bad news about Guffman not coming. The camera pans right to the cast, then left, and as it goes to the left, behind a punching bag in the corner, is the image of a little girl, about 12 years old. She has a surprised expression on her face, like she was caught in the shot and is trying to hold still, or she is indeed a cardboard cut-out that got left there by accident. When they pan back, she's gone. But why would a cut-out have such a weird expression on the face, standing there looking like an eerie deer stuck in headlights? It is so weird, one wonders if this is a goof, person, or an entity captured on film for the world to see. You be the judge!