Space Ghost Coast to Coast is the parody that keeps on giving

Space Ghost Coast to Coast may have ended its TV run 15 years ago, but Cartoon Network’s animated talk show remains the craziest, most astute parody ever.

It’s been 15 years since Space Ghost Coast to Coast aired its last episode on Adult Swim, but the bizarre combination of animation history and talk show parody is still one of the funniest series to ever cross the TV airwaves.

The entire premise just sounds like a random joke: take a classic Hanna-Barbera superhero from the 1960s and turn him into a talk show host, with his former nemeses serving as sidekicks. Then take absolutely none of it seriously… for 11 seasons and more than 100 episodes.

But that strange idea led to Cartoon Network’s first original series, the first animated late-night talk show, multiple spinoffs, and two albums. And 15 years later, it’s still hilarious and weird and mind-bending in its own unique way.

When Mike Lazzo came up with the idea to repurpose Space Ghost, he hit on something that was genuinely different. What does a superhero do after he’s not a superhero anymore? That’s a good question, and Lazzo had plenty of fun with it by turning Space Ghost from a noble hero into a talk show host who was bombastic, ego-driven, and oftentimes just plain stupid. But he was never, ever boring.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast was to animation what The Larry Sanders Show was to live-action TV, only infinitely more absurd. The series was a workplace comedy that poked fun at both talk shows and superheroes. There were office rivalries, inane problems, terrible interviews, and Ghost Planet was set up like an office building—”Suckup” included a scene in the cafeteria, which was later destroyed by Brak when he left the gravy faucet on (“It’s a brown onion-flavored nightmare down there!”).

Yes, these were a superhero and his supervillains, but the show brought them down to Earth. That usually happened in the worst possible way, which was where much of the humor came from. All of them were terrible at their jobs (and usually terrible to one another), but everybody shared the embarrassment and frustration. And everyone at home could laugh at the dysfunctional workings of this would-be TV show within a show.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast lampooned television by being bad at it. It may be one of the rare series where the viewer was rooting for the characters to fail — not that they were trying very hard to succeed. Moltar routinely lost guests and may have killed a few. Zorak got blasted into oblivion on a regular basis. Space Ghost once had to host a telethon trying to raise money to keep the show on the air (in an episode appropriately named “Telethon”) and wound up owing money at the end of it.

Of course, there were plenty of celebrity guests, from Ashley Judd to Jon Stewart to “Weird Al” Yankovic, and the interviews were always awkward. Sometimes it was because the questions they were being asked didn’t match their answers (an early quirk of the show), and sometimes it was just because they were being interviewed by an incompetent narcissist. Very rarely did anything of value come out of the interview segments. But like Larry Sanders, the real comedy was in the characters’ misadventures.

There was Moltar’s odd obsession with Erik Estrada (“Untitled”). Zorak demanding gum despite not knowing what gum was (“Gum, Disease”). Space Ghost’s grandpa ruining the show until Zorak hit him over the head with a folding chair (“Grandpa”). Space Ghost somehow being married to Bjork (“Knifin’ Around”). And good-natured Brak just being clueless (every episode).

The laughs came from universal places: an oversized ego, an overbearing family, the irritating co-worker. They just happened to be enhanced by the fact that the characters were larger than life.

The show’s 15-minute run time, something that’s rarely heard of in TV, worked in its favor. The writers could seize upon a scene or a joke and go for it without worrying about how much time they had to fill. Throw in one of the aforementioned celebrity interviews, and you had maybe 10 minutes of story. Space Ghost could just be funny and didn’t need to consider structure or if it was holding on to the audience’s attention or continuity. (Why not? It’s not like the show within the show understood any of those things either.)

As a result, you could watch any episode and there was very little dead time. There was always a joke, or a visual gag — Zorak’s blank stare being the best — or some bizarre detail. The series was pure comedy, and it has since aged incredibly well because even in that sense, it’s poking fun at itself. It may be dated with guests from the 1990s, but that completely doesn’t matter because it already dated itself with a superhero from the 1960s. It’s supposed to be out of place.

Another hallmark of Space Ghost Coast to Coast was the show’s willingness to be completely random. Some of its best bits had nothing to do with anything, but they were hilarious because the audience never saw them coming — and because they fit the characters perfectly. They were jokes out of nowhere, but they were also on the mark.

The episode “Intense Patriotism” ended with Ghost Planet crashing to Earth, landing just on the Mexican border. While the audience was still processing this, Zorak promptly announced, “I wanna go to Compton!” His enthusiasm for visiting a “dangerous” neighborhood like it was Disneyland was a random, but spit-take worthy and completely in-character way to button the episode.

In the installment “Eat a Peach,” Space Ghost wound up in a grocery store squeezing cantaloupes. There was no reason for it at all; he just noticed a grocery store and got distracted by cantaloupes. On any other show, this would be pointless. But it worked perfectly with Space Ghost and his total inability to focus on anything that was actually important.

This wasn’t counting the show’s numerous stunt episodes, often incredibly meta. The episode “Mommentary” was a reprise of “Kentucky Nightmare,” just with commentary by the producers’ mothers. And if that wasn’t random enough, the following installment “Mommentary: Creator’s Commentary” was just commentary on the previous commentary!

Then in true Space Ghost fashion, the show didn’t actually have a proper series finale. The last-ever episode wasn’t even finished, and its alternate title is literally “Unfinished POS.” But what would you expect from a series that frequently didn’t make sense and reveled in it?

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and Space Ghost Coast to Coast aired on TV for the last time in 2004. It made a comeback online via Turner’s website GameTap for two more seasons from 2006-2008, but those final two never quite recaptured the absurd magic of the original show.

That glorious decade, first on Cartoon Network and then on Adult Swim, was one where we could laugh at superheroes, celebrities and society — and cram it all into 15 minutes ending with a well-placed explosion.

Episodes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast are available for streaming on AdultSwim.com, as well as on iTunes and DVD. Find the latest Deeper Cut every Wednesday in the Entertainment category at FanSided.