Before he had a talk show he was the guardian of the spaceways; the intergalactic crime fighter, Space Ghost. Hanna-Barbera had been looking for something to counteract the popular Filmation Batman cartoons. They turned to Alex Toth, the master of the H-B hero shows, who came up with Space Ghost. They really lucked out with Gary Owens, popular DJ and Laugh-In regular. They also got Tim "Jonny Quest" Matheson.
Space Ghost was brilliantly designed and executed, although the shorter stories limited character development. We never got to see what SG looked like under the hood (I have seen a model sheet with his real face) or where Jan and Jayce came from. Still the villains were inventive and the plots exciting. The pinnacle was the multi-part tale of SG's battle with the Council of Doom, a conglomeration of SG's nastiest enemies. He even traveled through time to meet up with Dino Boy, Mightor, and Shazaan.
I still find the "Coast to Coast" show funny, but this is the real Space Ghost, the one that inspired Steve Rude and Mike Baron's classic Nexus comic. The Dude even created the ultimate Space Ghost comic. Now, when will see this on dvd?
