Space Ghost Coast to Coast is an American animated parody talk show,
hosted by the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Space Ghost. Though
the original 1960s series aired as a standard Hanna-Barbera Saturday-morning
superhero cartoon, Space Ghost Coast to Coast was a total reboot of the series
intended for adults, now reinterpreted as an absurdist spoof talk show and
produced using the original artwork. Space Ghost Coast to Coast was
recommended to be the first fully produced Cartoon Network original
series, and premiered on April 15, 1994. The first two seasons were presented as
a serious talk show with subdued jokes, while the later seasons relied more on
surrealism, non-sequiturs, and parodies. In 2001, it moved to the network's late
night television block Adult Swim. Space Ghost Coast to Coast was known for
inspiring the series Cartoon Planet, The Brak Show, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Format Space Ghost Coast to Coast used the talk
show format as its template, but subverted it regularly. Various
celebrities appeared on the show as guests. They were shown on a TV screen
next to Space Ghost's desk, and unlike the characters, they were not animated.
In early episodes of the show, Space Ghost apparently believed his guests
were other superheroes and usually opened the interview by asking them
about their superpowers. His interactions with guests were almost
always painfully awkward, and sometimes hostile. It was sometimes hard to tell
if guests were aware of the nature of the program on which they were
appearing. Their answers often did not match the questions coming from Space
Ghost, because the questions were changed after the interview.
Space Ghost's relationship with his co-workers was even worse. His
bandleader, an evil talking mantis named Zorak, and his director/producer, a
red-helmeted lava man named Moltar, worked for Space Ghost as punishment for
their crimes. They frequently disrupted the show and made no secret of the fact
that they hated him. Most episodes of Space Ghost Coast to
Coast were about 15 minutes in length, although there were a few 30-minute
episodes. Cartoon Network often aired two episodes back-to-back to make a
30-minute programming block. In the first few years of the show, Cartoon
Network would show episodes of the original 1960s and 1980s Space Ghost
cartoons after the 11-minute episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
= Music= In early seasons of the show, music was
played by Zorak and his band "The Original Way-Outs". The original theme
song, "Hit Single", was composed by free jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock, performed
by Sharrock on guitar, Lance Carter on drums, Eddie Horst on bass and Alfreda
Gerald on vocals. Sharrock and Carter recorded a number of songs for the show,
several of which were later compiled on the album Space Ghost Coast to Coast. As
a tribute to Sharrock, who died in May 1994 shortly after the show first aired,
the episode "Sharrock" featured nearly fifteen minutes of unedited takes of
music recorded for the show. Seasons 4–6 featured a new closing theme
by Man or Astro-man? and in later seasons the opening theme and titles
were almost completely abandoned. Various other music was sometimes used
as the theme song, including the CHiPs theme song for the episode titled
"CHiPs". An hour-long musical season finale for the 1998 season was planned,
featuring the bands Yo La Tengo and Cornershop, but was never produced.
Production Space Ghost Coast to Coast was created
by Mike Lazzo after being asked to create a cartoon to appeal to adults.
The original name of the show stemmed from early 1993, while Andy Merrill and
Jay Edwards were coming up with names for a marathon of the original Space
Ghost TV show to air on Cartoon Network, trying to find things that rhyme with
"Ghost". The series premiered on on April 15, 1994, having aired initially
at 11:00 pm ET on Friday nights, with an encore showing of the episode on
Saturday night. Later, the program was moved to various late-night time slots,
having usually been on weekends. In February 1995, an episode of Space
Ghost Coast to Coast was simulcast on Cartoon Network, TBS, and TNT for the
"World Premiere Toon-In" special debut of Cartoon Network's World Premiere
Toons series. In the special, Space Ghost interviewed a few of the new
directors, while the Council of Doom were the judges of the cartoon clips.
On September 2, 2001, new episodes of the series, along with re-runs of the
existing episodes were moved to Adult Swim, a late night programming block,
launched by Cartoon Network that night. The series ended its television run in
2004 with "Live at the Fillmore". In 2006, the series returned as a
five-minute web series on Turner Broadcasting's GameTap online pay
service in which Space Ghost interviewed celebrities from the video game industry
and GameTap's artist of the month. The series officially ended with the final
webisode on May 31, 2008. On April Fools' Day 2014, Adult Swim had
an unannounced Space Ghost Coast to Coast marathon with new material in the
form of commercials featuring Space Ghost, Zorak and Moltar in a
voice-recording booth ad-libbing lines from episodes.
