And forever a piece of my '60s adolescence even tho I saw very little of it at the time, n I don't remember why, but I'm correcting that now. Nice to have contact with someone who was also a baby boomer.
Bruce Lee brought the extra action excitement of martial arts into this series. He was so fast and the crime fighting with Green Hornet/Batman/Robin really supercharged TV shows as kids and adults alike are devoted fans many years later to this modern day. As a martial artist I truly admire/respect Bruce Lee and Van Williams legendary originality. These guys are the original superb crime fighring deal
He is great, but in a society of guns a martial artist would be "disadvantaged" against one guy with a shotgun. This is why this show failed (they took the fights SERIOUSLY) and "KAPOW-fistikuffs"-Batman succeeded (by making it ridiculous).
Absolutely fantastic series. Watched it as a kid fifty years ago and I still love watching the series. It still has the same powerful impact. Kato definitely is still a marvel to watch fight.Thanks for posting.
hambone31000.Great point.Probably had a microchip.The Green Hornet & Kato are still the best.I possibly want to open a company with the Green Hornet or Frelon Vert[In French).Dy you know the proper procedure to acquire the rights to do this? From one Green Hornet & Kato fan to the other.
hambone31000.I am getting some answers from other sources but thanks for your response.You seem like a really nice guy and I hope The Green Hornet,Kato,& The Black Beauty follow you forever!
hambone31000.I am getting some answers from other sources but thanks for your response.You seem like a really nice guy and I hope The Green Hornet,Kato,& The Black Beauty follow you forever!
I am so sorry to hear that. Mr. Van Williams went on to be a real crime-fighter. A deputy sheriff, or so if I remember correctly.He did the best G.H. ever. An inspiration to my generation. Seth Rogan should be ashamed for what he did to the whole G.H. history.
So, before the Space Shuttles special tiles used to deflect heat on re-entry we used some brush on lazar proof goop on our space ships. Now I know how they did it! I love this show!
if greenway productions had put as much effort into The Green Hornet as they did to Batman this show would have lasted more than one season.i have the entire series on DVD
@@benyaakov6453 Batman is essentially what ruined it. People were expecting something similar to Batman--campy-and the Green Hornet was pure drama. The producer William Dozier also demanded to ABC that he would only agree to a second season of the Green Hornet if he got an hour's show to delve more deeply into the plot. Unfortunately, even at only 30 minutes, the Green Hornet was expensive to make so ABC simply canceled it
The late Van Williams said that he was happy that the "Green Hornet" only lasted one season. He said it was an incredibly physically taxing show to do and everything was on a very tight schedule as they had to put out 26 full episodes a season in those days. He said his best experience doing the show was the friendship he developed with Bruce Lee. He knew that most viewers tuned in to see Mr. Lee and tried to get the writers to give him more of a role in many of the stories.
That was one of several bad movies based on classic TV shows in the early 2010s -- two Johnny Depp projects come to mind -- "Dark Shadows" and "The Lone Ranger."
A great series. 3 episodes that stick out: 1. This one with the Laser 2. Another with a duplicate Black Beauty 3. Another with a flying saucer and aliens. There were others but these 3 were very memorable to me. Great uploads, thank you. 👍
Tarzan, Rambo, Dirty Harry, Paul Kersey,Doc Savage, The Lone Ranger, Zorro, the Green Hornet,-the Shadow-these fall under the category of realism super heroes.
Ahem ... this stuff is far from realistic ... because the writers and set designers and filmmakers always get physics wrong. They COULD make it really realistic ... but that would take EFFORT ... which they dont want to make OR which they cant make because they are too dumb to know about it.
Unfortunately, the audience was more receptive to Batman because of the "campy" nature of the show, and weren't ready for the dramatic slant of the Green Hornet. It's sad that the Green Hornet was only appreciated after it went into syndication for what a great show it truly was.
Oh when I was little kid how I to wish that they would have lots of episodes where Green Hornet and Kato would fight with Batman's enemies!!!! And the I could see Kato mop them up in short order. My friend's 6 year old son who watched both shows (Batman was his favorite show) told me that he noticed that the Green Hornet fight scenes which much shorter. He told me he also noticed that when Batman and Robin would hit people they would keep on fighting for a long time. He said but when Kato hit people they would fall to ground and would not get back up!!!! Lol!!!!!
