Harold Ramis wears a Seiko M516-4009

Late in Ghostbusters, three men in tan flight suits and proton packs stand on a Central Park West rooftop and look up at Gozer's temple. They are Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, and Peter Venkman, played by Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray, the three doctors of the outfit. Winston Zeddemore, the fourth, who answered a want ad rather than earning a doctorate, stands a step behind. Across the movie those three wear the same watch and Winston does not, a Seiko M516-4009 that Seiko sold as the Voice Note.

Under the LCD the Voice Note carried a microphone and a small speaker. It could record a human voice in four- or eight-second snatches and play it back, the feature that made it a novelty when Seiko released it in 1983, a year before the film. Seiko built the case from stainless steel, plastic, and carbon fiber, the last of those decades before watchmakers used it for much. The watch also kept a 1/100-second chronograph, an alarm, a calendar, and a backlight.

On the wrists of three ghost hunters none of that came up. What a comedy about parapsychologists and a nuclear accelerator needed from a Seiko was the time of day, and the microphone rode along unused. By GQ's account Seiko made few of the watches, and they sold modestly. Collectors hunt the Voice Note now as the Ghostbusters watch, not as the watch that could hear them.