How ‘Space Ghost Coast to Coast’ Changed Television for the Weirder

The 1990s were a banner year for the world of late night comedy. Living legends like Johnny Carson hosted alongside rising names like Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Conan O’Brien. Yet in between these massively successful comedians, Cartoon Network quietly launched its own take on late night, a singularly silly and bizarre show that would come to redefine late night parody, bring cringe comedy to mainstream television, and serve as the original content launching point for two networks. On April 15, 1994 Space Ghost: Coast to Coast premiered on Cartoon Network, and TV comedy has never quite been the same since.

SGC2C was an exercise in warping every television expectation possible. And to hear the series’ creators talk about it, every detail of the series was a labor of love. The anti-talk show revolved around Space Ghost, the 1960s Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon superhero, who was now hosting his own celebrity-filled talk show for no apparent reason. The resulting series was filled with painfully terrible interviews with random celebrities, pointedly awkward pauses, a host who barely grasped the English language, and a bandleader and head producer — Space Ghost’s former enemies Zorak and Moltar — who actively hated their own show. The resulting series was a delightful, purposeful wreck, one which partially paved the way for Adult Swim’s strange sensibilities as a network and helped launch the careers of Tim & Eric executive producer and Perfect Hair Forever creator Matt Harrigan, as well as Aqua Teen Hunger Force co-creators Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis and Willis’ other co-creator for Squidbillies Jim Fortier.

Twenty-five years after its premiere, Harrigan, Maiellaro, writer and voice actor Andy Merrill, and Adult Swim Vice President of On Air/Social Media Michael Cahill talked to Decider about how one of the oddest and most surprisingly influential cartoons in recent history came to be.

Taking a Chance on Space Ghost

Though Space Ghost Coast to Coast is commonly considered to be the brainchild of Adult Swim Executive Vice President Mike Lazzo, its creation was actually a group effort. 

Andy Merrill, Space Ghost Coast to Coast writer, The Brak Show creator, and voice of Brak: Space Ghost actually came from a planning meeting. We would have a featured character per month and April and June were going to be Space Ghost month. We were kicking ideas around about what to do with that month. I think it was Khaki Jones [former SGC2C writer, current Vice President of Current Series for Disney Television] that said the words “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” and that kind of brought Mike [Lazzo] to the idea of the animated talk show … I put together a pilot to show what it could look like. It was really a crude looking video because it was all tape-to-tape and I was editing together microseconds to make Space Ghost’s mouth move and stuff.

Matt Harrigan, SGC2C writer, Perfect Hair Forever, Assy McGee, and FishCenter Live creator, and VP of Digital Content at Adult Swim: I hadn’t seen anything like it. I wanted to be a part of it in any way that I could.

Turning an Animated Superhero into a Late Night Host

Turning Space Ghost into a semi-believable late night host required a lot of prep work. Typically the interviews the series was built around involved two to four writers making a list of 15 to 20 increasingly random questions for the series’ celebrity guests. The writers would then interview the celebrity guest and reinterpret these interviews in editing to make it look like the chronically terrible Space Ghost was the one behind these cringe-worthy moments. Space Ghost’s writers’ room changed a great deal over its 11 seasons and 14 years, but its one constant was Mike Lazzo. 

Harrigan: Some of the funniest things that happened on the show came through editorial improvisation and also directing the voice actors. The scripts could change dramatically from the room to air. … I’d say half was Matt Maiellaro’s brain and half was Mike Lazzo’s. Mike likes non-sequiturs to the point that you have to fight him to put sequiturs in. That was what we loved about the show, was the chance to do things that you would not see on another network.

Merrill: [Booking guests] depended on who was in town and who was being interviewed at CNN. [Turner owns both Cartoon Network and CNN, which, at the time, were housed in the same building.] Initially, I would put on the Space Ghost costume and interview some people live. Susan [Powter] was embarrassing to interview because she was a fitness expert and I’m wearing this stupid costume interviewing her and asking questions like “Do I not look fit?” So, most of her laughter is from looking at me and my fat body.

Harrigan: Very often you would get people sort of politely answering the questions at first. “Are you getting enough oxygen?” dumb things like that. We’d sort of loosen them up with some softballs like that. Then we’d hit them harder with stuff, the more ridiculous questions as it went on. There would be some degree of changing things around depending on how they seemed to be responding or how patient they were with us.

Merrill: Once we got somebody to actually reach out and book talent for it, that really helped a lot. Once the show aired, we started to have more material to show to people we wanted on the show. So, we got The Ramones because they really liked the Gilligan’s Island episode that we did.

The Best of Space Ghost’s Worst Guests

In the polished world of ’90s and ’00s late night, Space Ghost’s interviews were jarring. But it was the guests who broke even Space Ghost’s weird mold that stand out to the show’s writers. 

