Space Ghost

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This Hanna-Barbera series, produced in 1966 for CBS, started that studio's superhero adventure cycle. South Dakota's own Gary Owens performed the voice of the spacefaring crimefighter, whose belt and wristbands conferred various offensive and defensive powers. Space Ghost's most impressive (and consistent) power, however, was Invisibility. His wards, Jan and Jace, and their pet monkey, Blip, also could fly, survive in space and become invisible at will.

Space Ghost and his companions had all new adventures in the early 1980s on NBC's Animated Anthology Space Stars. In 1994, Cartoon Network gave Space Ghost a 15-minute evening talk show, Space Ghost Coast to Coast; the creators of that show later helped launch Adult Swim. There was also a 2005 comic book limited series that gave him a very much Darker and Edgier backstory.

Tropes used in Space Ghost include:

• Action Series
• Air Vent Passageway: Jan and Jace infiltrate an enemy base this way in "The Space Piranha".
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Japanese version has this.
• Animated Series
• Aside Glance: Blip at the end of several episodes.
• Auction of Evil: In the episode "Space Sargasso", Lurker plans to auction Space Ghost off to his enemies.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space
• Brainwashed: Jan and Jace in "The Sandman" were ordered to capture Space Ghost.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Jace actually falls victim to this twice. He gets this in one of the 1980s episodes ("Devilship") as well as the aforementioned "Sandman".
• Captain Space, Defender of Earth!: Played completely straight.
• Catch Your Death of Cold: Blip at the end of "The Iceman".
• Clothes Make the Superman
• Cool Ship: The Phantom Cruiser
• Crossover: With The Herculoids, the Mighty Mightor, Shazzan, and Moby Dick, whom they appear in the five-part "The Council of Doom".
  • Later, with Batman the Brave And The Bold.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Tarko the Viking in "The Time Machine".
• Deployable Cover: Brak's Impregnashield in "The Looters".
• Distressed Damsel: Jan
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Space Ghost, Jan and Jace at Blip in "Ruler of the Rock Robots"
• Everything's Better With Monkeys: Blip
• Evil Laugh: Almost all of the villains had one.
• Evil Twin: Space Spectre
• Five-Bad Band: The Council of Doom.
  • Big Bad: The Creature King
  • The Dragon: Zorak
  • The Evil Genius: Brak
  • The Brutes: Moltar and Metallus
  • The Dark Chick: Spider Woman
• Freeze Ray: Space Ghost could generate one from his Power Bands.
• Hand Blast: Space Ghost uses his power bands to fire stun rays, heat rays and so on.
• Harmless Freezing: Happens to Space Ghost in "The Iceman".
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Not only Laugh In's Gary Owens as Space Ghost himself, but Jace is a grown-up Jonny Quest (Tim Matheson) and the villain Metallus is the Canamite, Rukk the Android and Lurch (Ted Cassidy).
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Used on Space Ghost and friends by "The Evil Collector" and in the 1980s short "Time of the Giants".
• Insectoid Aliens: Zorak, Lokar.
• Instant Sedation: Brak uses a sleep gas missile on a ship in "The Looters".
• Invisibility
• Jet Pack
• Kid Sidekicks: Jan and Jace
• Knockout Gas: In the episode "The Looters", Brak uses a sleep gas missile on a ship.
• Legion of Doom: The Council of Doom
• Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me
• Metamorphosis Monster: In one episode, Jan and Jace adopt a cute l'il creature called a star fly, unaware that it's the larval form of a giant glowing Kaiju called a star beast. It grows up fast and seems threatening, but in the end, it remembers Jan and Jace and refuses to hurt them.
• Monster of the Week
• Name's the Same: Spider-Woman (no relations to the Marvel superheroines). That may be the reason why her name is changed to Black Widow in SGCTC.
• New Powers As the Plot Demands: Space Ghost tended to use a small set of powers to solve most problems, but sometimes he'd pull some completely new kind of ray out of his power bands just to deal with this week's menace.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Blip
• Non-Identical Twins: Jan has blond hair and blue eyes; her slightly older brother has brown hair and brown eyes.
• Now Do It Again Backwards: Space Ghost in "Clutches of the Creature King".
• Our Gargoyles Rock: "The Gargoyloids"
• Pronoun Trouble: Jan and Jace must have been allergic to the word "he" when referring to Space Ghost.
• Science Fiction
• Shout-Out: The comic book series had numerous shout-outs to Space Ghost Coast to Coast; including Space Ghost's real name being Thaddeus "Tad" Bach.
• Superhero
• Super Strength: Space Ghost demonstrates this in one episode, without benefit of his devices.
• Super Wrist Gadget: Space Ghost's power bands.
• Tap On the Head: "The Space Piranhas", "Space Sargasso" and "The Time Machine".
• Tempting Fate: A boy in "Brago" and a ship pilot in "The Looters".
• Timmy in A Well: Blip.
• Translator Microbes: Not just the aliens, but several time travel episodes as well.
• A Villain Named Zrg: Space Ghost's arch-nemesis Zorak.

Mini-series (DC Comics)

• Darker and Edgier
• Death By Origin Story: Thaddeus's wife and unborn child were killed by corrupt peacekeepers.
• Dirty Cop: The "Phantom" special ops team Thaddeus joins has odd quirks like killing informants and looting their figurative corpses. Not to mention what they did when Tad was about to inform on them.
• The Dreaded: During the first few issues, rumors about "the Bugs" destroying colonies are laughed off as soon as they're mentioned; of course, it turns out that Zorak is all too real.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: For all the seriousness of the story at the beginning, Tad is the one and only Space Ghost by the end, complete with devoted sidekicks and traditional behavior one would expect from an iconic superhero of The Sixties.
• Hive Mind: Zorak and his kind, the Zorathians. Also a reason why Zorak keeps coming back from the dead; if "Zorak" is killed, another bug then becomes "Zorak". Another nod to Coast to Coast, where SG frequently blasts him to no permanent effect.
• Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Tad; a nod to Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
• The Mentor: The alien living on Ghost Planet who gave Space Ghost his powers.
• Mythology Gag: To Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. Including SG's true name to be Thaddeus Bach (a la Thaddeus "Tad" Ghostal); Thaddeus' wife resemblance Bjork (whom SG interviewed and has a crush on).
• Origin Story
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Space Ghost originally tried hunting down the members of the squad that killed his family. He eventually becomes more idealistic.
• Space Police: Thaddeus was an interplanetary peacekeeper who was promoted to their Special Ops division.