Space Ghost Coast to Coast

Space Ghost Coast to Coast is an American live-action/adult animated hybrid television series created by Mike Lazzo for Cartoon Network and first broadcast in 1994. It takes the form of a surreal parody of talk shows, hosted by a reimagined version of the Hanna-Barbera character Space Ghost. It incorporates surrealism and non-sequitur humor.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast is the first TV show produced by Williams Street (formerly known as Ghost Planet Industries), which started Adult Swim in the early 2000s. It contrasts the original 1960s series, Space Ghost, which aired as a standard Hanna-Barbera Saturday-morning superhero cartoon.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast is one of the first original series produced for Cartoon Network, and the earliest not to broadcast pre-existing cartoons. It premiered on April 15, 1994, and originally ended on December 17, 1999. It was revived on May 7, 2001, and was moved to the new Adult Swim late-night programming block on September 2, where new episodes premiered until April 12, 2004. Two final seasons were released exclusively on GameTap from 2006 to 2008. 109 episodes were aired over 11 seasons.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast helped launch the careers of the animators Adam Reed, Matt Thompson, Andy Merrill, Jim Fortier, Pete Smith, Michael Ouweleen, Erik Richter, Dave Willis, and Matt Maiellaro. It produced the spin-offs The Brak Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Perfect Hair Forever, and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. The series inspired or influenced other series for Adult Swim, including Sealab 2021 and The Eric Andre Show.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast uses a subverted talk show format hosted by Space Ghost as he interviews live-action guest stars, whom Space Ghost believes to be fellow superheroes, appearing on a monitor beside Space Ghost's desk. In early episodes, Space Ghost begins his interviews by asking guests about their superpowers. His interactions with guests can be awkward because the guests' answers are often changed to humorously match Space Ghost's questions in post-production. Later episodes feature guests being allowed to interact directly with the characters. Although he starts out more level-headed and very much resembling his superhero ways, he becomes more and more eccentric, egomaniacal and idiotic with how he manages the show and treats his guests.
Space Ghost's bandleader, an evil talking mantis named Zorak, and his director-producer, a red-helmeted lava man named Moltar, work forced unpaid labor for Space Ghost, ostensibly as punishment for their crimes committed on the original series. Because of their history as enemies of Space Ghost, they never get along with him even as co-workers and often make it very clear that they hate him and disrupt the show as retaliation for their forced labor. Zorak is especially hateful towards Space Ghost due to being his arch-enemy, whereas Moltar just puts up with being forced to do the show against his will, but will chime in to antagonize Space Ghost from time to time alongside Zorak.
Early seasons feature music played by Zorak and his band "The Original Way-Outs". The original theme song, "Hit Single", was composed by free jazz guitarist Sonny Sharrock and performed by Sharrock on guitar, Lance Carter on drums, Eddie Horst on bass, and Alfreda Gerald on vocals. Sharrock and Carter recorded songs for the show that 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 fifteen minutes of unedited takes of music recorded for the show.
Seasons 4–6 feature a new closing theme by Man or Astro-man?, and in later seasons the opening theme and titles were nearly abandoned. Alternate songs are sometimes used as theme music, including the CHiPs theme song for the episode titled "CHiPs". An hour-long musical season finale featuring the bands Yo La Tengo and Cornershop was planned for the 1998 season but never produced.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast was created by Mike Lazzo after he was asked to develop a cartoon to appeal to adults. The series' original title stemmed from early 1993 when Andy Merrill and Jay Edwards were brainstorming names for a marathon of the 1960s Space Ghost for Cartoon Network, trying to find things that rhyme with "Ghost". Because of budget limitations, Ned Hastings recycled clips from the original series and reorganized them on an Avid non-linear editor for a "talk show" style program. The characters' crudely animated lips, awkward movements that resembled "paper dolls glued to Popsicle sticks", and continuity errors became part of the joke.
