SPACE GHOST SERIES

But kids cartoon to late night talk show is a massive jump.

Roy Lichtenstein had been around for some time. The idea of taking something, re-contextualizing it, and creating something different was not a new idea. Now I recognize that in 2016, this might not seem like anything all that groundbreaking, but this is 1994. This is nothing compared to what the show evolved into. Smash cut to the credits.Īnd I’ll point out, this is only fourteen episodes in, so we’re talking baseline insanity. After all of this, Space Ghost brings on his final guest, Mujibur and Sirajul, the two mainstays of The Late Show with David Letterman, who, as it turns out, were mistakenly delivered Space Ghost’s pizza. “That’s barbaric!” he exclaims, before quietly adding, “Is there any left?” We are then shown a tribute to all the fun times Raymond shared with the crew (none of which ever actually happened in this episode). Next is Michael Stipe who wears two pairs of glasses, refuses to sing for Space Ghost, but when asked, concedes that his host is a “shiny, shiny person.” After going this long with no pizza, Space Ghost discovers that Zorak has devoured Raymond. interviews his first guest, Lassie, and asks her if it ever “itches right here?” and then makes a sound that only she can hear (everyone can hear it). All this pasghetti talk makes Space Ghost even hungrier, and before getting to the guests, commands his director Moltar to connect him to a pizza place where he orders a pizza with sun-bloated orange roughy. He has a high-pitched voice and being just a young mantis, mispronounces words like “pasghetti” and “pocalypse” (his uncle is evil, remember). However, bandleader Zorak, an evil mantis, also has a guest: Raymond, his young nephew (an identical, but very tiny version of Zorak). Space Ghost introduces his guests for the evening are Michael Stipe from R.E.M., and Lassie, the dog, while being interrupted by his growling stomach. The creators of the show called it “recycling entertainment.” Tom Roche, who edited the vast majority of the show’s episodes ( no easy task with the primitive video equipment of the early nineties) called it, “Post-post-post-post-post modern… We’re sort of making fun of making fun of making fun.” Let’s take “Hungry,” an episode from the show’s second season, as an example of just how weird this show could get. If you’ve never seen the show, it can be a difficult one to explain. All you had to do was interview some celebrity who was passing through Atlanta (Turner’s headquarters), edit their interview and make it so they’re responding to any number of insane in studio shenanigans, and then take some old animation from the sixties cartoons (and a little bit of new stuff from Croker and others), tack a catchy title on to it, and voila! Space Ghost: Coast to Coast is born.

It would be a talk show, hosted by a B-level Hanna-Barbera superhero from the 1960s who was forcing two of his archenemies to serve as the show’s director and bandleader. Working with Andy Merrill (later known as the voice of Brak, a former Space Ghost villain turned childlike pest), the two devised a relatively cheap concept for a very unusual kind of show.

This all changed when Mike Lazzo was asked to create an adult cartoon show for the network. The closest Cartoon Network got to adult programming in its nascent days was showing reruns of the All in the Family rip-off Wait ‘Till Your Father Gets Home. There was nothing even remotely resembling Adult Swim. There was no original content save for a few one-off specials, just a bunch of reruns of classic Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. In 1993, Cartoon Network was a very different channel than it is today. Today we look back at Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and how it’s the secret game-changer in the world of modern comedy. He leaves behind a legacy of maniacal laughter, torturing talk show hosts, and taking perfectly timed sips from mugs. He started animating promos for TNT then made his way over to Cartoon Network, before getting roped into the network’s first show for adults. Unfortunately, in September, that feeling changed.Ĭlay Croker, animator and voice actor, passed away last month at the age of 54.

SPACE GHOST SERIES

Or there’d be a web series to promote video games online. Or his co-stars Brak and Zorak would show up on their own show. Episodes always appeared in sporadic bursts, and even after they stopped, suddenly Space Ghost would pop up in an ad on Adult Swim to interview Zoe Saldana for Avatar, or Steve Nash while saying the words “Vitamin Water” a few times. There hasn’t been a new episode of Space Coast: Coast to Coast in twelve years, but for whatever reason, it never felt completely dead to me.

Space ghost