Harrigan: Tommy Wiseau stood out. We didn’t interview him for an episode, we interviewed him for some [Adult Swim April Fool’s Day] promo spots … He was, to me, the perfect Space Ghost guest because he was a little bit off, but deeply enthusiastic and he was not flustered with anything we could throw at him. It made for a really weird time and it was great. He was my favorite.

Merrill: [Bob Odenkirk and David Cross] were doing Mr. Show at the time. Pete Smith interviewed them … at a comedy festival, and they were really into the show and played along with it. So, they were easy to write around. … I think Donny Osmond was the only that called us out saying “You’re going to use any answer I make in a different way.” He was onto us using interviews out of context. And when we were doing Cartoon Planet [the 1995 Space Ghost spin-off], Donny and Marie did a little segment where they had Space Ghost on the show.

Michael Cahill, SGC2C writer, Vice President of On Air / Social Media for Adult Swim: Mine would be (Talking Heads lead singer and guitarist) David Byrne.

Matt Maiellaro, SGC2C writer, Aqua Teen Hunger Force co-creator: I don’t know if I have a favorite, they’re all so different, but I agree with Michael, David was up there.

Cahill: Björk was good, too… Actually, the best interview was (author) Fran Lebowitz because she never did the interview. She figured out we were going to reverse-engineer the questions, so she said nothing in the interview but she was amazing to talk to.

From Struggling Series to Network-Shaping Cult Hit

When Space Ghost Coast to Coast first premiered on Cartoon Network on April 15, 1994 at 11 p.m., no one quite knew what to make of it. The series struggled to find an audience for seasons and was shown on five different networks — Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, and later Adult Swim and the short-lived online GameTap — before erupting into the cult sensation it became. 

Maiellaro: When it premiered, it did horrible. I don’t think we even got a rating, it was hashmark, which meant nobody even watched it. It took awhile to catch on.

Cahill: After the first few seasons, it started to pick up and take off. I think it’s kind of built around what all of us liked television-wise. I watched a lot of bad, religious television in the 60’s because it amused me more than scripted comedies. So I think it took awhile for Space Ghost, the style of that show to sink in, to get people interested. I think what’s more interesting is how many people still like it, because it’s been awhile.

The first time voice actor Andy Merrill realized Space Ghost and his character Brak had found their audience was when the series released its “12 Days of Christmas” parody at a convention. Brak went on to lead two spin-off shows, Cartoon Planet and The Brak Show.

Merrill: We showed that at Dragon Con, the first panel we ever did, and people were just chanting “Hi, my name is Brak” and just loving that, so that was first where I got an insight.

Merrill (cont’d): The last time I did Brak was like two years ago, I did a song for the Demento album. It was a punk song, it was “Institutionalized” by Suicidal Tendencies. I played it on the ukulele and toys.

Cahill: Cartoon Network had no money back in the day. We spent the money getting the network up and running, but not a lot for originals if anything. So Space Ghost was the first iteration of Adult Swim’s approach of, anybody here wears 15 hats and works it out with whatever money they’re given. Limitations can produce better creative, in my opinion, because you have to figure out a way to make it work.

Harrigan: At the beginning, [Space Ghost] seemed beholden to Cartoon Network a little bit more aware of a kid audience but, by the end of the run, in the very last season I worked on we didn’t really have any concerns about that. I don’t know if it was a conscious decision, but definitely there was an innocence in the earliest seasons that changed a little bit as it made its way towards the end.

Cahill: I think there’s some corollary with Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law because it was the same platform and Sealab 2021 because it’s all reverse-engineered. But I think the stuff that Matt and Dave [Willis] did with Aqua Teen was a nice departure [for Adult Swim]. I think Squidbillies was a nice departure. There’s stuff we’ve done in Atlanta that’s home-brewed so, in that regard, we’re kind of astonished that we get paid to make this stuff and that it’ll get on air. I think the aesthetic goes back to something like what Looney Tunes did, just people in Burbank making cartoons to make each other laugh, not necessarily having an agenda.

Pushing the Envelope Too Much

Even though SGC2C was one of Cartoon Network and Adult Swim’s first original series, it carried with it an ethos that would continue to define Adult Swim: It crossed the line on more than one occasion. 

Cahill: We had an episode where we wanted to put chunks of CHiPs, the original CHiPs TV show in it, but we couldn’t get the rights. I think a couple of the actors didn’t want it to be used that way. So then we had to go back and recut it and they suggested using Gone With the Wind because it was Ted Turner’s favorite movie. Matt and I, late at night, put in chunks of Gone With the Wind. Moltar’s basically watching these things play in the monitor. We put in the parts where she falls down the stairs, the girl falls off the horse, horrible things that Moltar laughs at. That was summarily yanked as being too negative. I think that was the only time they looked at us like, “What’s wrong with you guys?”

