''Space Ghost'' is an American Saturday morning superhero animated television series produced by

Hanna-Barbera Productions Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to ...

. It first aired 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 Alexander Toth (June 25, 1928 – May 27, 2006) was an American cartoonist active from the 1940s through the 1980s. Toth's work began in the American comic book industry, but he is also known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera throughout ...

and

produced Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

and

directed Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

William Hanna William Denby Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001) was an American animator and cartoonist who was the creator of ''Tom and Jerry'' as well as the voice actor for the two title characters. Alongside Joseph Barbera, he also founded the ani ...

and

Joseph Barbera Joseph Roland Barbera ( ; ; March 24, 1911 – December 18, 2006) was an American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist who co-founded the animation studio and production company Hanna-Barbera. Born to Italian i ...

. 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 The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...

from November 27, 1976, to September 4, 1977, after NBC put '' The Kids From C.A.P.E.R.'' on hiatus.

''Space Ghost''

Space Ghost Space Ghost (Tad Ghostal) is a fictional superhero created by Hanna-Barbera Productions in the 1960s for TV network CBS. He was designed by Alex Toth. In his original incarnation, he was a superhero who, with his teen sidekicks, Jan and J ...

, along with teenaged

sidekick A sidekick is a slang expression for a close companion or colleague (not necessarily in fiction) who is, or is generally regarded as, subordinate to the one they accompany. Some well-known fictional sidekicks are Don Quixote's Sancho Panza, ...

s Jan and Jace and their pet

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incom ...

Blip, fight villains in

outer space Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...

. 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 (a.k.a. the Spider Woman), Lokar, Moltar, and Metallus.

Voice cast

Gary Owens Gary Owens (born Gary Bernard Altman; May 10, 1934 – February 12, 2015) was an American radio announcer, personality, disc jockey and voice actor. His polished baritone speaking voice generally offered deadpan recitations of total nonsense, w ...

Ginny Tyler Merrie Virginia Eggers (née Erlandson; August 8, 1925 – July 13, 2012), known professionally as Ginny Tyler, was an American voice actress who performed on dozens of cartoons and animated films from 1957 to 1993. In 2006, she was named a Disn ...

as Jan, the Black Widow a.k.a. the Spider Woman *

Tim Matheson Tim Matheson (born Timothy Lewis Matthieson; December 31, 1947) is an American actor and director. Some of his best-known acting roles include the title character of the 1960s animated ''Jonny Quest'' TV series, Eric "Otter" Stratton in the 197 ...

as Jace * Don Messick as Blip, Zorak, Sisto, Sandman, One Eye, Zorket, the Schemer, the Evil Collector, the Creature King (1967) *

Lucille Bliss Lucille Theresa Bliss (March 31, 1916 – November 8, 2012) was an American actress, known in the Bay Area and in Hollywood as the "Girl With a Thousand Voices". A New York City native, Bliss lent her voice to numerous television characters, in ...

as Wootan, Wootan's mother *

Ted Cassidy Theodore Crawford Cassidy (July 31, 1932 – January 16, 1979) was an American actor noted for his tall stature at and deep voice. He tended to play unusual characters in offbeat or science-fiction series such as ''Star Trek'' and ''I Dream of ...

as Metallus, Tansut, Tarko the Terrible * Regis Cordic as Moltar *

Paul Frees Solomon Hersh "Paul" Frees (June 22, 1920November 2, 1986) was an American actor, comedian, impressionist, and vaudevillian. He is known for his work on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Walter Lantz, Rankin/Bass, and Walt Disney theatrical cartoons during ...

as Brago, Zeron, Cyclo *

Keye Luke Keye Luke (, Cantonese: Luk Shek Kee; June 18, 1904 – January 12, 1991) was a Chinese-born American film and television actor, technical advisor and artist and a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. He was known for playing Lee Chan, t ...

as Brak, Lokar *

Vic Perrin Victor Herbert Perrin (April 26, 1916 – July 4, 1989)Cox, Jim (2007). ''Radio Speakers: Narrators, News Junkies, Sports Jockeys, Tattletales, Tipsters, Toastmasters and Coffee Klatch Couples Who Verbalized the Jargon of the Aural Ether fr ...

