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, after NBC put The Kids From C.A.P.E.R. on hiatus.

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")
 * Ted Cassidy as Metallus, Tansit (in "Hi-Jackers"), Tarko the Terrible (in "The Time Machine"), Moltar
 * 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")
 * John Stephenson as Lokar (in "Lokar - King of the Killer Locusts")
 * Paul Stewart as Dr. Nightmare (in "Nightmare Planet"), Mind Taker (in "Jungle Planet")
 * Paul Winchell 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 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 of then head of CBS daytime programming, Fred Silverman, had enjoyed Superheroes such as Superman and wanted to incorporate classic superhero iconography with the emerging interest in space travel and 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. 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. 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 while Joseph Barbera and Alex Toth 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) 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 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 (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 (under the Warner Archive Collection 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, distributed by Gold Key Comics. He has also appeared in comics published by Marvel Comics, Comico and Archie Comics.

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, The Herculoids, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles and Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor.

In October 2023, it was announced a new Space Ghost comic is currently in the works from Dynamite Entertainment. The first issue was published in May 2024.

Manga
A manga adaptation by Kentaro Nakajo was serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday by Shogakukan 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 pitched the idea of an adult animated parody talk show using the Space Ghost character to Cartoon Network. Voice actors George Lowe, C. Martin Croker, and Andy Merrill joined the project, which Cartoon Network would soon air as Space Ghost Coast to Coast. 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 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 from 2006 to 2008. 10 seasons, 108 episodes aired.

The show gained spin-offs in the form of The Brak Show (2000–2007) and Aqua Teen Hunger Force (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 spoke about the show's influence on The Eric Andre Show, 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 between the years of 1967 through 1969.