29 September 2008

the green hornet

Morningside Park / New York, New York
There has never been a decade quite like the 60's - and one of my memories is The Green Hornet. Originally created as a radio program in the 30's, it became a network television program in the 1960's. And as with most action-type heroes, the Hornet had a comic book stint from the 40's - 90's. My memories are of the tv show. We had just gotten our first color television and, of course, we were devouring everything we could that was being broadcast in color. I remember being told not to sit too close to the box in case it was emitting something bad for children. Anyways, for those not around at the time, The Green Hornet was Britt Reid, newspaper publisher by day who by night goes out in his masked "Green Hornet" identity to fight crime, accompanied by his similarly masked Asian manservant Kato. They drove a car outfitted with all sorts of advanced technical gadgetry, called "Black Beauty". I'm thinking Superman meets Batman. The Hornet typically used an electronic stun gun against his opponents called the "hornet's sting". One would suspect that the popularity of The Green Hornet precipitated the Batman tv series, which appeared on ABC on the heels of The Hornet in 1966.

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