= Voice actors= Episodes
Home media A speculated sixth and final volume was
rumored to be in production to be released on DVD the fall of 2009,
through the Adult Swim website — the fourth and fifth volumes were only
available for purchase through this website. However, the final eight
episodes of the television run have never had an official release on DVD
with extras. The entire series was available to buy on DVD with a build
your own DVD feature Adult Swim had on its website, thus the final
volume/season and the other episodes not on previous DVD releases and or edited
slightly were now available to own. But in 2012 the shop component of the
website was taken down for unknown reasons.
In 2006, episodes were made available on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
Legacy In 1995, a spin-off show called Cartoon
Planet premiered on one of Cartoon Network's sister networks, TBS. This
show featured Space Ghost, Zorak and Brak hosting a variety show on the
Cartoon Planet. Cartoon Network started airing Cartoon Planet in 1996. In 2000,
the show either spun off or directly inspired the four original cartoons that
constituted Adult Swim's comedy block. Sealab 2021, The Brak Show, Harvey
Birdman, Attorney at Law and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. All four shows originally
used the same limited animation style as Space Ghost Coast to Coast. The Brak
Show included the characters Brak and Zorak, recurring characters on Space
Ghost Coast to Coast. The original writers and staff of Space
Ghost Coast to Coast now continue to make up the backbone of Adult Swim. Show
creator Mike Lazzo currently serves as senior executive vice president of Adult
Swim. Writer Dave Willis now continues to write and voice characters for Aqua
Teen Hunger Force, as well as characters for 12 oz. Mouse, Squidbillies and
Perfect Hair Forever. Matt Harrigan became the head writer of the popular
MTV series Celebrity Deathmatch from 1998 to 2002, and had written and voiced
characters on the shows 12 oz. Mouse and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He also created
the show Assy McGee. Likewise, Matt Maiellaro currently writes and provides
voices for several Adult Swim series including Aqua Teen Hunger Force,
Perfect Hair Forever, Squidbillies and 12 oz. Mouse, which he created.
Various Space Ghost Coast to Coast clips and shorts have been made after the
series final episode. On December 13, 2009, Adult Swim aired a new Space Ghost
interview with Zoe Saldana to promote James Cameron's Avatar. In 2010, Adult
Swim aired a new Space Ghost interview with return guest Jack Black. It was
created to promote Black's film Gulliver's Travels. A short interviewing
NBA star Steve Nash and promoting Vitamin Water was made available online.
In 2011, on April Fools' Day, Adult Swim aired The Room again. Space Ghost
interviewed Tommy Wiseau during commercial breaks. In 2012, Adult Swim
aired a new Space Ghost interview with Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis to
promote their new film The Campaign. In a 2012 interview, Eric André
mentioned being a big fan of the show, stating it was a major influence on him
while developing his own series for Adult Swim, The Eric Andre Show. Before
shooting André would re-watch several episodes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast
in a row in order to "absorb as much Space Ghost" as he could. André would
also ask executive producer and Adult Swim president Mike Lazzo several
questions about the series, as he was an executive during its production run. To
André's surprise Lazzo had no interest in Space Ghost Coast to Coast, saying
"Space Ghost is dead to me". Space Ghost is mentioned in the opening
lyrics of cello rock band Rasputina's song "The Olde Headboard", which was
featured on their 1998 sophomore album How We Quit the Forest.
Four rocks found on the planet Mars were named after Space Ghost, Zorak, Moltar
and Brak. In January 2009, IGN named Space Ghost Coast to Coast as their 37th
favorite animated TV show in their Top 100 Best Animated TV Shows article. In
2013 IGN placed Space Ghost Coast to Coast as number 18 on their list of Top
25 animated series for adults. See also
List of Space Ghost Coast to Coast characters
List of Space Ghost Coast to Coast episodes
Space Ghost Cartoon Planet
Space Ghost The Brak Show
References External links
Official website Space Ghost Coast to Coast at Cartoon
Network Space Ghost Coast to Coast at the
Internet Movie Database Space Ghost Coast to Coast at TV.com