Cartoon Planet

Space Ghost	Brak	Zorak	Space Ghost again

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Space Ghost, Zorak, and Brak host the universe's first variety show in space.

This show, along with Garfield and The Late Show with David Letterman were the foundational underpinnings of my entire sense of humour. Were it not for these 3 long-forgotten Hanna-Barbera characters doing a musical variety show, I would be a very different person today. When I was learning how to subtitle video files, I used "Planet of Doom" as a test subject.

I can't provide you with an objective viewpoint on this show because it's so personally significant, nor can I direct you toward particularly impressive episodes. For one thing, there weren't many of these made; for another, the quality is consistent across the entire programme. However, some of the dialogue is a little dated, insofar as "You're already made, and what a mess" is no longer a valid response to someone saying, "make me". To be fair, it was already pretty antiquated by the time the show started development. Also, Brak makes reference to getting corporal punishment in the principal's office during his "Skool Daze" sketches, both of these are consistent with Andy Merrill and Pete Fortier (the show's writers) growing up in the '60s and '70s.

Though cartoons from this period in time had a tendency to use racist or sexist microaggressions to facilitate jokes, the nearest thing we come to that in Cartoon Planet is Brak's description of love during Space Ghost's song, "I Love Almost Everybody". Honestly, it doesn't quite make it there, but it's still noteworthy enough to mention.

For the moment, this show is freely available from the Internet Archive. Download it, naturally, but also take the time to watch at least 1 episode. You want the '90s? This is the '90s!.

So, what's the difference between the TBS version from 1995 and the Cartoon Network version from 1997? On TBS, this programme used to occupy an hour-long timeslot, where the Space Ghost stuff was intercut with old Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The TBS version occasionally played on Cartoon Network as well, but the Space Ghost stuff proved more popular and the show was converted to a 25-minute show, omitting the old cartoons and focussing solely on Space Ghost, Brak, and Zorak. Unfortunately, the TBS version has been lost. The show was so popular, in fact, that, to the chagrin of certain commentators I'm following on Tumblr at the moment, Space Ghost replaced Moxy as Cartoon Network's mascot, a fact which Zorak puns on in "Love That Brak" ("Tread lightly, there, masco!" punning off Space Ghost's mask and his status as mascot).