Space Ghost

Before he had a talk show he was the guardian of the spaceways; the intergalactic crime fighter, Space Ghost. Hanna-Barbera had been looking for something to counteract the popular Filmation Batman cartoons. They turned to Alex Toth, the master of the H-B hero shows, who came up with Space Ghost. They really lucked out with Gary Owens, popular DJ and Laugh-In regular. They also got Tim "Jonny Quest" Matheson.

Space Ghost was brilliantly designed and executed, although the shorter stories limited character development. We never got to see what SG looked like under the hood (I have seen a model sheet with his real face) or where Jan and Jayce came from. Still the villains were inventive and the plots exciting. The pinnacle was the multi-part tale of SG's battle with the Council of Doom, a conglomeration of SG's nastiest enemies. He even traveled through time to meet up with Dino Boy, Mightor, and Shazaan.

I still find the "Coast to Coast" show funny, but this is the real Space Ghost, the one that inspired Steve Rude and Mike Baron's classic Nexus comic. The Dude even created the ultimate Space Ghost comic. Now, when will see this on dvd?

Lets not even mention his status as a talk show host........

Lets focus on the popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon starring the guardian of the spaceways;the intergalactic crime fighter,and the hero who stands for truth,justice and peace throughout the universe,the baddest superhero of the galaxy.......SPACE GHOST

This was one classic piece of breathtaking animation that was brilliantly designed and astoundingly executed to perfection with some of the stories that maybe limited on character development,but in other words this was a show that packed with breathtaking action and excitement throughout and with it some cliffhanging adventure at its finest hour. What more can I say about a intergalactic superhero who files through the skies in his phantom cruiser spaceship along side his companions Jan and Jayce and space monkey Blimp defending and protecting the galaxy from evildoers and other creatures from hostile planets. In other situations as well,Space Ghost also had to risk life and limb in some of the episodes where his companions had to saved from a certain fate from some diabolical villain. Some of the stories were just pure enjoyment,but also some of it was a bit campy since some of the episodes ran within an eight minute time-frame,but still you got your viewings worth when this show came on,and it saw,it delivered the goods and it kicked butt. Space Ghost was the MAN!!!!

However,this show had some of the most diabolical villains ever devised and there were way out there too,especially with the designs created by the master Alex Toth,the head honcho of the Hanna-Barbera superhero shows,and was behind the scenes for Hanna-Barbera's first ever action-adventure series,"Jonny Quest",and so many more,who came up with the creation of Space Ghost. To make this work,they also had the lucky stars with them when they got Gary Owens of "Laugh-In",and once a popular DJ,for the voice of Space Ghost and from there that was only one thing that could be said when they casted Owens in the title role: CLASSIC. Not to mention Tim "Jonny Quest" Matheson as the voice for Jayce. As far as the villains were concerned,this show had them and these were some of the greatest ever devised where as Space Ghost's deadliest enemies were "Cyclo","Brak","Metallus","Black Widow",along with "The Creature King",and "Lurker",not to mention his worst enemy,the always unpredictable and unexpected "Zorak". The pinnacle of the series and probably the best installments of the Space Ghost shows is a multi-part episode untitled,"The Council of Doom" where our hero goes up against some of his deadliest foes in a six-part episode which is as exciting as it gets. This was one cliffhanger of the series where Space Ghost finally meets not only his match,but his uncertain doom. Watch it sometime.

He even traveled through the vortex of time and space to meet up with Dino Boy,The Herculoids,the inter prehistoric stone age crime fighter Mightor,and to meet and fight off evildoers with the hippest,trippest genie of them all..Shazaan. This was in the same category as another Hanna-Barbera character show too,"Dino Boy",about a lost boy who lands in a prehistoric world,where he is befriended by a caveman in a lost valley where danger is always present. Now for all those die-hard fans out there....when will we see this on DVD? Loyal fans of the 1960's cartoon show would really want to know. Catch the episodes on Boomeraction from Cartoon Network.

It's been forty three years since I first heard that Space Ghost was coming this September on CBS. And golly, I just couldn't wait. It was the Summer of 1966. I just turned 12 and Summer vacation was really swell. But after seeing the trailers for the coming Fall line up for Super Saturday, I found myself looking forward to September,even if it meant the return to school.

While the new line up looked pretty good, new cartoons and all, the one series that stood out above the rest was SPACE GHOST.

SPACE GHOST was even better than we expected. Along with the adventures of Space Ghost as he stood guard over the galaxy from any evil doers who would ever dare cross path with the Space Ghost and his loyal crew, Jan, Jayce and their monkey, Blip, this program also took a distant step into the past with Dino Boy, a boy who got lost in a prehistoric world that was full of danger and exciting adventures, along with a caveman named Ugh, who befriended Dino Boy. Together, the two faced this dangerous world, armed with Dino Boy's cunning, Ugh's brute strength and a mutual affection between the two that would carry them through both good times and bad.

Metallus, Brak, Cyclo and the rest of all those intergalactic bad guys have always had it out for our intergalactic super hero. Unfortunately, these bad guys had an Allie that would succeed where they had all failed, namely the PTA, who felt that for any cartoon to be this good, there had to be something wrong.

Well it was decided that Space Ghost was too darned violent so the PTA wielded their forces and when they were done, Space Ghost was little more than a shell of what he was in earlier episodes.

I have argued again and again and again that kids are smarter than what people say they are and can remove fiction from reality and what they watch doesn't effect their personality.

And the Space Ghost comes along and I LOVED watching the reruns when I was a little kid and then I grew up to love comic books when I started reading and that stayed with me my entire life and....sometimes I wonder if Space Ghost is the reason.

That's what it is...it was made back in the day when kids cartoons were full of Adventure...and I ate stuff like that up. I was an addict...

And maybe because of that I have multiple degrees and still have a Kindle (password protected) filled with Adventure novels and comic books and nothing of any real substance.

So that is what it is. Adventure. Pure Adventure in outer space.

I was a little boy once and cartoons like this were made for me. It's what the spirits of all little boys are made of. It's what makes us want to swing from ropes, climb trees, and battle our friends in our backyards...or the woods a few blocks away that everyone used as a dump and it was really more of a patch of trees than real woods but...Chicago. In Chicago a patch of trees are "the woods" and that is where the adventure takes place and Cartoons like Space Ghost inspired them.

When I was a kid, this was the coolest 'hero cartoon' I'd ever seen, and I remembered it that way for many years.

The space ships, the power bands, the cool white costume ... what a great setup and hero it all made.

I'm kind of sad I saw a couple of the original episodes recently on the cartoon network. From an adult standpoint it doesn't hold up as well as other childhood favorites like The Flintstones. Of course, The Flintstones was written for both adult and child audiences, and I'm sure that why it holds up so well.

Still, kids that like hero cartoons will probably still get into Space Ghost, Jace and Jan, and Blip.

Spaaaaaaaaace Ghooooooooooooost!!!! Hooray!