''Space Ghost'' is an American Saturday-morning

superhero A superhero or superheroine is a fictional character who typically possesses ''superpowers'' or abilities beyond those of ordinary people, is frequently costumed concealing their identity, and fits the role of the hero, typically using their ...

animated television series An animated series, or a cartoon series, is a set of Animation, animated films with a common title, usually related to one another. These episodes typically share the same main heroes, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series ...

produced by

Hanna-Barbera Productions Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ; formerly known as H-B Enterprises, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. and H-B Production Co.), simply and commonly known as Hanna-Barbera, was an American animation studio and production company, which was acti ...

, first broadcast on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

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 through ...

and produced and

directed Direct may refer to: Mathematics * Directed set, in order theory * Direct limit of (pre), sheaves * Direct sum of modules, a construction in abstract algebra which combines several vector spaces Computing * Direct access (disambiguation), a ...

William Hanna William Denby Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001) was an American animator, voice actor, and musician who is best known for co-creating ''Tom and Jerry'' and providing the vocal effects for the series' title characters. Alongside Joseph B ...

and

Joseph Barbera Joseph Roland Barbera ( ; ; March 24, 1911 – December 18, 2006) was an American animator and cartoonist, best known as the co-founder of the animation studio Hanna-Barbera. Born to Italian Americans, Italian immigrants in New York City, Bar ...

. 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 ''Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles'' is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. It premiered on September 10, 1966 on CBS, and ran on Saturday mornings. Characters and overview The program contained tw ...

''), which aired on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

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

Segments

''Space Ghost''

Space Ghost, along with teenaged

sidekicks A sidekick is a close companion or colleague who is, or is generally regarded as, subordinate to those whom they accompany. Origins The first recorded use of the term dates from 1896. It is believed to have originated in pickpocket slang of ...

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

as Space Ghost *

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 Disne ...

as Jan, Black Widow/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), Jonny Quest'' TV series, Eric "O ...

as Jace *

Don Messick Donald Earle Messick (September 7, 1926 – October 24, 1997) was an American voice actor, known for his performances in Hanna-Barbera cartoons. His best-remembered voice roles include Scooby-Doo; Bamm-Bamm Rubble and Hoppy in ''The Flintsto ...

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 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 (in "Brago"), Wootan's mother (in "Brago") *

Ted Cassidy Theodore Crawford Cassidy (July 31, 1932 – January 16, 1979) was an American actor. He tended to play unusual characters in offbeat or science-fiction works, such as ''Star Trek'' and ''I Dream of Jeannie'', and he played Lurch on '' The Addam ...

as Metallus, Tansit (in "Hi-Jackers"), Tarko the Terrible (in "The Time Machine"), Moltar *

Paul Frees Solomon Hersh Frees (June 22, 1920November 2, 1986), better known as Paul Frees, 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 the ...

as Zeron (in "The Iceman"), Cyclo (in "The Cyclopeds"), Brago (in "Brago") *

Keye Luke Keye Luke (; June 18, 1904 – January 12, 1991) was a Chinese-born American actor, and a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. He portrayed Lee Chan, the "Number One Son" in the Charlie Chan films, the original Kato in the 1939–1941 ...

as Brak, Lokar (in "Lokar - King of the Killer Locusts") * Vic Perrin as Creature King (in "Creature King" and "The Space Ark"), Lurker (in "Space Sargasso"), Pirahnor (in "Space Piranhas") *

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 (in "Glasstor"), Sorcerer (in "The Sorcerer") * Paul Stewart as Dr. Nightmare (in "Nightmare Planet"), Mind Taker (in "Jungle Planet") *

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

as Parko (in "Space Birds")

''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 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 Boul ...

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

Moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

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 bilateria, bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limb (anatomy), limbs, and usually no eyes. Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine ...

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 humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...

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

Smilodon ''Smilodon'' is an extinct genus of Felidae, felids. It is one of the best known saber-toothed predators and prehistoric mammals. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related to the tiger or other modern cats ...

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

Brontosaurus ''Brontosaurus'' (; meaning "thunder lizard" from the Ancient Greek, Greek words , "thunder" and , "lizard") is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in present-day United States during the Late Jurassic period. It was describe ...

'' 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 from the Middle Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African ...

named Tusko whom 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, and writer best known as the host of NBC's ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (1962–1992). Carson is a cultural phenomenon and w ...

(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 *

as Bronty *

as opening narration

Production

The series came about because of then head of

daytime programming,

Fred Silverman Fred Silverman (September 13, 1937 – January 30, 2020) was an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at all of the Big Three television networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as '' ...

, had enjoyed

es such as

Superman Superman is a superhero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, which first appeared in the comic book ''Action Comics'' Action Comics 1, #1, published in the United States on April 18, 1938.The copyright date of ''Action Comics ...

and wanted to incorporate classic superhero iconography with the emerging interest in space travel and the

Space Age The Space Age is a period encompassing the activities related to the space race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events, beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, and co ...

for the Saturday morning lineup under a broader initiative of "superhero morning" which also included

Filmation Filmation Associates was an American production company founded by Lou Scheimer, Hal Sutherland and Norm Prescott in 1962, before closing by Group W Productions on February 3, 1989. Located in Reseda, California, Filmation produced animated ...

's '' The New Adventures of Superman''. 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 Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Gr ...

such as ''

The Yogi Bear Show ''The Yogi Bear Show'' is an American comedy animated television series, and the first entry of the ''Yogi Bear'' franchise, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. A spin-off of '' The Huckleberry Hound Show'', the show centers on the adventu ...

'' and ''

The Huckleberry Hound Show ''The Huckleberry Hound Show'' is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, and the second series produced by the studio following '' The Ruff and Reddy Show''. The show first aired in syndication on Septembe ...

