The Green Hornet

I ordered the entire series on VHS (pirated) and this show is great! It's definitely not everybody's taste, since it is a little hokey, but NOT campy. It really is a treat to see Bruce Lee before he'd made those great movies, even though in most episodes he has about 2 lines. It's kind of obvious that 60's American TV wasn't ready for a real chinese action star. (the show Kung Fu anyone??)But even so it's a fun show and it would have been even better if they'd let Bruce show them what he can really do. The best episode has to be the Preying Mantis where Kato totally stole the show!

You often wonder why this show only was on for one season and how Batman outlived it. This has to be one of the best superhero shows to ever be shown on television and the thing that made it work was that it didn't rely on camp or the crazy quilt of villains that Batman did. Instead, it pretty much was, more or less, a straight crime drama with very little frills unlike other similarly themed shows that were on the air at the same time. Also, Van Williams and Bruce Lee showed that you can have good acting in a superhero show. Too bad that this show never really was given a chance to catch on. If given the time it deserved, it probably would have outlived Batman.

I have been a Green Hornet fan since the TV series first appeared in 1966. I was very angry when ABC took it off the air after the first season without even having the decency to run reruns. I first had to do with reel-to-reel recordings to help me remember my favorite TV show, so when I finally found a source for the videotapes I was thrilled. These tapes like most pirated tapes made from the TV were not very clear and suffer horribly from the butchering TV stations do to fit in the extra commercials added to recycled TV shows. I am eagerly waiting for the day when Fox finally decides to put out official uncut epsiodes. For all that butchering, the Green Hornet series has held up very well considering that 33 years have passed since that first airing. While a lot of people like to compare the Green Hornet TV series to the Batman series, it is like comparing apples and oranges. The Batman series, although it was typical of the overblown psychedelica of the mid 60's, is considered by this long time Batman reader to be an insult to one of comicdom's most powerful characters, an error that was not rectified until the first Batman movie (Micheal Keaton?- who woulda' thought?). The Green Hornet series does not owe its style to psychedelica but is closer in feeling to the black and white detective stories of the forties and fifties, and especially to the original radio show of the 40's. Also the Green Hornet TV series was designed to be more serious in tone with James Bond in mind than that horrid Batman show. I believe that given the time restrictions of the half hour format the Green Hornet did quite well. After all, there was a lot of stuff to fit in that short time including the story set up, the story itself, and the conclusion- and adding the gadgets and Bruce Lee's Gung Fu. Especially considering that all 30 mins were not alloted to the story but time had to be allowed for commercials. The driving, jazzy theme by Al Hirt fitted the series beautifully. The Black Beauty still is the greatest, and coolest supercar to ever hit the streets. Van Williams, who played the Green Hornet, was the sexiest man on TV then- those eyes!!! And Bruce Lee was great in his first TV series. In other words see the Green Hornet, and enjoy for what it is. Don't expect Camp, or pychedelica, and don't expect to see Bruce Lee as the star of the show. Remember it is called THE GREEN HORNET. BTW re: the comment from the Irish chap- leather mask?, peaked cap? excuse me... the masks used were plastic formed to the shape of the actors' faces, and Kato's hat wasn't peaked, at least not the way I define it.

This was meant to be an action-adventure series about the grand-nephew of Texas Ranger John Reid (better known as The Lone Ranger) and a stacked luxury car named "Black Beauty", but ended up being a vehicle for the great Bruce Lee and his amazing exhibitions of the martial arts.

While it didn't have the hilarious campiness of William Dozier's other series "Batman", it did have some goofiness about it. I recall one show featuring Canadian actor Larry D. Mann as some kind of freaky space dude who landed at Britt Reid's home to negotiate their takeover of humanity through the Daily Sentinel. This episode also showed Reid interrupting his TV station's programming via some broadcast console in his living room (yeah, no home should be without one) to warn viewers to take shelter and stay calm.

The fact they had this false floor in Britt Reid's garage that clamps onto that bitchin' sports car, so that the floor can turn upside down and allow Black Beauty to roar out and save the day was kinda fun. Oddly, the Reid estate seems to be within a block of a seedy area of Central City, as Green Hornet, Kato and the rolling arsenal fly out from behind a billboarded wall, onto a conveniently abandoned street!!

Of course, we can forgive all the wacky inconsistencies of the show, when we see the great Bruce Lee in action. Well worth sitting through all the silliness just to see that. How sad sexy Wende Wagner watched her career nosedive after Green Hornet. I always liked the idea of a fighting reporter like Mike Axford. Britt Reid must have been a one-of-a-kind publisher, because I just couldn't imagine a maverick like Axford working for control-freaks like William Randolph Hearst.

Did I mention that I liked Bruce Lee?

I just watched the Green Hornet for the first time since MeTv just ran a marathon of all episodes. It was great. I thought it would be as campy and cheesy as Batman (although I grew up on that and still like it), but it wasn't. Yeah, some of the effects were low grade, and the scenes of the Black Beauty driving around town were always the exact same clips, but I still liked it a lot. Bruce Lee is awesome, and Van Williams had to be one of the most handsome guys on TV at the time (or even now). I really can't understand why this show didn't make it. I know that Batman is much more popular, but as far as "cool" ratings go, this show has it beat. Cooler lead character, cooler sidekick (no comparison), cooler car, and cooler music. I got them all on DVR and will probably go through them again this weekend.