Space Ghost Coast to Coast
My favorite TV Show of all time
I mentioned how, in my last newsletter, Space Ghost Coast to Coast is my favorite TV show. I thought I’d just go into a little more reason as to why that is, particularly since I’ve been re-watching episodes of the show lately and I’m reliving my childhood and the good times I’ve had watching this show back when it was on air. The show premiered on Cartoon Network in 1994 and originally ended in 2004 on Cartoon Networks Adult Swim block, with 8 seasons and over 90 episodes, though for some reason Adult Swim’s website and HBOMax list the last two episodes of the 8th season as Season 9 and put the Season 4 finale as the 5th season premiere. Not sure what that’s all about, but that’s just not the case. There would later be a 9th and 10th season, but these episodes would be on the website GameTap, starting in 2006 and the show would last until 2008, when GameTap removed their TV section of their website.
The big reason is the humor of this show helped me form my sense of humor I have today, as well as Monty Python a little later in my life. I love the characters and how the interacted with each other, while the guests on the show were very entertaining to see them interact with. Some of the notable guests stars they had on Space Ghost were “Weird Al” Yankovic, Adam West, Matt Groening, Mark Hamill, William Shatner, Kevin Smith, Ben Stiller, Bobcat Goldthwait and Judy Tenuta, the latter two were in multiple episodes, with Tenuta voicing the Black Widow character in multiple episodes.
For those who never saw the show, it’s basically a mock/parody talk show with Space Ghost, a cartoon character from the 1966 cartoon series being a washed up superhero comes in to do a talk show that is 15 minutes long, though the last 4 episodes of season 3 and essentially all of season 4 were a bit longer, in that there were more commercials with the breaks to pad it out as a normal 30 minute show, all to sort of poke fun of how many talk shows there are and how there was a talk show war back in the 1990s, with David Letterman and Jay Leno and Space Ghost referenced this a few times in some of the early episodes. Space Ghost recruted two of his enemies to work on his show: his arch enemy Zorak, a 7 foot tall green praying mantis, as the band leader and plays the keyboard and Moltar, a lava man who is very smart and married man to a woman named Linda that we never meet, who is hired to direct the show in a control room.
The trio are a mainstay on the show, but throughout the shows run, other characters would appear, specifically other villains of Space Ghost's, including as the previously mentioned Black Widow whom appears to have feelings for Space Ghost in this show, Lokar, who is a locust that hates Zoark as well as Space Ghost, Tansit, an overweight character that wears an all orange tight suit, cape and helmet, who tries to appear tough but is basically a big baby, Metallus, a once intelegent villain that now can only speak through a reverb-heavy metallic drone that only the characters in the show can understand and the most notable side character: Brak.
Brak is the character on the show who had a big impact as he got is own spin-off, The Brak Show, as well as Coast to Coast’s first spin-off, Cartoon Planet. Brak is characterized as an idiot on Space Ghost Coast to Coast and it’s spin-offs. Space Ghost also changed to being more dumb as well, but Brak pretty much has a child like mentality. The way they’ve changed the characters up is great. Moltar is basically the straight man between Space Ghost and Zorak’s bickering and goofiness, even through he can have his moment of being quite goofy.
Quite honestly, if it wasn’t for Space Ghost Coast to Coast and it’s cult following, shows like Aqua Teen and even the Adult Swim block may not have happened. These days, Space Ghost Coast to Coast isn’t talked about much anymore and I think that’s unfortunate. There are many great episodes and while the DVDs aren’t easy to find these days, you can watch the episodes streaming on Adult Swim.com or HBOMax. Hopefully, more people will talk more about Space Ghost, but until then, I’ll talk about it here and there, while reminiscing back in the 90s and 2000s where I’d be able to stay up and watch it here and there on occasion or wait until the next day after an episode was taped on VHS tapes. Until the DVDs and Streaming, I had to rely on rewatching some of the tapes of Space Ghost episodes or hope for a rerun of the show would happen at some point.