Merrill assembled a proof of concept test pilot in April of 1993, using archival footage of Denzel Washington, and Merrill voiced Space Ghost. The pilot never aired but an edited version later appeared on DVD, with Washington removed.
A second pilot was developed, interviewing Emma Thompson. Gary Owens, who originally voiced Space Ghost in the 1960s show, portrayed the character for the pilot. George Lowe was eventually cast as Space Ghost when Coast to Coast was officially picked up. Owens later made a cameo appearance on the show.
The series premiered on April 15, 1994, having aired initially at 11:00 p.m. 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, usually on weekends. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim often aired two 11-minute episodes back-to-back with advertisements to make a 30-minute programming block. In its first few years, Cartoon Network showed episodes of the original 1960s and 1980s Space Ghost cartoons (sometimes with an added laugh track) after each 11-minute episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
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 interviews a few of the new directors, while the Council of Doom members are the judges of the cartoon clips. The first run ended on December 17, 1999, with the episode "King Dead".
On September 2, 2001, new episodes and re-runs moved to Cartoon Network's late-night programming block Adult Swim during the block's premiere. The series ended its television run in 2004 with its 93rd episode, "Live at the Fillmore".
In 2006, the series returned as a five-minute web series on Turner Broadcasting's GameTap online service, in which Space Ghost interviewed celebrities from the video game industry and GameTap's artist of the month. The series officially concluded with the final webisode on May 31, 2008. As of today, it is unknown if Williams Street still have copies of the GameTap episodes after the show later got removed in 2008, following GameTap's shutdown in 2010, and Adult Swim has not aired the GameTap seasons, released on home media, nor on any streaming services since. Despite this, almost all of the 17 episodes from the GameTap seasons are found.
On April Fools' Day 2014, Adult Swim broadcast 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. The series has seen occasional marathons on Adult Swim since, including one on October 22, 2021, in promotion of an Adult Swim tie-in with Carl's Jr.
In commemoration of the show's 30th anniversary, Adult Swim streamed a 16-episode marathon loop on the Adult Swim YouTube channel. The stream lasted for one month.
In Canada, Space Ghost Coast to Coast previously aired on Teletoon's Teletoon at Night block, and periodically airs on the Canadian version of Adult Swim.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast has received generally positive reviews from critics. 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.
Alex Toth, the creator of Hanna-Barbera's Space Ghost, was rumored to have been displeased with the usage of his characters in parody, but Toth wrote letters in which he admitted to appreciating all adaptations of his work.
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 Andre would rewatch several episodes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast in a row in order to "absorb as much Space Ghost" as he could. Andre 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 Andre's surprise Lazzo had no interest in Space Ghost Coast to Coast, saying "Space Ghost is dead to me".
The character Space Ghost has hosted various Coast to Coast-style interviews outside of the series, including an interview with Jim Carrey and film director Chuck Russell for the 1995 VHS release of The Mask, a 2009 interview with Zoe Saldaña to promote James Cameron's Avatar, a 2010 interview with Jack Black to promote Gulliver's Travels, a 2010 short with Steve Nash to promote VitaminWater, a 2011 interview with Tommy Wiseau interspersed during commercial breaks on Adult Swim's April Fools' Day broadcast of The Room, and a 2012 interview with Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis to promote The Campaign. Space Ghost has appeared in commercials for Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper, AT&T, Nestea, Esurance, and VitaminWater as well as network promos for Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. Space Ghost, Moltar, Zorak, Brak, and Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls appear in a 2002 interview with professional soccer player Hugo Sánchez on the Latin America Cartoon Network channel, and again in 2003 interviewing Óscar Pérez Rojas, which also features Eustace from Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Space Ghost frequently makes cameo appearances in episodes of or promos for other Cartoon Network or Adult Swim animated series, including a 2002 promo for The Powerpuff Girls Movie, the 2002 The Brak Show episode "Runaway" and 2003's "Enter the Hump", the 2003 Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "The Dressing", a 2004 promo interview for Tom Goes to the Mayor, the 2004 Adult Swim special Anime Talk Show, the 2006 Robot Chicken episode "Suck It", the 2007 film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, the 2011 Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Bold Beginnings", and the 2011 Adult Swim pilot Earth Ghost, a reworking of a 2007 live-action pilot Lowe Country. Space Ghost also appears on the 1998 series Donny & Marie to promote the CD Space Ghost's Surf & Turf, and as the announcer for the 2011 video game Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion, with some of his dialogue alluding to Coast to Coast.