Cahill: TNT Latin America was (also) not very happy with us for some other subject material, like Zorak and Space Ghost mocking The Pope. That got us kicked out of the building.

Maiellaro: It was just The Pope speaking and then we cut to the audience and Space Ghost and Zorak were standing in the audience. That sent Latin America through the roof, and then they wanted to shut us down.

Cahill: Which was fine, because we were cutting literally in a closet at Cartoon Network that was overheating my editing system.

How Space Ghost Shaped Adult Swim and Late Night Comedy

Not only is Space Ghost credited as being one of Cartoon Network and Adult Swim’s first original shows. It launched the careers of animators and creators like Maiellaro and Willis (Aqua Teen Hunger Force), Merrill (Cartoon Planet, The Brak Show), Harrigan (Perfect Hair Forever), Adam Reed (Sealab 2021, Archer), and Michael Ouweleen (Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law).

Harrigan: It’s interesting, with Perfect Hair there was a little Space Ghost hidden in every episode… I can’t think of an idea that’s been too weird for the network. … Not everything turns out funny, but! We have a lot of restrictions, budgetary restrictions, staffing restrictions. I will say that those disadvantages have been really helpful, in forcing us down unexpected paths.

Merrill: We often talk about — especially Cartoon Planet — the good ole days, before we were owned by a big corporation, it seemed like we could get away with a lot more and do a lot more things. Once you have to start answering to the FCC and all that, you have to censor it. I think what I got the most out of Space Ghost was the whole attitude of getting over yourself. If you’re a young writer, you tend to marry yourself to everything you write, it’s all precious and great and amazing and you have a hard time taking criticism. But we underwent a lot of criticism with Space Ghost, so I think that helped me at least not care so much.

Maiellaro: [Space Ghost] is basically anti-TV. I didn’t translate anything from Aqua Teen, I just knew the good people in the building to work with to make a different kind of show… I think Dave and I just put down what we thought was going to work and what we liked and what we thought was funny. So I guess if there was one thing that translated, we did the same thing with Space Ghost. We sat around and beat up the script and in the edit it was a whole other script… I spent dozens and dozens of late evenings putting the first few together. Oftentimes we’d put something together we’d think was roaring, maybe because it was 3 a.m. and we’d had an 18-hour day.

The Death of a Space Ghost Legend

On September 17, 2016 Space Ghost’s longtime voice actor and animator C. Martin Croker passed away. Croker was the voice of both of Space Ghost’s evil co-workers, Zorak and Moltar.  

Merrill: It was great working with him. I brought back Cartoon Planet for the 20th Anniversary of Cartoon Network. I couldn’t use [George Lowe, Space Ghost‘s voice actor] because I didn’t have the budget. So I made Brak and Zorak be roommates together in their own, stupid little apartment.

Merrill: He always could read everything you wanted him to. You’d not have to really direct him that much, because he got it, you know? Sometimes when you write stuff and you get somebody to voice stuff, they don’t quite click with how you were thinking, but he always clicked with how we were thinking. I think because he was a big Space Ghost fan and he was a big Hanna-Barbera fan, so he knew all of these characters. I heard that it used to kind of hurt him to do the Zorak voice for a long period of time, but he would do it, especially if there were kids around… He also did a lot of the original, extra artwork for the show. Any new animation that we needed to do that wasn’t rotoscoped out of the original Hanna-Barbera cartoon, that was him. He had a hand in kind of designing the characters for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, too.

One Superhero’s Enduringly Bizarre Legacy

Though there have been talks of a Space Ghost Coast to Coast revival, its creators now think its better to let this anti-late night gem live in the past.

Maiellaro: I think Eric Andre basically took Space Ghost and moved it up three notches. He’s doing stuff (on The Eric Andre Show) that we couldn’t have done because he’s really talented.

Cahill: That was the thing, we got lucky. The people that got together when they did are why that show worked. In my experience now, many years later, it’s hard to get a TV show, period, and it’s hard to make it work. We were really fortunate to have all the people, Lazzo, Khaki, Andy, then the people that came in after like Dave, Jim Fortier, Pete Smith, all the people that worked on the show, we were fortunate to have that. It’s really cool to see the next generation pick it up and run with it.

Maiellaro: I’ve had conversations with Mike Lazzo about bringing it back for maybe one last, big special. But recently, with the passing of Clay Croker, I guess we decided that it wouldn’t be the same. It’s like “How would you do it without him?”

Cahill: Yeah, I don’t want it to become a band that should’ve stopped touring five years ago. It’s nice to think about, but I can’t imagine doing it without Clay.

Where to watch Space Ghost Coast to Coast