The Green Hornet: Difference between revisions

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[[File:HornetKato.jpg|frame|[[The Green Hornet]], his aide Kato, and [[Cool Car|their rolling arsenal]], the Black Beauty, from the TV series.]]
 
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{{quote|''"Another challenge for the Green Hornet, his aide Kato, and their rolling arsenal, the Black Beauty. On police records a wanted criminal, the Green Hornet is really Britt Reid, owner-publisher of the Daily Sentinel, his dual identity known only to his secretary and to the district attorney. And now, to protect the rights and lives of decent citizens, rides THE GREEN HORNET."''|''[[Opening Narration]] to the 1966 TV adaptation''}}
 
American [[Superhero]] franchise in several forms of media. Originally a radio show, adapted into two movie serials, a number of comic books, a 1960s TV adaptation (probably the most famous version of the property, responsible for launching the Western acting career of martial arts legend [[Bruce Lee]]), and [[The Green Hornet (film)|a 2011 movie adaptation]].
 
This page concentrates on the radio series, movie serials, comic books, and TV adaptation. '''Go [[The Green Hornet (film)|here]] for the film trope page.'''
 
=== Radio Series ===
''[[The Green Hornet]]'' radio series was created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker of Detroit radio station WXYZ, and premiered on January 31, 1936. It was a very long running series, ending on December 5, 1952, having run nationwide on the Mutual Broadcasting System, the [[NBC]] Blue Network, and its successors "The Blue Network" and the [[ABC|American Broadcasting Company (ABC)]].
 
Trendle and Striker, who had earlier created the character of [[The Lone Ranger]] for a western themed radio series on WXYZ, connected the two shows by making the protagonist of ''[[The Green Hornet]]'', newspaper publisher Britt Reid, the grand nephew of John Reid, the lone survivor of an outlaw ambush of a squad of Texas Rangers, who became The Lone Ranger. While hinted at in earlier episodes, the blood relationship between the Hornet and the Ranger was explicitly stated in the ''Green Hornet'' episode "Too Hot to Handle" (first airdate, November 11, 1947), but never significantly used after that. Trendle's sale of the rights to the Lone Ranger property to Jack Wrather in 1954 made it impossible for later adaptations of ''[[The Green Hornet]]'' to make explicit reference to the relationship (although the 1990s NOW Comics comic book adaptation featured a veiled reference to the relationship, in the form of a painting, apparently of the Lone Ranger, which appeared in Britt Reid's living room).
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The terms under which executive producer William Dozier acquired the rights to ''[[The Green Hornet]]'' gave radio series creator George W. Trendle (hired by Dozier's Greenway Productions as a consultant) quite a bit of control over the series, up to and including approval of series scripts. Trendle was wedded to the idea of doing the series as a straight adaptation of the radio series, whereas Dozier wanted to modernize the setting of the series while introducing camp elements similar to those used in Dozier's then-current hit series ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]''. Trendle agreed to modernizing the series but held firm on playing the adaptation straight, resisting the incorporation of camp elements. Dozier chafed under Trendle's contractual rights to approve or disapprove, and the conflct between the two added to the normal difficulties of producing and broadcasting a television series.
 
''The Green Hornet'' premiered on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] on September 9, 1966. The series garnered respectable ratings when it premiered, winning its time slot against competition from ''[[The Wild Wild West (TV series)|The Wild Wild West]]'' ([[CBS]]) and ''[[Tarzan]]'' ([[NBC]]), but after several weeks ratings began to slip. The failure of the series to maintain its initial high ratings exacerbated the conflicts between Trendle and Dozier which first became manifest during initial production. As ratings slipped, it became clear that ABC had little interest in giving the series a second season (in fact, Dozier was concerned that the network wouldn't even run the series during the summer re-run period). In a valiant attempt to save the series, Dozier presented network executives with a proposal to convert the series from a [[Dramatic Half Hour]] to a [[Dramatic Hour Long]], and featured the Hornet and Kato in an [[Intercontinuity Crossover]] in two episodes of his still popular ''Batman'' series hoping to generate interest in ''The Green Hornet'' among ''Batman'' fans. While ABC did eventually order summer re-runs of the series, it did not order a second season, and the series ended its run.
 
The continuing conflict between Trendle and Dozier (a true case of "[[Creative Differences]]") added to the normal difficulties in making the series, and after it was clear that the series would not be renewed Dozier blamed Trendle's veto power over series scripts and his right to approve or disapprove Dozier's plans for the series for its ultimate failure. Owing to the popularity of [[Bruce Lee]], however, the series has become a [[Cult Classic]], and has managed showings in syndication, notably on the FX and AmericanLife networks. A 13-hour [[Marathon Running|marathon]] of the series aired on the [[Syfy|SyFy Channel]] on January 11, 2011 to promote the Movie adaption opening that month.
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{{tropelistfranchisetropes}}
* [[Animal-Themed Superbeing]]
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Reid Jr. in the Dynamite series is shown the lair; where the mechanic shows off the floor panel that flips the Black Beauty and replaces it with a normal car, Britt asks what the point of it is because no one is supposed to be down there aside from the Katos, the Reids, and the mechanic.
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