Have Cheetah,Will View #148 – “Space Ghost and Dino Boy-The Complete Series” (1966)

It’s 1:49 pm

I grew watching cartoons like my kids of my time did. We would race home from school,plop down in front of the TV and watch a block of toons before doing homework or playing football.
One of the cartoons I remembered most watching were the old Hanna-Barbera shows like Quickdraw McGraw,Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. But when our local station started showing the old superhero shows like Space Ghost,our viewing habits and our favorite shows changed…
Now thanks to our ever hip deep cover informant at Warner Brother Archive,I got a chance to show the cheetah one of very first animated cartoons of yesteryear.

Space Ghost and Dino Boy aired in 1966 and consisted of 20 episodes in three 5-6 episodes each half hour. Each show featured two Space Ghost episodes sandwiching a Dino Boy episode except for the last two episodes but more on that later.
Dino Boy in the Lost Valley was the proper name of the middle show. The origin of the show was a young boy name Todd whose plane catches fire and he is parachuted out by his parents. We never know if the plane crashed safely or not.

Todd is saved from an attack from a prehistoric sabretooth tiger by the large caveman Ugh who takes him to safety.
Ugh and Todd,along with Todd’s pet brontosaurus,Bronty become a family. Most of the episodes feature Todd or Ugh get captured and the other one coming to the rescue. The stories while very simplistic,did show how important it was to support a friend.

The voice actors were John David Carson,who would later star in the cult classic “Pretty Maids All In A Row” which was written by Gene Roddenberry of “Star Trek” fame.
Mike Road,who voiced Ugh,was a master and quite famous voice over actor as well as being well known as a screen talent as well. Road is best known for voicing “Race Bannon” on “Jonny Quest” as well Reed Richards in “The Fantastic Four” cartoon.
On screen Road starred in a western called “Buckskin” as well as guesting on many shows,including “ Lawman“.

Don Messick,a legend in cartoon voices,voiced “Bronty”. Messick is perhaps best know for voicing “Scooby-Doo” as well as “Dr. Benton Quest” of the mentioned Jonny Quest.
Looking back,that was quite a bit of talent for a small little show like “Dino Boy” but it is also why shows like these remain highly popular as well. The stories,as they are,are extremely simple but the voices are immortal.

This holds true for Space Ghost as well but his story was much more developed then Dino Boy’s.
Space Ghost is set in the far future as he works as a superhero helping to protect the peace from a slew of crazy villains trying to take over the galaxy. We never know who Space Ghost is but as Jan and Jace are his “wards”,he to have had a normal life before or during the time he became Space Ghost.

The Ghost Planet was the base of action for the three along with Blip the monkey.
From there they would battle Moltar,Brak or Metallus as they schemed some evil plan.
One thing about Space Ghost’s rogues gallery,they weren’t afraid to commit murder as they had no problem in trying to kill the team,despite Jan and Jace just being young teens!!
Most episodes had Jan and Jace flying a “space coupe”,spot some problem,get into trouble and Space Ghost having to bail them out by using his mighty power bands which had incredible powers.  Where and how he got his power bands much less his origin is not covered in these episodes.

Blip the space monkey was pretty darn smart as well,he save the three humans more then once by using his brain as well as the “Inviso-power” belt everyone had,including the Phantom Cruiser,the ship Space Ghost used.
While the villains were not afraid to get rugged ,it often ended up with several of them meeting their final doom at the end of the episode. Of course for the main baddies,it may have appeared they were done for and Jan or Jace would  voice that thought or for Space Ghost to say “I hope so” which meant the bad guy had indeed gotten away.

The two best Space Ghost shows were the last two of the season where the famous six part “The Council of Doom” story took place. All of the regular villains teamed up to take out the Space Ghost team once and for all. Through out the arc,either Space Ghost or Jan and Jace would need help and end up getting it from a unexpected places and people. This by far is the best story of the series and was quite exciting.

Space Ghost was created by famed artist Alex Toth who had made a name for himself while working for DC Comics as well as for all of the major comics of his time.
He also drew the characters for the show.  As a bonus feature,there is a excellent 80 minute documentary about Toth that every fanboy should watch.

The voice actors for Space Ghost included Gary Owens as Space Ghost,Owens was a well known and popular DJ in Los Angeles as well as being the Voice on the show “Laugh-In”.
Tim Matheson voiced Jace,he was 18 years old when he got the part,his twin,Jan,was voiced by Ginny Taylor who was 40 years old at the time! But you would never know as her voice does sound like a young teen’s voice. But she also voiced “Spider Woman” who looked liked like a gone to seed Bette Davis.
Matheson would end up having a solid Hollywood career including starring in one of the funniest comedies ever,”Animal House”.
Taylor also had a wonderful and memorable career including becoming a Disney Legend and starring in many Disney films.
Don Messick did the voice of Blip as well as many of the villains and creatures.
Ted Cassidy (Lurch of The Addams Family fame) did the voices of Metallus and Moltar.
Keye Luke (the original Kato in the early Green Hornet films) voiced Brak and Jack Webb regular player Vic Perrin voiced Creature King. Again,an all-star line-up for a kids cartoon.

One can’t help to wonder how much Hanna-Barbera casting influenced Andrea Romano when she did her casting in the excellent DCCU series.
In “Space Ghost and Dino Boy”,all 20 episodes are included in the order they aired.
There are 42 Space Ghost adventures and 18 Dino Boy outings.
The run time for this series is 422 minutes. You can buy this wonderful slice of animation history at the Warner Brother Archive.

This was such a blast to watch again…so many great memories. Warner Brothers has yet again delivered the goods with this release and the documentary on Alex Toth is really what makes a must fan for comic book and animation fans everywhere.

The cheetah and I give this two thumbs/four paws straight up! The best thing is that WB also has even more great titles yet to be explored,the cheetah and I will be back with another trip down memory lane very soon!

Drop a comment below and let use know what you thought of “Space Ghost” or any other older cartoons you have enjoyed.