I saw an interview with van Williams and he said that Bruce Lee didn't really understood 2d fighting and camera angles , and Bruce Lee sometimes accidentally hit the stuntmen he was fighting with for real. They always needed to get new stuntmen because after fighting with Bruce they refused to do more scenes with him after they got hit
This where super hero alliances would really pay off!!! They would be able to call in Batman who has a laser beam weapon on the Batmobile (The Bat Ray) and ask his advice on how to fight an enemy that has one. And get Bruce Wayne who has billions to let him borrow 1 million!!!! Lol!!!
I love how shows like this one, "The Rat Patrol", and "Branded" could tell a self-contained action-packed story in half an hour, while today's shows are little more than soap operas that take half a season to tell one story arc. I feel cheated.
Imagine a portable Laser used in ep for our forces in Mid East, have one now on a Apache gunship, read last week, 60s visionary tech very right on but not man portable yet for Laser.
Tackling a LASER back in the day was a tricky thing. Maybe the GH should have done what Benton Quest did in a Jonny Quest cartoon. He used a mirror to reflect the LASER beam right back at the bad guys. Miss Case was a babe. The best part of these episodes is watching Kato kick some bad guy ass.
A "Man From U.N.C.L.E." first season black & white episode a few years prior to TGH's debut in 1966 had one of the first drones featured on an episode. It appeared to be a model bi-wing plane but had an explosive in it.
At 4 minutes in, the detective who appears is played by Robert Gunner -- who later played the astronaut Landon in PLANET OF THE APES, the one who gets lobotomized.
A great series, but I can see a couple of reasons why it didn't succeed when I think it should have. One, the gadgets were neat, but I seem to think they relied too much on them. Second, they tried to cram too much into a one-half hour block. There is not enough time to become emotionally invested when you have a crisis and solve it that fast. That show needed at least an hour's run time or two one hour blocks in two episodes. You can really build up tensions that way and force them to use their wits to compliment the tech in the show.
The gadgets are partly necessary to "have several confrontations with the bad guys while not having a 1-minute-punch-up every time", i.e. to save time. At that time guns were readily available, so it was also necessary to circumvent their "bloody" use. IMO the fistikuffs are a bit ridiculous and only work in the KAPOW-setting of "ridiculous and funny Batman" ... which is why this show failed. The baddies in this episode would have had guns in addition to the laser ... thus making the final fight be a bit different.
Doesnt work like that though ... because - mirrors - smoke - power supply dont make them practical at all. A simple smoke grenade or two tossed ahead would have made the laser useless.
The Hornet-Kato combo was great but what made Batman better were the colorful villians. Still, Bruce Lee delivering flying kicks were a treat to watch. As a kid, I was mesmerized when I saw him fight.
The point is the "fisticuffs" ... which are taken SERIOUSLY in GH which DOESNT WORK, because guns are easy to come by and one guy with a shotgun would ruin the GH's day. That is why Batman works much better by making the fights KAPOW ... and BLAM ... ridiculous.
Batman was never better then the Green Hornet don't get me wrong I watches Batman but it was never better then the Green Hornet never was and could be.
Thornton Richardson is not too concerned about his henchmen. He had one wounded man lasered to keep him quiet, then 14:03 he doesn't even go check on the two disabled guards outside. For all he knows at this point they might have been killed.
I enjoyed these shows but I find the constant music annoying. And I don't like the way the show used camera filters to give a sense of night, when it was clearly recorded during the day. Too often the picture was too black and difficult to see.
With the help of Doc Brown they could travel far into the future and speak with Professor Matthew Matic of Fireball XL5 who can provide them with a spray to treat their car that will provide non-stop protection from a laser beam!!! He developed it when an evil amphibian alien was using a laser gun as a weapon against them. Lol!!!!