as The Creature King (1966; Creature King, The Space Ark), the Lurker, Pirahnor *

Alan Reed Alan Reed (born Herbert Theodore Bergman; August 20, 1907 – June 14, 1977) was an American actor, best known as the original voice of Fred Flintstone on ''The Flintstones'' and various spinoff series. He also appeared in many films, includin ...

as Glasstor, The Sorcerer * Paul Stewart as Dr. Nightmare, The Mind Taker *

Paul Winchell Paul Winchell ('' né'' Wilchinsky; December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005) was an American actor, comedian, humanitarian, inventor and ventriloquist whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1950 to 1954, he hosted ''The Paul Winchell ...

as Owlie

''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 America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

n valley where

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s, prehistoric mammals, and

cavemen The caveman is a stock character representative of primitive humans in the Paleolithic. The popularization of the type dates to the early 20th century, when Neanderthals were influentially described as "simian" or " ape-like" by Marcellin B ...

have somehow survived extinction and now live alongside some strange creatures and various tribes like the

Moss Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta ('' sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and ...

Men, the Rock

Pygmies In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a po ...

, the

Worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete worm ...

People and the

Vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mi ...

Men, amongst others. Dino Boy then meets the caveman Ugh (who saves Dino Boy from a ''

Smilodon ''Smilodon'' is a genus of the extinct machairodont subfamily of the felids. It is one of the most famous prehistoric mammals and the best known saber-toothed cat. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related ...

'' when he first arrives) and his pet baby ''

Brontosaurus ''Brontosaurus'' (; meaning "thunder lizard" from Greek , "thunder" and , "lizard") is a genus of gigantic quadruped sauropod dinosaurs. Although the type species, ''B. excelsus'', had long been considered a species of the closely related ''A ...

'' Bronty who become his friends in the episodes to come. The cartoon also features a

woolly mammoth The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with '' Mammuthus sub ...

named Tusko who Ugh would enlist in certain episodes to help him, Dino Boy, and Bronty out.

Voice cast

Johnny Carson John William Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host, comedian, writer and producer. He is best known as the host of '' The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (1962–1992). Carson received six P ...

(who soon switched to his full name, John David Carson, to avoid confusion with the talk show host) as Todd/Dino Boy *

Mike Road Mike Road (born Milton Brustin;The Boston Advertiser, June 29, 1958 March 18, 1918 – April 14, 2013) was an American voice actor and Warner Bros. television series contract player whose television career dates back to the 1950s and in f ...

as Ugh * Don Messick as Bronty *

as opening narration

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. Additionally, they feature cameos from other characters (

the Herculoids ''The Herculoids'' is an American Saturday-morning animated-cartoon television series, created and designed by Alex Toth, that was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show debuted on September 9, 1967, on CBS. Hanna-Barbera produced one s ...

, Moby Dick, the Mighty Mightor, and

Shazzan ''Shazzan'' is an American animated television series created by Alex Toth and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that aired on Saturday mornings on CBS from September 9, 1967 to January 20, 1968, and continued in reruns until September 6, 19 ...

) that would appear in their own Hanna-Barbera series broadcasts on CBS the following (1967–68) season.

Home media

''Space Ghost & Dino Boy'' were released on multiple VHS tapes in the 1980s put out by

Worldvision Home Video Worldvision Enterprises, Inc. was an American television program and home video distributor established in 1954 as ABC Film Syndication, the domestic and overseas program distribution arm of the ABC Television Network. They primarily licensed p ...

and later re-released by GoodTimes Home Video under the Kids Klassics label. The episodes on the VHS tape for ''Space Ghost'' were "The Heat Thing", "Zorak", "The Creature King" and the ''Dino Boy'' episode "The Worm People". Worldvision released another VHS tape, ''Space Ghost and Dino Boy: Ghostly Tales''; this contained the episodes "The Robot Master", The Energy Monster", "Hi-Jackers", "The Lure", and "The Schemer". The ''Dino Boy'' episodes were "Marooned" and "The Red Ants". These same episodes were released in the UK by The Video Collection.

Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Vide ...

(via Hanna-Barbera Cartoons and Warner Bros. Family Entertainment) released ''Space Ghost & Dino Boy: The Complete Series'' on DVD in Region 1 on July 17, 2007. The DVD edition presents the episodes on two double-sided DVDs, but alters the order from the original air-date order. This episode order is also present on Blu-ray and digital sell-throughs. Disc 1 : Side A :: 1 - The Heat Thing / The Worm People / Zorak :: 2 - Creature King / The Treemen / The Lizard Slavers :: 3 - The Web / The Sacrifice / Homing Device :: 4 - The Drone / The Moss Men / The Sandman : Side B :: 5 - The Robot Master / Marooned / The Energy Monster :: 6 - Hi-Jackers / Giant Ants / The Lure :: 7 - The Schemer / The Rock Pygmies / The Evil Collector :: 8 - Lokar - King of the Killer Locusts / Danger River / Brago :: 9 - The Cyclopeds / The Fire God / Space Sargasso :: 10 - The Iceman / The Vampire Men / The Time Machine :: 11 - The Space Birds / The Wolf People / Attack of the Saucer Crab :: 12 - Nightmare Planet / Valley of the Giants / Space Armada Disc 2 : Side A :: 13 - Ruler of the Rock Robots / The Bird Riders / The Challenge :: 14 - Jungle Planet / The Marksman / Revenge of the Spider Woman :: 15 - The Space Ark / The Terrible Chase / Glasstor :: 16 - The Space Piranhas / The Spear Warriors / The Sorcerer :: 17 - The Ovens of Moltar / The Ant Warriors / Transor - the Matter Mover :: 18 - The Looters / The Mighty Snow Creature / The Gargoyloids :: The final two episodes are a six-part ''Space Ghost'' story called "The Council of Doom" :: 19 - The Meeting / Clutches of the Creature King / The Deadly Trap :: 20 - The Molten Monsters of Moltar / Two Faces of Doom / The Final Encounter : Side B :: Feature-Length Profile Simplicity: The Life and Art of

A Blu-ray set of the series was released by

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video ...

(under the

Warner Archive Collection The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.' library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the inte ...

label), on October 13, 2020. The release is a two-disc set containing all 20 episodes.

Comics

The TV series was adapted into a comic strip by

Dan Spiegle Dan Spiegle (December 10, 1920 – January 28, 2017) was an American comics artist and cartoonist best known for comics based on movie and television characters across a variety of companies, including Dell Comics, DC Comics, and Marvel C ...

, distributed by

Gold Key Comics Gold Key Comics was originally an imprint of American company Western Publishing, created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated this way from 1962 to 1984. Currently, Gold Key Comics is owned b ...

. He has also appeared in comics published by

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Comics'' in 19 ...

, Comico and

Archie Comics Archie Comic Publications, Inc., is an American comic book publisher headquartered in Pelham, New York.Weekly Shonen Sunday Weekly, The Weekly, or variations, may refer to: News media * ''Weekly'' (news magazine), an English-language national news magazine published in Mauritius * Weekly newspaper, any newspaper published on a weekly schedule * Alternative newspaper, a ...

Shogakukan is a Japanese publisher of Japanese dictionaries, dictionaries, literature, comics (manga), non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan. Shogakukan founded Shueisha, which also founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are to ...

in 1967. The manga was compiled into one volume.

''Space Ghost Coast to Coast''

In 1994, nearly three decades after the finale of the original series,

Mike Lazzo Michael Lazzo (born April 10, 1958) is a retired American television producer and the former executive vice president in charge of the Adult Swim programming block of Cartoon Network, and its production arm, Williams Street. Life and career Laz ...

pitched the idea of an

adult An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a "minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of ...

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its su ...

talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk S ...

using the Space Ghost character to Cartoon Network. Voice actors

George Lowe George Edward Lowe (born November 10, 1957) is an American voice actor and comedian whose voice roles include Space Ghost on the animated series ''Space Ghost Coast to Coast'' and its spin-off, ''Cartoon Planet''.C. Martin Croker Clay Martin Croker (January 10, 1962 – September 17, 2016), generally credited as C. Martin Croker, was an American animator and voice actor. He was best known for having provided the voices of Dr. Weird, Zorak, and Moltar on the animated serie ...

