In those four live action films, he was portrayed by Bill Murray, and was voiced in the animated series first by Lorenzo Music and then by Dave Coulier.

In 2008, Peter Venkman was selected by the magazine Empire as one of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time,[2] described by Empire's Nick de Semlyen as "the ultimate New York hero: cynical, sarcastic, secretly sweet-natured",[2] "a man possessed by manic spontaneity, with a wont to twirl in circles around a public concourse or declare undying love for a woman he's just met", and the "most popular" character played by Murray.

He holds Ph.D.s in both parapsychology and psychology, though he rarely uses his scientific prowess (despite what he had learned in fields like metallurgy, engineering, and physics), and the papers of his research at Columbia University are sloppily written and spurious, leading people to doubt whether he was a legitimate scientist.

Originally his professional interests were focused on paranormal phenomena like ESP; he appeared not to believe in ghosts until he actually saw one.

[5] Despite Peter's lackadaisical attitude, he has developed plans that help the Ghostbusters save the day, and he is shrewd and more street smart than the more academically inclined Ray and Egon.

For instance, he persuades the city mayor to release them after being arrested, return their equipment, and otherwise support their attempt to stop Gozer the Gozerian.

She tells Peter there is a man waiting in his office from the EPA and she has been working two weeks without a break and states that he promised he would hire more help.

As Peter was coming to see Dana and take her out on a date, he notices that she has undergone a radical change in appearance and is now acting very strangely.

He soon learns from Egon that her building was renovated by an evil architect named Ivo Shandor, and she is possessed by Zuul, the Gatekeeper of Gozer.

After Peck returns and shut down the Containment Unit, the ghosts all escape, and Peter and the other Ghostbusters are imprisoned for EPA violations.

The Ghostbusters are released and go toward Dana's building, escorted there by a police and army motorcade as a dark cloud starts to cover the entire city.

However they are too late to stop Dana and Louis Tully from releasing the evil Gozer and transforming into their possessors' Terror Dog forms.

Peter and his team then cross their proton streams, and force the door to Gozer's dimension to close, destroying the Marshmallow Man in a blaze of flames and saving the city.

Peter rescues Dana, no longer possessed, from the rubble of Zuul's charred body, finally winning her affections for saving her.

The three Ghostbusters are summoned to court after causing a city-wide blackout, where they stand trial on the grounds of violating a restraining order and destroying a section of First Avenue.

They go back into business after the slime sample in the courtroom absorbed the judge's negative energy while shouting and exploded out two ghosts; the Scoleri Brothers.

While his teammates investigate the river of slime underneath the city, Peter renews his relationship with Dana and becomes paternally attached to Oscar despite not being his father.

In court, Peter implied that two years prior to the film's events, the team secretly had violated the judiciary orders against them and used their proton packs.

He, Ray and Winston arrive in Summerville, Oklahoma during a new Crossrip incident to aid Egon's family in stopping Gozer.

[8] In the film, in a rare occasion, Peter actually uses his scientific prowess, when he evaluates Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani) and determined that he has pyrokinetic powers.

He later joined his fellow Ghostbusters in the climactic fight against the death-chilling deity with the OG busters playing a pivotal role in opening the containment unit to capture Garraka.

He is originally opposed to the idea of Slimer living in the firehouse, but quickly develops a love–hate relationship with the ghost; mostly hate whenever he is "slimed" on an episodic basis.

Peter eventually warms up to the Rookie and occasionally praises his developing skills, but his interest is soon lost once they encountered Ilyssa Selwyn who, true to himself, he took an instant liking to.

Peter still maintains the smooth-talking slacker identity from the previous two movies, willing to jump at any chance to get out of doing work or going into a dangerous situation.

Bruce G. Hallenbeck, author of Comedy-Horror Films: A Chronological History, 1914–2008, compares Peter Venkman to Groucho Marx, who hosted the 1950s quiz show You Bet Your Life.

The comparison is also reinforced by the scene in the original movie where, waiting for Dana Barrett to finish the day's rehearsals with the orchestra, Peter jogs up and down a bustling New York square hopping on a single foot, alternately, just as Groucho Marx used to do.