@@trekstarsam2494 My English is not good enough :) if you go from Kaunas to Jurbarkas by river Nemunas you can see beautiful surroundings, especial in spring. By the river Nemunas in this rout there are lots of hillforts, which comes from pagan times. There is some information from Lithuanian language page translate.google.com/translate?sl=lt&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpoilsineskeliones.info%2Fviewtopic.php%3Fid%3D105481
Good Episode, you bring the hamburgers, I'll bring the buns. Considering this is 1966, I thought the layzer was a done nicely, but I wonder what they did to the Black Beauty to simulate the paint being burned off. They must have had something that looked like the hood was burned, but of course wasn't, and probably washed off later. Unlike Mr. Bilodeau, I have liked the music from each episode, which is Band leader Billy May, who has worked with Sinatra on the 2nd Reprise Lp, the label Frank founded in 1960, and this Lp was from 1961. Anyway, May was a big name in the music bizz. But where I agree with Tim, some of the night scenes are too dark to see what is going on, but I guess, supposing to be night, it's pretty dark out to begin with, though this was shot in the daytime with filters on the Camera lenses. I wish the show played much longer than 26 episodes, but ABC pulled the plug, because the ratings fell like snow. And the collector merchandise was not selling either, but today is worth a mint! And the show has a cult following, and a host of new fans young and old. Bruce Lee was very disappointed when the show got done, but Williams was glad to get out, and go into law enforcement for real, and a telecommunications company that did excellent in money making for Van. Like Van's friend and neighbor, Adam West, both these guys baked in their costumes. Adam had once said it felt like 140 degrees in his outfit. While a few episodes shots Van sweating like heck, in, May The Best Man Lose.
like a laser would produce noise? of course, the whole idea of a laser powerful enough to do that sort of damage is ridiculous. science be damned! the thing that i caught right away when i saw this live was that something that would be able to generate such power would require far more voltage than is available in a household circuit!
@@Barefoot0Walker I meant Richardson's yell when caught by the laser. Sounds funny. As for the laser not making any noise, I suppose audiences would expect it to so some dramatic license had to be used...
At the time of original airing, it was stated that the theme was a *variation* on "Flight of the Bumblebee", upgraded for the 1960s audience. It allowed them to use Al Hirt, among other things. The original "Flight" was used for the radio version, as well as the movie serials when they came out.
Since I predate Wikipedia by a good few decades, I knew this before they could. I was around for the original series run! You kids need to remember the world existed before the internet. Now GET OFF MY LAWN! :)
Green Hornet's strat: okay, so I've gotta be sneaky about this... I can't just rob them, but I can't leave this without defeating them. It has to look as though I'm only defeating them because they attacked me... I know! Let's bust in there (probably through a formerly whole window), knock out almost everyone and then demand a huge cut of their money without doing anything for them! :D Seriously. Why is nobody getting suspicious of him at this point, he's smart enough to uncover all these plots, but doesn't realize he'll probably not get any money if he demands half? 90% of the time, they are murderers! Also, what's the story here? How did he become such a well-known criminal without committing any crime? Edit: actually, has there been any crime he solved that didn't involve murder? Also, WHY does Vanessa even follow the green hornet into his car? Every time, the police arrives and she's like: yeah! Let's go into this criminals car silently, instead of screaming for help to the police that is arriving at the scene! That'll totally not get me murdered or anything. Second edit: why do I overanalyze a kids show from the sixties? Third edit: Sorry for the edits (not that I think anyone will see this) but I just realized the stupidity in driving an extremely recognizable car while being chased by the police. I mean yeah, he's obviously just wanting to be cool n stuff, but come on! YOU ARE RUNNING FROM THE LAW! At least *try* to pretend to care, it's very disrespectful.
If I may have a crack at this: All the crims don't talk to each other, as far as the crime groups are aware, the Green Hornet already has a cut in other operations. If the crime gangs did some market research, they'd find no one's paying protection in the Green Hornet run sections of the city. At some layer, the Green Hornet would have to be paying cops for information and in his territory, they'd be "oh no, we lost the guy". Britt Reid's a news guy, and runs a paper and a TV station, the Green Hornet has his own public relations firm.
@@li_ka2 These series and many MANY movies fall apart when you track in detail "who knows about which bit of information", because many times people react to things that just happened OR "happened in secret" ...
Brit couldn't raise a million bucks? Even in 1966 that's wasn't credible. The green hornet set up and gear and that great car must have set him back close to that. Ha!
Look I know this is a low budget TV show from over 50 years ago. But couldn't they at least use an opening shot of an actual building instead a cheap minitiature model that looks like it was made by a 10 year old?
No wonder this series didn't get far poor story, weak acting and worse music ever, massively annoying, only a kid would watch it. Non of the charm and humour of the batman series, piss poor in pretty much all areas.