''. Many of the scripts for ''Space Ghost'' and future action adventure shows would be written by

Joe Ruby Joseph Clemens Ruby (March 30, 1933 – August 26, 2020) was an American animator, writer, television producer, and music editor. He was best known as a co-creator of the animated ''Scooby-Doo'' franchise, together with Ken Spears. In 1977, they ...

and

Ken Spears Charles Kenneth Spears (March 12, 1938 – November 6, 2020) was an American animator, writer, television producer and sound editor. He was best known as a co-creator of the ''Scooby-Doo'' franchise, together with Joe Ruby. In 1977, they co-foun ...

. Brainstorming sessions for the series would typically involve Silverman and

throwing out character descriptions and concepts while

and

translating them as rough sketches and doodles.

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 ''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 ...

) that would appear in their own Hanna-Barbera series broadcasts on

the following (1967–68) season.

Merchandise

Home media

''Space Ghost & Dino Boy'' were released on multiple

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

tapes in the 1980s put out by Worldvision Home Video 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. Discovery Home Entertainment, Inc. (doing business as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment; formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the American home video distribution ...

(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. A Blu-ray set of the series was released by

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment, Inc. (doing business as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment; formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the American home video distribution ...

(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 Comics ...

, distributed by

Gold Key Comics Gold Key Comics was an imprint of American company Western Publishing, created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984. History Gold Key Comics was created in 1962, when its ...

. He has also appeared in comics published by

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is a New York City–based comic book publishing, publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin G ...

Comico Comico or Cómico (Spanish "comical" or "funny") may refer to: * Comico: The Comic Company, American comic company 1982–1997 * Comico (NHN Japan), a webtoon portal owned by NHN Japan Corporation NHN Japan Corporation is the Japanese subsidiary ...

and

Archie Comics Archie Comic Publications, Inc. (often referred to simply as Archie Comics) is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the village of Pelham, New York. The company's many titles feature the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Jug ...

. In 2016, Space Ghost and his allies and Dino Boy played a major role in the DC Comics series ''

Future Quest ''Future Quest'' is a crossover comic book series published by DC Comics, as part of the comic book initiative '' Hanna-Barbera Beyond''. The series features characters from various animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera, such as '' Jonny Que ...

'', that also featured characters from various animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera such as '' Jonny Quest'', '' The Herculoids'', '' Birdman and the Galaxy Trio'', ''

'' 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' ...

''. In October 2023, it was announced a new ''Space Ghost'' comic is currently in the works from

Dynamite Entertainment Dynamite Entertainment is an American comic book publisher founded in 2004 by Nick Barrucci in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, known for publishing comic book adaptations of licensed feature film properties, such as ''Army of Darkness'', '' Terminator ...

. The first issue was published in May 2024. According to ''Comicscored.com'', the ''Space Ghost'' series received a "Very Good" rating, with a Comicscore Index of 85 based on 94 ratings from critics.

Manga

A manga adaptation by Kentaro Nakajo was serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday by

Shogakukan is a Japanese publisher of comics, magazines, light novels, dictionaries, literature, non-fiction, home media, and other media in Japan. Shogakukan founded Shueisha, which also founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but ...

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 Allen 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 caree ...

pitched the idea of an

adult An adult is an animal that has reached full growth. The biological definition of the word means an animal reaching sexual maturity and thus capable of reproduction. In the human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social an ...

animated Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on cel, transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and e ...

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

talk show A talk show is a television programming, radio programming or podcast genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show', pp.3-4Erler, Robert (201 ...

using the Space Ghost character to

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...

. Voice actors

George Lowe George Edward Lowe (November 10, 1957 – March 2, 2025) was an American voice actor and comedian whose voice roles included Space Ghost on the animated series ''Space Ghost Coast to Coast'' and its spin-off, '' Cartoon Planet''. He continued ...

, C. Martin Croker, 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 live-action/ adult animated hybrid television series created by Mike Lazzo for Cartoon Network and first broadcast in 1994. It takes the form of a surreal parody of talk shows, hosted by a reimagi ...

''. 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 (stylized as dult swimand s is an American adult-oriented television programming block that airs on Cartoon Network which broadcasts during the evening, prime time, and Late-night television, late-night Dayparting, dayparts. T ...

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 2006. It provided users with video games and game-related video content. The service was acquired by French online video game service Metaboli in 2008 as ...

from 2006 to 2008. 10 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 Jim Fortier, Andy Merrill, 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 seri ...

'' (2000–2007) and ''

Aqua Teen Hunger Force ''Aqua Teen Hunger Force'' (also branded with different #Alternative titles, alternative titles for seasons 8–11), is an American adult animated television series created by Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro for Cartoon Network's late night progra ...

'' (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 André Eric Samuel André (born April 4, 1983) is an American comedian, actor, television host, writer, producer, and musician. He is best known as the creator, host, and co-writer of the Adult Swim surreal comedy series '' The Eric Andre Show'' (2012� ...

spoke about the show's influence on ''

The Eric Andre Show ''The Eric Andre Show'' is an American sketch comedy television series created and hosted by comedian Eric André. A parody of late night talk shows, it premiered on Cartoon Network's night-time programming block Adult Swim on May 20, 2012. The ...

'', 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."

Legacy

''Space Ghost'' proved considerably popular on its initial run and is credited with spurring a wave of similar superhero-themed action-adventure shows across all three major networks from 1967 to 1969.

References

External links

* {{Children's programming on NBC in the 1980s 1966 American animated television series debuts 1968 American television series endings 1960s American animated television series 1960s American children's television series 1960s American science fiction television series 1960s American superhero television series American English-language television shows Television series by Hanna-Barbera Space Ghost television series Animated television series about extraterrestrial life 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 CBS animated television series