Growing up with only 3 channels on the TV set, no VCR or net, left a young kid breathlessly awaiting Saturday morning cartoons the same way as most kids anxiously awaited Christmas morning. Every week there were mostly new spectacles to watch, and each show seemed cooler than the last. Of course that was the late sixties and the angry moms and government who thought that the excess violence on TV made their kids into raving maniacs (but the violence they all watched on the theater screen somehow allowed them to come through life okay), and not their lack of discipline and adherence to Dr. Spock (the baby doctor NOT the Vulcan), who told parents that hitting their child on the ass when they were bad made YOU an uncontrollable maniac (wonder if he blamed the violence the parent saw when watching 3 stooges- but I digress).
So, in the late sixties there were a few (VERY few mind you) years where Saturday
morning cartoons were COOL. Hanna-Barbera was spreading the word of justice to all
every kid in the forms of mostly mindless simpleton stories wrapped around cool
super heroic characters that we all came to love. There were “mainstream” comic book
characters then too, with every new season bringing on new recognizable characters, and even cooler new characters that Hanna Barbara could have and should have exploited further, but rarely if ever did.
One of my favorites from this time period was Space Ghost. More than an intergalactic superhero, this guy seemed all-powerful, able to fly through space, he had super strength, and an array of power blasters from his big red bracelets, mostly whenever he pressed one of the 3 big buttons on them and told us just what ray he was using. He could turn invisible, carried a force field with him at all times, and could communicate with the other members of his team by pressing the insignia on his chest long before anyone on Star Trek’s Next Generation ever could. All this and he carried a pair of kids and a monkey who just seemed to slow him down, get him into deeper trouble, and add humor relief in every episode. He was an intergalactic super policeman who could always handle the job, no matter how nutty the villain was (and there were quite a few nutters in his rogues gallery I assure you), and an incredible single parent to boot in a time when you KNEW that one parent households were tough.
Space Ghost’s kids Jan and Jace never got into deep trouble or even grounded for their stupidity (at least not what I remember) and it seemed that Space Ghost kept them with him to train them and guide them as much as put up with them, them and their crazy silly monkey Blip. The kids and the monkey were fodder to all us kids though, we all wanted to see Space Ghost in solo action- screw the kids.
The Space Ghost show also had another cartoon wedged in between it called DinoBoy, about a modern day kid jammed into a lost world of dinosaurs, lizard men, and Nethanderals, but that show was not nearly as cool as Space Ghost.
I’m by far not alone in my admiration of The Ghost, as many of my generation remember him fondly, over the years there was the occasional comic book appearance, or sketch at a con (I still had 2 of the Gold Key comics and the Big Little Book of Space Ghost myself- all of which go for mostly big bucks today, and believe me, they are all falling apart.
When Cartoon Network began re-running their older H-B cartoons we were all ecstatic (except my cable company at the time took their damn sweet time getting the Cartoon Network, and by the time they did those older HB shows were mostly stuck to the late, late hours of early morning- damn you Comcast!) and there seemed a renewed interest in all things Space Ghost, then disaster struck in the form of cartoon Network TOTALLY blowing their chance to rejuvenate this intergalactic policeman- they turned him into a talk show host.
Luckily Space Ghost From Coast to Coast was marginally funny or I would be completely pissed at how they literally cut off the head and shit down the throat of such a great character’s potential. I later came to understand that the Sad Sacks at Cartoon Network really had NO idea what to do with Space Ghost (apparently they were not the hardcore fans the rest of us were) and just allowed him, and most of his previous cast, to be bastardized and ridiculed (and don’t even get me started on the abortions that they did off of Jonny Quest and Bird-man; 2 other of my favorites from that period), Needless to say I still hold Cartoon Network in complete contempt to this day for fucking up, not only a first class merchandising opportunity, but the chance to graduate Space Ghost up into a more dramatic adult audience. They’ll run every inane Japanese anime drama they can get their claws into, but all the American cartoons have to either be for kids or stupidly immature Beavis and Butthead mentality (with NONE of that show’s quality I might add).
Just a year or two ago I witnessed a sad attempt at just that in the form of a mini-series from DC Comics (whose parent company also owns all of the HB characters) that was way too embarrassing for words. I read the first 2 issues and quickly stopped buying the series, complete with the knowledge that, just like the Cartoon Network, they too had NO idea of the true potential and possibilities this character and his cast could have. Frankly folks some things are MUCH better off left alone and sequestered to the nostalgic past.
There is now a DVD collection of all the Space Ghost shows available that (along with the original Bird-man and the Galaxy trio compilation) make for great mindless viewing on those odd times when you want to watch something cool and not have to think too much about it. I HIGHLY recommend you buying these collections, but at the same time remember that these are certainly NOT the talk show host you are probably used to by now. Granted the writing sucked, most of the plotting was so bad that I honestly believe there was a whole slew of writers spawned from them just because the viewers knew they could write better, and most of them did. But for the sheer spectacle and FUN of the shows and concepts themselves they are worth buying.
Space Ghost was created by Alex Toth, who designed most of the vast majority of the HB characters from that era, leaving an indelible mark upon those of us who got to watch his work as we were growing up, all the way from Space Angel to Josie and The Pussycats In Outer Space and beyond. Toth was truly one of the rarest of geniuses of animation, one who could take the sadly mundane and kiddish, and jazz it up to the ultimate in cool simplistic design. A man who never really realized how amazing he was, and what kind of mark he left on our generation, until he was close to his death, and then barely had time to understand and appreciate our thanks for his efforts. Saturday Mornings would have been completely different without his mark, and a whole lot less spectacular. Now if only these sad execs running these companies who can’t seem to wrap their brains around the sheer genius of Toth, could only try to make cartoons even half as good and fun. We’d happily put up with some lame writing if only we can watch some dramatic fun American based cartoons like Space Ghost again. The current cartoon watchers are missing out, or are thinking that only the Japanese can do great dramatic animation, especially if they haven’t seen cartoons like Space Ghost and Jonny Quest in their original forms.
Here’s to hoping that HB doesn’t stop with the DVD releases at Space Ghost and Bird-man either, because there are a good amount of other REALLY cool cartoons from that period, like Frankenstein Jr and The Impossibles, Samson and Goliath, and Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor, along with a number of other great Heroes That I Miss.
Wake Up
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