Space Ghost (TV series)

Space Ghost is an American Saturday-morning superhero animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, first broadcast on CBS from September 10, 1966, to September 16, 1967, and continued reruns until September 7, 1968. The series was composed of two unrelated segments, Space Ghost and Dino Boy in the Lost Valley. The series was created by Alex Toth and produced and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Sometimes, it is alternatively called Space Ghost & Dino Boy to acknowledge the presence of both shows. The Space Ghost segments were seen again in the 1976 series Space Ghost and Frankenstein Jr. (which replaced the Dino Boy segments with the Frankenstein Jr. ones from fellow Hanna-Barbera show Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles), which aired on NBC from November 27, 1976, to September 4, 1977, to replace Land of the Lost. In the 1990s, the title character and others were brought back for an adult parody talk-show cartoon titled Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

Segments

Space Ghost Space Ghost, along with teenaged sidekicks Jan and Jace and their pet monkey Blip, fight villains in outer space. Usually, Space Ghost's sidekicks would get captured or trapped by the villains, and Space Ghost would have to defeat the villains and save the day. His enemies included Zorak, Brak and his brother Sisto, the Creature King, the Black Widow/Spider Woman, Moltar, and Metallus. Voice cast

Gary Owens as Space Ghost Ginny Tyler as Jan, Black Widow/Spider Woman Tim Matheson as Jace Don Messick as Blip, Zorak, Sisto, Sandman (in "The Sandman"), One Eye (in "Space Sargasso"), Zorket (in "Ruler of the Rock Robots"), Schemer (in "The Schemer"), Collector (in "The Evil Collector"), Creature King (Council of Doom episodes) Lucille Bliss as Wootan (in "Brago"), Wootan's mother (in "Brago") Regis Cordic as Moltar Ted Cassidy as Metallus, Tansut (in "Hi-Jackers"), Tarko the Terrible (in "The Time Machine") Paul Frees as Zeron (in "The Iceman"), Cyclo (in "The Cyclopeds"), Brago (in "Brago") Keye Luke as Brak Vic Perrin as Creature King (in "Creature King" and "The Space Ark"), Lurker (in "Space Sargasso"), Pirahnor (in "Space Piranhas") Alan Reed as Glasstor (in "Glasstor"), Sorcerer (in "The Sorcerer") Paul Stewart as Dr. Nightmare (in "Nightmare Planet"), Mind Taker (in "Jungle Planet") Paul Winchell as Parko (in "Space Birds") Henry Corden as Foreign Legion Colonel (in "The Sandman") Joseph Sirola as Lokar (in "Lokar - King of the Killer Locusts")

Dino Boy in the Lost Valley Dino Boy is a young boy called Todd who parachuted out of a crashing plane with his parents still on board. He lands in an unknown South American valley where dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals, and cavemen have somehow survived extinction and now live alongside some strange creatures and various tribes like the Moss Men, the Rock Pygmies, the Worm People and the Vampire Men, amongst others. Dino Boy then meets the caveman Ugh (who saves Dino Boy from a Smilodon when he first arrives) and his pet baby Brontosaurus Bronty who become his friends in the episodes to come. The cartoon also features a woolly mammoth named Tusko whom Ugh would enlist in certain episodes to help him, Dino Boy, and Bronty out.

Voice cast Johnny Carson (who soon switched to his full name, John David Carson, to avoid confusion with the talk show host) as Todd/Dino Boy Mike Road as Ugh Don Messick as Bronty Gary Owens as opening narration

Production

The series came about because the head of CBS daytime programming at the time, Fred Silverman, enjoyed superheroes like Superman and wanted to incorporate classic superhero iconography with the emerging interest in both space travel as well as the Space Age for the Saturday morning lineup under a broader initiative of "superhero morning" which also included Filmation's The New Adventures of Superman. For visual reference as to what Silverman wanted from a Superhero design, he used the cover of the March 1966 issue of Life magazine featuring Adam West as TV's Batman to emphasize he wanted a Batman look for the character. The shift towards more action-oriented animated formats proved a challenge for Hanna-Barbera as up to that point, the studio's Saturday morning output had consisted primarily of short form funny animal comedies such as The Yogi Bear Show and The Huckleberry Hound Show while many of the scripts for Space Ghost and future action adventure shows would be written by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears. Brainstorming sessions for the series would typically involve Silverman and William Hanna throwing out character descriptions and concepts with Joseph Barbera and Alex Toth translating them as rough sketches and doodles. While Toth was happy to provide designs for Space Ghost (while also complaining about the limited animation as a lack of quality), he was less enthused with working on the Dino Boy segments as he hated working on anything involving Neanderthals, dinosaurs, or the "primordial soup" and would provide such designs to comic books and animation with reluctance. According to Barbera, when The Herculoids achieved a then unheard of 60 share in the ratings beating the already impressive 55 share of Space Ghost the previous season, this prompted Silverman not to order any further episodes of Space Ghost and instead pool support behind The Herculoids.

Episodes With the exception of the final two half-hour shows (the "Council of Doom" episodes), each episode featured two Space Ghost segments with one Dino Boy segment between them.

The final two half-hour shows only feature Space Ghost as he takes on the Council of Doom. Additionally, they feature cameos from other characters (The Herculoids, Moby Dick, the Mighty Mightor, and Shazzan) that would appear in their own Hanna-Barbera series broadcasts on CBS the following (1967–68) season.

Broadcast The series was broadcast on CBS from September 10, 1966 through September 7, 1968. From November 27, 1976, to September 4, 1977, NBC rebroadcast the series to replace Land of the Lost under the title Space Ghost and Frankenstein Jr. (which replaced the Dino Boy segments with the Frankenstein Jr. ones from fellow Hanna-Barbera show Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles). In February 1993, Cartoon Network began rebroadcasting Space Ghost as part of their Boomerang programming block airing the series through January 1997.

Merchandise

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