Short-Lived Shows: Cartoon Planet

Three years after Space Ghost: Coast to Coast debuted, the creators filtered out the adult themes from the show but kept the goofy insanity intact in order to create an all-ages Saturday morning series featuring Space Ghost, Zorak, and Brak. The result was a minimalist cartoon variety show which could be enjoyed by both college stoners and mentally-unbalanced five year olds. You know, like The McLaughlin Group.

The story behind Cartoon Planet was that Space Ghost had been asked to host a new show by a desperate producer, so he recruited Zorak and Brak, who still remained his prisoners while they helped him out with the show. Brak would often break into song, read poetry, or keep the audience at home informed with morality tales and cooking tips, such as the tale of a monkey who tried to help Brak with his homework, or his personal recipe for pu-pu-pu platter (the extra "pu" makes all the difference). Zorak would also sing the occasional tune, but mostly he just insulted Brak and got blown up by Space Ghost, whom he would often call fat. Watching the show was like seeing what happened after the voices had been recorded and the actors just started screwing around and having fun. Dialogue didn't always make sense, and was clearly improved most of the time, but that's what gave the show its charm. It was often silly just for the sake of being silly, and while I certainly enjoyed it while in college, I think I would have loved it even more as a little kid. It was the perfect Saturday morning hang out for viewers with a weird streak, and one that somehow made Pee-Wee's Playhouse seem almost normal by comparison. My only beef with the show was that they would also show "real" cartoons from the Turner library, thus interrupting the insanity I enjoyed so much.