Space Ghost appears in or is referenced in various musical works. The character is mentioned in the opening lyrics of cello rock band Rasputina's song "The Olde Headboard", which is featured on their 1998 album How We Quit the Forest. Space Ghost Coast to Coast is featured in the Danger Doom song "Space Ho's". Rapper SpaceGhostPurrp named himself after the titular character and used the character's image for the cover of his NASA mixtape. British indie band Glass Animals references Space Ghost Coast to Coast on their 2020 album Dreamland with a song of the same name.
From 1997 to 2003, Space Ghost Coast to Coast comics were published in anthology comics Cartoon Network Present, Cartoon Network Starring and Cartoon Cartoons by DC Comics. Issue 40 of the comic book Scooby-Doo Team-Up features a non-satirical Space Ghost in his traditional role as a space-traveling superhero, albeit one who captures Moltar and Zorak with the help of Scooby-Doo. Sidekicks Jan and Jace say that the two villains are clever and that once, to keep him from interfering in their plans, they even "hypnotized him into thinking he was a talk show host! Fortunately, he snapped out of it after eight seasons." On hearing that, Space Ghost frowns and says, "I don't want to talk about it."
Space Ghost: Coast to Coast has been released on home media in three widespread DVD volumes and two additional volumes only available for purchase through the now-defunct Adult Swim online store. The final six episodes of the television run have never had an official DVD release. Nearly every episode was available to buy through a "build your own DVD" feature on Adult Swim's website. Thus the final season episodes, early episodes that were left off the first volume, and unedited shows that had been altered on the official releases were now available to own, but only in DVD-ROM form.
In 2006, episodes were made available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The series, along with other Adult Swim shows such as Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Samurai Jack and Rick and Morty, was released on HBO Max on its May 2020 launch. It was removed when the streaming service rebranded as Max.
A Space Ghost Coast to Coast promotional CD titled Space Ghost Coast to Coast: Yeah, Whatever... featuring four tracks was released in 1995. A comedy album titled Space Ghost's Musical Bar-B-Que was released by Kid Rhino and Cartoon Network in 1997. A follow-up album, Space Ghost's Surf & Turf, released the following year.
Cartoon Planet, a spin-off featuring Space Ghost, Zorak, and Brak hosting a variety show on the Cartoon Planet, premiered on Cartoon Network and its sister network TBS in 1995. 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 of which were created by Space Ghost Coast to Coast staff. Although Harvey Birdman uses traditional animation to flash animation, the rest uses the same limited animation style as Space Ghost Coast to Coast. The Brak Show includes the characters Brak and Zorak, recurring characters on Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
In 2007, Cartoon Network Spain produced an adaptation of the series which aired as part of the Adult Swim block on TNT Spain. This version replaces the guests with Spanish celebrities.
In 2020, a puppet version of Brak appeared in YouTube videos uploaded by Andy Merrill.
On January 21, 2023, Jason Segel announced in a podcast that he wrote a script for a live-action version of Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
Four boulders found on the planet Mars were named after Space Ghost, Zorak, Moltar, and Brak.
Zorak and Brak make various cameos in the series Jellystone! Season 3's "Space Con" features Space Ghost, Brak, Zorak, and Moltar, with Lowe and Merrill reprising their roles. The episode makes references to Space Ghost Coast to Coast and its spinoffs Cartoon Planet and The Brak Show.
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