, and Andy Merrill joined the project, which Cartoon Network would soon air as ''

Space Ghost Coast to Coast ''Space Ghost Coast to Coast'' is an American adult animated comedy talk show created by Mike Lazzo for Cartoon Network and hosted by a re-imagined version of the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Space Ghost. In contrast to the origi ...

''. The series premiered on April 15, 1994, and originally ended on December 17, 1999. The series was revived on May 7, 2001, and was moved to the new

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swim'' and often abbreviated as s'') is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programmed by its in-house ...

late-night programming block on September 2 of that year, where new episodes premiered until April 12, 2004. Two final seasons were released on

GameTap GameTap was an online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in 2005. It provided users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content. The service was acquired by French online video game service Me ...

from 2006 to 2008. Over 11 seasons, 108 episodes aired. The show gained spin-offs in the form of ''

The Brak Show ''The Brak Show'' is an American adult animated sitcom created by Andy Merrill, Jim Fortier, and Pete Smith for Cartoon Network's late-night programming block, Adult Swim. ''The Brak Show'' serves as a spin-off of the animated television series, ...

'' (2000–2007) and ''

Aqua Teen Hunger Force ''Aqua Teen Hunger Force'' (also known by various alternative titles), sometimes abbreviated as ''ATHF'' or ''Aqua Teen'', is an American adult animated television series created by Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro for Cartoon Network's late ni ...

'' (2000–2015), and has been cited as inspiration for a variety of Adult Swim programming in the years since its debut. In a 2014 interview, Eric Andre spoke about the show's influence on ''

The Eric Andre Show ''The Eric Andre Show'' is an American surreal sketch comedy television series which began airing on May 20, 2012. The show premiered on Adult Swim and is a parody of late night talk shows. The series is hosted by comedian Eric André and former ...

'', saying, "Before we started shooting, I rented as many seasons I could get my hands on and did a Space Ghost marathon by myself in my house, just so I could absorb as much Space Ghost as I could."

Later DC Comics era

In 2016, Space Ghost and his allies and Dino Boy played a major role in the DC Comics series '' Future Quest'', that also featured characters from various animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera such as ''

Jonny Quest ''Jonny Quest'' is a science fiction-adventure media franchise that revolves around the titular boy named Jonny Quest, who accompanies his scientist father on extraordinary adventures. The franchise started with a 1964–1965 television serie ...

'', ''

The Herculoids ''The Herculoids'' is an American Saturday-morning animated-cartoon television series, created and designed by Alex Toth, that was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show debuted on September 9, 1967, on CBS. Hanna-Barbera produced one s ...

'', ''

Birdman and the Galaxy Trio ''Birdman and the Galaxy Trio'', or simply ''Birdman'' or ''The Galaxy Trio'', is an American animated television series by Hanna-Barbera Productions that debuted on NBC on September 9, 1967, and ran on Saturday mornings until September 6, 1969. ...

'', '' Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles'' and ''

Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor ''Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor'' is an American Saturday morning animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that ran on CBS from September 9, 1967 to January 6, 1968, airing in reruns until September 6, 1969. Despite Moby's ...

''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Space Ghost (Tv Series) 1966 American television series debuts 1968 American television series endings 1960s American animated television series 1960s American science fiction television series English-language television shows Television series by Hanna-Barbera CBS original programming Space Ghost television series Animated television series about extraterrestrial life Animated television series about teenagers American children's animated action television series American children's animated space adventure television series American children's animated science fantasy television series American children's animated superhero television series Hanna-Barbera superheroes DC Comics superheroes Television shows adapted into comics Television series set in outer space Animated television series about dinosaurs Prehistoric people in popular culture Fiction about neanderthals

''Space Ghost''

Voice cast

''Dino Boy in the Lost Valley''

Voice cast

Episodes

Home media

Comics

''Space Ghost Coast to Coast''

Later DC Comics era

See also

References

External links